Chapter Two
His body was cramped but he kept his place. When he was a boy he fit easily into the space. Now that he was supposed to be a man…
“When are you going to start acting like a man Zander?” His father yelled at him in his anger after they landed from their silent trip back from the coral.
“When are you going to start treating me like one?” Zander yelled back, his own frustration pouring forth in an uncontrollable eruption. It was the first time in his life that he raised his voice to his father. He then stalked off into the tunnels, shaking with shock and rage, leaving Boone and Elle to face the lecture that was sure to follow.
If only he knew why they weren’t allowed to leave the villa. If only he knew what it was his parents were so afraid of.
If only he knew why he was so…lacking…in their eyes.
In all the years of listening, he never found out any of the answers to his questions. And every morning he woke, feeling as if every day of his life was one big question.
What were they protecting them from? What dangers lay waiting for them? What were they preparing them for? What was it he was supposed to be able to do?
He kept his ear pressed against the thin sheet of metal that was part of the ventilation system. He had discovered quite by accident that he could hear everything said in his father’s study by just lying in the small niche off one of the main tunnels and keeping his ear pressed to the vent. It was one of his favorite hiding places when he, Elle and Boone played seeker in the tunnels. There was a slight curve to it so it was easy for him to disappear. Now he was as long as the alcove and had to pull his legs up so they wouldn’t hang out for everyone to see.
He felt somewhat guilty for leaving Elle and Boone to face the punishment that was sure to come.
And he also wondered if Boone would even stick around for it. He knew his friend had great respect for their father but he was a second year at Academy. Shouldn’t that mean that he was now part of the adult world?
Boone’s father certainly treated him as one. Ruben was with his father when they found them and had flown them back to the villa without a word to his own son. Zander knew them well enough to know that there probably wouldn’t be a lecture. Ruben treated his son with respect. He treated him as if he knew something. And Boone had earned his father’s respect. He excelled at Academy although in private he said he hated the constrictions. He had piloted ships all over the galaxy with either his father or his uncle Stefan at his side. He had seen things Zander could only imagine. He had been places Zander could only dream about. Boone was allowed to experience life.
That was another thing he heard when he hid in the tunnels. His father and Ruben talking late into the night about the past, about the present, about the future. They talked about their adventures. They talked about their families. They even talked about the unknown threat, wondering about it, if it were still there, what they would do if and when it happened.
It was from these talks that he learned that apparently he was supposed to take over the reins of government someday. He knew everything there was to know about Oasis. His grandfather, Michael was one of his teachers. He knew there had been a war and his parents had saved their planet from being taken over by another planet. He knew his father had instituted a thing called Democracy that let the people elect their own leaders. And those elected had a say in the governing of the planet, and if there was ever a tie, the deciding vote was cast by his father, known to Oasis as the Sovereign Nicholas.
Yet he, Prince Alexander of Oasis, had never been past the coral.
His weapons training and fighting skills were the best. He could even beat his father, sometimes, when they sparred and he and Boone had long ago quit taking their practice battles seriously because they always ended up in a tie.
But he was tired of shooting at targets and training in the large room that took up the entire top floor of the villa.
He had spent untold time in simulators learning how to fly every craft there was.
Yet he had never done anything more than pilot small ships around the Crater Lake.
Perhaps the bigger question about his life shouldn’t be what or why but when? When would he be considered a man and thus privy to all this unknown and unspeakable information that controlled every aspect of his life?
What was taking them so long to get to the study? So far he had heard nothing, although he knew his father was below. He could hear him pacing as his boots went back and forth on the smooth stone of the floor to the softer tread of the large rug woven by Boone’s mother Tess.
“How did it go?” he finally heard his father, Shaun speak.
“The usual,” his mother, Lilly replied. “Why can’t we go there? Why are we being punished?”
“They aren’t being punished,” his father said. “They’re being protected.”
“Do you ever think that perhaps we’ve protected them too much?” he heard his mother ask.
Yes. Yes. Yes…Zander wanted to scream the words, but he also wanted to hear more of what his parents had to say.
“I remember how it was for you,” Shaun said. His voice sound muffled and Zander could easily imagine his father holding his mother in his arms. She brought that out in a man. The willingness to protect and to sacrifice.“When we met, it was if you bore the weight of the universe on your shoulders.”
“Because I had my duties and responsibilities laid out before me as soon as I was able to walk and talk.”
“Your childhood wasn’t happy.”
“No. It wasn’t.” His mother sighed and Zander wondered what made her childhood so sad? Was it because her mother died giving birth to her? His grandfather adored her as he did his grandchildren. She spoke again. “But ignorance isn’t bliss either. Don’t you remember how frustrated you were when you were trying to figure out what was going on inside your mind?”
What are they talking about? Zander’s ears ached with the thought that he might finally find something out. He’d never heard his parents speak so specifically about the past before.
“Two extremes,” his father said. “Perhaps we should have found the middle ground.”
“Perhaps,” Lilly said. Zander smiled in his privacy. His mother possessed a great talent for diplomacy that was sorely lacking in his father. “It’s a bit late for regrets in that matter. And we have something else to worry about now.”
“What?”
“Boone and Elle.”
“What about them?”
“Haven’t you noticed that he’s in love with her?”
“Er…um…What?”
Zander buried his face in his arm and allowed himself a silent laugh at his father’s complete discomposure.
“How do you know?” Shaun was finally able to ask.
“I looked at them,” Lilly said. “He’s always loved her but now, since he’s been gone, he wants her.”
“You looked inside?”
“I didn’t have to Shaun. It’s obvious.”
“And when you say wants her…”
“I’m saying that he’s just like his father. And just like you.”
The vent echoed with the sound of something shattering against it, along with a string of words that Zander knew well, but would never dare say in the presence of his parents.
“Do you think they’ve…”
“No. But I think it won’t be long until something happens.”
“But they’re so young…”
“He’s the same age I was when I met you.”
“I’ll kill him,” Shaun said.
Lilly laughed. “No you won’t. You’ll give Elle time to figure out how she feels about him.”
“Damn,” Shaun said.
“You act like this is a bad thing,” Lilly said. “Who better for Elle than Boone?”
“I just never thought…Damn.”
“You just can’t stand to think about her with any man.”
Zander was pretty sure he didn’t want to think about it either. Elle and Boone…doing things.
Another part of his education that was thorough but also frustrating. He knew all about sex. He knew all about procreation. He even knew what it felt like to wake up in the mornings in an embarrassing predicament.
Especially when he had the dreams…
“Zander,” Elle whispered. “What are you doing?”
Zander jerked as Elle stuck her head into the space next to his legs. His head crashed against the top of the tunnel and he saw stars and felt something wet and sticky flow from his temple.
“Do you mind?” he whispered angrily as he touched his fingers to his temple and then looked at the blood that stained his hand.
“Sorry,” Elle said. “Are you hurt?”
“Bleeding to death,” he said sullenly and turned back to the vent.
“Move over,” Elle said and wiggled her way in beside him.
“Go away,” Zander hissed.
“What is your problem?” Elle whispered back as she slid in beside him. The quarters were close and she continually jabbed him with her elbow so he’d make room. She looked at the wound on his head. “Ouch,” she said. “You’re bleeding.”
“Thanks for noticing and asking,” Zander whispered forcefully. “I’m surprised you just didn’t look in my head and find out what my problem was. Besides the blood that is. Which is all your fault.”
“Zander,” Elle started then stopped as he quickly moved his hand over her mouth.
“They are going to hear us,” he mouthed and pointed down.
Elle froze into place and tilted her head towards the vent. Sure enough, voices could be heard.
“Where are we?” She asked inside Zander’s mind.
“Over father’s office.”
“So we are agreed?” Lilly asked.
“Great, you made me miss something.”
“Are they talking about us?”
“More like you and Boone.”
“I just want them to be happy,” Lilly continued. “But I also would like to keep them young a bit longer. And safe.”
“All that worry…over nothing really,” Shaun said.
“Zander?” His mother’s question. Always the question.
Here it came again. The disappointment. If only he knew what it was they expected of him. What exactly was it that he was supposed to be able to do? Be like Elle? Read people’s minds? See in the dark? Slam doors and make things fly across rooms?
“They wouldn’t believe us even if we told them,” Lilly said. “They’d still take him if they had a chance.”
“Who are they talking about?” Elle asked in his mind.
Zander shrugged. All the years of listening and he still didn’t know the answer. He didn’t feel guilty about it either. He wasn’t doing anything that Elle couldn’t or wouldn’t do. He was just doing it in a different way.
“Physically,” Shaun said. “He’s amazing. I have no doubt that he could protect himself. And he’s only going to get stronger, quicker, as he matures.”
“Not against the Circe,” Lilly said. “Even with the mind training…”
Elle grabbed Zander’s arm.
“What are the Circe?”
“I don’t know.” It was the first time he had ever heard his parents mention the word.
“Even after all this time, I find it hard to believe that he can’t do it,” Shaun said. “Could he be that stubborn? Could he be hiding it, even from you?”
“He could be that stubborn,” Lilly said. “After all he is your son…”
Shaun laughed.
“And he has shown signs,” Lilly continued.
“But he was so small.”
“And he was right,” Lilly said. “At least the one time. I guess we’ll never know about the other.”
“What are they talking about?”
Zander ignored her. He didn’t want to miss anything that his parents said.
“It was so obscure, how could we even know?” Shaun said.
“I wondered about that myself,” Lilly said. “Until he did the same thing with Ruben. For some reason he knew he was in danger.”
“When has Ruben not been in danger,” Shaun laughed.
“Since he married Tess,” Lilly answered. “But you still have to admit that it had to be more than a coincidence.”
“If only there’d been more…signs…”
“I don’t know. I wish I did. But I don’t.”
It was strange to hear his mother admit it. The silence from below made his realize how strange. He didn’t have to be in the room to know that his parents were worrying over something. If only he knew what it was? If only he knew what it was they were protecting them from.
They heard a knock on the door and then Ruben’s voice. “Well I’ve beaten my son into a bloody mass. Do you need any help with yours?”
“I haven’t seen Zander since he stormed off,” Shaun said.
“Boone thinks you should tell them,” Ruben said. “He thinks it’s not fair that he knows and they don’t.”
“That’s your fault,” Shaun said. “I’m just amazed that he’s kept it from them.
“Boone gave his word Shaun,” Ruben said quietly.
“I meant Elle,” Shaun said quickly. “She could have found out, even by mistake. His mind is strong.”
“Yes it is.”
“I knew he knew something. I saw that he was blocking.”
“He let you in?”
“Yes.”
“Do you love him?”
Elle didn’t answer. Instead she squirmed her way out of the tunnel.
“Coward.” Zander threw after her. He turned to listen again but heard the sound of the door closing below. They had left the study. Zander pushed his way out and ran after Elle.
“Wait,” he said. He wiped at the blood on his face and was surprised that the gash didn’t hurt. It had throbbed when he first did it but he had forgotten the pain when he was listening to his parents talk.
“I don’t want to talk about it right now Zander,” Elle said when he caught up to her. “I’m still trying to figure things out.”
“Where is Boone?”
“Ruben sent him to get Tess and Zoey at the vineyard and bring them back. Apparently they didn’t know he was home from Academy.”
“You mean he came here first?”
“Yes.”
“He really does love you.”
“I know. But he’s had something to compare it with. He’s met a lot of girls.”
“Jealous?”
Elle made a face. “How do I know if I love Boone or if it’s just because he’s the only boy I’ve ever known? Don’t I need something to compare it with?”
“At least you know someone else besides me. You’re the only girl I’ve ever seen, besides the servants and they’re all old.”
“Thanks,” Elle said. “I think.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I know,” she agreed. “And I don’t know. Aren’t you tired of not knowing?”
Their feet followed a familiar path along a dark tunnel that led to an opening that overlooked the lake and the hidden landing bay. From there they would be able to see Boone return.
And it was the one place they were allowed to go that they felt a bit of freedom.
“Maybe there is one thing we could know,” Zander said as they walked out into the afternoon sun. The light dazzled the water until it was a pure silver and they both blinked against the brightness after being in the tunnels.
“What do you mean?”
“Mother said I knew Ruben was in danger when I was little.”
“As in you showed some of the psychic abilities.” Elle said. “I don’t remember it happening. I just remember Ruben coming back with Tess, Boone, and Ky and saying that you were really the one who saved his life.”
“Ky.” Zander said, recalling the huge newf that had been Boone’s shadow for years. Ky had died of old age the summer before Boone went to Academy. It was surely a good thing he died then. He would have died of loneliness had Boone left him behind.
“Boone’s misses him.”
“I know. I miss him too,” Zander said. “But mother also said there was another time.”
“And you want me to help you remember it.”
“You can, can’t you?”
“I’ve never done it.”
“But you know how.”
“Yes. I know how.”
“Then do it.”
Elle chewed on her lip for a moment as she looked out over the lake. Zander saw a vision of their mother doing the same thing. She did look just like their mother, who was still young and beautiful.
Too bad he wasn’t more like their father. He looked like him but he wasn’t like him. Maybe he would have been trusted with some knowledge, the way Boone had been.
And just maybe it was time he figured some stuff out on his own.
“Sit down,” Elle said. “And make sure you open your mind.”
They sat down facing each other with their ankles propped on their knees in the meditation position that their mother had taught them. As one they closed their eyes and took a deep breath, clearing their minds of any errant thoughts that would interrupt Elle’s concentration.
“Are you ready?” She didn’t have to ask permission. She could have just looked.
“Yes.”
Elle placed her fingertips on Zander’s temple and then just as suddenly jerked them away.
“Zander,” she said. “Where did the blood come from?’
“From my head. I hit it when you snuck up on me.”
“Where’s the cut?”
Zander touched his fingertips to his temple. The blood was dry on his cheek but he felt no cut. He wet his fingers with his tongue and scrubbed against the blood.
“There’s nothing there,” Elle said. She searched the dark locks of his hair. “Nothing. It’s gone.”
“You mean it healed?”
“Or disappeared. What do you think?”
“I don’t know.” He rubbed his temple again, wondering if he possibly could have imagined it.
The blood was still there, cracking on his cheek.
“Has this ever happened before?”
“Maybe. I don’t remember.”
“Well either it has or it hasn’t.”
“Or maybe it’s just not important enough to think about.” He was irritated. It seemed to be a permanent condition for him. “How quick to you heal?”
“I’ve never been hurt like that. I don’t know.”
Elle had missed most of the scrapes and falls that he had when they were young. She was born with a natural grace. Zander tried to recall the last time he’d been injured.
“I remember falling down sometimes, scraping my knees. Maybe I do heal fast.”
“It’s strange,” Elle said. She seemed worried.
“Don’t worry about it,” Zander said. “You can catalog all my injuries while your inside.”
“We should tell them,” Elle said. “Maybe it’s a sign of something.”
“Like what? Your son is more of a disappointment than you thought?”
“Zander. They are not disappointed in you. They just don’t understand why I can do things and you can’t.”
“Says the daughter who can do anything.”
“It you’re going to be a gank then I’m not going to help you.” Elle jumped to her feet and stalked to the entrance to the tunnels.
“Elle wait.” Zander went after her. “I’m sorry. Please help. You’re the only one I can trust.”
He felt as if he were looking in a mirror when he stared earnestly into her eyes. They were identical in shape, in color, even down to the dark shade of their lashes. It was confusing sometimes, to look into her eyes. He felt as if he were almost looking inside himself.
And then he realized that she could look inside of him and the frustration would come forth again.
There had been a time, when they were small when it didn’t matter what she could do and he couldn’t. They shared everything through her powers. But then their bodies had changed and with that their attitudes and they started keeping secrets from each other.
He needed to make sure that Elle didn’t see the dreams.
“We need to hurry,” Elle said as she stared back at him. “They might think we ran off again.”
Zander nodded and they moved back to their positions.
“If there’s someplace you don’t want me to go, just tell me,” she said.
Resentment flared that she even knew that he kept secrets but he quickly tamped it down, using the litany that their mother had taught them.
I’m ready…
Elle’s fingers touched his temples and he felt her slide into his mind with a gentleness that he never truly noticed before.
It was almost comforting.
“Our memories are shared Zander.”
“Not all of them. Not my…”
“I have dreams too. Relax.”
Zander willed his worries and frustrations into submission. He felt the warmth of the sunshine on the side of his face. He felt the heat radiating from the stone cliff they sat on. He felt the kiss of the breeze as it whipped across the lake. He heard the sigh of the trees that grew miraculously from fissures and cracks in the mountainside.
His life opened before him as if he were watching a dige, except that it moved backwards, as if he were winding up a ball of the thread that Tess used in her weavings.
Backwards they went until they were children, small, and innocent, comforted just by being with their parents. They were adored.
Suddenly he wasn’t with his parents or his sister. He was with Ruben. He was piloting his ship and was under attack. He saw the blasts that rocked the ship. He felt the panic. Sheer terror overcame him as the ship careened towards the ground and crashed.
“Elle?”
“Wait…”
Was it a memory of his? Or was it something he imagined from listening to the stories that were told about Ruben’s adventures. Boone had seen the crash. Was it one of his memories mixed up with his own?
“You saw it Zander. Boone saw it coming, but you saw it as if you were there, inside the ship.”
“How?”
“There’s more.”
He saw himself once again as a small boy, playing with a brightly color starship on a plush rug. Elle was beside him with one of her beloved dolls. His father and grandfather were inside, discussing the politics of the planet. His mother and Ruben were on the balcony and his mother was searching Ruben’s memories, exactly the way Elle was searching his.
Suddenly his mind saw a dark and dreary place. Not like the tunnels that they walked with their father as he encouraged them to try to see in the dark.
This place was dim, dingy, and dirty. There were bars and there were chains. The only light came from a torch that tried gallantly to fight back the darkness.
Three women were gathered around a narrow plank attached to a wall. Two of the women were dressed in dark robes and wore strange poufy hats that were decorated with beads and crystals. The third woman was dressed in simple clothes and held a lay on the plank in a ragged and bloody gown and she was pleading with the other three.
“Give me my baby,” she cried. “Please.”
The other women ignored her. They looked at a baby that cried loudly in protest against the arms that held her as the mother cried out.
“What color are her eyes,” one woman asked. She seemed older than the others. Much older.
The woman holding the baby moved the child around so that the torch light reflected in her eyes.
“Dark,” she said. “Violet.”
“tisk,” the older woman said. “I thought perhaps we might be on to something with the breeding. Her father did have the blood line, even if he is a rebel.” The woman gathered her robes and turned away from the crying baby.
“What about the mother?” the woman holding the baby asked. “She needs a healer.”
The younger woman paused at the entrance to the cell. “Let her die,” she said. “She has been tainted by the rebels and is of no further use to us.”
The women left. The one holding the child looked with sympathy down on the woman who was bleeding to death before her eyes. “At least your daughter will live,” she said. “We will find a place for her to serve.”
“No,” the woman cried weakly. “Please,” and then she sighed. “Sagan.”
The child screamed as her mother’s life faded away and as she screamed Zander felt her pain and he screamed also.
“ZANDER!”
His eyes flew open. He was lying on his side and his hands were clenched against his face as if he were battling something inside. Something trying to get out. Elle held onto him and he realized that he was extremely close to the edge of the cliff.
“What was it?” she asked. “What did you see?”
He pushed himself backwards until he rested against the solid foundation of the mountain.
Elle’s eyes were on him, intently serious as if she were searching for a wound.
“Didn’t you see it?” His heart pounded in his chest. He felt as if he had just run a race. And his life had been the prize.
“No. It was if a door closed. But I felt something…sadness…terror…then you started screaming. What was it?”
“A baby. I saw a baby. There were women. The baby’s mother died.”
“That’s it?”
“The baby was a girl,” he added. “What do you think it means?”
Violet eyes.
“I don’t know.” Elle chewed on her lip again. “Maybe Mother can see it.”
“No.”
“Zander.”
“I don’t want her inside my head. I don’t want either of them inside my head.”
“You’re being ridiculous.”
He climbed to his feet. Why did he feel so weak? “Boone’s back,” he said, pointing towards the sky.
Elle reached up and he took her hand, pulling her to her feet. They stood on the cliff, side by side, as they watched the sleek craft circle the crater and then come in, skimming over the water until it reached the landing bay below.
“Let’s go see how much trouble we’re in,” he said and they turned into the tunnels as one.
Saturday, October 06, 2007
Wednesday, October 03, 2007
Wicked Words
Some time ago, there was a discussion of cursing on this blog. I'm inspired to take up the topic again by having recently read Steven Pinker's new book, THE STUFF OF THOUGHT. The author of highly readable, provocative, and densely informative earlier books such as THE LANGUAGE INSTINCT and HOW THE MIND WORKS, in this new volume he explores "Language as a Window into Human Nature." Some of the contents make heavy going and require the navigating of technical linguistic terms, but two fascinating chapters are worth the price of the book (or at any rate worth borrowing a copy from the library): Chapter Eight, "Games People Play," about the language of politeness, plausible deniability, and social pretense in general (why do we ask for the salt in, strictly speaking, nonsensical utterances such as, "Could you pass the salt?" instead of just saying, "Give me the salt"?); and Chapter Seven, "The Seven Words You Can't Say on Television." By the way, I was delighted finally to learn what those fabled seven words were (pre-cable TV) and surprised to find "tits" on the list. Personally, I can think of quite a few terms more objectionable than that almost-cute synonym for mammaries.
Pinker lists the categories from which taboo words are typically drawn in Earth's languages as sex, excretion, religion, death and disease, and groups of people considered inferior. For an example of the latter, in our otherwise libertine linguistic climate one insult commonplace fifty or sixty years ago has become so taboo that most people won't pronounce it even to discuss it, instead using the euphemism "the n-word." Another interesting factor about rude words is that their substitution with euphemisms produces a constantly receding horizon; the connotation sooner or later taints the euphemism. For instance, "bathroom," which began as a euphemism, has become the most blunt term most people will use in polite company for what's more often called the restroom, powder room, little girls' room (or, in our office, labeled by the locative phrase "down the hall"). Many readers might be surprised to learn that "retarded," now displaced by "mentally challenged," originated as a euphemism; it was meant to imply that the child wasn't feebleminded, just a bit slower than his peers. Other sometime-obscenities fall in and out of grace. Prior to the nineteenth century, a few of those taboo seven words were perfectly acceptable in sober writing, whereas the formerly obscene "bloody" has lost its bite, for Americans anyway (I don't know about contemporary Britons), so that Eliza Doolittle's indulgence in that word sounds funny to us instead of shocking. "Bitch," which in my youth was acceptable in polite company only among dog breeders, now seems to be considered unexceptionable by lots of otherwise courteous speakers.
Pinker maintains that religious-themed swearing has lost its offensiveness for Americans, to which I respond, "Speak for yourself, Dr. Pinker." I still wince at a casual "damn," and hearing people invoke the name of the Deity loosely or, worse yet, abusively sounds almost as painful to me as the F-word. However, I'm amused and bemused to read that in some European countries taboo curse words include such innocuous ecclesiastical terms as "chalice" and "host" (Eucharistic wafer), without which it would be hard to describe the conduct of an ordinary Sunday service in a Catholic or Anglican church. On page 337 of THE STUFF OF THOUGHT, Pinker lists numerous "bowdlerized alternatives" for taboo words, such as "gosh," "gee," and "darn" for "God," "Jesus," and "damn." The guidelines of at least one inspirational romance publisher forbid the characters to speak any of those euphemisms, because of their status as thinly disguised substitutes for profanity. Given these restrictions, characters in this publisher's novels wouldn't be able to emit any kind of realistic utterance in moments of shock, pain, fear, or anger—except maybe an inarticulate "ouch" or "aargh." Or maybe they'd resort, as I do, to comic-book expletives such as "curses" or "heavens to Murgatroyd" (no, probably no profane references to Heaven allowed).
In Huxley's BRAVE NEW WORLD, where all human infants are conceived and grown in vitro, "mother" and "father" are the two unspeakable obscenities. I once read an SF novel whose title I can't remember about a future society in which the sexual F-word is commonplace, but "fight" is obscene (a speech practice that does have a certain seductive logic, except that the sexual F-word derives from roots meaning to beat or strike and is so often used abusively that I can't make myself perceive its connotations as erotic). In Jacqueline Lichtenberg's Sime-Gen series, the most shocking obscenities relate to interruptions in the selyn flow process. Her invented terms "shen" and "shid" have the linguistic virtue of incorporating the short, blunt sounds we associate with real-world taboo words. The common denominator of taboo words, according to Pinker, relates to phenomena that are vitally important to human beings and yet sometimes disgusting or potentially fraught with danger. So, as we discussed on this blog previously, alien characters would curse in terms that relate to whatever topics are most emotionally sensitive for them. The natives of Venus in Heinlein's SPACE CADET have taboos surrounding food; healthy people old enough to understand proper etiquette never eat in the presence of others. Therefore, blunt speech about eating is obscene for Venusians. For Jacqueline's Simes, the monthly need for selyn is more important than food or sex, so taboo words relate to selyn transfer. WATERSHIP DOWN includes numerous examples of rabbit language, woven so smoothly into the narrative that when in the climactic battle one of the heroes casts an obscene insult (roughly meaning, "Eat s--t!") at the villain, we understand it without translation and get the full emotional force. Would a vampire society use "bloody" as a curse?
Tuesday, October 02, 2007
8 Swords - "Yes, but - "
As noted previously, this is a chapter in a book about the Tarot aimed at Intermediate students, not beginners or advanced students. It is particularly aimed at writers.
Updated and expanded compilation of all these Tarot Just For Writers entries is now available on Kindle:
The Wands and Cups Volumes and the Swords and Pentacles Volumes, are now all available separately on Kindle. The 5 Volumes combined are also available on Kindle as one book, cheaper than buying them individually.
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This series is designed not for the beginner or the advanced student, but for the intermediate student and specifically for writers doing worldbuilding..
A vital point I made in THE BIBLICAL TAROT: NEVER CROSS A PALM WITH SILVER (which you can get on Amazon) is that nobody can tell you what a Tarot card means. It's not knowledge that can be taught or conveyed. Each person has to figure it out unassisted.
Once you've figured it out, you have to write little essays about it like these I' m doing here, just as beginning students draw and color their own deck. So here I'm demonstrating how to apply the principles behind the Tarot to derive useful insights into life's processes -- insights of real significance to fiction writers.
When you study Tarot, gradually, your Visualizaton of the Macrocosmic All, your Model of the Universe, changes. And that changes you. You don't want to be modeled by someone else -- you want to model yourself. So figure out and articulate these processes for yourself using the principles I'm demonstrating, not my personal conclusions.
----------
ANSWERS to Kimberly's questions inserted here above a long essay on 8 Swords:
1) who inspired me -- http://www.simegen.com/sgfandom/welcommittee/influenc.html
2) In the early days, the Greats of the SF field debated (in print via editorials) the defn of SF and decided the oldest is the best -- "It's what I like". I refined that to Intimate Adventure.
http://www.simegen.com/jl/intimateadventure.html
See my review column for January 2008 (once it gets posted) on
http://www.simegen.com/reviews/rereadablebooks/
which will lead to a totally NEW definition. SFR can't be SF unless it's part of the Literature of Ideas -- each novel needs a totally new IDEA that hasn't been pondered by the world before. You can't steal from mythology. You have to think something NEW -- not just original since we all originate thoughts that are in the Akashic Record, but NEW. Each novel is a Ph.D. thesis adding to human knowledge, forging a new scratch in the Akashic Record. Other fiction fields can get away with rehashing old ideas -- to be SF it has to have a NEW IDEA in it.
Here below, we're talking about 8 Swords - where ideas become really sharp swords indeed. All through these essays on Swords, you've seen how Ideas are promulgated. It's in Wands that NEW ideas are brought into manifestation. In Cups, Ideas ignite emotions. In Swords Ideas are communicated. In Pentacles, they are scribed into the Akashic Record.
3) Print publishing is still suffering a meltdown which will reform the industry -- and my bet is it will reform to follow conventions established in the film industry. These aren't "rules" to be broken -- they are "conventions" (like driving on the right side of the street; using a period at the end of a declarative sentence; the Dress For Success book). To discover these conventions for fiction and get ahead of the curve read SAVE THE CAT! and SAVE THE CAT GOES TO THE MOVIES both by Blake Snyder. I will be discussing this second book in great detail through this next year. "Conventions" change constantly (congestion caused the one-way-street to be invented).
Here's the Amazon link:
http://www.amazon.com/Save-Cat-Goes-Movies-Screenwriters/dp/1932907351/rereadablebooksr/
You want to be an agent of change, you must first master the conventions -- not "follow" them, MASTER them, in the mystical sense of "Mistress of Magick". Then you must become a Leader. A Leader can't ever be someone from "outside" -- a King, Queen or Leader arises from within the masses and articulates the values the masses are incapable of articulating for themselves. To do that, one must BE OF that mass, and then be "elevated" by that mass to leadership, not elevated by yourself (Princess Di comes to mind). Being an agent of change is something that happens to you, not something you do. Ponder that while reading 8 Swords. It's a long road with no rewards at the end, but that's how to become an agent of change. (Betty Friedan comes to mind. Now think Islamists.)
4) Most of the conventions that work and live to create classics all have in common the principles I'm discussing in this series on the Swords of the Tarot (and eventually the Pentacles of the Tarot). That's why I'm writing this Tarot book -- understand these principles of how things are connected into patterns, and you will be able to discern that pattern in operation throughout the entirety of the cosmos, including publishing and Hollywood.
5) All my fiction, from the beginning, was striving to be SFR but had to conform to the SF conventions of the time. THOSE OF MY BLOOD was the first book where I took the gloves off and blatantly exposed the romance -- and it took 22 submissions to sell it, then it was touted as my "Break Out" book by St. Martin's Press in their sales-force newsletter then dropped into obscurity by printing only a couple hundred copies of the HC. That's what happens when you "break" a convention in the commercial marketplace. Later, I won a Romantic Times Award with DUSHAU because the conventions had CHANGED. You won't find that Award for "Best Science Fiction Novel" on the Romantic Times website because it's too old -- it was the very first awarded for an SF novel. Every editor who rejected THOSE OF MY BLOOD loved it, but couldn't figure out "how" to publish it.
---------------
The meaning of a Tarot Minor Arcana resides in the placement on the Tree of Life (i.e. the number on the card) integrated with the "World" or Suit of the card. For the Tree of Life and the Jacob's Ladder diagrams see:
http://web.onetel.net.uk/~maggyw/treeladder.html
We're now looking at the 3rd circle up from the bottom on the left hand column on the Jacob's Ladder diagram.
Note that the 8 of Swords lies right over the 3 of Pentacles. Elements of the meaning of 3-ness are setting our Swords singing. (ever heard a well tempered Sword sing? It's a thrill! People think a Sword is a weapon - it's really a musical instrument, as is the Voice!)
Remember the essence of 3 is commitment. That means to have something is to have-not something else. To be anything is to not-be everything else. Dedication, specialization, underlie the meaning of 8 Swords. And this principle is true of all the other cards we've discussed.
There are 3 Pillars to the Tree of Life pattern, and 4 repetitions of the Tree make up Jacob's Ladder - the ascending extension ladder that the Soul climbs lifetime after lifetime to return to the Source. Jacob's Ladder is the path Jacob saw when he laid his head on a stone and dreamed of Angels ascending and descending. 8 is two 4's. A musical octave is 8 steps. 8 is a fundamental tone in the vast vibration that is the cosmos.
The essence of 8 is the intellect. The astrological association is Mercury, which like Venus as we discussed under 7 Swords, rules two signs.
Mercury rules Gemini and the 3rd House of the Natal Chart, the personal mentality and thought processes and everything to do with communication and travel. Mercury also rules Virgo the natural 6th House of work and the health of the body. The ability to communicate and move are fundamental to physical health, as is satisfying work.
Remember, the Waite Rider Tarot deck images seem based in the zero-sum model of the universe where winning creates losers. (winner + loser = 0) And losing is a stigma to be avoided, a path toward not having what you need. Losing, even in sportsmanlike sports carries the whiff of death.
Also remember that Swords are actions, and a thought is an action.
Now you can see that the energy we've been teasing down the steps of Jacob's Ladder finds a natural harmonic reinforcement in 8 Swords. 8 is thought - Swords is thoughts. 8 Swords then becomes Thoughts Thought. Or Thought about thoughts. Meta-thoughts.
So what happens to a person living in the zero-sum model of the universe whose thoughts become strongly intensified?
Worry. "Since there has to be a loser, I might be that loser!"
Swords are actions, so a person caught in the 8-Swords process, worrying, will reject any action suggested to them to solve their problem. They've thought of everything already, worried every solution to death, and found a reason to reject it. They can't see the results of any action for sure, so they get caught in a repeating loop of worry.
Even a good suggestion will be greeted by, "Yes, but I can't because -" And there's no end of creative becauses!
The problem is that the process of 8 Swords has you thinking about thinking. That is, you become critical.
Criticism is generally associated with Virgo, manifesting the negative side of Virgo, perfectionism. (every sign has a positive and negative manifestation; everyone has every sign; the trick of life is to manifest each in the positive way. That's what souls are here to learn.)
Ponder the "Yes, but - " syndrome a bit and you will see that the facile objections to any action actually come from having thought about the problem, and considered or even tried, each of the possible or conceivable solutions to that problem.
WRITERS: does that sound like a familiar process to you?
It is the condition you come to after having rewritten the novel you filled up with words in 4 Swords, got comments on in 5 Swords, revised in 6 Swords to something you love even better, then avoided conflict in 7 Swords by rewriting it yet again and maybe even again.
You considered, analyzed, tried different things, and by now you are heartily sick of the whole novel.
Some writers come to a point where they are so disgusted by the mishmash they've written that they won't even submit it to a paying market.
Hidden behind that could be the fear that it will be rejected and then they'll have to face the conflict squarely. You can spend your life caught in 7 Swords, copy-cat pretending to be a writer, and never actually publishing anything because that requires facing a conflict squarely.
Or you may be barely dabbling a toe into the 8 Swords process, endlessly researching where to submit your gem.
The image on the Waite Rider deck 8 Swords is the woman in a mud puddle field surrounded by swords. She's blindfolded so she can't move for fear of stepping in a mud puddle with her nice clean slippers. She's trussed up tightly by bonds of thoughts.
Each of the Swords around her is an action she took in the past, a thought, word or deed that now cuts off her options. If she moves, she could cut herself on her own prior actions, (thoughts, words (lies?), opinions, vows, self-image.)
To act in violation of your publicly stated opinion is to undercut your reputation for integrity. So you can't move through 8 Swords if you've been opening your big mouth too much.
The blindfold shows how her thoughts are turned inward, and highlights the fear of doing anything.
In the zero-sum game view of the universe, 8 Swords will very probably manifest as this kind of fear of doing anything. In the zero-sum universe, there is always the danger of failing to win. In the Abundant Universe, there's nothing to fear for you always have what you need, and even most of what you want, and plenty left to share.
So if, as you write this novel you've been telling your friends about it, bragging, showing off, building it up, publicizing effusively, now in the 8 of Swords you are seized with fear at sending it to a publisher. What if the publisher rejects it?
Or worse yet, what if the publisher accepts it, and the editor tells you to change this and that and the other thing. (typically, cut 20,000 words, change the gender of the protagonist, and add three scenes to explain motivations)
One reason new writers have such a hard time breaking in to publishing is simply that editors don't want to have the "Yes, but - " fight with new writers who cling to all these reasons why certain commercially necessary changes can't be made.
So the process of 8 Swords includes the sequence of submission, rewrite to editorial order, and resubmission.
That process involves a meeting of minds. 8 is thought; Swords is thinking. Meeting of minds: an exchange of thoughts, or possibly arguments, interacting with someone who is thinking about your thoughts which are exposed, naked, on the page for your editor to misunderstand.
8 Swords is all about problem solving without the direct confrontation of 5 Swords, the painful starting over of 6 Swords, or the agonizing re-re-rewriting of 7 Swords when the heart of the conflict is avoided.
As in Science, in the 8 Swords process two or more people think together, communicate, about a problem which is their mutual problem. 8 Swords is not about power, subjugation, winning or losing. 8 Swords is a co-operative effort.
Someone objective, outside the situation, has to take on the problem that has resulted from the 7 Swords process and parse that problem, open the writer's eyes to the real situation.
That's what editors are for. That's why a writer's career rests on choosing the correct publishing house and editor for their book. And that's what Agents are for.
7 is Imagination; 8 is the Mind.
8 is all about Science, the organization of knowledge into axioms, postulates and the laws of nature. 8 is about deductive reasoning and inductive reasoning. 8 is all about computers!
In the process of submitting to an editor, working with an editor, the Creative Imagination of 6 Swords encounters the scientifically derived Commercial Formula for the novel. An editor works for a publishing house that has a very specific and defined market developed from their computer sales modeling. For the most part, they think they know what sells and why, though they all admit they're only guessing.
Harry Potter; who knew?
Swords is all about actions, and thoughts are actions. But 8 Swords is thinking about your actions, and worrying about consequences. Remember, 6 is contained in 7 -- 6's ability to imagine consequences leads to 7's thinking about thinking about the consequences.
8 Swords is the admonition, "Don't leap before you look. Work methodically."
In the zero-sum Universe, you learn these adages for fear of what will happen if you don't.
In the Abundant Universe, you learn these adages for love of what will happen if you do.
But you spend your life learning and re-learning them.
We all feel that the power of the mind can solve any problem. We're taught that in school with tests and grades. Just get the right answer, know it, remember it, calculate it -- it's got to be the right one or you'll be punished with a bad grade.
So we get really up tight about thinking our way through problems. Sometimes we can stall out a project by being determined to do all the research for it in advance. You can't start writing your thesis until you know everything that will be in it. So you never start.
Also we learn early that the world is complicated and complex. There are a thousand considerations to be pondered before doing anything. For every reason to do something, there's a reason not to, maybe several.
When the reasons not to do something pile up and up and up, until you feel smothered, you are caught in an 8 Swords process, stymied and stagnated by reasons.
Very often, these 8 Swords situations are social or political and involve other people's imagined responses to your actions. You have business with this person, an affair with that person; what if one talks to the other?
Being "caught up in the affairs of wizards" is another story and plot that is symbolized by 8 Swords. Every simple thing that happens opens up huge long tangles of reasons why this and that, reasons not to do such and so, more complications piled on complications.
There is no such thing as thinking too much. But when you rely solely on thinking during the process of 8 Swords, the thoughts you produce are sharper, heavier, stronger than your own personal Will, and maybe even stronger than your character. It's not that they're wrong thoughts -- it's that they're too loud, too scary, too emphatic.
Any process ruled by Mercury will be exaggerated in 8. Remember communication, travel and writing are ruled by Mercury. Thus the editorial process described above is multiply emphasized. 8 Swords is where it all comes together for a writer.
Swords is all about habitual actions. Your fiction will expose inner mental habits you never knew were there, and a good editor will finger all of them, and it will hurt, and you will scream, squirm and avoid doing what's demanded.
So Swords is about unthinking actions, habits, and 8 is about thinking. During an 8 of Swords process, you can find yourself stalled out because you're thinking about your habits. You want to go back to 6 Swords and do it over, not go on to 9 Swords, because after all it's not perfect yet. (Mercury; perfectionism).
How do you flip over the 8 of Swords to break out into freedom of movement?
Well, remember Jacob's Ladder? How the 8 Swords overlays the 3 Pentacles?
Remember the essence of 3 is commitment. The psychological trick of getting out of the 8 Swords trap is to understand that you will take a loss.
The way out of the 8 Swords trap is to accept wounds. This is going to hurt.
Actions are depicted as Swords because the battlefield actually strips down all actions to their barest essence and lets us access action decisions with a part of our brain isn't usually in control - the hind brain, the animal within that just wants to stay alive.
Even in the Abundant Universe, there are battles, casualties, sacrifices, pain and growth.
On the battlefield, commanders assess the value of what is to be gained against how many lives it will cost, and how many casualties, how much equipment damaged or expended.
The familiar dilemma of needing to take various incompatible medications belongs in the 8 of Swords. It is solved with a "trade off" -- letting one condition worsen in order to treat another.
Which do you want to save, your sight or your heart?
Once understanding of the cost of action is reached and agreed on, free flowing energy flips the 8 of Swords over to the reverse, fear is sloughed off, and the Project Leader steps boldly onto the slippery, muddy field of an objective assessment of the state of the project.
Pain is accepted for the sake of gain.
It is a calculation, a science, a very cold calculation.
That is the cold calculation you must master in 8 Swords, a dispassionate, intellectualized assessment of what this gain is worth to you. What will you give up? How much pain can you endure? How much more blood can you afford to lose and still survive?
That is the exact calculation a writer makes when under editorial direction; what is it worth to you to get this book into print?
It sounds as if the 8 Swords is purely a zero-sum scenario.
But actually it's an exercise in free will.
Here you must apply the changes wrought by Love in 6 Swords and brought to Harmony in 7 Swords to make a fully informed free will choice using your whole mind.
The world is abundant. You have more than you need. You can afford to pay for what you want. You have to choose. You have to discern what you need as separate from what you want, and calculate what you will pay.
The image of the woman standing amid mud puddles surrounded by danger, blindfolded and bound, does capture that choice of what price you will pay. In order to get the blindfold off, she has to sidle up to a sword and run her bonds up and down the sharp edge. She'll ruin her shoes, likely cut her dress too, maybe bleed a little, but then she can take off the blindfold and do what she wants.
She's afraid because she thinks she's going to lose. When she understands that she'll only lose what she doesn't need or can replace, that the universe cradles her in abundance, then she will move through the 8 Swords and on.
Remember the old joke. A man notices a fly in his soup and shrieks to the waiter who says, "Don't worry. Flies don't drink much." The waiter is saying you can afford to feed the fly, but the customer is fearing diseases he might get from the fly. This is an 8 of Swords moment, a lack of meeting of minds, a moment driven by fear of loss, not confidence in abundance.
Your editor demands you cut out one whole character from your novel; you do it; and, many nightmares later, in the 6 of Pentacles, your book wins an award. That is how the Abundant Universe functions for those who have learned the lessons of the 7 of Swords Reversed.
Why not just save yourself all those tears and move with confidence through the 8 Swords process, knowing some of the dangers aren't imaginary, you will get hurt, but it's all right because you can afford it.
The Universe is Abundant.
Know that.
Act by that.
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://www.simegen.com/jl/
Updated and expanded compilation of all these Tarot Just For Writers entries is now available on Kindle:
The Wands and Cups Volumes and the Swords and Pentacles Volumes, are now all available separately on Kindle. The 5 Volumes combined are also available on Kindle as one book, cheaper than buying them individually.
The Not So Minor Arcana: Never Cross A Palm With Silver Aug 30, 2015 99 cents
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The Not So Minor Arcana: Wands Sept. 1, 2015 99 cents
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The Not So Minor Arcana: Cups Sept. 11, 2015 99 cents
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The Not So Minor Arcana: Swords Sept. 17, 2015 99 cents
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The Not So Minor Arcana: Pentacles Sept. 21, 2015 99 cents
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The Not So Minor Arcana: Books 1-5 combined Sept. 24, 2015 $3.25
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B010E4WAOU
A vital point I made in THE BIBLICAL TAROT: NEVER CROSS A PALM WITH SILVER (which you can get on Amazon) is that nobody can tell you what a Tarot card means. It's not knowledge that can be taught or conveyed. Each person has to figure it out unassisted.
Once you've figured it out, you have to write little essays about it like these I' m doing here, just as beginning students draw and color their own deck. So here I'm demonstrating how to apply the principles behind the Tarot to derive useful insights into life's processes -- insights of real significance to fiction writers.
When you study Tarot, gradually, your Visualizaton of the Macrocosmic All, your Model of the Universe, changes. And that changes you. You don't want to be modeled by someone else -- you want to model yourself. So figure out and articulate these processes for yourself using the principles I'm demonstrating, not my personal conclusions.
----------
ANSWERS to Kimberly's questions inserted here above a long essay on 8 Swords:
1) who inspired me -- http://www.simegen.com/sgfandom/welcommittee/influenc.html
2) In the early days, the Greats of the SF field debated (in print via editorials) the defn of SF and decided the oldest is the best -- "It's what I like". I refined that to Intimate Adventure.
http://www.simegen.com/jl/intimateadventure.html
See my review column for January 2008 (once it gets posted) on
http://www.simegen.com/reviews/rereadablebooks/
which will lead to a totally NEW definition. SFR can't be SF unless it's part of the Literature of Ideas -- each novel needs a totally new IDEA that hasn't been pondered by the world before. You can't steal from mythology. You have to think something NEW -- not just original since we all originate thoughts that are in the Akashic Record, but NEW. Each novel is a Ph.D. thesis adding to human knowledge, forging a new scratch in the Akashic Record. Other fiction fields can get away with rehashing old ideas -- to be SF it has to have a NEW IDEA in it.
Here below, we're talking about 8 Swords - where ideas become really sharp swords indeed. All through these essays on Swords, you've seen how Ideas are promulgated. It's in Wands that NEW ideas are brought into manifestation. In Cups, Ideas ignite emotions. In Swords Ideas are communicated. In Pentacles, they are scribed into the Akashic Record.
3) Print publishing is still suffering a meltdown which will reform the industry -- and my bet is it will reform to follow conventions established in the film industry. These aren't "rules" to be broken -- they are "conventions" (like driving on the right side of the street; using a period at the end of a declarative sentence; the Dress For Success book). To discover these conventions for fiction and get ahead of the curve read SAVE THE CAT! and SAVE THE CAT GOES TO THE MOVIES both by Blake Snyder. I will be discussing this second book in great detail through this next year. "Conventions" change constantly (congestion caused the one-way-street to be invented).
Here's the Amazon link:
http://www.amazon.com/Save-Cat-Goes-Movies-Screenwriters/dp/1932907351/rereadablebooksr/
You want to be an agent of change, you must first master the conventions -- not "follow" them, MASTER them, in the mystical sense of "Mistress of Magick". Then you must become a Leader. A Leader can't ever be someone from "outside" -- a King, Queen or Leader arises from within the masses and articulates the values the masses are incapable of articulating for themselves. To do that, one must BE OF that mass, and then be "elevated" by that mass to leadership, not elevated by yourself (Princess Di comes to mind). Being an agent of change is something that happens to you, not something you do. Ponder that while reading 8 Swords. It's a long road with no rewards at the end, but that's how to become an agent of change. (Betty Friedan comes to mind. Now think Islamists.)
4) Most of the conventions that work and live to create classics all have in common the principles I'm discussing in this series on the Swords of the Tarot (and eventually the Pentacles of the Tarot). That's why I'm writing this Tarot book -- understand these principles of how things are connected into patterns, and you will be able to discern that pattern in operation throughout the entirety of the cosmos, including publishing and Hollywood.
5) All my fiction, from the beginning, was striving to be SFR but had to conform to the SF conventions of the time. THOSE OF MY BLOOD was the first book where I took the gloves off and blatantly exposed the romance -- and it took 22 submissions to sell it, then it was touted as my "Break Out" book by St. Martin's Press in their sales-force newsletter then dropped into obscurity by printing only a couple hundred copies of the HC. That's what happens when you "break" a convention in the commercial marketplace. Later, I won a Romantic Times Award with DUSHAU because the conventions had CHANGED. You won't find that Award for "Best Science Fiction Novel" on the Romantic Times website because it's too old -- it was the very first awarded for an SF novel. Every editor who rejected THOSE OF MY BLOOD loved it, but couldn't figure out "how" to publish it.
---------------
The meaning of a Tarot Minor Arcana resides in the placement on the Tree of Life (i.e. the number on the card) integrated with the "World" or Suit of the card. For the Tree of Life and the Jacob's Ladder diagrams see:
http://web.onetel.net.uk/~maggyw/treeladder.html
We're now looking at the 3rd circle up from the bottom on the left hand column on the Jacob's Ladder diagram.
Note that the 8 of Swords lies right over the 3 of Pentacles. Elements of the meaning of 3-ness are setting our Swords singing. (ever heard a well tempered Sword sing? It's a thrill! People think a Sword is a weapon - it's really a musical instrument, as is the Voice!)
Remember the essence of 3 is commitment. That means to have something is to have-not something else. To be anything is to not-be everything else. Dedication, specialization, underlie the meaning of 8 Swords. And this principle is true of all the other cards we've discussed.
There are 3 Pillars to the Tree of Life pattern, and 4 repetitions of the Tree make up Jacob's Ladder - the ascending extension ladder that the Soul climbs lifetime after lifetime to return to the Source. Jacob's Ladder is the path Jacob saw when he laid his head on a stone and dreamed of Angels ascending and descending. 8 is two 4's. A musical octave is 8 steps. 8 is a fundamental tone in the vast vibration that is the cosmos.
The essence of 8 is the intellect. The astrological association is Mercury, which like Venus as we discussed under 7 Swords, rules two signs.
Mercury rules Gemini and the 3rd House of the Natal Chart, the personal mentality and thought processes and everything to do with communication and travel. Mercury also rules Virgo the natural 6th House of work and the health of the body. The ability to communicate and move are fundamental to physical health, as is satisfying work.
Remember, the Waite Rider Tarot deck images seem based in the zero-sum model of the universe where winning creates losers. (winner + loser = 0) And losing is a stigma to be avoided, a path toward not having what you need. Losing, even in sportsmanlike sports carries the whiff of death.
Also remember that Swords are actions, and a thought is an action.
Now you can see that the energy we've been teasing down the steps of Jacob's Ladder finds a natural harmonic reinforcement in 8 Swords. 8 is thought - Swords is thoughts. 8 Swords then becomes Thoughts Thought. Or Thought about thoughts. Meta-thoughts.
So what happens to a person living in the zero-sum model of the universe whose thoughts become strongly intensified?
Worry. "Since there has to be a loser, I might be that loser!"
Swords are actions, so a person caught in the 8-Swords process, worrying, will reject any action suggested to them to solve their problem. They've thought of everything already, worried every solution to death, and found a reason to reject it. They can't see the results of any action for sure, so they get caught in a repeating loop of worry.
Even a good suggestion will be greeted by, "Yes, but I can't because -" And there's no end of creative becauses!
The problem is that the process of 8 Swords has you thinking about thinking. That is, you become critical.
Criticism is generally associated with Virgo, manifesting the negative side of Virgo, perfectionism. (every sign has a positive and negative manifestation; everyone has every sign; the trick of life is to manifest each in the positive way. That's what souls are here to learn.)
Ponder the "Yes, but - " syndrome a bit and you will see that the facile objections to any action actually come from having thought about the problem, and considered or even tried, each of the possible or conceivable solutions to that problem.
WRITERS: does that sound like a familiar process to you?
It is the condition you come to after having rewritten the novel you filled up with words in 4 Swords, got comments on in 5 Swords, revised in 6 Swords to something you love even better, then avoided conflict in 7 Swords by rewriting it yet again and maybe even again.
You considered, analyzed, tried different things, and by now you are heartily sick of the whole novel.
Some writers come to a point where they are so disgusted by the mishmash they've written that they won't even submit it to a paying market.
Hidden behind that could be the fear that it will be rejected and then they'll have to face the conflict squarely. You can spend your life caught in 7 Swords, copy-cat pretending to be a writer, and never actually publishing anything because that requires facing a conflict squarely.
Or you may be barely dabbling a toe into the 8 Swords process, endlessly researching where to submit your gem.
The image on the Waite Rider deck 8 Swords is the woman in a mud puddle field surrounded by swords. She's blindfolded so she can't move for fear of stepping in a mud puddle with her nice clean slippers. She's trussed up tightly by bonds of thoughts.
Each of the Swords around her is an action she took in the past, a thought, word or deed that now cuts off her options. If she moves, she could cut herself on her own prior actions, (thoughts, words (lies?), opinions, vows, self-image.)
To act in violation of your publicly stated opinion is to undercut your reputation for integrity. So you can't move through 8 Swords if you've been opening your big mouth too much.
The blindfold shows how her thoughts are turned inward, and highlights the fear of doing anything.
In the zero-sum game view of the universe, 8 Swords will very probably manifest as this kind of fear of doing anything. In the zero-sum universe, there is always the danger of failing to win. In the Abundant Universe, there's nothing to fear for you always have what you need, and even most of what you want, and plenty left to share.
So if, as you write this novel you've been telling your friends about it, bragging, showing off, building it up, publicizing effusively, now in the 8 of Swords you are seized with fear at sending it to a publisher. What if the publisher rejects it?
Or worse yet, what if the publisher accepts it, and the editor tells you to change this and that and the other thing. (typically, cut 20,000 words, change the gender of the protagonist, and add three scenes to explain motivations)
One reason new writers have such a hard time breaking in to publishing is simply that editors don't want to have the "Yes, but - " fight with new writers who cling to all these reasons why certain commercially necessary changes can't be made.
So the process of 8 Swords includes the sequence of submission, rewrite to editorial order, and resubmission.
That process involves a meeting of minds. 8 is thought; Swords is thinking. Meeting of minds: an exchange of thoughts, or possibly arguments, interacting with someone who is thinking about your thoughts which are exposed, naked, on the page for your editor to misunderstand.
8 Swords is all about problem solving without the direct confrontation of 5 Swords, the painful starting over of 6 Swords, or the agonizing re-re-rewriting of 7 Swords when the heart of the conflict is avoided.
As in Science, in the 8 Swords process two or more people think together, communicate, about a problem which is their mutual problem. 8 Swords is not about power, subjugation, winning or losing. 8 Swords is a co-operative effort.
Someone objective, outside the situation, has to take on the problem that has resulted from the 7 Swords process and parse that problem, open the writer's eyes to the real situation.
That's what editors are for. That's why a writer's career rests on choosing the correct publishing house and editor for their book. And that's what Agents are for.
7 is Imagination; 8 is the Mind.
8 is all about Science, the organization of knowledge into axioms, postulates and the laws of nature. 8 is about deductive reasoning and inductive reasoning. 8 is all about computers!
In the process of submitting to an editor, working with an editor, the Creative Imagination of 6 Swords encounters the scientifically derived Commercial Formula for the novel. An editor works for a publishing house that has a very specific and defined market developed from their computer sales modeling. For the most part, they think they know what sells and why, though they all admit they're only guessing.
Harry Potter; who knew?
Swords is all about actions, and thoughts are actions. But 8 Swords is thinking about your actions, and worrying about consequences. Remember, 6 is contained in 7 -- 6's ability to imagine consequences leads to 7's thinking about thinking about the consequences.
8 Swords is the admonition, "Don't leap before you look. Work methodically."
In the zero-sum Universe, you learn these adages for fear of what will happen if you don't.
In the Abundant Universe, you learn these adages for love of what will happen if you do.
But you spend your life learning and re-learning them.
We all feel that the power of the mind can solve any problem. We're taught that in school with tests and grades. Just get the right answer, know it, remember it, calculate it -- it's got to be the right one or you'll be punished with a bad grade.
So we get really up tight about thinking our way through problems. Sometimes we can stall out a project by being determined to do all the research for it in advance. You can't start writing your thesis until you know everything that will be in it. So you never start.
Also we learn early that the world is complicated and complex. There are a thousand considerations to be pondered before doing anything. For every reason to do something, there's a reason not to, maybe several.
When the reasons not to do something pile up and up and up, until you feel smothered, you are caught in an 8 Swords process, stymied and stagnated by reasons.
Very often, these 8 Swords situations are social or political and involve other people's imagined responses to your actions. You have business with this person, an affair with that person; what if one talks to the other?
Being "caught up in the affairs of wizards" is another story and plot that is symbolized by 8 Swords. Every simple thing that happens opens up huge long tangles of reasons why this and that, reasons not to do such and so, more complications piled on complications.
There is no such thing as thinking too much. But when you rely solely on thinking during the process of 8 Swords, the thoughts you produce are sharper, heavier, stronger than your own personal Will, and maybe even stronger than your character. It's not that they're wrong thoughts -- it's that they're too loud, too scary, too emphatic.
Any process ruled by Mercury will be exaggerated in 8. Remember communication, travel and writing are ruled by Mercury. Thus the editorial process described above is multiply emphasized. 8 Swords is where it all comes together for a writer.
Swords is all about habitual actions. Your fiction will expose inner mental habits you never knew were there, and a good editor will finger all of them, and it will hurt, and you will scream, squirm and avoid doing what's demanded.
So Swords is about unthinking actions, habits, and 8 is about thinking. During an 8 of Swords process, you can find yourself stalled out because you're thinking about your habits. You want to go back to 6 Swords and do it over, not go on to 9 Swords, because after all it's not perfect yet. (Mercury; perfectionism).
How do you flip over the 8 of Swords to break out into freedom of movement?
Well, remember Jacob's Ladder? How the 8 Swords overlays the 3 Pentacles?
Remember the essence of 3 is commitment. The psychological trick of getting out of the 8 Swords trap is to understand that you will take a loss.
The way out of the 8 Swords trap is to accept wounds. This is going to hurt.
Actions are depicted as Swords because the battlefield actually strips down all actions to their barest essence and lets us access action decisions with a part of our brain isn't usually in control - the hind brain, the animal within that just wants to stay alive.
Even in the Abundant Universe, there are battles, casualties, sacrifices, pain and growth.
On the battlefield, commanders assess the value of what is to be gained against how many lives it will cost, and how many casualties, how much equipment damaged or expended.
The familiar dilemma of needing to take various incompatible medications belongs in the 8 of Swords. It is solved with a "trade off" -- letting one condition worsen in order to treat another.
Which do you want to save, your sight or your heart?
Once understanding of the cost of action is reached and agreed on, free flowing energy flips the 8 of Swords over to the reverse, fear is sloughed off, and the Project Leader steps boldly onto the slippery, muddy field of an objective assessment of the state of the project.
Pain is accepted for the sake of gain.
It is a calculation, a science, a very cold calculation.
That is the cold calculation you must master in 8 Swords, a dispassionate, intellectualized assessment of what this gain is worth to you. What will you give up? How much pain can you endure? How much more blood can you afford to lose and still survive?
That is the exact calculation a writer makes when under editorial direction; what is it worth to you to get this book into print?
It sounds as if the 8 Swords is purely a zero-sum scenario.
But actually it's an exercise in free will.
Here you must apply the changes wrought by Love in 6 Swords and brought to Harmony in 7 Swords to make a fully informed free will choice using your whole mind.
The world is abundant. You have more than you need. You can afford to pay for what you want. You have to choose. You have to discern what you need as separate from what you want, and calculate what you will pay.
The image of the woman standing amid mud puddles surrounded by danger, blindfolded and bound, does capture that choice of what price you will pay. In order to get the blindfold off, she has to sidle up to a sword and run her bonds up and down the sharp edge. She'll ruin her shoes, likely cut her dress too, maybe bleed a little, but then she can take off the blindfold and do what she wants.
She's afraid because she thinks she's going to lose. When she understands that she'll only lose what she doesn't need or can replace, that the universe cradles her in abundance, then she will move through the 8 Swords and on.
Remember the old joke. A man notices a fly in his soup and shrieks to the waiter who says, "Don't worry. Flies don't drink much." The waiter is saying you can afford to feed the fly, but the customer is fearing diseases he might get from the fly. This is an 8 of Swords moment, a lack of meeting of minds, a moment driven by fear of loss, not confidence in abundance.
Your editor demands you cut out one whole character from your novel; you do it; and, many nightmares later, in the 6 of Pentacles, your book wins an award. That is how the Abundant Universe functions for those who have learned the lessons of the 7 of Swords Reversed.
Why not just save yourself all those tears and move with confidence through the 8 Swords process, knowing some of the dangers aren't imaginary, you will get hurt, but it's all right because you can afford it.
The Universe is Abundant.
Know that.
Act by that.
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://www.simegen.com/jl/
Monday, October 01, 2007
The Rest Of The Answers: Kel-Paten on the Hot Seat Part 2
Ready Room, Huntership REGALIA
Branden Kel-Paten didn’t mind being in the ready room. He certainly didn’t mind the fact that Sass was leaning over his shoulder and he loved the fact that her fingers lazily toyed with the hair at the nape of his neck. He hated that the fingers on her other hand pointed to a question on the screen before him.
“There,” she said and he could tell by the way a small vibration rumbled in her voice that she was trying hard not to giggle. “Answer these.”
They were back to the last set of questions he’d promised he’d answer. But these two…!
Q: Boxers or briefs?
Q: The only question I can think of is: Branden, do you have ANY idea of how gorgeous you are?
Kel-Paten groaned inwardly.
Sass nudged him. “C’mon, give it a go.”
“Fine. Boxers or briefs.” He thought for a moment or rather, tried to think like Sass for a moment. No, better. Serafino. “My answer would be, why would you want to know about a breed of dog as opposed to a collection of legal papers?”
He craned his neck around and tried to peer innocently at Sass. She cuffed him lightly on the back of the head.
“Smart aleck.” But she was laughing.
“And to the second, “ he continued, “no. If anything, I’m aware people find me unusual. Beyond that, it’s, well, embarrassing.”
“I so love a modest man,” Sass intoned lightly.
Now that made him grin. And it was worth the embarrassment.
Sass’s comm link pinged. She swung sideways then perched on the edge of the table as she flicked on the mike. “Sebastian.”
“We’re ready for you in navigation,” Perrin Rembert’s voice said through the small speaker.
“On my way. Gotta run,” she added after disconnecting the link. She brushed his mouth with a quick kiss but he reached up and trapped her before she could step back, and made the kiss last several minutes longer.
“Incentive,” he told her when they broke for air. “To finish this damned interview.”
“It’s good to know you’re so easily bribable.” She winked.
He waited until the door slid closed behind her before turning back to the screen and not without a tinge of trepidation. And the next question brought up a flood of equally unsettling memories:
Can you tell us something about the time you were separated? Did you expect to make it back to Sass?
Which time we were separated? he almost replied. But there was no way Alecia, the questioner, would know of all the times over the past almost-dozen years that he’d lost track of Tasha Sebastian and his nights had been the more sleepless because of it. When his own existence had been threatened, as it was almost daily if he was honest about it, yes and no. Like the time he was almost trapped by the Illithians on Antalkin Station. He’d filed yet one more good-bye message to her even while knowing the very filing of that kind of message gave him the perseverance to survive.
If nothing else, she’d receive all those messages upon his death and the fact that she might be horrified by their contents—or worse—find them and him ridiculous mortified him. He’d have died of shame if he hadn’t already been dead. So in a convoluted way, that kept him alive.
But when she’d left him so abruptly on the Dalkerris…his initial thought was she’d somehow been kidnapped, transported away by some enemy faction. Only when a hull-breach warning blared through the ship seconds later and the Traveler’s ID blared right along with it, did he understand what happened.
It took several weeks after that for him to understand he’d understood nothing at all.
But back to Alecia’s question. Did he think he’d escape from the Void a second time, with Rall and what was left of their crew? Frankly yes, or he’d die trying and if he died, he fully intended to pursue the possibility of becoming a ghost and haunting her. By the time he’d realized what was going on in the Triad, and by the time he understood the impossible possibility of the Void, he discounted nothing. He may not know if there was any kind of benefic deity in the universe but he did know there were things that science and logic couldn’t explain. And if he couldn’t make it back to Sass alive, then he’d toyed with the idea of encapsulating his cybernetic essence into a bio-mechanical plasma, sending that through and somehow melding with the Regalia. He’d be with her always, then, protecting her.
Of course, if Tasha Sebastian no longer captained the Regalia, that would prove problematic.
Fortunately, he’d not had to do that.
How did you make sure your letters wouldn't be found all those years. Since you had to be careful what you allowed yourself to think in regard to her, how did you keep the letters confidential?
“Evidently, not very well,” Kel-Paten replied, leaning back in his chair. So much for his impenetrable security programs.”My problem, and I’m sure you’ve heard Sass says this, is I think in a very linear, logical fashion. So I assumed any attack against my secreted files would be in a very linear, logical way. Sass’s methodologies often defy logic. I tried to get her to explain her thought processes to me one time and she shrugged and said, ‘I just make shit up as I go along.’ It’s damned hard to counter for that.”
If a genie granted you one wish...what would it be?
“That’s easy. To go back in time and take her off the Sarna Bogue. It would have spared her the grief the UC’s put her through in her role of Lady Sass. It would have spared her the grief of Lethant. I’m sure initially, she’d have been less than happy. But the Triad—-for all its recent problems—-would have provided her with a means of expanding her incredible creative potential. And we could have worked together, gotten to know each other sooner. Twelve years sooner. I would dearly have loved to have had those extra twelve years with her.”
An explosion of black and white fur appeared suddenly on the ready room table. Branden-friend! Tank sat and regarded Kel-Paten through wide green eyes.
Kel-Paten tickled the furzel under the chin as he shunted his answer to the ‘send’ file, then he clicked off the screen. It slid soundlessly into the desktop. Tank thwapped at it as it disappeared.
“Good riddance, eh, Tank?”
Work. No like work. Play!
“I have to meet up with Sass in navigation. Chart updates are due in because of the new security beacons.” The fact that Kel-Paten was explaining all this to a furzel only surfaced momentarily in his mind. He stood. “Play later.”
No play now?
“Later. Work first.”
Work, work, work, Tank grumbled. He padded to the edge of the table, flopped down into a chair then thumped to the floor. Work, work, work.
The ready room doors opened. Grinning, Kel-Paten followed the fluffy creature out in to the corridor…
OTHER NEWS:
Now, back in real time at Linnea’s desk in Florida, I’m thrilled to announce that today’s edition of PUBLISHERS WEEKLY carries a review for THE DOWN HOME ZOMBIE BLUES! This is an honor and a thrill! PW is the bible of the book industry and getting a mass market paperback reviewed (when one isn’t a huge name, and I’m not) is quite a coup:
The story's premise: artificially engineered creatures with razor-sharp claws and bodies covered in wriggling “energy worms” have gone rogue, dispersing across solar systems to breed and kill. It's up to alien soldiers like Lt. Jorie Mikkalah, essentially high-tech humans from another planet, to disable them. Jorie's search leads her to present-day Earth, where she must outsmart a glut of zombies holed up in Florida and rely on whip-smart detective Theo Petrakos for a base of operations, a convenient cover and a steady stock of “glorious” peanut butter. The narrative bounces easily from zombie attack to a visit with Theo's matchmaking neighbor, from military strategizing to tender moments between Theo and Jorie. This strange mesh of elements, held together by Sinclair's strong characterizations and methodical plotting, makes the book an unexpected treat. Though it may prove too light for sci-fi enthusiasts, fans of romance and fantasy hunting for edgier fare can stop singing the blues.(Dec.) – PUBLISHER’S WEEKLY 10/1/2007
~Linnea
PS: Happy 27th Anniversary to my real life hero, Robert Bernadino
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Cherry Picking
My real reason for blogging is to test the "Ping", however, since writing "Test" is too boring, I do have something useful to say.
Susan Kearney, one of the alien romance authors on this blog, will be one of my "Crazy Tuesday" guests on October 2nd, 10 am to noon, on my chaotic, unscripted "authors blogging aloud" show, talking about her book video for Kiss Me Deadly with Tammie King of Night Owl Romances.
Other authors with book videos will also chat about theirs, and I will hope for an opportunity to mention my own alien romances videos in passing.
http://www.nightowlromance.com/nightowlromance/BookFlicks/bfclip.asp?FlickId=12
Best wishes,
Rowena Cherry
Susan Kearney, one of the alien romance authors on this blog, will be one of my "Crazy Tuesday" guests on October 2nd, 10 am to noon, on my chaotic, unscripted "authors blogging aloud" show, talking about her book video for Kiss Me Deadly with Tammie King of Night Owl Romances.
Other authors with book videos will also chat about theirs, and I will hope for an opportunity to mention my own alien romances videos in passing.
http://www.nightowlromance.com/nightowlromance/BookFlicks/bfclip.asp?FlickId=12
Best wishes,
Rowena Cherry
Friday, September 28, 2007
His Preposterously huge Highness (answers to Kimberley's questions)
What authors inspired the contributors the most?
I am by nature a contrarian. If you tell me I can't do something, I want to prove you wrong. If you tell me I am sure to like
someone (or her book), I'll bend over backwards not to do so..... (and vice-versa)
Contrarian is probably a banker's euphemism for a grumpy old woman!
I started writing in 1991. Without intending any offense to anyone, and with the obvious exceptions of Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, Orson Scott Card, Tom Clancy, Arthur Hailey, Georgette Heyer, Terry Pratchett, Harry Harrison, Agatha Christie, Jo Beverley, George Orwell (aka Eric Blair), JRR Tolkein, William Shakespeare, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Robert Browning, and Jane Austen.... I don't think I'll name those thoroughly moderns who inspired me because they did so in the sense of "(expletive deleted) I could do better than that" to borrow a David Bowie line.
Of course, looking back on my unpublished self-confidence, I am appalled at myself, but I'd probably never have started if I didn't imagine that I could meet the standard.
By the way, I rather liked David Bowie's music and Ziggy Stardust persona. I also liked a great deal of what is now called Classic Rock, but which I might call Sci-Fi Romance rock... Fleetwood Mac, especially Stevie Nicks's music, Deep Purple, Pink Floyd, Cream, The Doors, the Rolling Stones, Jethro Tull, and many more.
My natural inclination might have been to write Historicals, but I went off that idea when my British respect for my betters rebelled at a few novels I encountered in which real historical figures were created villains, and in one notable case given yard-and-a-half long masculine genitalia and a penchant for misplacing it. Besides which, all the best titles of nobility which cunningly suggested that the hero had a perpetual hard-on had already been used... by several authors.
So, I created my own divided and dysfunctional ans sexually insatiable royal family and set them in outer space, and built a world for them starting with a sun, and an uninhabitable planet (a gas giant... because my sense of humor is low) and its moon.
definition of Science Fiction Romance and related sub-genres.
I prefer the term speculative romance, and I think of it as anything that comes under the Paranormal umbrella but which does not involve ghosts, vampires (unless they are aliens), zombies (ditto), Time Travel (unless to do with the Twin paradox), magic.... There must be an explanation for the happenings, even if it is highly creative, as in The Physics of Star Trek or The Science of Star Wars (or whatever the real titles were).
What are the absolute must-do conventions? Introduce the Hero before the Villain? Happily Ever After?
If you tell me there is a rule, I want to break it. In MATING NET, I introduced the villain first. He's an arrogant, sexy hunk. Maybe he isn't really the villain. He's the hero's identical twin, and he is the one who causes all the problems. Of course, that meant that New York was not ready for Djohn Kronos. I won't necessarily have sex on page 90, either, or whatever page it was once supposd to be. However, I will not mess with a happy ending, a happily ever after. Once my hero and heroine make a commitment to one another, they stay together... so far.
What do most have in common?
I think we all do more research than most readers might appreciate, we all respect our readers' intelligence, we all write thought-provoking material. We're all pretty enlightened and well read.
When did SFR become a recognized sub-genre?
I'm not a Historian of the genre. I'm not sure it is recognized. There still seems to be some confusion whether some of us are placed in the Romance or Sci Fi aisles. There's no confusion in my case. If my book is not certifiably Romance, I get to rewrite it until it is.
When did this happen and who led the way?
I think the way is still being led.
Who were the pioneers?
I like to think some of those on this blog are, also a number of the members of the SFWA chapter.
Thank you for some great questions, Kimberley!
I am by nature a contrarian. If you tell me I can't do something, I want to prove you wrong. If you tell me I am sure to like
someone (or her book), I'll bend over backwards not to do so..... (and vice-versa)
Contrarian is probably a banker's euphemism for a grumpy old woman!
I started writing in 1991. Without intending any offense to anyone, and with the obvious exceptions of Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, Orson Scott Card, Tom Clancy, Arthur Hailey, Georgette Heyer, Terry Pratchett, Harry Harrison, Agatha Christie, Jo Beverley, George Orwell (aka Eric Blair), JRR Tolkein, William Shakespeare, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Robert Browning, and Jane Austen.... I don't think I'll name those thoroughly moderns who inspired me because they did so in the sense of "(expletive deleted) I could do better than that" to borrow a David Bowie line.
Of course, looking back on my unpublished self-confidence, I am appalled at myself, but I'd probably never have started if I didn't imagine that I could meet the standard.
By the way, I rather liked David Bowie's music and Ziggy Stardust persona. I also liked a great deal of what is now called Classic Rock, but which I might call Sci-Fi Romance rock... Fleetwood Mac, especially Stevie Nicks's music, Deep Purple, Pink Floyd, Cream, The Doors, the Rolling Stones, Jethro Tull, and many more.
My natural inclination might have been to write Historicals, but I went off that idea when my British respect for my betters rebelled at a few novels I encountered in which real historical figures were created villains, and in one notable case given yard-and-a-half long masculine genitalia and a penchant for misplacing it. Besides which, all the best titles of nobility which cunningly suggested that the hero had a perpetual hard-on had already been used... by several authors.
So, I created my own divided and dysfunctional ans sexually insatiable royal family and set them in outer space, and built a world for them starting with a sun, and an uninhabitable planet (a gas giant... because my sense of humor is low) and its moon.
definition of Science Fiction Romance and related sub-genres.
I prefer the term speculative romance, and I think of it as anything that comes under the Paranormal umbrella but which does not involve ghosts, vampires (unless they are aliens), zombies (ditto), Time Travel (unless to do with the Twin paradox), magic.... There must be an explanation for the happenings, even if it is highly creative, as in The Physics of Star Trek or The Science of Star Wars (or whatever the real titles were).
What are the absolute must-do conventions? Introduce the Hero before the Villain? Happily Ever After?
If you tell me there is a rule, I want to break it. In MATING NET, I introduced the villain first. He's an arrogant, sexy hunk. Maybe he isn't really the villain. He's the hero's identical twin, and he is the one who causes all the problems. Of course, that meant that New York was not ready for Djohn Kronos. I won't necessarily have sex on page 90, either, or whatever page it was once supposd to be. However, I will not mess with a happy ending, a happily ever after. Once my hero and heroine make a commitment to one another, they stay together... so far.
What do most have in common?
I think we all do more research than most readers might appreciate, we all respect our readers' intelligence, we all write thought-provoking material. We're all pretty enlightened and well read.
When did SFR become a recognized sub-genre?
I'm not a Historian of the genre. I'm not sure it is recognized. There still seems to be some confusion whether some of us are placed in the Romance or Sci Fi aisles. There's no confusion in my case. If my book is not certifiably Romance, I get to rewrite it until it is.
When did this happen and who led the way?
I think the way is still being led.
Who were the pioneers?
I like to think some of those on this blog are, also a number of the members of the SFWA chapter.
Thank you for some great questions, Kimberley!
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Questions About SFR
Here are my answers to the questionnaire posted a couple of days ago:
What are the absolute must-do conventions (as in, Should one introduce the Hero before the Villain? Must there be a Happy Ever After in SFR?)
By the current publishing definition, a novel isn't a romance (strictly speaking) without a happy ending, defined as a pledge of love between hero and heroine. Not all love stories can be classified as romances; one that ends in tragedy isn't (by today's categorization). Without that “happy ending” feature, it would be an SF or fantasy novel with “romantic elements” or a romantic subplot. I could bend the boundaries so far as to concede that the ending might be “happy for now” rather than “happily ever after.” Other than that principle, which simply restates the essential conditions of the genre, I'd say there aren't any other absolutely required conventions. No, I don't think the hero has to be introduced before the villain. It's not uncommon for romantic suspense to begin with a prologue or opening scene that presents the antagonist in the midst of his villainy before we meet the hero or heroine. For a romance, however, I do think it's almost a required convention that we know from the beginning who the hero is. Yet traditional Gothic romances stretch even that expectation. (The innocent heroine's rakish husband may be under suspicion for villainous deeds.)
What do most have in common?
Besides the journey of the hero and heroine toward the declaration and fulfillment of their love, I see the only universally common feature of speculative romance to be some element that's contrary-to-fact in terms of the primary world we live in. Like the “straight” SF or fantasy author, the SFR writer creates a “secondary world” (as Tolkien puts it), whether a completely different world in a magical realm or on another planet, an alternate-history version of our Earth, or an environment much like ours except for the presence of vampires, werewolves, dragons, magic, psi powers, visiting aliens, etc. The speculative or magical element has to be real within the world of the story, not an illusion or a hoax; the latter would place book in a different subgenre. Other than these elements, we could say most have in common a strong alpha-type hero, but doubtless even this, like almost all other common factors and conventions we might propose, has exceptions. The wonder of this subgenre is the wide variety of stories and characters it encompasses.
What authors inspired the participating authors on this blog?
For me: Suzy McKee Charnas, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, Jacqueline Lichtenberg and Jean Lorrah (Sime~Gen universe), Marion Zimmer Bradley—I have many other favorite authors, but those are the main ones whose work has directly affected the subject matter and themes I've been inspired to write about.
When did SFR become a recognized sub-genre? And who led the way?
As far as my memory serves, SF, fantasy, and paranormal romance began to be marketed under those terms in the mid- to late-1990s. While I could mention many authors and works that contributed to the prehistory of the subgenre (e.g., myths and fairy tales such as “Cupid and Psyche” and “Beauty and the Beast,” plays and movies such as DEATH TAKES A HOLIDAY and THE GHOST AND MRS. MUIR [based on a novel, of course], some of Bradley's Darkover novels, Yarbro's HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA, etc.), I'm sure of “who led the way” only in the area of vampire romance. That provides a useful boundary marker, I think, because paranormal romance first caught on as a subgenre because of the appeal of vampire romances. The first vampire novel I ever saw marketed as a romance (as opposed to vampire novels with romantic elements marketed under horror) was OBSESSION, by Lori Herter (1991). New readers coming to the field today can have no idea what a thrilling innovation it was to see a romance novel with a black-caped hero and a bat on the cover.
Who were the pioneers?
Again, I can speak with certainty only about my specialty, vampire fiction. Aside from Herter's delightful four-book series (undeservedly neglected and sadly out of print), other pioneers in vampire romance include Linda Lael Miller, Maggie Shayne, Nancy Gideon, and Amanda Ashley.
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
7 of Swords - Conflict Avoidance
As noted previously, this is a chapter in a book about the Tarot aimed at Intermediate students, not beginners or advanced students. It is particularly aimed at writers.
Updated and expanded compilation of all these Tarot Just For Writers entries is now available on Kindle:
The Wands and Cups Volumes and the Swords and Pentacles Volumes, are now all available separately on Kindle. The 5 Volumes combined are also available on Kindle as one book, cheaper than buying them individually.
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This series is designed not for the beginner or the advanced student, but for the intermediate student and specifically for writers doing worldbuilding..
---------------
The meaning of a Tarot Minor Arcana resides in the placement on the Tree of Life (i.e. the number on the card) plus the "World" or Suit of the card. For the Tree of Life and the Jacob's Ladder diagrams see:
http://web.onetel.net.uk/~maggyw/treeladder.html
On the right hand side of the Jacob's Ladder diagram, we are now looking at the circle that is #3 UP from the bottom of the right-hand side.
From the 6 of Swords - Love as a transitive verb - we got here to 7 Swords by making some sort of substantive change in habit patterns, very likely because of the interaction with a loved one. (stopping smoking, change of job to follow spouse's career, trying to be good enough for one you worship from afar, etc)
The image on the Waite Rider deck shows a fellow stealing swords from an encampment of tents, sneaking stealthily away.
Remember the whole business of being alive is the process of channeling pure divine energy down from beyond Existence to Here-And-Now. Every breath, every blink, and every book you undertake to write, every speech you give, everything is composed of all the processes represented by the circles on Jacob's Ladder. Every bit of energy you bring into existence is filtered through ALL these processes. Each circle contains within it all the other circles on Jacob's Ladder. It's the holistic view of the connection between Creation and The Creator.
Understanding that view makes being alive easier.
So, note the difference from the 5 of Swords where the fellow has taken another's swords by force and gloats about it, not knowing he's done wrong.
Here, swords are taken by stealth and there's guilt in the body language.
Something changed in the passage through 6, something having to do with the ability to empathize with others, to know right from wrong, to know that having a right to do something doesn't necessarily mean you must do it, or even that you may!
The 5 on the Tree of Life is associated with Mars, the god of war, yes, but the ruler of Aries, the First House, the source of Identity, of ego strength. It's your umph, your get-up-and-go. It's the power that lets you clean the whole house, singing.
The image for 5 Swords is the king in his chariot going to war. In 5 Swords there is a readiness to fight for what's right. (Politicians are always saying, "I'll FIGHT for Education!" and I'm always replying, "Why fight? Just do it. Go around spoiling for a fight, you'll get one.")
In 6 Swords, "what" is right got modified by the experience of love.
This sequence of processes is the essence of the Romance Novel about a man and woman who meet on a battle field, save each other's lives, and discover (in 6) that to live together they must leave the lives they know as Mercenaries. Here, in 7 Swords, we begin to see the result of that decision.
In 7 Swords we come to some confusion about what is right and what that means in terms of actions -- and thus of relationships.
7 on the Tree of Life is associated with the Astrological symbol Venus which is all about Relationships.
Venus is the ruler of Libra, the 7th House of relationships with others, of marriage, but also ruler of Taurus, the Second House and source of our own values. (Some people choose their values to please their friends; others use their values to select their friends.)
So whatever happened in the transit through 6 - Love - affected values and relationships in some profound way which now becomes apparent.
In the World of Action, Swords, the willingness to fight became a willingness to avoid fighting, to avoid conflicts.
Libras, of all the natal signs of the zodiac, are known as peacemakers.
The Libra child in the family is the picky eater, the one who leaves the table when the other kids get rough, the one who needs to wear certain colors. As Libras grow up, they become managers, politicians, corporate ladder climbers, because they have the knack of being liked and creating teamwork.
Taurus can be about money, but Taurans are born with an appreciation of composition, beauty, and an ability to prioritize because they establish their own value system very efficiently.
Taurus is a very practical sign that sees sensuous beauty as practical. Venus as ruler of Taurus is about your Relationship to what you value and how you determine what you care about.
Venus as ruler of Taurus is about the perception of beauty, in a different way from what we discussed in 6 Swords, but remember 7 contains 6.
You will also find echos of the 2 of Swords in the 7 of Swords.
Note the 2 of Swords on Jacob's Ladder is the 5th circle up on the right-hand side.
All the circles on the right hand side have some essential core meaning in common, as do the ones on the left, and the ones in the middle. Discovering what that similarity is will lead you to the advanced level of study.
We can discover the meaning of the 7 of Swords by combining the attributes we understand about 7-ness with Swords-ness.
Here, in 7 Swords, Peace becomes a transitive verb.
Peace is a concept which is virtually undefined in the zero-sum view of the universe, which is the basis of the Waite Rider Tarot images.
Where influenced by Libra (which is somewhere in your Natal Chart, as is Venus) you might find yourself so sensitive to personal strife when bringing a project through 7-Swords that you will do literally anything to avoid conflict, including abrogating the self, subjugating the self, or attacking clandestinely.
Libra is not inherently that sensitive. That sensitivity happens because of too much internal, subconscious tension on your heartstrings.
Low-strung, Libra is a cardinal sign -- a positive, starter of projects, an instigator and manager with harmonizing heartstrings.
But in our zero-sum culture, we often substitute a habit pattern of conflict avoidance for peace. That's why the Waite Ryder card image highlights that most common experience of the 7 Swords process.
The 7-Swords conflict-avoidance actions are usually intended to take charge of the situation.
Writers note: 7-Swords is the part of the plotting process where most writers make mistakes or find themselves unable to imagine the next action of their main character. When you, as writer, are avoiding a confrontation with conflict inside yourself, your characters will be unable to do anything but wait for rescue.
The conflict-avoider waiting for rescue can become every bully's dream victim, too. Anything to please, anything to appease. The one who accepts all the guilt -- "just don't yell at me."
The cardinal signs are always trying to do something, to start, or control, or get what they want. The cardinal signs are Aries, Cancer, Libra and Capricorn. These are the pro-active signs (remember everyone has all signs and all planets, just mixed up differently. All signs, planets and attributes, behaviors and tendencies are in us all, and brought to the fore sometime in life by transits.)
The Libra in you needs beauty, harmony, light sound and music, the heart pumping love, lots of people around, plenty of family and associates galore.
When manifesting as the conflict-avoider, the 7-Swords can prompt every sort of trickery and deceit to "get away with" whatever action seems likely to satisfy those needs.
When manifesting with a solid assertiveness, the 7-Swords process leaves love and harmony behind in a spreading wake.
Whether, in the development of your project (writing a book, building a house, courting a life-mate) you experience the process of 7-Swords as sneaky deceit or as an emitter of pure harmony depends to a large extent on whether you see the world as a zero-sum game.
If working in the zero-sum game model of the universe, where in order for there to be a winner, there must be a loser, then the lessons of 6 Swords will lead to conflict-avoiding behavior in the 7 of Swords.
Why? Because the 7-Swords process is Cardinal (like Libra) and driven to GET what is needed, while likewise maintaining peace.
The way to win but avoid conflict is to steal, sneak, sow confusion and snatch, -- to GET what you want, behind others' backs so they won't attack you.
7 Swords pretty much explains every I LOVE LUCY (the TV show) plot: ways of manipulating relationships from a position of weakness (feigned and otherwise).
If, on the other hand, you see the world as abundant, then it's never necessary to take what another person has, leaving them without. There's plenty. You can go get some for yourself from the Source. Everyone can be a winner and there doesn't have to be losers.
In Magick, that's called The Law Of Abundance.
The 7 of Swords is not about things -- it's about actions, methods of getting (i.e. it's about PLOTTING A NOVEL).
Sometimes what you, or your characters, are out to get isn't a thing - it can be prestige, power, control, intimacy, psychological validation.
7 Swords can have a lot to do with flimflamming, with casting illusions and slight of hand to misdirect attention -- so you can grab what you want.
7 Swords is the process of copycat behavior, stealing another person's actions. By copying what another person does, you expect to get what you imagine they have.
It's also where you get "I'm doing this for your own good." and "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions."
It is keeping up with the Joneses, believing the outward show, the seeming of power over others is all there is, and there is no inward price.
7 has a lot to do with imagination and thus creativity, another Venus function.
Writers of Romance will see how the 7-Swords process in the development of a Relationship can be driven by fear that the new Lover will not tolerate their old, habitual, actions, so to avoid strife they indulge in secret.
In Reverse, 7 Swords points the way out of this passive-aggressive trap built of fear of others' emotions.
Seeing one's own actions through the pain you are causing another changes everything.
Now you see what you've done, you see your failure, and you must make amends.
To do that you will give up a habitual action, return what you've taken, confess, express regret and remorse, turn your heart inside out to make it right with your victim.
You will accept advice, try harder than ever, hold nothing back, cry out to the heavens for help -- and as a result, there's a good chance events will carry you on to a better place.
Remember this is the plot basis of a novel. If your protagonist hadn't imagined the rage of her Significant Other and decided on subtrefuge, she wouldn't have gotten into enough trouble to be able to learn the lesson from the results of her actions.
Every card in the Tarot deck is ultimately good - even when the lesson is harsh.
The 7 Swords (Reversed in the Waite Rider deck) is the path of tshuvah, the path of return to the source of your Soul, the path toward becoming a tzadik. It is actually the key step toward becoming wholly at peace within yourself and in total harmony with your environment.
In a novel, 7-Swords Reversed is where the character "arcs" or changes substantially via an epiphany, a Dark Night Of The Soul, and does their act of contrition or act of faith. And it is followed by a release of the tension that was causing the conflict or its avoidance.
So, in 4 of Swords, you produced a copious flow of words to fill up your novel. In 5 Swords you showed it around and got told to cut and rewrite -- it may have felt like rejection of your heart's greatest creation, but in 6 Swords you left that first draft behind and forged bravely ahead to a new version, suddenly totally in love with the new vision.
In 7 Swords old habits reasserted themselves and you tried to sneak in some of the bits you really loved and just couldn't cut; maybe nobody would notice!
Now you've seen that your 5 Swords critics had a point - those bits just don't belong in this story (maybe in another, but not here), so you've found your main character's inner conflict, taught him a lesson he'll never forget, and brought the conflict to a satisfying release of tension. He's become a wiser soul, as have you, as will your readers.
Now you're ready for a serious encounter with objectivity -- submission to a paying editor.
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://www.simegen.com/jl/
Updated and expanded compilation of all these Tarot Just For Writers entries is now available on Kindle:
The Wands and Cups Volumes and the Swords and Pentacles Volumes, are now all available separately on Kindle. The 5 Volumes combined are also available on Kindle as one book, cheaper than buying them individually.
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---------------
The meaning of a Tarot Minor Arcana resides in the placement on the Tree of Life (i.e. the number on the card) plus the "World" or Suit of the card. For the Tree of Life and the Jacob's Ladder diagrams see:
http://web.onetel.net.uk/~maggyw/treeladder.html
On the right hand side of the Jacob's Ladder diagram, we are now looking at the circle that is #3 UP from the bottom of the right-hand side.
From the 6 of Swords - Love as a transitive verb - we got here to 7 Swords by making some sort of substantive change in habit patterns, very likely because of the interaction with a loved one. (stopping smoking, change of job to follow spouse's career, trying to be good enough for one you worship from afar, etc)
The image on the Waite Rider deck shows a fellow stealing swords from an encampment of tents, sneaking stealthily away.
Remember the whole business of being alive is the process of channeling pure divine energy down from beyond Existence to Here-And-Now. Every breath, every blink, and every book you undertake to write, every speech you give, everything is composed of all the processes represented by the circles on Jacob's Ladder. Every bit of energy you bring into existence is filtered through ALL these processes. Each circle contains within it all the other circles on Jacob's Ladder. It's the holistic view of the connection between Creation and The Creator.
Understanding that view makes being alive easier.
So, note the difference from the 5 of Swords where the fellow has taken another's swords by force and gloats about it, not knowing he's done wrong.
Here, swords are taken by stealth and there's guilt in the body language.
Something changed in the passage through 6, something having to do with the ability to empathize with others, to know right from wrong, to know that having a right to do something doesn't necessarily mean you must do it, or even that you may!
The 5 on the Tree of Life is associated with Mars, the god of war, yes, but the ruler of Aries, the First House, the source of Identity, of ego strength. It's your umph, your get-up-and-go. It's the power that lets you clean the whole house, singing.
The image for 5 Swords is the king in his chariot going to war. In 5 Swords there is a readiness to fight for what's right. (Politicians are always saying, "I'll FIGHT for Education!" and I'm always replying, "Why fight? Just do it. Go around spoiling for a fight, you'll get one.")
In 6 Swords, "what" is right got modified by the experience of love.
This sequence of processes is the essence of the Romance Novel about a man and woman who meet on a battle field, save each other's lives, and discover (in 6) that to live together they must leave the lives they know as Mercenaries. Here, in 7 Swords, we begin to see the result of that decision.
In 7 Swords we come to some confusion about what is right and what that means in terms of actions -- and thus of relationships.
7 on the Tree of Life is associated with the Astrological symbol Venus which is all about Relationships.
Venus is the ruler of Libra, the 7th House of relationships with others, of marriage, but also ruler of Taurus, the Second House and source of our own values. (Some people choose their values to please their friends; others use their values to select their friends.)
So whatever happened in the transit through 6 - Love - affected values and relationships in some profound way which now becomes apparent.
In the World of Action, Swords, the willingness to fight became a willingness to avoid fighting, to avoid conflicts.
Libras, of all the natal signs of the zodiac, are known as peacemakers.
The Libra child in the family is the picky eater, the one who leaves the table when the other kids get rough, the one who needs to wear certain colors. As Libras grow up, they become managers, politicians, corporate ladder climbers, because they have the knack of being liked and creating teamwork.
Taurus can be about money, but Taurans are born with an appreciation of composition, beauty, and an ability to prioritize because they establish their own value system very efficiently.
Taurus is a very practical sign that sees sensuous beauty as practical. Venus as ruler of Taurus is about your Relationship to what you value and how you determine what you care about.
Venus as ruler of Taurus is about the perception of beauty, in a different way from what we discussed in 6 Swords, but remember 7 contains 6.
You will also find echos of the 2 of Swords in the 7 of Swords.
Note the 2 of Swords on Jacob's Ladder is the 5th circle up on the right-hand side.
All the circles on the right hand side have some essential core meaning in common, as do the ones on the left, and the ones in the middle. Discovering what that similarity is will lead you to the advanced level of study.
We can discover the meaning of the 7 of Swords by combining the attributes we understand about 7-ness with Swords-ness.
Here, in 7 Swords, Peace becomes a transitive verb.
Peace is a concept which is virtually undefined in the zero-sum view of the universe, which is the basis of the Waite Rider Tarot images.
Where influenced by Libra (which is somewhere in your Natal Chart, as is Venus) you might find yourself so sensitive to personal strife when bringing a project through 7-Swords that you will do literally anything to avoid conflict, including abrogating the self, subjugating the self, or attacking clandestinely.
Libra is not inherently that sensitive. That sensitivity happens because of too much internal, subconscious tension on your heartstrings.
Low-strung, Libra is a cardinal sign -- a positive, starter of projects, an instigator and manager with harmonizing heartstrings.
But in our zero-sum culture, we often substitute a habit pattern of conflict avoidance for peace. That's why the Waite Ryder card image highlights that most common experience of the 7 Swords process.
The 7-Swords conflict-avoidance actions are usually intended to take charge of the situation.
Writers note: 7-Swords is the part of the plotting process where most writers make mistakes or find themselves unable to imagine the next action of their main character. When you, as writer, are avoiding a confrontation with conflict inside yourself, your characters will be unable to do anything but wait for rescue.
The conflict-avoider waiting for rescue can become every bully's dream victim, too. Anything to please, anything to appease. The one who accepts all the guilt -- "just don't yell at me."
The cardinal signs are always trying to do something, to start, or control, or get what they want. The cardinal signs are Aries, Cancer, Libra and Capricorn. These are the pro-active signs (remember everyone has all signs and all planets, just mixed up differently. All signs, planets and attributes, behaviors and tendencies are in us all, and brought to the fore sometime in life by transits.)
The Libra in you needs beauty, harmony, light sound and music, the heart pumping love, lots of people around, plenty of family and associates galore.
When manifesting as the conflict-avoider, the 7-Swords can prompt every sort of trickery and deceit to "get away with" whatever action seems likely to satisfy those needs.
When manifesting with a solid assertiveness, the 7-Swords process leaves love and harmony behind in a spreading wake.
Whether, in the development of your project (writing a book, building a house, courting a life-mate) you experience the process of 7-Swords as sneaky deceit or as an emitter of pure harmony depends to a large extent on whether you see the world as a zero-sum game.
If working in the zero-sum game model of the universe, where in order for there to be a winner, there must be a loser, then the lessons of 6 Swords will lead to conflict-avoiding behavior in the 7 of Swords.
Why? Because the 7-Swords process is Cardinal (like Libra) and driven to GET what is needed, while likewise maintaining peace.
The way to win but avoid conflict is to steal, sneak, sow confusion and snatch, -- to GET what you want, behind others' backs so they won't attack you.
7 Swords pretty much explains every I LOVE LUCY (the TV show) plot: ways of manipulating relationships from a position of weakness (feigned and otherwise).
If, on the other hand, you see the world as abundant, then it's never necessary to take what another person has, leaving them without. There's plenty. You can go get some for yourself from the Source. Everyone can be a winner and there doesn't have to be losers.
In Magick, that's called The Law Of Abundance.
The 7 of Swords is not about things -- it's about actions, methods of getting (i.e. it's about PLOTTING A NOVEL).
Sometimes what you, or your characters, are out to get isn't a thing - it can be prestige, power, control, intimacy, psychological validation.
7 Swords can have a lot to do with flimflamming, with casting illusions and slight of hand to misdirect attention -- so you can grab what you want.
7 Swords is the process of copycat behavior, stealing another person's actions. By copying what another person does, you expect to get what you imagine they have.
It's also where you get "I'm doing this for your own good." and "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions."
It is keeping up with the Joneses, believing the outward show, the seeming of power over others is all there is, and there is no inward price.
7 has a lot to do with imagination and thus creativity, another Venus function.
Writers of Romance will see how the 7-Swords process in the development of a Relationship can be driven by fear that the new Lover will not tolerate their old, habitual, actions, so to avoid strife they indulge in secret.
In Reverse, 7 Swords points the way out of this passive-aggressive trap built of fear of others' emotions.
Seeing one's own actions through the pain you are causing another changes everything.
Now you see what you've done, you see your failure, and you must make amends.
To do that you will give up a habitual action, return what you've taken, confess, express regret and remorse, turn your heart inside out to make it right with your victim.
You will accept advice, try harder than ever, hold nothing back, cry out to the heavens for help -- and as a result, there's a good chance events will carry you on to a better place.
Remember this is the plot basis of a novel. If your protagonist hadn't imagined the rage of her Significant Other and decided on subtrefuge, she wouldn't have gotten into enough trouble to be able to learn the lesson from the results of her actions.
Every card in the Tarot deck is ultimately good - even when the lesson is harsh.
The 7 Swords (Reversed in the Waite Rider deck) is the path of tshuvah, the path of return to the source of your Soul, the path toward becoming a tzadik. It is actually the key step toward becoming wholly at peace within yourself and in total harmony with your environment.
In a novel, 7-Swords Reversed is where the character "arcs" or changes substantially via an epiphany, a Dark Night Of The Soul, and does their act of contrition or act of faith. And it is followed by a release of the tension that was causing the conflict or its avoidance.
So, in 4 of Swords, you produced a copious flow of words to fill up your novel. In 5 Swords you showed it around and got told to cut and rewrite -- it may have felt like rejection of your heart's greatest creation, but in 6 Swords you left that first draft behind and forged bravely ahead to a new version, suddenly totally in love with the new vision.
In 7 Swords old habits reasserted themselves and you tried to sneak in some of the bits you really loved and just couldn't cut; maybe nobody would notice!
Now you've seen that your 5 Swords critics had a point - those bits just don't belong in this story (maybe in another, but not here), so you've found your main character's inner conflict, taught him a lesson he'll never forget, and brought the conflict to a satisfying release of tension. He's become a wiser soul, as have you, as will your readers.
Now you're ready for a serious encounter with objectivity -- submission to a paying editor.
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://www.simegen.com/jl/
Monday, September 24, 2007
The Admiral Answers, Part 1
Ready Room, Huntership REGALIA
The starfield twinkled as it always did at sublight speeds, but even more so because the REGALIA skirted the edges of the Staceyan Belt. The pinpoints of light—some larger, some smaller—arced across the velvet darkness like a sash of jewels that even the most pampered Glitterkiln socialite would envy.
Branden Kel-Paten noticed none of it. He was in the ready room to answer questions. Deep, personal questions. He slid back the small covering on his left wrist and spiked into ship’s status through the chair’s armrest feed. It was the only way he could keep himself from pacing the room—or worse, fleeing it in panic.
But he’d promised Sass he’d do this.
“They like you, Branden,” she’d told him, not just an hour ago but several times over the past week. “They really do, and you have to understand this is just part of it. When people like you, they want to know more about you.”
More of his theories on starship design, he could understand. But this…this! He’d paged through the dozens of questions submitted several times over the last few days. Then new ones arrived and he was close, oh so close to tracking down Sass in her office and tell her to call this whole godsdamned thing off.
But he knew she’d just laugh and then wrap her arms around his waist and look up at him the way only she could… and his complaints would vaporize under the faith, the trust he could read in her eyes.
He could easily face squadrons of enemy fighters or an entire contingent of armed assassins and blink not an eye. But his deepest fears and desires, his thoughts, his inner demons…it was only because he’d learned that Sass’s inner demons weren’t all that different from his own that he knew she’d never ask him to do something she herself wouldn’t do.
So here he was.
A small light on the edge of his screen flashed. Incoming connection. He accessed the release code in his mind and—with a loud sigh—watched as a familiar female face appeared on the screen. Two familiar faces, actually. One was a woman, a middle-aged blonde who—had he not known better—he could have sworn could have qualified (visually, at any rate) to be Sass’s mother. The other was a smaller face, black and white and furry. That face was at the moment busy cleaning a plumey black tail.
The woman smiled knowingly. “Ready, Admiral?”
He nodded slowly, spiked out and steeled himself. Let the games begin.
How does it feel to 'spike in' to your ship? Is it painful or uncomfortable--or does it make you feel energized? Does it give you a sense of power or only a sense of isolation because of who and what you are?
“It depends on the ship,” Kel-Paten said, thinking, okay, this isn’t too bad. Laurie’s question was logical. “The Vaxxar was designed to integrate with me so the spike was a seamless process. After years, and you have to realize I was on that ship for over a decade, it was something I did without thinking. When you open the door to your house, or put your hand on a kitchen cabinet to open it, are you fully conscious of the act? I’d guess not. That’s probably the best way I can explain it to you.
“But the experience after spiking in is quite incredible. Energized is a very good way to describe it. I’m still speaking of the Vax, of course. Now with ships where I had to rig a dataport, yes, that could be problematic. Uncomfortable. Like,” and he thought for a moment, “wearing someone else’s shoes. The function is correct but the execution is lacking.
“As for a sense of isolation, well. Yes and no. When I’m fully integrated with the ship, I’m aware of so much of the ship that the sense of myself dissolves into that. Which is fine when I’m alone. But if I have to spike in with others around then, yes, I can feel very distant from them. My perceptions are so much wider at that moment. “
If you fell in a pond, would you short-circuit?
“No.” Kel-Paten glanced at the question’s tag on the screen. “Kimber An.” He shook his head. “I’m not a hair dryer. I’m an excellent swimmer, by the way. Something I haven’t yet been able to convince Sass to try.”
Sure, you're brave when it comes to blasting bad guy aliens, but what would you do if someone handed you a newborn baby human and you couldn't hand it off to anyone and Sass is totally clueless about babies and it would die if you didn't take care of it?
Kimber An again, Kel-Paten noted. Of course. The question revolved around babies. “I’m progr—fully trained in the necessary medical procedures for humans and other sentients at all stages of life, including, yes, human babies. An infant entrusted to my care wouldn’t perish mostly because,” and Kel-Paten allowed one corner of his mouth to quirk up slightly, “I’d track you down, Kimber, and hand the child to you. I do know an expert when I see one.”
I'm curious about your first confrontation with Captain Sebastian, many years ago. It's obvious that some not-exactly-regulation thoughts were going through your head during that face-off. Do you and Tasha ever look back on that time and laugh?
“A number of thoughts were going through my mind that time on the Sarna Bogue, Laurie. The most prominent of which was the fact that I had to requisition the ship’s cargo and had been inexplicably prevented from doing so. Inexplicably, you understand, because the Sarna Bogue should have been—what’s your expression?—a cake walk. Rostikov was nothing if not ineffectual. His crew usually aspired to the same lofty heights. To find myself so neatly locked out and by this, this—“ and he waved his right hand in the air— “imp who didn’t even bother to don her uniform.” He shook his head. “Yes, before you ask, she knows what I thought that day. She still laughs at me.
“And yes, when I moved beyond my expected annoyance, I was decidedly intrigued. She didn’t back down, you know,” he continued, his voice softening. “Everyone does or rather, at that point in time, everyone did. Sass intrigued me because she challenged me. That was a rare occurrence in my life. She’s a rare occurrence in my life.”
I would like to know how the cyborg transition affected him and his relationship with his family. Especially his brother. They seem really close, but obviously have to hide it.
“That could be a book in and of itself, Mary,” Kel-Paten said. “How did it affect me. Well.” He huffed out a short sigh. Why did the memories never fade? “Initially, it was horrible. Yes, I’d been trained and prepared for what was going to happen. I was told how glorious this was going to be, all the things I’d be able to do. Before the surgeries, I was honestly quite excited. I had a purpose, a definite positive one. I saw myself as some kind of hero and when you’re fourteen, fifteen years old, that’s the things dreams are made of. I think that’s probably why it all became so horrible. Because I never felt like a hero . I felt like a…well, I felt far too different. And clumsy. Relearning to walk was frustrating. Relearning how to hold a glass of juice was embarrassing.
“There was a lot of pain, a lot of problems. It’s not something I’d wish on anyone. And as for my family, Rall’s the only one I consider family. He just accepted me. Whatever was done to me, he simply accepted it. He was a cheerful child. All right. He was goofy. He always had some prank going, was always making faces behind the technicians’ backs. And before you ask, no, I don’t know why he was allowed such access to the labs or to me. But he was and what little sanity I retained is solely his doing.
“I didn’t initially know he was my brother. I knew there was some relationship because he was so often around when I was growing up and during the surgeries. I did know he was Rafe Kel-Tyra’s son. It wasn’t until I was in the academy and decided to hack into the Triad’s locked records on me that I found out Rafe was my primary biological donor. Which made Rall my brother, yes. It worried me for a while that Rafe was going to augment Rall, too. I wouldn’t have let that happen. I was totally loyal to the Triad. I accepted what they did to me because I knew I’d been created for that purpose. But I would not have stood by and let them augment my brother.”
What sign are you?
“Technically, Donna, that doesn’t come into play here. Our constellations are different from your world’s. However, I’ve worked on a recalculation and the closest approximation would be Aries. My birthday—reconfigured to your world—would be 15 April.”
You've probably been in love with Sass from the moment you first saw her, but my question is this. Were you already able to override your emo-inhibitors? Or was it your love for Sass that gave you that ability?
“Actually, Kathy, I was annoyed and intrigued when I first saw her. Love didn’t enter into the equation at that point. It wasn’t something I felt capable of or more so, it wasn’t something I felt I deserved. But Sass and her attitude fascinated me. I wanted to spend time with her because being around her was like that clichéd breath of fresh air. Time was running short on the Sarna Bogue. We had to get back to the Vax. And I was surprised to realize how much I did not want to leave her behind. I also realized how wasted a talent like hers was on the Bogue.
“I knew she was pretty and that’s what scared me. Women didn’t like me. Pretty women didn’t like me at all. And here was a pretty and creative and intelligent woman. I didn’t have a chance.
“Overriding my emo-inhibitors was something I’d been doing for quite some time. First of all, it was a tremendously flawed program. Anger is permissible but affection is not? Emotions aren’t that cleanly divisible. Once I realized how easy it was to be angry, it wasn’t that difficult to test to see if other emotions could break through.
“What the inhibitor does is allow me the option of shutting emotions off. That’s saved my life more than once. My biggest problem, though, wasn’t that I couldn’t feel love or affection. It’s that I had no idea what to do with it when I did. Not a lot of practice.” Kel-Paten grimaced wryly. “That’s one of the reasons I started dictating log entries to her. Practice. Practice talking about how I felt, what I wanted to tell her. I’m a military officer. We run a lot of drills, a lot of simulations and scenarios. The logs were my way to try to make sure that if I ever had a chance to talk to her—just casually—that I wouldn’t trip over my tongue and make a complete idiot of myself. Which, of course, I did anyway. Because none of my practice drills ever included how standing near her would make me feel. Or the kinds of things she’d say—the gods only knows what’s going to come out of her mouth—and that I’ve have nothing to say in kind. She still—”
A red light suddenly flashed in the corner of the screen but Kel-Paten was already spiking in and receiving the data from his link with the ship.
“If you’ll all excuse me, we have a Rebashee freighter convoy issuing a distress signal.” He spiked out and pushed himself to his feet. “Next week, then, barring any more emergencies?”
The starfield twinkled as it always did at sublight speeds, but even more so because the REGALIA skirted the edges of the Staceyan Belt. The pinpoints of light—some larger, some smaller—arced across the velvet darkness like a sash of jewels that even the most pampered Glitterkiln socialite would envy.
Branden Kel-Paten noticed none of it. He was in the ready room to answer questions. Deep, personal questions. He slid back the small covering on his left wrist and spiked into ship’s status through the chair’s armrest feed. It was the only way he could keep himself from pacing the room—or worse, fleeing it in panic.
But he’d promised Sass he’d do this.
“They like you, Branden,” she’d told him, not just an hour ago but several times over the past week. “They really do, and you have to understand this is just part of it. When people like you, they want to know more about you.”
More of his theories on starship design, he could understand. But this…this! He’d paged through the dozens of questions submitted several times over the last few days. Then new ones arrived and he was close, oh so close to tracking down Sass in her office and tell her to call this whole godsdamned thing off.
But he knew she’d just laugh and then wrap her arms around his waist and look up at him the way only she could… and his complaints would vaporize under the faith, the trust he could read in her eyes.
He could easily face squadrons of enemy fighters or an entire contingent of armed assassins and blink not an eye. But his deepest fears and desires, his thoughts, his inner demons…it was only because he’d learned that Sass’s inner demons weren’t all that different from his own that he knew she’d never ask him to do something she herself wouldn’t do.
So here he was.
A small light on the edge of his screen flashed. Incoming connection. He accessed the release code in his mind and—with a loud sigh—watched as a familiar female face appeared on the screen. Two familiar faces, actually. One was a woman, a middle-aged blonde who—had he not known better—he could have sworn could have qualified (visually, at any rate) to be Sass’s mother. The other was a smaller face, black and white and furry. That face was at the moment busy cleaning a plumey black tail.
The woman smiled knowingly. “Ready, Admiral?”
He nodded slowly, spiked out and steeled himself. Let the games begin.
How does it feel to 'spike in' to your ship? Is it painful or uncomfortable--or does it make you feel energized? Does it give you a sense of power or only a sense of isolation because of who and what you are?
“It depends on the ship,” Kel-Paten said, thinking, okay, this isn’t too bad. Laurie’s question was logical. “The Vaxxar was designed to integrate with me so the spike was a seamless process. After years, and you have to realize I was on that ship for over a decade, it was something I did without thinking. When you open the door to your house, or put your hand on a kitchen cabinet to open it, are you fully conscious of the act? I’d guess not. That’s probably the best way I can explain it to you.
“But the experience after spiking in is quite incredible. Energized is a very good way to describe it. I’m still speaking of the Vax, of course. Now with ships where I had to rig a dataport, yes, that could be problematic. Uncomfortable. Like,” and he thought for a moment, “wearing someone else’s shoes. The function is correct but the execution is lacking.
“As for a sense of isolation, well. Yes and no. When I’m fully integrated with the ship, I’m aware of so much of the ship that the sense of myself dissolves into that. Which is fine when I’m alone. But if I have to spike in with others around then, yes, I can feel very distant from them. My perceptions are so much wider at that moment. “
If you fell in a pond, would you short-circuit?
“No.” Kel-Paten glanced at the question’s tag on the screen. “Kimber An.” He shook his head. “I’m not a hair dryer. I’m an excellent swimmer, by the way. Something I haven’t yet been able to convince Sass to try.”
Sure, you're brave when it comes to blasting bad guy aliens, but what would you do if someone handed you a newborn baby human and you couldn't hand it off to anyone and Sass is totally clueless about babies and it would die if you didn't take care of it?
Kimber An again, Kel-Paten noted. Of course. The question revolved around babies. “I’m progr—fully trained in the necessary medical procedures for humans and other sentients at all stages of life, including, yes, human babies. An infant entrusted to my care wouldn’t perish mostly because,” and Kel-Paten allowed one corner of his mouth to quirk up slightly, “I’d track you down, Kimber, and hand the child to you. I do know an expert when I see one.”
I'm curious about your first confrontation with Captain Sebastian, many years ago. It's obvious that some not-exactly-regulation thoughts were going through your head during that face-off. Do you and Tasha ever look back on that time and laugh?
“A number of thoughts were going through my mind that time on the Sarna Bogue, Laurie. The most prominent of which was the fact that I had to requisition the ship’s cargo and had been inexplicably prevented from doing so. Inexplicably, you understand, because the Sarna Bogue should have been—what’s your expression?—a cake walk. Rostikov was nothing if not ineffectual. His crew usually aspired to the same lofty heights. To find myself so neatly locked out and by this, this—“ and he waved his right hand in the air— “imp who didn’t even bother to don her uniform.” He shook his head. “Yes, before you ask, she knows what I thought that day. She still laughs at me.
“And yes, when I moved beyond my expected annoyance, I was decidedly intrigued. She didn’t back down, you know,” he continued, his voice softening. “Everyone does or rather, at that point in time, everyone did. Sass intrigued me because she challenged me. That was a rare occurrence in my life. She’s a rare occurrence in my life.”
I would like to know how the cyborg transition affected him and his relationship with his family. Especially his brother. They seem really close, but obviously have to hide it.
“That could be a book in and of itself, Mary,” Kel-Paten said. “How did it affect me. Well.” He huffed out a short sigh. Why did the memories never fade? “Initially, it was horrible. Yes, I’d been trained and prepared for what was going to happen. I was told how glorious this was going to be, all the things I’d be able to do. Before the surgeries, I was honestly quite excited. I had a purpose, a definite positive one. I saw myself as some kind of hero and when you’re fourteen, fifteen years old, that’s the things dreams are made of. I think that’s probably why it all became so horrible. Because I never felt like a hero . I felt like a…well, I felt far too different. And clumsy. Relearning to walk was frustrating. Relearning how to hold a glass of juice was embarrassing.
“There was a lot of pain, a lot of problems. It’s not something I’d wish on anyone. And as for my family, Rall’s the only one I consider family. He just accepted me. Whatever was done to me, he simply accepted it. He was a cheerful child. All right. He was goofy. He always had some prank going, was always making faces behind the technicians’ backs. And before you ask, no, I don’t know why he was allowed such access to the labs or to me. But he was and what little sanity I retained is solely his doing.
“I didn’t initially know he was my brother. I knew there was some relationship because he was so often around when I was growing up and during the surgeries. I did know he was Rafe Kel-Tyra’s son. It wasn’t until I was in the academy and decided to hack into the Triad’s locked records on me that I found out Rafe was my primary biological donor. Which made Rall my brother, yes. It worried me for a while that Rafe was going to augment Rall, too. I wouldn’t have let that happen. I was totally loyal to the Triad. I accepted what they did to me because I knew I’d been created for that purpose. But I would not have stood by and let them augment my brother.”
What sign are you?
“Technically, Donna, that doesn’t come into play here. Our constellations are different from your world’s. However, I’ve worked on a recalculation and the closest approximation would be Aries. My birthday—reconfigured to your world—would be 15 April.”
You've probably been in love with Sass from the moment you first saw her, but my question is this. Were you already able to override your emo-inhibitors? Or was it your love for Sass that gave you that ability?
“Actually, Kathy, I was annoyed and intrigued when I first saw her. Love didn’t enter into the equation at that point. It wasn’t something I felt capable of or more so, it wasn’t something I felt I deserved. But Sass and her attitude fascinated me. I wanted to spend time with her because being around her was like that clichéd breath of fresh air. Time was running short on the Sarna Bogue. We had to get back to the Vax. And I was surprised to realize how much I did not want to leave her behind. I also realized how wasted a talent like hers was on the Bogue.
“I knew she was pretty and that’s what scared me. Women didn’t like me. Pretty women didn’t like me at all. And here was a pretty and creative and intelligent woman. I didn’t have a chance.
“Overriding my emo-inhibitors was something I’d been doing for quite some time. First of all, it was a tremendously flawed program. Anger is permissible but affection is not? Emotions aren’t that cleanly divisible. Once I realized how easy it was to be angry, it wasn’t that difficult to test to see if other emotions could break through.
“What the inhibitor does is allow me the option of shutting emotions off. That’s saved my life more than once. My biggest problem, though, wasn’t that I couldn’t feel love or affection. It’s that I had no idea what to do with it when I did. Not a lot of practice.” Kel-Paten grimaced wryly. “That’s one of the reasons I started dictating log entries to her. Practice. Practice talking about how I felt, what I wanted to tell her. I’m a military officer. We run a lot of drills, a lot of simulations and scenarios. The logs were my way to try to make sure that if I ever had a chance to talk to her—just casually—that I wouldn’t trip over my tongue and make a complete idiot of myself. Which, of course, I did anyway. Because none of my practice drills ever included how standing near her would make me feel. Or the kinds of things she’d say—the gods only knows what’s going to come out of her mouth—and that I’ve have nothing to say in kind. She still—”
A red light suddenly flashed in the corner of the screen but Kel-Paten was already spiking in and receiving the data from his link with the ship.
“If you’ll all excuse me, we have a Rebashee freighter convoy issuing a distress signal.” He spiked out and pushed himself to his feet. “Next week, then, barring any more emergencies?”
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Questions for the bloggers
Kimber An, a regular reader and commentator on this blog, has very kindly suggested some questions that she would like the authors on this blog to answer individually, in their own time, if they wish to do so.
1. What are the absolute must-do conventions (as in, Should one introduce the Hero before the Villain? Must there be a Happy Ever After in sfr?)
2. What do most have in common?
3. What authors inspired the participating authors on this blog?
4. When did SFR become a recognized sub-genre? And who led the way?
5. Who were the pioneers?
:-)
I've got a radio show from 9pm to 11 pm Eastern tonight, so I'm busy preparing. I shall be interviewing, or facilitating a round table discussion with Marjorie M Liu, Barbara Karmazin, Ghost Hunter Jeff Dwyer, Dawn Thompson, Cassandra Curtis.
We're talking about a special sort of alien romance: Shapeshifters of the Sea on Passionate Internet Voices Talk Radio
http://www.internetvoicesradio.com
Best wishes,
Rowena Cherry
1. What are the absolute must-do conventions (as in, Should one introduce the Hero before the Villain? Must there be a Happy Ever After in sfr?)
2. What do most have in common?
3. What authors inspired the participating authors on this blog?
4. When did SFR become a recognized sub-genre? And who led the way?
5. Who were the pioneers?
:-)
I've got a radio show from 9pm to 11 pm Eastern tonight, so I'm busy preparing. I shall be interviewing, or facilitating a round table discussion with Marjorie M Liu, Barbara Karmazin, Ghost Hunter Jeff Dwyer, Dawn Thompson, Cassandra Curtis.
We're talking about a special sort of alien romance: Shapeshifters of the Sea on Passionate Internet Voices Talk Radio
http://www.internetvoicesradio.com
Best wishes,
Rowena Cherry
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