Tuesday, March 24, 2009

The New CB Radio: "Come on back!"

Let's do a little futurology today, always a good exercise for SF/F/R writers.

Patric Michael pointed me to this YouTube video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PN2HAroA12w&feature=dir

It's a high-production-values animated satire about addiction to twitter.com and tweeting. The theme seems to be that the practice of tweeting is pointless.

The piece is worth seeing just for the production itself, not the message.

The message is populist but I think way off base. However, it's worth listening to carefully because it does express accurately and with an appropriate amount of tasteful humor what non-tweeters see tweeters doing.

This is a viewpoint I've seen expressed variously about golfers, runners, skiers, gamers, bird watchers, dogshow competitors, and hobbyists of all sorts. Tweeting is much cheaper than most social activities.

But frankly, because of the social barrier to social networking highlighted in this video, I am not at all sure twitter.com will survive this economic downturn. It was heavily funded at startup and is still striving to deal with that debt.

I've been on twitter.com (as http://www.twitter.com/JLichtenberg so you can follow me there easily once you set up a free account) for only a few months. I'm just beginning to discover some of the off-twitter.com tweeting tools that have built up around this communication device.

There are endless blogs and pages full of tutorials on how to social network, and I've read only a sparse few of those. Lately, there have been tutorials circulated for how to use twitter to advertise your wares -- any product you want to sell. Those tutorials are of interest to writers because we have books to hawk. People with something to sell see a market (word of mouth is the best advertising) and greed ignites the hearts and minds. The smoke from that inner fire of greed makes your tweets reek.

Veteran tweeters shun the commercial push, and other tutorials advise strictly against making your tweets about you and what you want or are offering. The advice is to make your tweets about other people, not yourself or your wares. Tweet about a well defined subject, and give real information -- that's the kernal of the advice I've seen. The key is to GIVE.

And when you give real value for your reader's time, you tend to get "retweeted" (which is like a good online review for a book - word spreads).

Here is an article on getting retweeted (seriously, people are studying twitter.com member behaviors this closely). The article gives this advice: typically, people want to pass your Tweet on for one of three reasons: they found it useful, funny, or informative

http://www.mediabistro.com/prnewser/social_networks/how_to_get_retweeted_advice_from_three_pr_pros_110370.asp
I've seen the exact same advice and admonitions in several articles. Apparently there is an audience on the web that thirsts for advice on how to relate to new people you've just met. Or maybe there are just a lot of people with nothing of their own to say who are repeating to you what you already know. This might be considered in the category of a useless waste of time.

However, I see something going on here that apparently a lot of people don't.

Place the micro-blog or tweet (a 140 character message useful because it will auto-shrink a long URL into a micro-URL -- a service available at some websites directly) against the background of the macro-trends of the world over the last few decades. (Good futurology starts in the past, you see.)

Blogs are the equivalent of the snailmail letters and letter-zines and APAzines (all SF fanines used to be non-fiction until Star Trek fanfic hit a voracious market). Fans used to exchange these longer more involved essays on the subject of the moment, the latest book, movie or TV show on paper, or (again with the advent of Star Trek fandom) by telephone.

Twitter and micro-blogs on social networks are the equivalent of the post cards we used to exchange. The phone calls tended to be midnight low rates, and last for hours apiece, so they were more like conversational blogs with lots of comments.

What you can fit on a post card, taken out of the context of the 'zine or round robin letters, is utterly meaningless. Yet for those to whom it is addressed, it holds great, deep, and consequential meaning.

Likewise microblogging -- any single message is meaningless. Taken in context of "who" this person is, what comments they've left on Yahoo News blogs, in their own blog, comments on other people's blogs -- in context, the microtweet "Had pizza for lunch" gains GREAT meaning (knowing this person is allergic to milk products but addicted to pizza).

The odd thing is, I never (ever) saw any tutorial on how to use letters and post cards, or even how to publish a paper 'zine. People just knew how to social network despite the week or more between sending and receiving. Even us nerds who were considered so socially undeveloped in those days hit the ground running once connected with someone who had something to say we wanted to hear! No tutorial necessary. Pure instinct. The instinct of a social creature finally finding another member of our own society -- people who read.

I recently saw an item that the post office is closing several more distribution plants and firing a huge percentage of the postal workers in layoffs and attrition. Nobody snails anything they can e anymore.

The snailmail fan network generation raised their children on Sesame Street. That show reduced attention spans. Children grew to adulthood without the ability to sit still and concentrate on one thing long enough to read a book. Parents used the fascinating TV screen as a baby sitter while they snail-mailed and many have lived to regret that.

In the 1970's the biggest topic in macro-trends was the information explosion and how would we ever deal with so much data. SF writers doing the futurology never got the results of the information explosion right.

Then AOL gave the average American online access with dialup. That business model collapsed as cable provided broadband. Now it's wireless everywhere. 3G networks. More information, faster eventually meant music, video and TV shows on your computer or cell phone.

Google emerged with an innovative algorithm to conquer a lot of that deluge of information. You can now find what you want when you want it. Spam exploded, forcing the development of closed and monitored associations which we now call social networks or Web 2.0.

LiveJournal started the blogosphere, I think -- though there were individual web-log keepers among the geek community long before that. The blogosphere exploded, expecially after Google bought blogspot.com and blogger.com, although it was huge before that.

Meanwhile, in the 1980's and 1990's, CB Radio grew prominent. CB has limited range and frequencies reserved. When TV goes digital, more frequencies will be available for emergency first responders, but we can't have better civil defense response because a couple million out of 310 million didn't get their coupons.

Many cars had to had CB radio to talk to cops, truckers, other motorists. I've had several, and found them a lifesaver when driving interstate, when I needed to ask for help. But mostly I just listened to what engaged and interested truckers. Marvelous research tool. That trend is gone now because we have cell phones and sat phones for safety driving interstate.

With the phones came text messaging your friends. Texting is a form of microblog -- you are limited to tiny snatches of text so small people invented shorthand to squeeze something sensible into the space. Now many have forgotten there is a thing called SPELLING, not to mention capitalization conventions.

Connect the dots I've mentioned, and maybe you'll see the pattern I see.

More and more communication tools, fast, accurate, easy to use, being placed into the hands of people who have nothing to communicate except the fact that they exist and think they should be paid attention to, counted.

Check out who blogs and what they talk about in what style on this survey page:
http://technorati.com/blogging/state-of-the-blogosphere/who-are-the-bloggers/

That's so similar to what drove the craze for the original CB Radio in cars, though Ham Radio operators are a different breed than the general public. The old fasioned Ham Radio operators were geekish techies and journalists who covered a world-girdling beat and kept each other informed of what was happening that the media was averse to covering. But they are a social network, too.

Occasionally, those socially driven Ham operators saved thousand of lives when mass communication went down during a disaster. They were bloggers! And today Twitter has been used exactly like that - to save lives in wildfire situations, and eventually I'm sure in earthquake and tsunami if they can keep the cell towers functioning. That is, when someone has something important to say, people pick it up and "re-tweet" it until everyone in the world knows it.

Why does twitter.com deserve the flak it gets in this animated indictment?

After all, the folks who behave in the insanely addicted fashion shown in the animation get quickly shunned on twitter (and in the old paper-based fandoms too). On twitter.com they stand out because they may be following more than a thousand people, but maybe 20 follow them. Twitter has recently instituted curbs to prevent that kind of abuse of the system, both by individuals and by salesmen and businesses.

Those individuals who can't "get it" as higlighted in the video, sign on and then never come back. So the two animation characters and their argument in this video is irrelevant to tweeters. Why do both these things happen to these kinds of people?

What is twitter.com , really about? And why did futurologists miss this potential since they were SF writers fully conversant with on-paper fandom? What are WE missing that would make a terrific novel? Movie?

The advertising and sign-in pages for most micro-blogs invite you to post something by posing you the question: What are you doing now?

And that's where the whole thing goes wrong. Many tutorials on how to use twitter advise against answering that question because it's the wrong question.

Way back when my mother was a kid, they taught things in grammar school like penmanship, ellocution, and how to write a personal letter (on paper, with a pen you dip into the ink.)

They still taught penmanship when I was in grammar school all the way to 7th grade. (I flunked.) I took to the typer the instant my Dad bought one when I was in 8th grade! But I had learned to compose the personal letter. Typing was easy.

The very first thing I typed on that typewriter was a letter to the editor of IF MAGAZINE lambasting them for the lousy artwork illustrating the stories -- they never got the image correct according to the text. I had an urgent and firey need to communicate this simple point - DRAW IT CORRECTLY. Given the high tech communications tool of the day, I did just what new tweeters do - expressed myself without even knowing the person I was yelling at, and not caring. I just had to get this message OUT. It was personal.

They published it and that changed my life. Years later, my first story was published in IF -- and had a grossly inaccurate illustration! It's as if illustrators can't read English. (Thank G-d, Patric Michael isn't one of those!)

Today, the best language courses and learning systems rely on what became known as the Ulpan system, invented by the Israelis when they had to take in more refugees than the total population of their country and somehow get them all able to speak, read and write a language in common.

The Ulpan system relies on a basic human need that is being fed by the microblogs like twitter.

The Ulpan relies on the ultimate, life-or-death, very primal (that's a word Blake Snyder uses a lot, and I'm using it in the sense he does -- as a fictional element that must be present in order to make a story happen) -- a primal human need illustrated by my need to write that first typed letter.

More primal than sex, a little less primal than the need to breathe air or to eat. But it's right in that level of primal. It is a survival necessity.

The very first thing a newborn does after taking a first breath is SCREAM.

It isn't "crying" in the sense of being driven by emotional pain.

It's more driven by physical shock. It's a scream. And that primal scream of the newborn is the first action taken by a human being. It's a reflex, clears the airways, and announces Need.

Newborns need to be cared for. They are nothing but need. Way before they have any awareness that "others" even exist, they communicate that need.

Those that don't cry, don't live.

Think about newborns abandoned in dumpsters -- that tiny little cry pierces the cold steel and sometimes rescue happens.

The CRY is uttered -- and something happens. The newborn doesn't have the brain cells to connect cause and effect at that point, but the CRY IS ANSWERED.

Way before we ever say anything on purpose to get a response, the first thing that ever happens (and this might not be true for other species out in the galaxy!) is we RECEIVE a response to something we don't even know we did.

NOTE THAT WORD RECEIVE -- it's crucial to some of the more esoteric and abtusely philosophical writer's block breakers I talk about. RECEIVE has vast mystical significance.

Receiving is simply that primal. Cry and receive. That's how we learn to communicate, and we learn it in that life-or-death circumstance and the NEED TO COMMUNICATE is engraved on every braincell with the warning SURVIVAL NECESSITY.

Using that innate need to communicate, the Ulpan method of language learning deprives the student of all other means of communication besides the language to be learned. It's often called the immersion method, but it's far more than that. The technique isn't so much the presence of the new language as the total absense of any and all other languages or methods of communication.

You don't learn by translating. You learn by acquisition (even if you're an adult). Nobody tells you what words mean. You have to figure it out.

The need to communicate is so primal that even adults end up thinking in the new language, even to the extent of forgetting how to speak their native language!

The need to communicate is that powerful.

The need to communicate can re-arrange your brain cells to use whatever channel is open. Any response that comes in will ignite the greed to communicate.

Now if you haven't watched that little animated video, watch it now with this need to communicate concept in mind. (and if you're an Alien Romance writer, watch carefully the communication gulf between these aliens from different planets in the video). Yes, even though they are both human from Earth and work in adjacent cubicles, the gulf between them is interstellar.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PN2HAroA12w&feature=dir

What the one man can't grasp is that the other's need to communicate is totally independent of content - of having something to say that is selected to be of interest to those you are talking to.

A baby's first cry isn't aimed AT someone, saying "HELP ME" -- there's not yet any sense of "me" in contrast to "you." Where there's no "you" there can't be any "me." It's just SCREAM.

Placing these communication tools such as twitter into the hands of people who have nothing to say and nobody to say it to is like attending a birth, clearing an airway, and listening to that first CRY.

It's a SCREAM. It has no content. It says OUCH. It says HELP but not HELP ME, for there is no "you" to be summoned. No awareness of the identity of "other" is in that scream.

It is a SCREAM FOR ATTENTION -- a continual, hour by hour all day whimper for attention, just like a baby's fretting and learning how to fret to get results as the twitter-ites are searching the web for tutorials on social networking.

Is that SCREAM contemptible?

Think about it a bit more. If we looked at all newborns as contemptible because they can't do anything but cry, whimper, and scream, how many of us would there be?

Do these neo-tweeters need to be held in contempt? Or do they need to be nurtured until they have something to communicate, someone to communicate it to, as well as the means to do so?

Recently, a number of domains have sprung up to index twitter.com's membership so people can find like-minded people -- people who have similar interests are being drawn into circles. They then discover they do have something to say that someone else wants to hear. Eavesdrop on them and you'll hear gibberish.

So, with the advent of mass-personal communication media, Earth is girdled with a tweet-o-sphere.

What do you suppose this might look like to the Aliens Who Watch?

Do all species throughout the galaxy go through this phase of infancy in communication?

In the 1950's and 1960's, Science Fiction glibly predicted that we were being watched and that Earth was embargoed because of our SCIENTIFIC infancy. We wouldn't be admitted to the galaxy civilization until we had conquered War and made our own space ships.

Well, in the 50's and 60's -- WWII was the big shame and blot on human conscience. And Science was leading the charge to a better life for all.

What's our problem today? We have space ships and a space station, and so much orbital junk there are accidents. But the aliens haven't invited us to the galaxy picnic yet.

We still have war, and it's brewing up to be bigger than WWII unless - unless what?

UNLESS WE CAN COMMUNICATE!!!

Nope.

We can communicate -- with a fury and a vengeance. Both combatant sides in the ideological war are using these communication tools, blogs, tweets, whatever, SCREAMING their messages. But they aren't all talking about the same thing at the same time. So (like overheard tweets) their messages are incomprehensible.

We aren't in two-way communication even at the level of scratchy, static-ridden CB Radio. (Have you seen TV "news" where the interviewees and the anchor all are shouting at once? What does that imply about their audience?)

As tweeters mature, and the blogosphere evolves, perhaps we will pass some galactic agency's test in communication skills and be allowed into kindergarten for new planets -- providing we can nurture the neo-tweeters to begin to inject content into their utterances.

At the moment, though, far too great a portion of our population has nothing to say. You can generally tell who they are by the number of meaningless words they interject into their utterances. The more rage they feel, the more driven to get your attention, the more meaningless expletives pepper their sentences, and the more their posts seem like primal screams rather than messages.

Maybe our urge to communicate, primal as it is, just isn't galactic class?

What can we do to attract "their" attention? What's the primal scream of a newborn civilization? What do we have to say that anyone "out there" would want to hear? Respond to?

Think again about how the social impact of the internet and the web were missed by SF futurologists, though they predicted A.I. robots which we almost have now. Think about the bemoaning of the information explosion and how it would be a destructive force because we had no means of taming it. Now think about Google Search, Web 2.0 and social network sites like facebook and myspace.

Futurologists are as overwhelmed by the implications of twitter and blogs as their predecessors were in 1960 by the information explosion and photocopiers in every library busting copyright to smitherines.

I got an email today mobilizing blog combat targeting the blog of a Florida newspaper about an issue local to New York but with national implications for air traffic controllers. That's also going on with the Yahoo news blogs -- huge organized groups of ordinary people are swarming into combat zones on the web.

What does the popularity of twitter.com mean for the future of world society?

Please drop a note on this blog to demonstrate that you have something to say, someone to say it to other than yourself, and know how to say it. Maybe someone "out there" will notice us inside this dumpster? Maybe that won't be such a good thing? Or maybe we'll learn to talk if someone comes to teach us?

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://www.slantedconcept.com/

Monday, March 23, 2009

Background, Star Trek and Science Fiction Romance


Linnea Sinclair - Background, Star Trek, and Sci-Fi from Romantic Times BOOKreviews on Vimeo.

HOPE’S FOLLY, Book 3 in the Gabriel’s Ghost universe, Feb. 24, 2009 from RITA award-winning author, Linnea Sinclair, and Bantam Books: www.linneasinclair.com

“If we can’t do the impossible, then we need to at least be able to do the unexpected.” —Admiral Philip Guthrie

Sunday, March 22, 2009

Space Shuttle takes off



I didn't post last weekend because I was in Florida. I took this photo of the space shuttle just before the booster tanks fell away.

World Water Day

It's World Water Day. http://www.worldwaterday.org/page/2097

In honor of the occasion, I am twittering about the importance of water in fiction. I am also posting an excerpt from Judi Fennell's next merperson book, In Over Her Head.




Reel crossed his arms and studied her. "You're taking this a lot better than I thought you would. I didn't know Humans had such open minds."

"Apparently we have lots of neat tricks, us humans. Like breathing water, for instance." Erica sucked in a few pints just for kicks and giggles. She hoped she remembered this hallucination when her body recovered from the bends.

"Actually, you can't breathe water."

"But I am, ergo, I can." She demonstrated again.

"Well, that's only because I did that to you. To save your life."

"Oh. Right." She choked on that last pint. "Um, to save my life? Well, that's a relief. I had thought that I might be um, well, dead, but then, this certainly isn't my idea of Heaven. So, I'm alive but unconscious? I just have the bends, right? I mean, yes, I'm seeing you as a naked, water-breathing stud-muffin, but you're really just an illusion, aren't you? Maybe a doctor at the hospital some passing boater took me to?"

Reel didn't say anything. He didn't have to. The tittering of the little fish scattered among the whelk art answered for him.

"Um, Reel...?"

"Erica, I think you better rest on the bottom."

"Why?" She did as he suggested, but put her hands up as he floated toward her. He had to be a figment of her imagination. He had to.

"Sweetheart, you've been out for a few days and you're not in a hospital. You can't have the bends because you never went up to the surface. Chum reminded me about them, actually. So I did the only thing I could."

His face was grave, which, considering the situation, might not be an appropriate analogy, but then, what was appropriate when facing the impossible?

"What. Did. You. Do?"

"I turned you."

"Turned me?" Somehow, that phrase did not offer comfort.

"Yes. Into a water-breather." He crossed his arms, which flared some really nice pecs that tapered down to slim hips and--

Wait a minute--

"A fish? You turned me into a fish?" Forget the pecs. And other parts.

"Not a fish. Do you see any fins? Gills? You're not even a Mer. I just gave you the ability to breathe underwater. Otherwise, you would've drowned. And Vincent would've had the right to, well, eat you. I couldn't let that happen."

"Of course you couldn't." Well, see? That made sense. "And Vincent was the, um, shark?"

"That's right." The faintest glimmer of pearly whites showed between his lips.

"And he wanted me for dinner."

"Yes." A bigger smile.

"So you somehow managed to re-route my entire oxygenation system and voila! Here I am at the bottom of the sea."

"That's it." Full-out grin going.

"I'm going to be sick." She turned her face to the side and felt her insides heave.

But then the floor blinked at her.

"What the hell was that?" she screamed, crab-walking backward.

"Flounder. They like to hang out in here since no predators are allowed."

She put a hand on her chest, her heart beating three times as fast as normal. Or was that now normal with her newly-acquired aqua lungs? "Well there's a relief. So I won't have to worry about my body being torn apart by Vincent or others like him? Good to know. Now if I could only guarantee my mind won't fall apart, I'll be just fine."


To find out more about Judi Fennell check out her website:
http://www.judifennell.com

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Futuristics discussed on TheAuthorsShow

The Authors Show host, Don MacCauley, wrote of my interview (which is streaming today, March 19th on http://www.TheAuthorsShow.com ,
"I have done hundreds of interviews throughout the years. Most are enjoyable, some are enlightening, a few are downright painful. Others though, stand decidedly apart from the group. These interviews create memories that I will enjoy for the rest of my days. My recent interview with Rowena Cherry was one such interview."


Behind the scenes...

When an author queries a radio station to request airtime, quite often she is offered the opportunity to suggest ten or so appropriate questions which she'd like to be asked.

If I get the chance, I like to get the word out about the speculative romance subgenres. Even if I'm not the most eloquent or best qualified spokesperson, any discussion is better than none.

So, I suggested that Don might ask:

You write "FUTURISTIC ROMANCE." WHAT is that?

I gave him a brief overview of what "Paranormal" covers:

"Paranormal" is much more than ghosts. It covers space opera, speculative romance, dark fantasy, light fantasy, fantastic "snark", science fiction romance, time travel, also historicals and contemporary romances with strong psychic heroines.

This means that my aliens hang out in bookstores with vampires, shapeshifters, angels, demons, gargoyles, were-wolves, were-dragons, ghosts, elves, faeries, gnomes, mermaids, genies, and gods.


Don was kind enough to compare his experience of my interview to being dropped into the middle of a Monty Python skit.

"I believe I enjoyed the interview so much due to the fact that, throughout the conversation, I kept getting the distinctly odd impression that I had somehow been magically transported into the very middle of a somewhat peculiar Monty Python skit."


He's in great company with that comparison. I'm not sure what I said that struck him as Pythonesque, but it might have been this comment about how I see Paranormal Romance:

"It's a confusing family! So, I visualize "Paranormal Romance" as like a giant hen. Under her wings are multi-colored, dark and light chicks, a gosling, couple of kittens, a puppy… and a very small dragon!"


If you get the chance to listen, to my interview, I'd love to know what you think.

If you visit http://www.TheAuthorsShow.com and scroll down the page, you can submit your own request to be interviewed. If you live in Arizona, or don't mind traveling, you can apply to be on their sister TV program, too.

Best wishes,
Rowena Cherry

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Competence-Brilliance-Artist

One of the most bewildering things about "becoming a professional writer" is figuring out what a writer is.

What exactly is it that you want to "become."

In what way would achieving that goal make you different than you are now?

What is the difference between yourself and professionals who sell and get paid (two totally different things, as you will discover when you learn the business of writing.)

Creating that mental model of what this profession is all about is hard because our society as a whole considers it unskilled labor. Writing is something you can do it only if you have "talent" and that is innate and not anything to your credit. So when you're writing, you're essentially playing around.

People who are spending years writing and not getting chosen by publishers are generally considered a little cracked or lazy -- "get a real job" -- and are required by moral and ethical rules laid down by society to drop whatever they're writing at a moment's notice and drive carpool, pick up the dry cleaning, dash to school to get the sick kid the parent (a neighbor) can't leave work to pick up -- because YOU aren't "working."

In other words, what you're doing isn't critical, important, lucrative, or bound by discipline -- you have nothing better to do, so do my work for me.

It's an attitude, even selling writers have to deal with. "You can write anytime. Just cut the grass before my boss's family gets here for the picnic."
"What picnic?" you ask, bewildered.

"I told you last week! You never listen to me when you're at that computer!"

Then comes the citing of a dozen studies proving how unhealthy it is to sit at a computer all day. It makes you violent, and you just proved it by screaming inarticulately at a perfectly reasonable request.

What's really going on here? What is the gulf between the writer and the non-writer? Does this have anything to do with the paradigm shift I was talking about in this previous post?

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/02/paradigm-shift.html

I've been discussing the state of the modern education system on Facebook, and thinking about the learning process.

What can be learned in writing -- and what has to be innate, a Talent?

Most beginners present their earliest efforts with the hopes of a professional reading it and saying, "You're very talented."

Frankly, that's the last thing a beginner should want to hear. You can't tell if someone is "talented" by reading the end product of their work.

Talent doesn't mean you can think of things nobody has thought of yet.

Anyone can do that, and it isn't an inborn trait but a learned one.

Talent means not that you can do something nobody else (or few others) can do, but rather that it is EASY for you to do a thing that is HARD for others.

The thing is, what others think is easy for you, you may find hard for you.

I am not convinced there is "a talent" for "writing." Writing consists of so many different sorts of activities, some of which are crucial to commercial success and some of which are irrelevant to success but necessary to storycrafting, that I don't think there can be a talent for it.

There can be a talent for verbalizing or learning verbal skills. Note the commentary by Suzzette Hadin Elgin in the previous post here, discussing the fallacy of the universal translator. There can be a talent for languages, but it avails nothing if the infant and young child aren't exposed to many languages -- to "acquire" them rather than "learn" them.

There can be a talent for research, for sleuthing out odd facts and forming them into a pattern that could make a story.

There can be a talent for Business -- for discerning what could be popular and knowing when and where to market it, again based on a talent for sleuthing out facts and forming them into a pattern.

There can be a talent for ART.

Any of these talents, and dozens of others, can be applied to fiction writing and take you far. Other talents may work better in non-fiction writing.

None of these talents will make you a writer, or anything else. Talent is meaningless. It's cheap. Everyone has a few. Talent won't take you anywhere unless it's trained, educated, fed, nurtured, and developed.

And the truth is, many very successful people are successful at things they have no innate talent for -- but only a passion for.

You don't necessarily like the activities you have a talent for, and some people actually have an aversion to their own talents. "It's too easy. I could do that if I wanted to, but I don't."

So what it comes down to in life is pursuing your passions -- because only a focused and disciplined passion can get you up that verticle learning curve in education, training, and experience. The quitters don't make it up there, talent or no.

That's true of life in general, but also of The Arts.

I chose the mottos of the Worldcrafter's Guild with care. "Writing is a Performing Art" was the first bit of wisdom taught to me by Alma Hill, a professional writer who ran the writing workshop of the N3F, the National Fantasy Fan Federation, back when I decided I wanted to be a writer. It was my first clue about what it was that I wanted to do with myself and why I wanted to do it. I wanted to PERFORM, but what I wanted to perform was my own novels.

And later, Robert Heinlein borrowed the adage for one of his books, "Sounding spontaneous is a matter of careful preparation." To me, that ever so accurately portrays the difference between a civilian and a writer.

This last week, Rick Schefern whose newsletter introduced me to Google Reader which led me to using Feeddemon has nailed something very important in explaining how people learn to do something. STAGES OF LEARNING.

This is, I'm sure, not original with him, but he's presenting it in a spotlight as a clue that can unravel the mysteries of the world for you. And I believe it may be a vital clue to many writers.

In his NL of 3/10/09 Rick says (you could look up the whole NL online and maybe subscribe (free) -- here's the top of his website
http://www.strategicprofits.com/ ) that there are 4 easily identifyable stages of learning. (all his NL's pitch some product at you claiming to make you rich but he gives away an interesting tip now and again).

-------------
Stage (1) - Unconscious Incompetence - you don't know what you don't know
Stage (2) - Conscious Incompetence - you now know what you don't know
Stage (3) - Conscious Competence - you now know it, but you have to
concentrate to use what you know
Stage (4) - Unconscious Competence - you know it, and you can do it without
thinking about it
---------------

This sequence is something I've mentioned several times in the posts on writing craft.

My posts point your conscious mind at the internal mechanism of various craft techniques -- the learnable things, the repeating drills and disciplines necessary to bring a Talent online, or to forge ahead in writing without talent.

Rick Schefern lays out the stages any writer goes through during the mastery of any of the techniques I've pinpointed for you.

In other words, you don't go through these Competence stages ONCE and "become" a writer. You go through them again and again and again -- until the day you die. In everything you learn. And if you're wise, you will adjust yourself to this fact and learn to enjoy displaying your Unconscious Incompetence as step number one to mastery.

So how is it that some people are recognized as BRILLIANT?

Very often, a writer (new or seasoned) will produce something and jump up and down for glee at having finally done something totally BRILLIANT!!! Only to have it sneered at and tossed in the trash.

Why is that? Why is an artist not competent to judge their own brilliance? It works that way in other performing arts than writing, too.

Look at STAGE 4 -- UNCONSCIOUS COMPETENCE.

When you FEEL BRILLIANT, it's stage 3 working -- you are conscious of out-performing your previous best.

When you actually ARE brilliant -- it's stage 4 and you aren't aware of it.

So what is brilliance? Is it something that's acquired only after slaving away for decades gaining craftsmanship mastery?

No. It was there all along. You're born with it. Or it's gifted to you from Above when you least expect it.

The inner brilliance of your artistic vision is what first ignites your passion to "become" a writer or other performing artist.

It's the fire that fuels all that unrewarded and denigrated effort through the lonely years.

It's not talent, though. Talent is something that's always an innate part of yourself (it even has a signature in your astrological chart - the Quincunx aspects between some outer planets and some inner is one part of that pattern).

Brilliance comes and goes in sparks and cascades. Brilliance happens to people just as it happens to diamonds.

First you, as a personality and character, have to be cut -- the lumpy, muddy rock carved away, the milky, irregular lump inside revealed, then cracked into pieces (emotional pain matures). Then after all that hard work (the attaining of Stage 4 Competence in a variety of skills), you must be placed in the right position in the world (on black velvet) and then AN EXTERNAL LIGHT has to shine upon you.

If the cutting and polishing stage of acquiring competence has been done well, WHEN that external spotlight hits, you will SHINE BRILLIANTLY. You will simply funtion at stage 4 competence without knowing you're doing anything -- and you will do this simultaneously in more than half the skill areas you've acquired stage 4 competence in.

You, as a human being, have no control over when that light will shine on you, no way to predict it or dictate what color that light will be.

It will happen many times in a lifetime -- your only contribution is to be ready when it happens. To be at stage 4 competence in a wide variety of skills, and to be positioned as best you can in the world.

When you shine brilliantly, you may (or may not) be chosen -- i.e. your novel may be bought, or passed over.

When the recognition comes, though, you will be dubbed AN ARTIST -- and in writing, that means a PERFORMING ARTIST.

So the upside of recognition is that people admire the brilliance of the words you've produced (but you look at them and don't see anything special, don't know that you achieved anything wonderful).

The downside of recognition is that everyone expects you to do it again. (look at any number of really wonderful series that get pushed beyond the natural end for commercial reasons.)

But since you didn't do "it" to begin with -- you can't do it again. The light will shine when it shines - and then you will be brilliant because you have mastered Stage 4 competence.

So what does the brilliance of their elders look like to the young people I discussed in the PARADIGM SHIFT - the shift in expectations of what you have to do in order to get what you want?

How will the current crop of 16 year olds go about displaying their brilliance?

Now read this little essay over again and think about how you can apply this Competence Stage concept to a set of fictional characters in a novel of your own.

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

Monday, March 16, 2009

Perky Author has Run Out of Perky

happycat

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

It's more than deadline brain. My beloved cat, Daq, goes for a tumor (bladder) biopsy Wednesday. Daq is "Tank the furzel" in my GAMES OF COMMAND. He and his little buddy, Miss Doozy, are my constant companions, but where Doozy is stand-offish, Daq is on my desk, at my feet, by my side, 24/7. I can't imagine how parents cope when their children face a diagnosis of cancer. The past few days have been, quite honestly, horrible. And since it will take over a week for the pathology report to come back in, it appears as if horrible may hang around for a bit yet.

Yes, I'm still writing the book on deadline but it's really not much more than throwing words on the screen. I just keep plowing through it and hope by the time edits happen, things will be better.

So that's the scoop. Daq-cat is in for a rough haul the next few weeks and my primary focus is to be by his side as he's been by mine. Which means the creative muse has taken a hike. Perky author has run out of perky.

But prayers are good. Hugs all, ~Linnea & Daq & Miss Doozy

www.linneasinclair.com

Friday, March 13, 2009

Universal Translators

I’m delighted to introduce a guest blog by linguist and SF writer Suzette Haden Elgin. Among many other works, she’s the author of the Native Tongue trilogy (in which she invented a language designed for talking about the life experiences of women), the Coyote Jones novels, the Planet Ozark trilogy, and the nonfiction series of Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense books. THE COMMUNIPATHS, the first Coyote Jones novel, can be read free online at www.jackiepowers.com. An updated edition of THE GENTLE ART OF VERBAL SELF-DEFENSE, incorporating references to cyberspace communication, is going to be published by Barnes and Noble on March 31. Her website is www.sfwa.org/members/elgin. You can find the link to her blog on the sidebar of this blog. Here she’s posting on the problem of the Universal Translator:

The "Universal Translator" has been the magic wand of science fiction for a long time; reader tolerance for any discussion of language differences was until very recently so limited that you almost had to have a UT, just to let you get on with the story. The problem for linguists has been that UTs were unquestionably part of the fiction -- a "Shazam!" device that writers and readers agreed was needed -- but they were presented as if they were part of the science. Nobody bothered to include any sort of disclaimer; nobody had their characters talk about how inadequate the UT was, or how inadequate its translations were. [If you know any examples of that being done, I'd be very grateful if you'd share them with me, by the way.] And the progress that's been made in machine translation in the past decade has only made things worse. The stories you read about the handheld translation devices now being used by the military, for example, would lead you to believe that the Star-Trek-style UT now exists.

Maybe a couple of examples -- a very simple one and a more complicated one, both restricted to human languages -- would be worth posting. Translation means taking a sequence of Language X and providing a sequence of Language Y that is what a speaker of Language Y would say/write/sign in the same situation. So, in a situation where an English-speaking parent would tell a child, "Be good!”, a French-speaking parent would instead say "Be wise!" That doesn't mean that the word for "good" in French is "wise," nor does it mean that one or the other of those utterances is "only an idiom". It doesn't mean that the French concept of wisdom is equivalent to the English concept of goodness. It just means that "Be wise" is what a French speaker would say/write/sign in a situation where an English speaker would say "Be good." That's the simple example. And we now have the technology necessary to construct a handheld translation device that would contain an assortment of ParentSpeak Utterances (like "Be good!" and "Behave yourself!" and "Go to sleep!" and "Go to your room!" and "Don't eat that!" and -- I hope -- "I love you with all my heart") in a whole array of different languages. That sort of machine translation is surprisingly good when the languages involved are closely related, or when the semantic territory is carefully restricted, or both. It's like the job I had as a translator in the 1960s, where I translated a law firm's correspondence in French, Spanish, German, and Italian into English and wrote the responses. It wasn't that I knew all those languages well; it was just that 99 percent of what the letters said was predictable in advance from the context, and I had a book (primitive handheld device) with the necessary equivalents in all five languages.

And then there's the more complicated example. Suppose the question in a dialogue is "What were you doing all morning?" and the English answer is "I was riding a horse." The utterance that a Navajo speaker would use in that situation is, literally, "A horse was animaling-about with me." The utterance a Hopi speaker would use is, literally, "I was using a horse to move about with." (And of course the utterance a French speaker would use is "I was on a horse.") We have the technology to construct a handheld machine translation device that would provide an array of utterances about riding horses in all four languages and a batch of others. But would that let us carry on multilingual conversations about horseback riding?

Thursday, March 12, 2009

The Price of Eternity

Next week I'm going to Orlando for the annual International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts, where I'll be leading a panel on vampires and other immortals. Here are some of the thoughts I've noted down for my part of the discussion:

In contemporary fiction, most authors who write about vampires tend to emphasize the vampire's status as an immortal rather than as a walking dead creature. Traditionally, immortality always has a price. The Struldbrugs in GULLIVER'S TRAVELS, although undying, age normally and are declared legally dead at the age of eighty. The ogre or sorcerer of folklore who ensures his invulnerability to death by removing his heart from his body and concealing it in some inaccessible location becomes, in the Harry Potter series, Lord Voldemort, whose fear of death drives him to split his soul into seven pieces. Each fragment that is removed diminishes his humanity. The soulless quality of traditional vampires is symbolized by their inability to cast a reflection in a mirror. In the TV series BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, an essential component of vampirism is the replacement of the human soul by a demon. Angel and Spike, exceptions to the norm, have had their souls magically restored. The series never makes it clear exactly how the soul is defined; overall, it seems to be approximately equivalent to the conscience. Angel reveals in one episode that the return of his soul doesn't eject the vampire demon; both coexist within him.

Much vampire fiction portrays the price of immortality as loneliness and alienation from the surrounding flow of humanity. Immortals in the HIGHLANDER series suffer a similar fate. HIGHLANDER Immortals also share with many fictional vampires the inability to beget or bear children. Since Immortals drain each other's power through the "quickening" by cutting off the rival's head, they can be regarded as energy vampires who prey on their own kind rather than on ordinary people. The short-lived TV series AMSTERDAM, in which the protagonist receives immortality from a Native American woman as a reward, yet the condition seems more like a curse since it can be ended by true love, felt to me like "HIGHLANDER lite."

Peter Pan possesses immortality because he never grows up, but he is explicitly described as heartless. As a symptom of this condition, he readily forgets about people after a prolonged separation. Although he treats Wendy as an exception, Peter shows his tenuous grasp on both memory and the passage of time by mistaking her daughter for her. The price of his eternal childhood seems to be the loss of part of his humanity. The eternal child appears in vampire fiction as Claudia in Anne Rice's INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE; she is so changelessly frozen that her hair grows back to its length at her "death" hours after she cuts it. And of course the film LOST BOYS directly alludes to Peter Pan. Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's Count Saint-Germain retains all the scars he acquired as a living man, but he can never acquire new ones; all wounds heal without a trace, demonstrating the unchanging nature of vampire “life.”

Some fictional immortals achieve that condition, not by preserving their physical bodies, but by transmigration of the soul or personality into a new body whenever the old one becomes damaged or worn out, for example, the wizard in H. P. Lovecraft's "The Thing on the Doorstep." An evil sorcerer using that strategy appears as the villain in a fantasy series by Mercedes Lackey. A similar premise appears in a series by Octavia Butler. This kind of immortality, going back at least to the psychic vampirism of the title character in Poe's "Ligeia," is almost inevitably framed as evil.

Since the 1970s, many authors have shown transformation into a vampire as a positive change instead of an accursed fate. LOST BOYS, for example, invites, "Sleep all day, party all night, and never get old." Vampire romances, however, constitute the subgenre that most frequently represents the human lover's change into a vampire as a happy ending (those that don't take the opposite route and "cure" the vampire by restoring his mortality). Is this trend connected to the secular nature of our culture? Do such authors assume that most readers no longer regard the loss of one's soul as a fate to fear? Or, if they directly address the question, do they deny that becoming a vampire necessarily entails soullessness? In either of these cases, can we now have immortality without a price? If you were offered physical immortality as an ordinary human being in the prime of life and health (immortality without tangible disadvantages), would you accept? One of the few authors who presents this situation as mostly a Good Thing is Robert Heinlein in the Lazarus Long novels, and even Lazarus gets tired of life at the beginning of TIME ENOUGH FOR LOVE. If you were offered unending existence as a vampire, with at least some of the traditional limitations, would you accept?

Margaret L. Carter (www.margaretlcarter.com)

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Beauty and the Beast: Constructing the HEA

To some people it may seem somewhat narrow minded that readers of Romance insist on the Happily Ever After ending.

After all, HEA is so unrealistic, a childish fantasy. Thus people who read Romance must have something wrong with them, which means Romance as a field is not to be taken seriously, which is a topic we've discussed at length in this blog.

I think those readers are missing something important about the novel as an artform. As writers, our job is to explain what they're missing in "show don't tell" technique.

Whatever type of novel you prefer reading, you read it for the satisfaction, the validation of your world view in the artform.

The Romance as an artform is not different, even (or especially) when you cast the Romance plot against an alien background or involve a non-human character in the main plot thread.

The worldview that the Romance HEA validates is something like "No Man Is An Island" or in modern psychological research, that happier, healthier longer lives are lived by those who have firm and dependable Relationships.

Here's a recent report in a long list of such reports on marriage and health:

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-heart-women5-2009mar05,0,5692637.story?track=rss
--------------
Reuters
March 5, 2009
Chicago -- Women in strained marriages are more likely than other wives to have high blood pressure and other risk factors for heart disease, researchers said today.
... and: The researchers found that women in marriages with high levels of strife were more prone to depression and metabolic syndrome, a cluster of symptoms including thick waist, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and abnormal blood sugar that significantly raise the risk of heart disease.
---------------

Oh? HEA is unrealistic, eh?

If a relationship crystallizes solidly, settles into a supportive and low-strife paradigm, then (science is beginning to discover) AS A CONSEQUENCE the future course of the partners lives will be ENHANCED by good health and an assortment of miseries that are absent. That is they will live "happily ever after" because of the formation of this Relationship.

There have been other studies that showed how women are physically healthier than men because of the maintaining of relationships with other women, particularly that of the confidant. Relationships cause consequences -- and good Relationships cause HEA.

Of course, humans being human, while you're living an HEA arc of a life, you will find other reasons to make yourself miserable. You never think of all the diseases and disorders and dysfunctions you DON'T have in your life, so you can't see that you are happy.

People who have this kind of very real misery in their life might want to read horror or tragedy -- soap opera stories of unrelenting misery -- to stay aware of the troubles they don't have, troubles worse than theirs. It's a way of convincing yourself you are happy. And there's nothing wrong with that. It can motivate changes in relationships to raise the odds of an HEA in life. HEA endings can do that too - spark aspiration.

So how does a writer construct an HEA ending?

Well, it's an ENDING.

There are 3 points in The Novel that have to be nailed before you can outline the novel. Beginning. Middle. End. Determine any one of those, and the other two become determined.

If the END must be "happy" - an up-beat ending - then the MIDDLE must be the worst point in the main character's life (utter ruin; total hopelessness; conquered, captured, vanquished, left for dead, stood up at the altar).

With a low Middle and high End -- the Beginning has to be the ORIGIN of the problem that nearly kills the main character in the Middle and which he overcomes to triumph in the end.

Solve this one problem and all his life-troubles are over for good. There's HEA potential in every other genre, even or especially Horror.

Plot is driven by Conflict. To have a conflict, you have to have at least two elements that conflict. This vs. That. An urgent MUST vs an equally formidable CAN'T.

In the Romance, the urgent MUST is provided by the attraction to the other party. Science has revealed why we feel that MUST.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090211/ap_on_sc/sci_love_science

is an article on discoveries about brain chemistry and love. I think I've mentioned that here before, and on goodreads.com in SFRomance.

Add to that the subliminal awareness that our very lives depend on founding solid Relationships, and when a candidate for that Relationship appears it becomes an urgent emergency to "catch" that guy or gal.

Theory has it that it's the reproductive urge that drives us into Relationships. And that certainly seems reasonable -- BUT, if you don't live long enough to have and raise kids, reproduction becomes a moot point. I think we are aware in every cell of our bodies that our minute to minute existence depends on solid Relationships.

Mystically, the First Chakra (staying alive) always trumps the Second Chakra matters of reproduction. Our priorities are ordered for us on that basic a level. This premise lurks far in the background of my Sime~Gen novels.




The brain chemistry study shows us why we have the objective of establishing solid relationships. Relationships protect basic health so that we can reproduce.

Sothe URGENT MUST part of the conflict: "here is a POTENTIAL PARTNER; I must have this person or die!"

Your very life depends (literally) on reaching out to and securing that person in your life. That is not melodrama, it's science.

For all HEA Romances, that piece of the formula is established by the genre rules. The Urgent Must has to be an attraction to a partner and everything else is "complication" or background.

Now, the writer gets creative and the genre walls disappear into the distance. The writer can explore the universe finding things to prevent the attaining of this objective. What obstacles prevent people from forming partnerships?

The art of the romance novel lies in the variegated CAN'Ts writers have hurled at their characters.

What the CAN'T actually is does not matter as much as that it is just about equal to the MUST. To craft the HEA, there has to be a tangible chance that the Relationship won't gel.

But success has to be plausible, so the CAN'T has to have a "fatal flaw" that makes it believable that the two people do overcome this obstacle.

It is very possible that the low prestige of the Romance Novel (and particularly the Paranormal or SF Romance) comes from the choice of obstacle.

Some people may pick up Romances where the obstacle is fabricated, and in technical parlance, "contrived" so that it can be overcome. The "paper tiger" obstacle.

As a result, casual readers may judge all Romance to be "thin" -- a puppet show where the strings are visible.

Judging an entire genre by one or two novels is fairly common. Have you ever done that?

So, the Romance HEA is crafted from a scientificly verified array of MUSTS vs. artistically invented CAN'Ts. The HEA point is where the MUST overcomes the CAN'T -- i.e. the point where the conflict is resolved.

So tell me why all Romance isn't classed as Science Fiction Romance? If all Romance has the MUST part of the plot formula as a scientific premise, why isn't every Romance considered SFR?
The answer to this puzzle may be found by reading something outside the genre.

I have here a novel, a police procedural which raised the question of the HEA requirement again.




FLIPPING OUT by Marshall Karp. It's an April 2009 book I got from the amazon.com VINE program in ARC. It's copyright is held by a film company. I already posted my (4 star) review on amazon.

The intriguing premise is that a famous mystery writer is in a scheme to buy a run-down house, fix it up, write a murder mystery set in the house, then sell the house at auction on the day the book launches (complete with fictional murder victim's outline in tape on the bedroom floor).

It's set against the background of Hollywood. HUGE amount of money involved in the house flipping scheme -- very interesting background, like Columbo, a glimpse of the rich and famous.

It is a pretty good cut and dried, well turned and well written police procedural mystery with a nice clue-trail.

You can solve the mystery before the detectives do, but not TOO MUCH before, and the ending comes with a nice tricky TWIST shocker-scene, after which you get told what the detectives knew before you knew it. It's a good twist ending and provides a nice film moment for the climax. It's a good book.

Ah, BUT!!! There are many buts I didn't mention in my amazon review.

Reading this novel right in the midst of reading a sequence of fairly good fantasy novels, I found the contrast striking.

The mystery formula also requires an HEA ending. The mystery has to be SOLVED, and the reader has to feel satisfied that they could solve it as well or better than the detectives (but not a lot better because then it's too easy).

So while I'm thinking about the HEA reader requirement in Romance, I'm reading this mystery and second-guessing the detectives.

And I realized WHAT'S MISSING from FLIPPING OUT. It's a factor that I find very satisfying in say, Faye Kellerman's Peter Decker and Rina Lazarus series. And that is characterization. It's a reason I like Columbo and Murder She Wrote, too. The mystery and its solution hinge entirely on the psychology and relationships of the victims, suspects AND the detectives!!

FLIPPING OUT provides a huge, stark, high relief contrast to the psychological drama type mysteries that I love. The stringent absence of the psychology dimension makes for a dry, clean, stark, and austere reading experience (very much like old fashioned neck-up science fiction, I discussed last week) that is, no doubt, very satisfying to the reader looking for that simple puzzle without any psychological tangles.

FLIPPING OUT puts the emotional lives of the bereaved, terrified and frustrated characters in the background while the foreground focuses on the puzzle itself. That's what this genre is supposed to do.

So this book is perfect of its kind, but unsatisfying to me. Yet it has the perfect ending for a mystery. The detectives solve the case which is equivalent to the HEA where the gal gets her guy and vice-versa.

At the halfway point, the darkest hour, the detectives think they solved it -- everyone above them thinks it's solved. The perp was the last person in the world they'd suspect. They're crushed. Then they discover they're wrong, and the perp is actually someone even more last-person-in-the-world than they'd expect.

FLIPPING OUT is likely to be a best seller, very popular, might even make a movie. The author's other novels have garnered serious respect, the sort we'd love to see SFR get as a genre.
What does FLIPPING OUT have that Science Fiction Romance doesn't?

Could it lie in the CAN'T rather than in the MUST part of the conflict formula?

One really great Romance that did make it onto TV as a series is BEAUTY AND THE BEAST.



This series spawned a plethora of fanfic on paper on on the web, and some really great fan novels, too. It grabbed the imagination of the SFR type reader-fan. But why did it fail on TV?

The premise stalled the plot.

The premise was that the couple could NEVER get together. That's not bad in itself. The CAN'T has to be formidable.

But the characters accepted the CAN'T. They didn't fight it. They didn't try scheme after scheme (like I LOVE LUCY plots). They didn't attempt to go public. They didn't plan to run away. Neither was willing to sacrifice to go live in the other's world.

Neither of the main characters was HEROIC about overcoming the plot premise CAN'T. And in the end, the writers tried to salvage that, change and evolve the premise by revealing that one of the characters was actually of non-human (alien from outer space) blood -- but by then the audience was losing interest.

They hadn't sold the BEAUTY AND THE BEAST series as SFR so the audience deserted them when they tried to turn it into SFR, making the problem solvable.

Why did the audience lose interest? Because the MUST didn't show any progress toward overcoming the CAN'T. The conflict was not moving to a resolution without breaking the original premise.

There couldn't be an HEA unless you changed the premise - which is of course what the fanfic writers did.

So contrast and compare FLIPPING OUT with BEAUTY AND THE BEAST and think about it. Too little psychology and the actions and reactions don't seem plausible enough to make a story interesting even if the plot is fascinating. Too much psychology and the story stalls dead in its tracks because there isn't the gumption to pay the price for conflict resolution.

To create the HEA effect (in any genre), the trick is matching the MUST (and its motives, conscious and subconscious) with the CAN'T (and its motives, conscious and subconscious), in such a way as to challenge each of the characters to overcome some internal barrier, to CHANGE (or ARC in screenwriting parlance) in a way that opens the opportunity for the MUST to overcome the CAN'T.

In the Murder Mystery Police Procedural the Must, Can't and HEA in the foreground is the whole, logical why-done-it puzzle. It's who knows whom and follow the money for motivation. The angst, grieving widowers, and fear of discovery are all way in the background, told rather than shown.

In the Alien Science Fiction Romance, the affairs of state, plot puzzles, science and logic of brain biochemistry are in the background, told rather than shown, while the angst, grief, fears, hopes, dreams, and fantasies are in the foreground, shown rather than told.

What is in the foreground and what is in the background very often determines the audience that will most appreciate the work of art.

Or the fanfic writers will reverse foreground and background to tell each other new stories.

For more on those psychological and spiritual internal barriers and how to construct them for your characters out of the material inside your reader's mind see my blog post:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/02/paradigm-shift.html

For a writing exercise related to setting up foreground and background and "worldbuilding" the background see my blog entry writing assignment and read the exercise posted as comments on

http://editingcircle.blogspot.com/2009/03/worldbuilding-trunk-ated.html

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://www.slantedconcept.com

Monday, March 09, 2009

CROSSING THE AISLES

(WARNING: Deadline brain still in full force)

I never gave any thought to genre when I was a child. Hell, I really never gave a whole lot of thought to genre until I signed a contract with my agent. But looking back at over half a century of being an avid reader, I know my reading choices were affected by several parameters—the least of which was a genre.

My choices as a child were limited by 1) what my mother brought home 2) what was in the local Five-&-Dime (and for those of you scratching your heads, ask—I am giving away my age here…) 3) what I had to read in school and 4) what was available from the Scholastic Book Club that month (also part of school). I had Golden Books (remember those? They’re still around). I read stories about talking rabbits and talking cats and talking butterflies. Was I reading fantasy? Damned if I know. I was reading a colorful book with hard cardboard covers and a gold foil spine. I was having fun. I was being pulled out of my me-ness and my world and into Someplace Else in my imagination.

I also had several large books of fairy tales, which I assume my parents or some relative bought. There was the usual Mother Goose stuff but there were also Aesop’s stories, and then one book that I remember treasuring that had to be someone’s original ideas. Thinking back, they had an almost Narnia quality to them but they weren’t the Narnia books. There was one tale of a clothes cabinet in an attic, and the little girl in the story could use it for all sorts of adventures (I’m thinking a mirror was involved). I remember one of the stories involved a pair of red shoes (Mary Jane style from the illustration that I can still—vaguely—see to this day). The other involved a dress she wore in a print of multi-colored pom-poms. I craved that dress. There was something about that particular dress and its colors, but what and how and why are all long since gone from my mind.

So perhaps I read adventure? Thriller? With a fantasy sub-plot?

In school Dick and Jane were always doing something. Was that general literary fiction? A precursor of Oprah meets Dr. Phil? Then when I was nine or ten my mother subscribed to Reader’s Digest Condensed Classics For Children, and every few months a nice big fat volume came in the mail. For me. Oh, joy. Oh, rapture. I fell in love with The Scarlet Pimpernel. I solved crimes with Sherlock Holmes.

I wouldn’t know a genre if it bit me in the behind.

At the end of every school year, the local library had a book sale, with the children’s books all on long tables. I was in heaven. I had my dollar which meant I could buy ten books, and I grabbed them based on cover images, title. Genre? No clue. “Does this look like fun?” was my only parameter.

I read The Hobbit in eighth grade. Not because I was browsing the fantasy section but because everyone else was reading The Hobbit. I never asked myself if I like fantasy or whether I’d find stories about not-quite-human creatures believable. “Suspension of disbelief” had no meaning to me. After all, I’d cut my reading teeth on fairy tales. Reading about ogres and witches and fairies and talking mice and flying cats had opened my mind long ago.

I read for the sheer joy of the experience. Opening the first page of a book signaled to my mind an immediate shut off of here and now, of reality as I knew it. Even when I was a pre-teen and read You Have To Draw The Line Somewhere—a YA novel before such were labeled so—about a high school girl deciding between a regular college and an art school. No unreality in that but it was still not MY life or MY school or MY decision. So it required a shut off of here and now, which I gladly did. (If you think it’s amazing that I remember the title of a book I read when I was twelve, then you don’t understand the depth of my love affair with the printed word.)

I didn’t give one thought to whether or not I liked the genre.

Rather, the one common denominator in all that I read—once I could make my own choices—was “does this problem or situation sound interesting?” In essence, conflict. In essence, to quote Blake Snyder, I was interested in “it’s all about a guy who…” Whether the guy was a prince, a doctor, a magician or a high school student mattered not one bit.

In my twenties and later, I did a lot of book buying at the grocery store where, for the most part, there’s no genre separation. Oh, there’s a little, with romance books on the left of the long display and some science fiction and fantasy in a row at the bottom. Or vice versa. But as people read the back cover blurbs and replace them, the books just get put back…somewhere. So I chose much as I had a decade before at the school library sale—what looks like fun?

I first read Melissa Scott because I found her Five Twelfths of Heaven in a bin in K-Mart.

I found Sherrilyn Kenyon’s A Pirate of Her Own (writing as Kinley MacGregor) in a bin in TJ Maxx (or it might have been Beall’s Outlet…).

I found Austin Tappan Wright’s Islandia…I don’t know where. I only remember reading it in college so possibly it was on a rack in the IU bookstore.

I didn’t read back then with one eye tracking whether or not the author fulfilled the conventions of the genre. I read because it was all about a gal or guy who… and it wasn’t where or who I was.

It never occurred to me to read—or not read—a certain genre because it wasn’t cool or it wasn’t something a female would read or it wasn’t highly regarded by this-or-that person.

I read because for a couple hundred pages, I wasn’t me.

So why do you read? What did you read as a child and has that impacted what you read now?

And do you quiver with excitement over a bin full of mixed books in a bargain store…or do you need your genres properly cordoned off on shelves?

Inquiring minds want to know. ~Linnea

Linnea Sinclair
// Interstellar Adventure Infused with Romance//
Available Now from Bantam: Hope's Folly
http://www.linneasinclair.com/

Sunday, March 08, 2009

Where would you put Tarzan?

Where would you put Tarzan... if you were a GoodReads Librarian or a bookseller? I'm talking genre and category.

To check him out alphabetically, I plan to walk up the hill to my local library when the rain abates to see if he's shelved under Rice or Burroughs.

Is Tarzan Of The Apes science fiction? Fantasy? Romance? Or something else? There has been a very interesting discussion of the book and its sequels on GoodReads

http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/112650.Tarzan_of_the_Apes

I was asked to weigh in on the Romance. In my view, it's not a Romance, because the noble Tarzan doesn't end up with Jane at the end of the book. Some would argue that a Romance does not have to have a HEA.

Then, there's Edgar Rice Burroughs's command of the language of Romance. The "smothering" of Jane's "panting lips" with masculine kisses.

Apparently ERB did not enjoy the attentions of his editors, and it seems, he successfully resisted them.

The discussion there (on Goodreads) has been wide-ranging, from cannibalism, morality, kissing, nature versus nurture, the Frenchman's idea of a civilized drink. So I won't rehash. I simply thought that some of our group might be interested.


And now for something completely different, and random:

The April issue of DISCOVER magazine arrived this weekend. It contains articles about manipulating chicken embryos to grow new little dinosaurs, about infrared bats, and money. And much more.

Money. For those who love the small of money, here's why. There's more cocaine residue on US paper currency than on any other nation's promissory notes. There's also staph bacteria and fecal matter. Maybe you could get C-difficile from the bank!!!!

Hmmm. Who handles cash? People who are worried about their credit. Who prints money? The government. In an alternative universe where unscrupulous people might be in charge, they could impregnate cash with superbugs, put it into circulation, and solve all manner of problems.

There's an article about brain boosting drugs, and a suggestion that India or China might gain a competitive global advantage if they allowed their workers to use it. One headline "Drugs such as marijuana, LSD, mescaline"..."can increase creativity."

Some of the music and poetry from the Flower Power years was pretty good. Weren't there quite a few modern authors "In Xanadu did Kublai Khan a stately pleasure dome decree" etc who felt that they did their best work when we would have pronounced them unfit to drive?

Artichokes aren't an illegal substance, so I freely admit that I think I write better when I drink artichoke tea. And, I have wilder dreams when I eat cheese last thing at night. Other authors swear by chocolate, or Pepsi.

Final thought. One of my family members is very keen on watching "It's Me Or The Dog", a program featuring dog trainer Victoria Stillwell (whose sartorial style reminds me of an off duty, very classy dominatrix, but that's another issue, and I hasten to say that she never, ever does anything cruel. Most of her discipline involves the giving or withholding of food treats, toys and praise).

Last night, Victoria recommended a combination of carrots and rice in the diet (of a stressed Weimeraner) to help it cope. I wonder whether carrots and rice at night would have a mellowing effect on us?

I may not get a chance to post next weekend. I shall be at the Amelia Island concours d'elegance.

Barbara Vey is celebrating a week of genre-based romance on her PW Beyond Her Book blog
http://www.publishersweekly.com/BeyondHerBook

Monday 9th is Paranormal/Futuristic day.

I heard (sorry, I did not memorize the link) that there is an editor on Twitter who announced yesterday that she is looking for a complete paranormal in a hurry as she has a sudden space to fill. I think it's Osbourne. Maybe a Tweet Beep, or #query would find it.

Best wishes,

Rowena Cherry
Space Snark (TM)

Thursday, March 05, 2009

Things Humankind Shouldn't Meddle With?

During the big East Coast snowstorm Sunday night and Monday, I thought about weather control. Cold and wet weather of any kind depress me, except that snow is okay if the electricity stays on and I can sit at home watching the white stuff through a window (but at the very time of year snow is most likely, I usually can’t). I’d happily welcome the ability to give everyplace a “Mediterranean” climate, like southern California in the summer. Fantasy fiction, however, often warns against too much tampering with weather. Magic that conjures rain to relieve drought in one location might disrupt the weather somewhere else. If our future science invents a reliable climate-changing technology, the same caution might apply. Couldn’t we arrange a Camelot-type climate, though? Long, mild springs, summers, and fall; short winters; rain only after sundown?

I own a copy of a provocative anthology from the early 1960s, HUMAN AND OTHER BEINGS, edited by Groff Conklin, on the theme of prejudice and what it means to be human. One story, called “All the Colors of the Rainbow” (I think), deals with alien visitors helping Earth learn how to use weather control technology. Two technicians, a young couple of an outwardly human species but with green skin, are traveling in the deep South. A thunderstorm is building; the husband reminds his wife that the natives won’t believe in the effectiveness of climate control if the alien experts show fear of the local weather. After driving through a hostile small town, whose inhabitants hate the idea of funny-looking foreigners from other planets barging in and telling them what to do, the couple is waylaid by a gang of men who beat them up and rape the wife. The husband takes revenge by diverting storm clouds to flood the valley.

The book contains lots of other good stories, for instance, one about “zombie” soldiers created from the tissues of dead troops. In another story a man learns his wife is an android the day after their wedding and sues for annulment. Though he still loves her, he feels bitterly betrayed because she concealed the fact that, as an android, she (supposedly) can’t conceive children. Androids in the universe of Robert Heinlein’s FRIDAY, a novel that raises the question of what constitutes “human” status, are definitely sterile. Friday unwittingly becomes pregnant when her body is used to smuggle a royal embryo between planets. In the end, she abandons her career as a special agent and settles down as a farm wife on a frontier world. Becoming part of a family puts to rest her doubts about her humanity.

If you can find a copy of HUMAN AND OTHER BEINGS, I recommend you pick it up; it’s a truly memorable anthology on a theme of perennial importance. Whether altering our climate or our own species, with the technological powers of the near future will come new responsibilities and ethical quandaries.

Margaret L. Carter (www.margaretlcarter.com)

Tuesday, March 03, 2009

Paranormal Romance

This post leads up to a workshop exercise in World Building.

A couple weeks ago, Linnea Sinclair asked on the Paranormal Romance forum at goodreads.com if SF Romance should be a subcategory under Paranormal Romance. I've been haunted by the topic ever since.

Opinions varied widely. People looking for "Paranormal" don't want any nuts-n-bolts mixed in with their ghosts, vampires and werewolves.

I can understand that. There are times I want my Paranormal straight up, no ice. But I always like my SF with some telepaths or other Scientific Law Breaking element.

That is one (of the many) things essential to a good SF story, the confounding of all expectations.

SF is about the effect of science on PEOPLE (human and not), about the approach to The Unknown, and about the way that Relationships affect what Science can and can't do.

SF was (not any more) about the maverick kid who solves adult problems by inventing something adults think is impossible. Today it's a much more adult and complex field, so it's much harder to define. Still, there is a unifying pattern in SF that joins it directly to Fantasy and thus Paranormal Romance.

So to set off the train of plot events leading to a unique Relationship, the SF story starts with an Idea.

The Idea has the form, "What if ..." or "If only ..." or "If This Goes On ..." And the idea that sparks the story leaps over all mental and emotional barriers. On internal emotional barriers: see my post from last week about The Tower Card and mental barriers
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/02/paradigm-shift.html

So SF relies on a story springboard that leaps over all mental and emotional barriers in the reader to suppose something that "simply can not be!" under the current understanding of reality. And right there, the reader is sucked into a world that can't exist. That's what's FUN about SF -- it violates the laws of reality as the reader knows them.

At core, SF is about breaking the rules that confine imagination.

Almost by definition, Science Fiction is about venturing outside your comfort zone.

But what's the difference between SF and Fantasy -- and between Fantasy and Romance?

Today, we're all looking to mix and match genres, to adventure where no woman has gone before, while most readers of Romance of any sub-genre don't want to be dragged outside their comfort zone. The comfort zone may enlarge or change, but the average Romance reader doesn't want to cross that borderline for fun.

Readers are looking for a good adventure into a unique but satisfying relationship, a story with an optimistic ending, HEA or better.

Part of the fun of the Paranormal Romance is finding that great story interwoven into a background that changes the story without distorting or marring it. (What if that hot new boyfriend is actually a Vampire?) The Romance has to grow out of the background, be caused by the background, but still be our own beloved story.

For years the Gothic satisfied that itch. Stories about inherited old houses with resident ghost, brooding mysterious neighbor, or spooky powers held endless fascination because they had endless variations.

And the Regency Romance delved into a period of history that twanged the fantasy nerve just as Western Romance did -- marvelously alien dress codes, women resisting or secretly thwarting the power men had over them, behavior and manners that could be an alien language. Regency England was indeed another planet! SF Fandom gravitated to the Regency Romance and to this day hold a Regency Ball at conventions -- The Regency Romance is SF.

Then the Vampire As Good Guy appeared, venturing over from the adult fantasy lines spun off of Science Fiction where the Vampire was usually a bad guy hero such as Linnea was talking about in her post
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/03/redemption-rake-and-reluctant-hero.html

Emma Bull's Hugo Award winning novel, War For The Oaks, launched an urban fantasy revolution, and before long we had Laurell K. Hamilton's genre busting Anita Blake urban fantasy. And of course Buffy. Now Harry Dresden in Butcher's THE DRESDEN FILES combines it all - bad guy hunk, angst, magic, even his ex who became a vampire. He's not a private eye. He's a private wizard! (that private wizard part is one of my oldest old time favorites)

But where did it all start? And what is the DIFFERENCE between SF and Fantasy and Romance?

How many of you remember the mid-1950's story which was Marion Zimmer Bradley's first sale, (I think to Vortex Magazine? 1952? Or Fantasy and Science Fiction in 1955?) called Centaurus Changeling which has been widely heralded as the very first SF story that had RELATIONSHIP in it at the plot level -- relationship beyond rescuing the damsel in distress.

Prior to publication of Centaurus Changeling, SF was "Neck Up Science Fiction" -- it was aimed at adolescent boys who didn't want to deal with emotions.

Marion Zimmer Bradley changed that aim of the genre and began to serve the interests of young women, too. But it didn't seem like it for yet another 20 years or so, though her Darkover novels were being published and scarfed up by an ever increasing fandom, mostly female.

So with Darkover as the thin sliver of a wedge, gradually SF with a relationship and emotion driven plot was introduced.

So what is Darkover? It's a story about telepaths who have all sorts of other ESP powers and with those powers on their far-away lost colony planet called Darkover, they do everything that Science does for us from heal the sick to mining and smelting metal, and even making atom bombs.

On Darkover, technology is driven by ethics. Morals. And passionate love affairs as well as passionless arranged marriages.

See my comment on Linnea Sinclair's post which is about Moral Hazard -
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/03/redemption-rake-and-reluctant-hero.html

So what is the Darkover series? Is it SF? Or is it Fantasy? World Wreckers is certainly one of the best Romances I've ever read and it's about ecological warfare. (she wrote it in response to Ursula LeGuin's Left Hand of Darkness which is SFRomance too -- or more exactly Alien Romance which is the topic of this blog. I expect all of you have studied and dissected Left Hand of Darkness -- the Worldbuilding she did with that won her both the Hugo and the Nebula with one book.)

In Science Fiction, the scientific laws that are challenged or broken by the story premise are from the physics, math and chemistry we all know and love. The plot mysteries are solved by applying laboratory science.

The Fantasy field split off from SF, and for decades the only Fantasy readers were SF readers too. But gradually it came to be that only women wrote Fantasy and mostly only women read it. Then that changed too. I think there may be more men writing adult Fantasy today then women. (by "adult" I don't mean sexually explicit).

But I'm still looking for the DIFFERENCE where the split between SF and Fantasy occurred.

I see a similarity so glaring it wipes out all differences.

In Fantasy -- Paranormal, Urban, whatever -- in Fantasy the scientific laws that are challenged or broken by the story premise are from parapsychology, mythology, archeology, anthropology.

The thinking that generates that Law Breaking story premise is precisely the same as the thinking that goes into an SF story premise.

From the writer's point of view, Fantasy and SF are identical.

"What if were-creatures had legal rights?" (Laurell K. Hamilton created what is called in Hollywood a High Concept with that one.) And all of a sudden, Earth becomes a galactic civilization in microcosm with dozens of sentient species co-existing.

Both SF and Fantasy do alternate history and parallel worlds and time travel.

I see no real difference except in the backgrounding that delineates what is "real" and what is "not real" -- what can and what can not exist in the story-universe.

Which brings me back to the Tarot posts and the Astrology posts I've done on this blog. I've shown how I see Science as a branch of Magic, or of Philosophy. Science studies 1/44th of the reality structured by the philosophy illustrated by the Tree of Life.

Science is a special case of the much larger subject of Philosophy in which you can account for the Soul and all kinds of ESP type powers.

Neck-Up Science Fiction, Science Fiction pre-Marion Zimmer Bradley, deals with 1/44th of the realm of storytelling.

And clearly, from the discussion Linnea Sinclair stirred up on goodreads.com, the largest coherent market for novels (Romance Readers) cares as much or more for the BACKGROUND (i.e. the rules of science or magic behind the story) as they do about the Romance itself.

BACKGROUND is what readers see. WORLDBUILDING is how writers put it there to be seen.

Readers see a distinction based on the setting and background. Enjoyment is at least as dependent on the background as on the story.

A distinction which I see as no distinction at all is of vital importance to a huge readership, Paranormal Romance readers.

I think I see a reason for this. It is often referred to as "accessibility" -- and I'm not entirely sure what exactly that means.

But here's a blog post from 2005 discussing the accessibility of science fiction today. This pertains directly to another issue we've discussed on this blog, how to elevate the reputation of Romance in general but Alien Romance or SFR or PNR in the eyes of the general population.

http://www.scalzi.com/whatever/003914.html

He makes the point that SF just isn't "accessible" the way say Harry Potter is.

And I don't think it's the STORY as such that isn't accessible. It's the background that isn't accessible to the typical Romance reader.

Romance Readers aren't uneducated. They just have a different education, one that emphasizes philosophy, mythology, literature, sociology, psychology (Marion Zimmer Bradley's education was in psychology) -- the soft sciences.

Reading for relaxation, you want to play with what you know, not stretch to learn something new which is what you do at work all day every day. When your brain is tired, you want to stop learning.

So the challenge in Scalzi's blog is to create SF that's accessible like Harry Potter.

The challenge for us then is to create Alien Romance or Paranormal Romance with a background that's "accessible" to the sort of reader who would like the story.

And as we've seen with Laurell K. Hamilton, what it takes to reach a large audience is a High Concept (a trick I'm not good at.)

So when you're not good at something, you practice. Let's practice.

On my writing workshop blog, I'll put up a story opening and a challenge to wrap WORLDBUILDING around the story to make it accessible. This will call for OUTLINING which is what Blake Snyder calls a BEAT SHEET.

The BS Beat Sheet works perfectly for novels, and at this stage of developing the Worldbuilding for a story, it doesn't matter if it's a novel or a movie or TV Series, the essence of the craft is the same.

You can download Snyder's Beat Sheet for free here

http://www.blakesnyder.com/tools/

If you're a writing student, consider this part of your million words for the garbage can. If you're a publishing writer, come play with us and see if you can do something you've never done before.
I will dare to predict that one of you will learn something from this exercise that will solve the acceptability problem for SFR.

http://www.editingcircle.blogspot.com/

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

Sunday, March 01, 2009

Redemption, the Rake and the Reluctant Hero

I have deadline brain. This means that the majority of my existence is—or should be—focused on getting my next contracted book out of the computer and to my editor at Bantam by May 1st. Being I’m only at twenty-thousand words (give or take five hundred) as of this moment, I’m in a fairly serious hurt. I need to create eighty thousand words (at least) in sixty days. And I have a major conference and a minor one tucked in there in April, houseguests for the next week due to the husband’s golf tourney (don’t ask—beyond my ken) and several other promotional and family obligations hovering in the background.

So I’m going to ramble—as you can see from the title above—about redemption, the rake and the reluctant hero because 1) the title sounds good and 2) that’s what I want to talk about.

With Hope’s Folly’s release this week, I’ve been surfing blogs and review sites to see what readers and reviewers think of Philip and Rya. Beyond the obvious reasons for doing this there’s my curiosity about reaction to my character of Admiral Philip Guthrie who, in the world of romance novels, would fit more squarely under the Good Boy banner than the rogue or Bad Boy.
The romance genre—and science fiction romance hasn’t shied from this—is replete with rakes and rogues. Bad boys in need of reformation. Susan Grant penned the fabulous Reef in How To Lose an Extraterrestrial in 10 Days and the wonderfully sexy Finn in Moonstruck. Nora’s JD Robb has Roarke. Robin D Owens has Ruis and a ton of others. Rowena Cherry has her bad boy gods. And the list goes on. There’s even my Sully in Gabriel’s Ghost and Shades of Dark.

Bad boys are fun. And there’s something satisfying about watching a rake succumb to love. We root for Inara and Mal to finally get together in Joss Whedon’s universe. And author Colby Hodge has her sights set on Jayne… If anyone can reform Jayne, it’s Colby aka Cindy Holby.

Philip Guthrie didn’t need reforming. Okay, he needed a kick in the pants over what happened between him and Chaz Bergren but Philip was and is a “good guy.” Honorable. Trustworthy. A veritable Boy Scout.

Which makes him a bit odd as a hero of a romance novel, even a science fiction romance novel. But as I write I’m beginning to discover the lure of the good man.

Good guys need love too.

Maybe I should get a bumper sticker printed up (do starships have a place for bumper stickers?)

Good guys also need redemption, maybe even more than those sexy rogues, because they are good guys. They know when they’ve failed. They hurt deeply when they’ve failed. They know what’s right and what’s wrong. Moreover, they know they’ve tried to do the right thing and when the right thing goes sour, they take the blame inside themselves.

Book reviewer (and former US Naval Academy instructor) Dr. Phil Jason uses this phrase in his review of Folly: “The tug of war between decorum and passion…” and I like that immensely. I think it nicely sums up what happens when a good guy gets his essence pushed to the limit.
http://philjason.wordpress.com/2009/02/10/linnea-sinclairs-steamy-sci-fi-saga/

Lurv-Ala-Mode reviews Philip thusly: “…the weight of this war and the Alliance’s position in it rests on his shoulders. He’s honor and duty-bound to put that above anything else, so he struggles a lot internally with his attraction to Rya. He’s also coming off the heels of the realization that he wasn’t ever there for his ex-wife, Chaz, as much as he could have been. He wasn’t fair to her, wasn’t there for her emotionally, and he wonders how he could ever make any relationship with a woman work.”
http://lurvalamode.wordpress.com/2009/02/09/arc-review-hopes-folly/

A rogue can struggle against doing what he sees to be the wrong thing, but the wrong thing is what comes naturally to him. The good guy, well, doing the wrong thing isn’t even in his vocabulary. So it becomes a very real “tug of war between decorum and passion.”

Which makes it, to me, somehow deeper. Somehow more threatening. As an author, you always ask yourself what a character has to lose? And a loss of honor, a loss of self-respect, is a huge thing.
Which brings me now to the reluctant hero. The good guy who’s essentially minding his own business but finds himself thrust into conflict because it’s not only the right thing to do, it’s the only thing to do. Even if he as no clue what he’s doing there.

He’s driven by something even deeper: part honor, part untapped potential and a very real knowledge that he—and someone he cares about—have their backs against the wall. And there’s no way out but the one he has to take.

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us most.” ~Maryanne Williamson

That’s what drives Devin Guthrie—Philip’s youngest brother—in the next book. Devin, like Philip, is good people. Loyal, hard-working, honest. He just doesn’t think of himself as hero material.

Surprise.

Eighty thousand words to go.

~Linnea

HOPE’S FOLLY, Book 3 in the Gabriel’s Ghost universe, Feb. 24, 2009 from RITA award-winning author, Linnea Sinclair, and Bantam Books: http://www.linneasinclair.com/

“If we can’t do the impossible, then we need to at least be able to do the unexpected.” —Admiral Philip Guthrie

Jumping on the "bright blue scrotum"

There isn't a "bright" blue scrotum in my book, but there's a "glorious blue scrotum". Can you find it in the excerpt below?

For those who want to see the news video, it's at the bottom of this post.

In this scene, the villain --who is known as The Saurian Dragon-- has decided to convince an alien king Viz-Igerd that his queen is committing spectacular adultery. To that end, he has doctored a radio transmission from the man, Grievous, much as it is alleged Mr John Gibson's remarks were doctored


The Dragon considered. Grievous was a memorable character, and it was dangerous to underestimate an enemy. “The same, I think. But I cannot be positive. Dirty-pink Earthlings all look alike to me.”

“They look like Djinn!” Viz-Igerd agreed, blind drunk. The King seemed struck with the physical similarity. This was not the first time His Majesty had commented. Presumably, the splendid idea of breaking intergalactic law with one of a billion human women had taken root.

“I hope you can still hear me, Your Imperial Highness. I have to say that I would not have thought it of Princess Electra....” Tarrant-Arragon’s man appeared to continue his report without a pause. The editing had been smoothly done. “…There’s no way to put this delicately. I’ve seen it with my own two eyes. Bunking… both of them.”

The Dragon narrowed his eyes, watching Viz-Igerd carefully. The re-use of “bunking” had been a calculated risk. It sounded sufficiently like ‘bonking’ for his seditious purposes.

By now, at least three official transmissions were curving their way around the space-time continuum at different speeds, and in different directions, all making reference to Electra-Djerroldina enjoying unlawful carnal knowledge of someone. Or not. The flow could not be staunched. The only sensible course was to goad Viz-Igerd into such a blind fury that he’d never take a rational moment to consider that ’Rhett would be the more plausible lover.

Other auditors would hear accurate versions, of course. And Viz-Igerd’s mind could always be wiped with Djinncraft, if exploratory mischief-making turned out not to be advantageous.

“Dragon! What is a Fust-er-Cluck?”

That one had obviously been festering in Viz-Igerd’s imagination for some moments.

“Where that human comes from, it means an orgy,” the Dragon mistranslated. “That is, various clumsy sex acts performed in rapid succession, with the greatest excesses condensed into a relatively brief time.”

He glanced at his victim. He refrained from discussing how many participants were required for an authentic orgy, as opposed to a Volnoth “Orgy of State,” where only the King copulated with the Queen, although they both watched multiple goings-on. Amusing as it would be to torment His Majesty, he did have to protect his only son. ’Rhett had to survive. He was the succession plan. ’Rhett would be the next Saurian Dragon, and all the sooner—perhaps— if he wanted to avenge Electra.

Yes, the Queen might have to be sacrificed. However, a show trial without a named co-conspirator might be difficult to orchestrate. Fortunately, he’d identified a satisfactory scapegoat in Prince Thor-quentin. No one cared about Thor-quentin.

“I imagine that your Queen and the vigorous young Great Djinn Prince are thoroughly enjoying the rut-rage.” He turned the screw, while gesturing blandly to the hologram, where the messenger was still speaking, and trying to scrape invisible dirt off his footwear. “It would be Electra-Djerroldina’s first rut-rage, would it not?”

Poor Viz-Igerd, unable to control his embarrassment, was displaying his… displeasure to hear that his queen was creatively fornicating her way to Earth. There was some species of primate on Earth—the name of it would come— that had a boiled-red face that turned redder the angrier it got. It seldom had to fight. The facial reddening was threat enough. Ah, yes! The red uakari. That was it.

Then, there was the ridiculous vervet monkey from somewhere on the African continent, which came with a violent red tallywhacker, shown off to great advantage—to those easily impressed or demoralized by that sort of thing— against a glorious blue scrotum. The Volnoth threat-to-mount had nothing on the vervet for sheer outrageous… cojones.

The Dragon discovered that his urbane finger steepling had turned to pantomime- villain hand rubbing, and stopped himself.

“Anyway, Sir,” Grievous continued, “it seems your sister can’t get it off… without… bunking… Prince Thor-quentin…”

“Bun-King?”

“Need you ask?” The Dragon sighed expressively. He’d never thought of phrasing it quite as Viz-Igerd did, and his unruly mind filled with a crinkly bed of lettuce, three kinds of runny cheese, man-handled meat, and all the trimmings.

“…And, Prince Thor-quentin is proving a right bugger.”


“What is a bugger, Dragon?” Viz-Igerd’s voice sounded choked, which was not altogether surprising, given the way His Majesty was twisting the chain of office around his neck, like a panicked Earthling bureaucrat “social” worker trying to loosen a knotted necktie.


This excerpt is from KNIGHT'S FORK by Rowena Cherry


This is the news video mentioning the monkey with the bright blue scrotum. It seems to be a different species from the vervet. Nevertheless, if something that is in ones book goes viral, one should jump on the band waggon.

World-building where the sun don't shine

Some of us push the envelope...

Some of us push it one bathroom fitting too far, no doubt.

JA Konrath is going to be on my Crazy Tuesday internet radio show at ten a.m. Eastern Time on March 3rd on the strength of his werewolf story S.A. which begins with a most unhappy --but healthy-- gentleman crossing a snowy parking lot, carrying a semi-see-through, blue plastic box containing a large stool sample. In fact, it's not a sample. It's the whole enchilada.

He's taking this vigorous specimen to his doctor because there's something unusual about it. There are coins in it. Now, it's nothing like that health insurance advert where the patient has money coming out of the wazoo, as the western oriental ER surgeon explained when making one of those mandatory predetermination phone calls.

The coins are small change. The doctor's advice about unhealthy midnight snacks is... priceless.

After a thorough rectal exam which brings to light many strange things and leads to some unpalatable conclusions in the mind of our hero, he waddles off to search the internet for clues as to whom he's been eating when the moon is full.

Just when I thought I'd read every dragonish permutation of bad people tasting good (or bad), or good people tasting bad (or good), JA Konrath comes up with a fresh twist.

This story is a riot. I laughed out loud three times in the first three pages. Of course, there are certain bathroom words that will make me laugh out loud. One of them is poop.

The would-be sci-fi writer in me appreciated the elegance of JA Konrath's solution as regards mass. The hero has a mind-boggling telephone conversation with a were-squirrel... who collects nuts... and he asks both questions that spring to mind, much to this reader's delight.

I'm not going to tell you what "S.A." means, because I enjoyed guessing.




"S.A." can be found in the anthology "Wolfsbane and Mistletoe"


However, I came not to praise J A Konrath, but to talk about craft. Poop struck me as a brilliant place to start, when one is creating a convincing introduction to a bewildered werewolf's world. Done right, starting with the scat is an excellent short cut to world-building.

I'm not a gentle reader. I don't suspend disbelief easily. I'm not programmed to trust my author, no matter how outrageously funny he is. Not at first, anyway.

I can give a turd the benefit of the doubt for several reasons. For a start, the narrator is embarrassed about it. That's believable. He's also frightened. He's not Mike Rowe (of Dirty Jobs), so he's probably not inclined to put it through a sieve. A few details suffice.

If there are bits of teeth, chips of bone, coins, buttons, a crucifix, a clump of dead man's beard... I get the picture. I don't worry about the force of a werewolf's bite, or his stomach capacity, or the inhuman speed of his digestive processes whereby the indigestible evidence of his midnight feast ends up in his morning toilet bowl.

There are a lot of ways you could go with an opening premise such as J A Konrath's. Much would depend on your editor, your length, your genre. If the requirements are heart pounding, action packed Horror, for instance, there is a limit to how many Tom Clancy-like factual briefings can be included.

I love those things!

The werewolf hero's search of the Internet was absolutely convincing to me. As I read (and this might not be such a good thing) I visualized Joe (J is for Joe) googling as if he were his own werewolf. That's the sort of thing I do.


JA Konrath and his new persona Jack Kilborn aren't my only guests this coming Tuesday. I shall also be joined by Lori Soard who has at least seven books in four genres in print, and several more books that are out of print. Also, visiting will be Michelle Pillow, who writes in almost every genre under the Paranormal umbrella.