Today was a fantastic day.
First, I spent a few hours on the phone with a friend discussing subjects as diverse as avoiding being trampled by mother elephants in the dark, the mixing of Islam with African indigenous religions, and brainstorming a future conflict between organic humans and humans who have been downloaded into a programed computer consciousness.
Then I drove into Basalt where I found a pair of sweat pants at the Thrift Shop, but I did not have enough money for them and the gentleman running the shop was generous and let me have the sweatpants anyway. I owe him two dollars the next time I come into town. I was greatly impressed with his faith in me. The people at the Basalt Thrift Shop impress me as very good folks. Please check them out because they are doing really wonderful things and raising money for greenhouses and such. Their website is at: www.basaltthrift.com/
But then the day just continued to get better! I took my guitar to Roaring Fork Music because I bought the wrong guitar strings. The proprietor was so nice. He helped me find the correct strings and showed me how to put the strings on the guitar and he gave me a plastic turning peg to make tightening the strings easier. I didn't have enough money to pay for the tuning peg and he told me that I could pay next time I came in. Again, I was taken with how marvelous the man running the store was.
I finished running errands and grocery shopping and came home.
And I made miso soup with soba noodles for dinner. I sauteed green beans, carrots, shitake mushrooms, and onion with a bit of olive oil, soy sauce, and ginger. Next I added Better than Bouillon vegetable bouillon and a few cups of water and some wakame. I let it simmer while I cooked the noodles and fried up some cubed firm tofu. When the vegetables were just soft and not mushy, I turned off the soup and dished it into a serving bowl and stirred in white miso. Then I added the noodles and the tofu. It was so good!
While I ate, I watched Brazil. I love the tryptic of Terry Gilliam movies that includes Time Bandits, Brazil, and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. It has been a long time since I have seen Brazil. I found a copy at the FYE store in Glenwood Springs. Watching Brazil reminded me of Terry GIlliam's brilliance.
Random thoughts that I am considering-- why splashing around in public fountains is considered a bad thing, whether or not a person who ogles but has an ethic about ogling could still be considered egalitarian, and what exactly falls into showing and not telling when writing.
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Bears
I am new to the Aspen area and I have been hearing all sorts of stories about bears.
Now, the first story that I heard was told to me supposedly as reassurance. I was told by Mark my neighbor not to worry about the bears. To just make myself as big as possible and scare it off. Unless it was the BIG ONE.
I did wonder what "big" meant because size is a relative thing.
I was told the big one is the one that jumped up and down on top of the steel dumpster until the lid caved in.
Then about a week ago I was talking with one of my co-workers and she told me that bears can open doors and I should keep my doors locked at night. I stopped, a cold shiver went up my spine, and visions of the BIG ONE coming in to the house and helping himself to the refrigerator ran through my mind. I didn't have a key to lock my doors for the first few weeks I was up here. The humans are perfectly trustworthy and the nicest community of people I have ever met.
The bears?
Well, let's just say they are a little like Crazy Ole Uncle Joe who is mostly harmless and every once in a while gets a bit destructive. They are a colorful addition to the community. Which leads me to yesterday's news in the Aspen Daily News, a bear decided to sit up in a tree in downtown Aspen and cause a bit of a stir. The bear snuggled up into a pine tree in the alleyway at the corner of Hunter Street and East Hopkins. The Colorado Division of Wildlife was not called because the bear wasn't really causing a problem. It was just hanging out. Downtown Aspen is a pretty cool place.
This morning I woke up at 4 a.m. for no apparent reason that I could discern other than that something woke me up. I learned this evening that one of my neighbors had two bear cubs on her back porch this week and they were knocking on the door. Maybe the bears woke me up? I thought about going for a run but it was still dark and I was a bit nervous about the prospect of running into a bear. When I got to work, I told one of my co-workers about being awake at 4 in the morning and that I didn't go for a run because I was worried about the bears. He told me not to worry because the bears leave people alone if the people leave the bears alone.
Then he asked me where I live and I told him. He grimaced and told me not to go for a run when it is dark out. The bears are perfectly harmless, but the mountain lions like a good runner for breakfast.
Now, the first story that I heard was told to me supposedly as reassurance. I was told by Mark my neighbor not to worry about the bears. To just make myself as big as possible and scare it off. Unless it was the BIG ONE.
I did wonder what "big" meant because size is a relative thing.
I was told the big one is the one that jumped up and down on top of the steel dumpster until the lid caved in.
Then about a week ago I was talking with one of my co-workers and she told me that bears can open doors and I should keep my doors locked at night. I stopped, a cold shiver went up my spine, and visions of the BIG ONE coming in to the house and helping himself to the refrigerator ran through my mind. I didn't have a key to lock my doors for the first few weeks I was up here. The humans are perfectly trustworthy and the nicest community of people I have ever met.
The bears?
Well, let's just say they are a little like Crazy Ole Uncle Joe who is mostly harmless and every once in a while gets a bit destructive. They are a colorful addition to the community. Which leads me to yesterday's news in the Aspen Daily News, a bear decided to sit up in a tree in downtown Aspen and cause a bit of a stir. The bear snuggled up into a pine tree in the alleyway at the corner of Hunter Street and East Hopkins. The Colorado Division of Wildlife was not called because the bear wasn't really causing a problem. It was just hanging out. Downtown Aspen is a pretty cool place.
This morning I woke up at 4 a.m. for no apparent reason that I could discern other than that something woke me up. I learned this evening that one of my neighbors had two bear cubs on her back porch this week and they were knocking on the door. Maybe the bears woke me up? I thought about going for a run but it was still dark and I was a bit nervous about the prospect of running into a bear. When I got to work, I told one of my co-workers about being awake at 4 in the morning and that I didn't go for a run because I was worried about the bears. He told me not to worry because the bears leave people alone if the people leave the bears alone.
Then he asked me where I live and I told him. He grimaced and told me not to go for a run when it is dark out. The bears are perfectly harmless, but the mountain lions like a good runner for breakfast.
Monday, August 24, 2009
Pixel the Cat
I know I said I wouldn't put pictures of my cat on the blog, but on Saturday I adopted a kitten from the Colorado Animal Rescue located in Glenwood Springs. She is a very energetic and playful kitten who can jump a good four feet into the air. She loves to attack my legs and has a very loud and satisfying purr. I named her Pixel after the cat in the Robert Heinlein book entitled The Cat Who Walks Through Walls.
I adopted Pixel because my current best cat, Pyewacket, is home everyday alone. She has never been alone in the past. At my house in Ann Arbor, I had two other cats(Spot and Jiji) who were also rescue cats, but one of them was a feral kitten (Spot) who was brought into the house with his brothers after the mother cat was discovered dead. He was somewhat old to be tamed to be a domestic house pet and has always been a little nervous. His brothers were given to friends who owned a horse barn and he was given another rescue kitten (Jiji) to bond to to learn to be more tolerant of being a domestic cat. Spot has always been timid and I did not think he would be able to make the journey across country without severe trauma. I left him and Jiji in Ann Arbor. Pyewacket traveled to Colorado with me. She has been very clingy and lonely.
So, I adopted Pixel. So far, so good. Pyewacket has hissed at the kitten. The kitten has charged Pyewacket and batted at her tail. But nothing dramatic has occured. Once they have established dominance and Pyewacket adjusts to the kitten, I think this will be a good situation.
Here is a picture of Pyewacket on the counter edge where the kitten hasn't figured out how to get to.
Interstellar Space Flight
Interstellar Space Flight is not impossible. I was up thinking about it last night. Dreamt about it. The hindrances are: some engineering problems that are solvable, motivation, pulling national governments together for a cooperative effort, and resources.
We are an adaptable species that moves easily into a wide range of habitats and uses are abilities to problem solve to create situations and solutions that enable our expansion into new territories. We are more likely to move into space than we are to stop over-populating the earth. The issue becomes one of cost and benefit. What benefits are there to moving into space that make the cost one worth the risk?
Minerals?
New technologies?
Space?
Freedom?
Exploration?
What other resources?
Why set up a moon base? Orbital space cities? Communications that are more reliable, alterable, and repairable than satellites? Defense? Scientific or manufacturing reasons?
Still thinking. Still imagining.
Anybody know of resources that I should look at for further development of thoughts on interstellar space flight?
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Multi-Generational Space Travel
This morning I participated in a critique of a story that included in its premise the idea of multi-generational interstellar space travel. This caused me to think about the circumstance of multi-generational space flight. And the idea of interstellar space flight.
A group of people aboard an interstellar ship would be like a band of nomads. A particular culture would evolve as the group traveled. Traditions, rituals, and holidays would be created, normalized, and made part of the calendar. Imagine what the significance of Earth Day would be upon an interstellar flight. Imagine how social norms might be re-configured depending on circumstance. How would day and night be re-conceived? Or would they? Basic conceptions of time would be altered and no longer anchored to the the spinning earth as it moves about the sun. It would be based on a reality created by the minds of humans designing their own reality.
What considerations would go into who might be selected for the voyage and to become one of the interstellar nomads?
What possible reasons would compel a group to finance a voyage to another star system?
What advance knowledge would make the risk worth taking of removing humans who have adapted specifically to the habitats of earth and sending them into the cold vastness of space?
How would you keep the descendants of the original chosen voyagers committed to the mission?
What skills would you cultivate on board ship?
How would you acclimate people to their eventual destination? Would you force a breeding program to develop adaptive traits? Use genetic modification? Use some advanced nanotechnology or cybernetic technology?
Would your people want to leave the ship? How would you ensure that they did? How would you make life possible both on and off the ship?
Much to think about. Tomorrow-- the hope of interstellar flight.
A group of people aboard an interstellar ship would be like a band of nomads. A particular culture would evolve as the group traveled. Traditions, rituals, and holidays would be created, normalized, and made part of the calendar. Imagine what the significance of Earth Day would be upon an interstellar flight. Imagine how social norms might be re-configured depending on circumstance. How would day and night be re-conceived? Or would they? Basic conceptions of time would be altered and no longer anchored to the the spinning earth as it moves about the sun. It would be based on a reality created by the minds of humans designing their own reality.
What considerations would go into who might be selected for the voyage and to become one of the interstellar nomads?
What possible reasons would compel a group to finance a voyage to another star system?
What advance knowledge would make the risk worth taking of removing humans who have adapted specifically to the habitats of earth and sending them into the cold vastness of space?
How would you keep the descendants of the original chosen voyagers committed to the mission?
What skills would you cultivate on board ship?
How would you acclimate people to their eventual destination? Would you force a breeding program to develop adaptive traits? Use genetic modification? Use some advanced nanotechnology or cybernetic technology?
Would your people want to leave the ship? How would you ensure that they did? How would you make life possible both on and off the ship?
Much to think about. Tomorrow-- the hope of interstellar flight.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
HALT
I recently moved and have seen a year this past year that involved a great deal of turmoil. I have actively worked at remaining very even and being optimistic. Walking and doing other forms of exercise helps a great deal. Last night I posted a blog post that was in response to several things: an important and painful real life circumstance, a livejournal that I read, thoughts lingering from an ongoing conversation, and an email from a friend who sent something last night that I did not react well to. I was not in a good space because of altitude sickness (headaches and nausea) and I didn't follow something that I call HALT.
HALT stands for Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired. These conditions are states that will contribute to less than spectacular judgement. I have worked with small children for years and if a caregiver attends to these things go much more smoothly. HALT applies to adults as well. Any one of these will warp a person's response to circumstances and create a situation where they act in a manner they will regret later.
Posting may be sporadic over the next few weeks as I continue to adjust to 7200 feet of altitude.
HALT stands for Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired. These conditions are states that will contribute to less than spectacular judgement. I have worked with small children for years and if a caregiver attends to these things go much more smoothly. HALT applies to adults as well. Any one of these will warp a person's response to circumstances and create a situation where they act in a manner they will regret later.
Posting may be sporadic over the next few weeks as I continue to adjust to 7200 feet of altitude.
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Have you ever really considered what you eat?
Have you ever really considered what you eat?
Our dietary habits place each of us in a particular niche. Our need for nourishment is one of the things that taxes our environment in terms of not only having arable farmland to produce crops, but also to raise livestock, to transport food stuffs to market, and to process and package food. Simply growing food requires water, fertile soil, and the labor necessary to plant, tend, and harvest crops. Even if one considers that often cattle are raised on land that is not suitable for growing crops and that cattle forage and turn grasses unsuitable for human consumption into nutrient-dense food, it still takes something on the order of two and half pounds of grain and over 400 gallons of water to produce one pound of beef. And these are not statistics taken from one of the environmental or vegetarian activist sites. This is taken from a web site called Beef: From Pasture to Plate which is working to dispel the arguments for vegetarianism.
My aim in this post is not so much to make the argument that others should switch to vegetarianism, my aim is to get people to consider what they eat. The consumption of food is necessary for life, but in an age when the production of food stuff to feed the ever burgeoning population of our limited planet may tip our environment over into collapse, when energy needs compete for the same corn as nutritional needs, and when our unconscious and unbeknownst political decisions are entwined in a free for all of wasteful conspicuous consumption-- we need to examine and make more informed decisions about how we will feed humanity. Simply unthinkingly going to the large, brightly lit super market many transitions points removed from where food comes from is not an activity that promotes good resource management and the longevity of our species.
I love blueberries. I grew up in Western Michigan where blueberries thrive in the sandy, acidic soil close to Lake Michigan where forests of conifers for centuries dropped their pine needles to compost and create the perfect soil for blueberries. Growing up, I picked blueberries in July and August for money for school clothes. Blueberries are only in season in North America in July and August. I have bought blueberries that were fresh in February. I can tell you that those blueberries were well traveled blueberries and that they were picked before they were ripe and that they were ripened using gas. Did I need to have blueberries in February? No. There was no dire necessity in that decision-- just I saw the berries and had the impulse to buy them. Was this a good conscious choice? Not really. In a time period when fossil fuels will be running out and the environment is so incredibly taxed buying out of season blueberries shipped from somewhere in South America is not a good conscious choice.
Small farms have been in demise for the last few decades. Agricultural products in the US are so plentiful that many farmers cannot compete with the large agri-business farms and they are going out of business. More and more farmland has been becoming the suburban sprawl of our urban centers. Some localities are seeing the necessity of preserving local farms and are creating ordinances complete with tax relief or are out and out subsidizing farms. Local farms not only preserve a certain character of the surrounding area, they produce local food stuffs. This is food that does not need to be picked before it is ripe, gassed to ripen, or transported hundreds or thousands of miles. It is food that would be available to the local population if there was a collapse in the global markets or if the transportation of food from other continents became prohibitive or restricted. Eating seasonally and locally produced food helps to keep local farms in business, is environmentally a better choice (for more than the reasons stated here), and is long term savvy.
Tomatoes and zuchini. Have you ever grown zuchini squash? The vines take over the garden and produce more zuchini than you could ever imagine. I remember my mother once upon a time trying to convince me to eat zuchini by making scalloped zuchini. Like scalloped potatoes. In Michigan in late summer, you cannot get rid of the zuchini fast enough. People sneak up on one another's porches and leave the stuff. Tomatoes also. Tomatoes ripen very suddenly and while one week they are green and hard on the vines-- the next you will have bushels of them. I read somewhere that if we just processed all the tomatoes that are grown we could produce some phenomenal amount of tomato sauce, but every year tons of tomatoes go to waste.
How many people have planted anything since they were in Kindergarten and pushed those marigold seeds into the potting soil in a small paper cup? How many people have sprouted bean seeds since they were in elementary school? We make certain choices about what plants we want in our landscapes. Acres of green lawn are considered desirable, but this uses a huge amount of water resources. Grass thrives in cool and wet conditions. What if we planted the areas around our public buildings with indigenous plants that could be used as food? What if we planted fruit and nut trees, berry brambles, perennial herbs and other plants that could be used for food in our yards instead of grass? Imagine all the food that could be produced with the same resources that we are currently using for nothing more than lawns and ornamental plantings of little value beyond aesthetic appeal. What if we all switched are consideration of what should be planted and made it a requirement that every plant planted have multiple reasons for being planted?
What resources have been used to produce the food that you are eating? What unconscious political allegiances are you making with your choice of what you buy and consume?
Our dietary habits place each of us in a particular niche. Our need for nourishment is one of the things that taxes our environment in terms of not only having arable farmland to produce crops, but also to raise livestock, to transport food stuffs to market, and to process and package food. Simply growing food requires water, fertile soil, and the labor necessary to plant, tend, and harvest crops. Even if one considers that often cattle are raised on land that is not suitable for growing crops and that cattle forage and turn grasses unsuitable for human consumption into nutrient-dense food, it still takes something on the order of two and half pounds of grain and over 400 gallons of water to produce one pound of beef. And these are not statistics taken from one of the environmental or vegetarian activist sites. This is taken from a web site called Beef: From Pasture to Plate which is working to dispel the arguments for vegetarianism.
My aim in this post is not so much to make the argument that others should switch to vegetarianism, my aim is to get people to consider what they eat. The consumption of food is necessary for life, but in an age when the production of food stuff to feed the ever burgeoning population of our limited planet may tip our environment over into collapse, when energy needs compete for the same corn as nutritional needs, and when our unconscious and unbeknownst political decisions are entwined in a free for all of wasteful conspicuous consumption-- we need to examine and make more informed decisions about how we will feed humanity. Simply unthinkingly going to the large, brightly lit super market many transitions points removed from where food comes from is not an activity that promotes good resource management and the longevity of our species.
I love blueberries. I grew up in Western Michigan where blueberries thrive in the sandy, acidic soil close to Lake Michigan where forests of conifers for centuries dropped their pine needles to compost and create the perfect soil for blueberries. Growing up, I picked blueberries in July and August for money for school clothes. Blueberries are only in season in North America in July and August. I have bought blueberries that were fresh in February. I can tell you that those blueberries were well traveled blueberries and that they were picked before they were ripe and that they were ripened using gas. Did I need to have blueberries in February? No. There was no dire necessity in that decision-- just I saw the berries and had the impulse to buy them. Was this a good conscious choice? Not really. In a time period when fossil fuels will be running out and the environment is so incredibly taxed buying out of season blueberries shipped from somewhere in South America is not a good conscious choice.
Small farms have been in demise for the last few decades. Agricultural products in the US are so plentiful that many farmers cannot compete with the large agri-business farms and they are going out of business. More and more farmland has been becoming the suburban sprawl of our urban centers. Some localities are seeing the necessity of preserving local farms and are creating ordinances complete with tax relief or are out and out subsidizing farms. Local farms not only preserve a certain character of the surrounding area, they produce local food stuffs. This is food that does not need to be picked before it is ripe, gassed to ripen, or transported hundreds or thousands of miles. It is food that would be available to the local population if there was a collapse in the global markets or if the transportation of food from other continents became prohibitive or restricted. Eating seasonally and locally produced food helps to keep local farms in business, is environmentally a better choice (for more than the reasons stated here), and is long term savvy.
Tomatoes and zuchini. Have you ever grown zuchini squash? The vines take over the garden and produce more zuchini than you could ever imagine. I remember my mother once upon a time trying to convince me to eat zuchini by making scalloped zuchini. Like scalloped potatoes. In Michigan in late summer, you cannot get rid of the zuchini fast enough. People sneak up on one another's porches and leave the stuff. Tomatoes also. Tomatoes ripen very suddenly and while one week they are green and hard on the vines-- the next you will have bushels of them. I read somewhere that if we just processed all the tomatoes that are grown we could produce some phenomenal amount of tomato sauce, but every year tons of tomatoes go to waste.
How many people have planted anything since they were in Kindergarten and pushed those marigold seeds into the potting soil in a small paper cup? How many people have sprouted bean seeds since they were in elementary school? We make certain choices about what plants we want in our landscapes. Acres of green lawn are considered desirable, but this uses a huge amount of water resources. Grass thrives in cool and wet conditions. What if we planted the areas around our public buildings with indigenous plants that could be used as food? What if we planted fruit and nut trees, berry brambles, perennial herbs and other plants that could be used for food in our yards instead of grass? Imagine all the food that could be produced with the same resources that we are currently using for nothing more than lawns and ornamental plantings of little value beyond aesthetic appeal. What if we all switched are consideration of what should be planted and made it a requirement that every plant planted have multiple reasons for being planted?
What resources have been used to produce the food that you are eating? What unconscious political allegiances are you making with your choice of what you buy and consume?
Sunday, August 16, 2009
What is the importance of science fiction?
What is the importance of science fiction?
I have asked this question of myself and others. It presumes that science fiction has a place. An important place. But does it?
Science fiction has been called the literature of ideas. There is science fiction in the literary canon. 1984. Fahrenheit 451. The Handmaid's Tale. The Time Traveler's Wife. The Yiddish Policeman's Union. The Dispossessed. The Left Hand of Darkness. Frankenstein. The ideas of science fiction paved the way for many technological achievements. Would we have ventured to the moon without science fiction proposing the idea? Will we go to Mars without science fiction teasing out the plan?
But very frequently, whenever I suggest that science fiction is an important genre, I am met with derision. I have seen people suinch up their noses or look at me like I have suggested something depraved. I have been told that most science fiction that is being written is inferior to other forms of literature available. I am skeptically asked why I read science fiction. I had one person ask me why I read science fiction because, well, I have a masters degree and wouldn't I prefer to reading something that is more challenging. I have been told that science fiction is nothing more than blasters and spaceships and green skinned alien girls. And tired plots of time travel, alien encounters gone awry, and galactic federations with no notion of their own prime directives.
I also try to write science fiction and fantasy short stories. I have been repeatedly told by other writers that the writing is for entertainment and should not shoot beyond this. I am lead to believe that anything beyond this is pretension. Perhaps to believe that one could write something that would say more and be more than mere entertainment is pretentious. Further, I doubt I have the skill in my writing at this time to write the larger stories. The ones that speak to generations and propose a new future.
Personally, I do think science fiction ideas at times form a template for later technological breakthroughs. Did the Star Trek gadgets inspire real technology? Did H.G. Wells inspire the moon missions? Further, the visions and language of science fiction give a place and a vocabulary for technological breakthroughs to ease into the population as well as the imaginations of inventors, researchers, engineers, and scientists.
The low expectation that seems to be placed upon the genre of science fiction limits ideas. If it is to only be for entertainment, then how do we shoot for the stars? I do wonder if because there is a lack of a vision of a bright future if this might not be limiting the science fiction being written and in a circular roundabout sort of way if the science fiction is not providing a bright vision of the future perhaps there is no future to be had. Ideas proceed reality. Why is it that I see a preponderance of alternative history, a revision of Victorian times with advanced steam technology, or science fiction set only in, not our future, but the future of some alien/alternate dimension? Where have the dreams and aspirations gone? Are we drifting into the deadzone of our what might have happened past?
Can any of us give the future anymore? We can barely keep up in the very distracted present. If we can not envision a future, what does this mean for humanity?
I have asked this question of myself and others. It presumes that science fiction has a place. An important place. But does it?
Science fiction has been called the literature of ideas. There is science fiction in the literary canon. 1984. Fahrenheit 451. The Handmaid's Tale. The Time Traveler's Wife. The Yiddish Policeman's Union. The Dispossessed. The Left Hand of Darkness. Frankenstein. The ideas of science fiction paved the way for many technological achievements. Would we have ventured to the moon without science fiction proposing the idea? Will we go to Mars without science fiction teasing out the plan?
But very frequently, whenever I suggest that science fiction is an important genre, I am met with derision. I have seen people suinch up their noses or look at me like I have suggested something depraved. I have been told that most science fiction that is being written is inferior to other forms of literature available. I am skeptically asked why I read science fiction. I had one person ask me why I read science fiction because, well, I have a masters degree and wouldn't I prefer to reading something that is more challenging. I have been told that science fiction is nothing more than blasters and spaceships and green skinned alien girls. And tired plots of time travel, alien encounters gone awry, and galactic federations with no notion of their own prime directives.
I also try to write science fiction and fantasy short stories. I have been repeatedly told by other writers that the writing is for entertainment and should not shoot beyond this. I am lead to believe that anything beyond this is pretension. Perhaps to believe that one could write something that would say more and be more than mere entertainment is pretentious. Further, I doubt I have the skill in my writing at this time to write the larger stories. The ones that speak to generations and propose a new future.
Personally, I do think science fiction ideas at times form a template for later technological breakthroughs. Did the Star Trek gadgets inspire real technology? Did H.G. Wells inspire the moon missions? Further, the visions and language of science fiction give a place and a vocabulary for technological breakthroughs to ease into the population as well as the imaginations of inventors, researchers, engineers, and scientists.
The low expectation that seems to be placed upon the genre of science fiction limits ideas. If it is to only be for entertainment, then how do we shoot for the stars? I do wonder if because there is a lack of a vision of a bright future if this might not be limiting the science fiction being written and in a circular roundabout sort of way if the science fiction is not providing a bright vision of the future perhaps there is no future to be had. Ideas proceed reality. Why is it that I see a preponderance of alternative history, a revision of Victorian times with advanced steam technology, or science fiction set only in, not our future, but the future of some alien/alternate dimension? Where have the dreams and aspirations gone? Are we drifting into the deadzone of our what might have happened past?
Can any of us give the future anymore? We can barely keep up in the very distracted present. If we can not envision a future, what does this mean for humanity?
Saturday, August 15, 2009
My notes from a panel discussion at the World Science Fiction Convention on "How to Write for a Living"
These are my notes from a panel discussion at the World Science Fiction Convention on "How to Write for a Living". This was a very interesting panel because the presenters were coming from a variety of experiences, places in their careers, and using different strategies to make a living as writers.
The panelists were as follows: Catherynne Valente, Mandy Slater, Howard Tayler, and George R.R. Martin. Catherynne Valente has written such books as Palimpsest, The Orphan's Tales, and The Labyrinth. Her website is www.catherynnemvalente.com/. Mandy Slater works for the BBC and writes part time. Howard Tayler is the creator of Schlock Mercenary which can be found at www.schlockmercenary.com/. And George R. R. Martin is, well, the writer-god George R.R. Martin. His website can be found at www.georgerrmartin.com/.
Tayler: He is married and his wife is his business manager, personal assistant, etc. He is working to feed six mouths.
Martin: He is supporting himself, his partner, and the cats. His writing at first was a supplement-- he was a VISTA volunteer and he lived in an apartment with several apartment mates. In the 1970's he actually was occasionally affluent in his circles because he would have the extra income from his writing.
Slater: She works for the BBC and does part time writing. Her partner is a full time writer. Of the people who are members of SFWA about 60% have a day time job.
Valente: Her husband is a programmer. He lost his job and now she is supporting him. Novels are not a regular thing. You can starve by waiting for your pay check-- advance. She has two other projects that she does and writes short stories to supplement between the novels.
Tayler: About 60% of his income is from SM books, 20% is from other related merchandise, and the final 20% is from ad revenue on his website. If you are working for yourself it is not good to have more 40% from only one avenue.
Martin: Makes 100% from his writing. Some of it is from merchandise and movie rights and such. He also gets lecture fees. But everything comes from his writing. When he was young he did many different things such as producing and writing and he was actually employed by someone. Writing is merciless-- you have to write and you have to produce the work. At one point he was working in a legal aid office, he figured out that people can show up in a regular job and not do anything. As a freelance writer you can not do that. It is tough gig.
Slater: Her writing is about 3%. Her partner gets 95% of his income from writing and about 5% from teaching. She knows many friends who supplement their writing through lecture and various things.
What is your daily routine? What are your work habits?
Tayler: He gets up early on Mondays and loves his work. He approaches it and tries to get a week of comics done quickly early in the week. He has to be able proceed through the work and get things done and keep the comic going. He has to do extra so that he can go to things like World Con. He does take on extra projects and tries to keep things flexible at the end of the week to do business things as well.
Martin: He works daily. His religion is the NFL. He works daily. He cannot work while on the road so he does his work at home. Howard talked about being a business man. He took on an assistant to be able to get all his work done. He gets both fan mail but also business mail. He gets proposals for swords or games and things-- it doesn't take too long if the people are getting things correct. However, if things are wrong then it takes longer. His assistant helps him with these things. He has some very idiosyncratic methods though because he has always done this for himself and so trying to get this to work with an assistant can be difficult. For instance, he filed his stories in the order that they were printed and this was easy when he only had a few stories and now he has many stories and he has switched to having the stories filed alphabetically.
Valente: She does all her own publicity and tours and stuff. She made a big mistake. She had a big show in New York and thought that the show would provide books to sell and they didn't. She now has an assistant that she shares. She pays her when she can. Before she had the assistant she did web design in exchange for assistance. Running a career on one brain can be very difficult. If you do a good deal of indie grass roots stuff it takes a great deal of time.
Slater: She does some of the administrative things for her partner, but not all. She does the travel stuff. Her partner sets up three different accounts-- one third to each. One third to taxes, one third to business expenses such as travel, cons, and a new laptop, and one third to the house account.
Valente: She and her partner were lucky in that they had some savings when her husband was laid off. She discovered that she could do more freelance and make more than at Starbucks.
Martin: If you are making enough money to invest it you have to have a different strategy than other people. A normal 30 year old can risk more in their investments, writers are in a very insecure position and should invest conservatively. The whole juxtaposition in income here is that they are all creating art but they have to make money and pay the bills. He had a friend who had been writing and his friend had given up the life of writing because he had to support his family.
Tayler: He says he lost money when he quit his six figure income job, but he quit not to take on cartooning but rather to be home with his family. His family makes him happy.
Martin: Nothing wrong with that. He relayed a story about Faulkner who more or less told his daughter that she was not as important as his writing and this was wrong.
Tayler: Joking he said, his daughter is already better with a marker and pencil and stuff. He is planning to make a great deal of money from his daughter.
Slater: She said that she and her husband don't have children and they are fortunate to live in a house that has been paid for in a suburb of London.
Valente: She doesn't have children either. She has cats and a dog. She asked about children and how to balance work with children.
Tayler: His wife helps him a great deal and is his business manager and assistant (she also writes, blogs, etc.). He said that the wrong answer is to put the children up on ebay.
Martin: He spoke about donating his papers to a university. He described talking to a friend who is the wife of a writer and she was wondering what to do with his papers and decided to deposit the papers so the kids could sell them on ebay.
Any advice on dealing with publishers who don't pay?
Martin: There is only the question of why they don't pay. Harlan Ellison mailed one a dead gopher. If the publishers go bankrupt then there may be nothing you can do. One game publisher he was able to get books to sell in lieu of payment.
Tayler: A friend of his had done work for a gaming publisher and the publisher could not pay him and so he was able to get their license and that was useful. If the publisher decides not to pay you then you have to get your rights back.
Valente: The contract really is king. She said she had two times where she had a problem getting payment. One was a problem with the press not having money and then second one was when the publisher was being a dick. She said that you cannot be nice. You have to keep sending them mail and email. Threatening to take them to small claims court is a good idea. Most publishers are not actively evil-- they are kind of chaotic neutral.
Tayler: He believes they are lawful evil because of the contract.
Slater: Her husband had paid his collaborators and was trying to get the money from the publisher and couldn't. They tried to sue and sued the wrong part of the company and were out 20000 pounds. They were able to get some of the books.
Valente: The agent's job is to stand between a writer and the publisher.
Martin: Don't ever believe when the publishers say that they are going to pay. A friend went out and bought furniture based on the sale of a novel and the check was supposed to be coming. The check did not come and did not come. He finally inquired and the check had been sent to the wrong place. In New Mexico, there is a slogan “Don't Buy the Couch.”
What do you do after your writing crashes?
Martin: He has had this happen. Armageddon Rag did not sell. He bought a house in alignment with the book that was supposed to be very big. When his book did not sell he ended up going back to the beginning and much lower advances than he had had prior to that novel. A very successful career can implode-- you are only as good as your last project. He went to Hollywood and worked and then started writing again.
He says never admit to weakness.
He was at a con in NJ. He and John Brunner were both giving speeches-- Brunner's speech was very sad. He was plaintiff and asking people to buy his books because he was close to having to sell his house. This was a mistake because Brunner was telling the publishers that his books were unsaleable.
Valente: This is why she thinks publishers are Demon Imps. The publishers come and go, in and out of lives. She has had years where she could not sell anything because one of her books did not sell well. And this year she sold five novels-- despite that her editor was also laid off and she was assigned to someone who was not a genre editor.
Martin: The field used to be dominated by the backlist. It used to be that you knew you were successful when your royalties from past books exceeded your advances. No longer.
Valente: I was told to not expect any money beyond the advances.
Martin: Vance and Poul Andersen were great writers-- solid mid-listers. They just kept producing solid novels every year and building up a body of work. That is no longer possible. You have to have a big best seller.
Slater: Sometimes writers have a career and then something happens and the bean counters will tell you to change your name-- Robin Hobb for example.
Valente: She said that her blog is very well trafficked and if she took on a pseudonym it would be very well known.
Tayler: McFarland and Wolverton are the same person and his publisher made the decision to do that consciously because one name is used for fantasy and one is for scifi-- it was an issue of branding.
The panelists were as follows: Catherynne Valente, Mandy Slater, Howard Tayler, and George R.R. Martin. Catherynne Valente has written such books as Palimpsest, The Orphan's Tales, and The Labyrinth. Her website is www.catherynnemvalente.com/. Mandy Slater works for the BBC and writes part time. Howard Tayler is the creator of Schlock Mercenary which can be found at www.schlockmercenary.com/. And George R. R. Martin is, well, the writer-god George R.R. Martin. His website can be found at www.georgerrmartin.com/.
Tayler: He is married and his wife is his business manager, personal assistant, etc. He is working to feed six mouths.
Martin: He is supporting himself, his partner, and the cats. His writing at first was a supplement-- he was a VISTA volunteer and he lived in an apartment with several apartment mates. In the 1970's he actually was occasionally affluent in his circles because he would have the extra income from his writing.
Slater: She works for the BBC and does part time writing. Her partner is a full time writer. Of the people who are members of SFWA about 60% have a day time job.
Valente: Her husband is a programmer. He lost his job and now she is supporting him. Novels are not a regular thing. You can starve by waiting for your pay check-- advance. She has two other projects that she does and writes short stories to supplement between the novels.
Tayler: About 60% of his income is from SM books, 20% is from other related merchandise, and the final 20% is from ad revenue on his website. If you are working for yourself it is not good to have more 40% from only one avenue.
Martin: Makes 100% from his writing. Some of it is from merchandise and movie rights and such. He also gets lecture fees. But everything comes from his writing. When he was young he did many different things such as producing and writing and he was actually employed by someone. Writing is merciless-- you have to write and you have to produce the work. At one point he was working in a legal aid office, he figured out that people can show up in a regular job and not do anything. As a freelance writer you can not do that. It is tough gig.
Slater: Her writing is about 3%. Her partner gets 95% of his income from writing and about 5% from teaching. She knows many friends who supplement their writing through lecture and various things.
What is your daily routine? What are your work habits?
Tayler: He gets up early on Mondays and loves his work. He approaches it and tries to get a week of comics done quickly early in the week. He has to be able proceed through the work and get things done and keep the comic going. He has to do extra so that he can go to things like World Con. He does take on extra projects and tries to keep things flexible at the end of the week to do business things as well.
Martin: He works daily. His religion is the NFL. He works daily. He cannot work while on the road so he does his work at home. Howard talked about being a business man. He took on an assistant to be able to get all his work done. He gets both fan mail but also business mail. He gets proposals for swords or games and things-- it doesn't take too long if the people are getting things correct. However, if things are wrong then it takes longer. His assistant helps him with these things. He has some very idiosyncratic methods though because he has always done this for himself and so trying to get this to work with an assistant can be difficult. For instance, he filed his stories in the order that they were printed and this was easy when he only had a few stories and now he has many stories and he has switched to having the stories filed alphabetically.
Valente: She does all her own publicity and tours and stuff. She made a big mistake. She had a big show in New York and thought that the show would provide books to sell and they didn't. She now has an assistant that she shares. She pays her when she can. Before she had the assistant she did web design in exchange for assistance. Running a career on one brain can be very difficult. If you do a good deal of indie grass roots stuff it takes a great deal of time.
Slater: She does some of the administrative things for her partner, but not all. She does the travel stuff. Her partner sets up three different accounts-- one third to each. One third to taxes, one third to business expenses such as travel, cons, and a new laptop, and one third to the house account.
Valente: She and her partner were lucky in that they had some savings when her husband was laid off. She discovered that she could do more freelance and make more than at Starbucks.
Martin: If you are making enough money to invest it you have to have a different strategy than other people. A normal 30 year old can risk more in their investments, writers are in a very insecure position and should invest conservatively. The whole juxtaposition in income here is that they are all creating art but they have to make money and pay the bills. He had a friend who had been writing and his friend had given up the life of writing because he had to support his family.
Tayler: He says he lost money when he quit his six figure income job, but he quit not to take on cartooning but rather to be home with his family. His family makes him happy.
Martin: Nothing wrong with that. He relayed a story about Faulkner who more or less told his daughter that she was not as important as his writing and this was wrong.
Tayler: Joking he said, his daughter is already better with a marker and pencil and stuff. He is planning to make a great deal of money from his daughter.
Slater: She said that she and her husband don't have children and they are fortunate to live in a house that has been paid for in a suburb of London.
Valente: She doesn't have children either. She has cats and a dog. She asked about children and how to balance work with children.
Tayler: His wife helps him a great deal and is his business manager and assistant (she also writes, blogs, etc.). He said that the wrong answer is to put the children up on ebay.
Martin: He spoke about donating his papers to a university. He described talking to a friend who is the wife of a writer and she was wondering what to do with his papers and decided to deposit the papers so the kids could sell them on ebay.
Any advice on dealing with publishers who don't pay?
Martin: There is only the question of why they don't pay. Harlan Ellison mailed one a dead gopher. If the publishers go bankrupt then there may be nothing you can do. One game publisher he was able to get books to sell in lieu of payment.
Tayler: A friend of his had done work for a gaming publisher and the publisher could not pay him and so he was able to get their license and that was useful. If the publisher decides not to pay you then you have to get your rights back.
Valente: The contract really is king. She said she had two times where she had a problem getting payment. One was a problem with the press not having money and then second one was when the publisher was being a dick. She said that you cannot be nice. You have to keep sending them mail and email. Threatening to take them to small claims court is a good idea. Most publishers are not actively evil-- they are kind of chaotic neutral.
Tayler: He believes they are lawful evil because of the contract.
Slater: Her husband had paid his collaborators and was trying to get the money from the publisher and couldn't. They tried to sue and sued the wrong part of the company and were out 20000 pounds. They were able to get some of the books.
Valente: The agent's job is to stand between a writer and the publisher.
Martin: Don't ever believe when the publishers say that they are going to pay. A friend went out and bought furniture based on the sale of a novel and the check was supposed to be coming. The check did not come and did not come. He finally inquired and the check had been sent to the wrong place. In New Mexico, there is a slogan “Don't Buy the Couch.”
What do you do after your writing crashes?
Martin: He has had this happen. Armageddon Rag did not sell. He bought a house in alignment with the book that was supposed to be very big. When his book did not sell he ended up going back to the beginning and much lower advances than he had had prior to that novel. A very successful career can implode-- you are only as good as your last project. He went to Hollywood and worked and then started writing again.
He says never admit to weakness.
He was at a con in NJ. He and John Brunner were both giving speeches-- Brunner's speech was very sad. He was plaintiff and asking people to buy his books because he was close to having to sell his house. This was a mistake because Brunner was telling the publishers that his books were unsaleable.
Valente: This is why she thinks publishers are Demon Imps. The publishers come and go, in and out of lives. She has had years where she could not sell anything because one of her books did not sell well. And this year she sold five novels-- despite that her editor was also laid off and she was assigned to someone who was not a genre editor.
Martin: The field used to be dominated by the backlist. It used to be that you knew you were successful when your royalties from past books exceeded your advances. No longer.
Valente: I was told to not expect any money beyond the advances.
Martin: Vance and Poul Andersen were great writers-- solid mid-listers. They just kept producing solid novels every year and building up a body of work. That is no longer possible. You have to have a big best seller.
Slater: Sometimes writers have a career and then something happens and the bean counters will tell you to change your name-- Robin Hobb for example.
Valente: She said that her blog is very well trafficked and if she took on a pseudonym it would be very well known.
Tayler: McFarland and Wolverton are the same person and his publisher made the decision to do that consciously because one name is used for fantasy and one is for scifi-- it was an issue of branding.
Utopia Moment
Last week when I was at the World Science Fiction Convention, I went to a party at the Delta Hotel. George R.R. Martin was seated in a large lounge chair and was graciously receiving people. If you have not read his Fire and Ice series, you should put it on your reading list of fantasy fiction to read. It is an amazing series that is of a high literary caliber and simply stunning. The room was part of a small two storied suite in the hotel. One entire section was taken up with a table and coolers for beer. The scene was a crush of people.
In the midst of this of this chaos of people meeting and speaking with George R. R. Martin, a raffle to raise money for a children's literacy program, and the general throng of convention goers partying was a very calm Jack Ruttan quietly sketching as he stood by the stairwell. Impressed by his concentration, I stopped and asked him what he was doing. He told me he was sketching and showed me his sketch.
His sketches are quick and delightful. Light and humorous.
Please check out Jack Ruttan's work at utopiamoment.ca
In the midst of this of this chaos of people meeting and speaking with George R. R. Martin, a raffle to raise money for a children's literacy program, and the general throng of convention goers partying was a very calm Jack Ruttan quietly sketching as he stood by the stairwell. Impressed by his concentration, I stopped and asked him what he was doing. He told me he was sketching and showed me his sketch.
His sketches are quick and delightful. Light and humorous.
Please check out Jack Ruttan's work at utopiamoment.ca
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Notes from a Panel Discussion at the World Science Fiction Convention on "What makes a good story?"
Notes from a Panel Discussion at the World Science Fiction Convention on "What makes a good story?"
This was an exceptionally good panel discussion in part because it included two writers, a storyteller, and a graphic novelist. Each came at their craft from a very different perspective and all are masters at what they do.
Panelists: Nancy Kress, Robert Silverberg, James Lucas, Bill Willingham
Anecdote: Robert Silverberg: It wasn't that people were telling him that he could do better it was that the pay got better. He used to not do second drafts. He used to use a typewriter and carbon paper and it would come out salable but he didn't do second drafts. Then he was asked by Cyril Kornbluth if he did second drafts and was told that it would make it better and now he writes second drafts.
It became harder for him to write the story all in one draft and have it come out well. So he began typing it and then doing a second draft and it came out better. Grammar, repetitions everything was better with the second draft. He wrote a 981 page novel and he typed it out twice. Then he bought a computer-- he keys it in and then tinkers with it and now he prints it out. Robert Silverberg smiled at how much easier it was to write on a computer.
Nancy Kress said, it was a bad idea to put Robert Silverberg on a panel about what makes a good story because he gives the impression that it is possible to pump out a first draft and it will be good and salable. What Cyril Kornbluth said influenced Silverberg and Kress thinks this is good and she made a transition after she realized that she needs to think of her stories in terms of scenes. Once she started thinking of stories in scenes then her stories began to sell. This was her first big transition. Her second transition was while in school and she was given a course to teach on writing science fiction. She brought in Gene Wolfe who said that you should bring in two separate problems and let them solve each other and this made her writing richer and deeper. Next came Bruce Sterling. Sterling is a wonderful writer but a brutal critique. He told her that all she was doing was moving decorations around on a moldy cake. She was taking dated tropes and rearranging them and he made her think about other things. He told her that the economics of her story were not working. Her next story was about economics and was much more in depth and worked much better. Her recommendation is that it is a good idea to listen to colleagues and use what you hear.
Silverberg: Lester Del Rey asked why he was writing. He said for money. Del Rey told him he was doing it all wrong and that he should be taking a bit longer and that he should produce stuff of quality and then he would be able to have his stories in anthologies and circulating longer and make more money. Writing a little higher made it so the stories lasted longer.
Lucas: At first he thought that he had to memorize a story to recreate it for an audience. Then he realized that it was kind of dead. And now he reads different versions, does a beat sheet, etc. He learns the stories and then he recreates them. He learns larger stories. He has to do a great deal of work to prepare the story.
Willingham: The lightbulb moment.... He started as an artist and thought that he only wanted to be an artist. The writer was only there to add a few words and was as a safety measure. He started writing because he got tired of having the writer miss and so he started writing more and then he transitioned into writing. He writes in scenes and in the comic book world there is no space to waste. And he uses scenes as well because then he could pick scenes and construct his story. He is constantly asking what is the fewest number of scenes and words that will tell the story and he does not want to waste pages. He calls it decompression. You have to be terse and brutal and slim everything down to the slimmest possible component to tell the story in. The other lightbulb moment-- quit wasting space and time and the readers' time.
Lucas said that he is writing a children's book and he gets to tell the story to thousands of people and see what works and he has worked through the reiterations.
Can you talk about the thinking process of what is a good story?
Silverberg: Story ideas. Take an established idea and stand it on its head. Take the time machine the time traveler travels and tells his story. What if he cannot come back? Ask questions-- who will this hurt? Who will be affected? Science fiction both has a concept and is a human story and you have to consider who will be affected.
Kress: Doesn't know where her ideas come from. An idea will come to her already tied to a character and there is a situation and she doesn't know what will happen next. Sometimes she has to consider if the character she is considering is the right character. The thing she finds most useful is that she has to plunge in and start with the first scene. She doesn't know the ending. She considers what could go wrong. What can get screwed up and what do the characters want in the situation? She believes that if she knew the ending then maybe it would be boring to write. She doesn't know the endings when she starts a story.
Silverberg, in his quiet smooth way asked, “How many unfinished stories do you have?”
Kress admitted that she has unfinished stories. Sometimes she has to go back and rewrite the story because she has to reconcile with the end. She tries to become the characters and figure out what they might do in the situation. She becomes like an actor. She says that when one creates stories so organically a certain number of stories die.
Willingham: He does not start to tell a story until they start to come together. He isn't sure where the starting ideas come from. Only time when he really knows where the ideas come from is when he hears something and he gets a new take on something. He is slightly dyslexic and sometimes ideas will come out of the twisting of meaning of ordinary signs and things that he hears. Ideas often percolate and then they just come. Writing a series he just starts and he cannot know where the series is going because it has to continue.
Lucas: He creates stories and he finds stories. He sometimes just wakes up and he has a dream and he just starts writing the story. He often has to write it and see if it is tellable. He also drives all over the place and he will tell ideas to his partner and then he bounces ideas off of his partner and they will develop the stories. Sometimes he will have a show with a theme and he has to go search for ideas and create a show. The themes give him a thing to hang his hat on and organize around.
Willigham: Even though he is not a storyteller on a stage he tries to think in similar terms in that he tries to come up with stories that will entertain as though he were performing.
Lucas: There has to be a reason to tell the story. He needs a lesson or moral to tell a story.
Willignham: Do you feel a need to have a moral?
Lucas: Yes I feel I need to teach something and entertain.
Kress: Those are the not the only two options. Reflecting back the reality is another option. Highlighting world views is another option. Every story of every kind has an implied world. You are trying to reflect back the world.
Willingham: Fringe. The purpose of art is not to tell your audience what to do but show them who they are. To reveal some of what I think of the world is something he tries to do.
Silverberg: He doesn't believe that a story should be exclusively didactic. A story has to be about something. Take the Iliad. When you read the Iliad you are transformed.
How do you identify a quality of the story or reach that point where you think that the story is good?
Kress: She feels that she has no control over it. Sometimes she knows when it is good and other times she realizes it isn't. She recognizes when things are good by her own excitement with the piece. When it is good all the forces in the story will converge on a point and it is a point worth being at. She has very little control over her writing and she does not recommend it. It is inefficient.
Silverberg: He knows the writing is good at those moments where he gets an aha moment. He says that when he knows the title of a story then he knows what the story will be about. He starts with titles. He says that when all the strands come together then he knows he has a story. He no longer has to keep such conscious track of things. But he has a very intuitive feel for things and feels he has reached enlightenment. He does make outlines. However, he has had times when the story snuck up on him and then he suddenly realized that the story was not what he thought it was. Once he realized who the real villain in the story was--- 500 pages into the novel.
What did your editor say?
Silverberg: Nobody ever noticed.
Kress: Some writers write from outlines and then stitch things together. However Kress doesn't do this. She writes organically. She creates her characters and then they take over. Connie Willis called her on this because they are characters that she has created. She says that this still happens and she has fallen in love with some of her heroes.
Silverberg: Dyslexia is a useful skill for finding stories. A true professional can find a story to tell.
Willigham: If you are doing a series you have to find the story and keep producing.
Question: You cannot go back and revise. Do you ever wish that you could?
Willigham: Yes this is true and yes he wishes that he could go back and rewrite sometimes. Once he killed off a favorite villain too early and he tries not to have it happen.
Question: What about randomness? This is the new movement in art. Have you used this?
Silverberg: Yes. He used a pencil in the New York Times and came up with the two words angels and computers. He wrote a story from it.
This was an exceptionally good panel discussion in part because it included two writers, a storyteller, and a graphic novelist. Each came at their craft from a very different perspective and all are masters at what they do.
Panelists: Nancy Kress, Robert Silverberg, James Lucas, Bill Willingham
Anecdote: Robert Silverberg: It wasn't that people were telling him that he could do better it was that the pay got better. He used to not do second drafts. He used to use a typewriter and carbon paper and it would come out salable but he didn't do second drafts. Then he was asked by Cyril Kornbluth if he did second drafts and was told that it would make it better and now he writes second drafts.
It became harder for him to write the story all in one draft and have it come out well. So he began typing it and then doing a second draft and it came out better. Grammar, repetitions everything was better with the second draft. He wrote a 981 page novel and he typed it out twice. Then he bought a computer-- he keys it in and then tinkers with it and now he prints it out. Robert Silverberg smiled at how much easier it was to write on a computer.
Nancy Kress said, it was a bad idea to put Robert Silverberg on a panel about what makes a good story because he gives the impression that it is possible to pump out a first draft and it will be good and salable. What Cyril Kornbluth said influenced Silverberg and Kress thinks this is good and she made a transition after she realized that she needs to think of her stories in terms of scenes. Once she started thinking of stories in scenes then her stories began to sell. This was her first big transition. Her second transition was while in school and she was given a course to teach on writing science fiction. She brought in Gene Wolfe who said that you should bring in two separate problems and let them solve each other and this made her writing richer and deeper. Next came Bruce Sterling. Sterling is a wonderful writer but a brutal critique. He told her that all she was doing was moving decorations around on a moldy cake. She was taking dated tropes and rearranging them and he made her think about other things. He told her that the economics of her story were not working. Her next story was about economics and was much more in depth and worked much better. Her recommendation is that it is a good idea to listen to colleagues and use what you hear.
Silverberg: Lester Del Rey asked why he was writing. He said for money. Del Rey told him he was doing it all wrong and that he should be taking a bit longer and that he should produce stuff of quality and then he would be able to have his stories in anthologies and circulating longer and make more money. Writing a little higher made it so the stories lasted longer.
Lucas: At first he thought that he had to memorize a story to recreate it for an audience. Then he realized that it was kind of dead. And now he reads different versions, does a beat sheet, etc. He learns the stories and then he recreates them. He learns larger stories. He has to do a great deal of work to prepare the story.
Willingham: The lightbulb moment.... He started as an artist and thought that he only wanted to be an artist. The writer was only there to add a few words and was as a safety measure. He started writing because he got tired of having the writer miss and so he started writing more and then he transitioned into writing. He writes in scenes and in the comic book world there is no space to waste. And he uses scenes as well because then he could pick scenes and construct his story. He is constantly asking what is the fewest number of scenes and words that will tell the story and he does not want to waste pages. He calls it decompression. You have to be terse and brutal and slim everything down to the slimmest possible component to tell the story in. The other lightbulb moment-- quit wasting space and time and the readers' time.
Lucas said that he is writing a children's book and he gets to tell the story to thousands of people and see what works and he has worked through the reiterations.
Can you talk about the thinking process of what is a good story?
Silverberg: Story ideas. Take an established idea and stand it on its head. Take the time machine the time traveler travels and tells his story. What if he cannot come back? Ask questions-- who will this hurt? Who will be affected? Science fiction both has a concept and is a human story and you have to consider who will be affected.
Kress: Doesn't know where her ideas come from. An idea will come to her already tied to a character and there is a situation and she doesn't know what will happen next. Sometimes she has to consider if the character she is considering is the right character. The thing she finds most useful is that she has to plunge in and start with the first scene. She doesn't know the ending. She considers what could go wrong. What can get screwed up and what do the characters want in the situation? She believes that if she knew the ending then maybe it would be boring to write. She doesn't know the endings when she starts a story.
Silverberg, in his quiet smooth way asked, “How many unfinished stories do you have?”
Kress admitted that she has unfinished stories. Sometimes she has to go back and rewrite the story because she has to reconcile with the end. She tries to become the characters and figure out what they might do in the situation. She becomes like an actor. She says that when one creates stories so organically a certain number of stories die.
Willingham: He does not start to tell a story until they start to come together. He isn't sure where the starting ideas come from. Only time when he really knows where the ideas come from is when he hears something and he gets a new take on something. He is slightly dyslexic and sometimes ideas will come out of the twisting of meaning of ordinary signs and things that he hears. Ideas often percolate and then they just come. Writing a series he just starts and he cannot know where the series is going because it has to continue.
Lucas: He creates stories and he finds stories. He sometimes just wakes up and he has a dream and he just starts writing the story. He often has to write it and see if it is tellable. He also drives all over the place and he will tell ideas to his partner and then he bounces ideas off of his partner and they will develop the stories. Sometimes he will have a show with a theme and he has to go search for ideas and create a show. The themes give him a thing to hang his hat on and organize around.
Willigham: Even though he is not a storyteller on a stage he tries to think in similar terms in that he tries to come up with stories that will entertain as though he were performing.
Lucas: There has to be a reason to tell the story. He needs a lesson or moral to tell a story.
Willignham: Do you feel a need to have a moral?
Lucas: Yes I feel I need to teach something and entertain.
Kress: Those are the not the only two options. Reflecting back the reality is another option. Highlighting world views is another option. Every story of every kind has an implied world. You are trying to reflect back the world.
Willingham: Fringe. The purpose of art is not to tell your audience what to do but show them who they are. To reveal some of what I think of the world is something he tries to do.
Silverberg: He doesn't believe that a story should be exclusively didactic. A story has to be about something. Take the Iliad. When you read the Iliad you are transformed.
How do you identify a quality of the story or reach that point where you think that the story is good?
Kress: She feels that she has no control over it. Sometimes she knows when it is good and other times she realizes it isn't. She recognizes when things are good by her own excitement with the piece. When it is good all the forces in the story will converge on a point and it is a point worth being at. She has very little control over her writing and she does not recommend it. It is inefficient.
Silverberg: He knows the writing is good at those moments where he gets an aha moment. He says that when he knows the title of a story then he knows what the story will be about. He starts with titles. He says that when all the strands come together then he knows he has a story. He no longer has to keep such conscious track of things. But he has a very intuitive feel for things and feels he has reached enlightenment. He does make outlines. However, he has had times when the story snuck up on him and then he suddenly realized that the story was not what he thought it was. Once he realized who the real villain in the story was--- 500 pages into the novel.
What did your editor say?
Silverberg: Nobody ever noticed.
Kress: Some writers write from outlines and then stitch things together. However Kress doesn't do this. She writes organically. She creates her characters and then they take over. Connie Willis called her on this because they are characters that she has created. She says that this still happens and she has fallen in love with some of her heroes.
Silverberg: Dyslexia is a useful skill for finding stories. A true professional can find a story to tell.
Willigham: If you are doing a series you have to find the story and keep producing.
Question: You cannot go back and revise. Do you ever wish that you could?
Willigham: Yes this is true and yes he wishes that he could go back and rewrite sometimes. Once he killed off a favorite villain too early and he tries not to have it happen.
Question: What about randomness? This is the new movement in art. Have you used this?
Silverberg: Yes. He used a pencil in the New York Times and came up with the two words angels and computers. He wrote a story from it.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Kyle Cassidy
Over the weekend while I was at the World Science Fiction Convention, I ascended on the escalator to the fifth floor where the panel discussions were happening. I nervously watched the escalator's teeth pull together and masticate the air in the gaps between the metal protrusions. I have an admitted irrational nervousness about escalators that was instilled in me by my great grandmother on trips to Hudson's Department store when I was a small child. I don't know if Grandma Miller actually ever had any kind of negative experience where the hem of her dress or an errant shoelace was pulled into the escalator jaws of death, but she made me very aware that such things could happen if one were not vigilant upon stepping off of escalators. So I was very absorbed when I hopped off the escalator and at first did not notice that a photo screen and lights had been set up in the corridor of the Palais de Congress. When I did happen to shake off my anxiety over toothy escalators and look up-- there was the photographer set up.
I have been photographed a great deal in my life. When I was a younger woman, I was an artists' model. Most of those experiences were very positive and a few were not. I asked someone passing who was taking photographs and why. The person I asked said that it was Neil Gaiman's photographer and that he was taking photographs of convention goers. I asked what the photographs were to be used for. The person shrugged and walked on. This made me vaguely nervous and I by passed the photographer.
Later that evening I had the delightful experience of meeting a soft spoken man named Kyle Cassidy. He was the photographer who had set up in the Palais de Congress' corridor.
He is the same photographer who worked with Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer on the series of photos entitled "who killed Amanda Palmer". He has also done a series of photos entitled "where i write: fantasy & science fiction authors in their creative spaces" and another series entitled "Gun Owners in their Own Homes".
I asked him about the photographs he was taking in the corridor of convention goers and what he planned to do with the photos. He told me that he was taking a large number of photos of various people and would be picking 30 for a project. He began to show me the portraits he had taken.
They were beautiful. He captured the warmth and beauty of the people whose photographs he had taken. He took his time and worked with many of the convention goers who were exceptionally nervous about having their photo taken. Over the sequence of three or five or seven photographs his subjects gradually became less and less nervous and slowly their selves emerged. I remember what is now many days after several of the photographs because they made such a strong impression on me. There was one of a young woman with red hair that glowed with highlights. Another of a corpulent older man with fragile rosie coloring and a brilliant smile. Yet another of a thin aging man with a grey beard like smoke and piercing eyes that seemed to to see into the impenetrable depths.
I am always in a type of awe of brilliant photographers who have the ability to not merely capture the reality of their subjects, but are also capable of sensitively seeing into the essence of their subjects and giving them life.
Please check out the works of Kyle Cassidy. His website is at www.kylecassidy.com/
I have been photographed a great deal in my life. When I was a younger woman, I was an artists' model. Most of those experiences were very positive and a few were not. I asked someone passing who was taking photographs and why. The person I asked said that it was Neil Gaiman's photographer and that he was taking photographs of convention goers. I asked what the photographs were to be used for. The person shrugged and walked on. This made me vaguely nervous and I by passed the photographer.
Later that evening I had the delightful experience of meeting a soft spoken man named Kyle Cassidy. He was the photographer who had set up in the Palais de Congress' corridor.
He is the same photographer who worked with Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer on the series of photos entitled "who killed Amanda Palmer". He has also done a series of photos entitled "where i write: fantasy & science fiction authors in their creative spaces" and another series entitled "Gun Owners in their Own Homes".
I asked him about the photographs he was taking in the corridor of convention goers and what he planned to do with the photos. He told me that he was taking a large number of photos of various people and would be picking 30 for a project. He began to show me the portraits he had taken.
They were beautiful. He captured the warmth and beauty of the people whose photographs he had taken. He took his time and worked with many of the convention goers who were exceptionally nervous about having their photo taken. Over the sequence of three or five or seven photographs his subjects gradually became less and less nervous and slowly their selves emerged. I remember what is now many days after several of the photographs because they made such a strong impression on me. There was one of a young woman with red hair that glowed with highlights. Another of a corpulent older man with fragile rosie coloring and a brilliant smile. Yet another of a thin aging man with a grey beard like smoke and piercing eyes that seemed to to see into the impenetrable depths.
I am always in a type of awe of brilliant photographers who have the ability to not merely capture the reality of their subjects, but are also capable of sensitively seeing into the essence of their subjects and giving them life.
Please check out the works of Kyle Cassidy. His website is at www.kylecassidy.com/
All Things Neil Gaiman
Photograph by Mike Gallagher, a friend from Glasgow whose blog can be found at: http://www.mikegallagher.info/
One of the panels that I went to during World Con was about Neil Gaiman the human being. It was entitled "The Many Interests of Neil Gaiman" and featured Cheryl Morgan, a friend of Mr. Gaiman's, and Neil Gaiman speaking on Neil Gaiman.
I can honestly say that Neil Gaiman is very charming and very funny. When he smiles or has an amusing thought his eyes light up like he is a kid. It was very nice to be able to sit and listen to him speak about his life and his many interests.
He and Cheryl began the panel discussion with his fondness for bees. If you read his journal, it is possible to find out about his fondness for bees. He won two blue ribbons in the county fair for his honeycomb and another type of honey. He creates special labels for the jars of honey. Cheryl suggested having a type of convention honey. Neil Gaiman thought this was a good idea except that he would need more hives.
He has had other hobbies in the past-- growing exotic pumpkins. Growing exotic pumpkins is entertaining because they just grow and come up everywhere. His battle with the ground hogs discouraged him from growing pumpkins. One year he planted pumpkins and the ground hogs would eat the shoots as they came up. He decided to try to combat the ground hogs. He went to find out what to do to get rid of the ground hogs. He was told to get wolf urine or lion urine. He sprinkled it around and the ground hogs ate more of the pumpkins. So he bought the little sponge flowers that one is supposed to use to keep the scent of the urine around the garden and soaked them with the urine. And the ground hogs ate the sponges.
Cheryl related a story about her mother who had had a badger traveling through her garden and digging up her prize flowers. She called about the badger and the person was excited and wanted to come see the badger rather than help Cheryl's mother be rid of the beastie.
Neil Gaiman stated repeatedly that he is not a dog person. He did not plan to have a dog. However, he is the hero of his own story on his blog and while he did not know that he would have a dog he firmly believes that everyone else who reads his blog knew that he was going to end up owning a dog. He was heading home on the freeway and saw a large brown animal heading towards the freeway. He stopped and hauled the incredibly large, muddy dog into his mini. The dog took up his mini and was covered in mud and it smelled as though covered in cow poo.
He took the dog to the humane society because it had a chain and he posted signs.
At this point people reading his blog knew that he had a dog. He thought he was done with the dog. The humane society called him and the dog belonged to an old farmer who thought the dog was a nuisance. The lady on the phone had told the farmer that the guy who had dropped the dog off seemed fond of the dog. SO the farmer told him to get the dog.
At first he thought he had a brown dog. He has a white dog. A white german shepherd. When people tell him that they did not know that there were white german shepherds he gives them the history of the breed. He smiled mischievously and said that that is the moment that he knows he has people trapped because he can go on and on about the dog.
Amy Palmer. Both of them are in transit. They nervously started dating and then had another date when their travel schedules overlapped. Jason Webley put them together. Neil had linked to a song of Jason Webley, Jason experienced website failure, and he sent more music, and then suggested that Gaiman meet Amanda. He had always been a fan of the Dresden Dolls. They had emailed quite a bit and she emailed and told him about the photographs of herself posed dead. She asked him to write stories around the photographs. Check out www.whokilledamandapalmer.com/
He, Amanda, and Kyle Cassidy took more photographs for the project.
Neil Gaiman talked about “liner notes” and how there was a relationship with a whole album and the sequence of the albums was important. He talked about the moment he switched to CDs was when he could hit random and have the songs randomized. His daughters only buy songs-- not albums. They see patterns in songs.
He says he loves introducing things-- he likes telling why things are cool. His agent has banned him from doing more because he was doing too many. Cheryl said he is always enthusing about stuff that she doesn't know about and it is kind of embarrassing. Neil said that that has to do with that Cheryl has to stay on top of the critical canon and he gets the freedom to pull from where ever. For instance, Robert Aickman is an author that he enjoys-- he is an author's author. He writes about strange things that have happened to people. Mr. Gaiman says Mr. Aickman's stories make the world odder and are wonderful but very few people know of them.
Neil Gaiman's first World Con was in 1987. It had many wonderful moments and one very odd one. He was put up in a room by Titan who was publishing one of his comics. He stayed up all night talking to people in the bar. Then he realized people were going to have breakfast so he went and had breakfast. Around eleven he went to his room and a woman answered the door. His room had been given away because the hotel staff thought that he had left without paying. He stood in the lobby nervously. Then someone with Titan spoke to the manager and pointed out to them that they were renting quite a number of rooms and had scheduled a couple events. Neil got a room. He never got his things back including items that he had personally purchased from the dealer room and had been stashing in the hotel room. He said that to this day he hates that hotel.
Cheryl pointed out that that was when he started wearing black. He agreed. He liked the idea of monochrome but he had been wearing all grey but there are lots of greys. Brown greys and greens greys and a whole assortment of greys. His grandmother had told him he couldn't wear all black because of the black shirts of the 1930's. After his grandmother had been dead for five years he bought his first black t-shirt.
London Things. Dr. Who. He felt that Dr. Who was uniquely his even though it first came out when he was around three. He could remember drinking his school milk and walking it around saying “exterminate” like a dahlek. Patrick Troughton was the doctor for him-- the others were actors playing the doctor.
Neverwhere. It was the London underground.
Dr. Who changed his perspective of the universe and gave him a perspective of the fragility of the universe. Also a sense of the optimism. The new Dr. Who has undone the things that he would have undone-- the time lords. In Dr. Who there is no continuity. The same discontinuity as life. And you can always go back in time and change things.
Sushi. He and Terry Pratchett survived the book signing tour for Good Omens with sushi. He had had one prior bad experience with sushi. He was taken along to pretend to be someone's boyfriend. He figured his job was to not embarrass his friend. He started with the most unfamiliar and worked towards the most familiar. He ate different things until he came to the “avocado” bowl. He took a large ball of wasabi and saw the face of god until he could spit it out.
When he and Terry Pratchett were on tour they would each write something to build off the comments of the other. “Burn this book” and then the other would write: “Apply holy match here.”
With The Graveyard Book he knew the feel of it before he knew what the book was going to be. He talked about the next book being the LOTR to The Graveyard Book's Hobbit so look for more great things coming from Mr. Neil Gaiman!
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Home from World Con and I am Restless with Ideas
I stopped off at the Woody Creek Tavern for dinner this evening on my way home from Montreal. I can barely stop my brain from churning I have so many ideas. Tomorrow I am going into Aspen and getting a library card so that I can start researching material for some of the things I want to create.
One of the things that I am very interested in doing is creating a website that is linked to this blog but also has other features such as podcasts. I will be putting out a call for scripts in the near future. I am going to be looking for narrator/actors who are willing to volunteer time and effort to create old style SF radio programs. This may be a recreation of the past or a foray into a new way of doing things. I want to create audio SF theater. My hope is that I can get a troupe of voice talent together and do this with everyone in whatever location that they happen to be in and that it gets pulled together electronically.
Anybody who has expertise that they are willing to share-- let me know.
More ideas roiling and churning, but now it is time to pet the psychotic cat and reassure her that all is right in the world, eat leftover birthday cake from the freezer (because I am still on vacation, right?), and watch anime.
OMG, I just had a string of rapid fire ideas for a series of prints. T-shirts. The new website will have t-shirts. Screen prints and cool scifi batik.
One of the things that I am very interested in doing is creating a website that is linked to this blog but also has other features such as podcasts. I will be putting out a call for scripts in the near future. I am going to be looking for narrator/actors who are willing to volunteer time and effort to create old style SF radio programs. This may be a recreation of the past or a foray into a new way of doing things. I want to create audio SF theater. My hope is that I can get a troupe of voice talent together and do this with everyone in whatever location that they happen to be in and that it gets pulled together electronically.
Anybody who has expertise that they are willing to share-- let me know.
More ideas roiling and churning, but now it is time to pet the psychotic cat and reassure her that all is right in the world, eat leftover birthday cake from the freezer (because I am still on vacation, right?), and watch anime.
OMG, I just had a string of rapid fire ideas for a series of prints. T-shirts. The new website will have t-shirts. Screen prints and cool scifi batik.
Monday, August 10, 2009
A Reading List
My Professional Development Reading List
(so that I can begin developing and working on some of the ideas that I have spinning in my head as a result of coming to World Con.)
Because of a fortuitous meeting with Kim Neville and her husband Shane whose website can be found at www.nrdland.com, I received a whole list of books about the comic form, webcomics business, and a list of web comics to read. A HUGE public thank-you to Shane and Kim for being way cool! Check out his online comic entitled Petra's Call! I am so beyond geeked about a few ideas that I have for an online website complete with podcasts and illustrated stories that right now I cannot sleep.
Here is a list of webcomics to check out:
www.freakangels.com/
www.schlockmercenary.com/
www.noneedforbushido.com/
http://dieselsweeties.com/
www.zudacomics.com/
www.girlgeniusonline.com/
In addition to the webcomics and in addition to the list that can be found in my blogpost about the World Con panel on the best science fiction novels of the year, over the course of the conference I learned about several book titles from various folks that I will be adding to my Amazon Wish List.
Fables by Bill Willingham
Free by Chris Anderson
Celestial Matters by Richard Garfinkle
Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond
Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day by Jeff Hertzberg
Painted Devils by Robert Aickman
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
The City and the City by China Mieville
Julian Comstock by Robert Charles Wilson
Shelter by Chaz Brenchley
Magic Mirror of the Mermaid Queen by Delia Sherman
I also went to my local library and found these books to help me with creating a website:
Podcasting by Steve Mack and Mitch Ratcliffe
The Non-Designer's Web Book by Robin Williams and John Tollett
And these books on comics:
Toon Art by Steven Withrow
Making Comics by Scott McCloud
Reinventing Comics by Scott McCloud
Do you know of other fabulous book that I should add to the list? Good science fiction reads, interesting non-fiction books on science, economics, website construction, comics or whatever, historical fiction?
(so that I can begin developing and working on some of the ideas that I have spinning in my head as a result of coming to World Con.)
Because of a fortuitous meeting with Kim Neville and her husband Shane whose website can be found at www.nrdland.com, I received a whole list of books about the comic form, webcomics business, and a list of web comics to read. A HUGE public thank-you to Shane and Kim for being way cool! Check out his online comic entitled Petra's Call! I am so beyond geeked about a few ideas that I have for an online website complete with podcasts and illustrated stories that right now I cannot sleep.
Here is a list of webcomics to check out:
www.freakangels.com/
www.schlockmercenary.com/
www.noneedforbushido.com/
http://dieselsweeties.com/
www.zudacomics.com/
www.girlgeniusonline.com/
In addition to the webcomics and in addition to the list that can be found in my blogpost about the World Con panel on the best science fiction novels of the year, over the course of the conference I learned about several book titles from various folks that I will be adding to my Amazon Wish List.
Fables by Bill Willingham
Free by Chris Anderson
Celestial Matters by Richard Garfinkle
Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond
Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day by Jeff Hertzberg
Painted Devils by Robert Aickman
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
The City and the City by China Mieville
Julian Comstock by Robert Charles Wilson
Shelter by Chaz Brenchley
Magic Mirror of the Mermaid Queen by Delia Sherman
I also went to my local library and found these books to help me with creating a website:
Podcasting by Steve Mack and Mitch Ratcliffe
The Non-Designer's Web Book by Robin Williams and John Tollett
And these books on comics:
Toon Art by Steven Withrow
Making Comics by Scott McCloud
Reinventing Comics by Scott McCloud
Do you know of other fabulous book that I should add to the list? Good science fiction reads, interesting non-fiction books on science, economics, website construction, comics or whatever, historical fiction?
Hugo Winners
I attended the Hugo Award Ceremonies last night. Julie Czerneda did an absolutely FANTASTIC job as the Mistress of Ceremonies both at the Masquerade and at the Hugo Awards Ceremony. I would like extend my metaphorical round of applause to her for such a fabulous job!
And the winners are:
*For Best Novel: Neil Gaiman for The Graveyard Book
When Mr. Gaiman accepted his Hugo, he promised that he wouldn't swear. In the past it seems his single utterance upon winning a previous Hugo consisted of a very colorful turn of phrase.
*For Best Novella: "The Erdmann Nexus" by Nancy Kress
Ms. Kress accepted her Hugo in a gracious manner and confessed when she gave her acceptance speech that she had never dreamed that the novella might be worthy of Hugo. She said that she was genuinely surprised and had not anticipated winning the award.
* For Best Novelette: “Shoggoths in Bloom”by Elizabeth Bear
Elizabeth Bear seemed very excited to win another Hugo for her story and I am very sorry that I omitted her win by accident in my first reporting on the Hugos. All I can say is that if she likes brownies I will mail her some as an apology!
*For Best Short Story: "Exhalation" by Ted Chiang
In a fashion similar to many other award winners, Mr. Chiang was not present to accept the Hugo.
*For Best Related Book: Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded by John Scalzi was the winner.
Mr. Scalzi said that he was particularly taken with winning in this category because he has written non-fiction for many years.
*For Best Graphic Novel: Girl Genius, Volume 8: Agatha Heterodyne and the Chapel of Bones was the winner.
*For Best Dramatic Presentation in the Long Form: Wall-E was the winner.
*For Best Dramatic Presentation in the Short Form: Doctor Horrible's Sing-Along Blog By Joss Whedon was the winner.
Mr. Whedon was not present to accept his award.
*For Best Editor in the short form category: Ellen Datlow was the winner.
*For Best Editor in the long form category: David G. Hartwell was the winner.
* The Hugo for Best Professional Artist went to Donato Giancola.
* The Hugo for the Best Semiprozine went to Weird Tales.
* The Hugo for Best Fanzine went to Electric Velocipede.
* The Hugo for Best Fan Writer went to Cheryl Morgan who asked that she not be given another Hugo and that other people be considered.
* The Hugo for Best Fan Artist went to Frank Wu who asked that he also not be given another Hugo so that other people could be considered. Frank Wu's enthusiasm and sense of fun were smile inducing. He picked up the Hugo and launched it off back stage!
I had a chance to hold one of the Hugos while I was attending one of the many parties at the Delta Hotel. Every year the base is redesigned for that year and this year it was designed by Dave Howell. This year the Hugo had a base made of granite with a clear poly insert. Flames were replicated in the poly. The engraved designation of the Hugo floated in front of the granite base. The Hugos were very beautiful and very heavy!
And the winners are:
*For Best Novel: Neil Gaiman for The Graveyard Book
When Mr. Gaiman accepted his Hugo, he promised that he wouldn't swear. In the past it seems his single utterance upon winning a previous Hugo consisted of a very colorful turn of phrase.
*For Best Novella: "The Erdmann Nexus" by Nancy Kress
Ms. Kress accepted her Hugo in a gracious manner and confessed when she gave her acceptance speech that she had never dreamed that the novella might be worthy of Hugo. She said that she was genuinely surprised and had not anticipated winning the award.
* For Best Novelette: “Shoggoths in Bloom”by Elizabeth Bear
Elizabeth Bear seemed very excited to win another Hugo for her story and I am very sorry that I omitted her win by accident in my first reporting on the Hugos. All I can say is that if she likes brownies I will mail her some as an apology!
*For Best Short Story: "Exhalation" by Ted Chiang
In a fashion similar to many other award winners, Mr. Chiang was not present to accept the Hugo.
*For Best Related Book: Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded by John Scalzi was the winner.
Mr. Scalzi said that he was particularly taken with winning in this category because he has written non-fiction for many years.
*For Best Graphic Novel: Girl Genius, Volume 8: Agatha Heterodyne and the Chapel of Bones was the winner.
*For Best Dramatic Presentation in the Long Form: Wall-E was the winner.
*For Best Dramatic Presentation in the Short Form: Doctor Horrible's Sing-Along Blog By Joss Whedon was the winner.
Mr. Whedon was not present to accept his award.
*For Best Editor in the short form category: Ellen Datlow was the winner.
*For Best Editor in the long form category: David G. Hartwell was the winner.
* The Hugo for Best Professional Artist went to Donato Giancola.
* The Hugo for the Best Semiprozine went to Weird Tales.
* The Hugo for Best Fanzine went to Electric Velocipede.
* The Hugo for Best Fan Writer went to Cheryl Morgan who asked that she not be given another Hugo and that other people be considered.
* The Hugo for Best Fan Artist went to Frank Wu who asked that he also not be given another Hugo so that other people could be considered. Frank Wu's enthusiasm and sense of fun were smile inducing. He picked up the Hugo and launched it off back stage!
I had a chance to hold one of the Hugos while I was attending one of the many parties at the Delta Hotel. Every year the base is redesigned for that year and this year it was designed by Dave Howell. This year the Hugo had a base made of granite with a clear poly insert. Flames were replicated in the poly. The engraved designation of the Hugo floated in front of the granite base. The Hugos were very beautiful and very heavy!
Sunday, August 9, 2009
So this is World Con
So this is World Con.
Panels! discussions! artwork in the exhibit hall! parties! people dressed in costume! your favorite authors strolling down the hall in passing!
I am incredibly tired today. I was up tooo late last night. I went to the Masquerade which is a kind of combination talent show/costume fashion parade and then to a party where I met George R.R. Martin. He is very nice and was holding court in a room where raffle tickets were being sold to raise money for a children's literacy program. The prizes were books that had been donated by various authors including Martin.
I started feeling wonky yesterday like I was getting sick and so I made a point of eating three meals and I took a nap. There are so many panels and discussions to go to that it is hard to know when to take a break!
I will write more later if I can find internet and I get a chance.
Saturday, August 8, 2009
Mascots at World Con
This year at World Con mascots were given the opportunity to have their own badge for $5. This is my first World Con and I did not know about mascots. Mascots are stuffed animals that people carry and they are just that-- they are mascots. Last night I had the opportunity to meet Buffalito.
This morning I was introduced to Riker Bear who is the mascot of U.S.S. Pioneer. He is the mascot of the Denver Science Fiction group who will be putting on the Mile HIgh Con in Denver in October and have been in existence since 1995. Riker Bear wears Build A Bear clothing, has his own car, and has been on a cruise. he travels extensively and has traveled without his owners. He is the bear pictured in the photo.
Friday, August 7, 2009
World Con: Writing Across the Genres
This morning I went to a panel discussion about writing across the genres. The panelist were James Patrick Kelly, Michael Swanwick, Ellen Klages, Delia Sherman, and Preston Grassman. Delia Sherman has a new book out called the Magic Mirror of the Mermaid Queen. She writes realistic material with folklore elements and is associated with the Interstitial Arts Foundation. Jim Kelly and Michael Swanwick are names that I am familiar with. They joked back and forth with one another and when Swanwick came in late, Jim Kelly shot a purple rubber band at him that almost hit me. Grassman is a freelance writer who has been living in Japan and is currently collaborating on a new novel with KJ Bishop. Klages described herself as writing the type of stories that people get in to bar fights over what they are not.
In this panel various different ideas for writing across genres or not were presented. The main reason for not writing across genre was economic. Swanwick described an article that Piers Anthony wrote where Anthony advocated for writers to write one funny fantasy story and then another and build up a following. In Anthony's model the writer would create fiction that was similar to what they had written before and with each successive book they would pick up readers and earn more money.
Kelly brought up another point in that authors who write across genres are sometimes viewed as not being serious and lacking focus.
Another reason that was discussed for not writing across genre that was discussed was that if the fiction is not easily categorized it may not easily find a publisher or a place in the bookstores. Klages pointed out that short stories is a place where writers usually can write across genre and play with things. She relayed an anecdote however where “Green Glass Sea,” a short story that she wrote, she could not get published because the story was not considered “science fiction”-- it was about science and was fiction. Swanwick told about hanging out with Dozois and Dozois telling him that whenever Dozois published something that did not have the impossible he got flack.
From this point came another set of ideas.
Genre categories in some ways ghetto-ize fiction. Klages pointed out that Chabon had won a Pulitzer and then he won a Hugo. She asserted that he might not have won both if the order had been reversed. It was also brought up that in science fiction circles the word literature is said with a sneer. Swanwick talked about problems in defining categories. He mentioned that in biology, species are defined by type specimens. Type specimens are dead. You cannot define a species until after you have killed it. In order to define a genre you must first kill it. He says that he tries to defy every possible rule and play with people's expectations and minds. Boundaries are redrawn every time that someone does something that no one has seen before.
So. What are the benefits of writing across genre?
Sherman said that art is always a moving target. There is nothing wrong with staying within genre--- such as Patricia McKillip. Practitioners of the epic tradition are writing beautiful things and she does not want that to stop. However, she would like to move past formula fiction. The genre has to grow in order to provide something that will be talked about in fifty years. It used to be just that literature grew. The way that things grow is that you create things that people do not have the rules to know how to approach it and have to approach it on its one terms. If it does not fit these rules-- then how does one unpack it. How does one examine it? The thought process inherent in this is what keeps a literary tradition alive.
Klages said, “You have to have people who are not easily pigeon holed or else all you have is pigeon holes.” She went on to say that we learn by being exposed to new things.
A lot of the people on the panel are trying to write something else because they want something new. Writing boring fiction is boring. Swanwick said that he pays a price for writing things that are not easily classified, but he wants to do different things. He said that he could make more money in advertising or by writing the same things over and over. Swanwick said that he thinks the rules of genre pull the stories down. He says that he is not trying to break the rules but he doesn't want to tailor down to expectations. He aims to produce something satisfying and new.
Swanwick told this joke, “What is the difference between a science fiction writer and a large pizza? The pizza can feed a family of four.”
In this panel various different ideas for writing across genres or not were presented. The main reason for not writing across genre was economic. Swanwick described an article that Piers Anthony wrote where Anthony advocated for writers to write one funny fantasy story and then another and build up a following. In Anthony's model the writer would create fiction that was similar to what they had written before and with each successive book they would pick up readers and earn more money.
Kelly brought up another point in that authors who write across genres are sometimes viewed as not being serious and lacking focus.
Another reason that was discussed for not writing across genre that was discussed was that if the fiction is not easily categorized it may not easily find a publisher or a place in the bookstores. Klages pointed out that short stories is a place where writers usually can write across genre and play with things. She relayed an anecdote however where “Green Glass Sea,” a short story that she wrote, she could not get published because the story was not considered “science fiction”-- it was about science and was fiction. Swanwick told about hanging out with Dozois and Dozois telling him that whenever Dozois published something that did not have the impossible he got flack.
From this point came another set of ideas.
Genre categories in some ways ghetto-ize fiction. Klages pointed out that Chabon had won a Pulitzer and then he won a Hugo. She asserted that he might not have won both if the order had been reversed. It was also brought up that in science fiction circles the word literature is said with a sneer. Swanwick talked about problems in defining categories. He mentioned that in biology, species are defined by type specimens. Type specimens are dead. You cannot define a species until after you have killed it. In order to define a genre you must first kill it. He says that he tries to defy every possible rule and play with people's expectations and minds. Boundaries are redrawn every time that someone does something that no one has seen before.
So. What are the benefits of writing across genre?
Sherman said that art is always a moving target. There is nothing wrong with staying within genre--- such as Patricia McKillip. Practitioners of the epic tradition are writing beautiful things and she does not want that to stop. However, she would like to move past formula fiction. The genre has to grow in order to provide something that will be talked about in fifty years. It used to be just that literature grew. The way that things grow is that you create things that people do not have the rules to know how to approach it and have to approach it on its one terms. If it does not fit these rules-- then how does one unpack it. How does one examine it? The thought process inherent in this is what keeps a literary tradition alive.
Klages said, “You have to have people who are not easily pigeon holed or else all you have is pigeon holes.” She went on to say that we learn by being exposed to new things.
A lot of the people on the panel are trying to write something else because they want something new. Writing boring fiction is boring. Swanwick said that he pays a price for writing things that are not easily classified, but he wants to do different things. He said that he could make more money in advertising or by writing the same things over and over. Swanwick said that he thinks the rules of genre pull the stories down. He says that he is not trying to break the rules but he doesn't want to tailor down to expectations. He aims to produce something satisfying and new.
Swanwick told this joke, “What is the difference between a science fiction writer and a large pizza? The pizza can feed a family of four.”
Preliminary Post on Attending a Panel with Cory Doctorow on Creative Commons
I went to a panel discussion that had Cory Doctorow on the panel talking about intellectual property rights and creative commons.
Holy Simoleans! I am still blown away. I need to do more research so I can write intelligently about the subject at a later time. Doctorow is incredibly articulate and moves fluidly from one point to another with lightning speed. I want to just sit him down and ask questions.
I did get a chance to speak with Laura Majerus who is an intellectual property lawyer. She generously let me bounce some of my less than knowledgeable ideas at her and gave me more to think about. I want to extend a public thank-you to her for generosity of time and knowledge.
Holy Simoleans! I am still blown away. I need to do more research so I can write intelligently about the subject at a later time. Doctorow is incredibly articulate and moves fluidly from one point to another with lightning speed. I want to just sit him down and ask questions.
I did get a chance to speak with Laura Majerus who is an intellectual property lawyer. She generously let me bounce some of my less than knowledgeable ideas at her and gave me more to think about. I want to extend a public thank-you to her for generosity of time and knowledge.
Is Literacy in Decline?
I went to a panel this morning that was about whether or not literacy was in decline. The panel consisted of educators and librarians and one writer of historical fiction. The moderator of the panel made a distinction between literacy-- as being able to read-- and literateness. He suggested that while Sarah Palin was someone who he was certain could read, he did not believe her to have any degree of literateness.
I listened to what was being said for the first half an hour and decided that I was in disagreement with a great deal of what was being said. I am an educator and I disagree that our children are becoming less literate. Our children are more engaged with the stream of information than any other generation in history. They play games, look for information, and engage with a variety of different media. They are thinking and engaging with information.
It was suggested that texting is creating a loss of literacy skills. I adamantly disagree. The text of texting is a written dialect or code. It is a new type of written language and those using it are both capable of writing standard English and writing text. The usage is at this point in time situational. Further, texting may very well cause a shift or evolution in the language but this is not a detriment as long as communication is happening and thoughts are being relayed.
One educator lamented that high school students cannot write an essay. I would agree with this but I do not see this as an issue of literacy. I would prefer to take it out of the narrow context of being able to write in a subject oriented manner such as “English” or language arts. I think that this breaks into two other categories which are content and the organization of thought.
Content should not be narrowly defined. Content is anything that someone is willing to read.
Writing should be nothing more than a way to communicate and the art or skill is only one possible avenue. Writing out of necessity needs a larger meta-skill. Most people who can write at all can write a few words, a sentence, or a paragraph, but they cannot put these together in an organized way to relay thought because they do not know how to organize thought.
We are currently going through a revolution in thought and society due to the explosion of electronic media. It is only comparable to the invention of the printing press. While the printing press solidified conventions of spelling, it expanded thought. Brochures, broad sheets, pamphlets, books, etc. could suddenly be printed after the printing press was invented. The incidence of literacy in that era soared and out of that time period came huge shifts in thought and humanity moved towards more a egalitarian sense of the world.
Electronic media are making information more easily accessible both in terms of speed and in terms of widely being available. Teens text instantaneous messages. Adults tweet. News of a closed election escapes in real time. Politics and thought will shift. Geography becomes less of an obstacle. It is important to keep information free and accessible to foster further freedom and nurturance of thought.
I listened to what was being said for the first half an hour and decided that I was in disagreement with a great deal of what was being said. I am an educator and I disagree that our children are becoming less literate. Our children are more engaged with the stream of information than any other generation in history. They play games, look for information, and engage with a variety of different media. They are thinking and engaging with information.
It was suggested that texting is creating a loss of literacy skills. I adamantly disagree. The text of texting is a written dialect or code. It is a new type of written language and those using it are both capable of writing standard English and writing text. The usage is at this point in time situational. Further, texting may very well cause a shift or evolution in the language but this is not a detriment as long as communication is happening and thoughts are being relayed.
One educator lamented that high school students cannot write an essay. I would agree with this but I do not see this as an issue of literacy. I would prefer to take it out of the narrow context of being able to write in a subject oriented manner such as “English” or language arts. I think that this breaks into two other categories which are content and the organization of thought.
Content should not be narrowly defined. Content is anything that someone is willing to read.
Writing should be nothing more than a way to communicate and the art or skill is only one possible avenue. Writing out of necessity needs a larger meta-skill. Most people who can write at all can write a few words, a sentence, or a paragraph, but they cannot put these together in an organized way to relay thought because they do not know how to organize thought.
We are currently going through a revolution in thought and society due to the explosion of electronic media. It is only comparable to the invention of the printing press. While the printing press solidified conventions of spelling, it expanded thought. Brochures, broad sheets, pamphlets, books, etc. could suddenly be printed after the printing press was invented. The incidence of literacy in that era soared and out of that time period came huge shifts in thought and humanity moved towards more a egalitarian sense of the world.
Electronic media are making information more easily accessible both in terms of speed and in terms of widely being available. Teens text instantaneous messages. Adults tweet. News of a closed election escapes in real time. Politics and thought will shift. Geography becomes less of an obstacle. It is important to keep information free and accessible to foster further freedom and nurturance of thought.
The Line to get Tickets to the Signing Event with Neil Gaiman
This morning when I arrived at World Con there was a line forming on the second floor to obtain tickets for both of Neil Gaiman's signings. Irene Harrison who was first was in line at 7:50 to get her ticket. She said in regards to her being first that, "She brings order out of chaos."
Friday Morning Notes From Yesterday's World Con
I was too tired to summarize things that I could remember from World Con last night. I didn't get back to my room until after 10 and I had forgotten to eat. I decided not to go back out last night and so this will be brief because I am a little in need of food this morning.
I heard several things that probably are not grossly new to people who are trying to write and become science fiction or fantasy authors.
1. Sheila Williams (editor of Asimov's) and one of the anthology editors both said that they have bought short stories that had unique and interesting titles.
2. Jo Walton and one other author both thought that science fiction and fantasy that proposed a future in places other than Europe or North America stood apart. Places such as Africa and India as the settings for future stories were both mentioned.
3. The editors see a great deal of the same stuff-- even if it is competently and professionally written. They want to read material that is different and new. Ellen Datlow practically groaned about zombies-- I got the impression that she has seen enough zombies. She wasn't down on vampires but she gave some examples of "sexy" vampire stories and they weren't standard by any means. Steampunk was something that was mentioned as a fad that is predicted to be done in two years. The Kick Start Your Writing workshop suggested taking your first idea for a story-- whatever that idea is-- and then pushing it further. The panelists on that one said (Aliette Bodard was among them!) that whatever your first idea is it will probably have some degree of cliche and that you need to go further. Push further for the unique idea and make sure that it has purpose in the story. Sheila Williams said that she looks for stories where things feel right. She looks for stories where the author has thought about human behavior and captured it in its nuances quite completely.
4. Many of the authors that are considered innovative I have not read and I will be putting together a more comprehensive reading list for myself over the course of the con. I will share with anyone who is interested. I hate to say it but all of the Big Three, even if I don't care for the quality of their material, do seem to be a place where up and coming are featured. Aliette Bodard and I simultaneously mentioned the list of cliche plot lines that is on Strange Horizons (and then smiled nervously at one another). I was surprised that not as many people mentioned the online mags. Howard Taylor is a friend of a friend and someone that I met in the Denver airport and he has an online graphic novel called Schlock Mercenary. He mentioned that that is the only way that many graphic novelists are breaking in and selling anything. I will be keeping an ear out in regards to more info about various forms of media and the online mags because I am interested in creating a website with podcasts, art, and stories.
Must eat. And I desperately need coffee to stave off the transformation.
I heard several things that probably are not grossly new to people who are trying to write and become science fiction or fantasy authors.
1. Sheila Williams (editor of Asimov's) and one of the anthology editors both said that they have bought short stories that had unique and interesting titles.
2. Jo Walton and one other author both thought that science fiction and fantasy that proposed a future in places other than Europe or North America stood apart. Places such as Africa and India as the settings for future stories were both mentioned.
3. The editors see a great deal of the same stuff-- even if it is competently and professionally written. They want to read material that is different and new. Ellen Datlow practically groaned about zombies-- I got the impression that she has seen enough zombies. She wasn't down on vampires but she gave some examples of "sexy" vampire stories and they weren't standard by any means. Steampunk was something that was mentioned as a fad that is predicted to be done in two years. The Kick Start Your Writing workshop suggested taking your first idea for a story-- whatever that idea is-- and then pushing it further. The panelists on that one said (Aliette Bodard was among them!) that whatever your first idea is it will probably have some degree of cliche and that you need to go further. Push further for the unique idea and make sure that it has purpose in the story. Sheila Williams said that she looks for stories where things feel right. She looks for stories where the author has thought about human behavior and captured it in its nuances quite completely.
4. Many of the authors that are considered innovative I have not read and I will be putting together a more comprehensive reading list for myself over the course of the con. I will share with anyone who is interested. I hate to say it but all of the Big Three, even if I don't care for the quality of their material, do seem to be a place where up and coming are featured. Aliette Bodard and I simultaneously mentioned the list of cliche plot lines that is on Strange Horizons (and then smiled nervously at one another). I was surprised that not as many people mentioned the online mags. Howard Taylor is a friend of a friend and someone that I met in the Denver airport and he has an online graphic novel called Schlock Mercenary. He mentioned that that is the only way that many graphic novelists are breaking in and selling anything. I will be keeping an ear out in regards to more info about various forms of media and the online mags because I am interested in creating a website with podcasts, art, and stories.
Must eat. And I desperately need coffee to stave off the transformation.
Thursday, August 6, 2009
World Con Notes: Best of Science Fiction Novels
Best of Science Fiction Novels
This session should have been hopping with enthusiasm-- it wasn't. I arrived ten minutes into the session and already the two presenters had begun to talk to the audience about the good books that had come out during the year. This last year was described as having been a year that had many sequels and series novels. Some of the named sequels or novels in series were as follows:
Nancy Kress, Steal Across the Sky.
Karl Schroeder, The Sunless Countries. Great idea books.
CJ. Cherryh, Book Ten, entitled Conspirator.
Daniel Abraham, The Price of Spring. This is a series that has four volumes and an end! Each volume has closure. Daniel Abraham's writing was described (in both the novel fiction and short fiction sessions) as original and fresh. Further, Jo Walton said that he is not afraid to destroy the world. She said that the series had a very satisfying completion.
After this the two presenters began to poll the audience for new titles that they had enjoyed. The presenters indicated that they had previously asked the audience who amongst them had read more than twenty novels during the last year and several people had raised their hands. Among the titles that were listed were the following:
The Children's Book by A.S. Byatt.
Norse Code by Greg van Eekhout.
The City and the City by China Mieville.
Cloud and Ashes (from Small Beer Press) which is the fantasy sequel to Moonwise by Greer Gilman.
The Immortality Factor by Ben Bova (Jo Walton says Millenium is his best which is a book that was published in the past.).
Beastly by Alex Flinn and also a Kiss in Time.
Graceling by Krisin Cashore.
By the Mountain Bound by Elizabeth Bear.
The Orphan's Tale and Palimpsest by Catherynne Valente. Palimpsest was described as very innovative.
This is Not a Game by John Williams.
David Marusek's Mind Over Ship is the name of the sequel that is currently out. The first book is: Counting Heads. Read Counting Heads first, but both were described as being fresh and very good.
Pump Six and Other Stories is a collection of short stories by Paolo Bacigalupi.
Jo Walton and the other presenter were praising fiction focusing on other parts of the world beyond N. America and Europe. Setting a story in the future of India or Africa makes the story set apart.
Overall this session was very depressing because the panelists and the audience were not terribly enthusiastic about very many novels and everyone was fishing for additions to the list. This could mean several separate things. It could mean that there is room for an exciting new novel! (And that it is needed to generate a great deal of enthusiasm? People who are readers should not be hunting to come up with titles that they feel strongly about. I wonder about the health of the genre when there is such difficulty listing titles.) Or that maybe the panelists were put in an awkward position and did the best they could?
After the session I had a chance to speak briefly with Jo Walton who was very generous with her time in speaking to me. I asked her about the state of the genre if there are so many sequels and books in series and what this might indicate about the science fiction genre. She said, “There is a pressure to sell a new book in a series as opposed to a new stand alone book.” She explained that the publishers want to have books that are just like the last one provided they are successful.
I pressed further and asked about the state of the genre when it is so difficult to name new books. She recommended that I go to more of the panels being presented by editors who will be talking more about up and coming books. She said that the editors who have new fiction coming out will be in a better position to describe the exciting new works coming out.
Other books Jo Walton recommended:
Lifeload by Jo Walton ( Farthing is another book of hers that she recommends!)
Green by Jay Lake
I asked Jo Walton who the most innovative author with fiction out right now was and she said:
“Julian Comstock by Robert Charles Wilson is most innovative thing out.”
This session should have been hopping with enthusiasm-- it wasn't. I arrived ten minutes into the session and already the two presenters had begun to talk to the audience about the good books that had come out during the year. This last year was described as having been a year that had many sequels and series novels. Some of the named sequels or novels in series were as follows:
Nancy Kress, Steal Across the Sky.
Karl Schroeder, The Sunless Countries. Great idea books.
CJ. Cherryh, Book Ten, entitled Conspirator.
Daniel Abraham, The Price of Spring. This is a series that has four volumes and an end! Each volume has closure. Daniel Abraham's writing was described (in both the novel fiction and short fiction sessions) as original and fresh. Further, Jo Walton said that he is not afraid to destroy the world. She said that the series had a very satisfying completion.
After this the two presenters began to poll the audience for new titles that they had enjoyed. The presenters indicated that they had previously asked the audience who amongst them had read more than twenty novels during the last year and several people had raised their hands. Among the titles that were listed were the following:
The Children's Book by A.S. Byatt.
Norse Code by Greg van Eekhout.
The City and the City by China Mieville.
Cloud and Ashes (from Small Beer Press) which is the fantasy sequel to Moonwise by Greer Gilman.
The Immortality Factor by Ben Bova (Jo Walton says Millenium is his best which is a book that was published in the past.).
Beastly by Alex Flinn and also a Kiss in Time.
Graceling by Krisin Cashore.
By the Mountain Bound by Elizabeth Bear.
The Orphan's Tale and Palimpsest by Catherynne Valente. Palimpsest was described as very innovative.
This is Not a Game by John Williams.
David Marusek's Mind Over Ship is the name of the sequel that is currently out. The first book is: Counting Heads. Read Counting Heads first, but both were described as being fresh and very good.
Pump Six and Other Stories is a collection of short stories by Paolo Bacigalupi.
Jo Walton and the other presenter were praising fiction focusing on other parts of the world beyond N. America and Europe. Setting a story in the future of India or Africa makes the story set apart.
Overall this session was very depressing because the panelists and the audience were not terribly enthusiastic about very many novels and everyone was fishing for additions to the list. This could mean several separate things. It could mean that there is room for an exciting new novel! (And that it is needed to generate a great deal of enthusiasm? People who are readers should not be hunting to come up with titles that they feel strongly about. I wonder about the health of the genre when there is such difficulty listing titles.) Or that maybe the panelists were put in an awkward position and did the best they could?
After the session I had a chance to speak briefly with Jo Walton who was very generous with her time in speaking to me. I asked her about the state of the genre if there are so many sequels and books in series and what this might indicate about the science fiction genre. She said, “There is a pressure to sell a new book in a series as opposed to a new stand alone book.” She explained that the publishers want to have books that are just like the last one provided they are successful.
I pressed further and asked about the state of the genre when it is so difficult to name new books. She recommended that I go to more of the panels being presented by editors who will be talking more about up and coming books. She said that the editors who have new fiction coming out will be in a better position to describe the exciting new works coming out.
Other books Jo Walton recommended:
Lifeload by Jo Walton ( Farthing is another book of hers that she recommends!)
Green by Jay Lake
I asked Jo Walton who the most innovative author with fiction out right now was and she said:
“Julian Comstock by Robert Charles Wilson is most innovative thing out.”
World Con Notes: Horror and Dark Fantasy Writers: What Makes the Story "Horror" or "Dark Fantasy"?
I attended several different sessions today while at the World Science Fiction Convention. I still need to clean up my notes and verify the spellings of author names and their works before I can publish my notes on my blog. This session was particularly interesting and included Ellen Datlow who I can honestly say is a force of nature.
Here are my notes:
Horror And Dark Fantasy Writers: What Makes the Story “Horror” or “Dark Fantasy”?
Presenters: Kari Sperring, Ellen Datlow, Kaaron Warren
Kari Sperring has a new novel called, “Living with Ghosts”.
Ellen Datlow is Ellen Datlow
Kaaron Warren has a new novel.
The following are my notes from attending this panel on Aug. 6, 2009.
Ellen Datlow asked, “Do you write to write dark? Do you imagine them thematically as being darker?”
Kaaron Warren says she doesn't head out to be dark but her stories just end up there. She related a story of when she was young and she remembered a story that she had read where a younger sister is killed by her older brother. It fascinated her that the older brother killed the sister.
Kaaron asked Ellen why she chooses the stories she chooses. She told about a story about a Kelly Link story about two siblings who almost kill one another. This did not really answer the question.
Kari Sperring said when she writes she writes stories that worry her and she relayed a story about reading a story about the edge of where you really don't want to be there. She feels the allure of that place where you really don't want to be there. She isn't sure where things come out from. She tries to go one stage beyond where she is comforatble.
Comfortable is that one step beyond where you feel comfortable. If a story is uncomfortable and may make you feel bad to write then it may work.
Ellen relayed that she feels there is a continuum from fantasy to dark fantasy to horror. Horror is not to make you feel comfortable and cozy. She talked about the paranormal romance making horror figures like vampires cozy and safe. Horror needs to be scary and not cozy and safe.
Ghost stories can be just fantasy. If they are going to be horror then they need to be scary. Humorous horror doesn't do for her what she wants horror to do.
Kaaron talked about if a horror story is going to have a laugh it should be the kind of laugh where the person runs across the road and almost gets killed and then laughs at the experience. Laughing at the horrible things that happen and getting the reader to sigh at the world of the bad guy.
Datlow said that irony can go with horror.
Datlow said that Neil Gaiman is funny and charming and horrific.
Kaaron:How do you know if you have something that is horrific?
Datlow: It has to start from a point where you believe it. It has to start from a place where it could happen-- some kind of real event. Supernatural fiction must have a solid feel of the real surroundings.
Warren: You have to feel the setting to make it real.
Sperring: You have to be able to get the reader into the head of the character. Shelter by C. Brenchley was recommended.
Datlow: She says that she has read books where she felt invested in the story and then the author pulled the rug out at the end of the story and it pissed her off.
Sperring: Full sensa-around. That seems to add to horror. The sensations.
Warren: Taste is important. What does the taste of something in someone else's mouth taste like.
“Lowland Sea” by Suzy McKee Charnas. A story about plague but the description of the horrors happening is calm and very well done.
“Sandkings” by George R.R. Martin was also mentioned.
Question: Start the story in the real and move it into the unreal-- is that what you meant? Yes. Datlow said that writing a supernatural horror novel is very hard to do because it is hard to maintain the suspension of disbelief.
Question: What about alternate reality fantasy and maintaining the horror? Mieville and his world building is described as being brilliant by Datlow.
Terri Carr wrote a short story that is brilliant and totally not comprehensible because the aliens are so well constructed and maintained.
Sperring said that if things are so well conceived then you get comfortable in the mind of the character who is other. She brought up Tanith Lee's use of details also as a way for realism to be constructed.
Ellen Datlow said that she cannot read about animals being hurt. She believes that Black Beauty is a horror novel and she found it very disturbing. For her animals being hurt is worse than people being hurt.
All three started talking about how when you expect one thing and then suddenly things are not what you expected. For instance in the most simple terms getting coffee with milk and it has sugar in it. Or Fearless Vampire Killers when they save the girl and then the girl turns around and bites them. Twisting things slightly out of focus can make things horrific.
Question: What taboos do you think are in place in pushing the bounds when writing horror?
Warren doesn't like to write about children being hurt and doesn't put children into her stories.
Sperring says that this is very cultural. She is British and believes that class differences are a taboo and changes in class are somewhat problematic. She says that many vampires are aristocratic. She says there are two Britains where one is Trainspotting and the other is Four Weddings and a Funeral. She says that also there are things that are not to be done to parents.
Question: From the point of view of the two classes, lower classes are associated more with horror because of the association of violence? Is this true?
Yes, possible from Sperring.
Datlow spoke about homosexual horror that has been published after Sperring said that there were some cases of authors being persecuted after writing homosexual horror fiction from about ten years ago. She thought this may be a taboo.
Question: Difference between dark fantasy and horror in terms of physical and psychological?
Datlow: Horror gives a great sense of unease. (This is after the questioner brought up Connie Willis' Passages.)
Warren: It is the things that sometimes tap into people's subconsciousness.
Sperring: The boundary between dark fantasy and horror is a difficult. And slippery thing to determine. She also talked about the twisting around of things and they stick with them and that can be very horrific. She relayed about reading a story where the characters walk into a mansion with a conservatory and the light is odd because there are bodies up on the roof and the light is filtered around the bodies and the image is changed.
Susan Forest just joined the group. She is a short story fiction writer.
*****Just an aside. I am finding it very interesting that this entire panel is women. I asked if women write more horror and dark fantasy. Datlow forcefully said NO. I asked if there was a difference in the fiction that women write versus men. Sperring said that she thought that men write more horror and women write more dark fantasy. She said that women tend to have more upbeat endings and there is often an element of romance. Harrison and Mieville were brought up and I asked if there was any distinction between horror, dark fantasy, and New Weird-- Datlow jumped all over me and said absolutely not. She said that she very much dislikes the descriptor of New Weird and that New Weird is nothing different or new and that it is the same as the old weird. She suggested taking a look at Weird Tales.
Sperring brought up that there is a perception that women are supposed to be the objects of danger. Forest said that she thinks that women write their horror and dark fantasy from a different place-- they have more fear being the “weaker sex”. There was some discussion about how men experience bullying that is physical and that women experience bullying that is more psychological.
Question: Do you think that the genre allows you to play more with female roles? One of the panelists has a female serial killer as a character. She agreed with this statement.
Here are my notes:
Horror And Dark Fantasy Writers: What Makes the Story “Horror” or “Dark Fantasy”?
Presenters: Kari Sperring, Ellen Datlow, Kaaron Warren
Kari Sperring has a new novel called, “Living with Ghosts”.
Ellen Datlow is Ellen Datlow
Kaaron Warren has a new novel.
The following are my notes from attending this panel on Aug. 6, 2009.
Ellen Datlow asked, “Do you write to write dark? Do you imagine them thematically as being darker?”
Kaaron Warren says she doesn't head out to be dark but her stories just end up there. She related a story of when she was young and she remembered a story that she had read where a younger sister is killed by her older brother. It fascinated her that the older brother killed the sister.
Kaaron asked Ellen why she chooses the stories she chooses. She told about a story about a Kelly Link story about two siblings who almost kill one another. This did not really answer the question.
Kari Sperring said when she writes she writes stories that worry her and she relayed a story about reading a story about the edge of where you really don't want to be there. She feels the allure of that place where you really don't want to be there. She isn't sure where things come out from. She tries to go one stage beyond where she is comforatble.
Comfortable is that one step beyond where you feel comfortable. If a story is uncomfortable and may make you feel bad to write then it may work.
Ellen relayed that she feels there is a continuum from fantasy to dark fantasy to horror. Horror is not to make you feel comfortable and cozy. She talked about the paranormal romance making horror figures like vampires cozy and safe. Horror needs to be scary and not cozy and safe.
Ghost stories can be just fantasy. If they are going to be horror then they need to be scary. Humorous horror doesn't do for her what she wants horror to do.
Kaaron talked about if a horror story is going to have a laugh it should be the kind of laugh where the person runs across the road and almost gets killed and then laughs at the experience. Laughing at the horrible things that happen and getting the reader to sigh at the world of the bad guy.
Datlow said that irony can go with horror.
Datlow said that Neil Gaiman is funny and charming and horrific.
Kaaron:How do you know if you have something that is horrific?
Datlow: It has to start from a point where you believe it. It has to start from a place where it could happen-- some kind of real event. Supernatural fiction must have a solid feel of the real surroundings.
Warren: You have to feel the setting to make it real.
Sperring: You have to be able to get the reader into the head of the character. Shelter by C. Brenchley was recommended.
Datlow: She says that she has read books where she felt invested in the story and then the author pulled the rug out at the end of the story and it pissed her off.
Sperring: Full sensa-around. That seems to add to horror. The sensations.
Warren: Taste is important. What does the taste of something in someone else's mouth taste like.
“Lowland Sea” by Suzy McKee Charnas. A story about plague but the description of the horrors happening is calm and very well done.
“Sandkings” by George R.R. Martin was also mentioned.
Question: Start the story in the real and move it into the unreal-- is that what you meant? Yes. Datlow said that writing a supernatural horror novel is very hard to do because it is hard to maintain the suspension of disbelief.
Question: What about alternate reality fantasy and maintaining the horror? Mieville and his world building is described as being brilliant by Datlow.
Terri Carr wrote a short story that is brilliant and totally not comprehensible because the aliens are so well constructed and maintained.
Sperring said that if things are so well conceived then you get comfortable in the mind of the character who is other. She brought up Tanith Lee's use of details also as a way for realism to be constructed.
Ellen Datlow said that she cannot read about animals being hurt. She believes that Black Beauty is a horror novel and she found it very disturbing. For her animals being hurt is worse than people being hurt.
All three started talking about how when you expect one thing and then suddenly things are not what you expected. For instance in the most simple terms getting coffee with milk and it has sugar in it. Or Fearless Vampire Killers when they save the girl and then the girl turns around and bites them. Twisting things slightly out of focus can make things horrific.
Question: What taboos do you think are in place in pushing the bounds when writing horror?
Warren doesn't like to write about children being hurt and doesn't put children into her stories.
Sperring says that this is very cultural. She is British and believes that class differences are a taboo and changes in class are somewhat problematic. She says that many vampires are aristocratic. She says there are two Britains where one is Trainspotting and the other is Four Weddings and a Funeral. She says that also there are things that are not to be done to parents.
Question: From the point of view of the two classes, lower classes are associated more with horror because of the association of violence? Is this true?
Yes, possible from Sperring.
Datlow spoke about homosexual horror that has been published after Sperring said that there were some cases of authors being persecuted after writing homosexual horror fiction from about ten years ago. She thought this may be a taboo.
Question: Difference between dark fantasy and horror in terms of physical and psychological?
Datlow: Horror gives a great sense of unease. (This is after the questioner brought up Connie Willis' Passages.)
Warren: It is the things that sometimes tap into people's subconsciousness.
Sperring: The boundary between dark fantasy and horror is a difficult. And slippery thing to determine. She also talked about the twisting around of things and they stick with them and that can be very horrific. She relayed about reading a story where the characters walk into a mansion with a conservatory and the light is odd because there are bodies up on the roof and the light is filtered around the bodies and the image is changed.
Susan Forest just joined the group. She is a short story fiction writer.
*****Just an aside. I am finding it very interesting that this entire panel is women. I asked if women write more horror and dark fantasy. Datlow forcefully said NO. I asked if there was a difference in the fiction that women write versus men. Sperring said that she thought that men write more horror and women write more dark fantasy. She said that women tend to have more upbeat endings and there is often an element of romance. Harrison and Mieville were brought up and I asked if there was any distinction between horror, dark fantasy, and New Weird-- Datlow jumped all over me and said absolutely not. She said that she very much dislikes the descriptor of New Weird and that New Weird is nothing different or new and that it is the same as the old weird. She suggested taking a look at Weird Tales.
Sperring brought up that there is a perception that women are supposed to be the objects of danger. Forest said that she thinks that women write their horror and dark fantasy from a different place-- they have more fear being the “weaker sex”. There was some discussion about how men experience bullying that is physical and that women experience bullying that is more psychological.
Question: Do you think that the genre allows you to play more with female roles? One of the panelists has a female serial killer as a character. She agreed with this statement.
First Morning in Montreal
Grey dawn light woke me this morning. The turning world in partnership with the Sun creates dawn for all of us as it has for eons. The quality of light at dawn always seems cool. The experience of morning is a constant that binds all of us where ever we are on the planet. It is one of the thousands, millions of commonalities.
Montreal is a vibrant and beautiful city. The nightlife extended quite late into the night and the city woke at dawn. I left the hostel in search of coffee and walked through the downtown part of the city. I walked past people in business suits bustling off to work and others yawning, stretching, and climbing out of sleeping bags and from beneath coats where they had been huddled to sleep for the night. I walked past an old cathedral and street signs written in French. For breakfast I had a bagel with cream cheese, coffee, and yogurt.
Some things different, some the same.
Montreal is a vibrant and beautiful city. The nightlife extended quite late into the night and the city woke at dawn. I left the hostel in search of coffee and walked through the downtown part of the city. I walked past people in business suits bustling off to work and others yawning, stretching, and climbing out of sleeping bags and from beneath coats where they had been huddled to sleep for the night. I walked past an old cathedral and street signs written in French. For breakfast I had a bagel with cream cheese, coffee, and yogurt.
Some things different, some the same.
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
I AM AT WORLD CON!
Today was a day of movement and travel. A day of shifting time and space. I traveled over a mountain range flying into the rising sun. The mountains became little more than patterns of shifting color and contrasting values. I landed in Denver airport with its Dr. Seuss-like peaks (that is the second image above). The sun and I crossed paths and I lost two hours from my day when I arrived in Montreal.
Traveling is a sensory experience. I love the sensation of being pressed back into the seat on take off. I love closing my eyes and feeling the subtle motions of the aircraft as it defies gravity and uses the power of air to lift its too solid and heavy frame above that which is lighter.
I traveled from Montreal airport in a taxi. We weaved in and out of downtown traffic in smooth fluid curves.
I am in my hostel room four floors above the busy street. From my window I can see the balconies of the building across the road. The grand vistas of Woody Creek where the magpies fly and you can see forever are gone (the upper most image is from Highway 82 on the way to Aspen, CO). The language here is French but not Parisian French. It is the French of Quebec.
Traveling is a reorientation. It highlights both the familiar and the unfamiliar. I think traveling to go to a convention focused on the fiction of ideas doubly expands the experience. I am looking forward to both the convention and to Montreal.
The image below is the Palais des Congres de Montreal where the convention is to being held.
Saturday, August 1, 2009
Social Familiarity with the Spirits of Lake and Mountain
I adore Hayao Miyazaki. His first film that I ever saw was Totoro and I was struck by the very gentle portrayal of the young girls in the movie and their relationship to both their parents and to the nature spirits around them. The children become connected to not only their social environment but to the natural environment. And the natural environment is as real as the people.
This week I have watched Nausica of the Valley of the Wind several times because my children were with me and it is a favorite of my daughter. I love the strong female characters and the environmental message. And the ohms are portrayed as sensitive, thoughtful creatures that can be connected to. The plants and insects are not at war with the humans as is presumed at the beginning of the movie. There is a much more powerful and benign connection between the natural world and the humans.
The first time I saw Princess Monoke, I was deeply taken with the movie. For those of you who know me, I have maintained my email moniker because of this film.
Environmentalism as a concept is something I am somewhat passionate about and, despite my love of driving fast, I try to have as little impact on the earth as I can. I shop mostly resale and try to not own more than I need (books being my biggest downfall-- I have much dead tree at my house!). I drive as little as possible-- walk or use public transport when I can. I gave up air conditioning and I turn the heat down to 65 degrees Fahrenheit in the winter. I wanted to become an environmental architect as a career change at one point before the economic collapse in Michigan.
In the past, I have worked for two different environmental groups as a canvasser, lobbyist, and general educator. When I was growing up on the shores of Lake Michigan one of the chemical companies in the town I grew up in buried chemical refuse in metal drums that corroded and polluted all of the ground water in the area. My grandmother's restaurant became a distribution point for awhile for bottled water.
Also the town that I lived in had several unique features that were conflicting. An internationally known sewage treatment facility that was one of the first to use crops to filter sewage water and cleanse it. A coal powered electrical plant with a smokestack that belched smoke that became acid rain that came down miles away in another county on their asparagus fields. And a shoreline that showed the natural progression from sandy scrub through pine forest to hardwood forest.
As school children we took field trips and walked the progression and learned about the trees and the habitats.
An environmental consciousness and economic ideas of empowering oneself, learning to do things for oneself, and being a low consumer are deeply embedded in me. As a teenager, I helped my uncle build his house from salvage. My mother routinely knocked out walls in her house when she felt a need to redecorate. To my mind, everyone should know how to fix the things, grow food, make things, and be able to do for themselves. I think this is part of being in touch with the environment-- it is the human side of the equation to simply know what we as a species require for our own survival. We are often too disconnected from the soil --buying things that are removed from the earth and displayed in well-lit grocery stores. We are often removed in our thoughts from our own shelter needs-- we take it for granted that the heat will come on, the roof will be sound, water will pour from a turned on tap, etc. Typically, we only have thoughts on how we relate to our survival needs when something goes awry.
Ann Arbor as a town is a very lovely, Midwestern, university town. It has several resale shops and a wonderful recycling initiative. There is a program to initiate solar energy usage. It is as a community trying to be "green". But even amongst the neo-pagan community there feels to me a disconnect from the environment. This comes about in part because everything is safe and tame and the greatest "wild" area is a large park by the Huron River.
I grew up on the sandy beaches and sun bleached dunes of Lake Michigan. I watched the thunderheads roll in off the lake and the lightning illuminate purple and grey clouds. I have seen white capped waves crash with pulverizing repetitive force and watched the pines bend with the wind. I have spent days and weeks removed from other people, living in a tent, boiling water over a fire, and making due with as little as possible.
I am now in the Rockies in Colorado, I am still getting acclimated to the altitude which has left me surprisingly fatigued. But I can sense a different ethic here than in Ann Arbor. The "wild" is outside my door. I have been told that the elk bed in the field outside my window. The garbage dumpster is equipped with a steel pipe to discourage the bears. I have counted several different varieties of rodents. The coyotes yap and howl nightly. There's a ferocity here and a taken for granted awareness of the environment. Solar panels can be spotted with regularity. Bicyclists cruise up and down the trails. I have a familiarity and respect for the Great Lakes and Lake Michigan in particular. When I get homesick, it is more for the Lake than anyone else. I am in a new community where I have to learn the ways of people out here and get to know individuals. I also have to become acquainted with the mountains.
This week I have watched Nausica of the Valley of the Wind several times because my children were with me and it is a favorite of my daughter. I love the strong female characters and the environmental message. And the ohms are portrayed as sensitive, thoughtful creatures that can be connected to. The plants and insects are not at war with the humans as is presumed at the beginning of the movie. There is a much more powerful and benign connection between the natural world and the humans.
The first time I saw Princess Monoke, I was deeply taken with the movie. For those of you who know me, I have maintained my email moniker because of this film.
Environmentalism as a concept is something I am somewhat passionate about and, despite my love of driving fast, I try to have as little impact on the earth as I can. I shop mostly resale and try to not own more than I need (books being my biggest downfall-- I have much dead tree at my house!). I drive as little as possible-- walk or use public transport when I can. I gave up air conditioning and I turn the heat down to 65 degrees Fahrenheit in the winter. I wanted to become an environmental architect as a career change at one point before the economic collapse in Michigan.
In the past, I have worked for two different environmental groups as a canvasser, lobbyist, and general educator. When I was growing up on the shores of Lake Michigan one of the chemical companies in the town I grew up in buried chemical refuse in metal drums that corroded and polluted all of the ground water in the area. My grandmother's restaurant became a distribution point for awhile for bottled water.
Also the town that I lived in had several unique features that were conflicting. An internationally known sewage treatment facility that was one of the first to use crops to filter sewage water and cleanse it. A coal powered electrical plant with a smokestack that belched smoke that became acid rain that came down miles away in another county on their asparagus fields. And a shoreline that showed the natural progression from sandy scrub through pine forest to hardwood forest.
As school children we took field trips and walked the progression and learned about the trees and the habitats.
An environmental consciousness and economic ideas of empowering oneself, learning to do things for oneself, and being a low consumer are deeply embedded in me. As a teenager, I helped my uncle build his house from salvage. My mother routinely knocked out walls in her house when she felt a need to redecorate. To my mind, everyone should know how to fix the things, grow food, make things, and be able to do for themselves. I think this is part of being in touch with the environment-- it is the human side of the equation to simply know what we as a species require for our own survival. We are often too disconnected from the soil --buying things that are removed from the earth and displayed in well-lit grocery stores. We are often removed in our thoughts from our own shelter needs-- we take it for granted that the heat will come on, the roof will be sound, water will pour from a turned on tap, etc. Typically, we only have thoughts on how we relate to our survival needs when something goes awry.
Ann Arbor as a town is a very lovely, Midwestern, university town. It has several resale shops and a wonderful recycling initiative. There is a program to initiate solar energy usage. It is as a community trying to be "green". But even amongst the neo-pagan community there feels to me a disconnect from the environment. This comes about in part because everything is safe and tame and the greatest "wild" area is a large park by the Huron River.
I grew up on the sandy beaches and sun bleached dunes of Lake Michigan. I watched the thunderheads roll in off the lake and the lightning illuminate purple and grey clouds. I have seen white capped waves crash with pulverizing repetitive force and watched the pines bend with the wind. I have spent days and weeks removed from other people, living in a tent, boiling water over a fire, and making due with as little as possible.
I am now in the Rockies in Colorado, I am still getting acclimated to the altitude which has left me surprisingly fatigued. But I can sense a different ethic here than in Ann Arbor. The "wild" is outside my door. I have been told that the elk bed in the field outside my window. The garbage dumpster is equipped with a steel pipe to discourage the bears. I have counted several different varieties of rodents. The coyotes yap and howl nightly. There's a ferocity here and a taken for granted awareness of the environment. Solar panels can be spotted with regularity. Bicyclists cruise up and down the trails. I have a familiarity and respect for the Great Lakes and Lake Michigan in particular. When I get homesick, it is more for the Lake than anyone else. I am in a new community where I have to learn the ways of people out here and get to know individuals. I also have to become acquainted with the mountains.
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