Tag Archives: writer life

March 17, 2015 · 8:47 am

Netwalk’s Children: Story Mutations continue

Okay. I’m nearly a quarter of the way through the book; almost done with Page One of a six page matrix outline, and…I’m already veering from the outline. Hugely. Massively. Need to recalibrate things variation.

TL:DR–it’s turning into a family relationship novel. Futuristic family relationship novel with space, fun electronic gadgets, pew-pew moments (oh come on, I even have a pew-pew-pew sound effect in the first few paragraphs, I DARE the Sad Puppies to read it when it comes out!), true. A delicious mashup of two genres I like without some of the stupid stuff that makes my head hurt in both genres (ie, Look Boys, the Girls Are In Charge Here, Don’t Be Idiots).

It’s a good variation, really, because it’s taking some rather dubious threads and breathing them into a reality that is better than the original. This book was always going to be about the transition from one generation to the next one in storytelling focus for the Netwalk Sequence. But to be honest, it’s now clear to me that I hadn’t thought very much about what that really means–and that’s what is fueling the story changes.

Point One: the character of Andrew is changing immensely. He was a bad guy in Netwalk, starts to soften in Netwalker Uprising, and now–is at the point where he and Melanie collaborate against their mother in Netwalk’s Children. I assure you, he was not going to unbend this much in my original conception. He was going to quite happily go out being the bad guy who absolutely hates his sister’s guts up until he dies, just like their uncle did to their mother. Only he was to die for a good reason–okay, then, I guess that happens to his son Richard, with an ill-fated name (no, not gonna tell you why until Netwalking Space).

Yeah, well, Andrew’s pissed off, alienated death not happening now. Why? I gave them kids. A daughter for Melanie, a son and daughter for Andrew. Then I put them into danger, the same danger. From their grandmother, who means oh so well but is being manipulated by a malignant entity, the Gizmo. Melanie’s better set up to defend the kids than Andrew, so of course they’re going to cooperate to protect their kids, especially once they realize that the Gizmo is driving the game. But they have limitations as well. The kids have to come up with something.

Point Two: I’ve dispensed with the clunky use of two devices to access digital/virtual world. In both Netwalk and Netwalker Uprising, I had Dialogue as the primary wireless implant chip and Netwalk for those planning to upload at death/managing the dead personas known as Netwalkers. Now it’s all Netwalk, and the upload is not a given. Fifteen years difference, so yeah, tech has changed. Bess is reviewing the old Netwalk 3 chip development process as part of her training and there’s a Netwalk 5 in prototype.

Point Three: I’ve already thrown in ONE WHOLE NEW PLOT THREAD, OUCH which involves Sneaky Doings That Will Make Everything Worse. Hey, the story needed it. And Richard’s being stupid ends up revealing what the Stupid Sneaky Doings were, though maybe that doesn’t stop them. The fallout from that action is in the next book.

And so on.

Mind you, I don’t regret creating the matrix and I think it has really helped with the development of this story. What I’m discovering is that the use of this planning technique seems to help me get through the fleshing out of some smaller threads that needed more development in first draft rather than leaving this sort of integration into a second draft rewrite. My hope is that this leads to a tighter first draft. I’m already finding it useful for getting my head back into the story during packing, painting, and traveling. April will really put this system to the test.

And. With most of the scenes plotted out, I’m discovering this leaves me free to think more about characters, interactions, and story development.

It’s going to be very interesting to see what this story looks like when I’m done with it.

Comments Off on Netwalk’s Children: Story Mutations continue

Filed under Netwalk's Children

Tagged as , , ,

February 25, 2015 · 10:44 am

#am writing #Netwalk’s Children

First 1000 words achieved today. May write more later. But for now, here’s the first snippet, as it stands without editing…sound interesting?

*********

“Block it, block it, block it!” Bess Fielding yelled at Alex Jeffreys. “Don’t you dare let Don and Sophie beat us to this one—ah!” As Alex wheeled to lay down a warning fireline behind them, she found the shortcut code she was looking for in her overlays. Tracing the link, she located their target, centered her sights, and fired her blaster, cranking up the volume of both the pew-pew-pew firing sound and the bass-heavy speed death metal music at the same time. The 20th century tank exploded with a satisfying BOOM. Virtual shards spalled past Bess and Alex and faded as they intersected the limits of the hologlobe. Several pieces clattered harmlessly against Bess’s armor, disappearing as they hit.

“Yes!” A rare grin quirked Alex’s lips as he high-fived Bess.

“You slime, you’re cheating!” Sophie Morley-Garcia scolded, pushing back an unusually errant strand of black hair that had worked free from the tight French braid favored by longer-haired Security in Do It Right. “You went into Netwalk, didn’t you, Bess? That tank’s not supposed to be this easy to find and blow.”

Bess shrugged. “In a real fight there’s no rules. Especially in virtual.”

Comments Off on #am writing #Netwalk’s Children

Filed under Netwalk's Children

Tagged as , ,

February 17, 2015 · 10:20 pm

Netwalk’s Children…and so it begins.

IMG_1336

I just texted the above picture to a friend with the note that I needed to break out the notecards…what one does with the third book of a series. Hoo boy, is this ever a writing change. While I’ve never been a complete pantser (oh dear God, after years of lecturing about prewriting to kids, I At Least Do Some Prewriting), at this point I am Officially Tired of having to go back through and tweak everything after the first draft. Or digging through piles of handwritten notes on assorted scraps of paper. I have some significant series threads that need to surface in this volume (one reason I have been procrastinating the writing of this damned book, this Netwalk’s Children, for at least two years). I need to track reveals, clues, and character arcs.

I admit that I was wowed and amazed by the release of J.K. Rowling’s outline for chapters 13-24 of the 5th Harry Potter. Am I likely to go into that much detail? No, probably not, because I don’t think I have that many subplots. What I’m having to track are character arcs, because I have some series-long arcs as well as several-book arcs.

Sigh. It’s late. I’m blathering, but…I’m still working things out.

Over the past few years, too, I’ve written some short stories to help me understand and play with aspects of this universe that I want to develop–not so much the tech but the characters and how they react to the tech. I’m leaving the tech as mostly handwavium until I get to the actual writing, simply because I can’t base the plots too heavily around the tech. It changes too quickly. What I can write about is the implications of what that kind of tech will do to characters and their way of thinking. I’ve spent two book volumes and an omnibus volume of novellas laying the ground for this book (and am developing a short story series along with this book to develop the themes)–and now, we’re in the third generation of the Netwalk/Dialogue tech. It’s time for the kids to react–and carry the wave of tech forward.

Yeah, yeah, vagueblogging. I’m tired, I’m toying with ideas, and this is supposed to be a writing process blog, not blathering about the book itself. But that’s another reason why I am settling in for some serious prewriting and blocking of this book. This damn world gets away from me, more than any other I’ve been playing in so far. I can’t say that Seeking Shelter, Pledges of Honor, or Alien Savvy have demonstrated the ability that the books in this world consistently do in twisting out of loose pantser plotting and creating more complexity which requires elaborate rewrites. I’ve spent too damn many hours going back and doggedly revising because I didn’t think through what the probable answer to a single scribbled sentence would be before I had to write it. Part of that is because I was already detailing lesson plans, IEPs, evaluation plans, etc, etc, etc. But I can’t count on snow days any more to deal with midbook vagueplotting issues.

Well, no more. I’m a working writer, not a teacher-writer, and I have to get into the groove of turning out a good, consistent book on a predictable cycle. I know I do better with a framework–it works for my short stories when I have to purge too many Big Ideas. With this many threads that I want to maintain, I need the help of the structure.

Additionally, this book is going to be written and revised during a moving process. I can’t count on having time to dig continuity out of my brain. I also have a personal hard deadline as I want it out by Worldcon. So…to the grindstone I go.

My hope is that having the reference structure will allow the words to flow, because I also want good words. I really want that good language to dance and sing.

Yeah. Process. Fun.

Seriously, I am enjoying it. Really. It’s nice to be possessed by a story again.

Comments Off on Netwalk’s Children…and so it begins.

Filed under Netwalk's Children

Tagged as , , , ,

February 15, 2015 · 8:48 am

Valentine Disruptions now live

cover

It’s also free through the 18th, 99 cents after that, at Amazon.

Blurbage: Between work, family, and national security obligations, it’s been years since Diana and Will Landreth have been able to plan a romantic getaway. Now they’re finally escaping…but the Disruption Machine crosses their path. Will they be able to capture the Machine and still have a romantic moment?

There’s a few landmarks in this story. While Diana and Will are the main characters, I’m also showing you a little bit about Sarah Stephens as well.

Valentine Disruptions is part of a new series of short stories, “The Disruption Chronicles,” about the effects of the Disruption Machine and its pursuit/capture on my characters and the world around them. When any place on Earth can be subjected to an unexpected, devastating, attack from a war machine with abilities above any known technologies, including the ability to deliver mutated quick-acting viruses, nerve gases, and radiological poisons, what does that do to attitudes, economies, and governments? I’m rather reluctant to dive full bore into writing a single book about it because every time I think about the idea, I bounce back. It’s a big concept, obviously. But it’s something I need to wrap my brain around because it’s foundational for the Netwalk Sequence books I still have planned–because the Gizmo is the Disruption Machine, captured, and the capture of Gizmo plus subsequent fallout is what broke Sarah, not to be repaired until after her death and Netwalk resurrection.

I first started poking at this idea in a Netwalk Foundations piece, Lucifer Has Fallen. That will come out in a revised version sometime this spring. I also plan to address the creation of the Corporate Courts, the alienation of Diana and Sarah, the death of Anne Whitman, and some other things in these shorts. I just can’t do them as a book. It’s too big, and…too many short arcs. They won’t come out in chronological order, either. However, I do plan to put them together in an omnibus and at that point they’ll be in chronological order.

Oh, and I finally figured out how one goes about creating a plain background in Gimp. This will speed up cover production mightily, especially for these short pieces where I don’t have much of a picture selection to use for the cover. I need to play with graphics more, but where the time will come for that…who knows?

Time to head out for the day. Have fun, folks.

Oh, and I’m beginning the serious outline blocking for Netwalk’s Children today. The Disruption Chronicles are crucial for my understanding of Children, helping me understand why I’ve been blocked for so long on that story. Now…it’s time to write it.

Comments Off on Valentine Disruptions now live

Filed under Netwalk Sequence

Tagged as , , , , ,

February 10, 2015 · 9:30 pm

Valentine Disruptions finished

Title says it all, came in at over 10,000 words. Of course when I start writing a romance, there ends up being bangety-bangs, pew pew, and lots o’ angst and family drama. Isn’t that the best type?

A wee snippet:

“What do you want, Francis?” Diana asked, hoping to draw attention away from her mother if Sarah was actually carrying a weapon in her gloves. She could be. God, she hoped Sarah carried a weapon up her sleeve.

“The Machine.”

“No!” Will and Sarah said together.

“Then you’ll die,” Francis said. “Starting with Diana and Sarah.” One of his skimmer gun turrets began to whine open.

“You ever think about who and what restrains me from doing my worst?” Will’s voice was dead and cold, reminding Diana of how his father spoke when issuing deadly threats.

“You dance to the Third Force’s tune.” The skimmer gun turret door stopped, half-open. “You got rid of your father’s weaponry. You’re still under indictment because they don’t trust you.” Was that a trace of uncertainty she heard in Francis’s voice?

“For a good fucking reason,” Will whispered, the ice in his voice sending chills down Diana’s spine and making the back of her neck prickle. “And if you think it’s the Third Force that’s tamed me, that kept me from turning into my father, you’re wrong. There are three reasons I submit and you’ve just threatened all three of them.” Light flared behind them, tracing over their heads, arcing toward Francis’s skimmer…

The skimmer exploded faint moments before the light completed its arc. Light flashed back to the Machine. Diana whirled and raced toward Will and the X-57. A second, smaller blast detonated over the Machine, overloading her sensors after the previous explosion so that the world went black. This one was close enough to shake through her body.

But the X-57 links held. So it still existed.

Will? The X-57 would protect him, wouldn’t it?

“Text links dead,” Will rasped, his voice still carrying that cold overlay. “Brenda, tear that skimmer wreckage apart for any traces of a body. Diana–” The coldness dominated Will’s voice but she heard the faint thread of pain. “I–” he gasped.

Will held himself upright as she joined him, studiously not leaning on the X-57 except for one hand locked around a grip the war machine had made. Diana groaned as she saw the crack in his face shield, a gash in the suit. Blood trickled from both nostrils and his entire body quivered.

“The X-57’s shielding me as long as I hold this grip,” Will said, his voice cold and far away, the tone she recognized now as Will the weapons designer keeping a hard lock on his own body’s weaknesses in the face of a life-threatening situation. The hard lock that had kept him alive during weeks of torture in the Petroleum Autonomous Zone.

She opened a thigh pocket. “I can do quick repair, that’ll keep you safe for a while, long enough to take care–”

“No, not the first thing.” Will swallowed. He pointed toward the Disruption Machine with his free hand. She saw the bright orange ball of what looked like plasma bouncing against the shielding. “You’re going to need to catch that before you do anything with me.”

Comments Off on Valentine Disruptions finished

Filed under Netwalk Sequence

Tagged as , ,

January 11, 2015 · 10:07 pm

The time is flying by

Supposedly I’m taking a break from writing. As I figured out this week, what my brain interpreted that as being was a break from fiction writing. I’ve been noodling around on a competition essay for a creative nonfiction contest, and two three other want-to-enters lined up, all with deadlines coming up fast. Stuff’s a roiling but we’ll see if I do it.

Add to that the desire to scribble something in the Disruption Chronicles for Valentine’s Day–something like Diana and Will chasing the Disruption Machine around while trying to have a date night away from the kids. I’ve been thinking about it.

The other thing I’ve done is make out a writing plan, which has been incorporated into a production calendar for the year. Which I then put on the Calendar Wall, which ain’t gonna work.

Oh well. I’ll move it, and pack away the whiteboards. Need to be doing that in four months anyway.

But before I talk about Farpoint, I do want to share this. I’ve decided what I am writing this year. All three books need rough synopses, and I think I’m going to start creating a page for each book, with ongoing pages added. The website needs work, badly, but I’ll get it done.

These are the big projects:

Netwalk’s Children–the third big book in the Netwalk Sequence, about Melanie’s daughter Bess becoming aware of just how much a threat Gizmo can be–while Melanie reconciles with her brother Drew, they become aware that their mother Diana is becoming a threat, and Sarah starts building alliances with Bess and Will.

Welcome to Klone Lane–A contemporary Western scientifical romance, with a tribute to Mary Shelley and Baron Frankenstein.

Bearing Witness–Weird West AU, may or may not be in the same world as my Peter McLoughlin stories (“Damned if You Do, Damned if You Don’t, Gears and Levers 1, Sky Warrior Press). Missionary in the Oregon Territory breaks an oath to not use mechanical implements on the land by using a horse-drawn sickle bar to harvest hay. Magic happens. All is not as it seems.

Children Left Behind–Memoir of ten years spent teaching middle school special education in a low-income rural school during the time of No Child Left Behind’s rise and fall. I’m not particularly interested in making this one nasty and venomous, which means it probably doesn’t have a lot of commercial interest. Probably a self-pub but I may try to sell parts of it as essays, which may delay the actual publication.

I figure that Children will probably be the biggest project, but even at that it’s going to be a shorter one. Klone Lane and Witness I intend to keep to novella length. I want to have Children ready for Worldcon release, Klone Lane for around Halloween, and Witness early next year. I’m kind of wanting to play around with the mix of spec fic and Westerns because people seem to like that sort of work and well, hey, it’s a good time for it.

Besides that, I plan to write the aforementioned competition essays, plus write some spec short stories. I am also going to aim to have self-published pieces out for Valentines, Mother’s Day, and Solstice. Additionally, I’m writing some further self-pubbed Netwalk Sequence short pieces as part of the Disruption Chronicles.

There’s also going to be two omnibus editions coming out. One is a Netwalk Sequence omnibus which includes the story I’m hopefully going to get my rear together and get thrown up on line in the next two weeks–“Of Archangels and Fuzzy Green Mascots.” In another form, it earned an Honorable Mention in Writers of the Future. I’ll pair it with my WotF SemiFinalist story that no editor wants to buy because it’s too long, “Tranquility Freeriders.” Both are Bess stories and they’ll add to the prep for what I’m now thinking will be the final book in the Sequence, Netwalking Space.

The other omnibus will be at an earlier part of the Sequence, and will be about the Disruptions that I refer to in Netwalk and Netwalker Uprising. Some of the stories for The Disruption Chronicles are already written, but I still need to create a few more.

And none of this even touches the stuff I’m selling that I’m not publishing on my own. I have one story coming out in February, in First Contact Cafe from Sky Warrior Press. I most likely have two more coming out as well, and then supposedly I’m supposed to have a book coming out from a small press. Yeah, right, I’ll believe it when I see it (relations are at that stage right now). I’m hoping to sell some more short stories as well as creative nonfiction works in the coming year, and I’m planning some queries to various small newspapers for clips/exposure/drumming up freelance writing gigs in NE Oregon sort of things.

Dang. Not enough time or space left to write about remodeling at Farpoint. Maybe next time. I promise it won’t be so long. And then Mocha needs a blog and updates for her fans as well.

Need to be more diligent with this. 2015 is going to be an intense year. Come along for the ride.

Comments Off on The time is flying by

Filed under writer promo stuff

Tagged as , , ,

December 3, 2014 · 10:04 pm

Ruminations on a busy time

For some reason I seem to be finding myself busier than I was when I went to a part-time job every day. Not making any money, just busier. Well, okay. I guess I sold some books, so that’s income. With any luck I can turn that around in the coming year. The pieces of the teacher brain and teacher paralysis are fading away, finally. I could even go back to teaching next year in the proper situation and be able to bring a renewed energy to it (so maybe all I really did need was a sabbatical…uh, no, given what’s happening in special ed this year). So probably not.

But the contractor stuff for Phase II seems to be happening at last, and I have short stories to write before I can commit novel again. And figuring out promotional stuff, ai yi yi.

I started a perfectly lovely story today with a gender neutral alien and I started using a more systematic version (Spivak–ey, em, eir, etc) than the mix of he and she I used for “Live Free or Die”. Oh, it was a lovely three paragraphs, and a quite excellent piece of work, if I do say so. But then the tablet ate it, and those pixels dispersed into where ever it is that lost files disappear to (yes, I’ve searched out my file structure but the program is Polaris Office and occasionally it does this. It was my bad for swapping screens without saving first, even though I’ve done this times before with no problem. Then I sometimes do have problems…). So I will begin again, but oh, yes, it was a very interesting way to write an alien POV. Won’t work for this particular market, anyway (this is a targeted story), but I will keep this in mind for future reference. Or I may write it this way, anyway, to begin with. We shall see. Or I’ll write two stories.

This weekend is one of the serious house working weekends (unless things are totally borked at the place). Insulation into the attic and the delivery of flooring tile. I looked at highly expensive residential tile before I went to the commercial side and picked up a heavier vinyl tile that will stay cleaner…and cost less (we’re paying someone to do it anyway, so might as well take advantage of their skill to put in a more durable flooring). I can’t stand the look of the peel and stick stuff, and the one color I did like was so lightweight that it would be worn out in a few years. We’ll be picking up the insulation at a town twenty minutes away, and making three trips in the truck. It’s our first long distance drive in the pickup, and there’s going to be some weather going over, so it’s a good thing we’ve got tile to haul to give us a bit of weight. Though the pickup is nicely balanced, so it should be okay. But the seats suck. We’ll probably have to replace the driver’s seat because the previous owner apparently was a lot heavier than either of us, and broke it down. Oh well.

So while hubby will be doing insulation, I’ll be scrubbing walls in the basement, or else begging off to write.

Busy times ahead.

Comments Off on Ruminations on a busy time

Filed under Uncategorized

Tagged as ,

November 26, 2014 · 10:03 pm

Of Writing, and Thanksgiving, and Horses

I swear I will not let the holiday season catch me unprepared again.

I swear I will not let the holiday season catch me unprepared again.

I swear I will not let the holiday season catch me unprepared again.

You’d think I would have remembered all the hard-earned lessons from selling jewelry online in the 90s and applied them to the hybrid writing life. Plan for the Christmas season. Have Christmas promotions and product ready by September. Do not be scrambling to produce work in the middle of the season. But I was locked into teacher brain, not retail artisan brain, and so instead of scrambling throughout the summer to make sure I had my seasonal book production lined up, I was decompressing. It’s really only been the past few weeks, since just before Orycon, that I’ve been scrambling to get the writing finished and either published or submitted, much less run through beta editors.

Well. This is the last year that’s gonna happen. Next year I will know what my holiday season books will be and have them ready in plenty of time, instead of just in time. I’d also been counting on a small press publication which appears to be going nowhere. Sigh.

Meanwhile, I’m getting the last piece of the book I hope to have out by mid-December wrapped up now. It was supposed to be a short story. Now it’s careening recklessly toward novelette territory, and could spin off into its own novel. Maybe I’ll premier it as a serial story, and publish subsequent installments over the course of this next year. Hmm. Could publish it separately for free as well…Hmm.

Thanksgiving is going to be low key. I get up in the morning, go ride horse, come home, get cleaned up, cook gluten-free dressing (already made blueberry crisp and spelt biscuits), then go to a friend’s house for restrained debauchery. If I’m lucky I’ll get time to wrap up the story tomorrow.

Horse is definitely in rehab mode. While most of our work is still in walk and mostly in straight lines, I’ve thrown her a sop in the form of four laps of working trot (about a half mile, two laps per direction) and four long side of the arena canters (again, two per direction). We’re also doing haunches and forehand turns, as well as backing in circles. That’s enough to keep her happy, as she does seem to get tired of doing nothing but walking. She perks right up when she gets to think about using herself, and I’m up in two-point while doing it.

But at least the writing is moving along, the horse seems to be improving, and perhaps we’re getting more movement on other things going on in the life.

Onward.

 

Comments Off on Of Writing, and Thanksgiving, and Horses

Filed under writer life

Tagged as , , , ,

November 12, 2014 · 8:11 am

Fallout from the storm of rage activism in SF

Deep breath. This is a SFF insider post, so if you aren’t in that world, a lot of this won’t mean much to you. Additionally, I know that I have Facebook followers who are right of center/white/male, and if you jump in on this post to bash ideology, make arch and to-you witty statements about political correctness (in most cases about things in which you have little to no knowledge and I KNOW IT), you WILL get blocked. By me. This is NOT for your discussion. You know who you are. This isn’t for you. Mean Former Middle School Teacher will enforce proper polite behavior. You have been warned. That includes comments about tone policing, censorship and #notall…whatever.

So. Second deep breath. Onward.

I have been deeply distressed by the progression of the Requires Hate/Benjanun Sriduangkaew explosion and what it reveals about social justice ideals, concepts and thinking as a tool to bash others. Rage activism as a tool of silencing.

As a former political activist of the left persuasion, I’m not unfamiliar with the tactics used–they were very common during my activist days in the late 20th/early 21st century. Mobbing, friending only to turn on you when you either challenge the established order or seek to advance above the leader of the pack, making ideological mistakes because one is still learning…oh yeah, seen them used in the name of political advancement and climbing up the political ladder. There are people in Oregon politics who have lost my support forever due to their behavior at the lower levels of activism, though most of those who have used those techniques of silencing opponent voices have, ironically, ended up being silenced themselves. I’ve been an occasional rage activist myself, trying to be an ally in the political world, but never had the stomach to carry it far enough to destroy someone else’s political career or silence their voice. That was a line I did not want to cross. I simply wanted people to understand that they had made a mistake and needed to reconsider. I didn’t want to destroy or silence my opposition.

And that is at stake here. I read comments and worry from people of color who have been silenced. From people with non-traditional sexuality who have been silenced. From alter-abled people. From older people, specifically women, who have been silenced. That isn’t right. Repeat: that isn’t right.

When did correction become silencing?

We all make mistakes. When did a mistake or misunderstanding become grounds to destroy or silence someone? When did destruction instead of education become the goal?

When did the ideals of social justice become tools to destroy or silence someone? Yes, the opponents of social justice have no qualms about using these techniques, and to be honest, if the RH/BS thing had happened in the political world, I’d be thinking agent provocateur, because that’s how agents provocateur destroy movements. I’ve seen it done. It’s a major tell for me in a social justice movement. But does such rage activism justify counter-tactics that are identical?

Anger and frustration at being repressed, throttled, and minimalized are necessary and real emotions. That’s what drives activism and keeps people going in order to change unjust situations. You need to be angry when injustice appears. But turning those emotions on those who would be allies, on those who are oppressed rather than the oppressors, is not the appropriate use of rage in activism. It doesn’t create a movement. It is not a tool of creation but a tool of destruction. It doesn’t change the world. The world does not usually change overnight with forceful intervention, and when it does, what results isn’t usually better. Change is frustratingly incrementalist, and it’s a long game. I have my own personal examples of some changes I’ve seen happen, but it’s taken damn near thirty years of persistent and steady activism to create those circumstances.

It doesn’t necessarily mean we need to be nicey-nicey sweety-sweety all the time. But being aware of that line between correction and destruction needs to exist. Being aware of the ultimate goal–changing hearts and minds–needs to exist. Being aware of the need to wrench the face of SF away from those who would keep it European white male with token women, people of color, and people of alternative sexualities needs to exist. The bottom line is that if it destroys, if it tears down, without the option to rebuild…then perhaps it needs to be reconsidered.

It is possible to critique fairly without resorting to the techniques of personal destruction. It is possible to speak the truth to power without being destructive.  It is possible to say “Your presumptions are wrong and here is why” without lashing out and attacking. Yes, it’s hard. Yes, that means constant repetition. Yes, that means gritting teeth and repeating the 101 education courses.

But rage does not justify the excesses of hyperbole. Eventually, such hyperbole can and will turn back on you, whether professional, political, or personal.

I don’t know what the answer is. But I would ask that we create safe spaces for those who feel threatened. That we allow newer writers to grow and find their voices with appropriate criticism without nuking their mistakes. That we look carefully at those who use the language of destruction to critique those with whom they disagree, even when we agree with the substance but not the tone of their commentary.

It all starts with the individual. Let’s go from there. And that’s my statement.

(reminder, I can and will block, edit, or otherwise manage those who will be destructive in my spaces. Former middle school teacher here. I’ve dealt with these issues IRL, and have no qualm about doing so in virtual in order to maintain civil discourse–and it’s MY definition which counts)

3 Comments

Filed under sf politics

Tagged as ,

November 10, 2014 · 9:56 am

Con report: Orycon 2014

The tl:dr version? You know it’s been a good con when you’ve been so busy that the time just flies by. That’s what Orycon 2014 was like for me. Lots of panels, lots of meeting up with folks, not enough meeting up with folks and just waving at people I would have liked to spend more time with, and so on.

There are several happy advantages to not teaching these days which really made this con. First of all, I was able to meet up with friends on Thursday night. There were some glitches, mostly due to the train that Alma was on running out of fuel. On the Columbia River bridge. Sitting there for two and a half hours. Would anyone really believe that this happened? But it did.

Not working meant I had time to do a quick run to the barn before the con on Friday to get Mocha out and lunge her, so that she only went two days without a work (important when you are rehabbing a horse from a long-term injury). Then I met up with a friend for whom Orycon 2014 was her first sf con ever…and got to experience Friday through her eyes. She took some good pictures of me at my first panel (as well as–urm–some rather–um–interesting expressions). Then we did some shopping, including getting her fitted for a corset, which looked ravishingly glorious on her. Later on, I participated in a critique session with friends Frog and Esther Jones for a lovely person in her early phase of writer development, and as always learned a few things for my own writing in the critique. Since she is a local to me, we’re keeping in touch.

Saturday was a blur of readings, panels, and then a rousing good time with rowdy friends at dinner. It was such a blur and busy time that I had to go home and collapse before the Jay Lake memorial. I regret missing it, but there was no way I could hold on until 10 pm. OTOH, I wouldn’t have passed on the double grand entrance that Bob Brown and I made into several parties. One of the features of Radcon in past years was that at least once Bob would scoop me up and carry me around. All part of good fun, and every piece of it was well within my personal boundaries (trust me, if someone crosses a boundary with me, they KNOW). Bob and I haven’t done this for YEARS, and it felt good to be joking and playing in that way again.

Sunday was another flying blur with good panels. The only fly in the ointment is that I discovered this morning that I left a bag of books at one of the booths that my books were placed in. However, I’m hoping to get those books back and have talked to those people.

But there was oh so much more. Good professional conversations about the business of writing, running into old friends who I haven’t seen for years, and having a great time with my people. Another set of pleasant convention memories for the books.

And now I’ve gotta finish putting stuff away, go to the barn and deal with horse, then come back and put some words down. Deadlines are looming on two stories. Time to get back to work.

Comments Off on Con report: Orycon 2014

Filed under science fiction conventions

Tagged as , ,