POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAY: DISCON III – #5: The Logistics of Off-World Disasters

Using the Programme Guide of the 2021 World Science Fiction Convention, DisCON III, which I WOULD have been attending in person if I felt safe enough to do so in person AND it hadn’t been changed to the week before the Christmas Holidays…I will jump off, jump on, rail against, and shamelessly agree with the BRIEF DESCRIPTION given in the Program Guide. I will be using the events to drive me to distraction or revelation – as the case may be. The link is provided below where this appeared!

“Complex logistics are required to respond to mundane natural disasters. How could we handle a natural disaster occurring on another planet or in space? What additional political and diplomatic complications arise when working on an interplanetary scale?”

Jennifer Rohrer: Moderator (that’s all I could find)
Sandy Manning: math teacher from Alaska (she DID mention Diomede, AK in her introduction…)
Katherine Crichton: writer of SF/F, reviewer, SFWA
Malka Older: author of novels and short SF, futurist, savior of the world (or “…one of the reasons why we still have a planet at all, even if we still don’t always know what to do with it.” – Fran Wilder

The groups assumes that Humanity will move off of Earth – and may (or may not) need to help each other in the event of a disaster.

Most people have seen the movie “Apollo 13”. If I may be so bold, I would classify this as the first off-Earth disaster flick. I would consider it a disaster for two reasons. First is that three astronauts would die if the combined forces of NASA and the astronauts themselves couldn’t figure out a way to overcome the obstacles presented by “something” that happened in space, completely out of reach of every kind of expert Humanity had at that time.

Secondly, however, is that the event prompted the epithet, a “successful failure in space”. IF the astronauts had died instead of overcoming incredible odds to survive, Humanity would have suffered a greater disaster than the Challenger on January 28, 1986 and Columbia on February 1, 2003 – not because of the loss of space explorers, but because Apollo 13 was, I think, a cusp event. As depicted in the movie, going to the Moon was about as “exciting as going to Pittsburgh.”

Had they died, either there would have been a cover up…or the space program would have ground to a halt. Apollo 1, while it happened because of the space program, didn’t have that effect. It WAS accidental, but it happened because really, Humans didn’t know what the heck they were doing.

So, the panelists looked at what WOULD we do if there was a disaster in space or worse, on a distant colony world.

They generated a series of questions initially: whose responsibility was it to respond? Was it someone’s fault? What could the decision-makers DO? Certainly they begin by interpreting what happened by gathering as much information as possible. The information is then passed on to “the Deciders”, the ones with enough information to actually figure out what can be DONE.

Once they did that – both in space and by going over what happened on the ground (which, in the case of Challenger, looked like it was someone’s actual FAULT, which caused endless litigation and the shifting of the space industry – they could move on to the Executers. They would take the plan that the Deciders came up with and put it into practice.

With that, the next most important thing was COMMUNICATION. They had to be in touch in order to first comfort, and second, gather as much information as possible.

So let’s say the Lunar Colony has an outbreak of influenza – which seems like it would probably happen. There would be lots of questions. I would think the first would be, “Is this JUST the flu, or is it, say, The Andromeda Strain? Or WORSE, COVID-19 Double Iota!!!!!” Then what? [Hey, Gray Rinehart, how about a second book in the WALKING ON THE SEA OF CLOUDS (http://graymanwrites.com/index.html) universe?]

How can we help? My guess: we would NOT send a rescue mission. There would be too many unknowns. So then what? We COULD send help – a portable infectious disease lab and vaccine synthesis pod? Certainly volunteers could be solicited…By the way, this could just as easily happen on the ISS. What if we went to call them and no one answered and the video feed showed no one there?

Hmmm, seems that might make an interesting story. Anyone know of someone has already done it?

One of the participants noted that in Alaska, where she lives and works, ALL school have back-up generators. Plus, people COULD be cross-trained. Elementary children could be certified in Basic First Aid. High school seniors could all be certified in Advanced First Aid. All biology teachers could be certified Emergency Room Technicians. School nurses could have preliminary training in Emergency Surgical Technique or could BE licensed EMTs (our school had did; he moonlighted as a Fire Fighter, too!) Doctors couldn’t be “specialists” any more. They’d have to general practitioners. In his SECTOR GENERAL books, James White allowed his Human surgeons to assume the skills of non-Human surgeons. One even kept the “minds” of six surgeons all tucked away. We wouldn’t QUITE need that yet…

What if it’s WORSE than that? What if it’s an international disaster? We need to assume that Russia and China will be players if Americans put a real base on the Moon – just as we would go if one of THEM landed a base there first, simply because such a base would present an unprecedented ability to strike other countries AND their satellites stealthily and silently. So, the settling of space, besides creating new medical challenges, will also require DIPLOMACY.

What if an American child, with her mother, who is working with Chinese and Russian radio telescope astronomers is orphaned when her mother is killed in an accident that maroons her and he rest of the kids and a few adults, underground? The Far Side is protected from colonization because Humans continue to search for Someone Out There…so communication is difficult. Who helps the child? Who does she “belong to” in the interval until her legal guardians can be contacted? We will have SOME need of Diplomatic Trees…

Do people off Earth have only their respective militaries to rely on? What if an international crew on a mission to Titan discovers what might be an abandoned facility clearly left by an intelligence not from Earth – and the Nigerian leader claims it all for Nigeria, then dies of something horrible when he opens the door to the control room?

One of the participants mentioned something called a Cajun Navy, an “informal ad hoc volunteer groups comprising private boat owners who assist in search and rescue efforts” . Is that how search and rescue, ambulance, hospital, disaster relief will work – at least until someone creates and staffs a REAL “sector general”? Will all colonies, of necessity, need to be totally self-sufficient?

What about Doctors Without Borders? Missionary doctors? Training programs? And as long as we’re talking about the future, I’m re-reading Joan Slonczewski’s THE CHILDREN STAR. There are medical programs; artificial intelligence doctors; artificial humanoid doctors; and hologram doctors (“Please state the nature of the medical emergency.”—USS Voyager, Emergency Medical Hologram, “Dr. Zimmerman”).

Last of all, “People will always be there for each other. This is supported by the literature as well as the news that reports this kind of “being there” incidents. There is little evidence for looters in the community after disaster. It’s just how people ‘are’. Most people are self-sufficient as well – where I live, there was a woman who had a TANK in order to get to tough-to-reach places. The same neighborhood had ‘the knife guy’…such a society creates a self-sufficiency; what might be called “isolated-interconnectedness with skills to make what is needed.”

Program Schedule: https://discon3.org/schedule/
Image: https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQY860vAI2izm2g2mUgxzT14fGVmoGh66B51g&usqp=CAU

IDEAS ON TUESDAYS 536

Each Tuesday, rather than a POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAY, I'd like to both challenge you and lend a helping hand. I generate more speculative and teen story ideas than I can ever use. My family rolls its collective eyes when I say, "Hang on a second! I just have to write down this idea..." Here, I'll include the initial inspiration (quote, website, podcast, etc.) and then a thought or two that came to mind. These will simply be seeds -- plant, nurture, fertilize, chemically treat, irradiate, test or stress them as you see fit. I only ask if you let me know if anything comes of them. Octavia Butler said, “SF doesn’t really mean anything at all, except that if you use science, you should use it correctly, and if you use your imagination to extend it beyond what we already know, you should do that intelligently.”

SF Trope: Abandoned Structure
Current Event: https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-asia-60431874

Asmita Quispe shook her cellphone.

Elnur Alaoui whispered, “What are you doing?”

“Trying to locate the mall’s AI.”

Elnur snorted. “This place is too old…”

Asmita sniffed, and pincing the map on her phone, threw it into the air in front of Elnur’s face. She didn’t care that they’d been best friends forever. He was in med school; she was the computer genius! She was the one who’d been awarded the Feynman-Manin Lifetime Grant for her own pioneering work in Artificial Intelligence! “There’s an AI here. It’s been buried or underwater since this place fell apart. They tried to revive it in the early 2020’s, then turned it over to the AI in 2034. A year later, really weird stuff started to happen.” She got the scanner program running and in her waders, slowly turned in a circle.

“What do you mean they put an AI in here? This is Bangkok! They don’t have that kind of…”

“It was a state secret. They were working with NATO countries to keep an eye on China. The AI was supposed to do nothing but listen. But it started communicating.”

“With who?”

She took down the map hovering between them and tossed a map of the mall between them. A red spot brightened and faded and brightened again slowly. She said, “It’s there.” She started off, slogging through water that was barely over her ankles. She’d waded through worse when she’d done a field study with a group that was trying to plant microwave relay towers that grew from a small container of nanomachines that would use local materials and an independent heuristic program connected to a supervising AI back at MIT in the US. Two of the seven packages they’d planted… “Focus!” she muttered.

“I AM focused! If I wasn’t focused I wouldn’t be following you…”

“Not you. Me!”

“What?”

“Forget it. My mind keeps wandering…” said Asmita.

“Oh, great. How do I know your mind isn't going wander over a cliff somewhere?” said Elnur. “You’re trying to contact an old AI to find out what?”

“I want to talk to it. It’s here and after a couple of art shows in 2021 and 2022, they project shut down. The AI’s here, but no one seems to know what it’s doing. For all we know, it could be planning on building a plague to get rid of all Humanity!”

A burst of static echoed in the core of the mall, the sound softened by greenery the grew out of the water, reaching up to the uncovered roof four stories up. There was a long silence, then a scratchy voice said, “No plague for Humanity. Sorry to ruin your sci-fi story. But, I think I could use your help in moving the Korean Peninsula to Mars…”

Names: ♀ Nepal, Peru; ♂ Azerbaijan; Morocco
Image: https://assets.bwbx.io/images/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/iKuHoEmxneeo/v0/-1x-1.jpg

WRITING ADVICE: Can This Story Be SAVED? #30 “Out of the Wounded Hills” (aka “May They Rest”) (Submitted 6 Times Since Sept 2019, Revised once)

In September of 2007, I started this blog with a bit of writing advice. A little over a year later, I discovered how little I knew about writing after hearing children’s writer, Lin Oliver. In April of 2014, I figured I’d gotten enough publications that I could share some of the things I did “right”. I’ll keep that up, but I’m running out of pro-published stories. I don’t write full-time, nor do I make enough money with my writing to live off of it, but someone pays for and publishes ten percent of what I write. Hemingway’s quote above will remain unchanged as I work to increase my writing output and sales, but I’m adding this new series of posts because I want to carefully look at what I’ve done WRONG and see if I can fix it. As always, your comments are welcome!

ANALOG Tag Line:
Can a dying man make peace with his enemies and himself by doing “one good thing”?

Elevator Pitch (What Did I Think I Was Trying To Say?):
The Civil War was America’s darkest moment, split into Union and Confederacy – but still, weirdly, America. War like this plays out repeatedly in the history of every nation on Earth from the dawn of recorded history. It will probably play out like this in space. How does the last WheetAh-Human Conflict veteran make peace with himself and the aliens who slaughtered everything he ever loved? Who if he finds a WheetAh who had LESS honor than he did? What if he raises a memorial to their name?

Opening Line:
“‘I should have died here with the rest of my family,’ said Timviifei Jones.”

Onward:
Stepping down from the hovering gravity modified flyer disk, he collapsed, unconscious and barely breathing.

By the time paramedics got there from a nearby Human town, he was awake. He pushed them away. One smiled, nodded, and said, “You seem fine to me, sir. Have a good day.”

“I’m not fine,” he muttered, lifting his hand to flip off the paramedics. One of them saw and cheerily waved as they flew off. Turning on the WheetAh waiting nearby, curling and uncurling her tentacles of manipulation he shouted, “You! Weed! What’s your name?”

She looked like every other WheetAh in the galaxy – a needleless, dwarf Saguaro cactus with stumpy legs and arms. She whistled and spoke from the top of her body, “Ifhofei, Mafhur Pimviifei…”

“Timviifei!” he spat on the ground. “My name is Master Timothy Jones! No Human and no WheetAh can say my idiotic name right!” His parents had christened him with a mixed Human-WheetAh name. As charter members of the Weldon Colony’s ten thousand zoologic Humans and six hundred botanic WheetAh, they’d poured every effort into creating a place where the innate enemies from the animal and plant kingdoms could evolve into a graceful peace. Shaking his fist at the memorial, Timmy shouted, “They should have known better!”

What Was I Trying To Say?
My son and I drove between Minnesota and North Carolina and back again several times since he and his family had returned from South Korea to settle near Fort Bragg/Fayetteville.

Every time, we found some historical place to stop and learn. This time, a “blue sign” on the highway pointed to a Civil War cemetery off the main road. We went to have a look. What we found out that not only was it off the road, it had a single marker and was basically a clearing in the woods near a stream. A memorial erected earlier that summer gave the story.

While South Carolina was the first Southern state to secede from the Union in December of 1860, North Carolina was second to last in May of 1861. No one denies the bitterness of a war fought between families on their own soil. Some two million Americans died, many of disease and starvation.

Even so, it seemed unfair to the dead (yeah, I know, stupid), that the remains of over a hundred soldiers were marked with a single, small stone: ..\..\..\Downloads\CSA Headstone North Carolina.jpg My son is a soldier himself, staff sergeant, not an officer – as were most of the Union and Confederate soldiers. I wanted to convey some of the sadness of people caught up in a war when they had no real idea of why they were killing each other.

Fraught with baggage…

The Rest of the Story:
The main character has returned to the “Weldon War Memorial, Human Cemetery & Apology. It lay still, cool, Earth green, and vast, the final resting place for ten thousand, four hundred, and eighty-two Weldon colonial pastoralists, slaughtered by WheetAh special forces looking for traitors of their own kind. By some obscure WheetAh custom and law, it was a place designed to bury, remember, and apologize for an atrocity, from the WheetAh to Humans.”

He discovers the remains of another WheetAh who was overlooked because they had overlain a Human; obviously trying to protect them. The characters knows because he was there. His bitterness and anger have consumed him and he’s going to die soon. He’s frail and feels some obscure notion to return and yell at anyone on Weldon who would remember. But the caretaker is the only one still around. They were at the massacre; they remember. They even remember HIM. When he relents and stubbornly finds the place where he was discovered and “adopted by a WheetAh family”. He then builds the WheetAh’s memorial crystal and mounts it on a berm so that it catches sunrise light.

He dies shortly thereafter…

End Analysis:
The STORY is good, but the Civil War is a bad metaphor to use. Duh. Perhaps use either Vietnam or someone else’s civil war – Les Miserable was after the French Revolution…but that was right against poor??? Maybe. I need to find a contemporary “civil war” maybe to use as the metaphor (though, the fact is that, I don’t even mention the Civil War. Maybe THAT’S not the problem…maybe

…the viewpoint character is wrong. There’s already a WheetAh character there; what would the story look like from THEIR point of view?

Can This Story Be Saved?
It’s a solid piece. Maybe I need to study some more “message” stories to see how they get their point across without having people say, “Oh, this is just the Civil War in disguise! Be gone!” So, yeah. I’m three years older, wiser, and more published now. Maybe it’s time.

I’ll keep you posted.

Image: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/9f/22/3b/9f223b1e57a36e14db3eb13715fbe3f9.jpg

IDEAS ON TUESDAYS 535

Each Tuesday, rather than a POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAY, I'd like to both challenge you and lend a helping hand. I generate more speculative and teen story ideas than I can ever use. My family rolls its collective eyes when I say, "Hang on a second! I just have to write down this idea..." Here, I'll include the initial inspiration (quote, website, podcast, etc.) and then a thought or two that came to mind. These will simply be seeds -- plant, nurture, fertilize, chemically treat, irradiate, test or stress them as you see fit. I only ask if you let me know if anything comes of them. Regarding horror, I found this insight in line with WIRED FOR STORY: “ We seek out…stories which give us a place to put our fears…Stories that frighten us or unsettle us - not just horror stories, but ones that make us uncomfortable or that strike a chord somewhere deep inside - give us the means to explore the things that scare us…” – Lou Morgan (The Guardian)

H Trope: forbidden rooms
Current Event: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McMartin_preschool_trial and http://www.ipt-forensics.com/journal/volume7/j7_2_1_33.htm and http://www.sacbee.com/2011/07/21/3783838/mcmartin-preschool-fiasco-led.html

Thirty years after the infamous McMartin Preschool Incident, Tayna Hopewell’s parents buy the land the day care once stood on to build a golf equipment shop. Everything is past and even though she finds out about the lot’s history through a Google search, she doesn’t say anything.

They aren’t opening a day care!

Tanya who lives in Alondra and takes classes as a high school senior at El Camino College wants to be a forensic scientist after she graduates. Her parents are “golf semi-pros” and while she supports them now that she’s “grown up”, she loathes the sport and avoids it at every chance.

On the eve of a big semi-pro tourney at the nearby Alondra Golf Course, and shortly after the excavation began, Tanya NEEDS to escape her parents! They’re driving her CRAZY!

She lights off along Manhattan Beach Boulevard, jogging toward the beach and some much-needed alone time. When she reaches the excavation site, she sees that the gate is still standing open and she figures her parents own the land, so she has every right to check things out.

A warm breeze is wafting off shore a mile or so away and even though the sun is sinking toward the horizon, she’s comfortable poking around the site.

It’s not particularly interesting until she gets to the back of the lot. It’s been built over more than once – before the infamous daycare (demolished in 1985) it was a housing development, since then The Strand Cleaners which went out of business. Now her parents are building a two-story building; the ground floor will house Hopewell’s Pro Golf; the upper story was unrented yet, but there were plenty of people interested.

At the back of the property, Tanya nearly pitches into a narrow hole in the ground that runs under the fence to the property behind their land. As well, there’s evidence of the trenches running toward Manhattan Boulevard. Scowling, she looked into the hole, though she can’t see a thing. She takes out her cell, flips it to “flashlight mode” and aims it into the hole.

She still can’t see much more than the far side of it. Muttering, she unrolls her towel, lays it on the ground and lays down, scooting to the edge so she can see over it clearly.

The flicks on the flashlight, holding it ahead of her and pointing down and looks carefully.

At the bottom of the trench, at the edge of the cell phone’s light reach, she clearly sees a pile of bones.

Heart pounding, she remembers that there was a buried trash heap under the property that they’d found evidence of even during the trial in the olden days. It’s probably just animal bones.

That’s when she sees it. To one side, barely visible now, staring at her without eyes, is a small skull.

A small HUMAN skull…

Name: Slavic, Derbyshire UK
Image: https://cdn.britannica.com/40/11740-004-50816EB1/Boris-Karloff-Frankenstein-monster.jpg

WRITING ADVICE: Short Stories – Advice and Observation #14: Gene Wolfe “& Me”

In this feature, I’ll be looking at “advice” for writing short stories – not from me, but from other short story writers. In speculative fiction, “short” has very carefully delineated categories: “The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America specifies word lengths for each category of its Nebula award categories by word count; Novel 40,000 words or over; Novella 17,500 to 39,999 words; Novelette 7,500 to 17,499 words; Short story under 7,500 words.”

I’m going to use advice from people who, in addition to writing novels, have also spent plenty of time “interning” with short stories. While most of them are speculative fiction writers, I’ll also be looking at plain, old, effective short story writers. The advice will be in the form of one or several quotes off of which I’ll jump and connect it with my own writing experience. While I don’t write full-time, nor do I make enough money with my writing to live off of it...neither do most of the professional writers...someone pays for and publishes ten percent of what I write. When I started this blog, that was NOT true, so I may have reached a point where my own advice is reasonably good. We shall see! Hemingway’s quote above will now remain unchanged as I work to increase my writing output and sales! As always, your comments are welcome!

Without further ado, short story observations by Gene Wolfe – with a few from myself…

“What is impossible is to keep [my Catholicism] out. The author cannot prevent the work being his or hers.” Gene Wolfe

You can see above one of the reasons I admired Gene Wolfe – he was a Christian and wasn’t interested in hiding his faith. People took him as he was. I’m sure there were people who refused to read his work because of his faith, figuring his worldview was so absurd that he wouldn’t have anything to say that would interest them.

That’s OK – because there were enough people who COULD do that, while his books were never “popular”, they were intense, deep, and you put down the book or the short story pondering…something. His work wasn’t the kind that you read and forgot. Part of THAT was because he made you stop and think; ponder what he was trying to say, then go back and read it again, once more.

Incredibly POPULAR, multiple award-winning English writer, Neil Gaman admired Gene Wolf’s writing without sharing his faith. In 2011, he wrote: “He's the finest living male American writer of science fiction and fantasy...possibly the finest living American writer.” Other clearly not of his faith persuasion also praised his work: “Ursula Le Guin calls him ‘our Melville,’ and Michael Swanwick says he ‘is the single greatest writer in the English language alive today.’”

So – what was it about Wolfe’s writing that inspired such an observation, and how can I learn from it? I haven’t read everything he’s written – far from it – but what I have read (both short stories and novels) has captivated my attention at the time and left a deep impression on me.) Does he START OUT trying to write deep? Apparently, the answer is “No.” When asked if “the Urth of the New Sun series begin as a darkly literate intentional parody and subversion of the Sword & Sorcery tradition, or am I just reading it that way?

Gene Wolfe said, “No, it did not. At the beginning of that whole series, I simply wanted to write a short story or novelette for Orbit. I was at some Con down in Chicago and Bob Tucker grabbed me and dragged me to this panel on costuming, which I would not normally have attended, so he’d have someone to talk to. As I listened to this panel of professional costumers, I started sulking a little that none of my characters had ever been made into costumes. And then I realized I’d never written a character that would make a good costume – so whose fault was that? I started listening to these people and thinking up a costume people could make easily and enjoy wearing.

“Black boots – nothing easier; black trousers – ditto; no shirt, black cloak – for beans you can make a black cloak. A mask. A big sword. And I thought – who is this guy? The answer was obvious. He’s an executioner. I started writing this thing and it kept getting longer and longer.” Which resulted of course, the four novels for which he is best known: The Shadow of the Torturer, The Claw of the Conciliator, The Sword of the Lictor, and The Citadel of the Autarch.

Neil Gaiman bumped into Gene Wolfe once and asked him for ten bits of writing advice. Gene Wolfe said he couldn’t possibly come up with ten things on the spot! Gaiman asked for five, and this is what he said:

“Get up early and write.” I’ve done this for years now, ever since my children grew up and started staying out and up late. I was a “night writer”, working until 2 am…now I start at 5 am…

“Read what you’re trying to write, for Godsakes!” While there’s truth in this and I AM an avid reader of short stories and it’s what I write; I love a good long novel every once in a while.

“Remember that it is characterizing that puts your story heads and shoulders over the others in the slush pile.” Oooo…ouch…I clearly don’t have a good handle on this. Unless it has to do with humorous interaction. That seems to be my forte. NOT outright slapstick, though I’d tried that. But I guess I adhere to the MASH “school of writing”: deal with a serious issue; and (in the best episodes), reveal a humorous side to the deadly side. I’ll need to remember that in the story I’m writing right now.

“You do not characterize by telling the reader about the character. You do it by showing the character thinking, speaking and acting in a characteristic way. You simply show it and shut up.” Ah…I need to remember this, too. I get too much into “explaining” what’s going on in a story. I need to show my characters acting…um…characteristically in order to illuminate their…um…character…OK – that sounds stupid, but it ALL OF A SUDDEN MAKES SENSE TO ME. It suddenly explains SO MUCH about Severian (“hero” of the BOOK OF THE NEW SUN)…which leads me to…

“Do not start a story unless you have an ending in mind. You can change the story’s ending if you wish, but you should always have a destination.” And there you go – it’s why I’m having so much trouble with my current work in progress. I don’t know where it’s going, so I don’t know how to start it. Severian’s ending was the same as the journey of Jesus, whose destiny was to be the Christ. Wolfe himself said that Severian was “a man who has been born into a very perverse background, who is gradually trying to become better.” Not exactly the Christ story, but then, there is only on Son of God.

Elsewhere, Wolfe says, “Read. No matter what you may long to believe, you cannot become a writer without tens of thousands of hours of reading…[and] Write. Writers do it. Would-be writers do not. Just as you can't learn to swim without floundering around in the water a lot, you cannot learn to write without writing. Harlan Ellson tells his would-be writer audiences that they should write a short story every day--three hundred and sixty five little stories over the next year. Is Harlan grandstanding with a piece of ridiculously exaggerated advice? No.” I haven’t done THAT, but I’m making more progress NOW that I have ever made. Of course, I’m retired. I’ve been waiting for this my entire life.

In an interview with Larry McCaffery, when asked about his initial eight-year “training”, Wolfe said, “During those eight years…why weren't you selling? Was your work really that bad or were you already writing far enough outside the accepted genre conventions that it was difficult to find a home for your work?”

Wolfe said, “…mainly I was simply learning the art of writing. You don't go out, buy a violin, and then immediately get a job with a symphony orchestra—first you've got to learn how to play the damn thing. Writing is a lot like that.”

And do great writers have to rewrite? Wolfe definitely has something to say about that! “I do a minimum of three ‘writes’ for everything I do—an original and then at least two rewrites. A lot of stuff goes through four drafts, and some of it goes 15 or even more drafts; basically I'm willing to keep revising until I get it right…[In THE FIFTH HEAD OF CERBERUS] I completely rewrote those opening pages at least eight or ten times because it seemed essential to capture that certain flavor I wanted the story to have… since character usually seems to be the single element in my works I'm most interested in, a lot of the rewriting I do involves me trying to fine tune character.”

I just realized that I’ve rewritten several stories more than once – sometimes months or even years later. I did that recently with a story I just sold (“Dinosaur Veterinarian” to ANALOG Science Fiction and Fact)…[Wolfe was also an ANALOG writer! In the May 1973 issue (I was 16…) had the story, “How I Lost the Second World War and Helped Turn Back the German Invasion”.]

From GOODREADS, Michael Roetzel had this to say: “I do recall once finding a bare paragraph or two on a long lost blog in which Wolfe described how he wrote. He says he writes first broadly and generally, just describing what is happening, and only begins to really write, to lay out sentences, in his 2nd and 3rd rewrites.” (Possibly anecdotal, but it seems to jive with the interviews I’ve been reading.)

Lastly, the blogger doesn’t say where the qu0te came from, but I saw it in one of the other interviews I read: “Find a very short story by a writer you admire. Read it over…until you understand everything in it. Then read it over a lot more…Put it away where you cannot get at it…When you cannot see it again, write it yourself. You know who the characters are. You know what happens. [But] YOU write it. Make it as good as you can. Compare your story to the original, when you have access to the original again. Is your version longer? Shorter? Why? Read both versions out loud…[and] you can see how the author handled those problems. If you want to learn to write fiction, and are among those rare people willing to work at it, you might want to use the little story you have just finished as one of your models.” This is an exercise I plan to do – and soon. I have two choices of which story to try this with, either “The Tides of Kithrup” by David Brin; or “The Weatherman” by Lois McMaster Bujold. When I’m done, I’ll report back here!

For now? I gotta get back to writing!

References: https://raymondwriteswrongs.wordpress.com/2015/04/22/writing-advice-from-gene-wolfe/, https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/2088407-gene-wolfe-on-writing#:~:text=His%20writing%20advice%20is%20surprisingly,name%20a%20character%20Fred%2C%20etc.&text=You%20are%20not%20kidding., https://www.depauw.edu/sfs/interviews/wolfe46interview.htm, https://www.technologyreview.com/2014/07/25/12916/a-qa-with-gene-wolfe/, http://scatterings1976.blogspot.com/2016/07/gene-wolfes-advice-for-writers.html, https://www.blackgate.com/2010/11/23/and-it-goes-on-from-there-an-interview-with-gene-wolfe/
Image: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhK6miXJMTMNyB3kzq-r6I2LVCTZJj0CDS0dPV2Qapl6e9rZPuHx2u5QKcKT1QGeDg1_tPMv-lpnuSr_eiBjwPXmex9mcgtuH2-SUtZEpGWV0_HdtJQelVt5K69NulJBUqNju5GNjHgQibXsIo4NeWpTOj4ai85jCRjMHOtwtkqshzxFvZPUSjXZNq6=s320

IDEAS ON TUESDAYS 534

Each Tuesday, rather than a POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAY, I'd like to both challenge you and lend a helping hand. I generate more speculative and teen story ideas than I can ever use. My family rolls its collective eyes when I say, "Hang on a second! I just have to write down this idea..." Here, I'll include the initial inspiration (quote, website, podcast, etc.) and then a thought or two that came to mind. These will simply be seeds -- plant, nurture, fertilize, chemically treat, irradiate, test or stress them as you see fit. I only ask if you let me know if anything comes of them. Regarding Fantasy, this insight was startling: “I see the fantasy genre as an ever-shifting metaphor for life in this world, an innocuous medium that allows the author to examine difficult, even controversial, subjects with impunity. Honor, religion, politics, nobility, integrity, greed—we’ve an endless list of ideals to be dissected and explored. And maybe learned from.” – Melissa McPhail.

F Trope: xenofiction (point of view of an animal)
Current Event: http://www.arkanimalspace.com/ark-blog/theo-the-bomb-sniffing-dog/

Mia had one mission in life.

She was a IED-expert. When she was called up and shipped to Afghanistan, it was the single most exciting moment in her short life. She was certain she’d been made for it. Certain that no one else could do it as well as she could. She knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that her mission was to save lives by getting rid of IEDs that littered this sad country after its abortive war. She was set to do whatever was necessary – almost.

When she found IEDs, she refused to touch them and certainly refused to disarm them no matter how simple the device was. In fact, she couldn’t disarm an IED even if her partner’s life depended on it. She couldn’t handle them – because she didn’t have hands.

But smelling an IED was an entirely different story. She could tell the exact makeup of the IED from thirty meters away.

It had taken her a lot of time to train her partner to be as good as she was. The language barrier itself was nearly impossible to overcome. Ethan Pai-Teles was virtually deaf, couldn’t tell the difference between a rubber band bomb and a mercury-tilt switch bomb. Mia could smell mercury from a long way away – the sharp, poisonous tang would keep her away even when Ethan tried to bribe her with treats.

She’d usually answer him, “Totally unsafe, Ethan! Totally unsafe!”

He rarely understood her. At least now he slowed down some. When they first started working together, he’d tried to get her to understand English. She got that – some of the first words she’d understood were “toy” and “walk”. But the language was so limited. Ninety percent of the scent keys aligned with real language were missing in English. It was nearly impossible for Ethan to hear anything but the most rudimentary phrases in the Bark Tongue.

Yun, a Chinese Shih Tzu soldier Mia had met at the Summer Olympics had it easier. Her partner at least understood the importance of pitch in real speech. Ethan – she loved him, but MAN! – was practically tone deaf, even as far as Humans were concerned.

She had to rely on body language, just as he’d devised a series of hand signals that allowed them to work together as their sight at close range was very nearly the same.

They were patrolling a stretch of road they hadn’t been in a bit. They’d been working together – she knew it was many, many sunrises past the last sandstorm, Ethan said “Two years, six months, five days, thirteen hours and,” he’d glance at his arm, “fourteen minutes” – and she caught the whiff of an IED.

She growled. It smelled strange. Very strange. There was the sharp, Human smell of plastic explosive but it was overlain with something different. She’d never caught the scent of anything like it…except maybe when they’d trained together when she was a pup. It had been in a very dry place, a long way away from her favorite water and the fabulous birds Ethan killed for her but didn’t allow her to eat.

This place had a two white makes laid on the floor of one of the buildings. Ethan had made a violent sound and exclaimed something softly and low so she could actually hear it, “Area Fifty-One?”

This smell was the same as that...

Names: ♀ UK-Scotland ; ♂ UK, Portuguese
Image:
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/98/71/e5/9871e52bbc09c525af21b8f6471eab15.jpg

Slice of PIE: DISCON III – #4 Balancing Story and Scientific Authenticity

Using the Programme Guide of the 2021 World Science Fiction Convention, DisCON III, which I WOULD have been attending in person if I felt safe enough to do so in person AND it hadn’t been changed to the week before the Christmas Holidays…I will jump off, jump on, rail against, and shamelessly agree with the BRIEF DESCRIPTION given in the Program Guide. I will be using the events to drive me to distraction or revelation – as the case may be. The link is provided below where this appeared!

Many readers love real science, or just the appearance of real science, in their science fiction. It is no small challenge to create compelling literature that also triggers a scientific sense of wonder. Panelists discuss how to do it right.

Panelists:
Catherine Asaro: best-selling science fiction writer
Lezli Robyn: Editor, writer, Essayist, Galaxy’s Edge magazine
John Ashmead: editor, Moderator
Eva L. Elasigue: no idea
Derek Künsken: SF writer
Maquel A Jacob: new SF writer

I love real science – it’s why I taught it for the first thirty years of my career as an educator and why I’ve taught classes such as “Writing in Science, Science in Writing”.

My love is biology, and among my favorite current SF writers are Julie Czerneda (herself a research biologist at one time); but I also love David Brin’s work (an astrophysicist who has an uncanny ability to create weird and believable aliens); as well as others too numerous to name who write scientifically.

The group also pointed out some of the pitfalls of what is sometimes called a “hard science fiction” story.

Included on this list are things like, “Future science is fun!” (I just finished a short SF story that utilizes a type of space travel suggested to me by the physics of “Miguel Alcubierre Moya, a Mexican theoretical physicist known for the proposed Alcubierre drive, a speculative warp drive by which a spacecraft could achieve faster-than-light travel.” I postulated that it might allow Humans to reach into something called Anchorspace by changing the geometry of space by creating a wave that would cause the fabric of space ahead of a spacecraft to contract and the space behind it to expand. This allows the ship to “anchor” briefly, to extend a “sail” into real space to aim the ship using stellar winds in real space to turn and aim for the destination in real space.)

Other comments suggest you “need to have a sense of what the editor is like”. As well, know your target market. Lezli Robyn noted, “ANALOG stories are solution oriented; ASIMOV’S are consequences oriented.” She had also mentioned that writers need to THINK about the implications of their science. For example, she is unable to see, but points out, “Does my mind see more than my eyes?” That is a fascinating question, certainly one that a writer could seek to deal with in a unique – and sensitive – way. And if you are afraid of writing about a character who is unable to see, keep in mind the blog I posted here: https://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2020/07/possibly-irritating-essay-its-mistake.html

She went on to iterate that to create an effective hard science story, you needed a “big objective goal; the materials the characters need to requisition or have on hand – and if there’s no catalogue handy to order the parts from, the characters need to create NEW mechanisms to get the job done.

Finally, make sure to weave the science into the story – “Hard science fiction has LEGENDARY infodumps!” There was quite a bit of laughter, but if you write hard SF, you know how easy it is to get sucked into the world-building part of the writing…and forget the characters and their plight!

Recommendations of science-based fiction from the group: A MEMORY CALLED EMPIRE by Arkady Martine; PERIHELION SUMMER by Greg Egan; THE QUANTUM ROSE by panelist Derek Künsken; THE ALGEBRAIST by Iain M. Banks. They offered another by Steven Barnes, but I would highly recommend LION’S BLOOD, and ZULU HEART, the first two novels of an incomplete series. The classics DUNE by Frank Herbert, and ENDER’S GAME by Orson Scott Card were also included. I’d also recommend the meticulous world building of Peter F. Hamilton’s several worlds…

Program Schedule: https://discon3.org/schedule/
Image: https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQY860vAI2izm2g2mUgxzT14fGVmoGh66B51g&usqp=CAU

IDEAS ON TUESDAYS 533

Each Tuesday, rather than a POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAY, I'd like to both challenge you and lend a helping hand. I generate more speculative and teen story ideas than I can ever use. My family rolls its collective eyes when I say, "Hang on a second! I just have to write down this idea..." Here, I'll include the initial inspiration (quote, website, podcast, etc.) and then a thought or two that came to mind. These will simply be seeds -- plant, nurture, fertilize, chemically treat, irradiate, test or stress them as you see fit. I only ask if you let me know if anything comes of them. Octavia Butler said, “SF doesn’t really mean anything at all, except that if you use science, you should use it correctly, and if you use your imagination to extend it beyond what we already know, you should do that intelligently.”

SF Trope: genetic memories
Current Event: http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2013/jan/23/digital-files-stored-and-retrieved-using-dna-memory

Iker Dương flexed his bicep.

Leonie Gonzalez shook her head and rolled back over on her stomach.

“What? I thought you said you wanted to see a trick?” Iker said.

Without looking at him, she pulled up the latest Kathy Reichs Temperance Brennan book on her Kindenookpad – or knop – and got back to her reading.

“What are you mad at?”

Leonie said, “Listen Iker, I like you and all, but if you want us to be anything more than buddies, you’re going to have to actually talk to me.”

Iker sat down. The sappy sad look on his face almost made Leonie give in and feel sorry for him. Instead, she rolled over with her back to him.

He arched over her, planting his hands firmly on the ground then flipped his feet over, landing lightly. She almost grabbed him then, too. But they were almost done with their college freshman year, she wanted to get into medical school – she was aiming to be the first forensic anthropologist on Mars because now that the population there had topped three million, there were going to be MURDERS…

He flexed his bicep again and said, “I’m trying to show you something.”

She sighed.

“Not my muscle! I’m showing you what we’re doing in the lab!”

“Trying to create muscles from nothing?”

“Hey!” He pouted and she relented a bit. “I’m sorry, but the Mexicans and the Vietnamese are not known for producing Olympic weightlifting champions...”

“It’s not my muscle, it’s what’s in my muscle!”

“String beans?” She winced an instant after speaking the words but couldn’t say, “Iker, wait!” fast enough to stop him from sprint away. She also couldn’t quite stop the thought that he had a rather cute backside as well and even though he was sorta on the skinny side…”Iker, wait!” He kept going. She stopped, pondered for an instant, then put her ancestry to work and sprinted, catching him in ten long strides, grabbing his arm. She thought for an instant that the bicep wasn’t as wimpy as she’d imagined. “I’m sorry, Iker – but you’re just such a tempting target. What...”

“DNA – I have a data package in my bicep. I’ve been carrying it for the past week and we’re going to take it out tomorrow to see if…”

From the shadows of the science building, a voice said, “I don’t think you should be talking about this, folks.”

Names: ♀ Swiss German, Argentinian; ♂ Mexican, Vietnamese 

 Image: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e1/Falcon_9_Demo-2_Launching_6_%283%29.jpg/220px-Falcon_9_Demo-2_Launching_6_%283%29.jpg