JAX LUNAR LUMBER Chapter 6: Visitation Of The Most High Celebrity

On the way to the neighborhood Home Depot for the obligatory weekend project as well as a load of flowers and potting soil, I started musing on my hitch as a “yard ape” for a company called Knox Lumber. We, too were busy this time of year, and it was a familiar feel whenever I went to one of these stored. Know was one of the original “Do It Yourself” (aka DIY) stores, a precursor to today’s Lowes, Menards, and Home Depot. Eventually bought out by Payless Cashways https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payless_Cashways

the rumor in the store was that you could build an entire house by waiting patiently for a year while EVERYTHING went on sale…Rolling down the driveway, I suddenly had a thought and snickered.

When my wife asked, “What?” I shook my head. “No, what?”

I reiterated the train of thought above, then added, “I was wondering if it would be possible to build a colony on the Moon using just what you could buy at Knox?”

We pondered it for a few moments, then suddenly said in unison, “Yes!”

Inspired by Matt Weir, the result of my musings continues below.


We ended up having roughly a year to prepare for the arrival of Roza Rymbayeva Golovkin, named after a famous Kazakh singer and song-writer. She was a Sixth Generation descendant of the last Human to walk on the Moon in the 20th Century – Eugene Andrew Cernan was an American astronaut, naval aviator, electrical engineer, aeronautical engineer, and fighter pilot. During the Apollo 17 mission, Cernan became the 11th human being to walk on the Moon. As he re-entered the Apollo Lunar Module after Harrison Schmitt on their third and final lunar excursion, he became the Last Man to Walk On the Moon – the Last Walker in other words.

Now his six-times-removed granddaughter was standing in front of me, her face suffused with wonder. She said, “I don’t hurt anymore!”

“Excuse me?” I managed. That was two seconds before her Personal Handler, Sturdlan Vilbix,” they introduced themselves as, stepped in and started to talk as she grabbed me by the bicep and squeezed. It HURT! She had muscles trained under the full gravity of the world that had nurtured Humanity into intelligence. Now, here she was steering me further into Jax Lunar Lumber, using gestures to station dozens of drones in the ceiling, on the floor, on desks, in trees, and anywhere their cameras – I was pretty sure the glittering light twirling around the back and belly of each one was a camera designed to record, broadcast, and recreate every scene, every motion, and every nuance of the Six-Times-Great-Granddaughter Of The Last Walker – or “Six-T-Grandsdaughter-OT Last Walker”. That quickly morphed to antichrist, or 6T for short.

My own grandkids had warned me. They begged me to let them prepare a defense against this entity of The Media. After I finally gave in, the Council of Four convened – Noah, Natalie, Ronan, and Rayna – and gently ushered me out of the room and got to work.

When Sturdlan Vilbix appeared just as they’d predicted and started spreading their drones, little Rayna ran in, cute as a bug, and hugged my leg.

“Grandpa, do the Turkey Neck! Please! Please! Please!”

That was the code phrase they’d decided on for me to let them know if it was a Go-No-Go situation. Rolling my eyes, I shook my head several times, shaking my wattles of fat and making cheek noises. Rayna hugged me again and ran out of the room.

The Handler and 6T looked at me. The Handler said, “I’m sorry Mr..? What did you call yourself?”

“Owner and Proprietor of JAX LUNAR LUMBER.”

She flicked me away, saying, “Whatever. You’ll have to keep your children…”

“Grandchildren,” I corrected her.

They sighed as if the weight of the world was on their shoulders and said, “You’ll have to keep you GRANDchildren both out of our way and preferably off the premises. We have very important work here to do! Billions of Humans are clamoring to see me –” She stopped abruptly, glanced at Roza Rymbayeva Golovkin, Six-Times-Great-Granddaughter Of The Last Walker, cleared her throat and said, “I mean ONLY to speak for Madame Golovkin when I say…”

I flicked my fingers in her direction and a swarm of tiny drones, no larger than Ronan’s fingernails but shinier, flew as a swarm through the room. Moments later, every drone but those under the control of the Council of the Four fell to the floor, energy-drained into just so much ballast.”

“And you may be interested in something I say.” I grinned – and just happened to catch a glow of real delight in on the face of the former 6T…now reverting to Roza Golovkin…

Resources: The Moon Trees, https://www.urbanforestdweller.com/we-almost-forgot-about-the-moon-trees/ ; https://www.space.com/moon-colonists-lunar-lava-tubes.html
Image: https://external-preview.redd.it/xL2Y2UHb2B0JN5P162FShQfxqCTYNuOp3WEYxdF86j4.jpg?width=1080&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=6955074e421a5e98c69b2da35179a3a91faa5662

Slice of PIE ReDux: The Question I Should Be Asking: “Why Don’t I QUIT Writing?”

This essay has been revised and updated from the version that appeared on June 5, 2011, and again since January 2020; and once again in 2024!

Long ago, in this very galaxy, I wrote a column for an ancient blogsite called FRIDAY CHALLENGE in which I answered the question, “Why Do We Write?” I admit, I had a brilliant answer! (;-)) You can read my first thoughts here: http://thefridaychallenge.blogspot.com/2010/12/why-we-write_19.html

Since then though, I’ve had second thoughts about how important this question is to ask. You'd think I'd be satisfied with my career path...but there's a whole OTHER set of worries that come with a book; not least of which is distribution of said book and interesting people in it...

Let me back up about fifteen years, to the year of Clarke’s First Odyssey. The seed for this thought fell on the ground the first time. My wife and two young kids were out garage-saling. We stopped at a house that had kid’s toys and clothing and got out. While my wife checked for treasures, I wandered into the garage.

[Let me pause in the story to give you a bit of local tradition. While every house I know of has a car garage – it’s hard to start a car that’s been sitting out directly exposed to -27 cold for any length of time – when we build the garages, most of us don’t INSULATE them. No reason; like I said, it’s a tradition. Typically, the interior of a garage presents an image of bare pine studs with some sort of exterior insulation laid over the outside on which clapboard or stucco or other siding is attached. From the studs hang numerous brackets, hooks, pegboards, sheet rock, shelves and electrical conduit or Romex® cable and either bare incandescent light sockets and bulbs or an arrangement of fluorescent fixtures and bulbs. Garages are usually utilitarian spaces reserved for cars, tools, lawn mowers, canoes, fertilizer spreader, grass-clipping catchers, roof rakes, snow blowers, garden implements and snow shovels.]

In the garage – in addition to the traditional décor – every space between the studs had a 14-inch piece of pine stud nailed into place at 12 or so inch vertical intervals. On each of the 14-inch pieces, paperback novels were packed side-by-side from the base plate to the rafters.

There were hundreds of books. Possibly thousands and all of the books were marked FOR SALE. I started in a corner and began to scan for titles that contained the words “star”, “alien”, “invasion”, the name of a real planet, a name that sounded like the name of a planet or anything that looked in any way “science fiction-y”

A guy approached me and asked, “Lookin’ for something in particular?”

He was only a little older than me and acted like this was his place, so I said, “Are all of those yours?”

Grinning, he nodded and said, “I’ve read every one of them, too!”

I’d noticed that while it was a broad selection, it seemed to be heavily weighted toward horror, romance and thriller. I was impressed. “All of them?”

“I was gonna be a writer, so I was told I had to read not only in the genre I wanted to break into, but outside of it as well. And I was supposed to keep current, too.”

I wanted to be a writer when I grew up, too! I said, “Did you get many things published?” Thinking I’d found a writer-soul-mate a mere four blocks from my home, I found my heart was racing. I confess was hanging on his every word.

Shaking his head, he replied, “Nope, so I gave up.” He meandered away to help someone fill a paper grocery bag with books, leaving me startled and heart-broken.

At that point in my career, I had no professional publications despite decades of throwing short stories, essays and novels at the heavy, quarry-stone walls of the Citadel of the Editarchs. Even then, standing in that slightly dank garage, I didn’t seriously consider giving up.

Why?

In the cold, hard light of the up-side of the third decade of the 21st Century, I have to honestly say to myself, “Why don’t you just give up? Why don’t you take up a hobby in which you might not only stand a chance of showing improvement, you might even take lessons! You’ll NEVER get really published!”

Of course, since then, I’ve had 73 professional publications, an uncounted number of unpaid publications that others read and comment on (and not including my personal blogs), and I have international publications and the place of a "regular" in one prominent magazine. Yet even today, I confess I still feel that tug of rationality.

Then my inner writer exclaims, “What? Quit writing and give up this luxurious life of fame and fortune? ‘Get thee behind me, Satan!’”

My honest conscience fires back, “I’ll bet you have no idea how many times you’ve had stories, queries, articles and essays rejected.” It adds in a perfect Steve Zahn rendition of his quip from YOU’VE GOT MAIL, “As far as I can tell, the internet is just a new way to get rejected by women.” It adds in a snide voice, “You’ve submitted 973 times and published 93 manuscripts. That’s a pub rate of 9.5% since 1990. Pathetic!”

The inner writer then points out, “While that may be true, the earlier years were typically 0,1, or 2% pub rates. Last year you had only 2 of 32 manuscripts published. That’s only 9.3%, and you didn’t even get paid for either one of those!”

“True, but half of them were REQUESTED! And you’ve sort of become a kind-of regular at ANALOG!”

The argument subsides and I’m left wondering what was it, standing in that garage twenty years ago, that made me go back and keep writing when every logical bone in my body and the thousands of paperbacks on the wall said, “Take up STAR TREK model building! At least you’ll have something to show for it!”?

While there was probably a measure of sheer cussedness in there, I think what kept me going was a deep desire to speak my mind in a way that was so entertaining that no one would realize that I’d spoken it.

Boiled down to its bare bones and reconstructed like a dinosaur skeleton, I find that the reason I’ve kept on writing since I was thirteen might be summed up in the words of Jeremiah, “…read from the scroll which you have written at My dictation the words of the Lord to the people in the Lord’s house on a fast day. And you shall read them to all the people of Judah who come from their cities.” Jeremiah 36:6 (NASB)

I work to write what God directs me to – sometimes better than at other times. But always I want to write his word so that others can read them and see His glory and salvation.

And THAT’S the real reason I don’t quit, and after rereading this in 2021, in the waning months of the COVID19 pandemic, it still all holds true…and even today, three years later, I feel compelled to tell story. Lisa Cron wrote: “Story, as it turns out, was crucial to our evolution – more so than opposable thumbs. Opposable thumbs let us hang on; story told us what to hang on to.”

Story is crucial...to me.

Image: https://thewornbookmark.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/lr-b-small-3.jpg

Hey folks interested in EMERALD OF EARTH! Rampant Loon Press has stopped paperback and Audio Books anwhere except Amazon.com. They've placed EMERALD on KDP Direct! So, if you are a Kindle member, you can read EMERALD OF EARTH for free! If you want the PAPER BOOK or the Audio Book, Amazon is the ONLY place you can buy them!

Amazon.com: Emerald of Earth: Heirs of the Shattered Spheres eBook : Stewart, Guy: Kindle Store

IDEAS ON TUESDAY 637

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.

Fantasy Trope: Fantasy Noir (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FantasticNoir)
Current Event: http://theirturn.net/former-racehorse-breeder-unmuzzled/

I’m not from around here. In fact, where I’m from, the worlds you ascribe to authors like JK Rowling and JRR Tolkien are pale representations of life in OUR 21st Century…

Even so, we got one thing in common – there are scumbags in both places. My dad is a cop in a place I’ll call Rowkien. He works in the biggest city, the equivalent of your New York or Los Angeles, called Mohrpohrq.

The problem is that I’m NOT supposed to be here and it’s really, really hard for a teenager with a horse’s body and a human chest, arms, and head to hide out until the gate that let him through to here opens again. It’s a good thing I learned how to glamour in Rowkien and for whatever reason, that kind of low-level magic works here, so I can make it appear that I'm a regular horse. The other problem is that what are totally COOL names in Rowkien -- like mine -- are not very...um...powerful here. My name's Hokey Flemm. Yup. Cool in Rowkien. Not so much here.

Keeping up the glamour is hard work and it makes me incredibly hungry. I also like to eat a whole lot more than just oats. We aren’t a vegetarian people in Rowkien. Especially us centaurs. I was losing weight and starting to look pretty scrawny. Worst of all, I couldn’t keep the glamour up for more than a few hours at a time, so I mostly had to let it down when I thought I was alone.

That’s how Waqas Said and me met, which just so happened to be the night both of us almost died...

Names: ♂ Rowkien; ♂ Pakistan Image: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/98/71/e5/9871e52bbc09c525af21b8f6471eab15.jpg

WRITING ADVICE: LIN OLIVER: Follow Your Weirdness

Lin Oliver has rubbed shoulders with some of the best-known writers of teen and children literature. Living on the West Coast, she and Steve Mooser initially planned and executed the first Society of Children’s Book Writers (and Illustrators who weren’t added until later) Conference 53 years ago.

Newbery Award winners like Richard Peck and Linda Sue Park; Caldecott medalists Eve Bunting and David Wiesner; New York Times bestsellers like Melinda Long and Kadir Nelson and senior agents and editors of the best-known agencies and publishers regularly appear alongside her name. She hobnobs and writes with well-known actors and directors like the creator of HAPPY DAYS’s legendary character The Fonz, Henry Winkler. Some of these people are undeniably weird. And she’s friends with them. Lin Oliver has obviously followed her weirdness to great success.

The question is, "How can I do that?" Did she follow her weirdness IN ORDER TO be famous, or was she famous BECAUSE she was truthful and followed her weirdness?

Having met her and heard her speak, I would venture to guess that it is the latter. She was simply being who she was…er…weird.

In order to tie myself into this, I should point out that I am now a retired science teacher and school counselor: I was one, the other, or both for 43 years. When people find out I’m a writer and a teacher, they automatically assume I’m an English teacher. The fact is that I am not even technically qualified to teach a semester-long class of Creative Writing in my school district because I don’t have an English degree. So, that’s weird, isn’t it?

I’m also a Christian and I try to work my world-view into my science fiction stories and novels. Definitely weird – and it may cost me sales. So I should stop that, shouldn’t I? Oh, I’m funny, too. Most people don’t feel that Christian and funny go together, either (they have images of the crazy monks in the old movie, MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL, hitting their heads on boards while chanting).

While I don’t shake hands with medal winners or bestsellers or movie stars yet, I continue to write and get published. I continue to follow my weirdness, because my weirdness is, after all is said and done, what makes me unique. The rest is all a matter of persistence and time.

The other part of following my weirdness is that I continue to submit stories even though 90 percent of them are returned to me – and I’ve been doing this for nearly four decades. If I don’t miss my mark, Lin Oliver has done the same thing.

And if that ain’t following my weirdness, I don’t know what is!

A caveat to that: after 54 years of writing, I now have a fairly long resume of published short fiction, non-fiction, a musical (the script side), curriculum (for the TV show NEWTON'S APPLE, and the Science Museum of Minnesota (which led to the Science Museum of Minnesota's Teach of the Year in 1993)...currently arriving at the publication of my first novel at the end of last March. Which means I've been writing seriously for over half a century! (Weird, huh?)

Image: https://findingyoursoul.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Dr-Seuss-WEIRD.png

POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAY: What Do HARRY POTTER, CHUCK (TV Show), STAR WARS (Original Trilogy), a new band called DURRY, and SPIDERMAN – Have In Common?

 

NOT using the Programme Guide of the 81st World Science Fiction Convention, which later became embroiled in scandal (!!!) I WON'T use the Programme Guide to jump off, jump on, rail against, or shamelessly agree with the BRIEF DESCRIPTION given in the pdf copy of the Program Guide. This explanation is reserved for when I dash “off topic”, sometimes reviewing movies, sometimes reviewing books, and other times taking up the spirit of a blog an old friend of mine used to keep called THE RANTING ROOM…

Short answer: HELPLESSNESS

Long Answer: The rest of this PIE.

HARRY POTTER appears in the first book as a baby in a basket being dropped off at his aunt and uncle’s house by a witch, a wizard, and a guy riding a flying motorcycle with a sidecar. According to most Earth biology, you can’t get much more helpless than a baby.

Most of you are familiar with the story, but if you’re not (“What Culture do you live in – the books are available in eighty languages and Braille!) the story starts with a helpless boy who remains pretty helpless for 1.2 million words. He also manages to defeat the Ultimate Evil with the help of hundreds of individuals who sacrifice their lives (including the most powerful wizard of the age) and wreaks havoc on TWO universes…and remains basically helpless except for the fact that he’s deeply connected to the Ultimate evil and destroys him through that fact with little effort of his own.

In CHUCK, we watch the ultimate Stanford University failure-turned-Nerd Herder (aka Best Buy Geek Squad member) accidentally become the most powerful database known to Humanity, the Intersect. Instead of overthrowing the world and becoming the Emperor of Man, he stays basically the same and is handled until he becomes one of the most powerful tools on Earth; while remaining a clueless, helpless nerd who loves his sister, and has a total dork for a best friend, wins the love of a deadly CIA agent who happens to be Greek goddess-level beautiful – because he IS who he IS: a helpless nerd who loves his sister and his mediocre job, best friend, family, and life.

In the STAR WAR Original Trilogy the same story is reiterated: LUKE SKYWALKER on the brown-end of the Universe on a farm in (almost literally) the middle of nowhere with a grumpy uncle and an aunt who knows everything but can’t do anything about it because she, too, is helpless. When Luke leaves, he’s helpless. When he gets two robots he’s helpless. Even when he finds out he can wield world-bending power…he’s helpless. He remains so for some nine-plus movies.

In 2020, quarantined siblings Austin and Taryn joined forces under their family name DURRY to make music together for the very first time. In 2021 their careers were launched by their tiktok viral track, “Who’s Laughing Now”. Quickly gaining notoriety because Durry bottled up a few inner monologues — everyone from parents, to society, to their church doubted they could “make it”. Their paean to helplessness and lack of support brought them to the attention of Limp Bizkit front man, Fred Durst and became one of Jade's Music You Should Know picks one week. (They are currently touring the US, Canada, and soon Europe (once again!) You can find their schedule (scroll to the bottom) and updates here: https://durry.komi.io/?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTAAAR19_AOVrNlPs5NrRuqtUJuorM7zaIc2yEGitf9_XdxEmNomzMv3dRCmyvI_aem_AdukQK1Iq1WACPWiSrFmAFmX9gy-G9w3Js-zfTfrh-CvXeq2sH5K3zACHKAMUuqILjg8ZV6W0mEjP30txBIN9JFz )

SPIDERMAN, in all of his iterations, was a kid who lost his parents, then lost his uncle to gun violence (sound familiar?). On a field trip sometime in high school, he’s bitten either by a radioactive spider or a genetically engineered spider and suddenly has the powers of a spider – strength, speed, senses, and no fear of heights – oh, did I mention the ability to stick to anything?

So, Peter Parker has everything any kid could possibly want. He can beat any of his enemies to a pulp, he can take on super villains and after getting beat up some, beat them and live to go home to his Aunt May (who has variously been depicted as elderly to barely middle-aged…). He’s also friendly, works in his neighborhood, and is known as Spiderman. But his most defining quality? He’s shy, quiet, and has so few friends that virtually no one knows who he is. He has no influence on society except for the tiny lives of people he interacts with. Of course WE know he’s destined for greatness, but HE doesn’t know that. In fact, for much of his book-time and absolutely through a big chunk of his movie time, he continues to lament that he’s basically…helpless.

It's been my experience that the vast majority of people feel helpless. I venture to believe that it’s this basic piece of the Human condition that drives everything from the Mother Theresas of the world to the Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Putin’s

So what?

All of these people, whether real or imaginary, whether musicians or CIA agent, have somehow managed to draw to them literally MILLIONS of fans. Not necessarily billions of dollars…oops, I guess BILLIONS OF DOLLARS is correct, AND millions of fans.

In the beginning, they attracted people just like them – geeks, dorks, the unnoticed, the ones “real society” labeled losers. These losers – and let me tell you up front that I AM one of them. I made countless Batman costumes out of paper grocery bags and carved a STAR TREK phaser out of a block of wood and nailed another one on it for a handle, then pounded five nails into the front end for a barrel – and then when I shot someone, I made a shrieking sound while vibrating my tongue…

These people, like myself, live lives of helpless normality. NOT desperation. Regular people will never get a government data base crammed into their heads, and the only thing a normal person will get after being bitten by a radioactive/genetically engineered spider, is a rash. They will not receive letters with wings announcing that they’ve been accepted to a wizarding school. Dorky farm boys will not suddenly discover that their father left them a light saber that will symbolically challenge an interstellar Empire, and be hailed as one of the last of an extinct order of Jedi knights. A brother and sister will NEVER discover that a TikTok they made in their basement has a million hits, they have an agent and a tour...rather than mom and dad upstairs as their only audience.

What sets all of these stories apart? It’s not the “powers” they got – magic, technology, arachnid power, or a zillion dollar record contract and road tour?

They remained the same: helpless, endearing, dorky. What changed was the world around them. And everything changed around them NOT because they were different. It changed because they were NORMAL people who kept choosing to keep going and not giving up when their worlds seemed to be going to hell-in-a-handbasket.

They believed that what they COULD do was important.

Because Harry, Chuck, Peter, Austin and Taryn, and Luke didn’t become jerks because of their suddenly power. Of COURSE they could act like jerks sometimes (and did, “Are you listening Harry?), but there were normal people around them who brought them back down from their High And Mighty Spaces, elbowed them in the side, and reminded them that while they may be “The Chosen Ones”, their close friends knew better.

They were just normal people tasked with doing extraordinary things WITH THEIR FRIENDS, FAMILY, AND LOVED ONES.

Lisa Cron writes in her book, WIRED FOR STORY, “…we’re wired to turn to story to teach us the way of the world” (p 2). She also writes that our brains experience a story as if it were REAL: “A recent brain imaging study reported in Psychological Science reveals that the regions of the brain that process the sights, sounds, tastes and movement of real life are activated when we are engrossed in a compelling narrative.” (p 4)

When I read a story that is ABOUT a king, emperor, superhero, alien, or a 15-year-old guy, I’m just not as interested, because I can’t really connect with them. They aren’t part of my reality. I can, however, keep reading and putting away my pre-judgement, I can let myself sink into the STORY.

Harry, Chuck, Peter, Austin and Taryn, and Luke are all stories I can fall into because they’re about normal people. They’re about helpless people just like me. But ALL OF THEM BROKE OUT OF NORMALITY AND MADE A DIFFERENCE IN THE WORLD.

They all inspire normal people NOT by their greatness, but by their persistence and stubborn resolve to keep moving ahead and make a difference in their stories.

Which leads ME to believe that maybe, just maybe, I can break out and make a difference, too.

Image: https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRqrDpvtsj4_UYyotB5o8rZgxVjKLuEw6OyQQ&usqp=CAU

IDEAS ON TUESDAYS 636

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.

Popular Trope: Harry Potter-esque

Zoe Raven Jefferson a Nobody of Nobody, tried focusing on the hovering obsidian sphere as meditations proceeded, finally and slowly calming her turbulent head games, when a cry went up from outside, “Syzhin devils!”

The assembly leaped to its feet as the land raid siren began its mournful wail, echoing even to the depths of the Kylslithe University; everyone rushing to defend the battlements against the scourge of the world. Andre Xavier Xavier, a Bryshwyn of Bryshwyn grabbed her hand, yanking her to then end of the bench before Fendwyri Alyn Wader – whose family opposed Xavier’s in everything – could take her with him. Even so, she tore free of him and ran with the rest of the students, teachers, workers, villagers, and soldiers garrisoned there and rushed to the battlements.

Raven raced up the stairs, but started when Xavier grabber her arm again, this time yanking her from the ground. She screamed, “I just want to walk!” as a whirlwind lifted them up to the top.

“Just say, ‘thank you’ and let’s defend the school!” he shouted.

Raven shook her head, shoved him away and ran to one of the magnifiers. Looking through it, she could see the boiling cloud far out over the Chapatti Plains of massive syzhin devils. Birds the size of pigs with immense wings, they flew because of a bladder filled with hydrogen ballooned over their backs and held them up. She scowled, shouting, “There’s so many!”

Heading for the garbage dump on in the foothills of the Jag Mountains east of them, Xavier shouted back, “Scavenging must be bad on the Plains.”

“Not as bad as it’s going to be now they they’re here!” said Fendwyri. “Those are UL-42s. Light, fast, but with semi-rigid wings.” The flight of ultralights armed with infrared lasers hummed overhead and out to meet the scavengers.

As the flight closed in, the cloud of devils suddenly expanded. “What are they doing?” Xavier said. The jovial good mood of those on the battlements poised to watch a routine battle where humans came out the winners shifted abruptly. Voices faded as the flight kept on straight as an arrow but the syzhin devils expanded around them.

The flight broke up as the ultralights attacked the targets enveloping them. Fendwyri said, “That the wayk are they doing?”

Someone on his far side elbowed him. He yelped as a girl’s voice said, “Watch the language! There are educated people on these battlements.”

Raven laughed but Xavier stared at the flight as they broke formation to soar and glide in every direction. He said, “No one’s ever flown against a flock of syzhin that’s not a standard head-on collision of forces. The pilots are targeting individual birds without considering the three dimen...”

Raven elbowed him as the ultralights sliced through the first syzhin, lighting the bladder and watching it explode. But while the pilot was shooting one, a second dropped down from above, shredding the wing’s metallic fabric. Spiraling wildly, the ultralight fell out of control along with four others down to slam into the earth and explode in a ball of flame as oxygen met fuel and hot laser parts.

The University battlements were silent now. The other pilots had stopped firing and were fleeing in complete disarray, just trying to escape the shrinking globe of sharp beaks and hooves as the aerial battle dissolved into chaos…

Names: ♀ African America, African Australia; ♂ America, Brazil

Image: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/98/71/e5/9871e52bbc09c525af21b8f6471eab15.jpg

WRITING ADVICE: Short Stories – Advice and Observation #27: Douglas Adams “& 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 as I work to increase my writing output and sales! As always, your comments are welcome!

SUCH A BUSY WEEKEND!! (You’d never believe that a RETIRED person could be busy, you I WAS WRONG! I AM busy!) SO, without further ado, short story observations by – with a few from myself…

1) “Everyone would imagine [Douglas Adams, who created the hysterically funny novel ‘HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY’ would be] an author this creative to be in a joking mood the whole time. Nothing could be further from the truth. Adams knew first-hand what it’s like to hate writing, to give up, and to throw in the towel […the one] he wrote about.”

It's funny, ‘cause I sometimes reach a point when I just don’t WANT to write. For ME, I’m most vulnerable to this after I’ve finished writing, editing, and polishing a work. For example, I recently finished a novel that I began here with blog entries in 17 years ago. Not only did I finish it, I had NOT finished it when I was writing it as a series of blog entries. Don’t get too excited for me – I’m not Matt Weir who “…originally self-published on [blog] blog, in a serialized format.” – which novel was then discovered, published in total, and went on to be made into a movie staring Matt Damon. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Martian_(Weir_novel). That’s not my story…

2) “Writing involves worrying. It’s a natural part of the process…Tell yourself that you need to separate the act of writing from the act of worrying. First things first. And writing is always first, right?”

Yeah! Um…sort of. My FIRST thing is to noodle. I write pages and pages of dialogue, directions the story could go, what needs to happen, and possible character names and relationships. I also research – for my last book, I looked up pictures of imaginary Martian colonies; what the Apostle Paul and Queen Esther might have looked like; what a Martian “rover” might look like; and about how long it would take for a Martian, planet-wide colony might take to grow to six million people.

3) “Learn to love editing…[after you write the story]…You can come back and do it again in the light of what you discover about the story later on…] The story needs to develop and so do you as the writer. Once you write the ending, you will have developed more skills as a writer, skills you didn’t have when you started…The idea is to accept that writing and editing are separate processes.”

This was more evident that ever after I finished editing my FIRST novel down from a bunch of blog entries; squeezed it into a novel, then shortened it, then it was published (online only – my theory is that young people can own VERY few things in their world…I certainly couldn’t!...but we COULD own books! Bought with allowance…or mowing lawns.) Buying an online book apparently isn’t the same thing as owning and holding a paper book!

To get to the end whatever novel or book I’m writing, I have to back OVER what I first wrote, then edited, then rewrote, and then finally edited into something I I found myself lost in when I read it “one-more-time” before mailing it out.

That’s when I know the story is ready: I read it one more time, even when I know the ending, and even though I’m the one that INVENTED it!...and I find myself reading the story for the sake of the story.

4) “Fourteen underappreciated quotes for writers…When your plot takes you somewhere you weren't expecting…my methods of navigation have their advantage…I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be…For when you're in need of a different perspective…[you might discover] that solutions nearly always come from the direction you least expect, which means there's no point trying to look in that direction because it won't be coming from there.”

I’ve lost track of the times my story has been abruptly hijacked by my characters who look disdainfully from my imagination and say something like, “You want me to do WHAT? That’s not what I’d do! You made me a person who can’t stand purple martins and you have me working for the American Stochastic Terrorists for the Protection of Purple Martins! That’s not RIGHT!”

I have surprised myself with the ending of a story – my most recent completed novel had one of the main characters die in a gruesome way that I had not envisioned even in my wildest nightmares!

So, I need to be ready to FOLLOW THE STORY rather than trying to force characters – who I have deliberately given brains to think with! Even if they ARE imaginary; they come from my own mind, my own feelings, and sometimes even out of things I didn’t realize I was having trouble dealing with until they suddenly pop into life in a story.

My succinct advice: Write the story, let it take you where it NEEDS to take you, then put it away for a while, then take it out and reread it, changing what CRIES OUT to be changed…and when you reach the point where your own story takes you by surprise, polish it and send it out…

References: https://www.writerswrite.co.za/douglas-adams-on-the-difficulties-of-writing/?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR3EUfkVUIiJ5e5wmvPVQlnfDmPsaCFV_W44qFOdksJN6ypcIZvws2fYzoo_aem_AcdovO8ji8HPtGguT1wTy1xuVlkfy3YnZ63ayAn-nmQd_ZHY_IGu6sLCrkEfpb6i0e_AFGZ2hxkpw6eHM3kZ08pH; https://www.writersdigest.com/be-inspired/douglas-adams-quotes-hitchhikers-guide-to-the-galaxy ; https://www.primedraft.app/blog/douglas-adams-on-writing/ Image: https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/vvzgr_8t62DN58ea90G_ig--/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTY0MDtoPTQyNw--/https://media.zenfs.com/en/space_311/c2533ec4e78b65579e68a4920a40802f