While I don’t write full-time, nor do I make enough money with my writing to live off of it...neither do all 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!
On February 1 in 2009, I started what for several years was an entry on my blog: I wrote a novel in very small parts. It’s now October 26, 2025 -- almost 16 years later and as of today, it will be published in seven-and-a-half weeks.
What began as a vague idea, MARTIAN HOLIDAY paired with the definition of a Roman holiday: entertainment acquired at the expense of others' suffering, or a spectacle yielding such entertainment (Webster's New World Collegiate Dictionary @2009) and a paragraph 2200 words long, grew into 1: Paolo -- Robinson City and continued until it became a massive novel...
The final word count stands at 230,000 words.
Paolo’s sections were all red, Aster’s all purple, Stepan’s green, and DaneelAH, HanAH, MishAH, and AzAH all became blue. After identifying all of the sections of each character (or set of characters), I grouped them all together. That was done about five years ago, at the beginning of the summer of 2020.
It was daunting because my plan was to rotate the story through the four storylines, occasionally crossing them, but with the intent of everyone being in the same place at the same time for one final event. But what event would that be? What could possibly bring such disparate characters to the same place at the same time? As the story had evolved, they were scattered across the surface of Mars – Aster was in Opportunity Dome; Paolo in Robinson Dome then Burroughs Dome, and finally Bradbury…then up to Ísgrunnur on the North Dune Sea…Stepan was in Burroughs, and DaneelAH, et al started in Malacandra and ended up everywhere else…I’d never thought far enough ahead.
So, I created a Revolution that Paolo first, then the others were working to turn into a Reformation of Martian society into one that would include Humans, Artificial Humans, and Artificial Intelligences as equal partners in the colonization and eventual terraforming of Mars. Of course, I had to include the Face on Mars – but not as something woo-woo. It’s really there, though not actually a “face”. It’s something more.
You’ll have to read MARTIAN HOLIDAY to find out starting December 23 -- a couple months from now. If you DO have specific questions, post them in the Comments below. I’ll answer them – directly if they don’t concern the plot; and in a roundabout way if they do!
What started out with a single character in a single domed city on Mars now involves seven main characters (one set of four “modified” clones), plus at least one close friend. Also making an unexpected appearance are Artificial Intelligences (six of them, one for each Dome on Mars plus an extra who coordinates the Federation of Ice Miners, Mechanics, and Technicians…)
The novel is so far beyond what I expected, I am in fact, in awe of what I created. There are four million Humans and Artificial Humans on Mars; there’s an anti-religion called the United Faith in Humanity – an idea out of which grew a Manifesto: “UFiH (spoken, ‘You-fee’ banned Christians, molesters , Jews, rapists, Buddhists, murderers, Muslims, thieves, Hindus, and embezzlers. While it doesn’t say so specifically, an ardent UFiH-er implies that it is "‘of course’ against racists, sexists, or any other kind of ‘-ists." They’ll swear that the intent is to prevent fanaticism and taxing a young civilization – but the honest ones will admit that part of the injunction is against mind or heart, and the other part is against biology.”
Over the past sixteen years, the civilization expanded, technology arose that I’d never considered: sybils, mindbombs, gMod disks and transports, airships, and in addition to the Domes, there suddenly appeared Stations (which became Quianshao, as well as Outposts…
And people! Lately I’ve wondered if my intent was to write an antiracist novel. My Artificial Humans (the slang word is inti) are property and are deliberately made blue-skinned so they can’t hide from the natural-born Humans (aka utes (= uterine-born)…the parallels are obvious and I hope I’ve written them with sensitivity and diversity. I’ve written elsewhere on the blog about my quest to become both a better writer and to not shy away from issues of race and racism: “POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAY: “It’s a Mistake To Write About People of Different Ethnicities…” (https://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2020/07/possibly-irritating-essay-its-mistake.html). Not only did I teach at a racially and socioeconomically diverse high school, we (my wife and I, and at one time two kids and a foster daughter…and various long-term guests…) live in a city that was recently head-lined for both US news programs and on the BBC News headlines: Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, as of 2021, the MOST racially diverse city in the state (https://www.homesnacks.com/most-diverse-cities-in-minnesota/). Thinking of race is something that is, here, LEARNED-or-else.
At any rate, my Mars, the Mars of the United Faith in Humanity is in crisis. As a result of a concatenation of events – intentional, as I threw together the Book of Esther, the Book of Daniel, the martyrdom of Stephen (as told in Acts chapters 6 and 7 (as well as Acts 8:2, 11:19, and 22:20), and various parts of the life of the Apostle Paul as told in the Pauline Epistles (and yes, I DID go to Bible College (at the time it was known as Golden Valley Lutheran College, which grew out of the old Lutheran Bible Institute).
I’ve been working on it for the past sixteen years, but because I was stressing out, I stopped doing the story as blog entries and set it aside, combining all of the entries into one document. Then I stopped because I had NO idea what to do next. The file sat idle for another two or three years until, about a year ago, I set out to finish it.
Taking the raw story, I colorized everything I’d written about each of the characters. Daniel and his partners, Shadrach, Meshak, and Abednego became Artificial Humans – DaneelAH (in honor of Asimov’s R. Daneel Olivaw), HanAH, AzAH, and MishAH because their Hebrew names were Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. Ashpenaz, the Chief Official in charge of the captured Hebrews, gave them the Babylonian names Belteshazzar, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. I also changed the gender of Azariah and Mishael to women; and Queen Esther became Consort Aster. Then Stephan became Stepan Izmaylova and Paul became Paolo Marcillon.
The novel is so far beyond what I expected, I am in fact, in awe of what I created. There are four million Humans and Artificial Humans on Mars; there’s an anti-religion called the United Faith in Humanity – an idea out of which grew a Manifesto: “UFiH (spoken, ‘You-fee’ banned Christians, molesters , Jews, rapists, Buddhists, murderers, Muslims, thieves, Hindus, and embezzlers. While it doesn’t say so specifically, an ardent UFiH-er implies that it is "‘of course’ against racists, sexists, or any other kind of ‘-ists." They’ll swear that the intent is to prevent fanaticism and taxing a young civilization – but the honest ones will admit that part of the injunction is against mind or heart, and the other part is against biology.”
Over the past sixteen years, the civilization expanded, technology arose that I’d never considered: sybils, mindbombs, gMod disks and transports, airships, and in addition to the Domes, there suddenly appeared Stations (which became Quianshao, as well as Outposts…
And people! Lately I’ve wondered if my intent was to write an antiracist novel. My Artificial Humans (the slang word is inti) are property and are deliberately made blue-skinned so they can’t hide from the natural-born Humans (aka utes (= uterine-born)…the parallels are obvious and I hope I’ve written them with sensitivity and diversity. I’ve written elsewhere on the blog about my quest to become both a better writer and to not shy away from issues of race and racism: “POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAY: “It’s a Mistake To Write About People of Different Ethnicities…” (https://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2020/07/possibly-irritating-essay-its-mistake.html). Not only did I teach at a racially and socioeconomically diverse high school, we (my wife and I, and at one time two kids and a foster daughter…and various long-term guests…) live in a city that was recently head-lined for both US news programs and on the BBC News headlines: Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, as of 2021, the MOST racially diverse city in the state (https://www.homesnacks.com/most-diverse-cities-in-minnesota/). Thinking of race is something that is, here, LEARNED-or-else.
At any rate, my Mars, the Mars of the United Faith in Humanity is in crisis. As a result of a concatenation of events – intentional, as I threw together the Book of Esther, the Book of Daniel, the martyrdom of Stephen (as told in Acts chapters 6 and 7 (as well as Acts 8:2, 11:19, and 22:20), and various parts of the life of the Apostle Paul as told in the Pauline Epistles (and yes, I DID go to Bible College (at the time it was known as Golden Valley Lutheran College, which grew out of the old Lutheran Bible Institute).
I’ve been working on it for the past sixteen years, but because I was stressing out, I stopped doing the story as blog entries and set it aside, combining all of the entries into one document. Then I stopped because I had NO idea what to do next. The file sat idle for another two or three years until, about a year ago, I set out to finish it.
Taking the raw story, I colorized everything I’d written about each of the characters. Daniel and his partners, Shadrach, Meshak, and Abednego became Artificial Humans – DaneelAH (in honor of Asimov’s R. Daneel Olivaw), HanAH, AzAH, and MishAH because their Hebrew names were Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. Ashpenaz, the Chief Official in charge of the captured Hebrews, gave them the Babylonian names Belteshazzar, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. I also changed the gender of Azariah and Mishael to women; and Queen Esther became Consort Aster. Then Stephan became Stepan Izmaylova and Paul became Paolo Marcillon.
Paolo’s sections were all red, Aster’s all purple, Stepan’s green, and DaneelAH, HanAH, MishAH, and AzAH all became blue. After identifying all of the sections of each character (or set of characters), I grouped them all together. That was done about five years ago, at the beginning of the summer of 2020.
It was daunting because my plan was to rotate the story through the four storylines, occasionally crossing them, but with the intent of everyone being in the same place at the same time for one final event. But what event would that be? What could possibly bring such disparate characters to the same place at the same time? As the story had evolved, they were scattered across the surface of Mars – Aster was in Opportunity Dome; Paolo in Robinson Dome then Burroughs Dome, and finally Bradbury…then up to Ísgrunnur on the North Dune Sea…Stepan was in Burroughs, and DaneelAH, et al started in Malacandra and ended up everywhere else…I’d never thought far enough ahead.
So, I created a Revolution that Paolo first, then the others were working to turn into a Reformation of Martian society into one that would include Humans, Artificial Humans, and Artificial Intelligences as equal partners in the colonization and eventual terraforming of Mars. Of course, I had to include the Face on Mars – but not as something woo-woo. It’s really there, though not actually a “face”. It’s something more.
You’ll have to read MARTIAN HOLIDAY to find out starting December 23 -- a couple months from now. If you DO have specific questions, post them in the Comments below. I’ll answer them – directly if they don’t concern the plot; and in a roundabout way if they do!
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