WRITING ADVICE: Lin Oliver: Be Part of a Community

While I've been a member of a couple of writer's groups and communities, none of them have been tremendously helpful. Maybe it's my definition of "helpful"? If I'm going to be part of a writer's community, I have certain expectations:

1) The group should be professional and non-emotional in its critique of my work and/or career plans.

2) The group should be "on top of" the trends in whatever genre they mostly write in and they should know the writers in that field as well.

3) The group should be at the same place in their writing or very nearly so. Too much difference would make for people being unable to WORK TOGETHER.

4) The group should be people WORKING TOGETHER.

5) The group should be able to tool itself to be a sometime forum to discuss issues and concerns that directly relate to writing.

Maybe I expect too much?

The first group I auditioned for had me share a story for critique. I was moving toward being a professional and I needed to see if they could help me grow that way. So I submitted a story I'd recently sold to an editor from CRICKET MAGAZINE. The individuals in the group unanimously told me that the story wasn't ready for submission yet. One included the "fact" that kid's magazines don't buy that "science fiction stuff" -- especially not the highest ones. I declined the group's invitation to join.

My second try was a group that was looking at expanding. It was an open invitation and after sitting with them at a coffee shop, we declared ourselves compatible. Until one of the members quit their day job to write a SF novel. When they shared it with us, the group found it to be...not spectacular. Our critiques sent the writer screaming into the hills where they write reviews for a bookstore newsletter to this day. The second member wrote two novels without me (I don't know how much the other member critiqued) -- I didn't have anything to do with their career. They wrote a third novel a decade later plus a few short stories...then disappeared. The third wrote a slough of short stories, was published widely and influenced the genre. Then they wrote a first novel and a second novel. Their third novel garnered a major SF award. The person wrote a fourth novel based on a movie -- and disappeared to start a new family and live life. I stayed in touch with them and was recently invited to write for their blog.

I had to work for another ten lonely years before getting my first SF sale to a major magazine. I sold several pieces over the next few years...then hit a brick wall. I've sold only a few things in the past four years, only one or two in the genre, one of which got a Nebula nomination! I joined a couple of professional groups and while they were very professional, I don't know that they've helped me or nurtured my growth as a writer.

All this to say, that I am not a fan of writer's groups and they haven't worked for me -- and I will be part of one of the professional communities, but continue to pretty much write on my own. I wish I could be more positive about this one, but...well, that's just me. You probably have GREAT stories to share! So, share away!

Slice of PIE: GOD IN THE ALLEY

God has no home in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

He lives in the streets with the homeless men, women and children of the fifth largest city in North America. Most of us would be happy if he’d just stay there, ministering to “those” people.

But in GOD IN THE ALLEY by Greg Paul, God the Homeless intrudes into the lives of most of us, the rich.

“I’m not rich!” you’ll exclaim. I would certainly take up the same cry if I’d never passed through a Chadian refugee camp in northern Cameroon; driven through downtown Lagos, Nigeria; strolled a bazaar outside of a Western hotel in Monrovia, Liberia; helped lay the foundation for an orphanage in Haiti; spent a night in a homeless shelter in Washington, DC; or passed out food in a soup kitchen in Minneapolis.

But I’ve done all of those things and by the standards of most of those few places, I am rich beyond measure.

So? “Here it comes, another guilt trip! Well, let me tell YOU, Mr. Guy…”

But before you tell me off, can I add that we are rich because Greg Paul has shared a bit with us about his ministry in Toronto. We are rich because he asks us to join him in any way we can. You can’t just drop everything, move to Toronto and join God right there? Some people DID, but if it’s not your calling, then send money. Right now, charitable giving is down and ministries everywhere are pulling back because of tight funding. Others are retreating under the onslaught of tremendous need and climbing numbers – there are more people suffering in North America today that yesterday.

We are rich.

If you can’t go to Toronto or send money, you can do something in your own state or province. Do something in your own city or town. Do ANYTHING. Pray – that will cost you nothing, only time on your knees, though we can do that because Jesus’ death and resurrection paid the price for that priviledge.

When I was in the refugee camp, there was nothing material that I could do that would have changed that hellish place. Dump trucks of cold, hard cash would not have solved the essential problems of the camp. Sin has always been the root of suffering and donations won’t cancel sin (Martin Luther pointed that out once).

So – I sigh a sigh of relief! A couple minutes of prayer here and there for the poor of Toronto should admirably discharge my duty! Before I finish my breath though, I need to remember that old saw: “Prayer doesn’t change God – it changes us.” (As far as I can tell, C.S. Lewis never said this – whoever wrote the script for the movie, “Shadowlands” said it…) Once I start with that homeless woman with the shopping cart on the corner, I might find God calling me to pray wider and wider and wider. I may abruptly find myself on the streets of Toronto, in charge of a ministry in the name of the God who has no home in Toronto, Cameroon, Nigeria, Chad, Minnesota, Minneapolis...

http://www.toronto.ca/invest-in-toronto/tor_overview.htm
http://www.sanctuarytoronto.ca/ (Greg Paul’s ministry)
http://www.w-r-s.com/blog/2008/11/19/charitable-giving-down-in-2008/
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28916152/ (Overwhelmed by homeless…)

MARTIAN HOLIDAY 1: Paolo -- Robinson City

Roman holiday: entertainment acquired at the expense of others' suffering, or a spectacle yielding such entertainment (Webster's New World Collegiate Dictionary @2009)

Paulo Marcillon brushed ochre dust from his outsuit but froze mid-motion. Words of Jesus leaped into his head: “…shake the dust off your feet…it will be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah than this city…”

He wasn’t ready to write off Robinson City just yet. Burroughs, Clarketown and Bradbury had pushed a few dozen Christians out their airlocks without suits since the Pogrom began. But not RC.

Shuddering and sloughing dust, he skinned from his outsuit, hanging it with the others. A moment later, the inner airlock irised like an old-fashioned camera shutter and he stepped through. Wildly different smells roared around him: baking bread, incense, flowers, too-strong perfume, rotten potatoes, machine oil, French fry grease. The noise pummeled his ears after the silence of his hike from the rover: at least six languages, transuranic rock music, squeal of a pulley belt, thunder of air moving in an immense space. The door closed behind him and if it weren’t for his disguise, everyone would know who he was.

The Areopagus of Robinson City, modeled on one idea of its ancient counterpart outside of Athens, Greece on Earth, was a “big piece of rock”. The city founders had carved an immense disk of sandstone from the surface of Mars, polished, sealed it and kept it floating a meter off the ground with an antigrav field. A school cluster of children boiled like chattering steam after their android teacher as it said, “…stop young learners, will be the hydroponic farms…” past him.

Paulo slipped through the crowds, making for the disk where it floated over a hectare of space. He stopped to stare at it and around the edge of the giant park. A massive Earth oak spread its branches over the stone of the Areopagus. Scattered over it were gold sand concrete benches, chairs, patches of Earth grass and countless fat blue pillows. Men, women, children, robots, androids and holograms reclined, talked, argued, sang and gestured widely. He took a deep breath.

When he was a ten-year-old, Dad and Dad had brought him here after they’d immigrated from Earth. Then, Solar enhancing lights added to the pale light of the distant Sun hanging in the dark blue sky. There’d been a church with spectacular circle of blue and red stained glass on one side, a synagogue with a brushed iron menorah over there; a Buddhist temple with a lovingly carved façade of wood imported at great cost from Earth beside it; standing not far away had been the elegant, perfectly square polished basalt entryway to the Rationalist Forum. All were closed now. In the place of the Forum was a softly glowing mural with the subdued humaniform logo of the Unified Faith in Humanity. Paulo blew out a breath. Mars had resisted the proclamation of UFH from Earth, choosing to remain eclectic in its religious tastes. They fancied themselves homo post-hominem and flexibly tolerant. But Earth had had enough of religious fanaticism, so it banned and outlawed all religions, merging spiritual beliefs into one, non-proselytizing faith in Humanity.

Then FirstDome of Mars blew up and killed eighteen hundred and twenty-six men, women and children. An evangelical Christian gang and a radical Buddhist gang were having a turf war and a Jewish gang and a Muslim gang had gotten drawn into it. There was an accident. The media spun the gang war into an intentional terrorist attack. Mars panicked and attacked, the resulting pogrom making Earth’s legal maneuver look reserved by comparison.

Today? Paulo took a deep breath. There were still enough underground believers – both on Earth and Mars – to equip a small army. But they wouldn’t fight. That would only make things worse. So he’d been chosen: to talk. To the people of Robinson City. He stood at the edge of the Aeropagus,

He looked down at his feet. Unlike his namesake, he had a cloak of invisibility, a device that would slowly short-circuit the anti-gravity grid holding up the Areopagus disk and a few other tricks up his sleeve just in case. He walked up the steps, kept going until he found an open bench and sat, his heart pounding. He held his breath as people noticed and those who might want to hear what he had to say stepped toward him. When he had a polite crowd, he waved to the mural and said, “People of Robison City, I can see you’re a spiritual people.”

There were nods. An elderly woman approached, flanked by a young woman. She sat in a grav chair, nodded to him and smiled as her chair settled. Encouraged, Paulo said, “I know, from traveling over Mars that no one else produces as much oxygen and iron from the sand as you do. I’ve heard that innovation is encouraged here in a way that it’s not encouraged anywhere else. Last of all, I know you celebrate each other and stick tight together in just about every way.” He’d have been surprised if anyone had argued. Robinson City WAS well known for all of those things. He held his breath then plunged ahead, “That’s why I was surprised when I heard that you readily joined the Unified Faith in Humanity.” Grumbling mutters in those gathered. The old woman frowned faintly.

“Why it surprises me is that in order to get everything to work so well here, you have to have met the challenges face-to-face. You had to understand the nature of Humanity better than anyone else in order to get people to work together so well. You had to know more about people than they knew about themselves.” Surprised silence. Every eye on him, focused and listening right now as he said, “That’s why I have no doubt that you understand that Humanity is made up of more than just the body, mind and heart. It has a soul that belongs to something outside of itself.” Several people had joined the outer fringes and a pair of teenagers crawled between the feet of their elders. Paulo said, “I’m here to say that the soul belongs to the Water God – who, like a pot of snow on a hot stove is solid, liquid and gas yet water all the same, the God of Heaven is Father forever, Son crucified and alive again and Spirit of unimaginable power yet all the same. That’s who we belong to.” There was laughter, angry mutters and words that sounded like “slavery” and “haters” and “terrorists”. Rather than shouting over them though, Paulo’s voice lowered as he said, “God wants us to turn away from evil and come to Him.” He stood abruptly, ending his session.

Many people drifted away, but some stayed. The woman in the floater approached him and raised herself up until they were face-to-face. She said, “You should leave here quickly, young man. Some have gone to fetch the mind police.” She smiled faintly. “You know, even your Christian forebears had friends in high places who believed that people should be able to choose for themselves what they believe. Some of them never became Christians themselves.” She waved gently. “Go, son. Go! You have other places to share your gospel.”

He hurried back to the lock and slid into his outsuit. Dust still clung to it. Biting his lower lip, he sealed the helmet and careful not to knock the dust from his boots, he cycled out and back on to the surface of Mars.

WRITING ADVICE: Lin Oliver – “Be Brave In Getting Your Work Out There”

(For all of my WRITING ADVICE, go right to Labels and click on WRITING ADVICE...)

OK! Even before I heard Lin speak, I’d started doing this one. NOT the contest thing, though I’ve entered my fair share of them in the past, I prefer the grants, works-in-progress and guest blogs.

Example – I’ve been working on three story lines in my blog here. Three VERY different story lines.

First is a YA science fiction novel – HEIRS OF THE SHATTERED SPHERES that I’ve been writing in various incarnations for the past five or six years. After eight months of writing flash fiction in this universe, I’ve gotten comments and have grown much, much closer to having a clear image of what I want to say and how I want to go about saying it. Readers of all ages have offered up commentary and suggestions. I’m SO comfortable with HEIRS now that this summer, the flash fiction will come down and I’ll get to work on the novel that I’ve been practicing for!

Second is the middle grade flash fiction for my fantasy, THREAT OF MAGIC (which is, in fact, the name of the SERIES of books I’m planning). This has been a larger adventure for me. I am very selective in the fantasy I read. For example, I read the original SWORD OF SHANARRA by Terry Brooks, tried to read the second and gave up because of overwhelming déjà vu. I’ve avoided the series ever since despite the sprawling breadth of the story. I’ve never read Jordan’s THE WHEEL OF TIME; read the first nine books of Katherine Kurtz’s DERYNI books then stopped because of serious déjà vu there as well; Donaldson’s UNBELIEVER books; CHRONICLES OF NARNIA; LORD OF THE RINGS…well, I guess I have read some fantasy. Anyway, THREAT OF MAGIC is intended to answer CS Lewis’ question “…to some Maryland fifth graders in 1954: “[What if]…there were a land like Narnia and…the Son of God, as he became a Man in our world, became a Lion there…what would happen.[?]'" I’ve created Heartland. Qii, the sorcerer has revived Magic to overthrow technology that has made life better for everyone and brought peace to Heartland. Two kids from our world, both of whom are alive because of our science and technology, are called to Heartland to join with the lampmaker and become part of the quest to stop Qii before he subjugates everyone to his magic.

Third is my adult inspirational fiction, THIRTEEN SQUARE MILES. These stories take place among the people who attend Shingle Creek Community of Christ. They are decidedly varied and deeply committed to the Great Commission of Christ. I think of it as a collision between the kind, rural world of Jan Karon’s MITFORD books and the life most people live on the outskirts of large metropolitan areas – like North Minneapolis. I love the peace, kindness and enduring commitment to Jesus of the MITFORD books – but wondered what would have happened if the characters lived in a big city. THIRTEEN is my exploration of the lives of characters like that.

Oh – a few years ago, I accepted an invitation to write an essay in a blog administered by Bruce Bethke. He’s an old friend of mine as well as winner of the Philip K. Dick Award for his humorous science fiction novel HEADCRASH. He’s written other things as well and has maintained a blog for four years. He is letting some of the readers of his blog, THE RANTING ROOM (http://rantingroom.blogspot.com/ ), lead the Friday Challenge and post occasional essays (like the one I posted there on December 13, 2008 (http://rantingroom.blogspot.com/2008_12_01_archive.html )). I received and accepted the invitation to be a regular (unpaid!) contributor to the new site.

Finally, I’m blogmaster and occasional blogger for my church’s website as well: http://discoverchurchcommunityblog.blogspot.com/ and http://www.discoverchurchnetwork.org/index.php/blog/ .

The upshot of this is that if I can be brave and get my writing out there (the above is in addition to working on novels and short stories and submitting them in the usual fashion!) then anyone reading this can follow Lin’s advice and do the same!

Slice of PIE -- Acts 16, the Demon and Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing

Weird connections, I know, but bear with me for a few moments as I outline the bits of data drifting into my head and I’ll see if I can make my case. It all started as I read the following verses from the MESSAGE:

I. “One day, on our way to the place of prayer, a slave girl ran into us. She was a psychic and, with her fortunetelling, made a lot of money for the people who owned her. She started following Paul around, calling everyone's attention to us by yelling out, ‘These men are working for the Most High God. They're laying out the road of salvation for you!’ She did this for a number of days until Paul, finally fed up with her, turned and commanded the spirit that possessed her, ‘Out! In the name of Jesus Christ, get out of her!’ And it was gone, just like that.” (Acts 16: 16-21)

II. The Recession is on my mind as well, now that one of the Big Three/Four/Five/Six science fiction and fantasy print magazines, Fantasy &Science Fiction is going from a monthly magazine to bi-monthly. Newspapers are closing down right and left (the Star Tribune of Minneapolis is now officially bankrupt and the Pioneer Press is a shrinking interest…). Book publishers are declaring acquisition freezes (except for Danielle Steel, Stephen King, Jodi Piccoult and other blockbusterwriters). Borders is either gonna get bought by someone or go totally belly up.

III. Even so, people are reading more according to The New York Times online (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/12/books/12reading.html?_r=2 ).

IV. Add to the mix the clarion call from sundry publishers, web mavens, writers and agents that bellow: “Books are dead! Long live the Kindle – or whatever takes its place! Viva la Presse sans rédacteurs en chef!” (That last part, for those of you who don’t read French, was “Long live the Press without editors!”)

CONCLUSION

Isn’t this what the whole “revolution” is all about: people getting rid of the editors? Without realizing it, we’re looking at the total democratization of the publishing industry. I can go online and read whatever I want – ANYONE can publish ANYTHING they want and they do. At long last, the publishing industry is free of those pesky editors – the demons have been exorcised! Writers with important things to say and publishers who have the equipment to publish a zillion books or a single book can get together, exchange their dollars and publish or print anything they want to with no one to gainsay them.

I'm not talking about the disappearance of copy editors – we’ll still need those people to read and make corrections when writer’s who don’t know where to place apostrophes’ make miskates. We’ll still need agents to make the cash arrangements with the publishers. What I’m talking about are the men and women who look at a “submission” (don’t you hate that word and what it implies?) and decide most of the time to send back notes saying, “Dear Contributor, Your attached/enclosed submission does not meet our present needs. Thank you for submitting…”

Editors who say “No, thank you” are no longer necessary in the New Publishing Order. With the internet, anyone can create a niche for those who are writing what they want to read and welcome contributions from like-writing people. Together they can run an online magazine that’s slick and cool and very, very focused.

PREDICTION

I predict that with the casting out of the editorial demon, awards will disappear as well: the Hugo, the Gandalf, the Lovecraft, the PKD, the Rita, the Stoker, the Edgar, the Seiun, Locus Readers, the Newbery, Anlabs – all of them will be gone. The reason might be summed up in the querulous voice of individual writers, “Who do They think They are? Our writing is just as good as Theirs! We’ll make an award and give it to ourselves! Who is ANYONE to tell Us what is good or best or award-worthy?”

"Years Bests" will also disappear enmasse: A recent casualty of the recession – I believe a result of the exorcising of editors – is the anthology, Years Best Fantasy and Horror (http://lcrw.net/wordpress/?p=768). If anyone can select stories that me and my niche like, print it and slap a slick cover over it and call it the Year’s Best, then who will gainsay us?

PARTING WORDS

By the way, the end result of the exorcism of the demon from the girl is outlined in verse 22 of Acts 16: “When her owners saw that their lucrative little business was suddenly bankrupt, they went after Paul and Silas, roughed them up and dragged them into the market square.”

Without them demonic editors, I believe that publishing might degenerate into tiny, tiny cliques of self-congratulating writers who break their arms by patting themselves on their backs as publishers, who are open to any deal involving cash, willingly publish whatever said writers want to be published.

I’ll leave the interpretation of verse 22 as it applies to writers and publishers to your imagination…

POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAYS: Foipiargnaaadi

God gave us humor to make us Human…and we play with language in order to make ourselves laugh. Take for example the silly words we create.

HOBBIT: The vast majority of those of you reading this know that this word is a pronoun denoting a very specific imaginary being as depicted in JRR Tolkien’s LORD OF THE RINGS novels.

NARNIA: A large number of you know that this is a proper noun attached to an imaginary land found in the works of English author, C. S. Lewis.

GROK: Nowhere near as many of you would know that Robert A. Heinlein made up this Martian word to explain a process or state of being somewhat related to “knowing” or “understanding” and the laughter its use engendered in the early 1960s.

FOIPIARGNAAADI: None of you will recognize this as a word meaning something like “the humorous power of made up words”. That’s because myself, my wife and four young adults (two of them related to us, two of them not) invented it one night playing an impromptu game of SCRABBLE®. We even invented grammar! The triple “a” pluralizes the word and the suffix “di” feminizes the noun. Why did we do this then conclude the game with gales of laughter?

I think it’s because on Earth, language (and the humor it creates) is innate and perhaps even unique to Humans. Don’t get me wrong. Every living thing communicates. There are levels of communication as well. Few people would question that flax plants and flatworms communicate differently than orcas and octopi. I think I’m safe in saying that two adult chimpanzees with four young adult chimpanzees in a safe environment at a Primate Research Center somewhere would be unlikely to make up a word, create a simple grammar then find the whole thing amusing.

I contend that it is the “spark of the divine” in us – or bluntly, the hand of God on us – that gives Humans the ability to use language of extreme complexity. In the Bible, Numbers 22 tells the tale of a man who was beating his donkey who had refused to walk past an angel because it recognized that the angel was about to kill the man. The man’s name was Balaam. In the end, the angel granted the donkey the ability to speak to the man. Even the rankest “animals-are-the-same-as-humans” activist and those who believe that animals deserve all the protection granted humans under law, would find it hard to credit this story as fact. So even they must grant that there are more complex ways to communicate and simpler ways to communicate.

Humor is communication at its most complex and least understood. “What makes us special is the range and amount of laughter we seek and produce, which in large part stems from our unique evolution, as well as our culture. Indeed, as Martin writes (p. 3): ‘…being able to enjoy humor and express it through laughter seems to be an essential part of what it means to be human.’” (Evolutionary Psychology www.epjournal.net – 2008.6(1): 90-95 Book Review Survival of the Funniest: A review of Rod Martin, Psychology of Humor: An Integrative Approach. Elsevier Academic Press, Email: Humorology@gmail.com)

It is the complexity of humor, given to us by God that separates us from the animals. While it’s been said that “a monkey hitting keys at random on a typewriter keyboard for an infinite amount of time will almost surely type a given text, such as the complete works of William Shakespeare.” (The Infinite Monkey Theorem: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_monkey_theorem ), the same article goes on to explain that the obvious meaning isn’t the significant meaning of this statement. Monkeys aren’t going to write “Much Ado About Nothing” because monkeys aren’t Human.

All this to say that God gave us humor to make us Human…and we play with language in order to make ourselves laugh. Which is of course, ancillary evidence for this statement as well: God has a sense of humor… ;-)

WRITING ADVICE: Lin Oliver – Set Goals With Deadlines

(For all of my WRITING ADVICE, go right to Labels and click on WRITING ADVICE...)

No truer words were ever spoken – again, and again, and again. This is because I need to hear it again, and again, and again!

I’ve been published (look to your right for a partial list), but I need to be continually reminded that I have to set goals for myself. For example, this morning I finished Draft # 2 of my YA novel, VICTORY OF FISTS. I’m following the advice of one of the few articles I saw in THE WRITER that I took to heart and became part of my writing canon. (January 2006, “Get your novel written in 3 drafts” by Kelly Jones-Enger, referenced here http://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2008/10/writing-advice-first-report-on-flash.html ). I approached the agent who sparked the novel and was horrified when he referred to it as “FIGHT CLUB for YA”. I wanted to scream. So in “The big cleanup”, I’ve rewritten the first chapter to emphasize my main character’s struggle: to transform his fighting rage into poetry as Muhammed Ali, King David and Sri Aurobindo did.

My deadline for submitting a complete MS to either an agent or editor is January 31 – and YES, I know the publishing industry is in free fall, but someone will be publishing books in the next two years and I might as well be one of the ones published, right? The deadline for submitting my adult SF novel, INVADER’S GUILT to an editor or agent, is May 31, 2009.

At any rate, I also maintain goals for this blog: publish something every Thursday and Sunday. My “flash-fiction” pieces (THREAT, THIRTEEN and HEIRS) are all explorations of worlds I’ve created and practice in, developing character and setting. Once I am finished with the third draft of VICTORY and INVADER’S, I will pull all of the HEIRS pieces off the blog and begin the YA novel of the same name. I’ll begin a new set of flash-fiction pieces called THE RECONSTRUCTION OF MAI LI HASTINGS with the view of writing that novel…well, you get the idea.

Lin pointed out that for her, GOALS = dreams + deadlines. I agree. My dream has been to get published and with the deadlines above and ones still to come, my goals will be met!

SLICE OF PIE: Shortened Lives and the Real Culprit

Walter M. Miller, Jr. (A Canticle for Liebowitz); H. Beam Piper (Little Fuzzy); Alice Sheldon – aka James Tiptree, Jr. (the Tiptree Award and “The Screwfly Solution”); Robert E. Howard (Conan the Barbarian, et al); Thomas Disch (guru of the New Wave) (http://www.recreatingtampa.com/readingtampa/2008/07/07/thomas-disch-1940-2008/)...

All of these SF/F/H writers have something in common: they left this world before their time. I do not doubt that before or after their memorials or funerals, someone wondered out loud, “Why did God take him/her so young?”

I was at a funeral recently of a young man who had been a student of mine. One of a pair of identical twins, he was an off duty police officer who lost control of his car during a blizzard and hit one car which knocked him into the oncoming traffic where he was struck by another. Someone I know said, “Why did God take him so young?”

I could try to be sensitive and politically correct about my response to this, but I don’t feel like it: God didn’t “take him”. God didn’t “take” any of the SF writers above. They didn’t take their own lives, either.

The real culprit, Satan, the Devil, the Deceiver took them early, because he hated them, just as he hates everyone who is human.

God is NOT in the business of cutting lives short, careers short or anything short. He doesn’t get a kick out of thwarting our futures. He knows the plans He has for us and if we choose to walk in His will, those plans will unfold. Few people would argue that H. Beam Piper had more than a few good stories left to tell. Walter M. Miller, Jr. was never able to finish his edits of the sequel to Canticle, which was passed off into the capable hands of Terry Bisson.

God the Comforter opens his arms to those crushed by acts of Satan. He offers a shoulder on which to cry. He offers to weep with us NOT because He can’t control Satan, but because Satan was granted control of this world long ago by our ancestors. Satan remains in control when ANY person makes a conscious choice to perform a true act of evil. He will remain in control until we choose together to cede control back to God. Until then, He offers comfort and joy to those who want it.

So when you’re around me, please stop blaming the God of the Universe for the acts of a petty local tyrant. It’s Satan, not God, who is the culprit that kept us from the rest of the Little Fuzzy stories God had planned for us…

A CHRISTMAS RUMINATION

It occurred to me this morning that other bloggers like Nathan Bransford and Bruce Bethke have somewhere stored, a Christmas blog they trot out each year to look at and revisit. Below is my attempt at this venerable tradition…

Like many people, I have Christmas traditions.

I watch Jim Carrey’s HOW THE GRINCH STOLE CHRISTMAS. I check out a copy of Dicken’s A CHRISTMAS CAROL (the version with Patrick Stewart, Star Trek:TNG’s Jean-Luc Picard playing Ebenezer Scrooge). I snuggle up to the TV to listen to Burl Ives sing in the animatronic version of RUDOLPH THE RED-NOSED REINDEER. Of course I read the Christmas story from Luke 1:1 – 2:20, but I dig out my old December 1997 issue of ANALOG and reread “Easter Egg Hunt: A Christmas Story” by Jeffrey Kooistra. I also find time alone to watch the video tape of a Christmas musical I scripted with music and lyrics by an old, old friend of mine, Lynn Bell. The musical was called “Just In Time For Christmas” and was a children’s time-travel version of A CHRISTMAS CAROL with a couple of twists. Performed twice by a huge cast of kids from my church, it included both my son as an Outsider-sort of angel and my daughter as a shepherd who was watching her fields by night.

I conclude then that for me Christmas is about the past. It ranges from ancient times in far-away Israel to present day kerfuffles about what to do Christmas day when my sister is in Virginia with her “other” family and our get-together last Saturday was postponed because of a frigid blizzard and moved to January sometime and will include celebrating my mom’s 75th birthday and the fact that I’ll be working most of today at Barnes & Noble and Mom and Dad are coming for Christmas Eve dinner and I won’t be around to help get ready. This past includes my daughter’s concern about the commercialization of Christmas that led her to ask us to spend the money we would have used on her to get a sewing machine for an organization that teaches women in northern India to sew for a living.

On the other hand, my son loves to seek out just the right gift for each person and disdains gift cards – he loves the giving part of Christmas. He started the small avalanche of gifts under the tree right now when he set out his college-student-meager presents.

My wife was talking to a cashier at a local warehouse grocery story a few hours ago and asked what the day held for her. The woman said that she hated working Christmas Eve because people were so crabby – they yell at cashiers because the store is out of “stuff” and if anyone bumps their cart, they explode into anger. As we walked out into a flurry of gently falling, diamond sparkling “crystal rain” (see Tobias Buckell’s fabulous book, CRYSTAL RAIN to discover the origin of that phrase), we talked about the cashier’s observations.

Under the guidance of Our Father Below (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Screwtape_Letters), we have taken a simple attempt to remember the birth of the Son of God and have turned it into a tension-filled extravaganza of over-spending, over-eating and secular glitz that eclipses the original pagan ritual from which it sprang. The original event also included a kerfuffle as well as a brush with governmental bureaucracy, so maybe it was only natural that we perpetuated Mary and Joseph’s search for a place for her to have Jesus by our searches for the perfect gift, food or event.

Take a deep breath, Guy. Perhaps I need to go a bit further back in time; maybe to the announcement the angel made to Mary: “For nothing will be impossible with God.” Luke 1:37. Maybe that’s the message I’ll take from this season – that no matter what happens: kerfuffles, angry shoppers, divergent gifting and traditions; nothing is impossible with God.

Peace on Earth? He can bring it.
Deep security? He can give it.
Salvation for everyone? He did it.

“For nothing is impossible with God.”

Amen.

POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAYS: Can A Truly Passionate Book Fail?

Absolutely and over and over again.

Let’s say I pour my heart into a novel (of course, this is purely a mental exercise) and I finish it, do several drafts, polish it when I can’t think of anything else to fix and then send it off to an editor or agent. Whichever one gets it, reads it, likes it and soon sells it. Marketing departments get behind it (at least they don’t object to it), cover art is commissioned, turned in and the book is put together. A Big Name, Recognizable Writer agrees to say something nice about it for jacket copy. There’s a short wait and then a dramatic launch! Ten thousand copies are printed, the author lines up a book tour around their personal Five-State-Area. Excitement is high, initial sales are good (not Stephen King good – but good nonetheless). Bloggers chat it up, it gets nominated for something or other…And then it’s done: 2356 copies were sold (1254 to your mom), the rest remaindered…those go on the B&N Bargain Racks…and finally it becomes Used Bookstore Fodder.

Cue: crickets chirping, warm muggy air, faint fog swirling around neatly lined up headstones, dead silence

Cue: bass line from Queen’s classic, “Another One Bites The Dust”

Dejected but undefeated, you get another idea, sends it to the editor who politely returns it and says, “Doesn’t look like you talked to anybody. Got anything else?”

What happened to the fervor, passion and excitement of the initial publication – nah, even the initial ACCEPTANCE for publication?

Readers got bored.

Why? Because you didn’t feed one of their causes/vices/political agendas: not titillating enough, not revealing enough, not drugged enough, not about something they already know about and read, not short enough, not “their” political flavor enough, not Harry Potter enough (oh, I already said that), not blood spattered, naked chick, with an exploding vampire wizard enough, or not Obama enough.

Norton Award winner Justine Larbaleister points out: “…the size of your advance says nothing about your capabilities as a writer. It speaks only to your publisher’s assessment of your market value. They can get it wrong. How a book does is very often a crapshoot.”
(http://justinelarbalestier.com/blog/2008/03/11/advances/)

Passion has nothing to do with writing and getting readers. Giving people what they WANT is what it’s all about. The Bible even has something to say about this: “For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.” 2 Timothy 4:3.

In these flagging economic times, writers are worried (as is everyone else). At least one major publisher has laid a moratorium against buying new work -- http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6617241.html . But has anything really changed? Nah – it’s just more of the same. I’m sure if the next J.K. Rowling popped his or her head up, they’d buy. If people said they wanted something, New York would listen and give it to them. So save your passion for the boudoir and find out what readers want and ignore what you want.

Then you’ll be famous – and only then.