IDEAS ON TUESDAYS 243

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.

H Trope: The Abandoned Mall…

Current Event: http://www.kare11.com/news/article/925530/396/Brookdale-Mall-Finally-a-new-life

In the 1978 horror flick, DAWN OF THE DEAD (written and directed by the master horror director, George Romero), after the zombie apocalypse, a mall becomes a refuge for a couple of humans who clean out the zombies and go on a wild shopping spree. Of course, that doesn’t last long and the zombies get in and go on a nasty eating spree…But no one EVER talks about what happened AFTER all the zombies are done eating brains and Humans are all gone…or ever more, what happens if we figure out a way to deal with them, and it becomes a government venture, and then someone has to retire from a job of taking care of the zombies...

“Maybe you aren’t bored with zombies,” said the reporter on the thinscreen computer, “but me and the rest of the Young Alive are zeroing in on stultified unto Death! Zombs are old news, and old news is no news,” she paused. “You are all that’s left of the Crew of the first International Zombie Containment Area, there’s got to be something interesting going on there!”

Ryan Martense rested his chin in his hand. The woman on the screen was young and looked like a celebrity. She was some sort of broadpodcaster or something. He said, “The difference between you and me is that you can ignore zombies. I can’t. Zombies are my business.”

“My point exactly! My generation should learn their history a helluva lot better than they have! I’m trying really…very…hard to not ignore zombies, but I need an relevant, current story in order to interest my listeners and viewers, Mister um,” she looked off screen for an instant, “Martin.”

“It’s Martense and…”

“I need a good interview if you want me to put you back in the spotlight,” she scowled fiercely at him, sighed, adding, “If you think of anything,” she hung up on him.

Ryan made a face, sighed and said, “…call you.” He pushed the creaky old chair away from the desk and touched the thinscreen. It turned transparent. He stared through it, and through the Workhouse’s only real picture window before he finally stood up. Outside, the sun was just rising in all of its watery February glory. It was, of course, a Monday. “The rollers have to roll,” he muttered as he stood up. He crossed his office and opened the door, plucking his jacket from the coatrack, and pulling it on as he hunched against a cold blast of air. Strictly speaking, he didn’t have to roll the Area during the winter because in Minnesota, the ground was frozen solid. But all he had to do was recall the Christmas Uprising twenty-eight years ago, and he’d be out in any weather to keep the buried undead down, revving up the engine and rolling the zombie bones.

He breathed in through his nose, and hurried from the Workhouse across the gravel parking lot as he pulled on his thermal gloves. The last working roller was parked up against the charging plate. Forty-five steel-reinforced natural vulcanized rubber tires in five rows, nine wheels across supported a one million kilo payload bay filled with basalt, steel, and lead and designed to compact rock, sand, and gravel soil as well as crush human bones. The cab was nearly five meters up and then two meters tall itself. The roller had been painted neon green except for black numbers, and varicolored logos and warning signs. Access to the control cabin was by a metal staircase. He stepped up the first flight, stopped on the landing and slapped the retraction pad. The flight folded up so that it rode a meter or so above the surface. As he climbed, he counted the rust patches; remembering why this step bent down and twenty-three clumps later, that step bent up. A gust of frigid air nipped exposed bare skin whenever he reached up for the handrails. Once on the platform, he opened the cab door and slid into the freezing cold bucket seat, jerking the door shut behind himself. Built for a crew of six, he’d used sheets of insulation to make a two-meter-wide cab out of the five-meter-wide original control room. He stabbed the green INITIATE button, and the roller hummed to life.

He stopped shivering as the heater kicked up and a wan sunrise spilled golden light across the Containment Area. He tapped the computer to life. Based on the charging stall he’d parked in, it produced an optimal roll pattern. Ryan settled into the pilot seat and with a control stick in each hand, he pushed both forward and set out, the roller slowly picking up speed.

The eighty hectare IZCA had once been a gravel pit. Originally eight hundred hectares, it had been intensely developed in the decade before the world-wide zombie conflict. When the virus appeared – either some mutation of the flu and Ebola or entirely artificial – it swept around the world. The Conflict started before Ryan graduated from high school, closing all public institutions. After that, he got a job in fast food for a while, paying below minimum wage, leading exactly nowhere. Then the zombies almost won until a physicist from Haiti figured out that a precisely tuned electromagnetic pulse would stun the undead for six to eight hours…

Names: ♂ American

Image: http://img02.deviantart.net/b6de/i/2015/024/d/d/rise_of_zombies_by_ankrie-d8f8231.png

Slice of PIE: STRANGER THAN FICTION and A CHRISTMAS CAROL (1999 TV Movie with Patrick Stewart)

We’ve watched both movies many, many times – but this is the first time I’ve seen them in tandem.

I was startled to see that STF is a reworking of ACC!

It’s just from a different angle...

Let me back up a bit.

Lately, I feel like I’ve hit a wall with my writing. I KNOW I can write well enough to be published in major magazines: ANALOG, CRICKET, CICADA, CAST OF WONDERS, even THE WRITER.

But I have not been able to do so consistently.

Why is that?

Does the quality of my writing vary wildly from professional quality to crap? Sorry, I don’t think so. I’m not that cavalier about editing and rewriting!

Am I in a good mood one day and a bad mood another day and this schizophrenia is reflected in the writing? Doubtful. I don’t think I’ve ever written a story in one sitting. Usually it takes a month or two to finish a short story and over a year to write a novel...

Maybe I should get myself to a shrink and have them see if I have Dissociative identity disorder and there are two or more of me alternately trying to pursue a writing career. *sigh* If only it were that simple, maybe I could get therapy and forge a partnership with the part of me that’s a good writer.

But I don’t think any of those a really the problem.

I think the problem is twofold: character development and choosing the right story to tell.

Back to STF and ACC. Both of the stories are about a crotchety person who has no interest in humanity. One is a loan shark…er…accountant, the other a writer. Both of them employ a caring, kind individual, though with extreme prejudice and make life miserable for that person...while at the same time interacting with them consistently and deeply.

As well, both of them come face-to-face with ghosts. Ebenezer Scrooge quite literally; Karen Eiffel in the form of a man she thought was imaginary who turns out to be quite real.

Both also confront a tragic death that will occur if they continue on in the course of their lives. The dramatic tension in the story keeps us following, wondering if Scrooge will let Tiny Tim die and if Eiffel will let Harold die. Both have a foil against whom they must battle – Scrooge duels with Bob Cratchit and Eiffel fences with Penny Escher.

The same story, turned on its side becomes not ONLY a well-received modern film, but apparently escaped anyone else noticing the connection with a story that has been adapted over a hundred times since its publication in 1843.

So – I need to choose more recognizable stories and adapt them to the things that concern me, and the themes I visit most often in my writing.

Easy, right?

Bah, humbug!

References: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stranger_than_Fiction_(2006_film), http://askville.amazon.com/versions-Christmas-Carol-Patrick-Stewart-version/AnswerViewer.do?requestId=31268843

Image: 1992-10-05 'A Christmas Carol' [Disc 1] by Charles Dickens via ...www.flickr.com

JOURNEY TO THE PORTRAIT’S SECRET #82: July 31, 1946

This series is a little bit biographical and a little bit imaginary about my dad and a road trip he took in the summer of 1946, when he turned fifteen. He and a friend hitchhiked from Loring Park to Duluth, into Canada and back again. He was gone from home for a month. I was astonished and fascinated by the tale. So, I added some speculation about things I've always wondered about and this series is the result. To read earlier SHORT LONG JOURNEY NORTH clips, click on the label to the right, scroll down to and click OLDER ENTRIES seven or eight times. The FIRST entry is on the bottom of the last page.

[Establish that Charlie’s dad’s place is right about HERE – or not too far.]

Edwina Olds, Lieutenant, WACS (ret.), “Ed” by choice, barked, cleared her throat then said, “I do, and we could probably take them all on.” She jerked her chin to one side, “But we now have a bigger problem.”

Both boys said together, “What?”

“We’re running out of gas,” she gestured through the windshield, “And there’s not a gas station within miles.” She paused, “And the tank is almost empty.”

Tommy Hastings let his head roll back. Freddie Merrill leaned to the window and said, “There’s got to be a gas station somewhere! If we run out of gas, we’ll never get home! Then the Communists will get us…”

Tommy and Ed said at the same moment, “Socialists.”

"I don’t care! They’re going to get us!”

“They’re not going to get us. We’ll do something.”

What? What are you going to do? You just said they could beat you up! Kill us! What are we going to do to get rid of them?” Freddie stood up in the cab, banging his head and subsided into cursing her, and Tommy, and Communists, and Socialists, and his father. Tommy knew that if he didn’t stop him, Freddie was gonna start crying – and then he’d stop talking altogether and sulk until they got back home.

Tommy punched Freddie.

In the side of the face because he couldn’t reach around to punch him in the nose.

Freddie’s head bounced off the window and he turned to take a punch at Tommy.

“Stop it!” Ed bellowed. It hurt Tommy’s ears it was so loud.

After a few seconds, Freddie said, “You really were a drill sergeant!”

“I wasn’t a drill sergeant, but I had to break up more than my fair share of unruly seamen fighting. If I didn’t someone else would have, and I was old enough to be some of their mothers, so most of the boys didn’t argue with me. They just broke it up and slunk off before I could assign them duty.”

“You’re not old!” Freddie protested.

“Thirty-four if I’m a day, son.”

“Wow...” Freddie sighed, deflated.

“Sorry to disappoint you, boy, but you’re sittin’ in a truck with a grandma driver. A wrinkled old woman...”

As the truck rumbled into the night, Tommy suddenly said, “Look!” a moment later, he shouted, “Stop, Ed! Stop!”

The truck slowed as Ed applied the brakes. She turned to Tommy, the scowl dark on her face in the green dashboard light, and said, “What in heaven’s name…”

“Back there! FAIRLAINE’S CREAMERY!” Freddie spun around, searching the darkness.

“What’s that?” Ed said, turning her gaze to the back window of the truck.

“We hitched a ride with them on our way up! They have a farm off down the road…”

“I doubt they’d have enough gas...”

“They transport milk! They have one big truck! We rode from here to Duluth in it!”

There was a long silence, then Ed settled down and with a huge grinding of gears, back the truck up slowly until the creamery sign with an arrow pointing right, shone bright in the headlights. She turned to Tommy, “You positive about this?”

“Absolutely!”

“Well then, let’s see if we can fill-er-up!”

Image: http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4020/4590961346_9204d91345_m.jpg

IDEAS ON TUESDAYS 242

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.

Fantasy Trope: magic

Current Event: http://paganwiccan.about.com/od/magicandspellwork/f/Is_Magic_Real.htm

Jakob Josef-Büchel fingered the crest of his grandfather’s homeland then looked up at the piece of it that rested in the box in his lap. With his cell phone tucked between his shoulder and cheek he said, “I just got a box with a golden horn with a gold strap on it.”

Kiena Onorio said, “Sounds cheesy. Just throw it away…”

“I don’t think it’s something I can throw away.”

“Why not?” You have boat loads of junk at your house from your fancy-pants family. You must the only one who celebrates being from the smallest country on Earth.”

“I wouldn’t talk! Kiribati’s awfully small.” Kiena snorted. He knew there was no way she could argue. Instead he said, “How about we settle the argument once and for all?”

“I’ll be over in a minute,” she said. He lived across the street, on Embassy Row on the island nation of New Zealand. She scaled the wall between their compounds, waving at the security guard who watched her. She hated the fact that he thought the two of them were having sex. He wouldn’t have cooperated even if they were the last couple on Earth. He was deeply in love with…

She reached his window and said, “What do you have in mindtwo stones of red coral, one fruit of the non-tree, one old coconut, the first leaf of a seed nut, and the strong green leaf of an old tree”

“A contest,” he said, holding up the horn. She blinked in surprise. The way he’d described it made it sound like it was a cheap movie prop. But the solidity of it, even from across the room, made her feel vaguely uneasy.

She stepped back. “What are you talking about?”

He made a face then said, “What something from Kiribati that you know of that’s supposed to be magic?”

“Magic?”

He held up the horn easily, tossed it in the air, caught it and said, “Yeah. This thing’s supposed to have magical powers. We can figure out who’s got the best country by having a magic contest.”

“I don’t believe in magic,” she replied.

“Right. Is that why you keep make all those little pictures of us together then burning them with an incense stick – because you don’t believe in magic?”

"How do you…” He lifted his chin to the telescope on the veranda of his room. She’d always assumed it was there because his mother was a world renowned amateur astronomer as well as an ambassador to the Democratic Republic of Cameroun. “You didn’t think I liked space, did you?”

She could see where the conversation was going, so she said abruptly, “There’s this old legend that involves two stones of red coral, one fruit of the non-tree, one old coconut, the first leaf of a seed nut, and the strong green leaf of an old tree.”

“Sounds like a lot of crap to me,” Jakob said, laughing.

“The Kiribati stuff is supposed to help me establish a kingdom. What’s that stupid horn supposed to do?”

“When it is blown, the way I hear the story when I was little, it will revive the Kingdom of Bohemia with me as King.”

She shrugged. “So?”

He grinned, “Maybe you’ve heard of the Third Reich, then?”

Names: ♀Kiribati; ♂ Liechtenstein  

Image: http://orig02.deviantart.net/49d1/f/2007/001/4/d/holy_magic_by_derlaine8.jpg

POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAYS: THIS IS WHAT I WANT TO DO!!!!!

Using the panel discussions of the most recent World Science Fiction Convention in Spokane, August 2015, I will jump off, jump on, rail against, and shamelessly agree with the BRIEF DESCRIPTION given in the pdf copy of the Program Guide. This is event #3297. The link is provided below…

Hard SF for Teens

Hard science fiction isn’t just for adults. Kids today are more tech savvy than ever and fiction featuring real (or at least possible) science for teens is gaining steam. However, how hard should a hard SF novel get for young adults? What hard SF is getting it right? Who should we be reading? How can teens effectively pick through those old SF classics that they would find compelling today?

Steven Gould (m), Jennifer Brozek, Fonda Lee, Marissa Meyer, William Campbell Powell

Except for the moderator, I didn’t recognize any of the names on this list, so my first question is “What are these people doing here?”

Your first question should be, “So what if you don’t recognize any of the names? You’re almost sixty years old! What would you know about hard SF for teens?”

I’ll look into the answer to the first in a second. The second I’ll answer right now: I’ve been a middle school and high school teacher for 34 years. I know what kids are reading because I SEE what they’re reading. I talk to them about what they’re reading. I teach summer school classes to the gifted and talented – THEY are the true future of hard SF – and I see and talk to them about what they’re reading. I’d be willing to bet that I have a pretty dang good idea of what they are and are not reading. I worked at Barnes & Noble a couple of years ago, tried to order a set of the Heinlein classics and put them in the Teen section…and they were repeatedly moved back to the “regular” science fiction section because the brick and mortar giant DIDN’T RECOGNIZE THEM AS BEING FOR TEENS, a cursory skim through the twenty-six pages of “hard science fiction for teens” on Amazon didn’t net a single Heinlein book.

So who are these people and what are they doing here?

Steven Gould is described by Booklist as writing “novel[s] straddle the line between YA and adult fiction; its lead character is a teen, but the story has many adult-themed elements”. He also has a couple of the YA “beasts” of his own. Perfect!

 Jennifer Brozek seems to be well-experienced short stories and anthologies – but I’ll say right up front, that is not where and how most teens read. As an author of several RPGs as well as a BattleMech YA novel, she absolutely has the experience. But…not so much with the “beast” itself. And short stories isn’t the usual direction teens take in their reading. The ones I know want to be immersed in story; they want to escape the harsh reality of the here-and-now.

Fonda Lee has a novel, though nothing else published (Internet Speculative Fiction Database).

Marissa Meyers is the author of the best-selling LUNAR CHRONICLES (which consistently remained in the top three spots when my book came out last summer.)

William Campbell Powell is the author of a YA novel.

So all of them are more-or-less qualified to comment on YA hard science fiction.

However, I didn’t see that any of them are intimately involved with their target audience. I didn’t note that they TALK to young adults – though Mr. Campbell Powell and Mr. Gould each have two teens, and Ms. Meyers and Ms. Lee are still very much young adults themselves. However, this is not an absolute qualifier. I have two beasts of my own and they are notoriously opinionated – in my favor.

I would have loved to be there for the discussion and I’ve added books by all of them to my list of “to-reads”. However, the fact remains that I have not SEEN their books on the check-out lists of the high school I work in, and that, in the long run, is where we have to win middle and high school students over to the science fiction camp.

As for the Heinlein books – I love them and collect them, but the loving is more in the memory than in the re-reading. I find their prose clumsy and (also) very privileged “white folk”. Sorry, there’s no other way to write that; which in my own personal book disqualifies them as having any relevance for teenagers today. They live in a diverse world in which HALF of all Americans will speak Spanish as a main language by the year 2050, and it’s nearly impossible to advise kids what to take in school and college to prepare for their future career – because that career may not exist yet.

Maybe that’s what we need to do as SF writers for YA – imagine careers (and games, which is what Fonda Lee has did in her novel) that might be there when they arrive.

That’s my mission. I wonder what the mission is for these others. Tell me if I did OK; read my hard SF novel for YA – a link to it is posted on your right.

(DANG! I need to get to one of these World Cons…someday!)

Program Book: http://sasquan.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/ConGuide.toupload.pdf

Image: http://orig10.deviantart.net/211b/f/2012/355/9/a/shoulder_soldier_by_blazbaros-d5fhpun.png

IDEAS ON TUESDAYS 241

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.

SF Trope: The Arcology + gravity modification (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Arcology)

Current Event: http://www.express.co.uk/news/science/612531/Did-parallel-universe-open-up-Hundreds-see-floating-city-filmed-in-skies-above-China

Amar Shamarki Shimbi shook her head and said, “We can’t modify gravity at that level – not to suspend an entire city secretly over the Chinese Republic!”

Renz Villanueva snorted, “You don’t have to try and hide it from me – everyone knows the East African Federation is experimenting with large scale gMod!”

“I don’t have to hide anything because I don’t know anything.” Renz stared at her, chin down, eyes up. “I don’t! I’m a nobody...”

“I hardly think the daughter of the president of the EAF is a nobody...”

“My MOTHER is a somebody. Daddy’s even somebody because he can do whatever he wants as long as he doesn’t embarrass Mom – and what he chooses to do is stump for free education from pre-K through bachelor’s degree for every EAF,” she said it like someone would say “eef”, “who wants it.”

Renz shook his head and got back to work on their joint “gravity sword”. He straightened up, “You think we can really make a flowing forcefield strong enough to fight with?”

“If we can build a working lightsaber, we won’t have to apply for grants anymore and we can work on figuring out how to really modify gravity – on a large scale!”

“I have to admit, it’ll be fun playing…”

“Who said anything about playing?” Amar exclaimed. “If we can tune these suckers right, they’re going to be real, honest-to-goodness lightsabers!”

He hummed, “They aren’t going to make cool noises like the ones in the movies. The sound comes from the fighter’s connection to the spiritual plane.”

She harrumphed and went back to her laptop, clicking on the story about the supposed city supposedly floating over Shanghai, China. She played the video again, made a strangled sound and leaned forward. Muttering in Somali, she tapped keyboard until she’d managed to zoom in on a tiny speck on the video. “No,” she breathed.

“What’s wrong?”

“I was…”

Names: ♀Somalia; ♂ Philippines     

Image: https://i.ytimg.com/vi/VTxw9t2dGLI/hqdefault.jpg