the prodigal blog

So far, reader reaction to "The Political Prisoner" (F&SF, August) has been everything you dream about as a writer. You know, that thing where the story in your head makes it on to the page in exactly the way that readers get what you're trying to do. Because it doesn't always work that way. Sometimes you got a lot of "WTF were you thinking?" Or even, "What the heck just happened here?"

This time I got lucky.

Jason Sanford made "The Political Prisoner" his story of the week, and gave it a thoughtful analysis.

Charlie Anders, over at io9 writes about terraforming a barren planet with your bare hands, one of the things that was most interesting to me about writing the story.

Anthony Sullivan thought it was worth the price of the magazine.

Leonard at crummy.com said something similar in his review of the issue but what was more fun was the email exchange we had about David J. Chalmers article on consciousness, "Absent Qualia, Fading Qualia, Dancing Qualia," the inspiration for my zombie romance "Fading Quayle, Dancing Quayle," a story which generally provoked much more of the "WTF were you thinking?" reaction I mentioned above. When it provoked any reaction at all.

musingaloud blogged strong reactions to the story and so did rcloenen_ruiz. bluetyson included it on his list of best new stories of 2008, along with "The Rapeworm," the only other story I've had published this year.

Lois Tilton at IROSF, Aliette de Bodard at The Fix, and Sam Tomaino at SFRevu all recommend it.

There have also been good reviews on the message boards at the F&SF website, at Nightshade Books, and at Asimov's.

So. Wow.

And to think: Neil Gaiman gets to feel like this all the time. It's humbling.

What have I learned from all this? In the future, make sure more stories are released on my birthday. It's either that, or write the difficult character stuff again. I still haven't decided.

Jamie Morgan is selling her Denvention membership, best offer:

http://www.dorksinc.com/wordpress/2008/07/17/denvention-membership-for-sale/

Act quick before it's gone!

It's a convenient eReader for iphones and ipods. Does anybody have experience with this app yet? It looks great.

From James Sallis's memoriam to Thomas M. Disch, in the L.A. Times today:

Style is not about word choice, cadence, sentence structure, point of view, momentum; finally, it's not even about writing well.

Style is, finally, the direct reflection of how the writer connects with his or her world, the way in which he or she lets us see our world anew, new perspectives, new visions, new glimmers of comprehension here in darkness.

This struck me as a powerful observation. It's why some writers, very skilled at the craft, never develop a style--they never truly connect with their world or find new ways to see it. This is a particular problem in spec fic, where so many writers are trying to connect with the fiction that came before them instead of the world around them, and although that fiction is also part of the world, it's already at one remove from our readers and ourselves. (Those of us who try to do both run the danger of tipping the balance the wrong directions.) And it's why some writers with almost a negative gift for word choice, cadence, sentence structure, and the rest, can still affect us as readers: they connect.

R.I.P., Tom Disch, who wrote everything with style.

I see that everyone from Cherie Priest to Cory Doctorow to William Gibson has already blogged this, so I'm not sure how much more my spreading the word can help, but albionidaho reports that four Clarion West students had their laptops and some other things stolen. But really, they're writers at a workshop, so it's about the laptops. They have loaners for now, and Clarion West is taking donations to help defray the cost of replacement.

ETA: It appears that the cost of replacements has been met. But I'm sure that any donations to help Clarion West continue their work in general will be welcome.

And here's the story that's a direct result of this post a couple days ago. Thanks to everyone who prodded encouraged me to write it.

( The Cross-time Accountants Fail to Kill Hitler Because Chuck Berry Does The Twist )

...That I May Now Feel Compelled to Write.

Someone was complaining about short fiction slush full of time-travel stories about people trying to kill Hitler and stories with titles that spoil the ending, so I suggested "The Cross-time Accountants Fail to Kill Hitler Because Chuck Berry Does The Twist."

And now, when I should be doing work, I'm thinking, "Okay, exactly how did Chuck Berry get mixed up with the Cross-time Accountants, and would it be better if it was Chubby Checker instead... improved twist but less exciting musician...."

...in Canada, I always remember to say Happy Canada Day! And feel perfectly comfortable making a spectacle of myself in a way that's antithetical to everything my smalltown Midwestern upbringing conditioned me to hold dear. But I'm still Midwestern enough that it won't hurt my feelings if you skip straight to the next post.

raecarson wants to wake up today and make sure that the world knows I am ten years older than her for the next seven weeks. Apparently, old guy + young wife = comedy gold. That bit never gets old for her or the boys... even though I do. Old guy jokes in the comments section will be warmly appreciated.

Here's one:

Two old guys are sitting on a park bench. The first guy says, "My back aches, my stomach hurts, I can't see. God, I feel old."

The second guy says, "Not me, I feel like a newborn baby."

First guy is outraged. He says, "You're in worse shape than I am! How can you feel like a newborn baby?"

Second guy says, "I'm bald, I've got no teeth, and I just wet myself."

...

"The Political Prisoner," in the August issue of F&SF, officially hits newstands today so I'm considering it my birthday present. The original Maxim Nikomedes adventure, "The Political Officer," should appear for free on the F&SF website any hour now, just like a story-shaped party favor. (And here it is, until August 1st, when the link will take you to a different great reprint.) It's great how that worked out. Some early birthday cards:

Over on the F&SF forum, Gary Daumiller enjoyed the new story very much, thought the cover artist must not have read the whole thing, and compares it to Cory Doctorow's Little Brother.

ghostposts also really enjoyed it for some specific reasons that make the author happy.

Colin Harvey thought it was harsh, unrelenting, and uncomfortable, but with some sweetness. Kind of like a bad, store-bought birthday cake. For him, it was so long it weakened the issue overall.

And that's all so far, although the day is yet young. Here is ( an instrumental version of 'Happy Birthday' ) that I love.

Heh. See, that bit never gets old to me. Even when I'm getting old.

I've been a cranky old man about SFWA for the past few years, letting my membership lapse and openly questioning the worth of the organization as it is currently structured.

Despite my crankiness, I have to say that the membership did a good job in last year's election and I wish the new leadership success in pursuing their agenda. And while the structure of the organization is problematic for me, many of the committees -- Writer Beware, the Emergency Medical Fund, Griefcom (the grievance committee, for resolving publisher disputes) -- do great work. Vonda N. McIntyre (whose novel The Moon and The Sun is a brilliant piece of historical SF) recently blogged about Greifcom's help with resolving a contract problem. And because, as my son points out, "you don't really want to be Fox News, dad," I thought I'd link to it and give SFWA some much deserved props.

Paolo Bacigalupi gets interviewed by NPR: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=92008378

It's a good listen if you've already read Pump Six (available from Nightshade Books). If you haven't read Pump Six yet -- and it's essential reading if you follow short form science fiction -- this'll make you want to go buy it.

I'm still not sure, but in my effort to find out I got sidetracked by this:

Kyle MacDonald took one paper clip and progressively traded it into a house. The Canadian blogger began with a red paper clip and posted it on Craigslist.com, later trading it for a pen. MacDonald kept trading things until he finally traded a movie role for a two-story house in Kipling, Saskatchewan.

I don't know what's more amazing, the fact that he did it at all or that it only took him fourteen trades to do it: http://oneredpaperclip.blogspot.com/

Update 6/27/2008: just as I suspected, the #2 paper clips are the size smaller than #1 paper clips. Staples.com helped me be sure of this fact by packing the box of supplies so that the container of 600 #2 paper clips got crushed, spilling everywhere and getting stuck in everything, yelling out to the world, "Hey, lookit me! I'm small, I'm really small!"

Last night, at about 2:45 a.m. while the tail end of the thunderstorms poured rain on us and lightning lit up the sky every few seconds, I wrote "The End" on page 465 of book 2 for the witches in the Revolution.

Parts of it are a mess at this point. It needs a complete edit for continuity. Places where I backfilled story for things that came later read like mad libs -- "Proctor and Deborah (do something awesome)." But it's done! Done done done, I tell you!

Whew. Cause, you know, I'm only about four months behind.

Since June 15, 2007 -- or about a year and a week -- I've written 900 original pages of fiction, the two books and two short stories, and have revised hundreds more. Way more than I could write if I was working only on short fiction. Okay, my agent and editor would be happier if it was about 450 pages more than that, because I still need to turn in book 3 pretty damn quick. But I'm working the full-time job and running teenage kids everywhere, and even though I know other people on my f-list who manage that level of workload all the time, it's a new peak for me. So right now, for the next few minutes, I'm going to let myself feel like a freaking rock star.

Then tonight I'll print off the MS and start editing the second draft. Like a shark, I've got to keep on moving. And I'm already itching to write the first two chapters of book 3, cause I know exactly what happens next.

Publisher's Weekly featured an article this week about four new children's authors, leading with sarah_prineas and mentioning Blue Heaven by name.

I haven't written much about Blue Heaven this year because I've been too busy working on the books, but it's the annual week-long novel writing retreat we hold on Kelleys Island. This year's group included me, Sarah, Tobias Buckell, Paolo Bacigalupi, Sarah Kelly Castle, Deb Coates, Daryl Gregory, Sandra McDonald, Paul Melko, Jenn Reese, Cat Valente, and Greg van Eekhout. Six of us did a group signing at a Barnes & Noble in Columbus before the retreat, where we moved about $1,000 worth of books (and could have moved more -- three of us sold out of our stock). Not bad for a bunch of writers early in our careers.

Five years ago, when we started Blue Heaven most of us were short story writers who hadn't sold a novel yet. We talked about how we would be able to tell we were successful in five years, ten years, and twenty years. Because of the long lead time, we knew we would be successful in five years if people were selling their workshopped books. I haven't done a count recently, but I think over twenty books that have gone through the workshop have sold now. This year's critiques included five books that are already in contract and we were just looking for ways to make them better. By that measure, we're on the way to success. I still wonder about some of the great books we've workshopped there that haven't been finished or haven't sold yet. (And yes, you, I'm looking right at you.) The ten year measure was going to be whether other people were copying the model--there are more good young writers out there than can come to any one retreat, and the twenty year measure was going to be the health of Blue Heaven writers' careers. We'll have to see how those go.

In the meantime, I think it would be fun someday to do a six-week Clarion style workshop for novel writers. I remember when I taught at Clarion in 2005, I asked the students how many of them wanted to be novelists and every single one of them raised their hand. I talked about a novel style workshop with some of this year's Blue Heaven writers, about how to organize it, how to adapt the Blue Heaven model to something longer, what kind of lessons to include.

But before I take something like that on, I've got a lot more to prove with my own writing. I've got one more extended scene to write to finish the draft of the second witches novel. Maybe I'll finish it tonight, probably tomorrow. I'll have to make time to do one editing pass on the whole before I jump right in on the third book.

In the meantime, it's great to see Sarah's name in Publisher's Weekly -- go Sarah! Man, I love the Nevery and Conn books. You're in the big leagues. And it's cool to see Blue Heaven mentioned as one of the steps, along with Cricket, and her other short stories, that got her on the way there.

Fischer is one of the most influential contemporary historians. His books, including Albion's Seed, Paul Revere's Ride, and Washington's Crossing, are essential reading for anyone studying early American history. Fischer writes colorful narrative-driven history, full of vivid incident and detail employed to illustrate big ideas. His books win awards, become bestsellers, and shape historical discourse.

But he makes me crazy!

Let's take one sentence from Washington's Crossing, describing George Washington's cousin Captain William Washington, who led a key infantry charge against the Hessian cannons during the Battle of Trenton. Fischer writes that "Captain William Washington had been severely wounded in the battle of Long Island." He makes a point that, although Washington's wounds hadn't healed, he returned to his unit for the Christmas assault on the British. Brave stuff, making Washington's injuries at the cannon even more compelling. All well and good.

Except Fischer doesn't footnote his source for either Washington's wound or his participation in the battle of Long Island. And his account contradicts all the other documents I've seen, which show that Washington's first combat was at the battle of Harlem Heights, a couple weeks after Long Island, where he was (possibly) wounded. Whether Harlem Heights was his first battle or not, it looks like he participated in it, which he could not have done if he had been so wounded at Long Island he was only just recovering by late December.

So. Fischer could be absolutely right in his facts: his research is so wide-ranging and thorough (I've heard he has a whole cadre of graduate assistants to help him) that he might have uncovered primary source material that nobody else has quoted before. Or it's possible that, in his search for vivid details, he's quoting a secondary source that either got the facts wrong or else exagerated them. Or it's possible that, in his quest to write vivid descriptive sentences that convey the narrative drama of the historical moment, he got carried away a bit on this one little detail. There's no easy way to find out!

Sure, it is only a minor detail. Fischer's essential thesis -- about the importance of the New York campaign on George Washington's growth as a commander, and the way Washington's response to events created the unique American tradition of war-fighting and civilian control of the military -- is completely unaffected by this detail: remove it and the rest of the book stands unchanged.

But no matter what Fischer book I've poked at, and it's been a few, once I get down to tracking some really cool, unique minor historical detail back to the sources so I can find out more -- because you know I do stuff like that -- the footnote trail disappears like tracks in a blizzard. And right now, tonight, I want to write one damn sentence for my book about Captain Washington's injury and his previous battle experience, and I want it to be accurate. Or do I want it to seem accurate to my readers, who have probably only read Fischer's book?

Don't worry -- not that you were -- I'll figure it out. Because, luckily, I'm writing fiction.

But in the meantime, argh... it makes me crazy!

Yesterday I received my contributor's copies of the August issue of F&SF, which includes my novella "The Political Prisoner." It goes on sale on newstands on July 1st, which is my birthday. Boo-yah!

It's my first print-published story in over a year and a sequel to my first big story, "The Political Officer," which appeared about six years ago, so I was happy to see it. But according to two of our house's other compulsive readers, the Scott Dalrymple story in this issue is more amusing and should be the first thing you read.

My last post included the word atlatl as a humorous rhyme. Okay, my kids would debate the humorous part. But I'm fairly confident there was a rhyme. The atlatl is an ancient throwing weapon that predates bows and arrows. The Adena moundbuilders used them, although we don't know if they used them in rhymes, and since I grew up in the Adena heartland that's how I came to know about them. See, mom, I was paying attention during field trips, no matter what the teachers told you. The Aztecs were still using atlatls when the conquistadors landed; an expertly thrown atlatl could pierce the Spanish mail.

Anyway, one of the comments on that post came from someone who competes in world atlatl competitions! There's even a World Atlatl Association. I had no idea. And without the internets, I probably never would have. Thank you, internets, yet again.

..but I'm reposting it at the request of sandramcdonald, who says she doesn't recall reading it. It's been about three years since the last time I posted it here and a decade since I wrote it, and it doesn't apply to me right now: I'm busy working with my editor's comments for book 1 and polishing up the first draft of book 2, which shall be declared finished by the end of the week if I have to kill myself to do it.

But enough of that. Here, for Sandra, is:

The Novelist's Lament

Alas! I've reached the middle muddle
in my new novel. I'm in trouble,
so I doodle and I dawdle,
scratch my noodle, weep a puddle,
grab a friend and try to cuddle
but STILL I have to muddle through the middle.

Fiddle!

If I could hurdle past the muddle
in the middle to the battle
where addled foes will sabres rattle,
the muscled hero with his antique atlatl
could spill his quiver then skedaddle,
scoot off to whittle a canoe and paddle
'til he founders by a shore of nettle,
where he'll lose his breeches, wear a kettle
-- Aye! That'll test the hero's mettle.
But after all that I'll still be saddled
with the muddle in the middle.
It's enough to drive me maddle!

Faddle!

Or I could herd my characters like cattle,
round up heads and let them prattle,
have the traitor tell his tattle over bottles
in a tavern, turn my skills to something subtle.
That'd pad the middle past the muddle.
The fuddy duds' and dullards' deeds'll
need a jaded rogue who'll needle,
while the greedy merchants wheedle
and pretty women preen and preedle.
Yes! That's one idea... a seedle...
But if my readers I bewilder and befuddle
with this feckless scuttlebutt, I'll bettle
that the book'll be impossible to peddle.

Feddle!

I could introduce a foolish poodle
who consumes a steaming struedel
but that seems a little crudel.
Or invent an anxious axolotl
whose gross debilitating mottle...
Argh! Someone sieze my throat and throttle!

Fiddle Faddle Feddle Foo!

I am muddled in the middle
and I don't know what to do!

I'm at what has become my annual writing retreat, surrounded by better writers who are helping me figure out how to become a better novelist. The group this year includes Paolo Bacogalupi and Daryl Gregory, who lead SF Signal's list of tomorrow's big genre stars. They have to do extra reading because of that.

affinity8 describes the group book-signing in Columbus and a typical day of the writing retreat on Kelleys Island. But it's friends-locked so that nobody knows to come steal the blueberry pancakes.

gregvaneekhout offers pictures.

yuki_onna gets into the craft questions we bandy about.

Somebody else needs to blog about the library visit yesterday, when we went to donate our books to the island library and were mistaken for a science fiction book club. My fragile ego is still recovering. And, if you get the chance, convince paulmelko to tell you the story about about the tree that fell on the power lines next to our house and the highly skilled crew that came to remove it.

It's been a good week but now I want another one to do nothing but hide in a room and write. On Monday, it's back to the day job, however, so I better make the best use of the days I have left.

We started watching Jericho this week, and we got to the episode where Jake and Eric go to the hospital in Rogue River for medicine. They're walking through the hallways, which are full of corpses.

My twelve-year-old (in his Haley Joel Osment voice): I smell dead people.