the Unending Journey of the Wandering Author

My Crazy NaNo Project 2011

2011-11-23T23:27:00.001-05:00

As anyone still reading this blog is probably aware, I'm doing NaNo again this year. Only I've gotten so used to it, I decided to make things a bit more "interesting". The curious can read the details over on the blog I set up just for this wild project: Thirty Days and Nights of Inksanity. Yes, I'm writing in longhand, with fountain pens and inks, and posting about them each day. I'm a few days behind, thanks to the "snowpocalypse" that struck in late October (which I posted about over there, too). But I'm having fun...

Remembering Lindsay Coates Herkness III

2011-09-11T08:46:00.001-04:00

This is a very painful piece for me to write, but I believe the least I can do for Lindsay Coates Herkness, who lost his life ten years ago today, is to publicly admit just how much I owe him, even though I only "met" him years after his death.

Five years ago, I decided to take part in the 2996 Project, an effort by bloggers to honour each of the victims of America's greatest tragedy on the fifth anniversary of that day. I was assigned a tribute, which I wrote and posted, but then I learned that some of the bloggers who had signed up to write a tribute never did so. Those of us who took our responsibilities seriously were horrified, thinking of the families who might seek out their loved one's tribute, only to find nothing. So some of us agreed to research, and to write, tributes for these victims as quickly as we could.

I was given the name of Lindsay Coates Herkness III, with the mission of researching his life and writing his tribute literally overnight. I am ashamed to confess this next truth, but I must, in order to explain what Lindsay taught me, even after his death. When I began to research him, I discovered that he was someone I'd formed a poor opinion of in the days immediately following the disaster. He was the man who remained in his office, refusing to leave, until one of the Port Authority security officers went up to bring him down. Both men died when the tower collapsed.

The fact that I wasn't the only person to criticise him when I heard the news report about the rich financier who 'got a poor security guard killed' is no consolation. You see, whatever prior opinion I'd formed about him, I believed that I owed it to Lindsay himself, and to his family and friends, to learn whatever I could and to write the best tribute for him that I honestly could. So I sat up, in the middle of the night, reading about his life, and reading the comments people who had known him left on various memorial sites. In the process, a very different picture emerged from the man I'd been so quick to criticise.

It became obvious that he was the type of man others relied on, whose calm refusal to leave would have helped to keep others calm. It was also obvious he must have known this, or at least guessed it, and his "foolish" decision was in reality the best thing he could have done to prevent a panic. Remembering my own arrogant judgment of his actions, and the fact that many others had made similar remarks at the time, I wrote his tribute in such a way that, I hope, anyone who had misunderstood his actions would be convinced he had in fact done nothing wrong. At the time, as tired as I was, that was the best I could do.

But since then, I've remembered Lindsay at times, especially in early September, but on other occasions as well. And I've remembered just what he taught me, even though he had already been dead for five years at the time. I learned how very easy it is to criticise someone else, even when you're wrong. I learned how arrogant, how judgmental, I could be, even towards a man who paid with his life for his choice. I learned how easy it is to attack someone with the benefit of hindsight. I learned just how important it is to try to view something from the other person's point of view before you make up your mind why they acted as they did.

So, I'm sorry, Lindsay. This is my public apology to you. You taught me a great deal, and I owe you more than I could repay even if you were alive. I hope someone else may read this, and learn from my mistake - and remember your life, and the choices that you made, and do better than I did that awful day. You were a generous and a gracious man, so I'm sure you would have forgiven me, if you had the chance. Thank you for that, and for what you've taught me. I wish I could have known you.

Remembering Francis Esposito, FDNY

2011-09-11T08:46:00.000-04:00

I never knew Francis Esposito while he was alive. I "met" him in the summer of 2006, when I was researching my tribute for him as part of the 2,996 Project to commemorate the fifth anniversary of 9/11. Since that time, I have thought of him often, especially as the anniversary of that terrible day approaches each year. I think of his sacrifice, and I think of what the world lost when he died.

Our world has changed so much in just ten years. Yet if we spent more time reflecting on what men like Frank have taught us, we might make the world a much better place than it is today. "Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends." (Testament of John, Chapter 15, verse 13) Francis Esposito offered us one example of what such love looks like. He marched into a blazing tower, a sight so terrifying that I, safe in front of a television in Massachusetts, was consumed by fear and dread. He marched in to save the lives of others, knowing he might never come out again.

How many people owe their lives to him? We'll never know the exact number, but that isn't as important as the lesson we can learn from his life, and the manner of his death. Every time we remember his bravery in the face of something much worse than anything which will ever confront most of us, and march on, we honour Frank and the way he lived his life. Every time we think of how much he sacrificed to help others in peril, and set aside our own personal desires to aid someone else who needs our help, we respect his memory and add just a little bit more to his legacy. Those of us who weren't in those towers, who weren't even in New York, that day still owe him much more than I can ever express, for setting the example that he did, for making the sacrifice that he did.

So, please, take a moment to think of Frank Esposito, and to pray for him and for his family. And when you go on, let his example make you a little better than you were before you learned about him.

Horror In Norway

2011-07-23T12:07:00.004-04:00

I am writing this post in response to the horror which took place in Norway yesterday. First, my condolences and my sympathies to all the Norwegian people, especially those who have lost loved ones and friends, but also those who simply no longer feel safe, who have had their peaceful world shattered. There is little I can do to help you, but I think one thing we can all do in moments of such tragedy is learn all we can, in order to prevent such tragedies.

Yesterday, the news media was full of speculation that this attack might be linked to Al-Quaeda, or some other Muslim terrorist organisation. Today, we learn that is not so. The man responsible for this outrage apparently considered himself a Christian fundamentalist. Now, lest I allow myself to become guilty of hypocrisy, I had better admit right here that I certainly found the suggestion yesterday that this was an attack inspired by Muslim fundamentalists perfectly plausible. I'm ashamed to say that, but it is the truth.

So what can I learn from this? I already knew all Muslims were not terrorists, and considered any such assumption absurd. But I did allow myself to forget that not all terrorists were Muslims, and in so doing, I was still unfair to peaceful Muslims everywhere. If you are a peaceful Muslim, and are reading this, I apologise to you.

I consider myself a Christian, and I certainly know that all Christians are not terrorists. But I am shocked and humbled to discover that anyone who considers themselves a Christian could resort to this type of violence. I can only repeat my own version of what Muslims have struggled to remind everyone for the past ten years. Those who use such measures are not following the teachings of Jesus Christ.

In my own shock and my own pain, I understand much more today of what Muslims everywhere who did not support the terrorists who used their religion as an excuse must have been feeling for the past ten years and more. Again, I apologise. I have never believed that you should be persecuted just for what you believe, but I have failed to appreciate just what a terrible burden you were struggling under.

We all need to remember that not everyone who can be lumped under any label deserves to be judged by the actions of the worst among them. We all need to remember that treating any person who does not themselves resort to violence or actively support the use of violence in the same way as those who do is to make ourselves no better than the worst among us. And, most of all, we all need to be united in one basic certainty: blowing up, shooting, or otherwise killing and maiming innocent people in the name of any cause, any belief, any goal, is wrong. And we all need to avoid blaming those who share the beliefs but not the willingness to resort to such tactics.

Every time we assume that one group must be responsible for violence, even before there is any evidence to prove anything beyond the simple fact violence has occurred, we encourage all groups to resort to violent tactics. By viewing them with suspicion, refusing to trust them, and treating them unfairly, we push members of the group we fear toward extremism as their only option - and, in so doing, we share their guilt. And by pointing a finger at that one group, we encourage the extremists among every other group, those who are just waiting for an excuse, to believe they are justified in their attacks. And, in so doing, we share their guilt.

Violence is wrong, whoever resorts to it. But isolating a single group, and presuming that is the only group capable of unjustified violence, is just as wrong. The man who killed so many people in Norway yesterday knew what we would think at first. He felt even more strongly than we did about Muslims. But in sharing his feelings, even in part, we encouraged him.

I can argue that my own part in that was tiny, and it was. But that doesn't make any difference, because I did have some tiny part in it. Just because I was in the back of the mob, and wasn't shouting as loudly as the leaders at the front, just because my own slogans weren't as broad or as harsh as those others were using, doesn't excuse me. The only excuse would have been if I had been standing against that mob, urging them to calm down. Every time I heard of a new explosion, a new shooting, and agreed, "Yeah, it was probably Muslim terrorists", every single time I did that, I stood shoulder to shoulder with the mob and failed to oppose it. And, for that, I am very sorry. It isn't enough, but all I can do now is try not to do it again.

A Brief Update

2011-06-19T20:20:00.004-04:00

I'd meant to write a longer update today, but that isn't going to happen. In addition to the larger issues that have kept me from blogging for so long, I am fighting a nasty sinus infection that wants to (or perhaps already has) become bronchitis. I never get sick in the summer, I wasn't sick all last winter, but where I live, a lot of people seem to have been hit with this, and it is nasty. I've been getting much more exercise, and regaining much of the energy I thought I'd lost in the past decade or so, but this illness has just exhausted me and tired me out.

I did win NaNo last year, even if I failed to update my readers here. I had about sixty thousand words before the end of November, when I got stuck on a conflict between my plot and the realities of history. I'm still trying to work that out, and I may need to go back and rewrite much of what I have, but I think it is an interesting story.

Various troubles have interfered, and I've written about many of them. But late last year, I finally began to understand all the odd things about myself that have never made sense. One relatively simple explanation put my own struggles, and a number of bizarre experiences throughout my life, into perspective. It also dug up and exposed memories reaching all the way back to my earliest childhood, many of them painful. I've actually considered writing a memoir, in the hope it might be helpful to someone else.

And, at the same time I was going through this total reassessment of my entire life, my father developed severe dementia. I suspect he has always heard voices; "somebody" told me was a common excuse for odd pronouncements. And he has claimed in the past to hear from God and from angels, and to have some secret source of knowledge. But last fall, he began to wake us up in the middle of the night, shouting "Nobody move! The police are outside and they're shooting everyone!" And he got the idea that the house had been moved to Boston, right next to the Park Street Church. When he went outside and saw it was on the same lot it has always been on, he started yelling that the police were going to arrest whoever had moved it back "and take them straight to hell!"

Those are just a few of the incidents that spring to mind, but there have been a lot more. There was one stretch of several weeks when we didn't get a single night of uninterrupted sleep. At one point, while he was in a rehab facility, he grew so violent they had to call the police to have him taken out of there. The police took him to the hospital, where they promptly sent him right back to us. And the medications the doctors have been giving him to make him calmer seem to have actually had the opposite effect.

Caught between a major reassessment of my life, and a crisis that would test the limits and the sanity of those with more to spare than I have, I haven't even thought of posting here until Miss Kitty stopped by to say hello and ask how I was. I promised her an update, and felt in case there was any other loyal reader out there who might come by one day and wonder, that would best be posted here.

I may try to post, sporadically, to explain more about the new understanding of myself that has caused me to examine everything in my life differently. I may try to post a few other things, here and there. But the way my life is at the moment, I dare not promise any particular schedule for posting. I'm trying, whenever I can fit it in, to go through all the writing I've accumulated over the years, to finish the incomplete fragments, to revise stories that have promise, and to generally get everything I've written in some sort of order. That project has priority for the moment, and simply working out strategies to keep writing, to make my life a bit easier.

NaNo Diary: Day Ten

2010-11-10T21:51:00.002-05:00

I know I haven't posted the past few days. I've been writing, but that and everything else in my life just took up too much time to allow me to update my NaNo Diary here. I'm dealing with a great deal of personal stress and tension, problems that keep cropping up and have to be resolved, other things I need to do.

But, in spite of all that, my novel is doing well. I don't mean to suggest it is perfect. I've gone off the rails in a few places, and I'll need to clean things up quite a bit when I revise - but this is a first draft. I am not one of the rare writers who can put a flawless first draft down on paper. At least not usually, and the very rare times when I do, it is a poem or a very short story...

The point is that a few interesting twists have come up to enliven what I'd planned in the few days I managed to devote to that. The story and the characters are coming alive, and developing a certain momentum of their own. No matter how much cutting, patching, putting things back together, and otherwise rearranging I'll need to do in revision, I do at least have a story I think I can polish into something interesting.

And Dietrich Bonhoeffer hasn't even stepped into the story yet... Yes, he has a cameo in this alternate history. He sets my main character thinking along different lines. Anyway, if anyone is reading this, I know what you're waiting for is my current word count. As of tonight, I am up to 21,921 words!. For the first time ever, I have consistently been ahead of my goal from the very first day, and each day, my 'lead' keeps growing. By now, I am slightly more than three days ahead of target. I dare not grow complacent, but at least I'm not thousands of words behind - and my story is picking up steam, as I already said.

NaNo Diary: Day Two

2010-11-02T23:22:00.002-04:00

I seem to be on a roll so far; my two day total is 4,010 words. But since I am also fighting off a nasty bug, my entire lead may disappear at any moment. Still, I plan on making as much progress as I can as quickly as I can, and dealing with the problems as they come up. Since it is late and I'm tired, this will be a brief update...

But...

4,010 words! Woohoo!

NaNo Diary: Day One

2010-11-01T22:31:00.002-04:00

For the first time, I am - slightly - ahead of target on the very first day of NaNo! I'm excited by my story, my main character is really taking shape on the page, and I have 1,775 words already written. That's 108 words more than my target. Now, if I can only keep this up...

So, if you're following my progress, wish me luck.

NaNo Diary - Calm Before the Storm

2010-10-31T22:08:00.002-04:00

In a few hours, the frenzy of National Novel Writing Month will be upon me, as I try my best to finish 50,000 words in spite of everything life can throw at me. This will be a difficult year, since I'm still coming to terms with a number of issues, and since I am struggling with other distractions as well.

However, I do have some idea what I want to write, and I hope to start setting words down on paper tomorrow. I will be making periodic updates here, every day if possible, or at least every few days, to note my current word count and my thoughts at the time.

I've entered a contest to win a clay Plot Bunny, and I have two chances to win. My best shot is to be the first entrant who wins NaNo, and I am at least going to try for that. If I miss that opportunity, as long as I get my 50,000 words before the end of November, I will be among those from whom a second winner is drawn. The contest adds a bit of spice to this year's efforts, and gives me a little extra motivation, which I really need this year.

On the other hand, I'm excited about my idea, and I'm desperate to really get back into a writing streak, so I do have a fighting chance. Let me know if you're observing my progress and cheering me on (or hoping you win the plot bunny instead...).

Questions

2010-08-09T16:36:00.002-04:00

Every now and then, something will just leap out at me and irritate me, even if it is something not particularly related to any of my major concerns. The whole issue of blood diamonds is an important one, but not one I feel I need to speak out on. And I don't care that much about celebrities. But Naomi Campbell dragged her feet so long in attempting to avoid testifying that I was curious what she was going to say when they finally got her on the stand.

As I understand it, her reason for refusing to testify until she was compelled to was the fact that Charles Taylor is a scary, violent man, and she didn't want to risk his harming her or her family. That sounds reasonable - at first. But wait! She didn't know who he was, isn't sure he was the one who gave her the diamonds, and wasn't even sure they were diamonds until someone else pointed it out to her. In other words, if you believe her, she knows nothing.

So why was she afraid of testifying? Even a violent and dangerous man is hardly going to go to the trouble of harming someone, or their family, just for saying they don't know anything about him. I know absolutely nothing of these events beyond what I've read in the press. What I'm about to say is purely my own opinion, but it seems to me that the delay was in order to find out just how vague she could make her testimony, just how unrevealing, without quite crossing the line into anything which could be proved as perjury.

Now, that's just my analysis of what she said, based on the point that, if she really knew so little, I can't understand what she would have had to fear in the first place. But what irritates me is that no one in the press, no one in the courtroom, no one at all, seems to have even thought of this possibility. Shouldn't the question at least be asked? Shouldn't the possibility at least be discussed?

As I said, the violence and lust for power that lurks behind blood diamonds is an important issue, and one that should be explored thoroughly. I don't know what really happened, or who is to blame, but if so much money and effort is going to be expended to look into this, shouldn't someone at least consider the obvious?

Anne Rice: Writers, Christianity, and Following Christ

2010-08-05T00:29:00.008-04:00

Reading about Anne Rice's decision to quit Christianity brought me back here after such a long absence. Although I don't have even one reader for every ten thousand she has, I've struggled with many of the issues which drove her to make such an anguished declaration. I've never even mentioned before on this blog that I consider myself a follower of Jesus Christ, not because I am ashamed of him, but because I am ashamed of many of those who claim to follow him.

Even as a writer, I'm an outcast. I've finally come to terms with that. But what troubles me is the thought that my readers and friends might go away and never come back, without ever giving me a chance to explain I'm not like "them". I've waited, hoping I could find the right words. But now, I suspect there are no right words. Some of the most vocal of those who call themselves Christians take positions I disagree with on nearly everything.

Even most of the Christians I respect are not people whose opinions I agree with without question. Of course, I don't expect anyone to agree with my opinions without question, either. The problem is, non-Christians often assume anyone who says they are a Christian must be like the worst examples they can think of, and Christians often assume anyone who calls themselves a Christian must agree with their interpretation of the Bible.

I don't think Jesus Christ cared about politics. He cared about people's hearts, and left the politics to the politicians. That was one of the reasons he upset people. He refused to be politic and keep from upsetting the status quo. And I don't think he expected his followers to impose Mosaic Law on non-believers, even the "family values" clauses within that law. All he asked of us was this, to believe in him and to let him work in our lives, so he could help us set an example for the rest of the world.

In those days, people still left unwanted newborns out on mountainsides to die. If these babies, usually either girls or sickly boys, were lucky, a slave trader would find them and raise them until they could be sold. Jesus didn't send his disciples out to find people exposing their children and stone them. He simply told his disciples to follow him. Now, I happen to believe abortion is wrong. That isn't the point. Where I disagree is in how Jesus would expect his followers to act. I don't think he'd have us pass laws; I think he'd just have us live so much for him that we radiated his light into the world, making others want to know and follow him, until the practice just naturally withered.

Maybe I'm wrong about that. I'm not God, and I'm not Jesus Christ. But it is what I honestly believe, based on what I read about his actions and those of his followers in the Bible. I don't say that lightly. I've agonised over the issue. In Nazi Germany, I would have been considered unfit and gassed. No matter how much the modern world would like to forget this, abortion grew out of the eugenics movement, and the eugenics movement is just the generic name for Nazi "race science". I instinctively loathe and fear anything that smacks of their policies.

Abortion is as horrible an idea to me as it is to anyone else, with aspects of nightmare overlaid. I just happen to think the usual Christian way of attacking the problem is not the way Christ himself would have tackled it. His followers did things his way, and it wasn't very long before babies were no longer left to die in the wilderness. All the Christian protests just seem to strengthen the resolve of those who support the idea of abortion as a kind of freedom.

Fiction writers are tortured at the best of times, and a fiction writer who genuinely wishes to follow Christ is torn between the competing forces of the stories that rise up inside them, and whatever Christians decide to define as "Christian" fiction. Why can't a Christian writer just write, and trust that some bit of the beliefs which led them to their faith will shine through? Jesus often spoke in parables which were far from clear, even to his own disciples. Yet they told a story and made a point he considered important. He seems to have considered these little stories, with their subtle points, the best way to communicate in many situations. Since he is capable of opening anyone's ears and heart, why can't he use a story which does not fit the "Christian" label to do so?

There are so few Christian writers who honestly want to serve the God they believe in, but who also reject the traditional niches reserved for "Christian writers", that it is impossible to even find anyone to discuss how best to keep our writing on the right track. A well-known writer such as Anne Rice, with a publisher and editors imposing their own expectations on her, and fans adding their voices, has an impossible task.

Don't any of you Christians who are so quick to object to her remarks ever consider you might share some of the blame for driving her to this point? If you don't, you should. As obscure as I am, I understand her frustration and her agony. I pray for her, not because I think she has done anything terrible, but just because I think she has been trapped in a terrible position. And we can all use prayer. If you read this, and consider yourself a Christian, please pray for Anne Rice, not because she is any more imperfect than you are, but just because she is hurting.

Nurses: the Best of People, the Worst of People

2009-09-25T12:43:00.003-04:00

A recent post over at Educated and Poor asking for individual experiences with nurses got me thinking. Compassionate nurses are among the best of people, but those who lack compassion can be among the worst of people. Yet I also suspect in many cases even the worst of nurses didn't start out hard-hearted. The suffering they are exposed to seems to burn out the compassion in even the most decent people. Yet it is hard for the patients in their hands to remember that.

My own worst experience with a nurse occurred when I was eight or nine. I was due for one of my regular shots, and the nurse marched in, announced "This won't hurt a bit" in a tone that, rather than being reassuring, informed me I would get nothing but a label as a crybaby if I complained. Without waiting for a response, she stuck the needle in. I was watching while she did it, and she jabbed me so hard, the shaft of the needle visibly bent. Shudder. I think it was sheer horror that helped me contain my instinct to howl in pain and outrage.

I know little about this particular nurse, but in fairness, the pediatrician she worked for was far worse, so she may have picked up the attitude at work. Although not an experience with a nurse, I'll relate one of my two worst personal medical experiences ever, involving her boss. It does illustrate the harm a complete lack of compassion can inflict. I was ten, nearly eleven, at the time. To be fair, even I didn't yet understand that my physiology was out of the ordinary in various ways. I had an ear infection, and the doctor decided to clean the wax out of the other ear. He took out whatever sort of probe they used at the time, stuck it into my ear, and began hauling out the wax.

Even with intense migraines and pinched nerves, I am not sure I have ever felt such intense pain again in my life. It felt as if a huge, red-hot knife blade was being jammed into my ear. I couldn't help screaming and crying. The doctor ignored my pleas to stop, and mocked me as a crybaby. He finished up and turned away, and I felt a tickle on that earlobe. I put my hand up to scratch it, and when I took my hand away, it was covered in blood! Blood was pouring out of my ear. The doctor glanced at it, didn't even bother to reassure me - and yes, I was panicked by this point. Feeling so much pain, followed by bleeding so badly, had me convinced I was going to die, probably horribly.

He turned to my mother, said "How was I supposed to know he had hair in his ears?", and turned back, very matter of factly, to deal with me. No apology, no admission that if he had listened to my protests he might have figured it out before doing so much harm, nothing. I ended up having to lay on one side with that ear up for almost an hour before blood stopped trickling out. And since that day, I have had trouble trusting any doctor.

However, I have seen examples of real compassion, especially from nurses. When I was nineteen, my month-old son was clearly very sick. We took him to the hospital emergency room, where they finally figured out he was having heart problems his pediatrician had completely overlooked. He was going to have to be transferred, by ambulance, to Children's Hospital in Boston. One of the nurses took the time and trouble to reassure us that he had a good chance of doing okay, and promised she would ride with him, which she did. She made a terrifying day much more bearable.

It turned out he had been born with a hole in his heart, and would need surgery as soon as he was big enough that would be possible. He was in the ICU for a while, and I was not in very good shape myself. First, any parent would be upset in that situation. Second, it didn't help my emotions that he had been named after my best friend in high school - who had died. Third, I somehow got the flu, and even after I was over it, I felt terrible. And I wasn't getting enough sleep, or eating decently, as anyone who's snatched meals from hospital vending machines and cafeterias will understand.

On top of that, I had been overprotected as a child to a degree that I was still learning how to interact with normal human beings. Looking back, I honestly think if I'd been raised by wolves I would have ended up with better social skills. I was hyper, inwardly dreadfully shy and trying to hide it by being just the opposite outwardly, and had no idea how to behave. On top of that, I was now frantic and feeling miserable. Anyone who blew my head off with a shotgun would have had more than enough justification.

One particular nurse cared for my son much of the time. Her name was Jan. She was calm, patient, compassionate, and incredibly competent. She managed to such a good job of caring for Michael even I couldn't miss it. On top of that, she had the decency and patience to do all that she could to alleviate my fears, listen to my babbling, and put up with my no doubt incredibly annoying, hyper presence. At that point, I had total distrust of anything medical: on top of my own experiences, I'd grown up listening to my father's stories of how her doctor killed his grandmother, and a vet had maliciously caused the death of my first two cats.

Despite that prejudice, despite an ingrained predisposition to assume anyone even vaguely medical was either incompetent, uncaring, or probably an outright sadist, Jan managed to make such an impression on me I trusted her. When Michael went back for his surgery, as soon as I heard she was the nurse assigned to him after the operation, I calmed right down and relaxed. Yes, there were other very decent doctors and nurses at Children's Hospital. I remember at least some of them. But she was the one who first allowed me to calm down enough to see that. Any ability at all I now have to trust the medical profession, I owe to her.

I hope all the suffering kids, all the ones who died, never managed to destroy her inside. That would be a double tragedy, because I owe her more than I can express, and I'd hate to think she suffered in any way for her caring, and also because it would be such a terrible loss to the patients she cared for and their families. Yet I do know decent nurses can burn out.

How do I know this? One of my aunts was a nurse. When I knew her, she wasn't hard-hearted, and she could be compassionate, but to hear her talk of her patients, she obviously treated them in a brisk, businesslike way. Yet later, I learned more of her history. She was an Army nurse in World War Two, and good enough to be promoted to Lieutenant. She was stationed in Britain, and was given some of the worst cases to care for. So many suffering, horribly maimed and disfigured young men passed through her care that the experience finally broke her. She had what at the time was called a nervous breakdown.

Even to the end of her life, more than fifty years later, she was never completely whole. Her very compassion proved to be the instrument of its own destruction. Who can blame anyone for that? And she did try to be fair. For years, I heard her talk of patients who complained that their IVs hurt. She made it plain she briskly assured them that was impossible, and it was all in their minds. Then, she found herself a patient. She had to have an IV, and she discovered that it caused a burning sensation in her arm that did hurt. She was honestly surprised, and apologetic, and vowed to do her best to minimise the hurt in the future.

I've also visited enough people in hospitals by now, and observed enough, to see that often, it is the system and not the individuals that causes problems. How is any nurse to do their best when they aren't allowed enough time to do so? How are they to be at their best when they are forced to work such long shifts they're exhausted? Yes, it is dreadful for the people who suffer, but it is not always the nurse's fault.

What do I conclude from all this? First of all, that nurses are a perfect example of all the best that humans are capable of, when they choose to be. Second of all, that even when they are not, they are often doing their best. Yes, they need to try to find some way to do even better, for the sake of their victims, but none of us is perfect. We owe it to all nurses to at least stop and try to discover what the problem really is, and if they really should be blamed, no matter how bitterly we might wish to blame them. And finally, for those few who really do lack compassion, who have simply found a job they can use to earn a living and don't care a bit about their patients - and, no matter how few they may be, there do seem to be a few - some way needs to be found to identify those few and force them out of nursing, for the sake of their patients and the sake of all the other nurses whose reputations they stain.

In Memoriam: Neda Soltani

2009-06-21T21:42:00.004-04:00

In Iran, a teenage girl stood watching the protests. She was not even taking part, simply peacefully watching with her father. The next moment, she was shot down and lay in the street, bloody, dying. Her name was Neda Soltani. The video of her death is a tragedy. What is even more tragic is that anyone calling themselves a cleric of any religion could support such murder.

The only thing the clerics of Iran may now do to show their religion is not one of murder and savagery is to strip themselves of everything - power, wealth, even possessions, and live in the gutter on the charity of strangers. Neda Soltani's blood cries out, accusing them, staining them with the crimson of murderers, vicious criminals who will lie, kill, oppress, anything to keep themselves in power.

How long must young girls such as Neda live at the mercy of such beasts? How long will the people of Iran permit such injustice among themselves. My heart bleeds for the people living in Iran, for, with the exception of a few savage, murderous monsters who lust after power, they have a horrible choice ahead. They may submit to the injustice, the cruelty, the snatching after power in the name of religion, the murder of innocent young girls, they may make themselves accomplices to all that - or they may face the guns and tanks of the monsters in power.

Make no mistake, such men do not surrender all the privileges they exploit to assuage their terrible lusts easily. They will fight, they will invoke their twisted image of God, they will lie. And the worst among the Iranian people, the bullies, the thugs, the criminals, those are the people who support such a regime because they grow fat and powerful under it. They will fight to preserve it. They will satisfy their own hunger for blood.

And the innocent people, the decent people, will suffer, no matter what they do. I hate that fact, I rage against it in my mind and with my words, and if I lived in Iran I would rage against it in protest. Yet all that rage cannot change the way the world is. When evil men cling to power, the innocent suffer. I can only think of poor Neda Soltani, suffering and frightened on the ground as she lay dying, and pray that she will not be forgotten, that her memory will rise up and smash the evil that grips Iran right now.

May everyone who looks upon the grim, hate twisted face of Iran's "President" see the blood of Neda Soltani that drips from his beard, staining it, thanks to his greedy gulping of power. May every appearance of the "Supreme Leader" with his smug ability to twist the truth, to distort the God he claims to worship into nothing but a pillar of his own power, reveal Neda's lifeblood dripping from his beard. May they choke on her blood, may it spill over and drown them, before the blood they shed drowns more of the innocent people they exploit.

In Memoriam: Stephen T. Johns

2009-06-11T13:09:00.003-04:00

Stephen T. Johns died yesterday heroically defending one of the most important sites in the world, the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D. C. He was gunned down in cold blood by a man unable to bear the presence of such a museum, one dedicated to proving the awful destructiveness of hate. Mr. Johns died protecting others, and if not for his actions and those of his colleagues, we can only imagine how many visitors to the museum might have died.

I urge everyone who reads this to learn the lesson that was enacted again yesterday, in minature. Hatred is a destructive force. It accomplishes nothing but killing. It deserves only enough attention to understand why it must be avoided. The important story is that of Stephen Johns, who gave his own life in order to save others. That is a legacy which is worthy of being remembered, and I urge all of you to keep Stephen Johns and his family in your thoughts and your prayers, and to remember his sacrifice.

Although what is important was how Mr. Johns, as an individual, acted yesterday, and although I know most of my readers understand this anyway, I do want to make one other point. Mr. Johns happened to be a black man. His murderer was white, someone who endorsed the absurd belief that that single fact, the colour of his skin, made him somehow superior. However, his own actions and those of Mr. Johns yesterday give the lie, once and for all, to that belief.

It is ironic this bigot proved exactly what he would have liked to disprove, but I think it is important to take note of this. A white man, convinced this fact alone made him superior, proved by his own actions he was inferior to the black man he confronted. Superiority is not conferred by skin colour, race, heritage, or anything other than what each of us, as individuals, chooses to do and how we choose to act. And the fact a self professed "genius" could overlook the way in which what he planned to do would demonstrate how very wrong he was illustrates, clearly, how little anyone really learns who chooses to blame all their frustrations on a scapegoat.

I'm very, very sorry Stephen Johns had to die proving that lesson, which most of us already understood, once again, but I'd like to think, if it had to happen anyway, he would be pleased to know his actions did affirm just how dreadful a lie racism and bigotry really are. And if even one person who reads this finally understands the reality of this important lesson for the first time, perhaps some small good can come out of such a great tragedy.

And, although I hardly dare hope so, if this incident, which so emphatically establishes just what pathetic losers all those people are who believe in any sort of racial supremacy, reverses the spread of hate groups through our society like cancer, I hope Stephen Johns will at least be remembered as the man whose heroism brought it about. Whatever the outcome, he deserved better. From now on, when I hear the phrase "only the good die young", the name of Stephen T. Johns will be added to the list of those who come to mind. May God bless you and may you rest in peace, Mr. Johns.

An Apology: To the Government and People of Israel

2009-06-08T16:28:00.002-04:00

This is my two hundredth post. I've been busy, but I'd hoped to make this a bit of a celebration. Instead, I'm posting this with tears on my face, confronted with a reality I find unbearable. I am certainly not a blind supporter of US policy, and never have been. There are any number of incidents that disturb me, and policies I oppose. But President Obama, in his speech in Cairo last week, has gone too far.

Go to the link and read the original post which upset me. I have no idea how many things Erick Erickson and I would agree on, but on this issue we agree totally. I can't even bring myself to repeat the offending quote. If I simply retyped it, my fingers would feel filthy for the rest of my life. If you read the archives of this blog for January, you'll see that I tried to give President Obama the benefit of the doubt any new president deserves.

I'll admit, I've never thought any politician would be able to do much to make the world a better place, but some of them at least manage to avoid making it noticeably worse. Now, his defenders will no doubt say it was just a speech, and he was trying to appeal to his audience... No! That is not an excuse. First, because such a comparison is so utterly outrageous, so horrific, it deserves to be treated as the type of propaganda it is: a "Big Lie". Goebbels, the Nazi propaganda minister, would be rubbing his hands in glee if he read that statement. And any statement we can imagine making Goebbels happy is inexcusable.

And it is not just a speech. There is the context as well, a context in which America, a huge country, seeks to use our power to force Israel, a small and young country, into a false peace which will destroy them. The Palestinians in charge have made it plain they are murderers, bent on Israel's total destruction, and that they are willing to violate any promise they make. Any deal under such conditions will eventually prove to be a fatal one.

Let me be very clear here. I don't hate Palestinians as individuals. Many of them may honestly wish to live in peace. I hope they get that wish. I cry when I see reports of women and children killed. The difference is, instead of blaming Israel as so many people do, I look at the facts. Many of those innocent deaths were planned, as a cold calculation, by the leaders who want to use them as propaganda. Many of the ordinary people are misled by their leaders' lies. Their blood is on the hands of their own leaders. And now, the country I live in is siding with those vicious monsters.

We're singling out the very people so many other nations have persecuted and tried to exterminate for thousands of years, and we're trying to hand them over to their enemies. Then, when the inevitable tragedy happens, we'll shrug and say it wasn't our fault, because we really believed the Palestinians wanted peace. Perhaps some of them do - but not those in power! Those in power want blood, and that blood will be on the hands of anyone who helps them.

If you read this, you can ignore it. It isn't very well written; it's a blog post, after all, not a polished editorial. But if you ignore it, you too will be guilty. Every individual has a choice: to speak out and oppose such wrong, or to stay silent. If you stay silent, you will be just like the Germans at the end of World War Two who claimed they knew nothing of the horrors that took place in their own cities and towns. If true, it was because they turned away, because they didn't want to know.

I've sent the following message to the Israeli embassy in Washington, D. C. to let them know that they are not utterly alone in the world. Governments may be against them, but not every individual agrees. I hope you'll consider doing the same.

To the Government and People of Israel;

I am an ordinary American citisen, with no power or authority to speak for anyone but myself. Recently, though, I've been distressed observing some of the policies of the government I live under. In specific, I've found the insistence that the nation of Israel deal on equal terms with terrorists who have consistently violated their earlier obligations, made their intentions to destroy Israel every bit as plain as Adolf Hitler ever made his intent to kill Jews, and who continue to murder innocent Israeli citizens, utterly repugnant. As far as I can see, this serves no purpose other than to cement our President's reputation and gain him political capital as the President who "solved" the tension in the Middle East.

I was not alive when Adolf Hitler was in power, and so I could only hope, if I ever saw anything so terrible happening again, that I would have the sense and the courage to speak out. Now, I do see something that may prove just as terrible happening, although I hope it will not be allowed to go that far. I must at least speak out. I have little power to stop it. I am one voter, with one vote, all but drowned out among the sea of idiots who believe the half-truths and outright lies published in our press. (After seeing how our reporters refuse to print the truth out of fear of reprisals, I am ashamed that I ever considered becoming a journalist.)

Yet I do have the ability to speak, publicly. If I fail to do at least that much, I am guilty of whatever harm is done to Israel. If I were a Jew, with the "right of return", I would move to Israel to stand beside you as you struggle to survive. I am not, so I cannot do that, but I can at least add my voice to those protesting this travesty of justice. I am ashamed to live in a nation that is putting more pressure on Israel than on Iran or North Korea, nations guilty of real crimes. I am ashamed to see an innocent country and her innocent citisens punished in my name.

When I read some of the outrageous statements made by President Obama in Cairo - so outrageous I refuse to even repeat them - I could no longer bear to remain silent. When I consider what the country I live in now stands for, I am sick. I cannot bear the thought of living in a country guilty of actions any Nazi would be proud of. Yet I cannot prevent those actions. I can only apologise for them, insofar as they are carried out in my name, and beg the government and the people of Israel to keep in mind that not every American agrees with the moral depravity which would deliberately equate actions taken only as a defense against unprovoked attacks with those meant to exterminate an entire people.

In fact, I would like to thank Israel and her people for standing firm against terrorists who believe murder is a legitimate political tool. I for one am glad you are there to do what my country has lost the decency or the courage to do.

Wolfram Alpha Launch - Dead in the Water

2009-05-15T23:05:00.009-04:00

I've been hearing a lot about Wolfram Alpha and how it will replace Google, since it can parse natural language phrases and figure out the user's intent. Well, tonight I was watching the live broadcast of the preparations to launch Wolfram Alpha for the first time. I actually managed to load the page and run a few queries while the data center was still reporting no connections. (But the page only loaded after they announced they'd activated, about ten to fifteen seconds after, so I was not using the broken, 'back door' version.)

It was interesting to be in at the very start, but rather underwhelming once I tried it out. I admit, I tried a few queries I was sure would not work, just to see how it handled them. It wasn't sure what to do with them. Okay, fine. This is just the launch, and I was asking questions I really didn't expect it to get right. So, for my first real test, I decided to hand it a fairly easy one. I tried phrasing my test question a few ways, and it kept being unsure what to do with the question, so I decided to all but hand the computation engine the answer on a silver platter. After all, I don't know how it works yet, so it is only fair to tweak my question until it ought to be easy for the engine to figure out what I want.

I asked "What major events happened in London, England during the year 1666?" I defined 'London' in the question; I specified that 1666 was a year - and I still got the answer "Wolfram/Alpha isn't sure what to do with your input." I have a screenshot of this - it was hard to imagine, after all the hype, it would miss the Great Fire of London. Now it did at least list "More to Explore", so I clicked on "People & History" - which opened with "Harriet Tubman" filled in as a suggestion. This is when I really began to wonder what all the fuss was about. It has a place, a date, and all it can think of to suggest is a woman who lived on another continent nearly two centuries later?

I tried another question, this one admittedly a bit more difficult, but surely one with many potential answers or at least links. "How can I improve my fiction writing skills?" Wolfram Alpha wasn't sure what to do with that, either. Well, it is a less clearly defined question, so perhaps it isn't fair to judge the engine too harshly for shrugging. So I decided to give it something easy, something it could calculate. "Is India larger than America?" It didn't know what to do with that, either. So much for natural language.

I was wondering if it was simply not working, so I decided to try baby talk. "Who was Abraham Lincoln?" Well, that showed me it was working, sort of. It told me he was a head of state - but not of which country - it gave me dates and places for his birth and death, and that was that. No links, no details at all about the man. By this time, my hopes of a real alternative to Google, something that might let me gather information instead of wading through commercial links I have no interest in were fading fast.

Okay, I still wanted to see what it can do, so I figured I'd ask a question with a simple, short answer. "When did the Emperor of Brazil abdicate?" It didn't know how to handle that, either. I asked it an admittedly vague question next, one I hoped it might at least ask me to clarify. "How long would it take a rocket to reach Pluto?" To be fair, this leaves a lot of variables out - but it is exactly the kind of question a normal user might ask. I thought it might at least ask for details. No, it simply didn't know what to do again.

By now, I was desperate to find something it could do. I typed in "November 15 1889" (which, by the way, is the date the Emperor of Brazil abdicated) and it did figure out I'd entered a date, and gave me a few dull details, like how many weeks, days, and years ago this date was. It also told me nothing important happened on that date. Well, perhaps the designers simply weren't that concerned with South America. So I tried again. "November 15 1889 in Brazil". That ought to tell it what to look for. It almost worked. It listed "Republic Day (Brazil)" - the holiday celebrating the end of the monarchy. But it also said "(no known major notable events)". It has the holiday, but not the event it is based on. I might just put this down to the fact it is just a launch, if it weren't for all the other problems I've had, even when I tried to help the engine along with hints.

Still, I decided to give it one more chance to play to its own strengths. I typed in the date of a very major event, the start of the Great Fire of London, "September 2 1666". It offered me an 'input interpretation' that suggested this was a date in the Gregorian calendar - without offering any option for the Julian calendar, still in use in the English speaking world at this date. And it didn't mention anything about any events that might have happened on this day in either calendar.

I don't know. The idea might be sound. After another ten years of fiddling with natural language and letting it look at data, it might actually be able to answer a few questions that aren't mathematical. I deliberately avoided those; after all, Mathematica already exists, and works. If Wolfram Alpha is just another front end for Mathematica, it isn't very impressive at all. Yet of all the "Wow!" comments I read in the chat reports of other users' tests, they all seemed to be asking it to calculate something, and using pretty standard terms to do it. I guess the guys at Google can get some sleep tonight. Meanwhile, all of the researchers who were hoping for more can keep on dreaming, because Wolfram Alpha just is not going to make our lives any easier. Even with the spam, I can pull more information out of Google faster - and as for the suggestion just before the launch that people might forget how to think because Wolfram Alpha will do all the work for them - HA! I was thinking harder than I usually do, trying to lead it to the answers and figure out what kept tripping it up, and it still couldn't manage much.

Yes, these are one user's impressions, typed right after trying it out, and they are harsh. But I do understand every launch like this is someone's dream, and a lot of hard work has gone into it. I don't enjoy crushing dreams, not that my one post will have the power to do that. But if the Wolfram Alpha people ever read this, it will be discouraging for them, and I don't do that lightly. I honestly don't think the hype raised my expectations too high; I just think there isn't very much there to work with. In one way, this is a vindication for something I've long believed, that math and language are so inherently different that a computer will never be any good at language. Yet it is also a huge disappointment, because I wish I could see at least the potential for a useful new tool that might be helpful in research.

Footnote: I'm aware this isn't very well written. It is late, I'm tired, and I just wanted to get my first impressions down. I'd thought I was witnessing something historic, and the impetus of that carried me forward. Now, I'm just deflated.

Annoyances In A Writer's Life

2008-12-17T21:50:00.004-05:00

I'm still thinking about "time and attention", which is an important concept to get right. It would seem so simple. Just focus your attention, and spend your time, on those things that are most important. First, of course, you have to decide what is most important. That isn't very difficult for most of us, until you start to realise all the dimensions "important" takes on.

None of us wants to waste time being sick, but it is one of those things that are hard to avoid. That's just a little annoyance, but then there are the big issues. I want to be writing. Instead, I'm trying to keep my computer cooled down while I figure out what's wrong. Since I can't afford a new one right now, it becomes most important to keep the stupid thing from melting down so I can keep on writing.

It is running sluggishly, thanks to some bottleneck of processes at the CPU, and all these racing cycles have it on the verge of overheating any time I try to do much with it. Okay, I know enough about computers to solve this - or at least I thought I did. I cleaned out most of the apps that start up with Windows. I pruned my fonts folder to the lowest level it has ever reached on this machine (which ran fine with more fonts installed for a couple of years). Nothing.

I set up resource meters to see what was gobbling up all my resources. Nothing unusual there, no reason for the trouble. I'm pretty careful, but I downloaded a few more powerful malware scanners, which is where I really got stuck. There seems to be something quietly sitting in the background meddling with every process. Before you helpfully point out in the comments that this must be the malware I was looking for, my research has uncovered the thrilling fact that security software acts in many of the same ways as malware. It hides itself, refuses to identify itself, and makes itself abominably difficult to get rid of.

My particular "infection" is so murky, I have not yet been able to figure out whether it is true malware, or the security software I paid cold hard cash for. Thanks, guys! Either you failed to protect me, or your product is as bad as malware on my system. Either way, I wasted all that cash, and I'm wasting a dreadful amount of time I could be spending writing. I have to work out a plan to uninstall my security software: anti-virus, firewall, and malware detector, and make sure it's gone.

I also have to find alternates so my computer isn't left unprotected. Some of what I have now is freeware, and I'm hoping all of what I put in its place will be free. The best tools I have, the ones I've already been able to verify aren't causing me any trouble at all, are all freeware. Then I have to take the time to back up everything crucial, in case of real trouble, remove the old junk, and install the new stuff so I can see what happens. If that doesn't fix the problem, I'll have to seek out the malware some jerk put on my computer.

What really annoys me is the fact this is too important to ignore, yet it means I'm going to lose a whole lot of writing time. Life is short! Time not spent writing is wasted! (Well, mostly.) When I'm done all that, I need to work out the best (that is, the one that is most helpful without requiring a huge investment of time) method for keeping my attention focused where it ought to be, rather than allowing myself to be distracted by every tantalising article in the tech press.

Avoiding distractions is hard when you're a writer. After all, many ideas come from hunting down this or that intriguing lead. So any promising headline might be a great new idea just waiting to burst onto the stage of my consciousness. Then, of course, saving and managing all those great new resources I find takes up time of its own, but how can I use them if I can't find them again? So time and attention are important resources, but allocating them well is not as easy as it sounds.

After reading an article over at The Technium about preserving information in a digital age, I have some thoughts I hope to expand on here. Preserving information is, or ought to be, an issue of great concern to every writer. The thought of losing any of my manuscripts to any of a thousand possible mishaps fills me with dread. Add to that my background as a former genealogist and my interest in emergency preparedness, and the subject is just too interesting to resist.

Tonight, though, since my theme is annoyances, I'm going to end with something that has been bothering me ever since the election. I'm not very political - my opinion is that either party is just the flip side of the other one. They are both part of "the way things work", and since I believe that needs a real overhaul (my only surprise in this whole economic mess has been how long it took to fall apart), I don't think either choice matters that much.

Oh, it matters a great deal to the specific special interests that stand to gain or lose, but to the average person, life is much the same. So I wasn't convinced the election of either candidate spelled out either our doom or our salvation. Barack Obama isn't a bad man, but I couldn't justify spending my own time and attention (big grin) on whether he or John McCain won.

What I can't ignore is the outpouring of hatred since Barack Obama did win. Instead of accepting their loss and getting over it, this time many of those who opposed him seem determined to keep their fight going. I'm referring to the racial incidents since the election, and especially to the news that there have been significantly more threats against Barack Obama's life than against any other President-elect.

Now, if you oppose the policies he intends to follow, and can make a rational statement of your opposition on those grounds, I may be bored, but I'll at least contend you have a right to your opinions. Even that, of course, is no justification for threatening someone's life. But in this case, it seems the problem is simply the colour of his skin.

Haven't we grown up a bit more than that? Aren't we smarter than that? Some of us are, and I'd hoped most of us were, but it appears that isn't the case. There seem to be people out there who want to kill a man for no better reason than the fact his skin is darker than theirs. Anyone who even has a stray thought along those lines ought to be ashamed of themselves. I know I'm ashamed of my fellow humans.

Even considering killing anyone for any reason is a pretty drastic thing to do. Doing so for no better reason than their outward appearance would be pathetic if it weren't so frightening that so many people seem inclined to do so. So I sit here, sick at heart, horrified at what could happen if just one idiot gets lucky. I'd like to think, if you're reading my blog, that you share my feelings. If so, I hope you'll say a prayer for Barack Obama and for his family, that they will all stay safe and unharmed. And once he is inaugurated, I hope you'll support President Obama. He's going to be facing enough difficulties without that kind of hatred to deal with. No matter which side you're on when it comes to his policies, he doesn't deserve that.

Time, Attention, and Creativity

2008-12-10T15:27:00.003-05:00

I've been giving a lot of thought lately to the new direction Merlin Mann is taking over at 43 Folders. His new focus is less on productivity, and more on "time, attention, and creative work". It makes a lot of sense when you think about it.

What difference does it make if I'm twice as productive, if I'm wasting my time and focusing my attention on something marginal? For widget makers, as long as they can sell the widgets they churn out, I suppose productivity is all they need care about. But what about writers, artists, musicians, and anyone else creative? Wouldn't we all be better off creating something of lasting value, instead of whipping out words (or cartoons, riffs, what have you) no one cares about at the time, let alone three months later?

Yes, a knowledge of how to work more effectively is good; it might mean the difference between a life's work that comprises a single ten thousand page novel exploring the meaning of life, or two ten thousand page novels... Seriously, I do think some effort to improve work habits, learn to get things done more quickly, and so on, does pay off, if only in a bit more time to do the things you really want to.

In my opinion, the important difference is in the effect your efforts have. If they do leave you more time to do the important work, they're worth keeping up. If you're just losing a lot of time downloading cool software you'll use once and forget, you'd probably be happier doing something else. Yes, you have to allow room for mistakes; that's part of the learning process.

The point isn't to be so cautious, so miserly with your time, that you avoid all mistakes. Almost nothing is truly wasted when real creativity is applied to extracting some meaning from it. The point is to remain aware, to stop the experiment as soon as you've learned it is a mistake, instead of going ahead out of habit, or some sense of duty.

How do these thoughts apply to my blog? I haven't fully decided yet whether or not Blogger will remain its permanent home, but I will keep a blog. I will try to post to it with something approaching semi-regularity. As I learn to focus my time and attention where I want them, I may even do a better job of posting. What I won't do is spend much time writing "filler" posts. Either I'll write a post on an issue I'm trying to work out my own thoughts on, as in this case, or I'll post about something I believe may be of real value to my readers, which I also hope this post may prove to be, if it gets you thinking as well.

If you do start thinking about this, remember, the point isn't to focus your time and attention in the place I think it ought to be, or anyone else, for that matter. The point is to make up your mind where you believe your efforts will best be spent. If you're at all creative, you ought to be able to find someplace fulfilling to spend your energies.

NaNo Diary: the Aftermath

2008-12-10T15:17:00.002-05:00

The next day, the 29th, I had a party I had (and did want) to go to, later in the evening. I had originally hoped I might slip in a bit more work on the WIP, just to pile up a more impressive word count, even thought I'd officially become a winner the night before. This and that cropped up, however, and since I no longer had the urgent drive to win, I couldn't swat them aside as easily. In any case, I was pretty tired, and not exactly blazing through anything at impressive speed.

After the party, a friend stuck around for a while, so I was up much later than planned. Between that and NaNo, I was exhausted for the final day of November, and barely crawled out of bed. The weather was nasty, too, which didn't help; dark, gloomy, and wet without light, wind, or anything else to recommend it. Bleah! I got up the next day full of good resolutions, but determined first of all to begin catching up on all that backlog from November.

I started to climb that mountain, and discovered it was much higher, and steeper, than I'd guessed from the bottom. A few minor things cropped up, as they always do, just to make things interesting, and left me updating this diary over a week later than planned. Sorry to anyone who was watching the drama, I didn't mean to let you down. A server malfunction on one of the mailing lists I subscribe to didn't help; it dumped a heap of delayed e-mails, including a whole raft of duplicate ones (with no way to sort the dupes except by opening and scanning), into my inbox starting the other day. They're still coming...

For those of you who are wondering; I do like the book, I think it has potential. I plan to finish the first draft as soon as I can catch my breath and settle down to that, then let it sit in the dark for a while before I revise it and decide just what to do with it. I can't let a chance to slaughter a few sacred cows in SF pass, now can I?

NaNo Diary: Day Twenty-Eight

2008-12-10T15:12:00.000-05:00

I sat down and wrote as soon as I could, for as long as I could stand. I knew the next two days would be too busy to fit in much writing, if any, and I wanted to get as far as I possibly could. I had continuity issues, and spent quite a lot of time re-reading, going back and tweaking this or that mention, or adding a line or two as needed. I know you're not supposed to do that during NaNo, as it slows you down, but I prefer a book that is at least mostly coherent.

By the end of my writing marathon, I suspected I'd passed 50,000 words, at least barely, and a quick check of my word count agreed, but only NaNo's validator could tell for sure. I was exhausted, but I pasted the full manuscript into the validator - and won! The official count was 50,794 words, and that in only twenty-eight days instead of the full thirty, with problems dragging me backwards all month. I paused to smile broadly at the result, then went to bed while I still had the energy to do that.

NaNo Diary: Day Twenty-Seven

2008-12-10T15:09:00.001-05:00

Yes, this is posted quite late, as subsequent posts may explain. Thanksgiving Day is never my best day during NaNo, but I did manage to fit in a bit of writing in the evening. I didn't even bother to update my word count (or to post to the blog), but I just wanted to narrow that margin as much as I could. Especially near the end of the month, this is a great strategy - don't even count the words, don't add them to your total, just slip in a bit more work when you have a spare nanosecond.

NaNo Diary: Day Twenty-Six

2008-11-26T23:47:00.002-05:00

I managed a pretty good spurt today. I still don't want to do a victory roll, just in case that fans the fire in my starboard engine, but I can see the airstrip from here, and I still seem to have power. I can probably even glide through tomorrow without writing anything, although if I get the chance I'm going to put fingers to keyboard.

Today's Total: 3,798 words
Days Left: 4
Cumulative Total: 48,179 words
(4,837 words ahead of target)

NaNo Diary: Day Twenty-Five

2008-11-25T22:15:00.003-05:00

As I've found before, desperation is often a great spur to writing. I seem to be coming down with something, but before I felt too awful, I managed to write enough words to at least get me out of immediate danger. I still won't say I'm sure of a safe landing, but I have the damage under control. I also have only a few days left. We'll just have to see how things turn out. Of course, it helps that I've hit an exciting part of the story...

Today's Total: 6,096 words
Days Left: 5
Cumulative Total: 44,381 words
(2,706 words ahead of target)

NaNo Diary: Day Twenty-Four

2008-11-25T00:38:00.004-05:00

Yesterday's trip was long and grueling, and I am still worn out (and somewhat dehydrated). Also, in the "it never rains but it pours" department, one of my cats was sick, nothing serious but enough distraction to keep me from writing until late. I managed a bit, but not nearly enough to catch up. I am dangerously far behind right now. Still, I plan to keep writing. If I lose, it may as well be by as slim a margin as possible (although if I hit the deadline with 2 or 3 words to go, you may hear my scream even if you live on another continent...).

Today's Total: 1,055 words
Days Left: 6
Cumulative Total: 38,285 words
(1,723 words behind target)

NaNo Diary: Day Twenty-Three

2008-11-25T00:35:00.002-05:00

As I expected, I got nothing done. The crisis was averted, thanks to the efforts of Senator Reed's staff and a very helpful gentleman who worked at the JFK Airport in New York. Still, the overnight drive down there, and the subsequent return, left me far too tired to write. Sigh.

Today's Total: 0 words
Days Left: 7
Cumulative Total: 37,230 words
(1,102 words behind target)

NaNo Diary: Day Twenty-Two

2008-11-22T22:13:00.004-05:00

Today, I did manage to get some writing done. Not as much as I'd hoped, but at least some. I'm still (technically) ahead, but that's going down the drain tomorrow. As I write this, after 10:00 PM, I am within minutes of leaving on a long, weary overnight journey to New York City, to (hopefully) rescue my son-in-law from being entangled in a mistake that isn't his own. Thanks to Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island and his staff (yes, I live in Massachusetts, but my daughter and son-in-law live in RI) there is some hope of that. Otherwise, the same government that trips over itself to hand billions to the very executives whose stupidity and greed caused a financial meltdown couldn't be bothered to correct their own errors in time to spare one ordinary, decent person from suffering. All of which means that I'm going to lose any chance of writing tomorrow, so I really only have seven days left - at best. Still, I'm only seeing black smoke pour from my wings, and not flame, as I try to guide this novel in to a safe landing at Fifty Thousand Words Base.

Wish me luck!

Today's Total: 1,964 words
Days Left: 8
Cumulative Total: 37,230 words
(565 words ahead of target)

NaNo Diary: Day Twenty-One

2008-11-22T22:11:00.001-05:00

Between rushing around trying to get things done that absolutely had to be done, and being upset, I didn't manage to write a single word... I just destroyed most of my lead in a single day. I can smell the smoke pouring off my wings as I spiral down in the air...

Today's Total: 0 words
Days Left: 9
Cumulative Total: 35,266 words
(259 words ahead of target)

NaNo Diary: Day Twenty

2008-11-20T23:27:00.001-05:00

I had a good day today, and finally built up a lead. I am tempted to say I smell victory in the air, but I remember the video of the bicycle racer who threw up his hands in victory just before the finish line - and crashed, only to have someone behind him cross the finish line while he was struggling up. With that in mind, I don't want to get too cocky, but at least today was a good day. I hope to have more like it. I have two more days before I lose a day, and I'd like to make the most of them.

Today's Total: 3,548 words
Days Left: 10
Cumulative Total: 35,266 words
(1,926 words ahead of target)

NaNo Diary: Day Nineteen

2008-11-19T23:51:00.003-05:00

Today I had to run some urgent errands, and didn't do as well as yesterday, but I did hit an important milestone. Today I caught up, and actually have a few words over the ideal target of where I should be. Still, I have only eleven days left, and at least four of those are days when I won't be able to fit in any writing. That leaves me at best seven days to write almost 20,000 words if I want to win. I'll need to average almost 2,700 words per day. Well, we'll see. To my well wishers and commenters: I hope you understand, until this madness is over and I've won or fallen short, I am not likely to have any time to visit your blogs and thank you, but I do appreciate your visits. Special thanks to DBA Lehane and Wolfbaby, two old friends who have let me know they're in my corner. Those of you I don't know, I'll drop by and visit you once this race is over and I've caught my breath...

Today's Total: 2,490 words
Days Left: 11
Cumulative Total: 31,718 words
(45 words ahead of target)

NaNo Diary: Day Eighteen

2008-11-19T00:19:00.002-05:00

Today, in spite of disruption, frantic preparation, a looming crisis, and the knowledge that I will lose at least four more days, two at the very end of November, to depress me - in spite of those things, I managed to close much of the gap. I wrote a fairly decent amount, and I have some idea where I'm going, so I may manage to do well tomorrow as well. Still, wish me luck. This isn't going to be easy even if I do start to pull ahead. This weekend, I'll not only miss at least one day's writing, I'm going to end up so exhausted I'll be lucky to get back on track at all. Still, I plan to forge ahead, and hope.

Today's Total: 3,649 words
Days Left: 12
Cumulative Total: 29,228 words
(778 words short of target)

NaNo Diary: Day Seventeen

2008-11-18T00:26:00.001-05:00

With potential disaster staring me in the face, the crisis I've mentioned before took up enough of my attention I barely managed to hold my own today. I'm going to have to do much, much better in the next few days to make it past the finish line in time. I need to close the gap entirely, and to forge well ahead of where I "ought" to be, assuming I wasn't going to lose at least 3 more days of writing time in the next two weeks. (In other words, I need to close up the gap completely, then quickly build up a lead of at least 5,000 words. A tough order, with so few days to go.)

Today's Total: 1,691 words
Days Left: 13
Cumulative Total: 25,579 words
(2,760 words short of target)

NaNo Diary: Day Sixteen

2008-11-18T00:22:00.002-05:00

As I'd planned, I went to help a friend, and got back home too late to do any writing at all. I fell behind again, of course, but I'd planned for this and normally I wouldn't be too worried. I could probably handle it without trouble. The crisis I mentioned, however, is going to cause me to miss a few more days. So the outlook is very uncertain.

Today's Total: 0 words
Days Left: 14
Cumulative Total: 23,888 words
(2,784 words short of target)

NaNo Diary: Day Fifteen

2008-11-16T01:30:00.003-05:00

Well, despite an awful day and too many errands, I managed to keep up and not fall further behind. The only problem? Tomorrow I will be going to see a friend; plans I'd made weeks ago. I doubt I'll manage to write a word. And I'm still behind, a little bit. So I'll be far behind on Monday. The worse problem, of course, is not only Thansgiving (I was planning on that, and on tomorrow) but a get-together the weekend after Thanksgiving, and a need to deal with the crisis I've mentioned next weekend - leaving me with four days during November I'm not likely to be able to write. And I'm behind... I suspect I'm doomed, but I'm going to keep trying. Wish me luck.

Today's Total: 1,828 words
Days Left: 15
Cumulative Total: 23,888 words
(1,117 words short of target)

NaNo Diary: Day Fourteen

2008-11-15T00:40:00.003-05:00

Today was marked by so many interruptions and disruptions I was sure it would be a total disaster. Yet when the dust settled, and I looked at the final counts, I didn't gain any more ground, but came only 8 words short of holding my ground. Not too bad, for a day I thought would set me back all over again. We'll see what tomorrow brings.

Today's Total: 1,659 words
Days Left: 16
Cumulative Total: 22,060 words
(1,278 words short of target)

NaNo Diary: Day Thirteen

2008-11-13T23:34:00.003-05:00

Today everything went well, and I find I am now less than a single day's word count short of where I ought to be. In other words, the gap is closing rapidly. Since I don't expect to be able to write Sunday, I don't dare grow too complacent, but at least I have improved my situation. I'm beginning to think I might really win this thing, and the result might even be worth editing into something I send to a publisher.

Today's Total: 3,637 words
Days Left: 17
Cumulative Total: 20,401 words
(1,270 words short of target)

NaNo Diary: Day Twelve

2008-11-12T23:31:00.002-05:00

While not as good a spurt as yesterday, I still managed to write a fair amount today, and whittled down my shortfall some more. I hope to somehow pull ahead in the next few days, as I'm expecting to be unable to write at all on Sunday, due to a prior commitment. Some people just don't understand NaNo, after all... At the very least, I'm hoping to catch up before then, so my shortfall will be one day's quota at worst. We'll see. The best laid plans of mice and men... Then again, when all looked hopeless in 2006, I managed an incredible spurt and got my 50,000 words before November was over.

Today's Total: 2,487 words
Days Left: 18
Cumulative Total: 16,764 words
(3,240 words short of target)

NaNo Diary: Day Eleven

2008-11-12T00:23:00.002-05:00

I not only managed to write today, I actually wrote enough to make up for missing yesterday, and even whittled down my shortfall from earlier days, at least slightly. If I can write so many words again, I'll be nearly caught up! I'm still in the running, even if the outcome isn't certain yet. Wish me luck, since I think this cold is going to settle in for a while.

Today's Total: 3,652 words
Days Left: 19
Cumulative Total: 14,277 words
(4,060 words short of target)

NaNo Diary: Day Ten

2008-11-11T20:55:00.001-05:00

Day ten was a disaster for me. Too busy fighting off a nasty bug, and fending off swarming crises, to add a single word. I'll have to struggle even harder now to make it to the finish.

NaNo Diary: Day Nine

2008-11-09T22:34:00.004-05:00

Well, I'm battling a cold, so I didn't do as well as I would have liked, but I did manage to keep from doing too badly.

Today's Total: 1,752 words
Days Left: 21
Cumulative Total: 10,625 words
(4,378 words short of target)

NaNo Diary: Day Eight

2008-11-08T22:44:00.002-05:00

Despite the fact that I seem to be coming down with the nasty cold that is going around, I managed to chip away at my shortfall, however slightly. I'm still not happy; I won't be until I have at least some safety margin ahead of the goal. Still, whittling down the amount I need to catch up is a step in the right direction. I don't plan on going down without a fight...

As things stand right now, if I manage 1,870 words per day for the rest of the month, I will win. That is worse than 1,667, but not horribly so. Still, that would leave me no room for any problems that might crop up, so my strategy is to write as much as I can manage, and hope to get ahead of the goal, instead of falling behind. Nevertheless, it is heartening to see that I'm not impossibly far behind.

Today's Total: 2,412 words
Days Left: 22
Cumulative Total: 8,873 words
(4,463 words short of target)

NaNo Diary: Day Seven

2008-11-08T00:01:00.002-05:00

I was discouraged after yesterday, errands took forever, it was a nasty day, and when I finally tried to write, it was one interruption after another. I know! You've got to get past all those issues to make a success of NaNo. Well, the first time I fell behind for a while, and still managed to catch up, so I still have hope. Still, I want to forge ahead so I have some margin for things to go wrong later in the month. Tomorrow is another day; we'll see how I do then. Wish me luck!

Today's Total: 269 words
Days Left: 23
Cumulative Total: 6,461 words
(5,208 words short of target)

NaNo Diary: Day Six

2008-11-07T00:39:00.003-05:00

Today's setback has a dual cause. I've already mentioned a crisis: I don't believe it would be wise to blog in detail about a situation that may be best handled quietly, but I will make one observation. Considering the awesome power the government holds over the lives of ordinary citizens, when they originally make a mistake, that mistake is called to their attention, and they correct it, it is ridiculous to think they could allow that same error to persist and prompt action which could potentially ruin someone's life, and which even if corrected has still caused so much stress and heartache. I am not even the person worst affected by this situation. So, in very large part, if I fail to finish NaNo successfully, it will be "thanks" to a careless bureaucrat who didn't care what harm their sloppiness might cause.

The really sad part is, while I doubt I'm doing it justice, I really like my idea. It has potential.

In addition, I learned a valuable lesson: either avoid writing a science fiction novel for NaNo, or figure out all the things you'll need details on ahead of time. Suddenly discovering I knew too little about space elevators and Dark Sky Stations or StratoStations left me scrambling to learn more. And more. And more. Where can they be sited? What are the geological, meterological, and political factors which might affect them? And so on, and so forth. Little writing, much research.

I really hope I can pull this off somehow. I am seriously thinking of trying to edit the finished novel for submission to a publisher. I know a lot of NaNo novels turn out junk. I know the ones that don't still require a lot of work, and I know this will need that work. But I actually think it might turn out to be an interesting book when I'm done. If I can manage to do it justice.

Today's Total: 108 words
Days Left: 24
Cumulative Total: 6,192 words
(3,811 words short of target)

NaNo Diary: Day Five

2008-11-06T00:25:00.005-05:00

It was an excellent, warm fall day here. My cats desperately wanted to get out, so I made the decision to spare them an hour. I don't regret that. They were ecstatic, and enjoyed sniffing about in the leaves, leaping up trees, watching dead leaves blowing in the wind, and thinking cat thoughts.

However, after that, plumbing problems cost me more time, and aftereffects of the crisis I already mentioned cropped up, and the hours slipped away. My word count isn't horrible, but it didn't even meet the minimum target, either. So I'm falling still further short, again. I begin to fear I'll end the month very close to the goal but not quite there. I'll try to use that fear to spur me on. I want to make this work. This new novel is fun; I want to see where it takes me.

Today's Total: 1,255 words
Days Left: 25
Cumulative Total: 6,084 words
(2,251 words short of target)

Thoughts On Today's Election

2008-11-04T23:27:00.004-05:00

I gladly celebrate the fact that it seems at least most Americans have finally figured out a person's skin colour has nothing to do with their fitness to be President - but I do not and will not celebrate the fact that any President has any particular colour of skin, no matter how many or how few of like colour came before him.

That is a minor point, but a very important one: until we have all learned that skin colour matters only for a physical description, we still have a long way to go. It is also a point far too many people, even those in the media who are supposed to know better, seem incapable of appreciating.

I sincerely hope that those most in need of learning that lesson, the idiotic white supremacists who believe just because a man has darker skin they are obligated to hate him, and seek to harm him, will either grow up and realise just how full of crap they really are (I'm not holding my breath waiting for that to happen), or else die of apoplexy when they see the election results, and leave the rest of us alone. They are much worse than the more common idiots who vote on the basis of skin colour, or gender, or any other totally irrelevant issue. They are filled with hate, which is far harder to combat than simple stupidity.

Personally, I didn't really support either candidate, not because of superficial issues, but because I believe the political machinery we have in place is not capable of producing any candidate who will offer real change. They all offer only one side or the other of the tarnished coin we've had all along.

However, despite my lack of personal enthusiasm, President Obama has been elected President. He has as much right to the office as any other man. If you disagree with him, write editorials, campaign for his defeat in the next election on any rational grounds you choose, and I will still respect you. Drag his race into it, and you will lose my respect. So much as suggest it might be reasonable to attack him for such an absurd reason, you prove yourself no better than Hitler, Himmler, Heydrich, Goebbels, Goring, Eichmann, or any other rabid, monstrous Nazi.

I'm sure my regular readers (if any of you are left out there) don't need to be told any of this. I wish there was no reason to write it. But, considering the recent arrest of a couple of young idiots who know nothing better than hatred, I think it is important to stand up publicly for what's important. Even those who don't think President Obama will have the ability to usher in some new Golden Age should still be willing to stand up, speak out, and make one thing plain. He may be no better than the general run of Presidents, but he is no worse, either. He is a man, with all the rights any man has, including the right to live in peace.

NaNo Diary: Day Four

2008-11-04T23:09:00.006-05:00

Today, now that I have my beginning more firmly on track, I was able to get back to writing. Voting, and watching the election results, distracted me a bit, but I still managed to do much better than the past two days. I'm not on target yet, but I've managed to at least narrow the gap, and it is still early in the month.

I have time to catch up, as long as I'm not foolish. The one hazard ahead: there are one or two days I know I will be lucky to manage a handful of words. I need to not only catch up, I need to build up a comfortable margin, so I can afford to lose ground a day or two.

Today's Total: 2,385 words
Days Left: 26
Cumulative Total: 4,829 words
(1,839 words short of target)

NaNo Diary: Day Three

2008-11-04T00:01:00.005-05:00

At least today I managed to finish editing the first day's beginning, and may be able to move the story forward. Of course, I had to trim a lot of words I'd already written. During the past three days, I have written quite a few more words than the number that shows up in my total. That's why you're supposed to save the editing for later. The trouble is, especially in the beginning, it is easy for a story to drift off course. With luck, I'll pick up some speed tomorrow...

Today's Total: 428 words
Days Left: 27
Cumulative Total: 2,444 words
(2,557 words short of target)

NaNo Diary: Day Two

2008-11-03T00:33:00.004-05:00

Although the crisis that threatened to derail me yesterday may not be as serious as I thought, I didn't get in nearly as much writing time as I would have liked. I also spent much of that time trimming words I'd already written yesterday, and tweaking my opening. Result?

Today's Total: 250 words
Days Left: 28
Cumulative Total: 2,016 words
(1,318 words short of target)

NaNo Diary: Day One

2008-11-01T23:58:00.004-04:00

I began the 2008 NaNo challenge today. The idea is to write a novel (or at least 50,000 words of one) in a month. I started with an idea and a few notes, but no outline and my worldbuilding woefully unfinished. I'll have to try to manage it by the seat of my pants as I write.

The idea is a killer one: if I can make it work, I will have slain two of science fiction's sacred cows: the Turing Test, and the Singularity. The trouble will be keeping up the pace; to "win" NaNo, you need to write 1,667 words per day. If you miss just a day or two, that daily average rises alarmingly. Well, I managed it in 2006 - I tried in 2007, but my friend's death was just too recent, and I never had the slightest chance.

Typically, the first day was not promising. I began unprepared, and while I love writing and have some good days when 1,700 words or so is an easy target, the need to do research, worldbuilding, and plotting on the fly cuts into the time I have. A family crisis struck without warning in the afternoon: I seriously considered that I might need to drop out. Well, I decided to stay in, anyway.

I am also a poor candidate for NaNo for several other reasons. While any real veteran of NaNo would scorn some of the sleaziest tricks advocated to "win" - tricks that make you nothing but a phony who is only pretending to be as good as those of us who have won at least once, such as copying someone else's work from the Net to "prove" you "won", I go much further. Whereas many NaNo veterans will at least make zero effort to curb their wordy tendencies, in hopes that will help push them over the top, I continue to attempt to write passages that will require as little later editing as possible.

Worse yet, I cannot bring myself to follow the typical NaNo advice: to save the editing for December. I keep skipping back to polish sentences, trim stray bits of scene that aren't necessary, and so on. All of that, of course, wastes time and trims my word count severely. So I find myself running twice as hard just to reach the same finish line.

Despite those problems, I thought up a passable beginning - no real "hook", but at least something that might stir a tiny bit of interest in the reader's mind. I set up the scene, and began to set up the premise of the entire book, and I managed a total of 1,766 words. I find the inversion, 1,766 instead of the minimum 1,667 needed, amusing. Stay tuned for more episodes in the saga: will the Wandering Author trip while running with a pencil and stab himself, or will he manage to pull it off?

Today's Total: 1,766 words
Days Left: 29
Cumulative Total: 1,766 words

The Pillar

2008-07-27T23:27:00.002-04:00

This week's prompt from Velvet Verbosity was the word pillar. The challenge is to write exactly 100 words on this topic, in any form you like. In my mind, I saw a pillar standing alone, rising out of desert sand. I wondered why it was there; then, all at once, I understood. Read my story to find out the answer.

The Pillar
Gawen sweated and struggled, setting each segment in place, but finally the pillar stood, alone in barren sand. By day he lived in the hidden chamber of a cave nearby. The pillar served as he’d planned, a spot travelers could find again. Some hoped to avoid tax collectors, others didn’t like bringing all their cash into the city. By night, Gawen crept out to dig it up. In three years he had enough to buy Morgan’s freedom, pay their passage to Albion, and secure their future.

The archaeologist scratched his head. “Who put this here, and why?” He never learned.

Treasures

2008-07-19T22:18:00.005-04:00

This week's prompt from Velvet Verbosity was the word treasures. The challenge is to write exactly 100 words on this topic, in any form you like. I thought of all the word brought to my mind, and wrote this poem which catalogues my own personal hierarchy of treasures. Perhaps some of you will have the perspective to understand.

Treasures
Stacked banknotes,
Stock certificates,
Bonds.
Paper reminders,
Promises easily broken.
Elusive, illusory wealth.

Finely-wrought gold,
Diamonds blazing purest fire,
Carven jewels,
Rubies, emeralds, sapphires.
Ivory graved in darkest ink.
Oddly stamped coins,
Heaps of silver,
Mounds of gold.
Ancient statues,
Clay vessels
Shaped by artisans long dead.
Bits of rare jade.
Solid, enticing.
Treasure.

Words,
Scribed, printed
Engrossed.
Meaning traced
On paper or parchment,
Bound, captured,
Shelved, available.
Storehouse beyond measure
Brimming,
Wisdom, imagination, thought.
Priceless heritage.

Curled shapes,
Furry flanks,
Whiskered muzzles,
Wide bright eyes
Glowing mischief, love.
Velvet paws,
Purring breaths,
Living cats.
More precious than everything.

City

2008-07-16T00:45:00.005-04:00

I nearly missed this week's prompt from Velvet Verbosity. Last Wednesday, I developed heat exhaustion, and by the time I recovered, I figured it was too late. However, since I see the new post isn't up yet, I'll add this entry. The prompt was the word city. The challenge is to write exactly 100 words on this topic, in any form you like. This time, instead of a poem or a brief prose musing, I've written a short science fiction story for fun.

City
Our voices still as we enter the ancient village. Even crumbling, smothered with new growth, the ruins are impressive. I know the stories, how they choked on their own folly. I wouldn’t wish to live crammed in with countless others, to smother in the reek of endless fires.

Still, they had powers and knowledge I cannot imagine. They reached to the sky, they dreamed, even their failures scarred the earth for generations. I wonder what my ancestors were truly like. I crouch to study the figure the hunters found, tail outstretched for balance, but it is only a hairless monkey.

Read the explanation below only after you've thought about it, and really, really don't get it...

Oh, come on! Who do you think would take over the area around a city if everything fell apart. What creature does everyone associate with cities; the first to establish a symbiotic relationship with man without becoming domesticated? The city rat, of course!

And, yes, you guessed it, I'm not much of a city person. Forests, mountains, streams, oceans and meadows for me.

Final Hour

2008-07-04T01:32:00.002-04:00

This week's prompt from Velvet Verbosity is the word hour. The challenge is to write exactly 100 words on this topic, in any form you like. This time, instead of a poem or a brief prose musing, I've written a short story. I find it more interesting to explore different forms, just as I enjoy seeing the different angles each contributor approaches the word from.

Final Hour
A short, sharp knock, the sound I’ve been expecting - and dreading - for months now.

A guard thrusts open the door, not waiting for my reply. “You have an hour to prepare.”

My goodbyes have already been said. If God has rejected my earlier pleas, all I can do now is accept His decision. I pick up my pen. So many ideas, so many observations jostling to escape before darkness erases them. Their loss seems sadder even than my own. Which shall I save? My pen wavers in midair.

Another knock, and the guards come in. How brief an hour is!

Elusive Ultimate

2008-06-29T23:02:00.006-04:00

This week's prompt from Velvet Verbosity is the word ultimate. The challenge is to write exactly 100 words on this topic, in any form you like. I always enjoy seeing the very different responses each word provokes in different writers.

Elusive Ultimate
How often
We seek the ultimate.
How often
We proclaim it found.

Yet -
Is life long enough
To sift centuries of wonders,
Comparing, discarding, selecting?

Does any have insight enough,
To speak another’s mind?

At twenty,
Dreaming ultimate dreams,
Daring to hope
Fragile promise durable.
At forty,
So often weighted by
Doubled experience,
Dreams crumble, tumbling
Into nightmare,
Leaving only ultimate loss -
Which, too, may pass.

Future thoughts
Forever beyond view,
Chasms greater and stranger
Hide others’ minds unguessed, unread.

The ultimate -
Indefinable,
Unreachable,
Ultimately elusive.

Thus preserving,
Always,
More to seek,
Heights to strive for;
Ultimate fountain
Of hope.

Scraped!

2008-06-21T12:55:00.005-04:00

This is, of course, all too common, but I'm posting the details for those of you who want to keep an eye on your content. I just noticed, while leaving a comment over at Velvet Verbosity, that the post had been 'scraped', and it appeared to be my work that had been stolen. Lest anyone forget, my original work was posted days earlier.

Note that anything that follows is my own personal opinion of events, and is backed up only by the facts I provide in this post. Make up your own minds. But I do stand behind my opinion, that honest, decent people would not behave in the way several companies have done in this case. If you define honesty and decency differently, that is your right - go shout it somewhere else.

First of all, in case any of you are ignorant of how these things happen, this has nothing at all to do with Velvet Verbosity. Scrapers steal anything, from anybody. That simply happens to be where I noticed the clue pointing me to the thieves. Scrapers and spammers: look at the 'quality' of that 'blog'. If you enter the main domain name, http://crutoo.com, you will find they maintain a whole list of "Info for You!", also known as scraped content thrown together to lure suckers into clicking on dubious links.

If you checked the scraped page, you will notice they quoted only my work, under someone else's name. Again, not anyone's fault but the scraper and spammer. And, of course, to heap another injury atop stealing and misattributing my work my words are being misused to promote and advertise one of the very things I was speaking out against! So I looked up the WhoIs information for that domain, intending to insist on proper payment for the unauthorised use of my work, plus correction of the attribution. I discovered the scum who make tons of money by stealing other people's words to help them defraud others want to 'protect their privacy', so they hide behind this extremely ill advised service. Link edited; original text was "seeming front for criminal activity".

Portions of the following paragraphs edited to reflect the response I received Monday morning, 23 June 2008.

Why did I call this organisation a seeming front for criminal activity, and later edit my comment? Well, they not only protect their clients' 'privacy' - they isolate them still further, by refusing legal notices sent to domain owners at the only address provided, instead forcing victims to go through their 'screening' first. They could at least forward mail sent on legal matters to their clients. Instead, they slow down justice in the name of 'privacy'. I find that extremely ill advised at best; less of a protection for privacy and more of a useful shelter for sploggers and other lowlifes. However, I did alter my original opinion somewhat when I got a response within 48 hours of my complaint, exposing the splogger's details to the world. It may be they are simply too foolish and idealistic to understand how easily they can be misused, or how much distress they cause the innocent. Nevertheless, I suffered for those 48 hours, wondering just how difficult it would be to take action.

I suspect they will claim they get "too much mail to handle" - well, that's because you let scrapers, spammers, and who knows what else hide behind your skirts. If you didn't accept such people, if you checked out their sites yourself to verify they were honest sites, maybe you wouldn't get so much mail. Of course, that wouldn't be as profitable, would it? Perhaps the reason isn't profit, but whatever it is, if you truly hope to offer a fair, honest service, you shouldn't adopt a policy of this kind.

Portions of the preceeding paragraphs edited to reflect the response I received Monday morning, 23 June 2008. Please note there is no longer any reason to complain to the New Zealand authorities, as that situation has been resolved, and the identity of the true culprit, residing in Texas, is now known to me.

This "service" is based in New Zealand, and I hope all of you will join me in complaining to the New Zealand government. I think it is an outrage any country's laws would allow such a situation to exist. You can e-mail the New Zealand embassy in Washington at info at nzemb dot org or you can contact the US embassy in New Zealand at aucklandacs at state dot gov - correct the ats and dots appropriately, of course.

I am including a quote of my own message to the New Zealand embassy in Washington, which does not provide very useful contact information for such a situation. My message isn't worded very well, I suppose: I'm still very shocked and upset.

"If you simply read my post on my blog here:
[link to this post omitted] you will see the basic details of my complaint.

I am shocked that your country would permit such a blatant front for criminal activity to exist, without even requiring them to accept and to forward legal notifications from victims of the criminals they shield.

Writers do not make a lot of money. I don't have the time or money to fly to New Zealand to pursue some elaborate court case. This has done me immense economic and emotional harm. My words were not only stolen - they were misused to promote one of the very things I was speaking out against!

If the New Zealand government does indeed care about justice and about protecting the victimised without forcing them to jump through hoops too high to reach, please advise me what I can do to take action about this.

If you will simply look over my own blog, and the 'blogs' maintained by the scraper hiding behind a New Zealand organisation, you will see mine is the honest blog of a writer, while the other is a collection of spam. This is a pretty simple issue."

Protection

2008-06-21T12:08:00.003-04:00

This week's prompt from Velvet Verbosity is the word protection. The challenge is to write excactly 100 words on this topic, in any form you like. I find this challenge is a lot of fun, and different words draw very different responses from me. In this case, for those who don't understand the poem, I'm illustrating it, below, with a photograph of the place I had in mind, Fort Warren, on Georges Island out in Boston Harbour.

Protection
Sturdy walls of stone
Withstanding cannon’s recoil,
Shouldering dense green thickets,
Yet marked by something slight
As passing moments.

Amidst great guns firing,
Roaring deadly defiance,
Massive blocks of granite
Stood unshaken.
Beneath spreading roots
In thick soil awaiting hostile reply,
Roofs bear up unsagging.
Unyielding fortress,
Silent now,
Worn.
Not expected cataclysms of war,
Only time’s unceasing footfalls
Conquered island bastion.

Once blocking enemy ships
Astride harbour approaches.
Turning aside even thoughts
Of attack.
Now ignored, overflown
By aircraft, time’s little joke
On designers, builders.

Vital protection,
Outdated, abandoned;
Monument
To simpler years.
What bulwark can repel
Passing time?

Plastic

2008-06-02T11:38:00.006-04:00

The latest challenge is up over on Velvet Verbosity. This week's word is plastic. I hope my thoughts will get you thinking, as well.

Plastic
Plastic, a cheap substance not inherently beautiful like metal or wood, breaks easily in use, yet refuses to degrade and go away when tossed aside to clutter up meadows and forests. At best an inexpensive, less satisfying alternative to better materials, the ultimate cost to our world is high.

Plastic, not real, not honest, not strong enough to resist pressure.

In neither sense is plastic a positive idea. Yet our society makes more and more from plastic, trusts it to do more; we vote for plastic leaders, idolise celebrities with plastic bodies and personalities. What does this say about us?

Plans, Thoughts, Hopes

2008-06-02T00:15:00.004-04:00

I have several plans I'm considering. Of those, some are too vague yet for me to write about them. But I do have a few things I would like to move forward on. First of all, I do intend to keep cleaning this poor, old blog up. Second, I hope to start a serious discussion among interested writers about the issues raised in the previous post. What can we do to make a living? What will work, what is worth trying, and what isn't worth even wasting time thinking about?

If you are interested in this topic, please leave a comment. I'd really like to find a few serious writers who understand just how important this is. We need to put our heads together, brainstorm, and work on finding real solutions. I know we're all busy, but please don't offer to take part unless you are really going to make the time to do it. I would like to help improve the choices all writers have as they seek to survive doing what they do best.

Finally, I have toyed with one idea for a while, and I'd like your thoughts. I sent out one enquiry, but I am also interested to see what my readers think. I've been wondering what I could do for America's troops overseas. Whatever your politics, these guys aren't the ones making the decisions. They are leaving their homes, going to harsh and hostile lands, and risking death. They see friends die around them. Most of them are just kids. And they do all that because somebody else orders them to.

They volunteer because they want to protect their country, their families, their friends, to guard all our freedoms. How they are used is not theirs to decide. There are those who would disagree with me. If so, go write about it on your blog, the one you're free to express your opinion on because of men like the ones you despise.

A lot of Americans, even those who don't despise them, don't seem to give them much thought. I do. My son was one of them for a while, when he was in the Marines. He served for eight years; he's home now, safe and sound, but I can't forget that people just like him are still there, still dying. Now, I don't have enough money to contribute anything significant to the care packages sent over there.

What I can do is write. In some ways, it is useless, but perhaps some of the men and women over there would get a bit of encouragement out of the idea that someone was offering to write something to entertain them. So my idea works like this: I'd ask for suggestions for ideas - stories they'd like to read - from the men and women stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Every two weeks, I'd pick an idea I can work with, write a story, and post it (on a separate blog set up for this project, or a special web site). If I found I could manage more frequent stories and posts, I'd pick up the pace. The story would be dedicated to the person who suggested it.

I'd keep the basic Copyright rights, but I would post the stories under a blanket grant of non-exclusive rights to any service member to print it out and to pass on copies if they like. If other writers are interested, they could join the project, and select the ideas they wanted to work with. They would keep the rights to their own stories, but would grant the same blanket non-exclusive rights I've described above.

I would be the overall editor; this is not open to just anyone who thinks they are a writer. Only someone able to write decent stories, ones that at least might end up in a magazine, would be accepted. In addition, I'd look over their stories and suggest any changes they needed to make so the story would be the best it could be. The idea here is, if we're going to do this, the troops deserve soemthing decent.

Actually, they deserve the best, but I'm not the best and I know it. I am at least a halfway decent writer, though. At least, I hope I am. I don't think it would be appropriate to take on any writers who weren't at least good enough to describe as "halfway decent". If you are interested in taking part, leave a comment here. I'll get back to you as soon as I can. If I think you are good enough, or that I can edit what you write so it is good enough, I'll count you in.

Tentatively, I'm calling this Tales for the Troops. I hope I can make it work out, and I hope it will bring a smile to at least some of the faces that badly need it. Maybe it will be a reminder to them that at least a few people do care what happens to them.

Ideas From Published Authors Needed

2008-05-30T16:53:00.003-04:00

Another blogger and writer is seeking ideas, in order to put together a book to help all writers sell their books. She has requested that anyone who is willing repost her call for help, so here it is, below. You can also click on the link to view the original, with links.

"After posting about some interesting movements in the music industry, Colleen at Loose Leaf Notes asked me to look into book publishing.

Inspired, I set out to answer her question.

At little background first. Book publicity has changed drastically in the last seven years. When we started the Open Grove in January, 2001:

* In-house publicists from hundreds of publishers sent dozens of copies of books. I received 12+ books a day. I heard that Oprah received over 50 books a day. Yikes!
* Almost every author went on some form of a multi-city book tour.
* I received telephone calls, letters, and a few emails (2001) from publicists hungry to get their clients on the Open Grove.

Within two years:

* publishers began to merge into multinational conglomerates,
* the tide of books became a trickle, (Thank God)
* authors financed their own book tours,
* some savvy best selling authors began publishing their own books, and
* small book presses were growing.

By 2007:

* many of the major book publishers had closed their publicity departments,
* authors whispered that they spent their entire advance on a publicist - some where helpful, most were not, and
* the publishing industry lost 17%! Book publishers closed left and right.

Walt Whitman sold his book door to door. What’s an author in 2008 supposed to do to sell his or her book??

* What works?
* What doesn’t work?
* What are people doing to promote themselves?
* What was the data? Which marketing endeavors increased sales? What had no effect at all?
* Self publishing? Big New York Publisher? No advance publishing? E-book publishing?

I asked my favorite Marketing forum and came up with some good ideas, but no data. I sat through ridiculous seminars run by sharks and charlatans. (No, Janet, I didn’t kill them, I only WANTED to kill them.)

What sells books in 2008?

No one knows.

I mean, I have some ideas? But I’ve already written about them.

Unsure of what to do, I did nothing. Then I noticed a little project of Brad Feld’s (Liz, he’s the venture capitalist I was talking about). I decided to steal his idea.

I’m sending out an SOS.

Let’s collect our information and experience. We don’t have to toil alone. Together, we can create a resource for authors. With information, we wrestle our creative efforts from the mouth’s of sharks.

(100% of these proceeds will go to Wounded Warriors. )

What I’m looking for:

* Direct experience marketing a book, selling a book or even getting a book published.
* What is working for you?
* What hasn’t worked for you?
* What do you believe is the single most important factor in selling your book?
* You book can be a self-published book, an e-book, a New York publisher.
* Did your book tour work?
* How much publicity help did you get from your publisher?
* What sells your book?

I’m thinking a short (100 - 300 words) this worked, this didn’t.

In return for participating, you will receive a free copy of the book. I’m hoping to collect 100 authors to participate in this project. If you are interested, please send me an email at: opengrove@gmail.com or leave a comment at On a Limb with Claudia. If you know a published author, please let them know about this project."

Against

2008-05-29T15:43:00.004-04:00

This week's 100 word challenge at Velvet Verbosity features the word Against. Well, I'm against using the same format for every effort, so here's a poem for your (doubtful) pleasure.

Against
I cry out -
Against
Death and loss.

Against
Entropy.

Against the inexorable current of
Time.

Against
Cruelty and its craving:
Suffering.

Against
Lies luring us astray -
Politics;
Every party, every candidate -
Posturing,
Hypocrisy,
Good intentions soured, presented as fresh,
Cures worse than diseases,
Distortions of truth
Winning votes,
Betrayal of all
Who trust promises.

Against
Conformity,
Thoughtless obedience -
Slayers of creativity;
Hatred and intolerance,
Harsh enforcers;
Standardization,
Enemy of infinite variety.

Against
Greed,
Lust;
Which cultivate
Indifference to all
But their satisfaction;
Exploitation,
Pollution,
Destruction,
Bitter fruits of indifference.

Against
Rigid law,
Rules, regulations,
Injustice.

Against
War in any form.

Author Interview: Tristi Pinkston, Season of Sacrifice

2008-05-27T00:01:00.005-04:00

Today, I have a special guest on the Unending Journey of the Wandering Author. Tristi Pinkston, author of several thought-provoking historical novels, is touring the blogosphere to alert readers to her newest book, Season of Sacrifice. One of the things I personally find most intriguing about Tristi is the fact that she doesn't write historical fiction that seems taken from a third-grade textbook. Instead, she explores viewpoints and areas of history that are often ignored, even topics some people would prefer to forget. In the process, she provides a much richer and fuller view of history than the usual "one side is good, the other bad" treatment. Welcome to the Unending Journey..., Tristi.

As a writer myself, I'm interested in how you write. Do you plan an outline first, or do you just sit down with an idea and see where it takes you?

I do a little bit of both. I always have a historical timeline in front of me so I know what major event happened when and so I know when to move my character from place to place. From there, I let it flow and see where it takes me. I've tried writing with a tight outline and gave it up after about three days. I need more freedom and flexibility than that.

Do you follow a routine when you write? If so, what seems to work best for you?

I always check my e-mail first. For some reason, if I think someone might have e-mailed me, I can't just write and ignore it. My e-mail boxes must be cleaned out. Beyond that, I just dive in. Oh -- and I usually have a glass of ice water sitting next to me. I'm ashamed to say that yes, I do chew on the ice.

Do you have any favourite writing techniques, or any suggestions you think might be helpful to fellow writers?

I frequently recommend to new writers that they imagine they are in the scene they are writing and allow themselves to feel the emotions that are present. The very best writing comes from feeling the emotion, and so if you are terrified of the falling bombs or you have vertigo staring down the cliff, so much the better. You can write it more effectively.

What about tools? Do you have particular writing software you can't live without, or perhaps a favourite type of pen or ink? How do these things help you as you write?

Writing software is evil. No, I'm just kidding, but sometimes I feel that way. I use Word but only because it's industry standard. If I had my way, we'd do everything with Word Perfect.

I can't live without lip balm. Let's see, right now I have huckleberry on my desk. And I can't live without my yoga ball chair and my ergonomic keyboard. Everything else is flexible.

Who are the people, writers or not, who have influenced you most as a writer, and how has each one influenced you?

My grandparents on my dad's side were huge believers in me, and made me feel like I could do anything. My parents have also been supporters of my dreams. They put up with me when I went through my depressing poetry phase in my teens, and if you can live through that, you can live through anything.

Now, I really rely on my writers group, the LDStorymakers. We started out as an online support group for authors, and have become a family. Those folks teach me, uplift me, and keep me going.

Do you do all your research before you sit down to write a book, or do you find yourself needing to check details as particular points come up?

Both. I try to do all the research beforehand, but it's impossible. You never know what you're going to miss. I tend to immerse myself in research for a couple of months before I start writing, and then I hit the Internet for those missing details as I go along.

What techniques do you use to help you capture the feel of the times and places you want to write about?

When I pick a time or a place to write about, I spend about two months concentrating on it. I read all the books I can find, watch all the movies I can find, search the Internet for hours. I'm not focusing on just facts; I'll watch romantic movies set in that place, for instance. Whatever I need to do to get the feel. I don't read much else or watch much else for those two months. Then, when I sit down to write, I really feel like I've captured the flavor of the time and place, and I have had people compliment me on that as well. So I guess it works.

You clearly have sympathy for those who are persecuted, and a real inclination to use your writing to remind readers of the humanity that can be found in any group. What experiences taught you to see, for example, that a girl growing up in Nazi Germany could be a sympathetic character? What influences roused the need in you to highlight the forgotten aspects of history?

When I was a little girl, I had a deep desire to go to Russia. I wanted to go there like nothing else. When the opportunity came for me to go, I was fifteen, and it was right before the coup in 1991. My parents were freaked out about letting me go. They grew up in the era where it was believed that the Russians were nothing but evil. They were just sure that if I went, something bad was going to happen to me. I stood on my head to get them to let me go, and once I was over there, I discovered what I'd instinctivly known all along -- Russians aren't bad. Their government has been corrupt, but Russians aren't bad.

I've always hated blanket stereotyping. You can't take any group of people and label them. We are all individuals. I want to deal with
people on a case by case basis, not as a group.

When it came time to write about Nazi Germany, it really came as no surprise to me that the Germans weren't bad. Their government was corrupt. The German people as a whole were very good. What has surprised me is the reaction I get when I make that comment. Most of the Nazis were just people and were just doing what they had to do. Only a small percentage actually understood what they were doing and actually enjoyed doing it. Most of them had been pressured into service and didn't see a way out.

As far as my need to highlight those forgotten aspects of history, I really feel that as long as we only focus on the "popular" part of
history, we're only partially educated. To understand a war, we really have to look at both sides. And we can't say we understand humanity at all without recognizing that our enemies are humans too.

With your current book, Season of Sacrifice, was it inspired by family research you'd already done, that you felt outlined a story which needed to be told, or did you have an idea for a book based on an ancestor you had vaguely heard of, then set out to research his life in greater detail?

We'd had a family history book kicking around my house for most of my childhood and I'd never really paid any attention to it. But one day about five years ago, I picked it up, read it, and knew this was a story I had to tell. I called my dad, asked him for more information, and he gave me several more pieces of information and some books. I set to work and fleshed out the story that was outlined in the family history stories. I'd known the story, growing up, but I hadn't known the details. They were fascinating.

Your other books were set amidst real events, but featured fictional characters. How was writing Season of Sacrifice different, knowing you were portraying the lives of real people, your own ancestors?

It was stressful, because I wanted to get it "right." I didn't want to write anything that would embarrass my family. But at the same time, it was exhilarating. I felt that I was really doing something important. And, with the family history books and excerpts from my ancestors' journals, I felt as though I'd been given every tool I needed to succeed.

You chose to tackle an issue in Season of Sacrifice I think most writers would be afraid to explore. Were you able to draw on many contemporary documents that offered an insight into the views and struggles of individuals who dealt with polygamy as a reality in their own lives, or did you have to use your own insight and imagination to reconstruct their attitudes as best you could?

I was able to find something of my ancestors' feelings in the family documents that I have, but a lot of what I wrote was conjecture. I wrote it from the gut, and when it felt right, that's when I knew it was ready.

In learning more about polygamy and how it functioned in practice among the LDS settlers in Utah, and in struggling to write about it and portray it accurately, did you find your own opinions or feelings on the issue changed at all? Do you hope Season of Sacrifice will bring your readers to a better understanding of the people who were confronted with such difficult decisions?

I really did struggle with writing those aspects of the book because it's not a principle I've ever understood. My feelings have changed, though, in that I realized that these people wanted to be obedient at any cost. Once I realized that, I was able to move forward with writing those scenes in what I believe is a very realistic way. Polygamy, when practiced righteously, was a blessing to those who lived it. Those who lived it unrighteously weren't blessed for it.

I do hope my book will shed some light on that era of my church's history. I would love for them to understand a little more clearly the emotions that were involved and the depth to which these people felt the devotion to their cause. I'm not saying I expect people to really understand it, because it's tough and I don't think I even understand it. But I do admire and respect those persons to whom obedience was everything, and I would like the reader to understand that.

What scene or aspect of Season of Sacrifice do you hope will most capture readers' interest?

I love the scene where the pioneers go through the Hole in the Rock. I hope I wrote it in such a way that the reader can feel the terror of the scene, that they get a little bit sick as they contemplate it, and that they breathe a sigh of relief when everyone is at the bottom.

What would you like to say to anyone reading this interview to persuade them Season of Sacrifice is one book they don't want to miss?

This book is well-researched, compellingly written, and contains moments you will never forget, and they're all true. These pioneers faced challenges that modern engineers have said were impossible, and yet they conquered them with faith in God and with handfuls upon handfuls upon miracles. This book is by far my best, and I'm a pretty darned good writer, so that's saying a lot.

Are you working on a new project yet? If you are, what can you tell us about it?

I'm always working on a project -- I'm sort of compulsive that way. My current project is a comedy/mystery and is based on this: Everyone says that the women of the LDS Church are nosy and know everything that's going on in the ward. What if they really did? It's a Relief Society meets Miss Marple kind of story, and I'm totally enjoying it. It's a departure from anything else I've done.

Do you have a web site where anyone who is interested can go to learn more about you and your books?

You can find me in a couple of different places. My website is http://www.tristipinkston.com, I maintain a blog at http://www.tristipinkston.blogspot.com and I also write media reviews for Families.com. You can read those at http://members.families.com/tristipie/blog.

Thanks for coming, Tristi. It's been a pleasure having you here.

It's been a lot of fun for me. And I'll be checking in throughout the day, so if anyone would like to ask any questions, I'll be more than happy to answer them.

I hope many of you who read this will stop by Tristi's web site to pick up your own copy of Season of Sacrifice; as I set up this post, I noticed she is offering autographed copies at no extra charge. Season of Sacrifice sounds like a very interesting book, and it looks like a good deal to me!

Wandering Author's footnote: My regular readers know I utterly oppose the evil actions that overwhelming evidence shows were carried out at the orders of the Nazi government. Nevertheless, I agree with Tristi completely when she says not all Germans were evil. To believe all, or even most, Germans alive during World War Two were evil is to fall into the same trap the Nazis did - to blame an entire group for the actions of some. Yes, most of those in positions of great power in Nazi Germany were evil. Clearly, many Germans who were evil flocked to the Nazi party early, as a place to satisfy their darkest impulses. And, as evil people always do, after the war some men muddied the waters by pretending to be ordinary, innocent citizens. None of those things prove, or even suggest, that most Germans were inherently evil.

Some Germans actively conspired against their government, or risked their lives to hide Jews. Some refused to join the Nazi party. And even among those who did, many were reluctant members, who followed orders only because they truly felt they had no choice. There is ample historical evidence to support this. Frequent suicides among concentration camp guards are dramatic proof some could not bear the things they had done unwillingly. For another example, the story of the U-869, recounted in Shadow Divers, tells of a U-Boat crew composed mainly of men who hated Hitler and loathed all the Nazis stood for. The captain himself was no admirer of the Fuhrer. They were ordered to go on patrol near the end of the war - they were sure Germany was already defeated and theirs would be a useless gesture. They knew they would die. Yet they did not feel able to refuse; families and friends were hostage to their "good behaviour". They sat weeping the night before they sailed, yet they did sail - because they didn't feel they had any other choice. Men don't go to their deaths unless they really believe there is no other choice.

Distraction

2008-05-21T16:02:00.006-04:00

This week's 100 word challenge at Velvet Verbosity is on the topic of distraction (don't allow yourself to be distracted by the list of last week's entries, scroll down to the bottom). Well, I got so distracted that I wrote two entries, so I'll post both of them here for your amusement. One is a story, the other is, well...

Distraction

Eyes on the controls before him, Thurman struggled to concentrate on the reaction he was expected to monitor and control. Distraction is your enemy. They’d drilled that into him during training. Distraction kills. Making the continual necessary corrections was nearly impossible even with the reminder. One of the visiting bigwigs had brought an assistant, a tall, lushly built redhead in a dress that concealed little more than it had to. One glimpse left him hopelessly aware of her presence. She leaned over his shoulder, curious. Thurman had just time to think distraction kills as the fireball incinerated the control room.

Distraction

It is best to avoid distraction while writing, lest some catchy jingle such as Nothing But Gingerbread Left disrupt the flow of your thoughts. If you are distracted, the result may be a very good cat, with whole phrases or sentences nonsensical or out of place. If you do find yourself with nothing but gingerbread left, you may be forced to discard whole paragraphs you’ve written. It can be difficult to pet a purring cat in your lap while typing, or reconstruct your ideas later. A distracted writer is a catnip carrot. Only those who can concentrate should eat gingerbread.

A note for the curious: Nothing But Gingerbread Left is the title of a story by Henry Kuttner. In keeping with the theme, it seemed only fitting and appropriate to work this in as a tribute of sorts, although I didn't think of the story until I'd started to write the basic idea. The link leads to an article which tells more about the story, for those who don't know it and don't understand why it is so appropriate to reference. Finally, a Google search to find the article also revealed that Henry Kuttner may have adapted his jingle from a traditional marching cadence.

Indelible Memory

2008-05-18T00:35:00.003-04:00

Rapt in words,
Yet the dreadful blast
Of one world’s ending
Smashing midnight quiet,
Tore my mind away.
Icy voice foretelling the worst,
Swiftly thrust aside, denied.

Even sirens in the night,
Unexpected snarling saws
Slicing through sleep,
In daylight a tree
Torn free, toppled to earth.
All reminders of the night’s fright,
None heeded.

Eleven simple words, so few
To bear the weight of fateful news.
Innocence,
Hope,
Friendship.
Gone.
All gone, in an instant.

There was a crash. The driver died. It was Michael ------.

Once read, such words cannot be unsaid.
Stories, rumours fly, settle on my soul,
Smothering drifts of numbness.
In my mind I see
The shattered tree, tangled golden dreams,
Puzzled eyes staring holes in pale face,
Lying on the hard ground. Alone.

Stark light of tragedy
Illuminates dire decision,
Reveals two choices but one fate;
Shadows of guilt darken the rest.
Truth’s point remains; you needed to talk.
I left you, alone.
Was my hand steering your life that night?

Years drowned in infinite tears,
Life forever altered in eleven words.
Every year, the indelible memory
Is still clear.
The awful sound.
Sudden fear.
Words impossibly true.

There was a crash. The driver died. It was Michael ------.

This poem was edited on the 19th of May; several lines were changed to better reflect reality.

A Would-Be Writer's Dream

2008-05-16T22:54:00.003-04:00

A short while ago, I had an incredibly valuable experience. I was chosen to act as beta-tester for Holly Lisle's new e-book, How To Write Page-Turning Scenes. As I've noted here before, I am an affiliate of Holly's online shop, but I'd be excited about this book even if I wasn't.

What makes it so special? First of all, like most writers, I've bought and read a lot of writing books. Few of them did much to help me improve my writing, but I kept searching. Holly Lisle is an author who has been writing, and selling her work to publishers, for some time. She has clearly spent a lot of time thinking about, and analysing, the processes she uses.

She does not lay out a set of rules for you to follow. She teaches you about a set of tools that might help you. It is a key difference. In my own case, reading How To Write Page-Turning Scenes did not reveal any secrets that were a surprise to me. So why am I so excited?

Simply put, I understand all the things I've learned to do as a writer much better, so I can settle down to writing more effectively. I've spent years writing, working on drafts, getting stuck on novels, everything every writer does. I've been at it long enough that in my case reading How To Write Page-Turning Scenes didn't add any new tools to my toolbox, but it did clean up, adjust, and sharpen every tool I already had in there.

If you're already happy with how quickly and well you write, if you've got a few novels under your belt and don't feel the need for any improvement, then you won't want this book - although I suspect even then it just might make you a bit better at writing. If you have novels you're stuck on, you need this book. One reading, and I could see ways to make progress on novels I've been stuck on for over a dozen years. If you only want to write short fiction, or non-fiction, this book may not help you, although understanding what it takes to make a novel work might just aid you even in those other areas.

What if you're just starting out, and don't even have enough written to be stuck halfway through a novel yet? Well then, you have even more to gain. This book has done an incredible amount for me, and it accomplished that in a weekend. You may need months to work through it and take in all it has to offer, but in those months, you'll make as much progress as I did in ten years or more of writing.

One key secret to writing well is to keep practicing. I wish I had this book ten or fifteen years ago. I would have spent more time learning all it had to offer, but then I would have been much further ahead, and I'd have that much more time in my life to practice what I learned. I know writers don't have a lot of money, but this book is more than worth it.

If reading it once isn't enough for you, go back and read it again. Do the exercises. Learn all that you can, and enjoy the benefits. I suspect some of you are remembering that I'm an affiliate, and wondering if I'm getting this carried away just because I get a commission if you buy a copy.

First of all, Holly Lisle made a deliberate decision to keep the price down, and sell a course easily worth more than a hundred dollars for much less. She offers fair commissions, and I'm not complaining about that, but each sale doesn't exactly make me an amount of money I'm going to get carried away over.

I may also be self-conscious about my work sometimes, as most writers are, but I'm also proud enough of what I've learned I'm not suddenly going to gush over how much better a writer I am now (thus making myself seem so much less of a writer before) unless I believe that to be true.

Finally, whatever your opinion when you read the book, I've given you my honest opinion and I can hold my head up. If I spouted a lot of advertising copy just to sell something to you, I'd be too humiliated to ever face anyone again, which would defeat the whole purpose of trying to sell things online.

Tragedy In China

2008-05-14T14:50:00.004-04:00

(Updated) As many of you know, a severe earthquake struck China not far from the city of Chengdu the other day. The latest official estimates are at least 14,000 people dead, and another 25,000 people buried in rubble. Many children are buried in the rubble of their school buildings, and vital moments are ticking away. Every moment they remain trapped in the rubble, their chance of survival decreases.

Since I first posted this, the Chinese government has estimated that the death toll may reach at least 50,000 and has issued a public appeal for rescue equipment. Since China's government seldom issues such appeals, as their own resources are extensive, this is an indication of how very tragic and desperate the situation is. Of course, the magnitude of the earthquake indicates it released roughly 600 megatons of energy, so widespread damage and devastation was sure to result.

If you visit the American Red Cross' informational page on this disaster, you will see that there are only a few things you can do. Do not donate supplies as an individual or as the result of a collection. If you own a company and are able to donate in bulk, please contact the Red Cross to see if they can use your help.

Even if you were able to drop everything and rush to China, the Red Cross asks that you not do this. In any case, by the time you could arrive, it would probably be too late for those who need help most. If you can spare a donation, read the Red Cross page and earmark it for post-earthquake disaster relief in China at the time you donate.

Even if you are broke, there is one thing you can do. Copy this post, with my full permission: I waive any and all Copyright rights in this post and place it forever in the public domain. Get the word out. Countless buildings are destroyed, survivors are huddling in the rain on piles of rubble, and every bit of help will make a real difference. Please, if you do nothing else, let the world know of this opportunity to help those in desperate need in Sichuan Province, China.

Please do whatever you can to help your fellow human beings, and at the very least pass this along in the blogosphere.

Velvet Verbosity 100 Word Challenge: Want

2008-05-13T23:48:00.005-04:00

I recently became aware of an interesting blog, Velvet Verbosity, and an interesting challenge run there each week. The 100 word challenge involves writing exactly one hundred words on a one-word prompt. Those words can be poetry or prose, fiction or an essay. Nevertheless, writing exactly one hundred words, not one word more or less, is much more difficult than it seems.

This week's challenge is on the subject of "want". The top of the post features entries from the last challenge, on Eden, but if you scroll down to the bottom of the post, you'll find this week's word. I hope some of my readers will take up the challenge. My own entry follows, in bold text, with my comments on what I've written following it.

Want was all Michael had ever known, the one thing he understood. It was a mixture of cold and hunger seasoned with fear. Watching his brothers and sisters turn hairless and thin as sticks, seeing his mother’s dull eyes follow them as she slowly wasted away, every cell of his body crying out in want, he was the last of his family. He died alone, surrounded by their bodies. All the while, mocking the want that consumed him, food left Ireland’s shores to feed the demands of mercantilism. Experts agreed with the British politicians such inhumanity was the best decision.

Some of you may think this is melodramatic. However, such things happened in the late 1840s in Ireland, and happened all too often. Food really did leave the shores of Ireland while her people starved. Politicians really did think their theories were more important than human lives. Granted, this isn't a balanced account, but it is true history.

Half my ancestors came from Ireland. I could legally qualify for Irish citizenship, on two grounds. I don't know the exact experience of every family during the Great Famine, but as they were Protestant Irish, they were likely to do better than most. Notice that I don't say I agree with how Irish Catholics were treated; that was, however, how it was at the time. At least I do know my ancestors were poor enough they weren't busy making life difficult for Catholic families.

In addition, contrary to the myth that Protestant Irish families had no Catholic ancestors, I am aware that any family that lived in Ireland since before Cromwell, as at least one of my lines did, had Catholic ancestors and relatives, however much some of them hated to admit it. So those people who died were my people, some of them related to me, however distantly.

For the past several years, this episode of history has haunted me. I've written stories set during this time, and have several unfinished ones I'm working on. When I saw the word "want", this was the subject that naturally leaped out at me. Those who died in the Holocaust also suffered from want, but they suffered far more from other, more pointed evils. The Great Famine is, to my mind, the perfect showcase for want.

And, yes, this is how I tend to think of politicians and the experts who advise them. All too often, they are trying to do the wrong thing. Even when they try to do the right thing, they pass laws that appear as if they're doing something, but don't really tackle the tough problems head on. That's why I haven't been all fired up about the election; I suspect at least half my blogger friends could do a much better job than any of the candidates.

The World Is Poorer Tonight

2008-05-12T22:54:00.005-04:00

Tonight, the world is a poorer place, since the death earlier today of Irena Sendler. In the midst of World War II, in Nazi occupied Poland, Irena Sendler dared to risk her own life to save the lives of roughly 2,500 Jewish children from the Warsaw ghetto. She was a social worker who stood up to the Nazi authorities and insisted on inspecting sanitary conditions in the ghetto.

On her visits there, she invented various ingenious ways of smuggling out babies, young children, and even teenagers. For those who do not know, in 1943, facing what they knew was certain death, the inhabitants of the Warsaw ghetto began to fight back. Untrained, with only limited, smuggled weaponry, they managed to tie up an impressive number of supposedly superior German soldiers armed with all the powerful tools of death the Nazi state could give them.

Finally, the Nazis admitted they couldn't stand up to the Jews face to face, even with superior weapons to back them up, and they pulled back. They shelled and bombed the ghetto into ruins, then surged in with overwhelming force to pump deadly gas into the sewers and cellar holes where survivors might be hiding.

In other words, of those who lived in the Warsaw ghetto, there were very few survivors. Of that number, 2,500 and their descendants owe their lives to Irena Sendler. Later, arrested by the Gestapo, she stood up to their torture rather than betray the names of those who helped her, and bore the scars of that torture on her body until the day she died.

Although she lived in obscurity for most of her life, and was embarrassed at the attention she finally received in her old age when her story was remembered, this was a woman we could all learn from, a woman worthy of admiration. The world is always in desperate need of more people like her. Anyone who believes in goodness and decency should mourn her loss tonight.

As we mourn, I think she would approve of this advice: learn from her life, from her love, from her courage. Stand up to help the weak, rescue the endangered, and protect the persecuted. Do what you can to make the world a better place. Look up to the true heroes: they aren't the richest men among us, or the most beautiful women. They aren't business leaders or celebrities. They are quiet heroes, who do what they can and expect no reward. Irena Sendler, may you rest in peace.

Artists, Photographers, and Writers, Wake Up!

2008-05-06T20:55:00.003-04:00

I had planned to post several stories here tonight. That's right, several. I'm sorry to say that instead I am posting a warning about new idiocy contemplated by the United States Congress, idiocy that may deter me from ever posting a story again. Very quietly, something called the "Orphan Works Act" has been prepared to modify the Copyright laws.

Note that even if you live outside the United States, this would make it easier for a US citizen or corporation to pirate your work. It is also intended, in the arrogant plans of the US Copyright Office, to serve as a "model" for other countries dealing with the same problems.

I hate to tell my faithful readers this, but if it passes, I will be taking down many of the posts on this blog. I may take them down in anticipation of its passing. I hate to punish you, my honest readers, but like many other creative people who are already aware of this, I do not feel with such a law hanging over my head it is safe for me to share my work as I have done in the past.

Google that term, and read the details on this proposed law. If a work could truly be established as orphaned, something its creator had lost all interest in, I wouldn't mind the law. Owners of old photographs who want to get them retouched, but can't find the original photographer? There should be a way they can get their photos fixed up legally.

What concerns me is the vague legal language corporate interests have managed to get inserted. I learned, a few years ago, that the real lawmaking isn't even done in Congress any more. Those idiots just rubberstamp ill advised invitations to disaster, then, regulations are drawn up to define what the laws 'mean' by their vague language. That is when the real damage happens.

In this case, major corporations that would just love to steal intellectual property such as artwork, photographs, and writing at low cost, or get their hands on works the creator won't sell to them at any price, now have a great loophole. They only have to make "reasonable" efforts to find the copyright owner. So long as they follow "best practices" whose definition they can influence, they won't be breaking the law.

In addition, they have armies of high powered lawyers on constant retainer: with loopholes like this for their corporate sharks to rip through, no copyright holder who has to struggle to afford a lawyer at all will ever stand a chance against them. On one forum, an artist is calling for all artists, photographers, and writers, and the businesses that depend on them, to organise a day, 24 hours, of international protest against this proposed travesty of a law.

What would we do to protest? Take down all creative content, replacing it with a statement: "This is what the Internet will look like if corporate interests have their way, and the Orphan Works Act is passed in the US Congress. If you don't like it, call your congresscritter now." I hope we can pull something like that together. If you think that is a good idea, you have my permission to reprint this post, in its entirety, or write your own post and link to this one.

One final note: the Copyright Office endorses this invasion of our rights in a snarky statement that implies copyright is somehow a privilege. Let's go further, and seek our natural rights. If a carpenter works on a table, is it not his to dispose of as he wishes? We work on our creations - they are ours. It is no privilege to say we own them. Let's seek full legal status with every other person who works for themselves, and has the right to keep the product of their labours, or to part with it on terms they choose.

Thirteen Questions

2008-04-26T00:14:00.005-04:00

JM of Fiction Scribe posted thirteen questions for writers yesterday. I began to reply in the comments, but the questions, and my answers, seemed just a little too interesting to bury in a comment. And my reply grew rather long, in any case. I hope she won't mind too much if I answer them here.

1: Do I write novels, short stories, poetry, fiction, non-fiction?

All of those... Whatever comes to mind, whatever I have a reason or an inspiration to write. And I write in various genres, although some more than others.

2: When did I start writing stories?

As soon as I understood it was possible; I began reading very young, and at first I thought books and stories were magical things that just existed. Once I understood you could create them yourself, I went wild. It was amazing to me that I could have such power, to accomplish such a wonder.

3: Did I start with fan fiction or my own creations?

My own creations. Fan fiction didn't really exist when I was young, or if it did, I was unaware of it. My first stories, of course, were heavily influenced by whatever I'd been reading lately, but I did make a deliberate effort to make them my own and not plagiarize anyone else's story.

4: What is the first story I ever wrote? (How long, what was it about...)

The first one I have any memory of now was written to enter a contest in fourth grade. It was a mystery, featuring a boy named John Balla as its hero, and it won the first prize in the (very small) contest. A little later, I entered a contest in the "Young Folks Pages" of the Boston Herald, and won that, too. That was about 100 words, science fiction, about monsters on the moon.

In junior high school, I started writing a novel, Journey of a Karmigan. It was very derivative, and while I didn't actually plagiarize Tolkien, anyone who read it could have told I'd read The Hobbit. Before it was finished, someone grabbed the only manuscript from me, tore it up, and flushed it down the toilet.

Shortly thereafter, I wrote Star Chill, a very melodramatic short story about a man who was the only survivor of a tragedy in space, and how he suffered from "star chill" due to his experience. That was the first one I ever tried professionally submitting, to Analog. They rejected it, of course, but failed to hire an assassin to punish me for exposing them to such an awful story, which is probably what I deserved.

5: Out of all the books I've read, who is my favourite character?

King Arthur stands out, and Gummidge the kitten (if I recall his name correctly), but to name a single favourite out of so many wonderful characters just is not possible. I could easily make this post twenty times as long discussing all the wonderful characters I've known.

6: Who is my favourite character from my own stories?

I will not play favourites with my characters; I love most of them (except the villains, and even then, I understand them too well to hate them). They are all part of me. As I work on various books and stories, certain characters fill more of my mind than others, but that changes with whatever I'm working on.

7: Am I seeking or will I actively seek a job in the writing & publishing industry, other than writing and hoping to be published?

I'd love to set up a small press some day... I struggled to do that for many years, before POD technology existed, using letterpresses and hand set type. The costs were just too high, and the process required too much time. And starting a magazine I could edit would be fun, too. In both cases, I'd seek to be my own boss, so I could make my own vision a reality. It will probably never happen, although stranger things have occurred.

8: What is my greatest "Achilles' heel" as far as grammar goes?

Long and winding sentences.

9: Am I published in any way, paid or not?

I have been published in unpaid markets, paid markets, including paid professional markets (not just contest prizes, in other words), and I've self published some of my work. None of it is well known, none of it is in print, and I haven't been published nearly as much as I'd like to have been.

Quite some time ago, I grew discouraged, both with my own ability, and with the apparent direction the publishing industry was taking, and turned all my efforts towards improving my writing, then self-publishing the results. I did improve with practice, but the expenses of self-publishing proved impossible to bear, and for a few years I tried to forget writing. I was miserable. It was one of the worst mistakes I've made in my life, which is saying a lot. Once I understood this, I gave in to the inevitable. I am a writer. I will go on writing until I die; I will seek publishers when I believe I have a chance of success, but whether publishing trends embrace me or reject me, I will not stop writing.

10: What are my dreams for my writing?

To learn to be as good a writer as I possibly can, to develop my skill and my talent as much as they can be developed, so I can do as good a job as possible of telling the stories inside me. I have so many stories, so many characters, so many worlds, all clamouring for attention inside me. I hope to leave behind as much of those stories as I can, as well told as I'm capable of, but I fear if I lived for a thousand years, I wouldn't be able to get the hundredth part of it all on paper.

I do hope to be able to move to making a full-time living as a writer, not because I have any illusions that will make me rich, but simply because, as long as I can even scrape by, that is the path which will allow me the most time to practice and develop my writing. I wish all writers could have the same opportunity.

11: If I could talk to any author, alive or dead, who would it be and why?

Anne Frank, so I could let her know her writing was not lost, nor was it in vain; that her words triumphed over her murderers in the end. And so I could tell her that I mourn the loss of her life and of her potential - in murdering her, the Nazis stole from the world an incredible talent.

I have noticed certain keywords draw would-be commenters. Take note; I am aware the cause of Anne Frank's death was technically typhus. However, she would not have been malnourished, weakened, exposed to typhus, or broken by the deaths of friends and family, if the Nazis had not, against her will, done those things to her. The fact her murder was slow and agonising makes it no less murder. I've replied to your comments in advance, to save you the trouble of making them, and to spare myself the necessity of being exposed to your filth.

12: What inspires me?

In the broadest sense, every facet of life inspires me; in a narrower sense, cats, nature, sunsets, trees, leaves, the ocean, ruined buildings, mountains, fog, wind, the moon, tall ships, fountain pens, the act of writing, the act of printing, swans, geese, raccoons, otters, King Arthur, Winston Churchill, Anne Frank... even when I list specifics, the list could go on and on.

13: Why do I write?

That question implies an alternative - in my case, there is none; I cannot bear not to write. Asking why I write is like asking anyone on the street why they breathe.

Brief Update

2008-04-24T12:40:00.003-04:00

Well, as my regular readers from the past can see, the curse is still in effect. Whenever I name a specific date I will post, something happens. In this case, it was a few minor crises, several planned get-togethers that lasted far longer than planned, and a brief but nasty little 'bug'. And, oh, yes, did any of you note my flippant comment in the last post?

I'm not sure if something at the back of my mind was already warning me of this, or if it was the action of the "curse", but the story I was working on may, indeed, turn out to be a novella. If not, it will be awfully close... I still want to thank my readers, and show my appreciation - I hope to put up a few stories, as soon as I can. (Note the new caution. Finally, the Wandering Author learns from experience - do not give a date!)

First, however, as I have a good idea all worked out in my mind, I hope to enter DBA Lehane's contest before it ends (the deadline is the 30th). And I am looking into an interesting idea I may follow up on, if I decide I can keep up the pace. I'll let you know more about that, one way or the other, once I decide how I will be handling it. Yes, and I do remember I have a few awards / memes to catch up on; some date back to last fall, when life (or, more accurately, death) put all my activities and plans on hold for a while.

I hope I will have the sense, from now on, to only promise a post on a certain date if the post has already been written. Ideally, I'll have it all set up in Blogger to auto-post on that date (yes, this is possible for Blogger users, and has been for at least a little while). If I forget, I hope you'll forgive me.

The Mystery of the Missing Story

2008-04-16T23:48:00.003-04:00

I promised to post a story sometime today, to show my appreciation to my readers on Blog Reader Appreciation Day. Yet this is not a story, and there is no new story below it. Where is the story I promised? Happily, the mystery is easily solved. I have over 2,500 words of the story written. It is turning out to be a bit longer, and a bit harder to wrap up, than I'd expected.

I choose to believe my readers would prefer, and would feel my appreciation of them was best expressed by, a story I didn't slap together just to meet the stroke of midnight. And some of you will no doubt go crazy if I post just the part I have done so far. So, I will be posting the story tomorrow, unless it turns into a novella :-D without warning. I am sorry for the delay, and hope you'll find the story, when it is up, was worth the wait.

Winslow Farm Renaissance Faire - Helping Animals

2008-04-16T15:55:00.003-04:00

I know most of my readers are too far away to take part in or visit this Faire, no matter how interesting you may think it sounds. However, I'd like to ask each of you to consider simply running a short post about it. Why? Well, perhaps one of your readers is close enough to enjoy the faire. More importantly, this is a first year effort, intended to raise money to help abused farm animals.

Since this is their first year, they need all the publicity they can get. So please help to spread the word: the Winslow Farm Renaissance Faire, also known as the Winslow Farm Renfaire, will be held on Saturday and Sunday, June 28th and 29th. It will be held on the grounds of the Winslow Farm Animal Sanctuary in Norton, Massachusetts.

They are actively seeking volunteers, vendors, and independent acts willing to work for hat or the proceeds from selling CDs or items related to their acts. This is a non-profit faire, in its first year, and no funds are available to pay anyone for helping out or performing.

Still, this is an opportunity to gain visibility, experience, and perhaps a few bucks in your hat. And you are free to sell items related to your act, which could bring in a few more dollars for you. More importantly, this is a chance to do something to help abused animals find help and a decent home. If you live in Massachusetts or Rhode Island, or plan to be in the area at the end of June, please consider taking part, or at least visiting the faire.

As for the rest of my readers, I only became aware of this, even though it is being held not that far from where I live, because I know the Faire's Director. They are doing all they can, but they could use some extra visibility, so please, take a minute or two to post about this. It may reach some of your readers who live in the area, and it will, at least, make them more visible on the Internet when someone searches for them.

Future Plans

2008-04-15T15:47:00.003-04:00

First of all, tomorrow is Blog Reader Appreciation Day. Since most of my readers seem to enjoy my fiction, I hope to post a story for you tomorrow. I'm not saying what time, it may be close to midnight, but unless something really unexpected messes up my plans, I'll have a story for you tomorrow. (All my cats seem healthy, my computer isn't on the immediate brink of failure right now - I think it is safe to promise that.)

Second, I already posted about DBA Lehane's latest contest (you have to scroll down a bit). I also have an idea for an entry in that contest, so if any of you are interested in reading that, you may want to join his writing group so you can do so. I'll have that done before the deadline of the 30th, but I'm not making any tighter guesses on what date I'll finish it.

Much as I enjoy posting here, and reading all your blogs, I'm still posting a bit sluggishly, and reading and commenting on your blogs only occasionally. Why? I'm trying to "clear the decks" for action. That is, I have plans for what I'd like to do, and I'm busy struggling with all the tasks that have accumulated, and been put off, over the past number of years.

When I have less to do looming over my head, I'll have more time for writing. I intend to seriously pursue a full time writing career. The first step is to make sure I'll have time to write without being distracted by "that computer problem I noticed back in 2006 isn't going away, in fact it seems to be getting worse." In addition, I need to develop and improve my writing. No matter what you may think of my writing ability, writing is a skill which can always be improved.

I also need to develop a source of income that won't get in the way of writing more than necessary, one that I can step back from as I get more opportunities to write. One task I mean to finish, then keep up with, is looking over everything I've written so far, editing it wherever I see opportunity for improvement, making a catalogue of it, and tracking those novels and stories I've never finished.

It seems a useful discipline to work through the process of finishing, or of revising, those projects that are stalled. Only if I discover something that truly is beyond salvage will I set it aside unfinished. Then, I plan to keep up with new ideas: I know one writer who has a rule that she finishes everything she starts in a year by the end of that year. I may not adopt exactly that rule; I need to work out what will work best for me, first. But I do plan to adopt a similar rule.

I'll be keeping this blog for now, but over time I will be developing my own web site. I'll post a link to that once I have it up, and I'll be posting some of my new material there. Eventually, I will shift my blog to a WordPress (probably) blog hosted on my own site. Again, when I have a link, I'll post it here, and I'll leave this blog in place, so anyone following an uncorrected link can still find me.

I still need to plan my web site in detail, and I still need to work out the ways I hope to begin bringing in a little income by writing. Don't worry - even if I were to open up a subscription only web site (which I am not considering, by the way) most if not all of my readers here are also friends - I'd just send you free subscriptions and wait for paying strangers to sign up.

My options to begin with are limited to, first, taking on freelance writing work. I do plan to do that, but since none of that is likely to be very creative, it isn't my favourite choice. Editing work is a little more attractive to me, although I'd really rather have more time to devote to my own writing. (Yes, I know we can't always get the things we want. On the other hand, I am very conscious of the fact that the more time I can spend writing, the better I will come to be at it. And I think every real writer craves the chance to develop their potential as fully as possible.)

I will be doing (very limited) affiliate selling. I won't recommend anything just to make money from it. I won't pretend it is better than it is. In other words, I doubt I'll be the greatest salesman on the Internet. And I am at least considering the possibility of accepting advertising. I would be interested to know what my readers think of that idea.

As you may have guessed, my tendencies tend strongly towards the non-commercial - while I like the idea of getting paid for doing nothing more than drawing readers, I hate the idea my writing might lure readers into being exposed to an ad for some junk I'd never wish on my worst enemy. Of course, I could limit ads to, say, small publishers - but then I'd feel unjustified in charging them much and making it harder for them to pay their authors.

Finally, I am toying with an idea I haven't seen attempted yet. I wonder if there are businesses out there who would pay a fiction writer to write stories just to attract readers? It would gain them extra traffic, and goodwill from the readers who enjoyed the fiction. Or they could offer mini e-books with a few stories as a reward for loyal customers. What do you think? Is there any chance of finding even a tiny, niche market for such an idea? And, of course, it has the same problems as accepting ads on my own site. I'm considering all these possibilities because, in the end, I am the one who has to arrive at a mix I can feel comfortable with.

Another Writer Seeking Help

2008-04-06T15:44:00.002-04:00

A member of a writing group I belong to recently faced an emergency. His cat was injured, and required stitches. The vet's bill used up all the money he'd been counting on for the month of April. I discovered that he lives on a fixed income, so this is a real problem. Now, I know a lot of you are struggling yourselves. I certainly don't have the right to say where your money should go. But I do want to at least mention the situation.

Before linking to his post, I'd like to make some comments of my own, referring to concerns that have already been voiced about this appeal. If you bother to go over and read his post, you will read some things that probably will upset you. My own perspective is a bit different; if you are willing to even consider a small donation to help him, I hope you'll give me a few minutes to explain how I see it.

First of all, in a later post, he makes remarks that suggest to me he has been criticised for feeding pets, and for paying such a large vet bill, when he has so little to begin with. One reason I am writing a post it makes me extremely uncomfortable to write is the fact that I can only respect someone who will help an animal without counting the cost.

No matter how poor you are, there are strays who can use your care, and you can use their love. Those animals deserve to be taken care of. For some time now, I've had 'negative cash flow' thanks to vet bills, medications, and fluids, on top of all the ordinary expenses, for a cat who belonged to a friend. The friend died, and I faced a choice: have him put to sleep, or have him treated. Even though he wasn't my cat, I couldn't look into his eyes and take him in to be killed while he still wanted to live.

The other concerns are ones I at least understand, even if I don't completely agree with them. When you read the original appeal, he has listed items he needs, and items he would like money for. Among those are some undoubted luxuries. CDs and comics are the two items that have attracted the most notice. Some have suggested those items hint this is just a scam.

When I first read the list, I suspected many people would think that, but in my experience, scammers wouldn't be that honest and obvious. They'd claim four or five fictitious, starving kids, or mention something more likely to evoke sympathy than outrage. Now, even if it isn't a scam, why should you buy someone else CDs and comics just because they'd like them? I'm not saying you should. Just please read on.

Yes, anyone has a right to put up a post, if they like, asking for CDs, comics, or anything else they might wish for. Anyone who reads it has a right to ignore their request. I have more money going out than coming in, so I'm not going to contribute to such a fund myself. What I am saying is, first, that he is at least honest about what he'd like, which isn't a scam, and, second, I'm worried that, as a side effect of his honesty, so few people will donate that he, his wife, and his pets will starve.

I'm sure most of you still see it as bold and rude, at the very least, to ask for luxuries from strangers. What I don't think many of you would consider is this: he is living on a small, fixed income and has been for some time. I have enough experience of such a situation to understand that luxuries are so scarce the line between luxury and necessity becomes blurred. You budget what you have to have, then fit in as much as you can beyond that. And you forget which is even which, sometimes.

Many people are struggling with money right now. Most who read this probably can't help. Even if you can help, you may not want to. That is your decision, and your right. I'm not trying to shame anyone into doing anything they don't want to do. If you're afraid of a scam, I can tell you that Sky has been a member of a mailing list based writing group I'm also a part of for at least a year. We live on opposite coasts, so I don't know him personally.

Other than that, I don't know anymore than he says in his post here and his update, here. I don't believe he's a scammer, and I've told you why. Those posts probably annoyed you; scammers would be more persuasive. Those posts, to me, read like a real person, in a real situation, awkward and with idea how to go about making such an appeal work.

You'll have to make up your own minds what to do, but I hope you'll forgive me for at least mentioning this. If there are any conspiracy theorists reading this, you might assume I'm a scammer, and the other posts are just ones I put up using a different identity. Whatever you think, I just hope that, somehow, two human beings and several cats and dogs manage to survive the month of April. If you don't feel able, or willing, to donate, I hope you'll at least add your prayers to mine that that will be so.

Is Amazon Seeking to Dominate Small Presses?

2008-03-30T21:20:00.004-04:00

Thanks to Fiction Scribe, I discovered an article which details the attempts by Amazon.com to use their dominant position in book sales to force independent publishers to contract with a POD provider Amazon owns, one which seems to generate a lot of customer complaint.

The expansion of opportunity provided by the Internet and POD (Print-on-Demand) technology aids small presses, offers more alternative titles to readers, and expands publishing opportunities for writers. Competition is the only way this expanded opportunity can continue to thrive, benefiting everyone. Now, all this opportunity appears to be threatened by Amazon.

Should a huge corporation be allowed to squeeze larger profits out of the crushed hopes and dreams of small press owners, authors, and readers everywhere? I don't think so. I have already contacted both of my US Senators, asking them to pass on this information to the United States Department of Justice for investigation as a possible violation of anti-trust laws. I have also asked them to pass this information on to the appropriate committee members who may be able to initiate hearings into the matter.

I encourage all of my readers who agree that a free press is a healthy press to contact their own elected representatives to express their concerns. Amazon is a multi-national company, and should be investigated in any country in which it does business. In the meantime, remember, there are other places to obtain books than Amazon.com.

In fact, thanks to Amazon's own efforts, Amazon is no longer the best place to find any book - only books published by those who will concede to Amazon's unjust demands. So, please, forgo convenience, forget free shipping (although Barnes & Noble often offers this as well), and get your books anywhere except Amazon.com! You can also sign this petition to protest Amazon's tactics.

And spread the word! If you have a blog, write a post about this yourself. Tell your friends. Amazon is seeking to do this in secret; they seem to have an aversion to putting this policy in writing. Let's do it for them; get the whole story on record, across the Internet, so everyone knows the truth about Amazon and what they're trying to do. Don't let this happen quietly, unless you want a single corporation to dominate publishing and control what you can and cannot read.

Wake Up, Little Susie

2008-03-28T02:01:00.001-04:00

This story is my entry for the "This Post Blows My Dress Up Contest". For the curious, I also posted a few notes on the story's origin (spoiler alert!) below.

Ralph groaned, trying to stretch his legs out. He was barely awake, and nothing was making sense. It was dark, but he was awfully cramped. He vaguely remembered taking Susie to the drive-in, but the date had been a disaster. They were both awkward, not sure what to say. And the movie! It was awful, a Western as dull and aimless as the dust the horses kicked up. With no distraction, the silence between them grew heavy and thick.

Then, during the break, when they’d gone for candy, Cokes, and popcorn, a bunch of creeps standing by the counter had scared Susie.

Their voices were loud, showing off. “...a steel hook. The killer was some guy missing a hand!”

“Then he got a couple of dumb kids parked under the trees right over there.” A tall boy with dark, slicked back hair jerked his thumb in the direction Ralph and Susie had just come from.

“Yeah? What happened?”

“Nobody knows for sure. The sheriff found their car the next day. It had blood all over the inside, and scrapes on the roof and door handles from the killer’s hook. But they never caught him.”

Susie was tugging at his hand. “Ralph, I don’t really feel like anything. Can we go back, please?”

He really wanted a Coke, but he just nodded and walked her to his car. She locked her door and hugged herself, shivering. “Do you think...”

Ralph didn’t let her finish. “Susie, if your folks thought it was dangerous, do you think they’d have let you come out here with me?” He tried to make his voice reassuring.

Still, while talking, he quietly locked his own door. He’d heard a few whispers. Something happened out here a few years ago, something no one ever talked about. The sheriff seemed to spend a lot of time out this way. Some guys said they’d seen a big man with a loose sleeve, on the fringes of town at twilight. And there were other stories about a killer with only one hand who roamed these woods. So he wasn’t sure what to think.

He didn’t tell Susie any of that, of course. He just leaned back in his seat and talked, calming her. She answered once or twice, a few words. They’d rolled up the windows, and the air grew heavy and warm. His eyelids felt heavy, too. Then what? He must have driven Susie home. Hadn’t he?

A sharp scrape, then another, sliced through his fuzzy thoughts, shocking him awake. Icy tingles raced down his spine. He was still in his car. Susie was slumped at the far end of the seat. There was that noise again! He set his hand on her shoulder and shook her as he whispered hoarsely, “Susie, wake up!”

Her head flopped to one side. Was that a shadow on her throat, or bruises? He shook her again, harder. “Susie! Susie! Wake up!”

She didn’t move or even groan. Was she breathing? His own pulse thundering in his ears, he couldn’t be sure. Slowly, he reached for the front of her sweater, face hot. He felt a wet, slightly sticky patch under his finger, and jerked his hand back. Without thinking, he flung open his door and raced out into the dark, arm up to ward off the branches that slashed at him. He swerved to avoid the trees, feet skidding on thick layers of needles.

He nearly fell more than once. Finally, he could go no further. His breath rasped in and out, and he couldn’t hear if anyone followed. His mouth was dry, and he longed for that Coke. He bent over, trying to catch his breath. He strained to listen, but the night was full of small sounds. Any one of them could be the killer.

One corner of his mind wailed that it didn’t matter. Little Susie was dead. He’d never watch her walk down the street again, dark hair swaying. He’d never again see her clear blue eyes spark with mischief. But another, sterner part grimly reminded him if he didn’t escape, the killer would get away with what he did to Susie. That was a reason to live at least a little bit longer.

Ralph went on quietly, determined to reach town and the shelter of the sheriff’s tiny office. After a while, it occurred to him that he might just be wandering in circles under the pines. Without a view of the sky, he had nothing to steer by. Still, he ought to keep moving. That way, he had at least a chance of stumbling on the road back to town. Not long after deciding that, he heard a soft sound in the distance.

He moved toward it as silently as he could. His heart pounded, blood rushing in his ears. As he approached, the noise became clearer, a thin whimper. Ralph thought he might faint. The killer must have found someone else while he was blundering around. He wanted to rush in, but he stooped and felt around until his fingers touched a jagged rock. He pried it loose from the soil and gripped it tightly.

He crept forward until a dry stick snapped under his foot. He froze. A quavering voice broke the silence. “Please... just leave me alone. We never did anything to you.”

“Susie?!” The rock fell at his feet. All of a sudden, Ralph remembered hearing her mother complain that Susie slept like the dead. Another time, he might have laughed.

“Ralph? Is that you? I thought you were dead!” The next moment, she was in his arms, clinging to him, sobbing. He held her until his shoulder and most of the front of his shirt were soaked.

“I heard something... And I couldn’t wake you. I thought...” His voice broke.

“I was scared silly!”

“I know. So was I!” Ralph drooled sometimes when he slept sitting up. That must be what he’d felt. Face burning again at the memory of where he’d felt it, he said nothing more.

“Let’s just get out of here!”

“Okay.”

They wrapped arms around each other as they walked, slowly, over the soft carpet of needles. Once, Ralph stopped and found a stick to probe the ground with, after Susie nearly tripped on a jutting root. They talked in hushed voices, and their laughter was shaky at first, but fear had shattered the barrier between them, and they were so caught up in each other, they noticed nothing else until they came to a small clearing.

The faint gleam of starlight permitted a glimpse of a tall house from the last century, dark and shuttered. It seemed intact but lifeless, except for an owl darting past the small cupola down towards where they stood.

“Look! That’s the old Lemmer place.”

Ralph’s older brother had made him shudder for years, spinning tales of the deserted old house and the ghosts that lurked there. No one remembered the name of the wealthy eccentric from New Orleans who built it. His whole family died of something dreadful right after they moved in. Then a rancher named Lemmer bought it, and after all the Lemmers were wiped out by the Spanish flu, nobody wanted to live there anymore.

“Yeah, I guess it is.” His mouth felt even drier than before.

“Want to look around a little?”

Ralph nearly choked. Still, he didn’t want to sound too afraid, not when Susie wasn’t. “You think we should?”

“I mean, I know this sounds silly, but after thinking a killer dragged you away, it’s hard to be afraid of a few ghosts. Besides, I’m thirsty. Maybe the pump in the kitchen still works.”

“Some water would be nice.” He meant that. In fact, the more he thought about the possibility, the less he feared ghosts.

“Good, as long as we’re careful.”

Ralph was already starting toward the house.

“Ralph, wait!” She ran to catch up with him, and snatched his hand to hold him back. “It has been sitting empty a long time. Some of the boards could have rotted.”

“Oh. Right.” He hesitated. “In fact, no one around here would dare go in, but if a tramp was passing through, he might not know about the place. He might think it was a good shelter.”

Susie nodded. “I didn’t think of tramps.”

They slipped through the clearing and up onto the rear porch. Ralph was able to ease the door open with no trouble. The area beyond seemed to be a sort of hallway or pantry. Ralph stepped inside and fumbled along the shelves near the entry. He kept his exclamation soft. “Thought so!”

“What is it?”

“A candle and matches, so we can see in here.”

“It is dark, isn’t it? Even worse than the woods.”

In reply, Ralph struck a match and held the flame to the wick of the dusty candle. It sputtered, then caught, and he curled his hand around it. Thick dust lay everywhere, but there were scuff marks leading here and there. Ralph jerked his head at them.

“See? It looks like tramps do use this place.”

“Now I’m a little afraid again. But I am thirsty.”

“We’ll just look around a bit first, be sure no one else is here.”

Susie clung tightly to his hand as he led her deeper into the house. By instinct, he followed the scuffed trails that already existed. They crossed the huge kitchen. Ralph could see the pump against the far wall, but he wasn’t willing to risk the noise he knew it would make until he was sure they were alone. They stepped into a wide hall that seemed to run all the way to the front of the house.

They stopped, at the same moment, and looked at each other, faces pale. A noise, almost too faint to be heard, troubled the air here, a deep regular sound like the beating of a vast heart. It was more a vibration than an actual sound. Ralph wondered if it was only his own heart again. Susie must have thought of the same thing, because she gave him a gentle nudge forward.

With every step, the noise grew slightly stronger, kathunk, kathunk, kathunk, kathunk....

“Ralph!”

At Susie’s strangled whisper, he looked around. The skirt of her thin dress was billowing, blowing up to offer sudden glimpses of her legs. He looked away quickly, then wondered where the wind was coming from. Glancing at her feet, he saw a grate set into the floorboards, the kind used in old houses to allow heat to rise from one floor to another. The deep thumping seemed to come from there as well.

“What is it?”

“Just a heating grate. But why is there warm air coming out of it?”

“I don’t have any idea! Let’s get out of here, Ralph!”

Before he could answer, the thumping sound suddenly grew louder. Now, it sounded like machinery. Ralph squeezed Susie’s hand while pinching out the candle with the fingers of the other hand.

“Ssshhh!”

Susie didn’t answer. Ralph suspected she was too frightened even to make a sound. He wished he could reassure her, but he needed to know what was going on first. He crouched down, over the grate, and tilted his head. The rhythmic noise was muffled again, but a faint glow outlined the opening. Ralph held his breath and crouched lower. Susie was crouching beside him, clinging to his hand.

The light grew brighter, and a moment later, two men came into view, one of them big and ugly, his right arm ending in a hook that gleamed in the light of the lantern swinging from it. The other man was younger, slender and handsome. Ralph thought he’d seen him around town a few times. Both men leaned against a stone wall. They were both sweating, and seemed weary.

Ralph didn’t move, and he felt Susie stiffen beside him. The shadows near the ceiling of the basement below were probably thick, but he feared any movement might draw the attention of the men standing there. He tried not to breathe, terrified he might suddenly need to sneeze. Snatches of conversation drifted up to them.

“...why you keep spreading stories about a killer with a hook for a hand.” The big man was scowling.

His companion laughed. “It keeps people from coming anywhere near this place, doesn’t it?”

“What’s the difference? Everyone believes the house is haunted. And when the sheriff’s boys did search it, a few years ago, they never even suspected another room down here, did they?”

“You never know when some kid might sneak up and maybe see one of us coming or going. If they said anything, the sheriff’s boys might decide to take a harder look at this place. And none of us want to get caught at this racket and spend years in prison.”

“Why didn’t you think of that before you got so carried away the sheriff’s boys had to go nosing around here?”

“I told you, she was just a tramp! How was I to know anyone would care what happened to her? And it worked out, didn’t it?”

“Yeah, well, be more careful next time you get carried away. Dump your leavings somewhere else, especially with those stories you keep telling about me.”

“What difference does it make? Even if they find another body, there’s no evidence to connect it to you. If they look at you, they won’t find anything except a decorated war hero trying to live on too small a pension.”

“Anybody finds a body around here, the first thing they’ll think of is look for a man’s got a hook, you idiot!”

The younger man shouted him down. “So they look for you, they find no evidence you could have done it, then what? You got an ace in the hole! They figure some kids saw you, made up a bunch of crazy stories, that’s all!”

“I still don’t like it, you understand? When we’re done here, when we’ve got enough cash, I’m going to Tahiti, someplace like that, find me a nice girl. You stay away from there, from anywhere near where I am!”

“Yeah, sure. I’m heading for Monte Carlo, anyway, so you got nothing to worry about.”

The thumping grew louder again, for a moment. A third man came out, his back to Ralph and Susie.

“This run’s nearly done, fellas.”

“If we were printing something better than ones and fives, a run wouldn’t take so long.”

“We’ve been over this before. Folks look more closely at bigger bills. Take them more seriously. This is the safest way to do it.”

“Yeah, yeah. So you need us to come back and help with the rest of it, right, Tate?”

“That would be a lot more useful than standing out here arguing with each other. Sammy will be here soon to run the new batch into the city.” The third man turned, and Ralph saw the face of the sheriff clearly. Susie squeezed his hand.

All three men walked back the way they’d come, and the rhythmic thumps grew louder, then became muffled again. Ralph was stiff from crouching, but he rose silently and drew Susie up beside him. He struck another match, lit the candle, and they crept back through the house as quickly as they dared. Ralph paused long enough to return the candle and matches to their place, and they slipped out and ran across the grass.

They ran down the middle of the road, away from that place. He only slowed when he saw she couldn’t run any further. Neither of them spoke, but Susie clung to his hand. They staggered to the trees and sank down behind the broad trunk of a pine, hugging each other. Susie wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him, letting her lips linger.

“We can’t tell anyone, you know. No one would believe us, and then they’ll know that we know...”

Ralph nodded. “I thought of that, too. I hate to let them get away with it, but we’re out so late, everyone will think we just made up a silly story as an excuse. I’ll bet they could say we ran away together, and nobody’d look too hard for us.”

“It will just have to be our secret, between us.”

“At least when I thought there was a killer out there, I figured I was safe if I could just make it to the sheriff’s office. Now... I don’t know where we’re safe. Maybe we ought to run away, soon as I can get some money together.”

Susie didn’t agree but she didn’t protest, either.

They shrank back into the shadow of the tree as a long black car roared past. When it was out of sight, they got up and began walking, staying just in sight of the road, but far enough in to stay hidden. At last, they reached the drive-in. They were both exhausted, and sank into the worn leather seats of Ralph’s huge old Packard gratefully.

Before he started the engine, Ralph glanced at the big clock set into the dashboard. It read four o’clock. He glanced over at Susie.

“What are we going to tell your Ma and Pa?”

Notes On Wake Up, Little Susie

2008-03-28T01:52:00.005-04:00

I wanted to write a story for the This Post Blows My Dress Up Contest. I dreamed up a few ideas in my head, but for some reason I don't understand, the song Wake Up, Little Susie kept coming into my head. There is nothing scary in this song, so why I got the idea this couple would be scared silly I can't say. A writer's mind is an odd thing...

Once I gave into the idea, I knew the classic "killer with a hook" tale had to be a part of the scare. But that didn't seem enough. So, in giving into a silly story, letting themselves be spooked, Ralph and Susie ended up in a situation where they received a much more real scare. Still, they gained something as well, I think, besides hard-won wisdom.

Fitting in an incident that reflects the title of the contest was a whimsy of mine, one I'd considered even before I had the final idea for this story. It just fit naturally into the second incident. All in all, it makes for an odd story, especially with the final bit of humour at the end. I did try to stay true to the spirit of the song, although no doubt most readers will note the many liberties I took with the details.

Which raises another question. Once I wrote this, I was forced to ponder the issue of whether what I had was a "derivative work", one I could not legally post without permission from the Copyright owners of the original song. I concluded that this was an original work, for several reasons. First, I did take many liberties with the details. The song suggests they'd dated before: "we goofed again". The story makes it fairly clear (I hope) that, although Ralph is in love with Susie, this is their first date.

The song includes no such adventures, and the major plot device of the song, falling asleep during a boring movie, is a very minor plot point here, used just to set up the real plot. Finally, I could change the title, remove the last line, and cut the reference to four o'clock, make no other changes, and any relation to the song would be unclear, while I'd still have much the same story. I'd lose only the humourous line at the very end, and the resonance the song lends the story.

And, yes, it's a crazy story, hardly a contest winner. Still, it was fun, and I hope a few of you reading the contest entries found it fun. If so, that's enough.

An Interesting Contest (and A Reminder)

2008-03-24T18:54:00.008-04:00

Over at a new blog I just read, called This Eclectic Life, there is an interesting contest for writers. It is called the "This Post Blows My Dress Up Contest". Write a post on the theme "Scared Silly" and go on over to let her know you're entering the contest. The contest announcement and complete rules are listed on the blog.

Be sure to read the complete rules, and remember, the contest closes at 12:00 noon, Texas time (which is GMT minus 5 hours, for my international readers), on Friday, the 28th of March. The prize is $30.00 added to your PayPal account, which is as much as many short fiction markets pay, so it is worth entering! If I can get something written and up here in time, I hope to enter myself.

Even if you don't win (and I won't be holding my breath, if I manage to enter), writing a scary story will be fun, and as long as someone reads it and enjoys it, your efforts won't be wasted. I don't think most of my readers know This Eclectic Life, so it is also a chance for you to check out a new and interesting blog.

In the meantime, don't forget the very multi-talented DBA Lehane's contest, over at RedBubble (you'll need to sign up), and announced on Short Short Fiction. Do note that if you join Twisted Tales at RedBubble, the announcement there has been updated, and the Like We Did Last Summer contest deadline has been extended.

For Writers

2008-03-18T19:42:00.003-04:00

I have two announcements of possible interest to the writers who read this blog. The first concerns an interesting contest the extremely talented DBA Lehane is holding. The details are on his blog, Short Short Fiction. His blog post provides the links to the actual site where the contest is being held. Note that the deadline has been extended; there is a notice on the site hosting the contest. I encourage anyone who can come up with a good story meeting the requirements of the competition to enter.

Also, I have a few minor resources to share with any writers who are interested. Since blogs aren't set up for downloading files directly (and I could probably set up a link to remotely download the files, but I'd be forever tweaking it) just visit my public E-Snips folder, Writers Helps. Everything there is free.

There is a sample of one of Holly Lisle's books, the Create a Plot Clinic; as I already mentioned, I have become an affiliate of her shop. In this case, you don't have to rely on my judgment (and writers are different, so even a book I found helpful might not be for you). Download the sample and look it over. If it doesn't look helpful, all you'll have wasted was a bit of time reading. If you do find it helpful, pass the sample along to a friend once you get the full copy.

There is also a character creation checklist I made up a while ago. If you use that kind of thing, it might help you. It is free, and you can make as many copies as you like for yourself; all I ask, if you want to share, is that you point your friends to the Writers Helps folder. There is also a PDF for a very experimental form of manuscript paper I designed. That probably won't be right for many of you, but if it is, enjoy it!

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

2008-03-17T01:30:00.003-04:00

Today is a day set aside to honour Saint Patrick, a man who converted Ireland to Christianity while respecting the basic values of their culture. This is perhaps one reason the Irish are so fond of Saint Patrick, because he left them happily Celtic instead of insisting they become more like the Romans. Once they were converted, this made it more difficult for would-be meddlers to interfere and ruin their culture.

It is also a day to remember Ireland, to think of those beautiful green shores, those lush fields, those magnificent coasts... Yes, a good part of my ancestry is Irish. In fact, I could qualify for Irish citizenship (and depending on how the Presidential election goes, I just may apply) handily; I have two family members who are, alone, enough to qualify me. And I love hearing Irish voices speak, seeing Irish landscapes, eating Irish soda bread (there will be some of that, nice and hot, later today), hearing Irish music...

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

I do also want to share a little more with my readers about my plans for this blog. Before events kept me from posting for so long, I was considering some changes, and I've thought still more about those in the meantime. I may be setting up my own site, and moving this blog to a WordPress platform on that domain. Over time, once I get the ongoing projects I'm bogged down in cleared away, I hope to set up a more regular posting schedule, and post more on topics of interest to writers.

I will still be making some fiction available, but I need time to decide how I'll do this. The sad fact is, once a writer 'publishes' a story, it is virtually unsellable. If it is a very small blog, some markets may still agree to purchase "first publication rights" - but some will not. And if it is posted on a larger blog, or any public site, it can no longer be sold except as a previously published story. And, unless the author is very well-known, there is no market for previously published stories.

There is also the issue of doing this in way that won't interfere with my pursuing a more serious writing career. I have decided, even more firmly than before, that is the direction I am headed in. That means I have many decisions to make, and I'll be revealing those to my readers as soon as I have made them. Also, in an effort to make things a little easier, I have become an affiliate of Holly Lisle's shop, selling books of interest to writers and some fiction.

While I don't criticise anyone for what they choose to do with their own blogs, I don't plan to cram my own blog with ads; that just isn't what I want for my blog. I don't expect any of my readers to buy any of Holly's books, unless they truly decide they want to. I chose this program for several reasons. First, the products are ones I have bought, or would like to buy, myself. Second, when I contacted the program, I was specifically told, by Holly Lisle herself, that I was free to write honest reviews of her books, mentioning things I disliked or disagreed with as well as things I liked.

I will be writing reviews of some of these books, and I hope to have a nice offer for anyone who is interested up soon. In the meantime, I will simply say this. The books I have bought and read all share several qualities. First, they were written by an actual, working author who makes her living by writing, and knows what it takes. Second, they are, as much as possible, written to take into account all the varied and individual ways each writer must work. They offer useful suggestions and ways of coping, not rigid rules or useless theories.

The Wandering Author Returns

2008-03-12T00:31:00.005-04:00

I truly did not plan to be away so long. On New Year's Day, when I'd hoped to post, I discovered my firewall software had auto-updated and was now fighting it out with my anti-virus software. I located and downloaded a new firewall program, only to confront the fact that something, whether the "security wars" or a long-time accumulation of junk in my system, had left my system dangerously unstable. Roughly half the time I booted up, the system froze immediately on reaching my Desktop.

After a few weeks of tweaks, fiddling, removing a few fonts, clearing out junk from the Registry, and all those other fun things that keep Windows systems above water a little longer, I had a bit more luck, but I was still not too confident. So I began trying to go through all my software (yes, you say, that is the problem) so I could restore my system to the condition it was in when I bought it, then reinstall only the programs I need.

In the middle of that, the Brisbane flu paid me a visit, despite the flu shot I got last fall. February passed in a haze of fever, while I've been frantically trying to finish going through my software (I have about 200 CD-ROMs, and much more downloaded freeware), work, catch up with everything else in my life, and fit in a little writing.

Ah, yes, writing. I can discuss it a little more now. My friend Jim, who my wife and I found dead on his kitchen floor last September, wanted to write as well. He was one of the most intelligent people I've ever known, and I always assumed he was a better writer than I was. I never dared show him anything of mine, because I was too much in awe. He always said his stuff was crap, or worse, but we all say that, and since he was embarrassed to show it to me, I didn't press the point.

After he died, we found a few creative writing courses, but not a single word Jim had written. He was so unhappy with it that he destroyed it all at some point. Between the shock of finding him, then finding out he'd destroyed all trace of his writing (and I guarantee you, far worse than anything he ever turned out since the age of ten has been published), I was unable to write at all.

I struggled with attempts to force myself to do writing exercises, or to write a story as a tribute to Jim, but no words would come; anything I got on paper was jumbled and useless. I'm not just being down on my work here; it really wasn't half as good as I know I can do. I decided to sign up for the two year novel writing course at Forward Motion, in hopes that would get me jump started.

I'm happy to say, it worked! I've got a very tiny start on a new novel, and plan to keep going until it's done. I'll be doing other writing as well, of course, now that I can again. Trying to keep up with assignments is one thing that's kept me away; that, and the residual exhaustion from the flu.

I had hoped to make a grand return, and fix all my broken links, clean up the template, and start posting regularly - all at once. That isn't going to happen. I need to start slowly, and I need to consider exactly where I'll go with this blog, and my online presence in general. Everything that has happened has just hardened my determination to be a writer. I will keep at it until I am published, or die trying.

In addition, Jim's cat, Julius, is doing well, which is a good thing - he is one of the sweetest cats I've known. Yet that means continued vet bills to keep him as healthy as possible; bags of IV fluids, medications, visits. So I do need to begin looking for a way to bring in a little more income than I am. I hope to do it in a way that will be fair to all my readers; you won't see a sudden explosion of ads for all kinds of junk.

I'll discuss those plans later, and a few ideas I have for making a bit of money by writing. I just wanted to let you know I was alive; Lehane's efforts to drag me out have had their effect, of course. (The subtle signs are all there, even if he denies it. Lehane is to blame for my return, no matter what he says.) I'd started a humourous story in which Lehane entered cyberspace in an effort to find me and drag me out, but I haven't managed to finish that.

I won't be posting all that regularly right at first. One of the things I've been trying to catch up on, which has kept me exhausted, is helping Jim's son as far as I can with the probate. He has an interest in some land, and I looked up the records on it for him to save him the lawyer's fees. It was a good thing I did! I had to sift through nearly two dozen deeds on the property to get to where I could make any sense of the tangled trades back and forth within the family.

In fact, this isn't much of a post. I simply remembered my blog (I needed the URL, and that got me thinking), missed it, and sat down here to let my thoughts flow out of my fingers in this long, rambling fashion. I do hope to do better soon. I have plans, either for this blog or a new web site, to make it a more useful resource for writers. There are a few areas I'm pretty good at, and I hope I can help some of the rest of you in those areas. I will also be catching up on previous projects that lost ground between my sickness last year and Jim's death. I hope my regular readers will gradually notice that I'm back, and put up with me until I get the hang of writing directly from the keyboard, with little or no editing, once again.

Lessons, and a General Update

2007-11-30T23:21:00.000-05:00

Lesson One

The most surprising lesson I've learned over the past few months is this: if you are forced to exhaust yourself, be careful when promising yourself rest. Once you set your mind on a certain date, and allow yourself to fully slow down - your body will rest, and leave you little choice! Although I was functioning normally when we found Jim, I had used up many of my reserves, and had not yet got as far as restoring those reserves.

I worked to the point of utter exhaustion, always promising myself that I would be able to rest once November arrived. Even after I caught bronchitis, I forced myself to keep going, with the same promise. Well, we did finish on time (last junk out of the apartment about 11 pm on the 31st of October, packed and pulling away from the curb about 11:30 pm - how's that for cutting it close?) and November arrived.

I assumed I would rest, but that I'd also begin getting back to normal. Instead, I learned what it must be like to have narcolepsy. I was so exhausted, and I'd primed myself so much to expect that I could now rest, that my body kept forcing me to sleep, no matter what I intended. I could only accomplish anything in snatches; I often fell asleep so quickly that (for example) while reading I'd suddenly wake when the book slipped out of my hand and hit the floor.

I finally caught up with my sleep enough to be able to stay awake, but I can feel I have still not rebuilt all my reserves. If I stay up too late, I can feel exhaustion dragging at me. I'm mostly over the bronchitis (the asthmatic part is always the last to go, so I still get short of breath easily), and there is no reason for anyone to worry about me (although it does warm my heart to know that my readers care about me), but I am really anxious not to wear myself out quite so badly the next time Life drops a surprise in my lap.

Lesson Two

When he died, Jim still had a lot he wanted to do, and a lot of plans he'd never fulfilled. He expected to have years left to do these things; sadly, that was not the case. I can't restore that chance to him, much as I'd like to, but I can try to learn from his death, and to help my readers learn as well. Life is precious, fragile, and fleeting. Always try to live as though you had only a few weeks or months left.

Sure, there are still things you need to do that aren't what you most want to do. Errands, boring tasks, and the like weigh on us all, and some of them really do have to get done. But, insofar as you have the chance, try to take care of the most important things first. Let the lesser things slide. If the next day, you felt yourself dying, what would you most regret having neglected? What would you regret less? Try to live according to that sense of what matters. No matter how long you have to live (and I hope, for all of you, it is a long and a pleasant life), you'll have fewer regrets.

Lesson Three

Many of you may already know this, or it may seem obvious, but when you are in shock you won't always think clearly, so it is good to have this firmly in mind. Whenever someone dies, whoever will be dealing with their possessions will find, among everything else, an appalling lot of stuff that simply has to be disposed of. If that person lived in an apartment, costs of keeping it are much higher, so the job must be finished much more quickly.

At least in Massachusetts, some kinds of trash are hard to dispose of. At once, find out the local rules for trash disposal, and take full advantage of every trash day as it comes. The most costly items to get rid of are: TVs, computer monitors, computers, and the like, appliances, and mattresses. Give away what you can. Throw away any of these things you are allowed to at no cost. And try to find a good, inexpensive "junk man". Paul, the guy we used, charged less than half what the heavily advertised services would have.

Update

I learned several other lessons, but I'm not posting those now. They would involve discussing aspects of Jim's life that were personal to him, and I don't want to say anything that would have made him uncomfortable. So, if I post them to this blog at all, it will have to be after more thought.

The length of time I've been away from the blog was partly due to sleep's forceful takeover of my life, but it was also due to a few instances of Murphy's Law. One of the few tasks I attempted, once I saw how things were, was something I thought I could do in short bursts. I changed all my passwords so they would be more secure, and switched to a new password management system. In the process, I managed (and now that I'm awake, I could have predicted this!) to spoil my access to several sites.

In no case was the damage permanent; there are always options. But, having read that many people were having trouble with their G-Mail accounts, I first assumed my failure to open any Google site was due to the same type of problem. Of course, it was obvious that wasn't the case, but until I woke up and calmed down enough to think clearly about it, I didn't see that.

In addition, there was another death in my family; my father's cousin, who was more like an aunt to me. Ruthie was 95, and had spent the last few months in a nursing home trying to recover from pneumonia, so it wasn't totally unexpected, but when she died the day before Thanksgiving, it was still a blow. She was a very sweet woman who always seemed as if she'd outlast everybody else.

Jim's Cat

Some of you will have noted that I ended up keeping one of Jim's cats; the oldest, who he loved more than anything. Julius had kidney disease, a thyroid problem, bad teeth, and a bronchial rasp, in addition to being overweight and seventeen years old. In other words, no one else would adopt him. My tiger kittens have accepted him, mostly, although my son's cat still thinks he's Satan, come to take over his position as "big cat".

Julius, for his part, is a sweet guy who doesn't want to fight any of them. He's tried to make friends, but Mandarin seems to regard this as a cunning plot to buy time. So, for the time being, they must be kept mostly separate. It is not so much that they actually fight, but rather that Mandarin's continual hostility causes Julius too much stress. He won't even eat in Mandarin's presence.

At the time we brought him home, his kidney disease was being treated by nothing more than diet. For those of you lucky enough to have never had a cat suffering from kidney disease, I should explain that this diet is bland and apparently utterly devoid of appeal. Although they are fed separately, Julius knows the other cats get better stuff, and isn't inclined to settle for boring slop. So he wasn't eating much at all. Usually, if you hold out for a few days, a 'starving' cat will give in.

We tried that with Julius, but it didn't seem to work well. Ultimately, it turned out the food issue was camouflaging another problem. One of his bad teeth became abcessed, and was so painful he couldn't eat solids at all. The teeth can't be operated on; he's too old and sick to tolerate the anaesthesia. Penicillin did clear up the infection, for now, and he's eating again.

He lost enough weight, quickly enough, that it led to a condition, common in older cats who lose weight quickly, which could threaten his liver. So he couldn't afford to lose any more weight. Briefly, he was back on "real" food - now, with vet approval, he's on a mixture of "kidney food" and "real" food, with a few very high quality treats thrown in.

The real tragedy in all this is the fact that, due to the stress, infection, loss of weight, or some combination of factors, his kidney disease has worsened to the point where he is now on sub-cutaneous fluids, 200 ml twice a week. Giving them to him is an ordeal. He struggles, but makes no effort to hurt us, but he does stare at us, bewildered, wondering why we are doing this to him.

We, of course, know that he'd suffer far worse without the fluids. We can see the difference in him after each treatment; the surge of interest and energy, then a gradual slowing down as the next treatment nears. It is still a difficult thing to deal with. Although it doesn't cause him any pain, it does create considerable temporary discomfort when the fluid, which is of course always slightly cool even after warming, and thus feels "wrong", bulges up under his skin before being absorbed.

Worst of all, any of you who have dealt with kidney disease will know what is implied. If he's on fluids twice a week now, in a while that will get worse, and it will be every other day, then every day... Even now, multiple vet visits before we got him straightened out, 'runs' to the vet to pick up fluid, and all the other little things involved, played their part in keeping me from blogging sooner.

NaNoWriMo

As I implied earlier, I didn't join NaNo this year with any real hope of success. I simply couldn't bear not to participate. Well, I did participate, a very little, but I was seldom if ever on the boards, and my word count is so laughable I may as well not post a total. I couldn't snatch much time between sleeping, taking care of Julius, and trying to undo the messes I made while too sleepy. Next year, I hope to take part, and again to win, if all goes well.

The Future

I am, of course, paying attention to Lesson Two, above. The most important thing in my life is my cats. After that, there is my writing. Blogging is a part of writing. So I don't intend to give up blogging. However, I am going to be very busy for a while taking care of a very sick cat, and if I want to stay in any shape to write, I need to take time to rest, and also to get more exercise and fresh air so I can build up my health.

What all this means is that I will still be here, but, for the time being, not as often. I'm not going to promise to post with any specific frequency; there are too many uncertainties right now. As I am able, I will try to post here, and to write stories (or post ones already written) for those of you who are waiting. I will also, more slowly than I intended, clean up my template and post about the ideas I had earlier this summer.

But, since I'd rather take it easy now than be forced to quit later, I'm only going to do these things as I can fit them in. I look forward to a time when I can spend more time blogging, but right now I can't say exactly when that will be. I will visit your blogs when I can, enjoy reading them, and try to leave a few comments so you know I'm not ignoring you. But, again, I won't be taking as much time to read the blogs I enjoy as I have in the past, not until I have the time to spare for that.

Take heart in this: by the time I can get back into the full swing of blogging, I'll be longing for it! In fact, I'm longing for it now; I'm just trying to make the best long term decision that I can. I apologise for a long and rambling post; I hope my next one will be much better and more interesting than this.

A Quick Note

2007-10-31T02:24:00.000-04:00

I'm sorry I've worried some of you, especially as you are clearly loyal readers if you're still coming back after this long. I have simply been dreadfully busy helping to deal with the remnants of Jim's life. Along the way, I've learned a few lessons I'll pass along to you, as soon as I get some rest.

Jim's apartment will be fully cleared out today, the final day of October, which will allow me a bit more rest after this. However, I'm battling exhaustion, my third case of bronchitis this year, and still have a few items to deliver within the next few days, as well as a lot of work absorbing the fraction of Jim's amazing book collection I brought home.

In fact, I'm currently typing with stacks of plastic "totes" full of books stacked behind me. Also, I have a novel burning to be written, and have signed up, in spite of the obvious folly of this, for NaNo 2007. So, I won't be posting any lessons for a few days at least, and I'm afraid November won't be a busy month for posts (except possibly for NaNo updates). Still, I do hope to manage a few posts next month, and to give the handful of loyal readers who still visit some explanation for my long silence.

When It Rains, It Pours

2007-09-03T23:45:00.000-04:00

As my regular readers know, I've been slowly recovering from heat exhaustion. The other week, we went to see a relative (by marriage, but I consider him a relative) and friend. He has been ill for some time, we hadn't seen him in a while, so we wanted to go. We all enjoyed the visit, although it was obvious he wished it could last longer.

So, last Wednesday, we drove up again to see him, and try to cheer him up. I was worried, as he really didn't seem to be doing well. (He had diabetes, and had developed breathing problems after beginning to take one of the medications his doctors put him on.) Still, we enjoyed the visit, and planned to come back soon and often. On Saturday evening my wife called him as she did every night to check on him, and got no answer.

This would happen sometimes, if he was asleep and didn't hear the phone, or if he was out. So she called several times, still getting no answer. We were very worried, and she left a message telling him if she didn't hear from him by the next morning we were coming up to see how he was. Well, when we heard nothing by Sunday morning, we drove up there. He'd given my wife keys in case of emergency some time ago.

We drove up, and his car was there, but he wasn't outside where he liked to sit. We went to his door and knocked and called out but got no answer. So we went in and found him lying on his kitchen floor. We called 911 at once, and the paramedics got there fairly quickly. I was outside to show them which apartment he was in, and I led them in, they came in, took one look at him, and said "He's dead." without even tryint to revive him. He'd just recently turned 66.

When the police came, and the medical examiner determined his medical condition from his doctors, he ruled that no autopsy was necessary, but the police are fairly sure he died instantly, sometime on Saturday. The world is much poorer because he is no longer a part of it, but I can't write about him right now. I'm still too upset, and trying to get used to the idea. He was the closest friend I had. I thought he might wind up in the hospital a while, but I never expected this.

What makes it all so much worse is that he had two cats. They were inside with him when it happened; they are indoor cats. They had enough time to figure out what had happened, and are traumatized. They aren't even eating much, and they are, even for cats, huge eaters. They are grieving as well for the person they loved. We'd promised him we'd see that they were taken care of if anything happened to him.

Now, I wish with all my heart, for a number of reasons, including the fact that I love those cats, and the fact that just because they were Jim's I can't bear never to see them again, that I could take them myself, but I have three cats (two of my own, and one who is my son's). They are also indoor cats; in the part of New England where I live, you keep your cats indoors (or take them out only on a leash) or see them dead in a very short time.

My cats are all young, and are fairly well adjusted, but the space we have is just about enough for them. Two are neutered toms, and each one thinks he is the boss, although their squabbles don't get out of hand. Jim's cats are both old, former strays, and one is a former street fighter, now neutered, but still with the instincts to pick a fight with any rivals. So there is no chance I can take them.

So, I called a no-kill shelter, hoping if they couldn't take them in themselves they might at least be able to offer advice. They were sympathetic, but what they told me was that at their ages, 17 and 10, and as former strays who are problematic or needy, no shelter would consider taking them in, and I'd have a hard time finding anyone else who would, either.

They were kind enough to suggest something that was too late in this case, but that I'm glad to know about: many shelters are beginning to offer programs where you donate a certain amount of money and they guarantee to take your cats if anything happens to you. However, in this case, too late. The cats are living, right now, in the empty apartment, which is about two hours, one way, from us. Morning and evening, they have to be fed...

They are loving and affectionate cats who right now desperately need reassurance and affection. I promised my friend I'd see they were taken care of. I cannot just have them killed because there is no place in the world for them. I thought, once before in my life, that I knew what it was like to be "between a rock and a hard place". I was literally physically sick from the strain. And yet, I wasn't trapped as badly as I thought; I had no idea. This is what it means to be caught between a rock and a hard place.

I can't even think straight tonight, between my grief and my worry over the cats. I'd planned to post over the weekend, but of course that didn't happen. Until I can find an answer for those poor grieving cats (perhaps my greatest weakness is this: I can't stand seeing animals grieve; if I'd seen a pet of Hitler's grieving for him, I'd even have shed a few tears) I'm going to be too busy to blog. When I have an answer, I'm going to have to catch up on work...

There is only one exception: please come back in the next few days, because I will be making the time for one very important post - an update on Red's Book.

Down But Not Out

2007-08-26T01:54:00.000-04:00

I see from at least one comment I may have worried some of you by my long absence. I did intend to post much sooner, to clean up my template, and so on. I still plan to do those things, but 'the best laid plans of mice and men...'

During the earlier part of August, we had a number of days with extreme heat and humidity. Summers here are warmer than they used to be, and there isn't a spare circuit to plug an air conditioner into. Besides, I hate canned air and prefer fresh air blowing through the window. Most days, even though I don't like the heat, I can live with it. On the really awful days, I usually at least survive it.

What I didn't count on this summer was a combination of factors. First, usually the really bad days come one or two at a time. Second, usually, I'm not worn down by the flu and then dehydration. Third, I usually take it a bit easier than I did this summer when the heat does hit. So, when a long string of baking, steaming, humid, awful days arrived (and, despite being in the northeast, in our micro region, more than one visitor from Brazil has complained about the heat when it gets like that...) they hit me harder than I expected.

The other thing I wasn't prepared for, and this is something I urge you all to keep in mind: if you begin to suffer too much from heat and dehydration, your judgment suffers. You decide you're too tired to get up and get a drink when that's exactly what you need. Yes, it is stupid, and I feel like a fool admitting this, but you should all be aware of this. Once you start to get really sick, you aren't in a good position to take decent care of yourself.

Of course, the end result of all this, along with nights so hot and humid I couldn't get to sleep for hours (or, sometimes, at all) was a nasty case of heat exhaustion. Which doesn't sound like much. In my case, I was too hot and weary to eat much, I didn't drink enough, I didn't get enough sleep, and I got sick from the heat. And, when it was all over, I was more exhausted than I've ever been in my life.

I haven't even been keeping up with my blog reading. When I'm too exhausted to read, you know I'm worn out! When I was in second grade, I had pneumonia, and during the whole thing, I was going through library books so quickly I drove my parents nuts. But this time, I was too exhausted to read. Foolishly, when I started to get better, I tried to begin catching up on the things I needed to do right away.

Another mistake, although I did catch that one quickly. I've been taking it easy this past week, finally dipping my toes into reading a bit (I haven't got back to my blog reading yet - my computer throws off enough heat that the night in winter that the furnace quit, I sat up surfing and was nicely warm all night...). I still don't have a lot of stamina, but walking in the woods when the weather was cooler, sleeping late, and being lazy whenever I felt I needed it have done wonders for me.

I do hope to post more here, once I'm a bit more caught up on all the things I need to do. Today was another steaming scorcher, but I was forewarned, and consumed enough water, coconut water, root beer, and ice cream to keep me pretty cooled down and hydrated. That, and my trusty battery powered fan and a comfortable chair under the trees got me through it okay, so I really am doing better. I'm sorry I worried any of you.

In the meantime, please spare a thought for the people of Greece who are, quite literally, going through hell right now. I wanted to explain my long absence, but, next to what they're enduring, I've been safe and happy. Whatever explanation you prefer, it is pretty hard to avoid the idea that the Earth's climate is getting hotter than we are used to.

One Year Blogiversary

2007-07-30T23:30:00.000-04:00

Please forgive me the awkward word coinage (or perhaps someone else has already used that form; I can't recall if I've seen it elsewhere) in the title. I had hoped to have a more special post up today, but as it happens, I am so sick that I am barely managing to post at all.

We've been having high heat and humidity, and a combination of unwise but not immediately catastrophic decisions have left me exhausted from the heat and severely dehydrated. I tend to have a problem with dehydration anyway; I simply seem to need a lot of liquids. This isn't your garden variety dehydration, though, with a massive headache that will go away once you drink enough.

So I couldn't quite forget to post on the one year anniversary of my blog, but all I can really manage to say is that I'm weak and exhausted and unable to manage much tonight. (In fact, Monday evening is the first time I've logged onto my computer since very early Friday morning - really late Thursday night - when the problem began.)

I will be posting more about the changes I plan, in the near future, just as soon as I am feeling slightly better. Thanks for your patience and your feedback on my earlier post.

Ethics In the Association of Professional Genealogists: Image or Reality? (Updated 26 July)

2007-07-24T18:51:00.000-04:00

I have updated this post to discuss recent developments, indicating editing changes in blue text. Some of my changes attempt to address distortions in the arguments which are attributed to me. Roughly 1:00 am 26 July Addition roughly 3:00 pm 26 July

Until I resigned in protest earlier this year, I was a member of the Association of Professional Genealogists, and until last November worked as a professional genealogist. When I first joined the association, I believed the ideals they promoted, and was proud to be a member. In fact I think at that time the organisation made a real effort to live up to those ideals.

Over time, I noticed a shift in attitudes, as members' concerns about earning a good enough living became more prominent, and as some members allowed their ambitions of being accepted by academia to overwhelm other ideas. Several specific incidents have solidified my opinion that the APG's vaunted ethics are nothing but a sham.

The first incident began when a member posted a rambling, apparently drunken message to the APG list. In it, he made a number of ridiculous statements about prominent genealogists. No intelligent person believed these statements then, and I don't believe them today. He claimed someone else sent it in his name, but someone was offended enough to file a formal complaint, and word quietly filtered around that he'd been disciplined.

Given the problems inherent in validating electronic evidence, problems that are also of significance to genealogists, I was troubled by the way this was handled, for reasons I explained in a post to the mailing list archived here . In response, very indirectly, I was given to understand there was other evidence, but refused permission to quote anyone.

Due to the excessive secrecy, I was uncomfortable with the notion of a member being punished for nothing more than insulting a few prominent members of APG. I also felt, for an organisation that claims to encourage learning important skills, to allow a post which raised valid questions in light of the knowledge I had to remain unanswered was bad policy. However, I dismissed these concerns, and tried to remain a loyal member.

Not long after, another post casually mentioned the first issue of the NGSQ had advocated eugenics, the 'science' that claimed those with 'inferior' genes should be 'eliminated' from the gene pool, through forced sterilisation or other means. Since the eugenics movement used and perverted genealogy, often fabricating information to match their theories, and since the Nazis had also used genealogical information to identify "hidden" Jews, this information appalled me.

I quickly posted, expressing my hope that those who espoused such repulsive "ideals" were no longer being honoured by us today. In response, I was attacked, and not a single person supported me. Over time, as I considered the longstanding, although seldom discussed, links between genealogy and eugenics, and the fact that many modern genealogists work with DNA and also do research for medical purposes, this troubled me more and more. Any individual's failure to speak out to support me does not suggest they support eugenics. However, the overall lack of support, on a list that flooded my mailbox the instant the subject of our income and prestige was raised, is troubling.

Although I consider eugenics to be one of the most evil beliefs mankind has ever developed, I limited my concerns to the APG list since I still trusted the overall ethics of the organisation. I did not, at any time, advocate attempting to alter history or destroy records. I did suggest we should no longer honour people who advocated such repulsive and harmful ideas, and that we should add a provision to the Code of Ethics explicitly forbidding ethical genealogists from being involved in or with eugenics in any form.

Since then, as I detail below, my trust in the ethics of the APG as an organisation has been eroded. As my confidence in the organisation waned, my concern over the potential for future abuse in this area grew. And as I attempt to think about this clearheadedly, one question haunts me. Since my opponents claim it is an unimportant issue, and it is an issue which does concern some segment of the public, why not add a provision to the Code of Ethics repudiating eugenics?

The real change came when someone started a thread asking how many of us earned an adequate income. Those who were unhappy with what they were able to charge began seeking ways to increase their rates. Reasonable enough, until a certain posting. Before I mention this posting, I must admit something: I once posted a suggestion that genealogists seek to have access to records limited to identified professionals.

My reasons for this, as stated in my post, were the threats of records closures; I felt this might be the only way to preserve access at all. Since then, I've decided I was wrong, but it would have been reasonable for someone to make a suggestion reluctantly, as the best way of keeping records open on a limited basis. However, if you follow the (long) discussion that began here and quickly degenerated, you will see that some members seem to have been suggesting licensing and limited access to records as a way of increasing their own income and, incidentally, prestige.

That was the moment I was forced to make a choice, and was forced to realise the APG no longer had the best interests of genealogy in mind. They failed to recognise the same economic pressures that forced the consolidation of so many other businesses and industries. They ignored the impact of Ancestry, which, by making so many lookups easy for anyone, reduced income from such minor projects for many researchers, and when many of their members ended up in trouble, all many of them could think of was protecting their own interest, even at the expense of non-"professional" genealogists.

I refrained from speaking out publicly at the time, despite moral qualms that I should do so, since there are still many honest, decent members of the APG. I hoped to resolve the problems from within, somehow. Not long after, there was a slight amount of publicity because of someone who seems to have felt the same arrogance and elitism that I noted.

Writers have a rule of thumb: if you show a work to one person, and they criticise something, you are still free to believe they just don't understand. But, when you show it to a second person, and they make the same point, you just don't understand. Their response? They mocked Lee, saying the fact that she gave up just proved she didn't have what it took. What they really proved is that they refused to understand their own growing arrogance.

I still stayed quiet, however, although I abandoned active research not long after. I could no longer stomach the profession I had once loved. But I had friends on that list, and people I respected. I stopped taking an active part in the list, although I read the messages for any information I might be able to use in my own research. Then something more happened, which forced me to think again.

I will not link to these postings, since doing so would violate the privacy of an innocent individual, but will provide links to any posts that have not been removed to legitimate members of the press who inquire, upon written assurance the links will not be made public, or the details of innocent individuals released.

In one more example of elitism, listers suddenly began pestering anyone who used a pseudonym. In response, one person posted that she wished to remain private, and so was leaving the list, in order to respect their wishes. Instead of honouring that, one member of the APG responded by posting her name and a link to her personal web page with more information about her and her family, noting how "easy" it was to find.

To me, this was cyberbullying. Not only that, it played right into the hands of those who believe genealogists will dig up your personal information even if you want it kept private. Yet, when I posted insisting the APG take action, I was told it was "policy" to only act if an individual filed a formal complaint. Of course, any one of them could have filed such a complaint, but they chose not to, and I refused to do their dirty work for them.

The only reason I can see for the reluctance to punish this member, as the drunken member was punished, even though his offence only harmed his own reputation and hers reflected on everyone, is the simple fact she is a longtime member of the APG with powerful and influential friends. At this time, when I was exposing the rotten underbelly of their policies, the APG suddenly implemented a new feature of their web site - private forums.

Secrecy, of course, is a great way to hide what you're doing. No matter how many good reasons they may come up with for having such forums, the timing suggests hiding was at least part of the reason for having them. I remained a member of the APG, so I e-mailed my intention to resign and instructed them to take my name off the membership list, rather than be associated with this.

Unable to resolve these concerns, I "threatened" to go public with them. In reality, I made it plain I was hugely reluctant to do so, and would prefer a meaningful dialogue that might resolve the problems without harm to anyone's reputation. Some members answered; I replied to them, but only two even acknowledged my answers. In fairness, I have noticed a number of e-mails to and from my accounts have not been delivered, and have heard similar stories from others, so I can't say who received them.

I can say that few of the people who answered were those who might be able to do anything, and no one in a position to act entered into anything like a real discussion of these concerns. I tried to salve my conscience that I had done what I could. I realised that the last incident was, in a way, a 'litmus test' for me, which is why I reacted so strongly. If the APG had acted honestly against this member, I might have gone on believing the organisation was, on the whole, ethical.

Yet they didn't act. There are still decent people, people I respect very much, who are members, so I didn't act either. One other reaction increased my concern, though. Most people assumed I had some personal issue to complain about. I was insulted a few times by members, one member who did some research on my family in another area made a mistake, and I never said a word about those things.

Why didn't I pursue my personal "issues"? Simply because they were personal, too petty to make a fuss about. People make mistakes, say something thoughtless, and none of that is worth a lot of time and trouble. Yet, when they learned my concerns were larger, and not personal, most people couldn't understand why I made a fuss. The fact they felt a little lost money or an insult were more important than issues that should concern everyone only deepened my concerns about the culture of the APG, and the moral compass its leaders were providing.

Today, something happened that forced me to revisit all this, and I am finally speaking out. Today, an APG member posted the full text of an article in the Providence Journal (I am not linking to the post, out of respect for the Journal's rights) and specifically noted they were doing so to circumvent the Journal's requirement that every reader register (at no charge).

In other words, this was a deliberate act! They posted a copyrighted article deliberately, and deprived the newspaper of readership information which would be of commercial value to them. Now, I don't like registering either; I always wonder how much more spam I'll get. But this is a member of an organisation that makes a big issue of copyright, and members are quick enough to complain if their Copyrights are infringed. I am not a copyright attorney, but it seems plain to me this member violated Federal law, despite an ethical pledge that requires members to obey the law, and specifically Copyright law.

So I e-mailed the administration, including the offending message with full headers, the only evidence I had, or would be likely to have. Despite that, they e-mailed me in return to say they would only act if I filed an official complaint. I did so, but this forced me to consider: why have such a policy, and why wouldn't one of the officers file a complaint themselves?

Well, such a process is inconvenient, it takes time many people don't have, and it can be intimidating to some people. In other words, their ethics policies have been set up to insulate their members from as many criticisms as possible. Which finally convinced me, when members are working in areas 'sensitive' to the issue and the organisation is reluctant to publicly disavow eugenics, when members may still be working in secret on their private forum to plan ways to limit records access to "licensed" genealogists, meaning you won't be able to learn about your own family without paying through the nose for it, and when members openly violate the Copyright laws - I had no choice but to expose the APG for what it is.

I now understand how whistleblowers feel, and how difficult it is. Should I have spoken out sooner? Probably. I will never know how much harm has been done by my silence, while my speaking out now has ensured it is unlikely anyone who is a member of the APG will ever speak to me again. In fairness, while many who have contacted me have not agreed with me on every point, and some have disagreed with me on most or all of the points I made, the responses I have received have been far less negative than I feared they would be. But I sincerely believe that the APG has become corrupted, that its leadership, in the absence of real ways to advance the field of genealogy, has resorted to secrecy lest their image be tarnished, and that the only way to clean up the mess is to dissolve the APG completely, lest consumers believe their prattle about "high ethical standards".

Since I have no connection with the Providence Journal and didn't write the article in question, why do I care so much? Again, it isn't really personal, although I do have a slight personal interest in this one. But I also care about all my fellow writers - when a member of an organisation that makes so much noise about their "ethics" publicly ignores copyright laws, that can only encourage those who don't even understand the law to think it is okay. In other words, every writer has suffered an increased chance their work will be stolen because of that message. And since the APG administration didn't think that was serious enough to act against on their own, forcing me to file a formal complaint before they would even consider doing anything, it is past time I spoke up!

Today, the member in question made another posting to the list, reposting the article with permission from the Providence Journal. They included a message stating their omission of Copyright permission yesterday had been "inadvertent". While it does not technically say this in so many words, the message is carefully crafted to avoid accepting any real blame, by implying they had sought permission and just somehow forgot to mention it.

Aside from the fact I have trouble believing anyone would go to the trouble of obtaining permission to republish an article, and then forget to mention it (which the new post doesn't quite say, anyway), the original post gave as a reason for the full posting the fact that "viewing the Providence Journal requires readers to login". Again, this was deliberate! After the fact, when I complained, the person in question presumably contacted the Providence Journal, worked something out with them, and obtained permission to cover themselves legally.

Now, if the member had posted something like "I did wrong. I tried to steal Copyrighted work, even though copyright law is specifically mentioned in our Code of Ethics, and has been discussed on this list many times. I'm sorry, it was a crime, and I've already contacted the copyright owner and settled the matter with them" I would stick to the APG's response to this. In any case, they should have reacted faster and more forcefully.

But, what the member did instead was craft a post that left the real facts clouded, that could easily create the impression they had permission all along. Since that is only my judgment, judge for yourself. That message, to me, is the perfect triumph of image over truth. Which is exactly what I've said here: the APG has changed, and their ethics are image, not truth. It reads, to me, like something written by the kind of lawyer who originally studied the law in order to find out how to bend it to their will. No statement is technically false, but the overall impression is far from the truth as I see it.

And, if this little attempt to preserve one member's image succeeds, it will have exactly the effect I feared in the first place: those inclined to violate copyrights will think it's easy enough to wiggle off the hook. Writers everywhere should be outraged, and truly ethical genealogists should be outraged as well.

Excellent Writing Community

2007-07-22T16:23:00.001-04:00

Forward Motion for Writers is an excellent community for serious writers. I also belong to a small writing group, which has its own special benefits. Among larger communities, though, Forward Motion stands out. It is the only site I know of which is specifically designed by writers for writers, is free, accepts writers of all types, and does not in any way seek to take advantage of the writers who join. The rules are reasonable, and Holly Lisle, the founder, and Lazette Gifford, the site's current owner and administrator, deserve to be recognised as the patron saints of writers everywhere.

It is a place "where you can connect with others interested in sharing both the joys and the insanity of writing". Its members are "at various stages of their careers -- from those who have been repeatedly published to others starting their first manuscripts". Writers interested in all genres (other than erotica) are welcome.

Truly, "if you love writing, Forward Motion is the site for you". The primary emphasis of the site is on becoming professionally published, although serious members wishing to improve their writing skills are welcome even if they are not ready to seek publication. Membership is free, and includes classes and every other benefit of belonging to this community. Donations are welcomed, but there is no heavy pressure to donate.

Yes, this reads like a 'puff piece', but it is not. It is my genuine opinion of the site. Any of you who've taken part in NaNoWriMo, or who've looked over the site, will know that the forums boast an impressive list of resources. Forward Motion boasts a similar but larger collection of forums for writers.

The forums are organised slightly differently, and I personally regret the lack of a "Plot Doctor" forum, but you can get help with your plot, that is just not one of the central subjects. The quality of replies is generally very high, and the senior members are genuinely eager to be helpful without throwing their weight around. There are also classes you can sign up for at various times, and critique boards where you can post your work and get an honest critique.

If that isn't enough, Zette publishes an e-zine for writers, Vision, which is available free on the site and is the best writer's magazine I've ever encountered. I really would like to encourage any of you who are serious about your writing to join this community. Even if you've already been published, I think you'll find some aspects of it worthwhile. If you would like to help newer writers, you can certainly do that, too.

Why am I so enthusiastic about this site? Well, there are a lot of "free" writing communities out there, and most of them offer very little. In return, to join, you must sign away so many of your rights to any work you post that I personally do not recommend anyone to join, serious about being published or not. Forward Motion offers much more, and doesn't ask you to sign away your rights to anything you post. How can any writer not be enthusiastic about a site like this?

I'm Back With Thoughts of Change

2007-07-16T00:34:00.000-04:00

I've actually been back a short while, but too busy catching up with everything that I fell behind on to post here until tonight. Thanks for all your suggestions: this time, oddly enough, the trouble wasn't either Blogger or Windows - it was Firefox! More specifically, one of my Firefox add-ons seems to have become a little too possessive of the contents of each tab - it was literally preventing any tab I opened from being refreshed at all.

This blog will be one year old on the 30th, and I'm still pondering what I'll do by way of celebration. In addition, I'm considering a few changes - nothing is final yet, I do want to keep my friends and loyal readers coming back, so I'll discuss this further before making a decision, but I wanted to at least toss out my thoughts for now. Feel free to express your opinions in the comments here or in any later post on the subject.

In fact, I'd actually appreciate your comments. After all, if I were simply writing for myself, there'd be no need to post it here. I've made some friends I value in the blogging world, and I don't want to do anything to lose you. The first change I'm thinking of is very simple - I may leave this blog up, but open a WordPress blog, copy at least the best of my posts here over there, then continue blogging at a new address.

This will mean a lot of you changing your links, which I know can be a real pain. I haven't finally made up my mind to do it - I also know for bloggers who have a home on Blogger, it is harder and more time consuming to leave comments on WordPress blogs. On the other hand, WordPress does offer stability and some features I think might make my own life that much easier. I may also run two, 'mirrored' blogs for a short time, just to see how each one works out.

The most likely change is this - wherever I continue to blog, I need to update my layout and links soon. Over time, the blog has become a bit messy, and I plan to improve that, while also pruning dead links, adding the members of the Shameless Lions Writing Circle to my blogroll, etc. I may also add a link section for interesting sites I come across or learn about.

Finally, I've been considering my writing career, and joined Forward Motion, the writing community, a short while back. Reading the posts there has left me reconsidering how I plan to proceed. I will still be posting new stories here, (or on my new WordPress blog), but I'm trying to decide on a framework that is fair to you, my readers, and to me as well.

My current thinking, which is far from settled, involves two things - I may post excerpts, clearly labeled for those who wish to avoid becoming caught up in them, plus a more regular schedule of posting stories, say one per month or perhaps, if I feel I can meet the schedule, every two weeks. For the latter stories, I am considering allowing my readers to post ideas, prompts, types of stories they'd like to see - each time, I'll choose one, write the story, and post it.

I'll discuss all this further before making any real changes, but I wanted those of you who visit here to have some idea what was going on, so you can watch out for my later post on the subject, probably within a week or two. What you are reading here is my late night, rough summary of all the thoughts that have been going through my head lately.

Technical Difficulties

2007-07-07T17:02:00.000-04:00

I am posting this to let my faithful readers know there may or may not be a huge gap in posts. I am able to access Blogger at the moment, but I have had various problems. The trouble does not seem to be with Blogger, but with my own computer. For example, I just rebooted. The previous time I started up my computer, when I opened Firefox, each tab would not refresh. I finally worked around this and got in my e-mail inbox; when I deleted some messages, even after I refreshed the tab, they continued to appear, but if I opened my inbox in a new tab, they were gone.

I have had other strange things happen lately, and I have no idea what the trouble is. It is possible it will clear up on its own, or that I'll figure it out quickly. But, while I am able to leave this post, I thought I should explain what is happening, in case I involuntarily 'disappear' for some unknown length of time.

Hubris

2007-06-30T23:52:00.001-04:00

The massive battleship passed inexorably into the harbour, swastika flags snapping insolently in the breeze. War had only been declared a few hours before, but she had been waiting, ready to pounce, for some days, and now her crew lined the railings, cheering and baying as the tiny ships in port scurried to avoid them. One man pointed to the battered old sailing vessel struggling along with most of her masts bare and sniggered. More and more men began jeering at her, certain she would be ridden down by their massive armoured bow. When she barely dodged the blow, they groaned, and those closest to her spat down upon her decks as the great warship slid past her. Her hull nearly grated against the fresh grey paint as suddenly it detonated in a breathtaking blast that immediately touched off the main magazine, levelling every building along the shore but leaving nothing of the proud flagship but a storm of flame and smoke that the water soon swallowed up.

A Few Days Left Before the "Friends of Kilroy" Gonzo Blog Carnival

2007-06-27T03:41:00.001-04:00

The Queen of Pentacles is hosting a Gonzo Blog Carnival: Friends of Kilroy. The actual carnival is 02 July, but entries must be in by 30 June. Blogs with a link exchange to Fear and Loathing or to any of the bloggers linked there, such as the Unending Journey, are eligible. You can read the complete rules at the link above.

Even with the lingering effects of the flu, and the awful heat wave we're having here right now (all three cats are miserable - poor Tristan sprawls out, then gets up and starts 'yelling' - he wants us to do something about the heat - even his sister, who usually doesn't mind the heat, is sprawled out in 'lifeless overheated kitty' pose, and that at 3 am when it should be cooler), I will probably manage an entry myself. If I can't write one, I'll pull a story out of my files and post it.

So, come on, jump in and join the carnival. It's a great way to get new readers, make new friends, and find interesting new blogs to read.

Bumps in the Road

2007-06-25T02:55:00.001-04:00

I promised I'd try to give all my loyal readers some explanation of where I've been, so here it is. Near the end of May, I let myself grow a bit more overheated and dehydrated on a very hot, humid day than was really good for me. I was only sick for two or three days, then an urgent project came along for work. I worked hard, and late, giving it everything I had, fully expecting a chance to rest at the end.

After a few days, totally exhausted by my work, I was ready to drop, but it turned out the work I'd done needed some revision. So, I stretched my resources a little bit thinner in an attempt to get this done. I was still hoping to slow down, rest, and be back to "normal life" before the middle of June. Then, the real bomb hit!

I don't feel right going into too much detail here, as other people are involved, but a family member had married a citizen of another country. This was a real marriage, but the United States insists on determining the validity of any such marriage, lest an immigrant somehow manage to stay here. Well, as I say, it was a real marriage, so no serious obstacles were expected. The family member in question hired a lawyer, just to get advice through a complex and annoying bureaucratic process.

Well, nine days before the hearing, the lawyer finally decided to do his job. He reviewed the records they had, what they'd done, etc., including items he'd refused to provide advice on earlier. Then, he told them that they had not handled things well from a bureaucratic standpoint, they didn't have all the records they needed, etc.

So, at the very moment when I was desperately needing to slow down and relax, I was faced with a need to help this family member collect records from another country, find specialised help that they needed, and so on. Each day offered up a new, unpleasant surprise. For example, the lawyer had told them to just find their own translator for translated copies of legal documents.

He had never mentioned the need to find a translator specifically skilled in translating legal documents! You can waste untold amounts of time trying to find someone with such a specific skill who is available at the spur of the moment. And, with everything that needed to be shipped back and forth, faxed back and forth, copied, etc. more hours were spent just running errands.

I got little sleep and a lot of stress over the next nine days. Even when I could sleep, I was too upset to do so easily. The possibility existed that the United States would, at the hearing, decide against the validity of the marriage, take my relation by marriage directly to detention, and then deport them, leaving their spouse to appeal later. (Yes, this is legal here in the "land of the free".) Due to the short notice, we felt that the best outcome possible was that they might be granted a ninety day, one time extension to collect any additional documentation they might need.

For those of you who wonder how this all turned out, I can give you a slight summary. The couple were not allowed to bring anyone else with them to their hearing, but I heard the story as soon as they were done. They found that the hearing officer was none other than the one person their lawyer had warned them against: someone who hated immigrants, tried to seek excuses to deport them, and took even an offer to shake hands as a personal insult.

Now, in addition, the lawyer had already told them that actually, fake marriages usually had an easier time being approved. The reason? They knew in advance what they wanted to do, knew all the rules, and followed them carefully. People who honestly fall in love don't plan things like that, so the record is less 'perfect'. So, naturally, they were very tense. In spite of that, the truth for once did come out: after interviewing them for a while, the hearing officer stated they had never seen a couple so obviously in love, and granted my relation by marriage permanent resident status! There is some possibility a superior could decide to review the decision, but we'll deal with that if it comes up.

Now, with nothing more I needed to do, I collapsed and could do nothing at all. I even found myself, the next day, falling asleep while standing up! I caught myself just as I started to topple... So I spent a few days doing almost nothing but sleeping. You might think that was the end of the story. No, there was one more blow to come. The family member in question also had to work, for one of the nastiest bosses I've ever heard of. He forced another employee to come to work even though they had the flu.

Well, that family member caught the flu, an easy target since they were exhausted, and since I was as well, I caught it just about the time I began to catch up on my rest. I'm slowly getting better, but this is a nasty flu, and the flu and I don't get along well at the best of times. So, I will slowly be returning to posting and visiting your blogs, but progress is likely to be slow. I need to stay rested so I don't get any setbacks. I've got a lot of things piled up I need to do at this point, anyway, and I can't afford to fall any further behind.

Please, take one moral from this story. Never trust a lawyer completely. I don't mean there aren't good lawyers; there are some. But, if you aren't a lawyer, you won't be able to tell the difference, and even a good lawyer can make a mistake. It is your life. If you need a lawyer, learn as much as you can on your own, and do what you can on your own, so if your lawyer decides to wait until nine days before your life hangs in the balance to offer good advice, you'll have just that little bit less left to do.

As for writers, there are legal issues to do with writing that could have a major impact on you and your rights. Learn as much as you can about them, and seek a lawyer who specialises in those issues, if you can possibly afford to do so, so that you can reduce your chances of being crushed by an uncaring system.

WA Lives - Details to Follow

2007-06-22T01:59:00.000-04:00

I'm sorry I've worried some of you with my long absence. The story is much too long and I am still too sick (only part of the story) to relate it now, but I just wanted to let you know that I am still alive, still intend to keep this blog active, and have just been sidelined with a couple of nasty hits one after the other. When I'm feeling better, hopefully in a few days at most, I'll fill you all in on the gory details.

I'll also try to get around to answering those of you who commented soon, again, as soon as I have energy to do so.

Meet His Majesty, Arthur Winston

2007-05-30T13:42:00.001-04:00

I am proud to introduce my readers to His Majesty, Arthur Winston, the lion I have adopted as a member of the Shameless Lions Writing Circle. For those who doubt his title, the lion is the King of Beasts; it is entirely proper for him to be styled His Majesty.

His name stands for two men who fought in doomed (or so it seemed) causes. Arthur, High King of Britain, fell, but his efforts undoubtedly softened and civilised the Saxon influence on Celtic Britain. Winston Churchill, who stood against the darkest evil the world has yet known, miraculously, won. Such a name seems entirely appropriate for the Last Lion...

The last lion,
Survivor of hunters
Lacking manhood,
Poachers, tourists, progress,
Stands proudly,
Unaware.

In his mind,
His coat glows
Smooth and tawny.
King of Beasts,
No matter
How many patches.
He fights on,
Magnificent, wondrous, doomed.

What have we done?
Woe, when such creatures
Live no more...

Seeing Things (part 1)

2007-05-25T23:59:00.000-04:00

Jake trudged out of the forest, his helmet in one hand, and wiping soot from his forehead with the back of the other. He had his coat open, but he was still sweating pretty badly. Whatever had come down in there, there was plenty of fuel for the fire. With all the twisted metal lying around, they'd been sure it must be a big jet. They'd called the FAA, like they were supposed to do, but they'd been told no aircraft were missing.

It had fallen to Jake to hike out and meet the guy they were sending out, just in case, and lead him back to the wreckage. That must be him, leaning on the open door of a drab government sedan, wearing a suit to go hiking through the woods to a fire scene. Well, that was his lookout. Jake approached and stuck out a filthy palm.

"You from the FAA?"

The other man stared in horror at his hand, then belatedly took it. "Ah, yes, I'm Sidney Holcomb. Your Department has reported finding wreckage in the area?"

"That's right, Mister Holcomb. Wreckage all over the place, and a real big fire."

He sighed. "I guess I'd better have a look. Where is it?"

"Follow me." Jake turned back towards the wall of trees and brush beside the trail where the vehicles were parked.

"Ah, isn't there a path, or something?"

"That's the thing about fires, Mister Holcomb. Wherever they are, you got to go there, whether or not there's a path that goes there."

"I do hope this isn't just a case of making things difficult for the guy from Washington."

Jake stopped in his tracks, turned around, and glared at him. "Look me over, real good, Mister Holcomb. Do I look like a guy has energy to spare, just to get a rise out of some paper pusher?"

The other man sighed again. "I suppose not."

They walked in silence for a while, until they were close enough the smoke made even Jake cough. They could hear the roar and crackle of the fire ahead, and the FAA investigator tugged at Jake's arm from behind.

"Is this safe? Don't we need to stop here?"

"Mister Holcomb, you're supposed to investigate airplane crashes, aren't you? I'd imagine you'd have needed to get closer to a fire before this."

"Well, yes, but... those were all on runways, or out in fields. I wasn't risking being trapped in a wilderness if the fire got out of hand!"

"Think of it like this, Mister Holcomb. I've been in a lot of fires in the woods. As long as I'm walking forward, things are probably not too bad. Now, if I turn around and start to run, you want to be sure you keep up."

"You can be sure, if I knew the way, I'd be ahead of you!"

"Don't count on it, Mister Holcomb. I'm used to this kind of terrain, so I'm not so likely to trip or make some other mistake that would slow me down."

"Now I feel so much better. Why don't you stop trying to reassure me and just get this over with?"

"You're the one stopped me. I was getting it over with just fine until then."

"Just show me the wreckage. I'm as eager to get out of here as you are to be rid of me."

"Now, did I say that, Mister Holcomb?"

"I'm not a complete idiot, whatever you may think of me."

Jake chose to hold his tongue, and kept on a straight line to one of the bigger tangles of wreckage. They ahd to push through a thicket of brambles on the way, and even Jake found the going tough. His companion looked as if he'd lost a battle with a mountain lion. The suit would clearly never be the same again. He bit back a chuckle, as they rounded a clump of trees hiding a heap of smoldering metal.

"There, Mister Holcomb, see?"

The other man knelt down, not worrying now about getting soot on his already ruined clothes, and inspected the pile of debris carefully. Then he straightened and began to laugh.

"What's the joke, Mister Holcomb?"

"Just that I'd have thought a hick like you might recognise what this is."

"Well, since I don't, you get the chance to show off all that education."

"This isn't from an aircraft. If you look closely, you can see the original pieces were probably dome shaped, or something similar. And see, here, all these bits of tubing?"

"I guess so."

"Copper tubing. This was part of a still. A pretty big one, in fact. If it blew up, you'd get a nasty fire, just like the one you have here."

Jake took a step back. "A still? I never heard of one this big. And the air didn't smell like alcohol when we got here."

"Well, I'm not an expert at these things, of course, but perhaps it was built to, ah, process something else. Something more profitable today."

"Drugs? Jeez, you think so?"

"It makes a lot more sense than a downed aircraft when nothing is missing."

"How'd they get something this big all the way out here? And where was it? I don't see any clearings big enough."

"Those aren't my worries, fortunately. If you would be good enough to show me the way to my car..."

Neither man spoke on the return trip. The FAA man sprayed the area with gravel as he spun around and headed back down the trail. Jake cursed him, wearily, and started the long trek back to the scene once more. He was nearly there when he glimpsed something orange in the lower branches of a tree.Suspecting it was a stray flame ignited by flying sparks, he ran over to it.

There, at about the level of his own face, stood a tiny orange skinned creature who looked a bit like something they forgot to include in the Lord of the Rings movie. Jake blinked and rubbed his eyes.

"Why so surprised are you, friend? You say crash came from air, why shocked to see me?"

"Whoah! An airplane isn't the same thing as a... as a spaceship!"

"Aircraft is more primitive, yes, but to know of aircraft is to dream of spacecraft. Is that not so among your people?"

"Well, yeah, now that you mention it."

"So, you see, that you should run across it is not so odd."

"Yeah, but, anybody comes by and catches me talking to you, they'll do a lot more than think I'm odd!"

[To be continued...]

Test Flight

2007-05-24T23:53:00.000-04:00

"Ground Control, this is Tango-Fox-five-seven-eight, approaching outer radius of target area, over."

"Roger, Tango-Fox, you are approaching outer radius of target area, cleared to cross into the restricted zone while remaining in constant radio contact, over."

"Control, you betcha, I'll be in contact every second, I want this thing settled as much as you guys do. I'm three miles beyond the perimeter, and - what the hell!? Oh God, the sky's tearing open God help me Control I see flames I see stars I see angels..."

"Come in Tango-Fox, come in please, I've lost your signal, damnit, we've lost another one!"

Another try at a six sentence story. I hope I've left you wondering just what is in this restricted area.

Quantum Dilemma

2007-05-23T23:59:00.000-04:00

Jenny opened the door briskly, hand out for the slate and pen to sign for the package.

"Mrs. Savanger?"

She squinted into the bright sun flooding her eyes. "Yes?" Then she saw the uniform, and swayed, clutching the door. "Oh, my God! It's Eric, isn't it?"

"May we come in?"

Jenny stepped back, almost tripping as she did so. "Of course. Just tell me! Is Eric alive?"

"Ma'am, we're very sorry..."

Jenny's face crumpled, and they took her elbows and guided her into the kitchen, letting her collapse in the nearest chair. The woman who had spoken sat across from her, while her partner methodically searched the kitchen and began making coffee. The woman took Jenny's hand.

"I'm sorry, ma'am, I didn't mean that the way it's usually used. We're very sorry to have to tell you this, but we don't know if Captain Savanger is alive or not."

"Don't know? What do you mean, you don't know? How can you not know?"

"Please, ma'am, let me explain what we do know."

Jenny kept her eyes fixed on the other woman's face, as intent as any predator about to pounce on it's first meal in thirty hours. The woman fidgeted with her fingers.

"Ma'am, how much do you know of the project Captain Savanger is working with?"

"We... we've discussed it, as much as Eric was allowed to. He... he wanted me to have some say before he made up his mind..."

"How much of what he explained to you were you able to understand?"

"I don't know. It was dangerous, I understood that, but important and exciting. I told him... God help me, I told him he should go ahead, since he obviously wanted to so badly."

"Mrs. Savanger, were you aware the New Frontier Project involved a new, untested type of drive based upon the principles of quantum physics?"

"Yes, I... I guess so."

"Did you understand what that meant?"

"That no one really knew what was going to happen."

The uniformed woman coughed. "Well, yes, that's true, of course. Are you familiar with the idea of Schrodinger's Cat?"

"Eric said something... I'm not sure."

The woman sighed. "I'm not a quantum physicist, Mrs. Savanger, so I don't understand it very well myself, but they assure me this is how it works. If you put a cat in a sealed box, with two valves, one that will admit oxygen and one that will admit cyanide gas, and control those valves with a switch based upon the behaviour of a single quantum particle..." She broke off.

"Please, tell me what's happening!"

"I'm sorry. I'm very sure any of the physicists would say my explanation is all wrong. But the important part is this. If you were to perform such an experiment with a cat, there are several possible outcomes. If you look inside the box, there is a fifty percent chance you will find the cat alive, and a fifty percent chance you'll find her dead. No one knows which until you look." She looked firmly at Jenny. "But, there is a third possibility. If you didn't look inside, you would actually have two boxes co-existing simultaneously. Inside one would be a living cat, and inside the other would be exactly the same cat, but dead instead of alive."

"Eric talked about this. He said it was a 'thought experiment', I think."

"No, Mrs. Savanger, this isn't a hypothetical situation at all. Until someone looked, you would actually have two separate boxes, co-existing, each with the same cat inside. It doesn't make sense, I know."

"But that's crazy!"

"It does sound like it, doesn't it, ma'am?"

Jenny looked at her flatly. "You're serious! All right, what does this cat have to do with Eric?" She picked up the coffee that had been sitting, ignored, in front of her the past few minutes, and sipped from it.

"You see, ma'am, the, ah, craft he was testing uses quantum principles in it's operation. While he was on a voyage, there was a malfunction. We know that much, we even know roughly what went wrong."

Jenny gripped the cup so hard between her fingers that it cracked. "Damn it!"

"Oh, I'm sorry, ma'am. I don't mean to keep you in suspense. I'm trying to explain."

Jenny just sat and waited, until she shifted uncomfortably in her seat.

"Sorry, ma'am. The problem is that we can't determine the exact effects the malfunction would have had. At the moment, there are two ships, each with Captain Savanger in the cockpit."

Jenny put her hand to her mouth and nibbled her knuckles. "Why didn't... Oh!" Her mouth opened wide in horror, and she raised her palm and made pushing motions, as if physically shoving something away, out of her sight.

"Exactly, ma'am. Once we look, there is just as much chance of finding Captain Savanger dead as of finding him alive. We're afraid to look. I was sent, ma'am, to inquire what your wishes were in the matter."

Jenny stared at her in horror. "Don't ask me that! I can't bear not knowing, but if finding out could kill him, I can't bear that either..." She rose and began pacing. "No, I don't want you to look. Not at all, not ever. As long as he's alive somewhere, I can bear that..."

"Are you sure, ma'am?"

"Of course I'm not sure! If I tell you to go ahead and look, he might come back to me. But you might find his body, too."

Three weeks later, when they finally settled Jenny in a nice place with plenty of nurses to care for her, she was still hovering between one possibility and another.

The Commander of the New Frontier Project stood at the window of his office that afternoon, while an envoy from the capitol watched him. "Now listen here, Commander, you've got to come to some decision on this Savanger business."

"Not me! Tell them they'll have to decide. Oh, but first, be sure they understand the principle of Schrodinger's Cat, so they'll know what we're dealing with."

The special legislative assistant shrank back in his seat. "What do we do then, sir?"

"That's the question, isn't it? If only we knew the answer!"

Missing

2007-05-22T23:55:00.000-04:00

"Oooh, Mum, look, look at this wicked paperweight! There's a whole little world inside, like you could just...."

"Don't be silly, Andrew, you're old enough to know better. Where are you - Andrew!?"

"Ahh, Madam, such a lovely paperweight, exquisite craftsmanship, isn't it? The woman I bought that from swore Faberge himself could never make anything so intricate, she tried to tell me some nonsense about elves, or something like that."

I wrote this as a six sentence story. I hope you enjoy it.

A Sailor's Tale

2007-05-21T23:27:00.000-04:00

I haven't thought of that operation in many years, but the tragedy this morning reminded me. It was all secret then, of course. We were never allowed to talk about it. Probably that's one reason I hadn't thought of it for so long. But the world has changed in so many ways since then, I don't suppose it would do any harm to tell the tale now.

This was near the beginning of the war, just after Dunkirk, when things looked bleak indeed. The remnant of our army, forced to retreat, abandoning all their equipment, supplies, and even forced to rely on fat little weekend yachtsmen to ferry them home. One of our finest battleships sent to the bottom. Hitler doing whatever he pleased across most of Europe.

I wasn't really old enough to be a cadet, but like most boys, I was eager to get into the fight, and if a lad looked sturdy, they weren't too particular just then. So I got in, and got myself assigned to a training crew. Of course, we were all keen to sail off and sink the Bismarck or something equally stupid and hopeless, but even we could see we had to be shown how first.

So we got right down to it, learning new skills and duties as grimly as if each improvement was another round through the Bismarck's hull, which in a sense I suppose it was. We won, anyway. But we didn't know how it would all turn out then. We didn't know a lot of things we've found out since. For instance, I've heard the Irish Government, officially neutral, actually did what they could for us, quietly.

At the time, though, keeping in mind how the Irish hated the British, everyone suspected if Hitler sent men into Ireland to trap us in a pincer of sorts, he wouldn't meet much opposition. And there were Irishmen who took guns and explosives from the Nazis whenever their cursed U-Boats would deliver them. Their real hope, of course, was to drive us out of Northern Ireland while we were busy elsewhere.

With so many countries giving Hitler whatever he asked for, rather than quarrel with him, the idea Ireland would let him have his way wasn't such a far-fetched one. In fact, of course, they were never invaded, so no one knows for sure what they might have done. I didn't give all this much thought then, of course. I was too eager to finish up my training and put to sea.

Well, just when we were about done, a big car was dispatched to whisk the senior officers of our crew off somewhere very hush hush. When they came back, they didn't say a word to us, but they did hint we should be prepared if we'd like to volunteer. Then, our instructors lined us up on deck, and a little, dark man came and talked to us. He didn't say who he was with, but he told us they had need of our talents.

That was enough for me, of course, and I stepped forward. Most of us did, and the little dark man took our names and our ranks, then gave us a little lecture about the Official Secrets Act. It was a rather dull lecture, and I don't recall much of it now, but what can they do to a man my age? We were given a few days' leave, while everything was made ready.

I must have spent some of that leave above ground, I suppose, but I spent much of it sitting huddled in a shelter trying to act calm, or ducking into the nearest Underground station until the All Clear sounded. I can't recall what excuse they used to explain her absence, but I suppose they just said they'd moved her somewhere else for some reason or other. Who was going to pay much attention to a seventy year old sailing ship with a war on?

That was the point, of course. Even then, we understood that. She'd been fitted with frames and painted canvas so, from the air or the lens of a periscope, she'd appear to be just one more outdated tramp. Although she was wonderfully fast, we were given strict orders not to use all her sails, except in emergency. Even under half sail, she was a wonderful ship.

She was the first ship I ever put to sea in, and I quickly came to love her. We glided along the coast, staying just far enough offshore to avoid minefields, and crossed the Irish Sea. We ran up an Irish flag, and dawdled along the coast, ending up off Cork well after midnight. We anchored in shallow water, and I was one of those chosen to row the ship's boat through the surf.

We landed with no trouble at all, and shifted the few boxes wrapped in oilcloths we carried onto the beach. Three shadows stepped out of the blackness, gave a hushed reply to our subdued challenge, then two of them bent over the crates, while the third walked towards the boat. I happened to be closest, and when I saw it was a woman, I rushed to help her aboard.

She sat close to me as we launched into the surf to return to the boat. "I'm afraid I'm not the person they're expecting." Her voice was very soft, and I think it shook a little.

I kept my voice low, as well. "As long as you can convince them you aren't spying for Hitler, you ought to be all right."

Her laugh sounded bitter, but I didn't question her.

We tied up to the ship, and she let me assist her in climbing to the deck. As we scrambled over the railing, the quiet man who had accompanied us was waiting. As soon as he glimpsed my companion, he started forward.

"What the...?"

She spoke carefully, as if repeating something memorised. "It is too cold in the glen for hunting this time of year." Her voice became more natural. "He sent me in his place. He gave me something for you."

Before the quiet man could speak, she dug into the pocket of her skirt, fumbled a minute, and handed him a battered, dingy tube of lipstick. He frowned, but took it from her, then went below decks as quickly as I'd ever seen him move.

On the strenght of our brief acquaintance, I was assigned to show her to a cabin, and see that she was settled. Before she went inside, she asked me to wait, so I stood outside her cabin door, wondering what on earth could be so important to the outcome of the war, yet be hidden in a tube of lipstick. I hadn't heard of microfilm yet, of course.

I turned when the door opened, and started. I had had a good look at her once we were below decks, and she was a plump, hard faced woman with brassy curls and far too much makeup to appear respectable. The girl standing in front of me now couldn't have been much older than I was. Her long, straight black hair was thick and glossy, her face was much softer, and while she had a very full figure, she wasn't plump at all.

She giggled, nervously. "Isn't it wonderful, what can be done with disguises?"

I looked her over again, carefully. The full lips were the same, the large shining dark eyes no longer narrowed in a squint, but otherwise looked the same, and now that I looked carefully, I could see my attention had been cleverly diverted from her somewhat generous nose by the bold makeup on her lips and around her eyes.

"Yes, miss, indeed it is wonderful!" I didn't say how wonderful I found her, or how beautiful, but my face must have revealed my thoughts, since she blushed.

"I'm sorry, I don't even know your name."

"Thomas, miss. Midshipman."

"Thomas, I know we haven't been properly introduced, but as you are the only person I know here, please call me Rose. Miss sounds so formal."

"Very well, uh, Rose."

"I wanted you to stay so you could vouch for me. You're the only person on board who has had a good look at me."

Before she could say more, the Captain himself approached, accompanied by the quiet man. Both men were frowning. The Captain didn't even try keeping his voice down. "I don't care what she knew, you can't assure me we haven't taken a Nazi spy aboard!"

I stood my ground, beside her, and she took my arm. They halted, and the quiet man looked her over sharply. "So that's why he wanted to get you out." His voice was soft and sad.

"What the devil are you talking about? I don't like this woman aboard my ship!"

"Captain, Look at her! She was disguised before, of course, but you can see it now. She's Jewish. You must have heard at least some of the rumours..."

"Faugh!" He stared at her face for a moment. "I suppose she is. Well, we shall just have to put up with her, for now." He stalked off without another word.

When they were out of earshot, I found the courage to speak. "I'm sorry, Rose. The Captain isn't usually so harsh. He must be worried, trying to bring us home safely."

"It's all right. I'm used to far worse."

"Then you are Jewish?"

"Yes." She paused, and I could barely hear her next words. "Does that matter to you?"

"No! Of course not! I just never met anyone before..."

She was silent and I felt very nervous, all of a sudden. "Look, I'm sorry. I meant no offence. I just wouldn't have any idea how to tell if you were or not, and I wondered if they were right, that's all..." I trailed off.

Rose gave me an odd smile. "You can't tell, or not really, but everyone thinks you can."

"Oh. I am sorry."

She smiled at me again, but just then there was a commotion. It seemed the man who gave the Captain his instructions had informed him it was necessary for us to put in at another point along the coast. It wasn't much before dawn, and we were all nervous, but we did what we had to, and the ship's boat went ashore again. In all, it made three hurried trips, and we took on perhaps thirty huddled, miserable people.

The quiet man made sure they all went below as soon as they were aboard, and he told Rose she had to leave my side and go below as well. I didn't see much of her until we'd crossed the Irish Sea, but once we were off the coast of England again, the quiet man let everyone up on deck. I came across Rose leaning on the railing near the bow, her face sadder than I'd ever seen anyone before.

I don't know why, but the misery in her face reminded me of the remark I'd overheard last night, and I went up to her. "Rose?"

"Yes? Oh, hello, Thomas!"

Her face brightened a little, but I still asked her what I'd meant to. "What did that man mean, when he talked about hearing rumours?"

She looked very sad again. "You truly don't know, do you?"

I shook my head. "I'm sorry if I made you sad."

"It's not you. The truth is, they aren't just rumours. Out here, away from all Hitler's craziness, no one wants to believe it possible, but it is the truth. They are killing people, thousands of them, perhaps more."

"Well, it is sad, but of course people do die in war, don't they?"

Her eyes flashed contempt for a moment, and I took a step back. "I'm sorry. Whatever I said..."

"No, you truly don't understand, do you?"

"I suppose I don't."

"Hitler hates Jews. Not just some of them, but all of them. Men, women, children, even babies."

"That's... that's mad!"

She smiled at me. "Yes, it is mad. But Hitler is mad. And the men who follow him are as mad as he is. They are arresting Jews, every one they can find. They send them off, to work they say, but no one ever comes back. No one."

I shivered, then I said what came into my mind. "Well,that's one more reason to get this war over with. I'm bloody glad... ah, sorry, I'm glad I signed up."

She stared at me a moment, then threw her arms around me and kissed me. It was the first time I was ever kissed by a girl, and it was better than I'd imagined it would be. I wasn't able to see much of her, of course, but we arranged to stay in touch. We were nearly home when we were spotted by a Messerschmitt. He was diving on us when a pair of Spitfires came out of the sun and drove him off.

I did mange to speak to Rose for a few minutes before she had to go ashore. She sent a note with the address where she'd be staying, and I got a bit of leave to go and see her. I got my orders, and learned just how deadly the North Atlantic can be. Whenever I got leave, we'd get together, and we'd write when we couldn't see each other. Both our hearts broke when I was sent off to the Mediterranean.

I didn't get to come home until the war was nearly over, but we'd been writing back and forth, and she met me on the docks. Before I returned to my ship we were married. It wasn't long after that we broke into Germany, and the whole world learned the truth. I was able to guess that the few refugees we'd brought to England, however they'd been smuggled out of Germany, were witnesses to what had been going on.

I understand why Churchill didn't say much about it. Everyone knew he hated Hitler, and anything he said would just seem like another way of getting at him. But Roosevelt, Stalin, they must have known, too, and they never said a word, never tried to shame Hitler. Afterwards, people were shocked, and said it would never happen again, but even then I wondered.

Rose never really felt safe, even though we were happy together. She always said it could happen all over again, if people let it. So I let her talk me into moving to Israel. It took a lot of getting used to, but she was worth it. But after she took the wrong bus, the same one one a suicide bomber was riding, I couldn't stay there. So I came back to England.

Here, at least, if I couldn't be close to Rose, I could be close to the ship that brought us together. I toured her, many times, and never told anyone I was once a part of her crew. This morning, for some reason, I couldn't sleep. I went for a walk, and I saw the flames across the water. I knew where they'd taken her for refitting, of course, and I knew at once it was the Cutty Sark. If I'd been on that side of the water, I think my tears would have been enough to quench the flames. She was a good ship, the best I've ever been on.

The mission never happened, of course. As soon as I heard of the fire that devastated the Cutty Sark this morning, I knew today's story had to honour her in some way. I could think of no better way than to give her one secret, important wartime mission against the Nazis, and to have the story narrated by a man with good reason to love her. Tonight, the world, without a single surviving clipper ship, is poorer. I hope they rebuild her, of course, but it won't be quite the same.

Three Horses In the Mist

2007-05-20T23:57:00.000-04:00

My grandfather was a soldier of Rome at the time the Legions were recalled from Britain. He said, even though they promised to return soon, he knew they wouldn't be coming back. He couldn't bear to leave his wife and children behind, and there was no room for them in the big transports that were to bear the Legions to Gaul. So he slipped away during the confusion and lay low until the last of the Legions had gone.

Those must have been terrible times. No one knew if the Legions would ever be back, or when. In the meantime, Britain was unprotected. The raiders didn't need long to learn how used we had become to relying on others to defend us. Since my grandfather was one of the few men who remained who had practical experience of fighting, and was not too ancient to make use of it, he was put in charge of the local defenses.

It soon became obvious towns and large villas drew raiders the way honey draws flies. When they abandoned the town to rebuild one of the hill forts that had protected the local tribes before the Legions came, my grandfather found himself the leader of a local kinglet's war band. In due course, my father wed one of the kinglet's daughters. When my grandfather became too grizzled and slow to lead a charge, my father assumed his duties.

I was my mother's youngest child; she died giving birth to me. As soon as I was old enough to do without a wet nurse, I grew up among the warriors. Even when he could no longer keep up in the heat of battle, my grandfather still made an impressive figure. I saw him once, in the burnished armor he wore while he still served Rome, and the scarlet tunic he insisted was the only proper clothing to wear beneath it.

He looked much more deadly than many of the careless fellows my father led, with their boiled leather and bits and pieces of metal. His sword might have been shorter then most of theirs, but he held it ready to use. He died soon after that; the effort to aid my father during a perilous winter, proved too much for him and wore him out. Several of my brothers died fighting off raiders before I was even old enough to know them.

More of my brothers died in the awful fighting that followed the disaster at the end of Uther's reign. My father had taught me to fight, but he decided I should learn more than swordplay, so once Arthur was confirmed as our new Rigotamos, our High King (he would not use the old, hateful phrase!), he sent me off for a few years to the Abbey at Yns Witrin, to learn to read and write and whatever else they might be able to teach me.

Those Britons who survived Uther's dreadful blunder were just beginning to feel hope again. Arthur seemed able to defeat our foes, perhaps not every time, but often enough to hold them at bay. When he approached the Abbey one day, I found some excuse to linger in the courtyard so I might glimpse him. He came riding in with a few of his men, and spoke quietly to the monk on duty. I couldn't hear what he said, but whatever it was sent that plump little man scurrying off to fetch the Abbott in a hurry.

The Abbott came at once, and raised his voice as he hurried across the muddy ground. "Bless you, my son! Surely there has been some misunderstanding. All we have here is dedicated to the Christ. Yet the good brother here said you spoke of levying a fee against our holdings?"

Arthur dismounted, and stood before the Abbott. Both men eyed each other cautiously. "That is so, Father Abbott. My men and I must tax the lands we protect, that we might have the means to continue fighting to keep them safe."

"But, my son, if you consider yourself a follower of the Christ, how can you then tax what is His?"

"Don't you recall, Father Abbott, that once the Lord Jesus ordered his followers to render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's?"

The Abbott spoke patiently. "Those things that are Caesar's, yes, of course. But you see, my son, our lands belong to the Christ, not to Caesar."

"So the Lord Jesus protects you Himself, then?"

"I don't understand, my son."

"He keeps you safe by His own hand, then?"

"Of course, my son. How could it be otherwise?"

Arthur actually smiled. "Thank you, Father Abbott. It is a great relief to me to know that. In that case, I may hoard my strength if the raiders approach you. Once they have been dealt with, no doubt those that remain will turn tail and run at first sight of my men."

The Abbott looked as if he'd bitten into something sour. "Do not be so hasty, my son! The Christ often relies upon the services of those who are His followers."

"Father Abbott, I would hardly presume to interfere in lands you have assured me the Lord Jesus Himself watches over. He might think I mistrusted His own strength."

"But, my son, if you did not come to our aid we should be overrun!"

Arthur spoke very firmly. "Well, then, Father Abbott, if you must seek my protection, you must also contribute your share to make such protection possible. God Himself ordered the oxen that tread the grain should not be muzzled."

The Abbott opened his mouth, then shut it again. I have never been sure if so many churchmen disliked Arthur because he granted them so few privileges, or because he could outargue them at need. I watched, my heart filling with hope, as sack after sack, barrel after barrel, and even a few precious amphorae, were loaded into a cart which departed with Arthur's men as escort. If he could win such a battle, so easily, perhaps he did have the wit to save Britain from the pit his sire had dug.

As Arthur's victories and his fame grew, I was eager to serve him, but my father needed me by his side. The old king had died, all his sons long fallen in battle, and by ancient British custom, the principal men met to select a new king. My father was chosen, as a son by marriage, and by that time I was his only surviving child. Those were good years, with peace gradually becoming the rule and not the exception, a little prosperity, such as the ancients said had existed when Rome ruled, and men so full of hope they began to make plans for the future.

My father was much older, of course, and in due time he died, and I was chosen to succeed him without much fuss. Arthur was my guest more than once, I sent men to fight beside him, and I never complained at his levies. Still, I never managed to find the opportunity to fight beside him. When he at last decided he must do something about the situation in Gaul, I thought at first I might join the host he was assembling.

In the end, though, I fell ill and was unable to go when everyone else was ready. It was a bitter blow, but I comforted myself with the thought that when he returned, I would surely have my chance. We all waited for word, and for a time all the news was good. Then, no word for weeks, and when word came, it was in hushed whispers. There had been a defeat. No, Arthur had been betrayed. No man could agree on what had happened.

Some accounts said he fell in Gaul, others that he hastened back with an army weakened by battling across Gaul, desperate to put down a rebellion by his son Mordred. When reminded Mordred had accompanied his father to Gaul, they claimed he had slipped away to foment trouble in his father's absence. Many refused to believe Arthur himself was dead. His army was defeated, yes, and he was wounded, but he was being well tended and would return as soon as he healed.

Well, of course none of us could bear to admit he was gone. He was our last hope. When we finally understood Arthur was dead, or if he was only wounded, so badly hurt we were once again leaderless, all our hope collapsed in an instant. Those were terrible times, much like I imagine the days just after the Legions sailed away must have been. No man sure what was true, or what he could expect, and no man felt safe.

I determined that, in case Arthur did manage to return, I would do all I could to keep my little portion of the Island of the Mighty ready to come to his aid. I laid in stores, I trained my men until they cursed me, and I led patrols to put down trouble before it grew too large to handle. I was so busy I hardly had time to think, but perhaps that was a good thing. As I said, that was a dreadful time. Keeping busy gave me something to take my mind off the gradual withering of any hope I still had.

The various tales first reached our ears in the late autumn. It was late the following winter when I felt safe enough to leave the mountains and show the more settled parts of Britain some of us still fought on. We were welcome nearly everywhere we went, except for those places already black and cold from the raider's torch. One day, we drew near to the lands the cursed Saxons had kept for themselves, even under Arthur.

We were all very much on our guard. When one of my men rode up to tell me he thought perhaps we were being followed, I quietly passed the order for every man to stop and take what cover he could. Soon enough, three horses began to take shape out of the mist that cloaked the downs. We sprang out and halted them.

Their leader called out a challenge of his own. "Who are you, then? Who dares to interfere with the son of Arthur?"

The voice was not Mordred's, but I strode forward anyway, to inspect the man who made such a bold claim. When I got a good look at him, I knew who he was. "Cerdic!"

"Yes, Cerdic. Arthur's other son, the one who has never caused any trouble. By what right do you lay hold of me and my companions in such fashion?"

"Ah, my lord, I had not expected to see you. I have been hunting any who might seek to take advantage of our present troubles. When we noticed we were followed..." I trailed off.

Cerdic had Arthur's presence and intelligence. Indeed, it seemed to me if so many Britons had not found him unacceptable because of his Saxon taint, he might have made a far better staff for his father to lean upon than Mordred had proved to be.

He looked at me sharply, then relaxed. "You thought us nothing but scouts for a raiding party, then? It is a good jest, I suppose." If he did not sound entirely amused, he no longer seemed affronted, either.

"Would you care to ride with us a while, my lord?"

"Thank you, but my business is urgent. You may hear from me in the future, but I must see to this matter at once."

"I understand, my lord." God help me, I even felt some stirring of hope, that one of Arthur's sons was alive and taking action.

With a few more courteous words, I let him ride away. And, in so doing, I sealed the ruin of Britain. I could not have known, of course. No one knew, until the word spread, that Arthur's son, the one he got upon a noble Saxon woman, had become King of the West Saxons. Many Britons would not accept him, so we never thought the Saxons might feel differently. No one had ever considered this.

But how could we fight him? For some of us, the very thought of opposing the man who was all that remained of the greatest hero ever to spring from the Island of the Mighty was more than we could bear. For the rest, who hated him for his Saxon blood, knowing he was nearly the man his father had been made them too fearful to oppose him. Men stopped speaking of him as Arthur's son, of course. But they couldn't forget who he was, not that quickly.

For my own part, I believe Cerdic understood from our meeting that I bore him no ill will. Not long after our encounter, he sent me a letter. He assured me he loved his father, and would not willingly destroy what he had built. But he explained he saw no other way, that only by gaining the support of the Saxons could he bring any peace or order to Britain. He has never sought to raid my lands, and he has even sent messengers to me with gifts. I could not hold out against him if he came, so I felt no shame in sending gifts of my own.

I wonder, sometimes, if Cerdic was right. Perhaps his was the only way to salvage anything from the ruin that Britain had already become. But mine was the hand that dealt the final, fatal blow, and I wonder sometimes, what would Arthur think? Would he hate me for bringing to ruin all that he accomplished, or would he understand, and be secretly pleased that a son of his still ruled over much of Britain?

Author's Afterword: I am sure some of my readers still believe Arthur was no more than a legendary figure. Yet, to my mind, the arguments Geoffrey Ashe puts forth in The Discovery of Arthur are extremely convincing. I am satisfied he has finally succeeded in identifying the historical Arthur. This story is my own interpretation of that period in Britain's history, based upon the points that Geoffrey Ashe has uncovered, and my own efforts to reconcile those with the legends. To me, this is perhaps the most fascinating period in history.