Surreality Check

Even as a former counterterrorism officer, I am still amazed by the venom and hatred in the Balkans. It reminds me very much of Northern Ireland (and the peace "agreement" there is on its last legs); of Kampuchea; of the entire Middle East; of sub-Saharan Africa; of the Holocaust.

I know a number of people over there now. And a couple of people I know have dropped out of sight . . . which probably means that they're over there, too. (No, contrary to Mr. LeCarre's novel title, one never really "comes in from the cold"—which he should have known, since "LeCarre" is itself a pseudonym.)

And this leads, in my usual roundabout way, to wondering (again) about the racial extermination that forms so much of the "action focus" of so many speculative fiction novels. Examples (and I'm not disapproving of all of these):

• Dan Simmons' fine Hyperion Cantos, set against two attempts at genocide and one at racial enslavement
• David Eddings' Belgariad and Malloreon, each of which involves an attempt at genocide
• Joe Haldeman's Forever War
• Orson Scott Card's Ender cycle (by my count, five attempts at genocide)

This is too depressing. Let's try another topic.

I amazed myself. I went back through all of my thermodynamic calculations for that fantasy novel—that I had done just by memory—with an old Physical Chemistry textbook. My memory isn't too bad—after more years than I care to remember, I got everything right! That's a big relief, because several major plot points depended on the energy inputs and outputs falling within certain ranges.

I don't mind explaining the idea here, because somebody else can write a completely different book. What if . . . the only magic is Maxwell's Demon? That is, magic follows almost all of the laws of physics and chemistry, but allows reactions and physical systems to choose a high-energy path by drawing energy from the surroundings (instead of giving energy up to the surroundings, as in our world). The classic explanation is that Maxwell's Demon picks all of the high-energy ("hot") molecules of air in a given space and put them in another container, which is "hotter" than the original space, without adding any energy to the system. This allows one to, say, forge tungsten steel over a cooking fire (well, not quite, but that's the idea). It's the side effects that get interesting, and that's where all the calculations came in. (Yes, I know that this was a minor plot twist in Lyndon Hardy's first novel. But I'm doing it right.) Now apply this to biological systems, too . . . and I can't begin to contain the implications in one book.

And I didn't even have to resort to Frege's definition of "number." (Two points to the first reader who can name the exact source of that snide remark.)

Not much time tonight. The Supreme Court blew part of my analysis for a major chapter in the kids' book out of the water on Monday, and revising everything (because of a really bad, unsupportable opinion) took all of Monday afternoon and most of the day yesterday. But at least I caught this before turning the manuscript in!

Here's the issue: Earlier in this Term (which began in October), the Supreme Court decided unanimously that an officer could not search a vehicle after a traffic stop and citation unless he or she had probable cause or arrested the driver. That's well and good, and consistent with previous law. But Monday, the Court (by a 6-3 vote) decided that when the officer has probable cause to search the driver after a traffic stop (spotted a syringe in the driver's pocket, and the driver admitted to using the syringe for injecting drugs), the officer also has probable cause to search a passenger's purse.

Just a slight inconsistency.

Oh, well. I suppose explaining that to a bunch of middle school kids is what I'm getting paid for . . .

Writing news and progress for the week:

• Aforementioned revisions to kids' book.
• Six rejections on a law journal article (sent simultaneously to 50 journals, as is the practice, back in January). So I don't want to hear anybody else bitching about their postage, their photocopying bill, or the number of rejections they get!
• About 3,500 words on a novella (target is 22-25k) that may form the basis for something longer, or that I may try to publish on its own. So far, this is the best fiction I've done in 20 years of trying. Maybe I'm learning something!
• A second rejection for Q1 (Oct-Dec) WotF (it's not for second quarter, because it's postmarked the day after I send in my second quarter entry). I guess they wanted me to really know that I didn't make the cut! One problem: the first said "quarterfinalist, top 10%"; the second said "quarterfinalist, top 15%." (This was the anti-action fantasy story.)

11 April

The flu sure is fun with a migraine that makes one puke out all the pain relievers. Nausea combined with a head that feels like a blacksmith's shop is really the ideal way to spend a weekend.

Maybe I should get sick like this more often, though. I got six or seven Brilliant Ideas for stories, and even managed to get two of them written down. One of them even includes the characters, so I'll get started on it shortly (like as soon as I can sit up for more than 20 minutes at a time). So I'm wasting my energy on my webpage and journal. Nobody else does that.

Sounds like Tamela is thinking of moving to an, umm, interesting neighborhood. Maybe she should borrow Zeus for a while to help Wolfie deal with "customer overflow"?

I'm a bit hopeful that my nonfiction book on fantasy world-building will get picked up. A major publisher has responded to a query and asked to see the manuscript. Rumor has it, though, that the top nonfiction editor is leaving, which could result in a mass changeover (and certainly a lot of delays).

15 April

Beware the Ides of April!

I come here not to pay Caesar, but to bury him in paperwork.

It's tax season again. That means more of the same questions from last year from legal clients. As one of my law professors was fond of saying—with more than a hint of truth—the questions are the same every year. It's just the answers that change.

Not a good week for writing. Even without the nonsense of last-minute tax issues (mine and others'), the continued deterioration in my oldest son's medical condition has sapped a lot of energy. In an ordinary week, I expect to write between 2,500 and 5,000 words of fiction, and between 7,500 and 10,000 words of nonfiction. (Yeah, some of it is legal stuff, which might really be "fiction." Whatever.) This week has seen no fiction—unless you count all those tax returns!—and about 800 words of nonfiction. I don't even have the excuse that I've been doing lots of research, because I haven't.

The biggest frustration is seeing some of the absolute shit that some of the major publishers are putting out. With no false modesty, many of my drafts are better than that, and so are the drafts of many writers in both my nonfiction and fiction critique groups. One writer consistently turns in Atlantic Monthly-quality nonfiction drafts, but gets form-letter rejections from everyone.

Whine, whine, whine.

On the other hand, I have been very impressed with a couple of books that I've read recently by established authors who stepped outside the contexts within which they built their respective reputations. Orson Scott Card's most recent science fiction novel, Enchantment (that's not a typo, it's more science fictional than commercial fantasy), is much better than the recent Alvin Maker books. Salman Rushdie's new novel, The Ground Beneath Her Feet, is his first book that really probes outside of the culture of Muslims living in non-Islamic cultures. Full reviews forthcoming.

20 April

Neither Steven King nor any other commercial horror writer could possibly conceive of anything more horrifying than Columbine High School near Denver a few hours ago. Supernatural powers and possession are just routine. No doubt there will be a "movie of the week" or some such in a few months that cheapens the whole tragedy.

"Right to keep and bear arms" my ass. The NRA and other gun nuts forgot about the Militia Clause. I'm not going to go deeply into history; suffice it to say that what the Second Amendment calls "militia" we call "National Guard" and "Reserve." "Militia," "National Guard," and "Reserves" don't kill children on purpose. They aren't children, either (at least legally).

The whole nightmare reminds of a line from one of my favorite films, The Stunt Man (a vastly underrated film). Near the beginning of the film, Cameron (an on-the-run Vietnam vet) has just watched a film crew shoot a WWI battle scene, with lots of blood, gore, and pretty realistic-looking injuries revealed as the smoke blows away. Another bystander asks him, "Why'd they have to use so much blood? Spoils the realism, don't you think?"

Doubletake. Yeah, right. "Asshole."

No writing for me tonight. Sorry, but I live too much in the world. My writing all comes from that, fiction or otherwise.

22 April

Names, Roses, and Things In-Between

I fell behind on reading NAW pages, so I didn't get to give Jenn Coleman-Reese my take on noms de plume. But, since you asked . . . oh, you didn't ask? Tough.

As a pseudonym myself, for good and sufficient reason (look at my bio page), I suggest choosing whatever name one is comfortable with for writing. Or multiple names, as the case may be. Literature has a long tradition of pen names, and (contrary to the bile spewed forth by MZB) virtually all of the reasons that writers have chosen pen names are still valid. Voltaire, Mark Twain, George Eliot . . .

Speaking of the bile spewed forth by MZB, her position is basically that nobody should be ashamed of writing speculative fiction, so people should always use their legal names. She has a violent prejudice against pen names, and has been known to reject stories solely because they were submitted under a pen name. Even if MZB's assertion that publishing speculative fiction under one's legal name won't hurt anyone was correct—far from it—that kind of arrogant hogwash (that she can tell an author what identity to assume off the written page) is exactly why I do not submit to her markets.

Here are a few specific refutations of the "no pen-names" nonsense:

• Sometimes a person's name will change. That's precisely the cause of Jenn's question! Then there are Nancy Kress, Linda Ellerbee, and a number of other women (in our society, it's almost always women) who are stuck with "public" names from former husbands. Technically, these are "pen names," since they are no longer the legal names of the individuals in question.
• Some careers require name changes. Would MZB turn down a story from an established actor who also writes well—yes, I have someone in mind—whose acting name is a pseudonym required by Actors' Equity, since his "natural" name had already been used by someone else? And would it make good marketing sense to do so?
• Conversely, the notoriety gained in another career may be a marketing albatross. Let's say, hypothetically, that Monica Lewinsky starts writing good stories in 15 years. Unless she's writing political thriller pseudofiction about White House assignations, is her name going to help or hurt sales? In my experience as a publisher's counsel, sometimes it hurts sales.
• Sometimes a writer just plain wants privacy. Wanting to be judged by what is on the page, rather than by what is in the phone book, is perfectly legitimate.
• Then there's personal safety. Not to be paranoid, but . . . Misty Lackey. And one need not even be very prominent.
• Finally, and perhaps most importantly, MZB's assertion that writing fiction won't hurt a career is flat wrong. MZB simply has not spent much, if any, time on the inside of any of the "learned professions" or serious academia. For anyone who is not a tenured professor of a modern language or philosophy, or entrenched on the faculty of an established writing program, fiction writing is a serious handicap to advancement. Although faculty members, law partners, senior accountants, and so on will never admit to this, they believe (pretty uniformly) that effort spent on fiction should have been spent on scholarship, and that spending the effort on fiction is a sign that the writer is not a serious scholar and therefore should not be promoted. Every so often, an enlightened faculty or promotion committee will decide otherwise. Those exceptions are just that—exceptions. This is a simmering issue in the legal profession, too; some "legal thriller" writers may be breaching client confidences with some of their "fiction."

I'm not at all sorry if this seems to go on for a while. Forced assumption of identity has a counterpart in refusal to allow voluntary assumption of identity. If one acknowledges one side of the question, one cannot ignore the other side. Forced assumption of identity is also one of the major themes in speculative fiction. One ironic example in MZB's "stable" of writers is Misty Lackey, whose adoloscents virtually always choose an identity, after significant struggle, that is radically different from that chosen for them by their parent(s). But then, irony has never been a strong point of the whole S&S subgenre. As Baldrick says, "irony" is like "goldy" and "bronzy"—but it's made out of iron.

So, Jenn, choose whatever name sounds right to you. "Stevie King" probably won't fly, but you might try "Pierre Menard." (Well, maybe not.) I've been able to build a partial identity as "John Savage" over the last couple of decades that has been a huge relief from some of the daytime pressure of being . . . oops, almost gave it away.

26 April

Just a short entry. Significant time pressure and my bad back have really made it hard to sit up and write very much--my limit is about 15 minutes at a time.

I suppose that's what I get for jumping out of a perfectly good airplane.

Productivity since April 15:

• Fiction: 1,500 words written, 85,000 edited
• Nonfiction, legal: 2,000 words written, 12,000 edited
• Nonfiction, general: 1,000 words written, 45,000 edited

Basically, a very unsatisfactory month thus far.

You can leave your hat on . . .

While driving along yesterday evening, listening to WMAQ radio for the news, I got more proof that marketing dorks are, well, dorks.

WMAQ is a very powerful newsradio station in Chicago (670 AM). The signal is clearly audible between the Rockies and the Appalachians. In any event, the station constantly tries to advertise itself on itself as a news source. (Duuuuuuh. I'm already listening.) I almost had an accident yesterday laughing at one of their commercials, which I'm sure was not intentionally hilarious.

The marketing "subject" was the every-ten-minutes weather reports. The jingle was part of a line from a Randy Newman song: " . . . you can leave your hat on," but resung by a sappy alto.

Does anybody else recognize it yet?

Adding the two preceding lines gives us:

Baby, take off your dress
Yes, yes, yes
You can leave your hat on

Hmm, starting to seem suspicious, isn't it? Well, the whole song, "You Can Leave You Hat On," is an ode from the viewpoint of a fetishist and pornographer. I don't really think that the marketing dork who thought this one up really believed that anybody would catch the context. Or even that he/she knew the context. It took me about two seconds.

Putting it all together, I had this sudden image of a woman posing on a chair on the sidewalk at State and Adams in the midst of a Chicago spring downpour, wearing nothing but a bowler hat. Of course, the woman has already been drenched, and the water is throwing back odd reflections from the camera lights. The woman is smiling away, all the while swearing sulphurously at the camera operator and urging him to hurry up.

I really don't think this marketing campaign is going to hold water. Stripped to its essentials, it's not exactly what a strait-laced pro-business station wants to be known for . . . particularly since the song is an ironic comment on making people into objects, an image that WMAQ has been fighting for several years.

So, marketing dorks, try listening to the whole jingle first, unless you want nasty people like me pointing out your shallowness and hypocrisy. Surely I'm not the only one who made this connection. Marketing dorks clearly believe that Mencken was right ("Nobody ever went broke by underestimating the intelligence of the American public"). But this is a news-radio station.

Not much on the writing front. I've been busy with family health issues and legal stuff.

Well, I did get 14 rejections for a law article in the mail yesterday, but who's counting? And my worst fears from April 11th have come true—the publisher wrote back and said it is suspending final decisions on nonfiction acquisitions for two to three months "due to departmental reorganization."

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