Vacuum Genesis

DONE

2007-09-16T03:13:00.001-06:00

CLICK HERE FOR THE NEW VACUUM GENESIS!!!

Rant on Blogger

2007-09-09T04:41:00.000-06:00

There is actually something of interest at the end of this post. Feel free to skip the rant, if you wish.

No major post this week--apologies all around. I'm simply too disappointed with this blog to go to any great effort. As you can tell by looking over at the top of the sidebar, there is an issue with posting pictures in that area. It has been going on for over a month, I have posted to the "help group" numerous times, others have complained about it, and a "blogger employee" has shown awareness of the problem by stating that the matter was being looked into.

And yet, the problem persists. I don't buy into the argument that these blogs are free, and we get what we pay for. We are part of the advertising-dollar-generating stream that Google makes its billions from. I don't expect personalized service here, only that when a problem has been pointed out, somebody fixes it, or at least explains why it can't be fixed. I've had various "work-arounds" described and explained to me to resolve the issue, but frankly, I don't care to do it. The main reason that I like Blogger is that I can very easily present a semi-interesting blog, without having to learn a lot of html crap. If I have to go into the template and start dicking around with stuff, I'm not interested.

I have a blog on WordPress, and as it turned out it was very easy to transfer all of this content over there. I am seriously considering posting a big link over here to that blog, then just continuing over there. I lose a lot in that deal, though. This blog is already established, I've got a bit of a page rank, finally, and people are starting to drop in and check things out more often. I don't know. I guess I'll think about it over the next week and decide.

Okay, well, I guess I do have some non-rant material. I meant to put this up mid-week, and was too busy. Elissa Malcohn's book Covenant, the first in her Deviations series, is available for pre-order at Aisling Press. Here's the cover:

If you dig back in the archives, you'll find an interview that I did with Elissa, in which she discusses the book, as well as her time spent editing Star*Line magazine back in the '80s. I'm definitely going to order a copy and I'm looking forward to the read. Congrats to you, Elissa! You guys can read more from Elissa at her blog, Chronicles from Hurricane Country.

I get by with a little help from my friends...

2007-09-02T04:28:00.000-06:00

I get up every morning at around 2:00 a.m. It is my "personal time," I suppose you could say, set aside primarily for my writing, and other creative endeavors. I love these dark, pre-dawn hours when the house is quiet--the whole world is quiet, at least over here in my little corner of it--and I can hang around with a few of my best friends. Who are these friends, you might ask? Well, let me introduce you to them. They are a bit shy--as am I--so I doubt they will be making any more appearances here. If you would like to ask them any questions, you should do it now. We like to call ourselves "The Nerbs," because we haven't figured out yet if we are Night owls or EaRly BirdS.

By the way...this blog post has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that I just purchased a new fancy-schmancy digital camera. Nothing whatsoever.

First up, I would like to introduce Angel.
She belonged to my wife, originally, and was kept in a box of her things out in the garage. I came across her one day and was immediately smitten by her beauty. She's the real authority in our little group; calm, kind, and very wise. We all love her very much.
Isn't she gorgeous?

Next up is this rascal, who goes by the rather unoriginal name of Beary.
Beary is quite patriotic, as you can see, and of Scottish descent. He originally belonged to my mother, who has since passed away, and he always reminds me of her. He is also very smart, but mostly where it concerns fixing or building things. You see, he is sitting atop a complete set of Practical Handyman's Encyclopedias. His knowledge is a bit outdated--the set was published back in the early 1950's--but all in all, he is quite a shrewd and useful bear.

Next to Beary (and his girlfriend, or so he likes to think) is Regina.
Regina is the main character in a video game called Dino Crisis, of which this poster is an advertisement. Regina's pretty hot, no doubt about it, and she certainly looks good in a black leather outfit, but once you get to know her you realize that she is actually very shy and reserved. You don't want to piss her off, though. She'll open up a can on your ass in a heartbeat. Regina is a very tactical-minded person, and she is invaluable to me as a sounding-board when I am fighting my way through various plot difficulties, or trying to figure out why my novel has gone all wonky all of a sudden. I think she has the most beautiful eyes that I have ever seen, but of course, I'm far too shy to ever tell her that.

Over here on the desk is a feisty little fellow named Irish (for obvious reasons).
Irish was a gift to me from my wife, just this last St. Patrick's Day. He's quite a stern little fellow, and he seems rather preoccupied with making sure that I get my daily writing chores done. I think he fancies himself a writer, but of course he could never succeed at it as he has no pencil with which to write, nor any fingers with which to grasp the pencil (that he doesn't have). I sometimes suspect that he has the ability to write through me...sitting there seeming to glare hypnotically at me with his beady black eyes. I wonder how much of what I write comes from my own creative subconscious, and how much is actually channeled through me by this little green bear? I suppose it really doesn't matter. He's quite a nice fellow, once you get to know him.

Rounding out our little 2:00 a.m. cadre is Uni.
Not a very original name, I will admit, but, then, neither is mine. Uni was a gift from one of my nieces, back a couple of birthday's ago. Uni is very magical, and she (according to my niece, Uni is a girl) tells the most fantastic stories of far away places and mystical things. I wish I could write a few of them down and share them with you, but for some reason they always disappear from my mind sometime after 4:30 a.m., while I'm getting ready to go to work. All that is left is a vague memory of some beautiful place full of strange and exotic people, and adventure. Lots and lots of adventure.

So, there you have us: The Nerbs. For the better part of the day they just sit around my office staring at each other; a couple of stuffed bears, a doll, a poster, and a ceramic statue. But at 2:00 a.m., when I come in here to begin my day's writing, they are very much alive. It is little wonder that these two and one-half hours are my favorite part of every day.

I like hanging out with my friends.

Moments

2007-08-26T04:27:00.000-06:00

I woke up at around 3:00 a.m., same as I always do. But this was Saturday, and as I always do on an early Saturday morning, I felt a little thrill at the notion of two days doing whatever the hell I want. There were several thunderstorms rumbling through, but by 7:30 a.m. they were all moving off to the north east. I decided to make a donut run--my little tribe loves it when I do that--and stepped outside into an absolute wonderland of beauty. The storm clouds, billowing and dramatic, where gathered along the eastern horizon, right in front of the rising sun. I ran back to the house to get our digital camera, hoping to capture some little piece of the moment.

As I was wandering around the neighborhood snapping pictures of the sky, it occurred to be that I used to notice these sorts of moments all the time. Lately--and by lately I mean over the last ten or fifteen years--not so much. Finally I had to stop taking pictures and just stand there, wondering why.

I wish I could say that I found some answer to that question. I didn't. The whole time that I was standing there, looking up into that awesome pre-dawn sky, I felt like I was on the verge of waking up, as if the last ten or fifteen years of my life had only been a dream. It was kind of exciting and kind of sad. Exciting because I'm glad to know that part of me...the part I think of as the real me...is still lurking about somewhere in there. Sad because I feel like I got off track somewhere along the way, allowed myself to be distracted from my pursuit of a goal that, now, I can barely remember.

I remember back in my twenties I used to tell people that I wanted to remember something special about every day of my life. "I don't want to go to bed one night, twenty-three years old, and wake up the next morning forty-two." Standing there with my little digital camera, age forty three, I couldn't help but wonder if that is precisely what I had done, all of my efforts notwithstanding. Maybe it's inevitable. At any rate, I'm awake now, and the world is just as beautiful and mysterious as it was when I nodded off, all those years ago.

I think I'm going to need to get a better camera, though.

Erin Arrives! (Or What's Left Of Her)

2007-08-19T03:16:00.000-06:00

It began raining Saturday afternoon, and as it has been so blasted hot recently I ran out to sit on the front porch with my wife and enjoy the respite. We noticed that the air smelled different than it usually smells during a summer storm. My wife, born and raised in Panama, recognized it immediately: tropical moisture. Technically speaking, I suppose most of the moisture that we get in Oklahoma during the spring and summer is "tropical," given that it streams up from the Gulf of Mexico, but this was different some how. I noticed that the rain seemed to come in waves, or bands. It would rain heavily for awhile, then subside, then increase again. It made for a pleasant afternoon, but I didn't think much of it. I assumed that it would all blow through in a few hours.

An hour and forty minutes ago, at 3:00 a.m., I woke to the sound of rain pounding on the roof and thunder rumbling. I came into my office and turned on the weather radio, only to be hit with a tornado warning for an area about ten miles west of where I live. That got my attention, so I turned on the television and tuned to a local news outlet. The radar image above shows a very unique weather phenomenon, at least for this part of the country. The low pressure area that formed the core of tropical storm Erin, which came ashore on the Texas gulf coast and moved northward across the state over the past two days, has apparently re-intensified as it moved into western and central Oklahoma. Note that you can see a very clearly defined "eye" at the center of a very heavy band of rain. It's not a tropical storm at this point, of course, not even precisely a tropical depression. But it is certainly impressive.

The rainfall amounts are amazing. Some areas have had nearly eight inches in just over an hour. Journalists are out and about even as I type this, and they are reporting flooding even in areas that typically do not flood. In the areas where flooding is more common, eight to twelve inches of running water is shutting down streets and highways. Two main factors are contributing to what may become a rather dangerous situation here in central Oklahoma, particularly the north central region. As the low pressure system rotates counter clockwise, bands of heavy precipitation spin off and move west to east across the same areas over and over. Also, the main low pressure system, which is causing the whole mess, is moving very slowly, meaning that those areas in the northwest quadrant of the low are stuck in an absolute deluge. If this thing slows down, or, God-forbid, stalls, this could turn into a real disaster. As it stands right now, the southern edge of this low is going to rotate right across Oklahoma City as it moves slowly west to east. There are reports of 50 mph winds and, yes, more rain.

As soon as the sun comes up I'll run out and take a few pictures, and update the situation. A strange weather situation, to be sure. Hopefully not a deadly one as well.

UPDATE: Shot this video at the creek near my house, flooding:

...and this, not far from my home:

UPDATE: City of Kingfisher, Oklahoma, flooded. The water is still rising.

Meet Darren Devitt, Creator of PageFour

2007-08-12T05:23:00.000-06:00

I am a word processor junkie. I don't know why. I've downloaded and tried just about every free word processor that you can find with a good Google search. I have a copy of Open Office which, much to my disappointment, is just as bulky and intimidating as MS Word. I think at one time I had as many as eight different word processors on my hard drive, not including MS Notepad or MS Write. All of them had features that I liked, none of them worked precisely the way that I wanted them to.

I found Darren Devitt's PageFour during one of my aforementioned Google searches, shortly after The Great Laptop Crash of 2006. I was using an early 90's DOS word processor called EasyWrite, written by John Turnbull--and happily so--but, for whatever reason, it would not load or operate on my new computer. I wasn't about to use Word (see my many other rants on that topic), so I needed to find a word processor that was simple, useful, and not loaded down with a bunch of features that I would never need or use.

Someone at the Absolute Write message board pointed me to PageFour, and I downloaded the "trial" program. I think the thing that impressed me initially about Darren Devitt, the creator of PageFour, was that--at least at that time--he gave you a fully functional, fully loaded copy of the word processor for free, without annoying pop-ups reminding you to pay for a fully registered version, or features that stop working after a certain amount of time. The "catch," if it could be called that, was that you could only create a limited number of "notebooks." I'm always inclined to do business with people who do good business, and I was immediately in love with the PageFour interface, so after a bit of waffling back and forth about the issue, I sent the man his $30 and got my registration key. I haven't looked back since.

For me, it is a matter of finding a writing environment where I can work creatively. PageFour allows me to set things up the way that I want. I don't have to conform to the word processor, the word processor conforms to me. That is huge. I still move over to Word when it is time to wrestle a manuscript into its final, submission-ready format. Word works for that sort of thing. But I can't write in Word. Since I moved to PageFour, my creative output has risen, and frankly, I enjoy the writing process again.

Naturally curious as I am, I wanted to learn a little more about the man who created this word processor. He very graciously agreed to answer a few interview questions via email.

1. Tell us a little bit about you. How did you get involved in software development? Is it what you always wanted to do? What sort of training and education have you in the field?

I've actually had no formal training in software development, and this very lack of training has benefited me down the years. It's far easier to sit in a meeting with a team of software developers and ask 'why?', when you don't have 4 years of university training telling you the question has already been answered.

I studied history at university, and moved into software development about 8 years ago. I'm honest enough to admit that my reasons were pretty much financial - a long stint backpacking after university left me 26 years old, and with no career. Programming was a lucrative field where you could move from a small to a comparatively large salary very quickly, and this was a great attraction.

What little training I did receive was very much 'on the job'. I've workedfor a number of small software companies in the UK. Each company was small enough that I was involved in critical projects, and experienced little of the corporate life style common in much larger companies.

Having said all that, I enjoy designing software very much, and what started out as a quest for a well paying job has turned into a career I've grown to love.

2. Why did you create PageFour? What was it about all the other word processors available that frustrated you to the point that you felt the need to sit down and begin mapping out a new one?

I began working on an early version of PageFour about a year before version 1 was completed. My feeling at the time was that much of the software used by 'normal' users - and by normal, I mean non-technical people, not in the IT industry - was far too complex, and required an understanding of computers that should not have been necessary. Computer hardware had grown so much over the previous 10 years that old rules and models no longer applied when it came to software development, but the software industry as a whole failed to act on this. I found the Windows file system in particular to have little relevance to normal users. In order to use everyday software such as MS Word effectively, the user needed to understand what files were, what saving a file meant, how the Operating System stored those files, and so much more. And I could come up with no reason why this was necessary.

I built the PageFour 'Notebook, Folder, and Page' structure to hide all this from the user. My intention was to present the user with 'files', and an entire file/folder structure without them ever realising that that was what they were looking at.

My Luddite brother uses PageFour for note taking as part of his business, and he still doesn't know what a file is.

3. What was the first word processor that you ever wrote with? Do you have any fond favorites among the word processors available from, say, the mid '80s to the mid '90s?

I was a student in the early 90s, and at the time was as technically illiterate as the next man. My writing technology of choice was a Panasonic electronic typewriter that boasted a single line LCD display. I wrote my final dissertation on this machine, and was far more careful with my typing and spelling than I am today. If anything, word processors have spoiled us a little, making it so much easier to correct and change our work. Not that I ever complain.

4. Part--perhaps most--of PageFour's "charm," is it's simplicity, and its "writer-friendly" interface. Can you expand your market-base for this product without loading the program down with "bells and whistles?" Is there a point at which you stop tweaking, and that's it?

Now that's a very interesting question. I regularly receive emails from people saying PageFour would be just right for them if only it had one or two more features. The problem is, for each of these people, the one or two features they want are different, and satisfying them all would turn PageFour into just another bloated word processor. There will come a point when I'll stop adding new features, but I believe that's some time away yet. For example, the last major release introduced two 'large' features - a global search, and a page merger - that probably added value for most users. The difficulty is in choosing which new features to add.

I'm firmly of the opinion that attempting to move beyond the 'niche' market of creative writers would damage the product as a whole, so have no intention of adding features simply to broaden its appeal.

5 After PageFour, what's next for Darren Devitt, writing-wise and software-wise?

I have a number of software projects on the go at the moment, none of them in the creative writing field. I'm working on polishing off some small applications that I designed for my own use over the years, with the aim of making them either commercially viable, or at the very least, usable freeware. In terms of paying the mortgage, I'm busy working on an application targeting eBay sellers. Over the past year, I've helped out with the techie side of my brother's eBay business, and noticed some serious deficiencies in the software currently available.

And of course, PageFour is still under development. The user base is growing significantly larger each month, as word of mouth plays its part, and I've become a little more aware of the marketing and selling side of the business.

If you would like to learn more about PageFour, maybe even take it for a test drive, check it out here. And thank you to Darren for taking the time to stop by and tell us a little bit about himself, and the PageFour word processor.

Three Easy Steps

2007-08-05T04:45:00.000-06:00

Says so right on the box. "Three Easy Steps." What they fail to mention (until you get the damn thing home and read the set-up manual, which is considerably longer than three pages, I might also add) is that the pool will only work on perfectly level ground. Honestly, how many places on the entire planet are perfectly level? Doesn't Nature abhor a straight line? I abhor this friggen pool. Yes, indeed I do.

Another thing that I learned...don't set the damn thing up under a tree. They don't make a heater for a pool this size, and the thing needs direct sunlight for most of the day. That is, unless you get some sort of perverse pleasure out of watching your children's lips turn blue and their teeth chatter whenever they swim in it. The most level stretch of ground in my back yard (one that only required three hours of digging and leveling) is right under a big old elm tree. I figured what the heck...it gets hot under elm trees, at least where I live. Not hot enough, obviously. My son hopped in the first time, shrieked, and he hasn't been back in since then. NOW I'm going to have to move the damn thing, which means I'll have to drain it, and God knows how much more digging and leveling. I hope I don't accidentally poke a big-ass hole in it in the process.

In other news, I'm trying to work out a cool interview with the guy who developed PageFour, the word processor that I use. Cool dude and cool product. Hopefully by next Sunday.

Thank you Blogger, for screwing up my "Picture Of The Day" element over in the sidebar. That thing has worked just fine for years, now it's goofed up. Appreciate it!

Still can't tell you the name of my Super Secret book project, but it is coming along nicely, thank you. I am out of "preproduction" and happily working away on the first draft. More on that in the near future.

The Search

2007-07-22T07:31:00.000-06:00

When I was a kid, say five to ten years of age, I had a most peculiar habit. When alone, and given some time, I would stare into a picture until I could see things inside the picture begin to move. Oil paintings, usually, or reproductions therefrom. My mother had an eclectic taste in art that ranged from God-knows-who to God-knows-what. This was back in the days when television only had four channels, counting PBS, and went off the air shortly before midnight most nights. This is back before computers and video games and iPods and every other G.D. thing we have today to fill our minds with useless NOISE. This is back when a View-Master(tm) and a pack of reels titled The Seven Wonders of the World could keep me occupied for the better part of an idle summer afternoon, and happily so.

I used to wish that I could disappear into pictures. Part of it was that I wanted to escape the roller-coaster reality in which I lived, but the greater part of it, the part that matters, was that I have always longed for exotic, distant, fantastical places. As I would lay and stare at some art reproduction, I would make up stories in my mind about the people and/or the place that I was viewing. Of course, I was always the hero of these tales. God knows how many imaginary villages and villagers are left standing today thanks in no small part to my diligent (and heroic) efforts against dragons, giants, and mean stepfathers...never pictured, always beyond the horizon, just out of reach of the artist's brush.

There was one particular reproduction that I am desperately searching for on the Internet. The problem is that I know virtually nothing about it; no title or artist, just a vague recollection of what it looked like. There was a house on the right side, with a lake in front of it that seemed to span the bottom part of the canvass. There was a little boat on the lake, and one or two people in the boat. The whole of it was blanketed by trees, and mysteriously dark, while on the left side of the painting an opening in the trees (possibly with a river or a stream running through it) opened out into a brighter place somewhere off in the distance. That's about all I can recall, other than that the painting seemed very dark and moody, but in a mysterious way. I think the thing that fascinated me the most about it was that the light was in the background, and I always wondered what was beyond that opening in the trees, in the clearing beyond.

I don't know if I will ever find it again, and there is a part of me that wonders if I should even try. Sometimes the way you remember things is better than the way that they really are. Sometimes a strange and mysterious thing from childhood is revealed as mundane and simple by the stark, white glare of an adult mind.

Maybe I'm searching for something else entirely.

Rain

2007-07-15T05:10:00.000-06:00

I like rain, and rainy days. I'm not sure why--back when I was going through a horrible bout of depression I used to think that gray, rainy weather made me feel good because it matched my "internal weather"--but whatever the reason, rainy days always seem to energize me. I wonder, sometimes, if some beautiful childhood moment is associated with rain, locked away in my subconscious. This concept forms the heart of my current book project, tentatively titled Beautiful Rain. In it, I explore the magic of childhood fantasy, how and why it is lost, and whether or not a middle-aged person can recapture it.

That said, you can certainly have too much of a good thing, as the picture of the rain-swollen creek not far from my house attests. By this time of year that thing is usually bone dry. It rained nearly every day here for two weeks in June, and it has rained five or six days so far in July. And it wasn't just an on-again-off-again drizzle, either. It poured, sometimes for twenty and thirty minutes at a stretch. Trying to keep up with the lawn work has turned into a nightmare as the grass never completely dries before the next cloudburst comes along. I don't care much for mowing wet grass, so when I do get a break long enough for the lawn to dry up, the crap is high enough to harvest and bale.

But for all of that, I still get a mysterious little thrill when I am sitting here in the wee small hours of the morning and I hear a rumble of distant thunder, and I lean back in my chair and wonder again what happy, wonderful thing happened in my distant past having to do with rain. Maybe I kissed a pretty girl under a tree in some back yard, or found some bright, mysterious object to add to my "junk" collection. I don't know. I may never know. When I really reach back into my mind, all I get is an image of myself with some faceless, nameless friend, walking around the neighborhood in our small town after a summer thunderstorm. In this vague memory (if it is a memory, and not some romantic fabrication) the storm has just passed, and the sky to the north and east is awesome with huge black storm clouds and lightning. To the west, the sky is clearing, but for some reason I always picture that it is sunset, and my friend and I are cavorting around in the strangest, most beautiful glow of "magic light" that I have ever seen. Everything is wet green and bright burnt umber. There is a sense of urgency about the memory, as if I knew that my mother would be calling me inside soon, and I didn't want this special moment to end...more intriguing, that at the age of five or six, I understood that the moment was in fact special.

I suppose that is as much as I will ever know about it, and I will never be certain if it is a real memory, or just some creative wishful thinking born of my adult mind. Something is there, though. It's like a wonderful dream that you forget immediately upon waking...leaving nothing but an ache in your heart and a yearning for some beautiful thing that you cannot quite remember. I get that feeling, when it rains.

Christine Norris: Return To Zandria

2007-07-06T01:31:00.000-06:00

Ivy Peterson was not ordinary. Ivy was More-Than-Ordinary because once she found herself in a very special place and had a very special adventure.

But Ivy was far too old for fairy tales...wasn’t she?

It has been three years since Ivy recovered the Talisman of Zandria, and her life is very different. She is no longer the shy young girl who chased a fairy through a magic gate, but a teenager, concerned with clothes, friends and school. She has nearly forgotten about the special world that exists on the other side of a thin magical veil.

But they have not forgotten her.

Now a crisis is brewing in Zandria, and only Ivy can help. They implore her to come to their aid, and Ivy’s memories of adventure pull her once again into the enchanted world of mermaids, dragons and wizards. Reunited with old friends, and bringing a new one along for the ride, Ivy must now lead them into the wilds of her own world, and not only keep them safe but stop an empire from falling into the clutches of evil.---Story summary of Return to Zandria, courtesy www.christine-norris.com

Author Christine Norris has been kind enough to let me interview her regarding her writing, and her soon to be released YA novel, Return to Zandria. Christine is a New Jersey native, and a graduate of Temple University. She began writing in 2001, and completed work on her successful first novel, The Talisman of Zandria, in 2004.

In an email interview, Christine answered a few questions about herself, her writing, and her latest novel.

What made you decide to write children's books?
---That's an interesting story. I've always liked fairy tales, and great adventures full of magic and fantasy. But it wasn't until after I read Harry Potter that I decided I wanted to try and write a children's book. I loved the stories, of course, like everyone else, but it was JK Rowling's personal story that inspired me. I thought if she could write a book and sell it, without any formal writing training, then I could too.

Tell us a little bit about Return to Zandria.
---This book picks up three years after the previous one, TALISMAN OF ZANDRIA. Ivy Peterson, who's the heroine, is now fourteen, and a pretty normal teenager. Which, if you read the first book, you know that's not how she always was. Anyway, she's worried about normal teenage things, like school and clothes. She's completely forgotten about her adventure in Zandria. They haven't forgotten about her, though, and they need her now more than ever, because there's a major crisis that only she can help them with. I don't want to give too much away, but it's all very exciting and full of adventure and twists and turns.

Is Return to Zandria written more toward a young female audience? Is there anything in the story that might appeal to boys?
---Maybe. I think more girls will relate to Ivy, but I've seen boys reading the first book, and had several boys tell me they liked it. I like to write about girl heroines, because I don't know how many relate-able female main characters there are in this age group. I think boys will like this one too - there's fighting, and dragons, and magic, and adventure. Connor, the wizard apprentice, has a bigger part to play in this book than the last. I think he'll have quite a bit of appeal to boys.

Which was harder to write, the first book, Talisman of Zandria, or its sequel, Return to Zandria?
---This one was much harder. I didn't have a story for the longest time - there was a time when I didn't think I was going to even write a sequel. This one went through quite a bit more revision, I think, than the first. The beginning was especially tough for some reason. It came out much better than even I expected it to.

Will there be a third book in the Zandria series?
---Everyone has asked me that, and the answer is I just don't know. I haven't closed the door on Zandria, but I'm concentrating on other projects right now, like my upcoming series, the first of which will be out next year, and a full-length Wizard Academies story. But the story for Return to Zandria sort of suprised me, so there's always a chance there will be another book.

What are some authors or books that have influenced and/or inspired you?
---I have my list of 'inital' authors - JK Rowling, CS Lewis, JRR Tolkein...LOL. Plus great authors like Tamora Pierce, Roald Dahl, Jane Yolen, and Madeline L'Engle. A Wrinkle in Time was one of my favorite books when I was young. I wore that book out, I need a new copy. One of my new favorite authors is James A. Owen, who's book Here, There Be Dragons, is my new favorite book. I can't wait for the next in that series, he's terrific, seriously inspirational.

Return to Zandria is due to be released in print on July 28, and an e-book version in .pdf format is available now at LBF Books. For more information about Christine Norris, visit her at her website, or on MySpace.

Author photo courtesy www.christine-norris.com copyright 2007 Sarah A. Lukacs

Independence Day 2007

2007-07-04T02:53:00.000-06:00

I don't have any old family pictures specifically related to the July Fourth Independence Day holiday, but this old photograph of my grandfather having broken a lawn chair while sitting down looks kind of "summery." I can almost hear my grandmother saying "Hang on, Jack. Let me go get the camera."

We were pretty big on celebrating July 4th, though, for all my lack of pictures to prove the point. I think the fact that we used to be able to light our own fireworks--and create our own displays--had a lot to do with this holiday being one of my favorites when I was a child. As I got older the July 4th holiday lost a little of it's mystique for me. It turned into a bar-b-cue/beer party, with occasional forays to some park to watch a large, professional fireworks display.

Professional fireworks displays are okay the first few times you see them, but after that they sort of suck. One looks suspiciously like all the others, year in and year out. It was a lot more fun to do it ourselves, back in the day. And exciting. Every year you could bet that somebody (probably after a few to many adult beverages) would very nearly injure himself (or someone else) trying to light some small explosive device with his cigarette. One year that stands out in my mind--even though I was only four or five at the time--my stepfather and grandfather got into a "pop-bottle rocket" fight with some teenage boys across the street. I remember being terrified as those things whizzed past my head and exploded in the yard behind me, and I remember my mom jerking me back into the house and saying "Goddamned idiots!"

I recently began work at a new job and I couldn't help but noticing a big sign that the manager printed and stuck on the bulletin board: WEDNESDAY JULY 4 IS A NORMAL WORK DAY. I'm not sure why he felt the need to put the word NORMAL in there ... in fact, I find it a bit insulting. I work in a place now that doesn't allow time off for holidays, and while I don't mind so much for myself, I resent that it messes things up for my family. They don't want to go do anything without me (although I have urged them to do so), and our entire July 4th celebration will probably consist of grilling hotdogs in the back yard and watching whatever fireworks we can see from the front yard later in the evening.

Last year--when I still had a real job, and time off for the holiday--we took my son to a nearby park where the city had set up a nice little carnival/antique car show. This is the same nearby park that has the fireworks display that we can see (more or less) from our front yard. We had a blast, although putting my son on a kiddie roller-coaster that scared the bejesus out of him wasn't quite as fun as watching some drunk relative nearly blow his face off with a cherry bomb.

Those where the days...

TTG Is Dead

2007-07-03T03:13:00.000-06:00

I see this blog as getting a lot more "chatty" in the near future. Mostly I'm sick and tired of trying to run it like an "e-zine," but as well, I am beginning to see it as an excellent outlet for "wool-gathering." Or "lint-picking," if you like the sound of that better.

I have taken my writing off of the computer. I've gone back to the basics: a pen and a legal pad. I wasn't even going to turn the computer on this morning, but I was so wildly successful with today's writing that I thought I deserved a little reward. For whatever reason, I find that working on a computer is uninspiring for me. Maybe it is that I can type fast enough that I am more apt to write garbage (and faster!). It seems that when I write longhand, I more carefully consider what I choose to say, and how I choose to say it. And as slow as it is to write longhand, I actually get more done. On the computer I am constantly tempted (and giving in to the temptation) to "click" on something...usually the Internet. If I'm not "Internetting" then I am constantly rearranging crap...files, desktop, so on. It is all an avoidance tactic. With a pen and a legal pad, you write, or you sit there like an idiot with a blank look on your face. Those are your only options.

The Tronovich Ghost is dead. After over a year of effort, I finally had to play Taps for the thing and let it go. Mainly I am just weary of the project. I have no "fire in my belly" for it anymore. Even if the tenth rewrite/revision cleared up all the plot and technical issues (and I'm not at all certain that it would have) I think the story would have failed do to the fact that it has become dull and lifeless somewhere along the line. The first draft had some energy, but was horribly flawed. The latest draft was much more technically sound, but had no energy whatsoever. Still, TTG remains the first novel-length work of fiction that I have ever completed, and I am proud of the effort that I put into, if not the results. It has been a valuable learning experience, so the time was not wasted.

On to better things...I am beginning preproduction work on a (I think) rather unique fantasy novel. Probably an urban fantasy, but with a nifty little twist that I "thunk" up. Can't spill the beans on that just yet, but I am excited about writing again.

It's been awhile since I could say that.

This is a test

2007-06-29T02:37:00.000-06:00

This blog is currently SCREWED UP. I changed the template without first backing up the old one, and now the "Read more..." links do not work. I apologize for the inconvenience. Technicians are busily working to resolve the problem, even as you read this...

This is a continuation of the test. All of this will be deleted later.

Or not. I guess I'll just make this an actual post...and a lesson. I was perfectly happy with the way Vacuum Genesis worked...it was the butt-fugly look that I had come up with that I wanted to change. So I started goofing around with it and the next thing you know I had changed the template. Looks great (or at least better), but suddenly all my crap didn't work. All of my posts were of the "expandable" variety, so that you could read the teaser and then click on "Read More!" to see the entire post. Alas, clicking on "Read More!" did nothing. I clicked and clicked and clicked, but there was no "more!" for me to "read."

I dicked the VG Blogrolls section all to hell as well, but I was able to fix that. Luckily, there was no content lost; just I have to go back through every post and delete some html crap that makes it so you can't see the full post. The lesson? Back up your crap before you do ANYTHING. it is so easy to click on a thing and suddenly realize, OHHHHH NOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

Now then, to make this an OFFICIAL post, rather than me just spilling my guts about my obvious lack of blogging skills...I HAVE AN ANNOUNCEMENT. Vacuum Genesis will be one of several stops on author Christine Norris' "Virtual Book Tour." She'll be here next Friday (July 6th), discussing her new book Return to Zandria, which is a sequel to Talisman of Zandria. You do not want to miss this interview.

(Now you know why I was trying to spruce the place up).

It's Up!!!

2007-06-12T16:37:00.000-06:00

Okay, not the biggest thing happening in the world right now, I will be the first to admit. BUT, my short-short (I'm old..."flash fiction" for the rest of you) "Transience" is up at Nocturnal Ooze. Check it out!

A Fellowship Of Silence

2007-06-09T05:29:00.000-06:00

When I began working at my new job two months ago, everyone warned me about Mark. "He's...different," seemed to be the consensus of opinion about this slightly overweight, middle-aged man. I'm not one to form an opinion of people based on such off-hand remarks, but when a lot of different people say essentially the same thing about a particular person, it is difficult not to develop some preconceived notions. So, never having met or spoken to the man, and based entirely upon the preponderance of public opinion, I initially regarded him with some apprehension.

I was sitting in the break area by myself, eating lunch and reading. It was my second or third day on the job. Mark walked in and sat down at another table to eat his own lunch. Here it comes, I thought. For those of you who have never worked in an industrial environment, I'll let you in on a little secret. There is something about the sight of a person sitting in a break room reading (anything, a book, a newspaper, a magazine...doesn't matter) that is antithetical to the sensibilities of the average industrial worker. I'm not knocking industrial workers, or calling them unintelligent. I've worked in industrial environments off and on all of my life. But it is a fact that the sight of another person reading in a break area is apparently highly offensive to most people, and brings about in them an irresistible urge to interrupt the person reading, and engage in some conversation. Excuse me. I'm in the break room now. You don't have to bother with that boring old book anymore. You can talk to me, instead. Actually what they say is something like:

"Say, gotcha a book there, huh? Whatcha reading?"

"Well, it's..."

"I read a thing in the paper this morning (at home, where people should do that sort of thing) about where Paris Hilton got out of jail for having a rash. A rash! You think they'd let a regular person out of blah for a little blah blah blah I'd still blah her brains out, though blahblahblahblahblah."

BLAH! Not counting my ex-wife, I've probably never been as close to strangling another human being than I have been when someone wants to interrupt my reading so they can run their mouth about some idiotic nonsense.

So there I sat in the break area, waiting for Mark to ask me if or not I thought George Bush should be impeached, or who I'm pulling for on American Idol, or whatever, and the longer that it didn't happen the more distracted I became. Finally, I looked up from my book to see him quietly eating his lunch and reading a book of his own, a great big ol monster of a hardback. I was so surprised and pleased by this unexpected fellowship of silence that I committed the very sin for which I've called so many other people to account. I blurted out: "Say, whatcha reading?"

I've never actually farted in an elevator, but I would imagine that the look on Mark's face is a close approximation of the ones that I would receive if I were to do so. He recovered quickly, though, and in the brief conversation that followed I learned that he was a fan of science fiction, and that in his younger days he had attended a lot of SF conventions and had met many famous authors. I also learned that he was an aspiring screenwriter, and that he had an unfinished script upon which he had been working for over a decade. That was rather interesting, I thought, but by then my lunch period was over, so I couldn't pursue the subject any further. I left the man to his book and went on my way.

Due to the vagaries of my work schedule, I didn't share a lunch period with Mark again. That, or he saw to it that my ignorant and uncultured ass was never around when he wanted to eat his lunch and read, sans interruption. I kept an eye on him, though, and I came to the conclusion that the reason so many other people didn't respond well to him was that they were a bit intimidated by him. He was highly intelligent and articulate, but for the most part rather quiet and reserved. He brought cakes, cookies, and brownies in to share nearly every other day, and in a passing conversation I learned that he liked to cook and bake. In snippets I learned that he was liberal in his political ideology, and that he had taken acting classes at one point in his life, which explained the somewhat annoying manner in which he would get on the warehouse intercom and deliver, in a James Earl Jones like baritone, the proclamation: "INbound, door SEVenTEEEEN. INBOUND, door SEVenTEEEEEEN."

Friday, June 8, I had just arrived at work and was getting ready to begin my day when the manager walked over to me. "I have some bad news," he said. "Mark died last night. His wife said he had a heart attack." Even though I didn't really know the guy very well, and we weren't very close, the news came as a shock to me. I had just seen the man the day before, and I couldn't recall anything unusual about him at that time. "It's not really very shocking," the manager told me. "Not if you knew him. He's had a lot of health problems, and he didn't really take care of himself." That struck me as a rather crass summation, but I reminded myself that these were the same people who had warned me in the beginning that Mark was different. Indeed he was.

Indeed he was.

Apocryphal Ink

2007-05-28T14:46:00.000-06:00

Bet you didn't know I used to be a "stripper."

A long, long time ago...back as far as the early 90's, I reckon, I decided that I wanted to create a comic strip. I had been reading and laughing my ass off to Gary Larson's "Farside" strip since the late 80's, and in the early 90's a friend turned me on to Berke Breathed's "Bloom County," an absolute watershed moment in my life. It was only natural that I, being the creative and artistic fellow that I am, should try my hand at writing and drawing my own strip. It looked so easy...
As you can see, my results were far short of my high expectations. I figured out pretty early on that I was no Berke Breathed. The fact that I couldn't draw the same thing the same way two times in a row was a big hint. Then there was the problem of a "concept" (I didn't have one), and then there was the further problem of a "signature character." Charles Schulz had Snoopy, Jim Davis has Garfield...my signature character looked vaguely like a cross between Andy Warhol and that little yellow bird in the Peanuts cartoons.

Rather than get discouraged, I reassessed the situation. As much as I loved "Bloom County," perhaps my comic strip talents were more toward the hilarious and surreal absurdism of Gary Larson's "Farside." It had the built in advantage of only having to draw one panel, and I didn't have to draw the same characters over and over again.

I wasn't taking any chances, though. I bought a book about drawing, and another rather expensive book about "How To Draw Comic Strips," and skimmed through them one afternoon. I needed a title. Something that stood out. It needed to rooooooll off the tongue because I could imagine people standing around the water cooler asking one another "Say, did you read (insert cool sounding title here) this morning?" Also it would have to look good on the box that the little "Page-A-Day" calendars would come in.

In my research, I came across the word "Apocrypha." I don't remember now why, or how. Maybe it was fate. I looked it up in the dictionary and was greeted with writings or statements of dubious authenticity. "Dubious" seemed to describe what I was doing perfectly, and "Apocryphal Ink" was born. Things were going well, and I was thinking "syndication," when another problem arose. Beyond the obvious fact that I can't draw, it turns out that I'm not very funny, either.It is a testament to the talent that these people possess, I think, that they make it look so simple, so easy, so effortless, that I for one moment entertained the notion that I could emulate them. I've known all my life that I can't draw. If I gained anything from the experience beyond an appreciation for the creative work that comic strip creators do, it is the knowledge that I'm no comedian.

Query Tracker

2007-05-20T04:54:00.000-06:00

Patrick McDonald has put together a nifty website, the purpose of which is to provide "A Free service which allows authors to find agents and track the status of their query submissions." If enough people participate, this could be a very handy tool. Here's the link Query Tracker and I've put it in the "Of Interest" link list as well. Check it out.

Blogs Of Un-Note

2007-05-19T06:45:00.000-06:00

It has occurred to me that Vacuum Genesis is unlikely ever to become a Blogger "Blog Of Note." It may be that I refuse to run ads, and turn my blog into a cash cow for "The Man," or maybe you have to have more than ten or twelve readers. Either way, it's an honor that I suppose I will have to live without. I think it a bit unfair that so few blogs get the lion's share of attention, while the rest of us have to toil away in relative obscurity. To that end, then, I have invented the VACUUM GENESIS BLOGS OF UN-NOTE.

From time to time I will search out blogs at random (using the handy "next blog" button at the top of my screen) and bring them to your attention. These are blogs by regular shleps like you and me...people who blog their little hearts out, without recognition or encouragement. Here then are the first VACUUM GENESIS BLOGS OF UN-NOTE

Ilse's Story Blog
Some 16-year-old girl in Rotterdam : Zuid-Holland : Netherlands. An aspiring screenwriter, I think, with the longest G.D. first-page profile snippet that I have ever seen. Looks like a good kid, but I learned in this blog that it is legal for kids her age to drink alcohol as long as the alcoholic content is less than 18% WTF is wrong with those Netherlands people?

The Hanlon Family Blog
One of the most amazing things I guess I've ever seen. Apparently the Hanlon's baby girl, Ellie, writes her own blog entries. She looks to be about six months old. I've seen blogs written by animals...cats, usually, but of course they were much older. Truly fascinating.

Dhammonia
Arguably the Internet's most boring blog. This has something to do with reading, I think. Or travel. Breakfast figures largely into whatever is going on. Here's an excerpt, chosen at random:
In the day and a half before we left for Chicago, we managed to finish a box of cereal in 3 sessions. That is recommended for 12 cups of serving for breakfast. Not only that, the milk gallon-can, also experienced an untimely end at our hands, largely due to being mixed with the cereal. Much arguments ensued over our pigging, but our appetite prevailed.

THE SEVENTH TABLET OF ISHTAR
I thought this was going to be one of those self-serving "my absurd babbling is the highest form of art" blogs. In fact it is an in-depth and thought provoking examination of all the various ways in which one can use the term "fuck," complete with alternate acceptable spellings. Based solely on presentation, it would be easy to dismiss this blog as mindless drivel, but as the author of this blog likes to say: "THE NUMBER OF THE MONKEYS BEING INDETERMINATE REDUCES THE NEED FOR TIMING." I couldn't agree more.

Quincy the PAWS Pup
Well I'll be damned. I had no sooner noted that most animal bloggers are usually a bit older than young Ellie (see above), when what should the same random blog search turn up but this: a blog written by a labrador/golden retriever mix pup surely no more than a few weeks old. I had always been under the impression that dogs didn't see very well, and were color blind. This blog proves one point, and calls into question the other. The color scheme on this blog would seem to indicate that dogs do indeed suffer from color blindness, but their basic vision must be exceptional as Quincy has chosen a font-size approaching that of large sub-atomic particles.

Lucid Dreaming (Pt. 2)

2007-05-13T08:44:00.000-06:00

If you read "Lucid Dreaming (Pt. 1)" you are familiar with what a lucid dream is, and perhaps you have done some further research on your own. In this section I will describe the process that I have used to induce lucid dreams, sustaining and controlling lucid dreams, and a few frightening (but harmless) sleep phenomena that can occur as a result of lucid dream induction.

INDUCING LUCID DREAMS

As I said in the earlier post, there are about as many methods of inducing a lucid dream as there are people who claim to have them. This is what has worked for me, and I discovered it largely by accident.

It is important to understand at the outset that sleep occurs in cycles of various stages which can be measured by the amount and type of brain activity that is occurring at any particular point in the sleep cycle. The first stage of sleep generally lasts about 5 to 10 minutes and is characterized by the disappearance of alpha waves and the onset of theta waves. During stage one sleep, the eyes close, muscles relax, and eye movement slows. In stage two, or light sleep, the heart rate slows and respiration decreases. Brain activity at this time is characterized by wave-forms known as "sleep spindles" and "K-complexes." Stages three and four are the deep sleep stages, and they are associated with slow-wave, or delta-wave brain activity. Stage five is more commonly known as REM sleep. In REM sleep, the brain wave patterns are very similar to those of stage one, but the physiological changes are markedly different. In REM sleep, heart rate and respiration increases and becomes erratic, muscles are paralyzed, brain activity increases, and of course there are rapid eye movements. While dreaming does occur during REM sleep, it should be noted that dreams can (and do) occur in all stages of sleep.

The sleep cycle for the average person who does not suffer from any sleep disorder is, from waking: 1,2,3,4,3,2,REM. Note that the cycle reverses after stage four and repeats stages three and two before entering the REM stage. In an average night's sleep, this entire cycle can be completed up to five times, with each cycle slightly longer than the one previous. As well, the individual sleep stages tend to get longer as the night progresses.

It is pretty widely accepted that most nightmares occur during stages three and four, the delta-wave sleep stages. I believe that most, if not all, lucid dreams occur during late REM stage sleep, or in stage one. If lucid dreams occur in stage one sleep, they may be related to a phenomenon known as hypnagogia. To save space, I'll let you click on that and read about it. It is rather involved.

What I have found is that if I interrupt the sleep cycle, I am very likely to have a lucid dream. To do this, I will set an alarm clock to go off after I have slept four to six hours. When the alarm goes off, I get up and go do something for at least an hour, two if I can manage it. I've found that writing (even if it is only in a journal) gives me better results, followed by reading. Watching television doesn't seem to work at all, and I think it is because the human brain process television images much the same way that it does dreams. In effect, your brain "thinks" it's dreaming and doesn't achieve the proper level of alpha-wave activity required to induce a lucid dream later. The whole point of interrupting your sleep cycle is to "wake" your brain up.

After an hour or two, I go back to bed. While I lay there waiting to fall asleep, I plant the intention in my mind that I will have a lucid dream. Very simply, I mentally say to myself "I will have a lucid dream" ten or twenty times. That's it. The whole process. I have been able to induce lucid dreams in almost fifty percent of the instances where I have tried this simple method. After having practiced this technique for awhile, I've noticed that I can induce lucid dreams with much shorter interruptions in my sleep cycle, sometimes just getting up to use the restroom will work. It seems that the longer you practice lucid dreaming, the easier it becomes.

SUSTAINING LUCID DREAMS

The first time that you have a lucid dream, you will probably be so shocked to realize that you are "wide awake" inside of your dream that you will reflexively wake yourself up for real. I have learned that I can keep from waking myself up initially by telling myself "I'm lucid!" It sounds stupid, but it works. Your "anchor" could be anything. Perhaps you could tell yourself "Keep dreaming," or "Holy crap!" You might visualize an object in your hand...say a toy fire truck. Whatever you use, just make sure to get in the habit of saying or visualizing it at the start of every lucid dream, the very moment that you realize you are dreaming. Use the same phrase or object every time. This will clue your mind into the fact that you want to experience the lucid dream.

After you have stabilized yourself in the lucid dream, you will want to sustain the dream-state for as long as possible. Many of the lucid dream websites suggest "spinning" as a way to maintain both the dream-state and the lucidity, and it actually works. I don't know why. Basically, the moment that you sense that the dream, your control, or your sense of lucidity is beginning to fade or slip away, start spinning, like we did as children when we wanted to make ourselves dizzy. Oddly enough, you will regain control and lucidity, at least for a little while longer. Some people claim to be able to sustain a lucid dream for upwards of thirty minutes. I've never come close to that. My average lucid dream lasts a few minutes, and occasionally I have been able to sustain them for as long as five minutes. I should note that these durations are approximations only; I don't actually try to time them by anything other than my own internal clock.

CONTROLLING LUCID DREAMS

This is a bit trickier. Your first few lucid dreams may amount to nothing more than a vague awareness that you are dreaming. With time and practice, you should be able to exert some control over your dreams. Start out with simple things. Flying and floating seem easy enough. I've never been able to make an object appear in my hand, but I have noticed that I can tell myself that a certain object will be somewhere (behind a couch, around the corner, under a potted plant, whatever) and when I go to look, there it is. The power of "suggestion" seems to be at work here. In a typical lucid dream, I might become lucid and aware that I am dreaming that I am in a park. I might then suggest something to myself like "around the corner of that building there is a playground full of circus clowns," then, when I go to look, there is indeed a playground full of circus clowns. I have noticed over time that I am able to exert greater control over my dreams, but it is a process of fits and starts. Practice, and patience, are the keys here.

THE DARK SIDE

There are a few things that you might want to watch out for as you explore the phenomenon of lucid dreaming. You will notice an increase in the amount of dreams that you remember, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but you will also notice an increase in the realism of your dreams, even the non-lucid ones. This can be a good or bad thing, depending on the dream (or nightmare) in question.

If you pursue lucid dreaming long enough, you will eventually encounter a phenomenon known as "false waking." False waking can be particularly unpleasant because you become "hyper-lucid," not dreaming and aware that you are dreaming, but dreaming and convinced that you are in fact awake. In a typical false waking I will wake up (or so it seems) and lay in my bed, maybe leaning up to check the clock. I may lay there for several minutes, pondering the lucid dream that I just had, rearranging my pillows and such. Then something will happen. It could be a scary voice calling my name from somewhere in the room behind me, or a door opening that should not be opening, or, in one particularly terrifying instance, a huge demonic face appearing in the air right above my bed. Suddenly I realize that I am NOT awake, I am still dreaming, and the dream is not particularly pleasant. It is very difficult to will myself awake in a situation like that, and I have begun to wonder if what I am experiencing is a stage four lucid dream.

Related to false waking is another phenomenon known as "Old Hag" syndrome. In an old hag episode, you believe that you have awakened in your bed only to realize that there is someone else in the room with you. As they approach (and they always do) you are terrified to realize that you are paralyzed, and cannot move. In extreme cases, the "old hag" actually reaches the dreamer and tries to smother or suffocate them. The "old hag" isn't always some old crone, it can be anything including just a dark shape or an evil, but invisible, presence. As with false waking, it is a bit difficult to wake yourself from an "old hag" experience, but the sensation of paralysis would seem to suggest that it occurs during REM stage sleep, which is actually not that far from a waking state.

Finally, there are people who claim to have had an OBE, or out of body experience either just prior to a lucid dream, or while in the hypnagogic state of stage one sleep. I'm not sure that I believe much of what is written about OBE's--if they occur at all I suppose they are more likely to be some sort of intense lucid dream state--however, it is reported that most OBE's begin with an odd vibrating feeling, and I have experienced this phenomenon. It is not very pleasant, frankly, and I have always awakened myself immediately whenever it has occurred.

As frightening as these experiences can be initially, over time they become less so. If you are the sort of person prone to nightmares or night terrors, or if you are at an emotionally difficult point in your life, you might reconsider delving too far into the world of lucid dreaming. You might also consult a doctor.

Happy lucid dreaming!

The Longest Thirty Days

2007-05-06T01:44:00.000-06:00

When you live in Oklahoma, the very heart of "tornado alley," the joy of spring is always tempered by a certain dread of the sort of destructive weather that this season can bring. When you read stories like this, it becomes difficult to look at a calendar without mentally ticking off the number of days before the spring severe weather season ends, usually by the end of May or the first week of June. Then you see what happened in Greensburg, KS, on Friday, May 4, and you just want to crawl in a hole and pull the hole in after you.

(Hint to all of you potential future storm chasers out there...you are supposed to be BEHIND the freaking tornado, not in front of it. These goofs are lucky that the damn thing didn't turn on them)

I'm not as bad as I used to be. There was a time that the coming of spring would send me into a deep depression that would start sometime in March and would last--quite specifically--until June 1st. Of course, it's not impossible, or even that unusual, to have severe storms after the first of June, but by that time I know that the severe weather season is pretty much over. I even wrote a haiku about it which, I think, sums up my feelings about Oklahoma spring rather nicely:

summertime will bringmen sorting through the wreckageof another spring

In recent years I think I have managed to take a more realistic approach to the problem. I don't get as depressed as I used to, although spring is still my least favorite season, and always will be. For the most part I avoid watching weather forecasts until the day that severe weather seems imminent--if you live in "tornado alley" long enough you can tell when you walk out the door in the morning if it's going to be "one of those days"--and I try to steer away from news stories about the damage and destruction wrought by tornadoes in other parts of the country. But try as I might, every year it seems that there is at least one outburst of tornadic violence that simply cannot be ignored. The story this time around would appear to be the horrific destruction of Greensburg, KS. I have probably seen more tornado aftermath footage than the average person, and I am telling you right now that the images I saw out of Greensburg are some of the most devastating that I have ever seen. I use as my reference the famous May 3, 1999 "super tornado" that struck the OKC metropolitan area.

Image 1Image 2Image 3Image 4

While the May 3 tornado in OKC/Moore was clearly more devastating in terms of financial loss, and, according to the latest reports from Greensburg, total fatalities, the images are eerily similar. If anything, the Greensburg aftermath looks worse than that of the May 3, 1999 tornado, but this is only because the May 3 damage is being viewed within the context of the much larger OKC metro area , whereas Greensburg is a small town in southern Kansas that, as near as anyone can tell, was almost completely destroyed.

It is difficult, if not impossible, to comprehend such devastation. Being a writer, and having the blessing/curse of a creative mind, I cannot help but try to imagine what it must have been like for those people, fighting for their lives while that monster ravaged their little town. My heart nearly breaks when I see those images from Greensburg, KS, not so much for the loss of homes and possessions, but for the terror that those people must have felt during those horrible moments in which nature vented her fury upon them. I turn away from those images toward my calendar. In thirty days it will be nearing the end of the first week of June. The severe weather season essentially over. Summertime. Back yard barbecues and baseball. Picnics in the park and an expedition down the creek with my son to find tadpoles and crawdads. And, in Greensburg, KS, unfortunately, "men sorting through the wreckage of another spring."

Lucid Dreaming (Pt. 1)

2007-04-28T06:16:00.000-06:00

I was walking down a narrow aisle between office cubicles. I stopped at the opening of one cubicle and observed a young woman who was sitting at a computer, typing furiously at her keyboard. She was an attractive Asian-American woman, and I thought that the wireless telephone headset that she was wearing gave her a certain Star Trek look. She turned to look at me and smiled, then she stood up and began to unbutton her blouse. Quite interested in the proceedings, I stepped into the cubicle, but she rose up off the floor and began to float toward the ceiling. At that moment it dawned on me that I was dreaming, and then it further dawned on me that I knew that I was dreaming. I had awakened inside of a dream.

Stephen LaBerge, founder of the Lucidity Institute and a pioneer researcher in the field of lucid dreaming, defines a lucid dream very simply as "dreaming while knowing that you are dreaming." I suppose that is a good enough definition to proceed with, although it is more of a description of the experience than a definition of it. I should also state clearly that I have become a bit disenchanted with LaBerge and his "institute," along with just about every other online source that you will find when you type "lucid dreaming" into the search engine of your choice. What was once a fascinating inquiry into this strange sleep phenomenon seems to have turned into a new-age money-making scheme. The information offered by most lucid dreaming web sites ranges from pseudoscientific jargon to mysticism and spirituality. All of them have something to sell: books and DVD's, conferences at exotic resorts, and various mechanical contraptions that are supposed to help the user induce lucid dreams.

Lucid dreaming is a very real phenomenon, as I can attest from personal experience, but it is very difficult to describe it to someone who has not had the experience. I am reminded of the conundrum in which one contemplates how to describe the color "orange" to a person who has been blind from birth. Essentially, a lucid dream is a dream during which the "conscious" or "waking" part of your mind achieves some level of awareness. You are still asleep, still dreaming, but you are aware that you are asleep and dreaming.

Lucid dreams come in many different forms. At the most basic level, a lucid dream is nothing more than a fleeting moment of vague awareness, such as I just described. The dream proceeds along its course in spite of that awareness while you tag along as an enlightened observer, or, as is more often the case, you are startled by the phenomenon and you wake--true waking--in your bed. In a more intense lucid dream experience, the dreamer is fully aware that he or she is dreaming, and the dream environment is every bit as real as the waking world. However, the dreamer is still unable to exert any control over the dream, and is again relegated to the role of an observer. In the most profound lucid dreams, the dreamer is able to exert some measure of control over the dream itself. In my own experience, the amount of control that the dreamer is able to achieve is directly related to the persistence with which he or she pursues such dream control, over the course of many lucid dreams that the dreamer has provably induced, and during which the dreamer has consciously (and repeatedly) attempted to exert some control over the dream's content and setting. Put less pseudoscientifically, where it concerns lucid dreaming practice does indeed make perfect.

I don't care to rehash the research that has already been done regarding this sleep phenomenon. You can search the web and get as much information as you care to digest on the subject (and possibly sign up for one of those Creative Consciousness conferences in the Hawaiian Islands, while you're at it). They all provide the same basic information, using the terms that LaBerge coined back in the 70's, and they all seem to radically over-complicate the issue. I've divided the process into three components: inducing a lucid dream, sustaining lucidity, and dream control. I will cover them--along with a little section on the dark side of lucid dreaming--in part two of this article. Hopefully these simple techniques (simply described) will enable you to enjoy lucid dreams of your own.

Which leads me to the obvious question: why bother? This is a little more difficult to answer than it would at first appear. I think you have to be a certain kind of person to seek out such an experience. Not some new-age spiritualist, necessarily, just someone who is innately fascinated by things and a bit adventurous. For example, as I write this article it occurs to me that if I could float up from the chair where I am sitting, through the ceiling, and fly off across town...I would. If I could say to myself, when I get up from this chair and go to look out the window I will see a beautiful naked woman sitting on an elephant in my backyard, then I would say the words and head for the window to have a look. If those two statements strike you as frivolous or absurd, then perhaps lucid dreams hold nothing of value for you. If you go to bed at night for no purpose other than to rest from one day's labor and prepare for the next, nothing that I say here will have any meaning for you.

I have always been fascinated by dreams, and I have never thought of sleep as nothing more than a brief, black interlude between periods of waking. It is an intensely personal experience, to be sure. If you don't believe me, just sit and listen to someone go on (and on) as they attempt to describe to you the Most Amazing Dream that they had the night before. Boring. Boring, and vaguely embarrassing. But for the dreamer, a lucid dream can be a wildly exhilarating experience.

And of course, the sex is awesome.

PageFour Revisited

2007-04-15T10:23:00.000-06:00

A few months back I wrote a piece about a word processor--PageFour--the trial version of which I was exploring. I mentioned at the time that I liked the design, but that I wasn't sure whether or not I could depend on the developer enough to turn loose of the thirty bucks he wanted for the full version. Well, shortly after I wrote that article, I got a wild hair and coughed up the dough.

I used PageFour off and on for about a month after I unlocked it, and at first I have to admit that I was a little reluctant to commit myself to it. I have been living in the MS Word mindset for so long that, as much as I despise working with that word processor, I am a little distrustful of anything else. But the longer I worked with PageFour and explored it, the more comfortable I became. Now I use it exclusively, with the exception that I still move my rough drafts over to Word and edit them into final copy there.

PageFour is designed for writers, plain and simple. It strips away all of the business-related junk that you have to work around in Word, and it organizes writing projects in a way that is more accessible and easier to navigate. At the top of PageFour's organizational structure is the "Notebook." A notebook can consist of anything from a single document to a mega-file containing every novel that you have ever written, all neatly tucked into their own folders. The documents that you write and store in your notebooks are called "Pages." The term is slightly misleading in that it doesn't refer to the length of the document. A page can be anything from a grocery list to the entire text of a novel. I prefer to create a notebook called "My Novels." Within this notebook I create separate files for each of my novels. Within those folders I place the various chapters of the novel, usually with several pages for notes on pre-production, characters, setting, outline, and a project scrapbook which I like to have up when I am working on the story itself so that I can quickly jot notes as I go along. Different notebooks can be organized in a way that suits the purpose of the notebook. My "Misc." notebook, for example, contains no folders or sub-folders, only pages. Everything is fully customizable and easy to access via the two panels on the left side of the screen which display all the notebooks on top, and the contents of the currently open notebook below.

Some of the features take a bit of getting used to. PageFour automatically saves your work ever few minutes, and when you close a page. This is handy, although there is one minor bug in that if you are not working in the notebook that you intend to keep the page in when you begin a new page, it will automatically save to whatever notebook that you happen to have open. It is easy enough to move it to the proper notebook, and subsequent saves will go to the proper location. The "Archive" feature looks useful, but I haven't the faintest idea how it works. I skirt the issue by creating a "pagefour backup" file in My Documents and simply remembering to use the "save as files" option to copy an .rtf version of my documents. PageFour's "print template" feature confused me at first, but became my favorite feature once I understood it. Basically, you create a template that defines all the specifications you desire when you print your document (margins, line space, font, etc.) and save it. Having done so, you are free to work in whatever on-screen environment that you choose. Single spaced, Verdana, 18, red will print as double spaced, Courier New, 12, black, if that is what you specified in the template. As an added feature, when you print, the program asks you if you want to use the template (or some other template), or simply print "as is."

I'm certainly not going to write a technical manual for the thing. PageFour has all of the major features that you would expect from a word processor. It has a nice spell-checker that you can set to check while you work, or turn off and check the entire document when you are finished. You can run word-count on an entire document, or some highlighted portion thereof.

If there is anything that I truly dislike about PageFour, then it would have to be the convoluted header/footer/page numbering system. There is no "page break" function in PageFour, so in order to format, say, a novel for final copy printing, you will have to have all your chapters each in their own page. That done, I had to actually email the developer to ask how in the hell you get the program to number pages consecutively across the multiple "pages" without having to manually go in and change the "starting page number" for each document. He emailed me back, apparently there is a way to do it. but I don't have the patience to try and figure it out. It is easier for me to use PageFour as a "rough draft" environment, and simply export the document to Word for final editing, formatting, and printing. I hesitate to say that this is a flaw in the program. It could be that I am just too computer-stupid and lazy to figure it out. But I think that this part of the program could use a little work. It is far from "intuitive."

Bottom line: PageFour is worth the $30. I enjoy writing on this word processor, and whatever minor shortcomings that it may (or may not) have are far outweighed by the sheer joy of spending my writing time actually writing, rather than fighting with the damn word processor.

Storm: March 30, 2007

2007-03-31T08:51:00.000-06:00

As it turned out, nearly being hit by a tornado the day before was kind of anticlimactic.

This creek on the west side of our house is normally bone dry.

And here are the same areas the next morning, after some drainage...

About a foot of water overflowing the bridge over the creek...

Sunset at the western edge of the cold front

Another TTG Rewrite Update

2007-03-28T00:44:00.000-06:00

The rewrite is going remarkably well. It's going faster than I had expected, which is nice. It turns out that there are some large chunks of the fourth draft that transfer right on over. Switching to one character POV, third limited, has turned out to be precisely what this story needed.

As I did during the first major revision, I find myself fleshing out the plot-lines more. It turns out (and I learned this from my beta reader) that the parts of the story that I had been treating as sub-plot are actually the most riveting part of the story. My original plot is slowly working its way into the background and the stories of my characters are beginning to creep forward. I'm fine with that. On the downside, it is pretty obvious to me that the further into this rewrite that I get, the more actual writing I will have to do. At the moment I am probably cutting and pasting as much as I am adding to the story. I'm hoping to expand the book to about 60,000 words. I found out that when I line-edit, I cut. And cut and cut and cut. This thing needs to be above 50k when the dust settles.

More later.

Shades Of Gray

2007-03-19T04:42:00.000-06:00

I'm not an environmentalist by any stretch of the imagination. That said, I'm not particularly fond of wastefulness either, and I've always felt that taking care of the environment and wisely using its resources are matters of responsible living, rather than a political ideology.

I have never been comfortable with the admonition of my fellow writers that I must edit from printed copy. I understand the reasoning behind it, of course. There are certain things that I simply will not see when I am staring at page after page of text displayed upon a computer monitor. My first idea was to print my rough draft single-spaced in two columns, using a font other than the one that I normally work in (courier new, 12). This cuts the manuscript length in half, and it has the added advantage of forcing my mind to see the words rather than the story that they are telling.

That worked. Then I came up with the idea of using the backs of these printed pages for future rough draft edits. This works too, and I intend to save all paper that has only been printed on one side specifically for this purpose. You would be surprised at how much 8.5 X 11 paper with only one printed side winds up in your house. I get it from my son's teacher, flyers left under the windshield of my car, all sorts of places. Of course, the paper needs to be in relatively good condition (not folded) or it will jam in the printer. But it works.

Still, I wasn't really saving paper so much as I was just better making use of it. Some might say that I was saving the paper that I would have wasted had I not printed on the backsides of the pages that I had already wasted, but I think that is a straw argument. The point is to not waste any paper at all. My completed, pristine manuscript all neatly printed out and sitting on an editor's desk is not a waste of paper (to me, at least, the editor's opinion may differ from mine). Printing my novel out when I know that I am eventually going to send it all through the shredder is a waste of paper, and I don't like it.

Enter my newest idea. I suppose other people do this; I have no reason to suspect that I invented it. I copy and paste my novel into separate chapter files, mostly because it seems a little easier to work with them in smaller portions. Then I use that nifty little "highlighter" feature in Word (yes, it is the first thing about Word that I can honestly say I like) and highlight the entire chapter in 25% gray. Working my way down the chapter, I un-highlight each sentence--one sentence at a time--so that it goes back to the original white. When I have checked that sentence for all of the stuff that needs checking and made any changes that need making, then I highlight it in 50% gray and move on to the next sentence. The whole point is to isolate each sentence (you could work in larger chunks, I suppose) from the rest of the text, and the two shades of gray help keep my eyes and mind from wandering up and down the screen reading the story instead of looking at the words themselves.

It should be noted that this sort of intense line-edit can only be done after I am finished (or at least think I am finished) with the story editing. I don't need a print-out to story edit, and with this nifty new (new to me, anyway) method, I think I can work my way to final draft with no paper wasted on line-editing.

And of course, that means there should be plenty of paper left to print my books on when the editors do finally recognize my artistic brilliance. Or, lacking that artistic brilliance, at least no one can blame me if we run out of paper or we all start choking to death on carbon dioxide. It's all good.

Absolute Write

2007-03-18T07:02:00.000-06:00

I've been a member of this writer's message board community for a couple of months now, and it seems worth mentioning here on the blog. The Absolute Write Water Cooler is a privately owned message board community of writers at various stages in their careers, from aspiring to professional. Membership is free, but you do have to register if you wish to post in the forums. I highly recommend this site, albeit with a few reservations that are discussed below.

AWWC's primary value is in the sheer magnitude of useful information that it contains. If you are a beginning writer you would be well served to make full use of the site's "search" feature, and as far as I know this site can be searched regardless of whether or not you choose to become a member of the community. Virtually any question that you may have concerning writing has already been asked (usually several times), and as near as I can tell the people who come forward to provide answers are quite intelligent, accurate, and helpful.

Of special interest are the "Writing Poetry," "Share Your Work," and "Mentors & Writing Partners" forums. In these areas, you can post your work (or portions thereof) for critique, and find people willing to "beta" read your manuscript. The critique forums are password protected so as to avoid any widespread Internet exposure that some editors might consider a "first rights" problem, but it should be noted that there are conflicting views on this subject--particularly among e-publishers.

Outside of these areas, there are a wide variety of forums covering an even wider variety of topics. No matter what you write, you are bound to find a forum or a sub-forum devoted to it.

On the downside, AWWC suffers from all of the same sorts of problems that you will encounter in any other online community. The problem is perhaps magnified here to a certain extent in that AWWC has such a large active membership of highly creative--and highly opinionated--people. A substantial portion of AWWC is set aside for the discussion of non-writing topics. One non-writing forum, "Take It Outside," is set aside for the express purpose of allowing debate on topics unrelated to writing. The forum description says: "Sometimes we all need a spot to let off steam. Here's the place for controversial subjects, debates, and arguments--but please remember that even here, the rule is "respect your fellow writer." This is in addition to another forum set aside for "Politics & Current Events."

Predictably, these "off topic" forums become the focus of a lot of controversy, conflict, and "board politics," some of which would inevitably spill out into the more useful portions of the community but for the rather heavy-handed (and in some cases seemingly arbitrary) manner in which the board is moderated. You'll note that these particular forums are kept hidden from the casual observer, and are only visible to registered members. I think they would do well to eliminate them entirely. These forums offer nothing that isn't readily available on a multitude of other message boards, and I think they distract from AWWC's main purpose. AWWC is no worse than any other message board in this regard, but--at least as it concerns these issues--they certainly aren't any better either.

By all means make use of this resource, but proceed with caution. Unless you have nothing better to do with your time than spar with keenly articulate and sometimes passionately vindictive people, I would recommend that you avoid the non-writing forums entirely. It is time that would probably be better spent availing yourself of the vast treasure-trove of writing knowledge that this board has amassed.

I. Write On

2007-03-14T02:36:00.000-06:00

It is becoming obvious to me (through beta readers, and various other critiques) that I tried to slam the trunk lid on TTG way too soon. It is understandable I suppose. When you finish a story, there is an almost overwhelming desire to get it out on the market. You did all that work! You sweated blood! You cried a few tears! You sweated tears and cried blood!

But as I am learning, finishing the first rough draft is really only the beginning of a much more complicated process--the process of editing the manuscript into some form that might actually convince an editor to take it on, and a reader to read it.

As I see it, there are three main stages to writing a book. First is the creation stage. This is the stage in which the writer comes up with the idea, the characters, the setting, and the various conflicts that will propel the story forward toward some climactic conclusion. I see now that I have all my life put an undue amount of importance on this initial phase. I've always felt that once I had a rough draft complete I was essentially done, except for a spell checking and removing a few extra commas here and there. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

The second stage, editing, is in fact the most important part of the process. And not in the least bit fun, I might add. It occurs in two sub-stages (for me, at least): story editing, and line editing. In the story edit, I go through and strengthen all of the major story elements: plot, characterization, setting, and so forth. I go through and cut scenes that don't work, or that don't add anything to the story. I revise scenes that need to be there but are poorly written, or are written from the wrong pov, or that lack certain elements that later scenes will require (foreshadowing, clues, hints, misdirection). And finally, I have to add scenes that are needed to make the ending work, because the way a story actually ends is seldom (if ever) the way that I thought it would end while I was writing the first draft. With all of the major story elements in place, at least to my satisfaction (and with the understanding that one comment from a beta reader could easily cause me to have to go back and completely rewrite the whole blasted thing), I move on to the line edit. This is a brutal process of going through the manuscript sentence by sentence and checking it for proper spelling, grammar, and punctuation. As well, I have to make sure that the sentence hasn't been written in a passive voice, that I haven't made any "commonly confused with" errors (its/it's, their/there/they're, and so on), and a second pov check to make sure that I'm not head-hopping. Only when the manuscript has been edited in this manner can I save it to a file and call it complete.

The third stage is the point at which I craft a query letter and synopsis. This is arguably the most important stage because however brilliant the edited manuscript may be; an editor will never see it (or portions thereof) if he or she is not first swayed by the query and/or synopsis. And I write several synopses; one page, two pages, and five pages, to cover a wider variety of submission situations. All of this goes into the file with the manuscript.

I suppose submitting the materials for editorial review would comprise a fourth stage, but that seems obvious enough. It's largely a matter of researching the intended publisher, making the required trips to the post office, and keeping accurate records of where everything is.

With all of this in mind, I return to the subject of my YA novel. I have considered this project complete several times, only to find myself returning to it because I had skimped during the editing stage. This is particularly frustrating for me as I am a rather linear person. I like to begin a project, work hard on it until it is complete, and then pack it all neatly away and "turn it in." I am nearly a third of the way into my next novel, in the rough draft stage, and I have been very frustrated at the frequent interruptions from my previous novel. As well, it has occurred to me that I will have to write and publish short stories in order to give myself some sort of track record to present to a prospective agent or publisher. The workload (and the confusion) has become overwhelming. The quality of all my work suffers when I try to work in this scatterbrained manner.

The result is that I have had to shelve everything except TTG. I am not going to take one step forward until I have satisfied myself that I have completed all three stages (specifically the editing stage) of this novel. Obviously, an editor or an agent could request further revisions, but that is part of a different process. To get there, I have to have a point at which I can snap the briefcase closed and call it done. Without that feeling of doneness, I can't possible move on to the next project.

Yes, The Mirror Girl Again

2007-03-07T04:22:00.000-06:00

This is without a doubt one of the creepiest things I think I have ever seen. I'm certain that it is some sort of camera trick, and mirrors are involved (obviously), but that does absolutely nothing to dilute the effect of seeing one of this little girl's reflections in a 3-way mirror continue to look at her even after she has turned her back to the mirror. This has been going around for awhile, I gather, but I just saw it recently. Spooky.

More Internet Caution

2007-03-05T03:58:00.000-06:00

As is my wont (I'm feeling a bit archaic this morning), I was wasting more of my valuable time doing random Google searches yesterday and came across something surprising. I found several "feed" sites that, as near as I can tell, do nothing but scour the Internet for various kinds of articles and information.

I was particularly interested to find that some site had helped themselves to one of my articles which is posted on this blog, specifically, my interview with Elissa Malcohn. I will never know who it was, as the link that I clicked gave me one of those "site aint here no more" pages, nor will I ever know if I was properly credited for the piece that they apparently reprinted without my permission. The portion that I saw contained the first couple of paragraphs of my article, and it even had the word count posted next to the title. It was not linked from this blog in any way ... from what I could tell, they simply copied it (probably from my atom or feedburner feeds) and posted it elsewhere.

It got me thinking along two different lines. One, I am serious about protecting my copyrighted material. That I offer it on this (or any other) blog for free does not in any way mean that the material is offered free to anyone on the Internet. My "payment," if you will, is that people read the material on MY blog, whether they come here directly, or via a link on someone else's site. The value of an excellent article such as my interview with Ms. Malcohn (excellent because she is a fascinating person, not due to any particular talent on my part) is that it inspires people to read more of the things that I have written here, perhaps even bookmark or subscribe to my blog. This helps me in that it builds a readership that, ultimately, may be inclined to purchase the books that I will someday publish. I have never made it any great secret that this blog largely concerns myself, and exists to promote my writing. To that end, I have spared (to the best of my ability) my potential blog readers the annoying advertisements and "ad sense" nonsense that usually renders a blog unpleasant to read. That said, I find myself quite annoyed at the prospect of people making free use of my copyrighted material without first securing proper permission to do so, and/or presenting my material (or substantial portions thereof) in some other forum, rather than directing their readers via a link back to this blog, and the article in question. But let me be clear on one thing, I do not mind in the least when people DO link to an article on my blog ... I consider it quite a compliment. I am only referring to those scoundrels who copy material from someone else's blog or website, and then present it on their own as if the material is either their own original work, or, even with proper author attribution, that it is in some way exclusive to their domain.

The other thing that struck me was just how long things remain on the Internet, even after you thought you had deleted them. I think that a lot of us (myself included) feel like the Internet is just a great big hard drive that we can store things on, and easily delete. Not so. Search engines and Internet archiving services store pages and even entire websites for God knows how long, and the information is readily available to anyone with the time, and tenacity, to dig it up. I should think people would want to be a little more careful what they chose to present in this brave new digital world. What you say or do now could come back to bite you in the ass years down the road. I'm thinking of the notorious "Star Wars Kid" video that was popular on "You Tube," or one of its clones. We can debate all day about whether or not the kid suffered any damage from that mildly embarrassing video, or who is responsible if he did. What we can be certain of is that, should the kid ever decide to run for public office, you can bet we'll see it again. And again. And again. I'm generally against government regulation, but I have a feeling that's exactly where the Internet is headed. As it stands, there's a sort of "wild west" vibe to the whole thing, and not enough people with shiny silver stars on their chests to go around.

Bogged Down In Beta

2007-03-04T07:48:00.000-06:00

Let me start off by saying that "beta" reading is--bar none--the most useful tool for hammering a manuscript into some sort of shape that an editor might be willing to work with. With that firmly established, let me go on to say that it is one of the most frustrating processes that I have ever had to endure.

For those not up on their current "writer buzzwords," beta reading is nothing more complicated than offering what you believe to be the final version of your manuscript (after editing and revision) to someone else so that they can read it and suggest changes, or point out elements that don't work as well as you had hoped. Usually this "beta" reader is a fellow writer, not always. At the very least, he or she should be someone whose opinion you trust, and who can read your work objectively.

I was through three revisions of my YA paranormal novel, The Tronovich Ghost, before I began looking for a beta reader. I was very fortunate to find a fellow in the same position with a YA science fiction novel that he wanted to beta, so we exchanged some personal information, got to know each other a little better, set some goals (i.e., told each other what we expected out of the process, and mentioned particular areas of our work that we wished to have reviewed), and began trading chapters. So far, the experience has been nothing but positive. The guy that I'm working with doesn't pull any punches, or try to blow sunshine up my kilt, but he isn't needlessly heavy-handed in his critique either. This isn't always the case when a writer offers their work up for critique. As I said, I'm very fortunate to have met this guy when I did.

But it's a grueling process. By now, I am already querying agents, and I have outlined and begun work on a new novel. I want TTG DONE. Finished. At least done up to the point that an editor or an agent is asking for revisions. Unfortunately, it is beginning to look like I am going to have to put everything else on hold again, and begin yet a fourth revision of this manuscript. The plot issues are minor-fixes, which is encouraging, but it's the mechanics of the manuscript--the nuts and bolts of it--that are going to require a fairly massive rewrite. POV (I have this disembodied "fourth eye" floating around in the story, popping in for a peek whenever I am trying to skirt a main character perspective that might reveal too much of the plot too soon) and reader confusion in some of my scene transitions seem to be the main culprits this time around.

I know that the story will be better for having gone through this process. I know that every time I go through and revise it, I give myself just that much more of a chance that I might actually sell the damn thing. But I would be lying if I told you that I'm looking forward to it. I'm not. I'm off on a terrifying journey with a 16-year-old girl who is being stalked and terrorized by ... by who? I don't know. And I won't know for a while longer because I'm stuck in some rural Oklahoma town with these other three kids and their g.d. ghost hunters club solving the same g.d. mystery over and over and over again.

Message Board For Writers

2007-03-04T07:26:00.000-06:00

I have the world's worst luck with message boards. I don't know why. I think part of it is that I don't speak message board-ese very well, which invariably leads to misunderstandings. More than that, though, I simply cannot tolerate the clique system that seems to dominate those forums.

It goes beyond just being a newbie. Most established boards have one or more cliques, and if you don't readily inculcate yourself into one of them, you are held in suspicious regard. The very act of refusing to participate in the message board clique system is seen as an act of defiance, and brands you as a potential troublemaker. This is made even worse when the administrator of the board actively participates in such nonsense. You can't possibly hope to be treated fairly under such circumstances.

The problem is that message boards--particularly when they serve a specific purpose--can be very useful tools. A writer's message board, just to pick an example totally and completely out of unpremeditated air, can be an excellent resource for critique, market information, how-to, and even emotional support. Where these forums fail, I think, is when the people running them permit--or, God forbid, actually promote--a system in which some people are "in," while others languish about on the outside. It creates an atmosphere that is detrimental to the purpose of the board (unless, of course, the purpose of the board is to prop up the egos of those people fortunate enough to be "in") and ultimately leads to a lot of unnecessary conflict. The final nail in this particular coffin is when a board administrator allows the forum to wander too far from its intended goal. I'm not a big fan of "general discussion" or "political debate" anyway, and I certainly don't care to see it on a message board that is ostensibly about something else entirely.

So, against my own better judgement, I found a service that let me create my own message board for writers. Click on APOCRYPHA INK over in the links for writers section. I don't know if it will work or not, but I like the idea well enough to spend a little of my time on it. It's not costing me anything, and I am an eternal optimist. If you are a writer, looking to help launch a community such as the one that I have described, check it out. If it works, it will be cool as hell. If it doesn't work, well, it still looks cool as hell.

A Word Of Caution

2007-02-12T03:56:00.000-06:00

Art can be a touchy subject. Images, writings, and music that one person finds offensive may constitute another person's (the artist's, for example) burning vision, which they needs must express or they collapse in some melodramatic heap of ennui.

As a writer, I am way out there on the front lines in the battle to protect freedom of speech and expression. That does not, however, mean that there are not things certain artists choose to say or express that do not offend me. A case in point: I love to use Google's "image search" feature to scan the web for interesting images. When I find something that I like, I will often attempt to contact the artist and ask permission to use the image, either as a desktop background, or as an avatar on a writer's message board that I frequent.

I was searching through images related to a certain computer game that I enjoy when I came across a stunning piece of "fan art" related to the game in question. I contacted the artist, and was very pleased to receive his/her (the artist's pseudonym does not give me any indication of gender) reply indicating that I was more than welcome to use the image. I took a particular interest in this artist, mostly because I very rarely receive such a quick or generous response.

So, armed with my trusty Google, I began to do more research into the artist and his/her work. I'm glad that I did. It turns out that a portion of this artist's work involves the nude portrayal of what I would consider pre-teen girls. I will leave it for others more qualified than I to debate the issue of what is or is not appropriate in this area. I do not know where the legal lines are drawn—either in this country (America), or in the artist's country (not America)—between what is art, and what is exploitation. I draw my own lines on such subjects, and this artist's work went well beyond them. I decided that I was not comfortable using his/her "fan-art" images (of which there is nothing exploitative), or doing anything that would promote his/her work.

A word of caution, then. If you wish to use material that you find on the Internet, it is not enough that you contact the creator of the material and ask their permission (although you should certainly do that). Investigate further. Much further. If you don't, you risk inadvertently attaching yourself to, or promoting, the works and ideas of someone whose values, and vision, may be substantially different from your own.

Oh Say Can You ... Wait?

2007-01-27T04:23:00.000-06:00

Clearly some of us were more excited than others ...

We went to my wife's "Oath Ceremony" today. She was to be granted American citizenship. It was the end of a long road for her. The adventure began at 0830. We left the house and went over to pick up her mom. From there we had to stop at an ATM for some money ... we suspected that we were going to have to pay for parking ... and it was but the grace of God that I chose to take out $25 ... which gave me a $20 and a $5. The $5 wound up being essential to the entire day.

We drove downtown and the first shock of the day hit. They had started a bunch of road construction smack-ass on my planned route ... the route that we planned yesterday when we drove by the Federal Courthouse and figured everything out. How in the hell could they fuck shit up that bad in less than twenty four hours? But they did. I do not "do" downtown ... and its bullshit one-way streets and absolutely absurd layout. By the time I got near the Federal Courthouse and found a freakin place to park (for which I had to have exactly one $5 bill, or get towed), it was 0920. The letter that my wife was clutching desperately to her chest said we needed to be there at 0930. My wife's mother walks about .000000003000000021456 mph. I left them in the dirt, dragging my son behind me like a box-kite. My theory was that I could at least get in the building and tell somebody that my wife was in the vicinity, and that she would be along in a few days.

I hit a line. Turns out you have to metal-detect and show I.D. to get into the Federal Courthouse. We regrouped and showed the man our various forms of i.d. He noticed that I was out of breath and made some small comment. I let on as how we sure as heck wouldn't want to miss THIS particular 0930 appointment. He gave me a funny look, and then told me that the oath ceremony wouldn't even begin until 1230.

That was when I started to get a little worried.

It took us about ten minutes to get through the metal-detector. For whatever reason I had a crap-load of change in my pockets, and then when I had everything in the little basket, I still beeped going in. "Belt please." Grrr.

There was some confusion as to where we were supposed to go, beyond "check-point Charlie." The letter that she had received said "3rd floor, Room: none." As is usually the case when my wife and I don't have the faintest idea where we are supposed to go or what we are supposed to do, we start getting snappy with each other. Looking back, I wonder why we even thought it a problem. We found one huge courtroom at the end of a long hall with several hundred people gathered there, most of them looking like they were from a foreign countries. What the hell else would they be doing there?

We were hustled in and told to sit. We picked the back bench, left side. Shortly after that, an attractive and very professional looking black woman stood up and began to speak. She told us how the first part of the process would work ... essentially, sit there until your name is called, go down to the front, review your paperwork, turn in your resident card (the infamous green-card, which is not green, by the way) sign your certificate, grab a paper to fill out that will change your social security status from resident to citizen, take a seat number and head on down to the cafe in the basement for coffee and snacks. Be back in this courtroom at 1130 to prepare for the ceremony.

One hour and fifty minutes later, at 1120, when they finally called my wife's name, it occurred to us that we might not get to join the gang down in the cafe. Or get snacks. My six-year old son was a wonder through it all. He managed to sit through the entire ordeal with only a few episodes of the fidgets, and all I had to do to bribe him was promise to buy him a pet goldfish.

My wife hadn't even made it back up the aisle after having filled out her paperwork when the man started asking to see people's numbers. It was time for the applicants to take their seats down in the front, just to the left of the "bench." Other people were passing out a papers to the onlookers, an itinerary of the naturalization proceedings that would begin at 1200.

Thirty more minutes of waiting. I took the opportunity to explain to my son the significance of what was about to occur, and to advise him that once the guy came in and said "all rise!" there would be a moratorium on fart jokes and tickle games. At one point, the Designated Naturalization Examiner, Citizenship and Immigration Services, Department of Homeland Security representative wanted the applicants to practice the part where she would read out the names of the various countries from which the applicants had come, at which point the applicant(s) in question where to stand briefly and be recognized. Two interesting things happened at this point. First, when the representative called out Mexico, over half of the 150 some-odd applicants stood up. The onlookers in the gallery began to laugh, presumably because such a large portion of the applicants were (soon to be former) Mexican nationals. It struck me as odd that so many people would laugh. Given the recent attention on illegal immigrants from that country, I think they should have been applauding, rather than laughing. The incident made me uncomfortable. The second incident occurred when the country of Russia was called out. It turned out that the Russian woman didn't understand or speak English, and the people sitting around her had to quickly devise a signal system where-by the woman could be alerted when it was her turn to stand. I learned later that the incident annoyed the hell out of my wife, and several other applicants to whom she spoke. They were in general agreement that one ought to speak and understand a certain amount of English in order to become an American citizen, particularly since it is one of the requirements set out in the Naturalization process. I tend to agree with them on this point.

At 1200, on the dot, the man said "all rise!" and three judges swooped into the room and took their seats on the bench. The United States District Court, Western District of Oklahoma, was now in session. The Chief Judge made a few remarks, then she asked the Homeland Security rep to present the applicants. There followed a long spiel in which the examiner advised the court that the applicants had met all the requirements, and she asked the court to accept them and administer the Oath of Allegiance.

The courtroom darkened, and on a screen at the back of the room, to the right of the bench, President George Bush appeared to welcome everybody aboard. After that, there was a short and inspiring video, set to the tune of Lee Greenwood's "God Bless the U.S.A."

The Oath of Allegiance followed, the penultimate point of the proceedings. All of the applicants were asked to stand and raise their right hand. The Clerk of Court read the Oath in parts, and the applicants repeated it.

"I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state or sovereignty, of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the armed forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God."

I have to tell you, it was quite an emotional moment for everyone involved. It was as if the importance of what was going on, right before our very eyes, suddenly occurred to everybody. For those few minutes, I completely forgot about all of the discomfort we had endured to get to that point. And as great an emotional impact as it had on me, I cannot begin to imagine what those 150 some-odd applicants were feeling. They had waited for so long, had jumped through so many hoops, had encountered so many unknown and unknowable other difficulties on their long and separate roads to this moment. I would imagine that the discomforts and delays that we went through that morning were as nothing to them.

When they stood up and raised their right hands, they were immigrants, living and working in this country as guests. When they sat back down, they were American citizens. It was the most amazing thing that I have ever seen. There were a lot of teary eyes.

After the oath ceremony, the judges (there were three of them) each made a few brief remarks. The Chief Judge presiding recognized the representatives from the Daughter's of the American Revolution, and then one of the applicants, a doctor from China, read a short speech that he had been invited to give. He spoke English, to his credit, but I don't think anybody understood much of what he said through his accent. It didn't matter, when he was finished, we all applauded and cheered.

Everybody stood to say the Pledge of Allegiance, the Chief Judge made some closing remarks, and then the man banged the gavel and it was over.

Almost. It took another twenty minutes for my wife to actually get her certificate, and then we had to stand in another line for about forty minutes after that to change her social security status from resident to citizen. A young woman from Ghana, dressed in her full military outfit, was filling out her form beside us as we stood in line. My wife (who can be a bit nosy, but generally in a kindly manner) leaned over to the young woman and said "No. You are a citizen now." The woman had--probably from habit--checked the "resident" box on her form. The look of confidence and relief on my wife's face, and on the faces of the other newly minted American citizens around me, was transcendental. I would have stood there another four hours, if that was what it had taken, talking and joking with those happy, smiling people.

We left the courthouse at about 0130, and by 0200 we were all sitting in a nice little Mexican restaurant, eating a fine dinner and celebrating. There's not much to say beyond that. I was very blessed to have had that experience in my life. It's not the sort of thing that everyone gets to see. I found a quote while searching the Internet, and I think it sums the experience up nicely. It is by a man named George Mardikian. Mr. Mardikian was a naturalized American citizen born in Armenia, and he was awarded the US Medal of Freedom for his service to US servicemen during the Korean war.

You who have been born in America, I wish I could make you understand what it is like not to be an American -- not to have been an American all your life -- and then suddenly with the words of a judge in flowing robes to be one, for that moment and forever after. One moment, you belong with your fathers to a million dead yesterdays -- the next you belong with America to a million unborn tomorrows.

I don't think it can be expressed any better than that.

How NOT To Market Your "Niche" Software

2007-01-26T01:42:00.000-06:00

In my constant, ongoing, never-ending, all-consuming quest for a word processor that doesn't make me want to commit violent crimes, I ran across a program called PageFour. Let me start off by saying that PageFour is an excellent product. This isn't a product review, so I will provide a link below for people who want to look into it further.

PageFour is the creation of an independant software developer in the UK, operating under the name imbt Software. It is intended as an alternative to the more business-oriented word processors, such as MS Word, and it is geared primarily toward people who write creatively. To this end, I think PageFour is an overwhelming success. The product does what I want it to do, the way I want it done, and it lets me turn crap on, rather than having to figure out how to turn it all off.

The software is available for download online. Essentially, you download a trial version of the software that allows you to test-drive all of it's features, but limits the number of files ("notebooks" and "pages," in PageFour parlance) that you can create. If you decide to use the product, then you can pay for a license that will fully activate the product on your system. At about $30, the price is very attractive and commensurate to the product offered, and the entire trial-and-purchase process seems very straight forward, and well thought-out.

But I don't think that I will be purchasing a license to use this product, and out of fairness to the developer I will have to delete the trial version of PageFour from my computer. The problem has nothing to do with the product, which is excellent, as I've already said. The problem is the manner in which the developer has chosen to present his word processor. I am at best a reluctant online shopper. This is due largely to my innate distrust of the Internet, and my reticence to provide personal information -- particularly bank or credit card information -- to anyone online, however legitimate they may be. The result is that I tend to scrutinize an online business much more carefully than I might were I purchasing something at a "brick and mortar" store.

To this end, I began to investigate the developer. I searched the product on the Absolute Write message board, where I had first heard of it. There wasn't a great deal of buzz about it, for a board of that size, but what references I could find were generally positive. I saw that the developer himself had joined the group and, in the appropriate forum, had attempted to promote his product. I also noticed that he had joined the forum in December of 2005, and that he had only made nine posts in all of that time, the latest being in March of 2006. For some reason that set off some alarm bells for me, particularly the date of the last post, or more specifically, the lack of further posts after that date. What was going on?

Curious, I went to the developer's blog. The latest post on that blog was dated October, 2006. Again I was struck by the date. Why the three-plus months of silence? Further down in the blog I came across an article by the developer entitled "Things I did Wrong--PageFour Deconstructed." In it, the developer outlines what he believes to be the main reasons that his product is not more commercially successful. That was all it took. My confidence level plummeted, and I decided not to pursue the issue any further.

Given that PageFour is clearly an excellent and useful product, I think the lesson is this: Even if you are a small, or independent software developer, don't act like one. Maintain a visible and professional presence. If you are going to have a blog in support of your product, update it regularly. It was quite evident to me, simply by checking the dates of the blog posts, that the blog was created about the same time the product was made available, and that both have slowly faded into silence as the product sales failed to meet the developer's expectations. Don't discuss your marketing failures, or, if you must, at least don't discuss them on the same forum that you use to promote the product you are having difficulty marketing. It's rather off-putting, and in at least one case (my own) resulted in a "thanks-but-no-thanks." It would be far better to remain silent on the issue, move on to your next (presumably more successful) project, and let the quality of the former product speak for itself.

I hope the best for imbt Software. If PageFour is any indication, I believe that this developer will offer many exciting and useful programs in the future. Until then, I hope that he (she, they) take a serious look at their marketing strategy, and use such tools as they have better to their advantage. In the meantime, my quest for the perfect word processor goes on.

And on...and on...and on...

You can check out PageFour, and the related imbt blog here, and here.

Word (Again)

2007-01-23T06:39:00.000-06:00

What is it about MS Word that makes me want to drown kittens? I don't know why in God's great name I can't get this word processor to work for me. I've discussed it with some of the folks over at the Absolute Write message board, and most of them agree that I must be some sort of moron.

It doesn't matter what automatic thing I track down and shut off, there is always something else Word wants to do for me that I don't want done. Our latest conflict is over the TAB feature. I have everything set up such that, when I open Word, I am presented with a blank document set up with all the format specifications that I want. I turned off every auto whatsit that I could find. I even learned how (and where) to rid myself of that annoying "Widow/Orphan" control thing. And yet, invariably, somewhere along the line, Word decides to start tabbing for me every time I hit the "enter" key at the end of a paragraph. Since I am used to doing this myself, I wind up with two tabs, and the first sentence of the paragraph is five extra spaces too far right. There is a little marker in the ruler at the top of the screen, and when I drag it back to where it should be, the line of text moves flush to the left margin. Go back down to tab that line back over, and the damn marker resets again. Somebody at AW suggested that I ctrl-a to highlight the entire document, then move the stupid tab marker back where I want it. Problem is, when I hit ctrl-a and highlight the document, the stinking ruler disappears completely, taking that annoying marker with it.

My current project involves a lot of cutting from one file and pasting into another, along with the addition of new material. Half of my quotation marks are "smart quotes," the other half are all "straight quotes," and the two mix and mingle like guests at a friggen Star Trek convention. I've tried various free word processors that you can download online. Most of them suck, and the rest simply don't work. It's an exercise in futility, at any rate, because everything has to be brought back over into Word before I can submit it anyway.

I've begun to notice a certain smugness among experienced Word users. There seems to be this underlying assumption that, if I'm a real writer, then it is my job to know how to operate MS Word. I think that's a load of crap. I think that the publishing industry ought to have as it's standard a word processor designed for writers, not for business applications. At the very least, Word should come with a big button labeled "all automatic crap OFF," so that I could just turn on those features that I need, when I need them.

Might save a few kitties.

The Whipped Dog Returneth

2007-01-20T06:03:00.000-06:00

Well, let's see how this works. Just added a hack from hackosphere to get those fancy "peekaboo" posts that seem all the rage. We'll see how that goes. There is also the matter what to do with all the old posts on this blog. If you've been following along, then you know that I had abandoned this blog due to problems with Blogger.

Well, I'm back. My little experiment with "Blue Host" and "Wordpress" didn't go the way that I had planned, and it cost me $100 to boot. It is simply beyond my ability to create and maintain my own website (or blog) and as piss-poor as the customer service is on Blogger, it is marginally better than no customer service whatsoever. The truth is, I simply do not care to learn all that crap. Or, more specifically, I don't care to learn any more than I have to. I don't mind fiddling with the html on Blogger, mostly because I can always save and go back if I absolutely botch it all to hell. Over at the Blue Host site, I was casting about in the wilderness.

Updates: I'm pretty much back to square one with The Tronovich Ghost, my YA novel. The first rough draft came out at just under 30,000 words, which is about 20,000 words short of what that market wants. I'm not the kind of writer who can effectively go back over it and plug new scenes in, or "pad" the ones that I already have. So I am sitting here with a copy of the original manuscript on the desk in front of me, starting over from scratch. It is a quandry, because part of me (most of me, actually) wants to just chuck the thing and move on to something else. But the bottom line is that I've already put too much time and effort into this story, and it is getting better during the rewrite process. So here I still am. I guess the pirate-girl is just going to have to hang out in her dressing room for awhile. Maybe she and the "love interest" can practice their sex-scenes.

Mmmmmm...

After The Game

2007-01-19T07:44:00.000-06:00

Click On Photo For Larger Image

This turned out okay. It's a family photo, with effects done in Photo Studio 2000. I'm not real big into photo-art stuff, but every once in awhile I get bored and something semi-cool results. I would say that my current ratio is about one decent image for every ten that I attempt. An "attempt" is defined as the length of time I can goof around with a picture before I get sick of the whole process and click it all away.

An Interview With Elissa Malcohn, Former Editor Of Star*Line

2007-01-18T10:24:00.000-06:00

I began writing speculative poetry in high school and saw my work published in various speculative poetry magazines from the mid 80's through the early 90's. The market was surprisingly good for such a small genre. A few small press magazines, such as The Magazine of Speculative Poetry, were devoted entirely to the form.

There were a handful of small press science fiction, fantasy and horror magazines that would publish poetry specific to their genre, and several larger magazines such as Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine and Amazing Stories were open to science fiction oriented speculative poetry as well. But the premier magazine for speculative poetry in those days was the Science Fiction Poetry Association's (SFPA)official newsletter Star*Line, created by SFPA founder Suzette Haden Elgin in 1977. I recently contacted former Star*Line editor Elissa Malcohn, and she was kind enough to grant me the following interview. Ms. Malcohn was editor at Star*Line from 1986 through 1988, and had been the newsletter's associate editor for a year prior to that. The interview provides an insight into the small, eclectic community of writers who call themselves speculative poets, and we get to meet one of the genre's prime movers.

VG- How did you discover Star*Line, and how did you become editor there?
EM- I discovered the Science Fiction Poetry Association (SFPA) and Star*Line in 1980 at Noreascon II: my first visit to Boston and the first of two Worldcons I attended. At that conference I'd written "Ybba", the first poem I submitted to Star*Line, on the back of the only flyer I could find that wasn't printed on both sides. Speculative poetry was a completely new form for me, though I'd been submitting science fiction prose (short stories and my first, unpublished, novel) since the mid-70s. I was also submitting poetry to mainstream publications.

Robert Frazier edited Star*Line then. When he accepted "Ybba" and invited me to submit more material I jumped at the chance. I'd had a smattering of publications up to that point, but Star*Line was the first to accept my work fairly consistently.

In 1983 I moved from New York to Massachusetts. Bob and his family lived on Nantucket and invited me to visit. I spent several wonderful days with them, during which time Bob showed me the editorial ropes. At that point I became Star*Line's assistant editor, and then became editor about a year later.

VG- What did you enjoy most about editing Star*Line?
EM- Simply connecting with people and being exposed to a variety of visions and styles.

VG- Why did you leave Star*Line?
EM- I was dealing with health problems and family crises, which when combined with work and economic pressures led to my dropping off the face of the earth as far as publications were concerned. I am very thankful to everyone who picked up the reins -- Bob Frazier, Frances Langelier, Bruce Boston, Chuck and Susan Noe Rothman, and others -- and would like to take this opportunity to apologize for all those things I'd inadvertently let slip through the cracks.

VG- When you were at Star*Line, what qualities in a submitted poem made it a "keeper?" What would you say was the most common reason for a poem being rejected?
EM- I tell my students that the whole submissions and editorial process is ultimately subjective. When I rejected a poem I wrote, "Another editor may feel differently." I've been on the other side of that equation as well.

A poem can grab me through its crafting of language and its ideas. How is conventional language used in unconventional ways? How are metaphors used to engage the imagination? Some of the poems I rejected were literal depictions of everyday events, and which I believed did not possess enough wordplay to make the leap into the speculative realm. Some were simply too long for Star*Line's format, though we did sometimes publish long poems. Some, I felt, simply needed much more crafting.

VG- Did you use a computer to put Star*Line together back in those days, or did you have to cut and paste? Describe the process of putting Star*Line together.
EM- For most of my tenure, layout was strictly cut-and-paste, complete with scissors and glue stick along with rub-on lettering. I used White-out to mask paper lines. Before I could get enough art submissions I also created collages by copying, cutting, and pasting clip art taken from old Dover books. I used a computer to generate the text, but in those days I loaded a primitive word-processing program from an eight-inch floppy disk and used a daisy-wheel printer. I then sent camera-ready copy to Bruce Boston, then at Berkeley.

VG- Star*Line is nearing 30 years of publication. Did you think it would go this far? Would you be more likely to say that you like the new Star*Line, or that you miss "the old days"?
EM- I don't think I ever thought in terms of whether Star*Line would or wouldn't last. I was very excited to help educate people about speculative poetry back in the 80s, and I am thrilled to be doing so again in publications like PFM. When I compare new and old issues of Star*Line side by side I see continuity rather than discontinuity. The vocabulary may reflect new technologies and cultural changes, but the poetic underpinnings -- the power and crafting of that vocabulary -- remain the same for me.

VG- Besides Star*Line, there were several other speculative poetry magazines back in the mid 80's. What were some of your favorites?
EM- The Magazine of Speculative Poetry (Roger Dutcher, ed.) and Velocities (Andrew Joron, ed.) -- along with Aurora and Tales of the Unanticipated, small-press magazines that included speculative poetry.

VG- How do you define the term "speculative poetry"? What makes a poem "speculative"? Do you make a distinction between speculative poetry and science fiction poetry?
EM- I consider science fiction poetry to be a subset of speculative poetry -- and would say the same for fantasy, horror, and science poetry. An article of mine, forthcoming in the Winter 2007 issue of Poets' Forum Magazine, introduces the concept of speculative poetry to the general readership. PFM is interactive, introducing poetic forms and concepts and providing its readers with "challenges".

Expanding on the SFPA's definition of speculative poetry as driven by speculation, I wrote, "Such poetry often uses metaphors to engage the imagination and go beyond everyday reality. Even writing about the world around us, but using language other than what one might expect, can create a speculative poem."

For that reason I would place works such as Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Raven” and Diane Ackerman’s volume of astronomical poems, The Planets: A Cosmic Pastoral (William Morrow & Co., 1977) in the speculative poetry category.

VG- Do you think that speculative poetry has achieved the recognition that you and others were striving for back in the mid 80's?
EM- I've been away from the field for more than a decade so I haven't followed the trajectory, but I can point to several instances of recognition. Within the mainstream arena, the National Federation of State Poetry Societies (http://www.nfsps.com/index.htm) has featured at least two speculative categories in its annual contests. The Futuristic Award asks for a poem "that is optimistic, sensitive and persuasive concerning 2057 AD." A past category, the Cecilia Parsons Miller Memorial Award, called for poetry of a fantastic and/or mythological nature.

Within the genre, my info comes from the speculative poetry panel at Necronomicon, which occurred in Tampa at the end of October 2006. ("Necro" was the first science fiction convention I'd attended in almost 20 years. There I met Marge Simon and Bruce Boston in person for the first time. I had corresponded with them while I was editor of Star*Line.) Once used mainly as “filler” in science fiction magazines when it was published at all, speculative poetry now can fill one or more pages, with credit in the table of contents. Such was already happening in the 80s, but that recognition seems to be more prevalent now.

As I am newly discovering, e-zines and blogs disseminate literary work, including speculative poetry, to broad audiences that might not have discovered the form in a hardcopy-only world. Online market lists further increase that exposure.

A guest essay of mine ("Using Metaphor to Terrify") has just been published as part of Marge Simon's [current editor of Star*Line] regular column for the Horror Writers Association, "Blood & Spades: Poets of the Dark Side" (December 2006). In addition to being delighted when Marge solicited my article, I was also happy to see a regular column at the HWA devoted to poetry. Illustrating the broad range of speculative poetry, two of the three poems accompanying the article were recent award-winners in FSPA contests. The third had originally appeared in The Magazine of Speculative Poetry back in 1985.

VG- What other publications have you edited?
EM- I've edited the annual anthology of the Florida State Poets Association (FSPA) since 2005 (I've produced it since 2003) and continue to do so. I also have edited and produced the (non-literary) newsletter of the Art Center of Citrus County since June 2006 and recently chaired the committee that updated its format. Back in the 70s I edited and produced several publications at my undergraduate alma mater, Wagner College: its literary magazine, Nimbus; psychology department newsletter, Hallucinations; and The Note, newletter of its honorary music society Alpha Tau Mu. In 1995 I edited the newsletter of the first Boston-New York AIDS Ride.

VG- You mentioned that you have been away from the field for a while; why was that, and do you have any future plans involving speculative poetry?
EM- I've recently rejoined the SFPA and look forward to getting involved in that organization again. I'm excited at the prospect of bridging speculative and mainstream arenas, both with the article forthcoming in PFM and with a report I wrote on Necronomicon's speculative poetry panel, forthcoming in the FSPA newsletter Of Poets And Poetry.

My "disappearance" began in October 1988 when I left my employer to start my own business, formalizing the freelance work I'd done all along to supplement my day job. Thanks to finally finding the right medication for a physical ailment, I was also living relatively pain-free for the first time in 18 years. Long work hours put a severe damper on my Muse but stretched me in other ways. After two years of fulltime freelance work I again became an employee while continuing my independent business. During this time I also taught science fiction writing at the Cambridge Center for Adult Education and creative writing at the Dorchester Center for Adult Education. In 2003 I again left employment to pursue fulltime freelancing.

I was also exploring new creative and other avenues. In the early 90s I produced a cassette tape of original music after I'd bought a Mac to meet client requirements and realized that I could experiment with MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface). In 1995 I did the first Boston-New York AIDS Ride, thrilled to bicycle from my adopted to my native city. At the end of that year I also began a relationship with my partner, Mary, whom I had met in the "Women Writing" group at the Cambridge Women's Center; we celebrate our 11th anniversary this month (December 2006). We trained for a year before hiking to the floor of the Grand Canyon and back up again in 1998.

I became involved in a local chapter of the international "Goddess 2000" project and began experimenting with mixed-media art. That led to my participation in shows at the Zeitgeist Gallery (Cambridge, MA), Massachusetts College of Art (Boston), A Strong Cup of Coffee (Dorchester, MA), and now the Art Center of Citrus County in central Florida. I also helped organize the first Dorchester Open Studios.

The stresses of 9/11 came very shortly after a cousin with whom I was very close died at age 44. I coped by taking up running, and continued that activity up to the time of my father's death in 2002 (my mother had died 20 years earlier). Mary and I moved to Florida in 2003. Thanks to the Internet I've kept some Boston clients, picked up new ones, and work locally as well, teaching creative writing at the Art Center. (My course and a co-ed, free-writing group that I patterned after "Women Writing" mark the center's first regular activities devoted to creative writing.) In 2005 I purchased my first "good camera" and have exhibited and sold some photographic work. My website (a search for "Malcohn's World" should get you there) lists additional community activities.

Following our move down here I returned to my own creative writing in earnest and have been trying to get back up to speed in the industry. Given that the Internet didn't exist for the general public when I was last active, I feel a bit like Rip Van Winkle.

VG- I understand that you recently signed a contract for a book called Covenant. What can you tell us about Covenant, and when can we look for it?
EM- Covenant, the first volume of my trilogy Deviations, is forthcoming from Koboca Publishing in November 2007. That story has particular relevance for this interview because it was inspired by Joseph Payne Brennan's 15-line poem, "When Tigers Pass" (from his Sixty Selected Poems, The New Establishment Press, 1985). I forget where I bought the Brennan volume, but I'm sure it was within the speculative poetry arena. Although Brennan was known mainly as a horror writer, he had also published seven poetry collections.

I read "When Tigers Pass" while riding the bus home from work in November 1985. By the time I reached my stop I was mentally outlining a short story -- which, though praised by peers, was also criticized as needing more information and explanation. I put the draft away because I was working on other projects at the time. After moving to Florida I dug out the draft and my old critiques and began to expand the story into what became Deviations.

From my pitch: "Long ago the Masari and the Yata hunted together in peace, until the species they drove to extinction included those possessing nutrients necessary to Masari survival. The Yata then became the only source of those nutrients. Deviations tells how these peoples cope with the reality of being sentient creatures forced to play the roles of predator and prey, and how several of them try to thwart long-established conventions in the hope of overcoming their biological imperative. In Deviations love triumphs in the midst of death. The series focuses on the social, ethical, and spiritual dilemmas surrounding both the literal cannibalism of the societies involved and the many ways in which their different communities feed off each other."

Covenant takes its title from the religious system that embodies one method of coping. The conflict that system engenders sets the stage for larger upheavals across the region in a pre-industrial, Earth-like world.

VG- Any chance that you will be editing another speculative poetry magazine in the future?
EM- I imagine I'm fairly out of touch with the genre at this point, and would want to catch up with recent publications. Afterwards -- who knows?

VG- In your entire career to date, writing or editing, what are you most proud of?
EM- I write from my own corner of the human condition in the hope that a reader can relate to what my Muse delivers. I had no inkling of the attention that "Lazuli" (Asimov's, Nov. 1984) would get, but what affected me most was learning that it has helped some readers deal with their own trauma of abuse. I had drafted the story after attending one of Ellen Bass's "I Never Told Anyone" workshops. Part of its text is taken from writing I did as part of that workshop.

I enjoy being a facilitator. Many people want to express themselves but are intimidated by the act of writing. I gear both my teaching and my free-writing group toward overcoming that intimidation. Often people come to the group claiming they "can't write" and then surprise themselves. If they are looking or ready for criticism I direct them to a local critique group in which I am also active, and which has helped me a great deal as well.

If you would like to learn more about Ms. Malcohn and her work you can find her at Malcohn's World and Chronicles From Hurricane Country.