Fiction Fridays: Tower in the Crooked Wood

Johanson, Paula : Tower in the Crooked Wood
(Bundoran Press, $11.95, November 2008, cover art Erich Schreiner)

I very recently got a chance to read Paula Johanson's YA Novel 'Tower in the Crooked Wood'. Why am I reading Young Adult Fiction?
Why not?!

I'm not young, sure, but I enjoy quality speculative fiction no matter who it's targeted toward. Recently my wife and I have been on a YA novel kick, though I'm unsure if everything in the Twilight Series is really 'Young Adult'. YA fiction has a lot to recommend it, one thing being a lack of pretentiousness. By it's very nature it's accessible to the reader and there are a lot of good authors writing young adult work. Paula Johanson being one of them.

At it's core 'Tower in the Crooked Wood' is a fantasy novel about a young woman trying to bring an end to an evil that is inflicting suffering and death on many people, including her own family. My one sentence outline makes it sound similar to many fantasy novels, and that's a failing on my part. This story is not some tired rehash of an orphan hero who saves the world, though that is what does kindof happen. Instead it is the story of a young woman struggling with emotions like loyalty, vengeance, & love, all the while discovering her own inner confidence and sense of self.
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Jenia, the hero, is an orphan, raised in a small village of mud huts. She's more comfortable trimming fruit trees, than she is in the environment that she now finds herself in. At the beginning of the story we realize that Jenia is running from man and beast, in an unfamiliar land and seeking a "..cursed mountain that she'd left bloody footprints on..".

Very shortly into the tale Jenia finds not what she was seeking (a great evil), but the exact opposite. After her long journey full of danger and fear, and after many sacrifices in pursuit of her goal, the greatest challenge she faces is the one offered by the warmth, respect, and even love of the villagers of Tlakwa.

Paula Johanson's solid writing paints a picture of the life of these villagers as Jenia assimilates into their world. They are a good people, full of love and laughter who's worldview is at times shockingly at odds with Jenia's. There is quite the subtext on the nature of war and the reasons behind fighting.

There are scenes in this story that are very familiar to someone, like me, who's lived on the west coast of Canada for a number of years. At one point Jenia, shortly after enjoying a meal of clams, is walking across the beach and realizes that just as she's discarded the shells from her meal on this beach, so have others. In fact so many others that the beach was almost entirely made of up shells or shell fragments. At that moment Jenia sees the vastness of time stretching behind her, and, with her small pile of shells, ahead of her.

It is scenes like the one above that differentiate this story. Paula Johanson has created a believable world for the village of Tlakwa. The people have a culture and a history. This should be expected from someone who is also a successful science fact writer, but the way those details are used shows Paula Johanson's strength as a storyteller. The Tlakwa have traditions and beliefs that challenge Jenia to examine her own values and morals. Here Paula Johanson gives us a wonderful view into the thoughts and emotions that drive Jenia. At the end we are able empathize with her, because we understand her. We share in her conflict, her triumphs and sorrows.

This a great coming of age story with a strong female lead that any reader of speculative fiction will enjoy. In a time when young adult fiction seems to be getting more and more graphically dark in content, this story was refreshing. 'Tower in the Crooked Wood' is available from the publishers website (first 2 chapters free!), if it's not in your local bookstore or library.



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Botox, Loss of Empathy and Darwin

There's an article about the evolution of facial expressions published in 2008 at Discover Magazine. The Article (3 decent pages) goes into detail on Darwins fascination with human and animal facial expressions. The author (Carl Zimmer) traces the early studies of Darwin in this field through to the understanding of modern science. It's fascinating stuff, especially when they start talking about the Botox.
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According to science a good part of our ability to understand facial expressions, to empathize with people, depends on our ability to mimic the expression. When we mimic someone's expression, we actually experience the emotion. As Darwin discovered even understanding the snarl of a dog is easy once you writhe your own lips and expose teeth (which makes me wonder about mimicking alien faces).

In different studies researchers paralysed or otherwise limited people's ability to smile. They found that this inhibited the test subject's ability to understand/recognize a smile in a picture. Using brain scans researchers have actually mapped a direct link between facial muscles and brain activity in the emotion centres.

Fascinating stuff. But where is the Botox? Well it so happens that not only are researchers paralysing facial muscles, but so are plastic surgeons. And the muscles they tend to paralyse the most? Frown lines.

People are unable to frown, and thus are less able to understand/empathize with the emotions that produces those frowns. Emotions like anger and sadness. It can be theorized that this is leading to a happier population. Fewer people frowning, triggering few empathetic frown responses, and the spiral goes down to zero. It may even explain why the Stars seem to have a better life than the rest of us. They do have a better life. They can't get sad or feel the pain of others as easily.

However the article finishes with this comment on our Botox Culture:
"But for all the Botox youthfulness plastic surgeons may want to think about, neuroscience raises a darker possibility. Making faces helps us understand how other people are feeling. By altering our faces we’re tampering with the ancient lines of communication between face and brain that may change our minds in ways we don’t yet understand."


Now that could be an interesting story.



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Best writing advice EVER?

Not from me, however there are a few established authors willing to give that question a spin. Over at SF Signal are the collected answers of a number of authors, Ben Bova through to Robert Silverburg, in a little thing SF Signal calls a 'Mind Meld'. I suspect they borrowed the term from somewhere. ;)

The best advice I personally received came during a writing course conducted by Paula Johanson.
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She asked each of us if we wanted to become writers. Then, after a number of affirmative responses, she produced her magic wand (it was invisible!) and waved it over our heads, pronouncing the magic words "Yew Err Wryters". (Only it sounded more like "You are writers"). Then she said "Ok, that's done. Now there's nothing stopping you. Time to get started."

The point is: There really is nothing stopping you, or anyone from being a writer. Even Stephen Hawking writes and he arguably faces challenges most of us can't conceive of. Much of the advice in the SF Signal article is similar. Just write, don't fret or worry too much about it, just get the words on the paper. Once they are down then you can go nuts on the editing or submitting, but get the story out first.

Yesterday morning I found myself unable to finish my story for my writing group. It was due in the evening and I was stalled only a couple of thousand words in. I had already revised the beginning twice and changed the whole story in my head a dozen times.

In the end I had to produce something and felt like I'd made a mess of this story. So I put that story aside and sat down to start writing something new, something fresh. For the rest of the day I wrote and by the evening I had a story. It was a complete simple piece that didn't even need much editing to make it ready to send to the group. The key was I stopped questioning myself, my ideas or my story and instead just wrote.



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The Valiant tastes of Death but once

Shakespeare's Julius Caesar:

Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste death but once.
Of all the wonders that I have yet heard,
It seems to me most strange that men should fear,
Seeing that death, a necessary end,
Will come when it come.


Richard Clancey was the teacher that gave me the world through the sharing of his passion for literature. For three years I had the privilege of being one of his students.
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I remember the smell of chalk, wooden desks and old books. I remember sitting in tightly packed rows of desks, while we read from a play, or watched one of our many debates. But I don't remember boring vocabulary lists and long droning lectures on grammar.

Mr. Clancey's room was more than a classroom; it was a sanctuary where we could explore literature, and the ideas that drove it. It was a battlefield where in debates passion could trump logic, where we tested and formed our own beliefs and ideals.

Mr. Clancey was more than a Teacher, he was our Moderator, our Mentor and our Friend. We were given the gift of being taught by someone who truly cared for us. Someone who shared his wisdom and experience happily. Mr. Clancey's legacy is the passion that he gave his students for something so generically called 'English'.

In his obituary a line was quoted from the "The Parting Glass", an old Irish (drinking) song. I've copied it below with a few more lines from the verse.


Of all the comrades e'er I had, they're sorry for my going away.
And all the sweethearts e'er I had, they wish me one more day to stay.

But since it falls unto my lot that I should go and you should not I'll gently rise and softly call, good night and joy be with you all. Fill to him the parting glass.



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Market Mondays: Contests - Free Ones

Continuing on a little bit of a contest theme from last week, I've compiled a short list of some of the better Speculative Fiction Contests to enter. Ones with a name that are reasonably trustworthy.
* though I will note the Hubbard one does send a lot of emails, if you sign up for the newsletter
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FREE Short Fiction Contests: (no entry fee)

The L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future Short Fiction Contest. Each year the winners of the contest wind up published in the Writers of the Future Anthology. Good books, and many good Authors have been winners in the past. This is a contest judged by some of the biggest names in the industry : Kevin J. Anderson, Gregory Benford, Orson Scott Card, Anne McCaffrey, Larry Niven, Frederik Pohl, Jerry Pournelle, Robert Silverberg and more.
Quarterly Entries.

The Jim Baen Memorial Short Fiction Contest sponsored by The National Space Society and Baen Books . This is a great contest meant to really encourage new writers. There are no guarantees of being published but the opportunity to have your writing evaluated by Baen Books senior editor Hank Davis and Authors Eric Flint and Mike Resnick is pretty valuable.
Deadline: April 1, 2009.

PARSEC Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Story Contest. This is the 14th iteration of this annual contest. This year the judges are Tor Books Author Walter Hunt, Young Adult Author Sarah Beth Durst, and Author S.C.Butler. The winner will be published in the program book for the Confluence 2009, the annual literary Sci-Fi convention in Pittsburgh.
Deadline: April 15, 2009

The First Annual Spectra Pulse Short Fiction Contest. This one actually closes in a few days, but I'm mentioning it because it meets the criteria of a good contest and with luck will be run again next year. This contest is sponsored by Bantam Spectra, which ultimately traces back to Random House Publishing. This contest will feature the winners story in the summer issue of Spectra.
Deadline: January 31, 2009

Good luck. If you are looking for more contests, below are some of the sites I use.

The Canadian Authors Association website lists a number of markets, and contests.

Ralan's Webstravaganza contains both Market listings and contest listings.

Good information can also be found at Young Adult Author David Barr Kirtley's Resources for Teen Authors (not all the contests there are restricted to teens).

* remember to evaluate the contests before committing your work or money to anything



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Fiction Fridays: Vanity List

In this case the Vanity part is marking off all of the titles I've read on the list of 149 SF&F Novels Everyone must read. This started with a series of articles at The Guardian covering the 1000 Novels Everyone Must read. My copy of the list was taken from the SF Signal article where this little meme began.

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The Bolded Titles are ones that I have read. I counted 44, but my eyes went blurry near the end. This is also just from memory, however what looks clear is that most of what I've read is old. I blame that on inheriting a good chunk of my Sci-Fi Collection. Though my Dad doesn't seem to think I've inherited anything yet, something about him still being alive and wanting his books back.

A couple of books or authors that I would add: The Listeners by James Gunn or anything by Gregory Benford

Feel free to copy the list and do the same in the comments or on your own blog. *Thanks to SF Signal and other bloggers for compiling it in an easy to use format.

1. Douglas Adams: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1979)
2. Brian W Aldiss: Non-Stop (1958)
3. Isaac Asimov: Foundation (1951)
4. Margaret Atwood: The Blind Assassin (2000)
5. Margaret Atwood: The Handmaid's Tale (1985)
6. Paul Auster: In the Country of Last Things (1987)
7. J.G. Ballard: The Drowned World (1962)
8. J.G. Ballard: Crash (1973)
9. J.G. Ballard: Millennium People (2003)
10. Iain Banks: The Wasp Factory (1984)
11. Iain M Banks: Consider Phlebas (1987)
12. Clive Barker: Weaveworld (1987)
13. Nicola Barker: Darkmans (2007)
14. Stephen Baxter: The Time Ships (1995)
15. Greg Bear: Darwin's Radio (1999)
16. William Beckford: Vathek (1786)
17. Alfred Bester: The Stars My Destination (1956)
18. Ray Bradbury: Fahrenheit 451 (1953)
19. Poppy Z Brite: Lost Souls (1992)
20. Charles Brockden Brown: Wieland (1798)
21. Algis Budrys: Rogue Moon (1960)
22. Mikhail Bulgakov: The Master and Margarita (1966)
23. Edward Bulwer-Lytton: The Coming Race (1871)
24. Anthony Burgess: A Clockwork Orange (1960)
25. Anthony Burgess: The End of the World News (1982)
26. Edgar Rice Burroughs: A Princess of Mars (1912)
27. William Burroughs: Naked Lunch (1959)
28. Octavia Butler: Kindred (1979)
29. Samuel Butler: Erewhon (1872)
30. Italo Calvino: The Baron in the Trees (1957)
31. Ramsey Campbell: The Influence (1988)
32. Lewis Carroll: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865)
33. Lewis Carroll: Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There (1871)
34. Angela Carter: Nights at the Circus (1984)
35. Angela Carter: The Passion of New Eve (1977)
36. Michael Chabon: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (2000)
37. Arthur C Clarke: Childhood's End (1953)
38. GK Chesterton: The Man Who Was Thursday (1908)
39. Susanna Clarke: Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell (2004)
40. Michael G Coney: Hello Summer, Goodbye (1975)
41. Douglas Coupland: Girlfriend in a Coma (1998)
42. Mark Danielewski: House of Leaves (2000)
43. Marie Darrieussecq: Pig Tales (1996)
44. Samuel R Delaney: The Einstein Intersection (1967)
45. Philip K Dick: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968)
46. Philip K Dick: The Man in the High Castle (1962)
47. Thomas M Disch: Camp Concentration (1968)
48. Umberto Eco: Foucault's Pendulum (1988)
49. Michel Faber: Under the Skin (2000)
50. John Fowles: The Magus (1966)
51. Neil Gaiman: American Gods (2001)
52. Alan Garner: Red Shift (1973)
53. William Gibson: Neuromancer (1984)
54. Charlotte Perkins Gilman: Herland (1915)
55. William Golding: Lord of the Flies (1954)
56. Joe Haldeman: The Forever War (1974)
57. M John Harrison: Light (2002)
58. Nathaniel Hawthorne: The House of the Seven Gables (1851)
59. Robert A Heinlein: Stranger in a Strange Land (1961)
60. Frank Herbert: Dune (1965)
61. Hermann Hesse: The Glass Bead Game (1943)
62. Russell Hoban: Riddley Walker (1980)
63. James Hogg: The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner (1824)
64. Michel Houellebecq: Atomised (1998)
65. Aldous Huxley: Brave New World (1932)
66. Kazuo Ishiguro: The Unconsoled (1995)
67. Shirley Jackson: The Haunting of Hill House (1959)
68. Henry James: The Turn of the Screw (1898)
69. PD James: The Children of Men (1992)
70. Richard Jefferies: After London; Or, Wild England (1885)
71. Gwyneth Jones: Bold as Love (2001)
72. Franz Kafka: The Trial (1925)
73. Daniel Keyes: Flowers for Algernon (1966)
74. Stephen King: The Shining (1977)
75. Marghanita Laski: The Victorian Chaise-longue (1953)
76. CS Lewis: The Chronicles of Narnia (1950-56)
77. Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu: Uncle Silas (1864)
78. Stanislaw Lem: Solaris (1961)
79. Ursula K Le Guin: The Earthsea series (1968-1990)
80. Ursula K Le Guin: The Left Hand of Darkness (1969)
81. Doris Lessing: Memoirs of a Survivor (1974)
82. MG Lewis: The Monk (1796)
83. David Lindsay: A Voyage to Arcturus (1920)
84. Ken MacLeod: The Night Sessions (2008)
85. Hilary Mantel: Beyond Black (2005)
86. Michael Marshall Smith: Only Forward (1994)
87. Richard Matheson: I Am Legend (1954)
88. Charles Maturin: Melmoth the Wanderer (1820)
89. Patrick McCabe: The Butcher Boy (1992)
90. Cormac McCarthy: The Road (2006)
91. Jed Mercurio: Ascent (2007)
92. China Miéville: The Scar (2002)
93. Andrew Miller: Ingenious Pain (1997)
94. Walter M Miller Jr: A Canticle for Leibowitz (1960)
95. David Mitchell: Cloud Atlas (2004)
96. Michael Moorcock: Mother London (1988)
97. William Morris: News From Nowhere (1890)
98. Toni Morrison: Beloved (1987)
99. Haruki Murakami: The Wind-up Bird Chronicle (1995)
100. Vladimir Nabokov: Ada or Ardor (1969)
101. Audrey Niffenegger: The Time Traveler's Wife (2003)
102. Larry Niven: Ringworld (1970)
103. Jeff Noon: Vurt (1993)
104. Flann O'Brien: The Third Policeman (1967)
105. Ben Okri: The Famished Road (1991)
106. George Orwell: Nineteen Eighty-four (1949)
107. Chuck Palahniuk: Fight Club (1996)
108. Thomas Love Peacock: Nightmare Abbey (1818)
109. Mervyn Peake: Titus Groan (1946)
110. Frederik Pohl & CM Kornbluth: The Space Merchants (1953)
111. John Cowper Powys: A Glastonbury Romance (1932)
112. Terry Pratchett: The Discworld series (1983- )
113. Christopher Priest: The Prestige (1995)
114. Philip Pullman: His Dark Materials (1995-2000)
115. François Rabelais: Gargantua and Pantagruel (1532-34)
116. Ann Radcliffe: The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794)
117. Alastair Reynolds: Revelation Space (2000)
118. Kim Stanley Robinson: The Years of Rice and Salt (2002)
119. JK Rowling: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (1997)
120. Geoff Ryman: Air (2005)
121. Salman Rushdie: The Satanic Verses (1988)
122. Joanna Russ: The Female Man (1975)
123. Antoine de Sainte-Exupéry: The Little Prince (1943)
124. José Saramago: Blindness (1995)
125. Will Self: How the Dead Live (2000)
126. Mary Shelley: Frankenstein (1818)
127. Dan Simmons: Hyperion (1989)
128. Olaf Stapledon: Star Maker (1937)
129. Neal Stephenson: Snow Crash (1992)
130. Robert Louis Stevenson: The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886)
131. Bram Stoker: Dracula (1897)
132. Rupert Thomson: The Insult (1996)
133. JRR Tolkien: The Hobbit (1937)
134. JRR Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings (1954-55)
135. Mark Twain: A Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur's Court (1889)
136. Kurt Vonnegut: Sirens of Titan (1959)
137. Horace Walpole: The Castle of Otranto (1764)
138. Robert Walser: Institute Benjamenta (1909)
139. Sylvia Townsend Warner: Lolly Willowes (1926)
140. Sarah Waters: Affinity (1999)
141. HG Wells: The Time Machine (1895)
142. HG Wells: The War of the Worlds (1898)
143. TH White: The Sword in the Stone (1938)
144. Angus Wilson: The Old Men at the Zoo (1961)
145. Gene Wolfe: The Book of the New Sun (1980-83)
146. Virginia Woolf: Orlando (1928)
147. John Wyndham: Day of the Triffids (1951)
148. John Wyndham: The Midwich Cuckoos (1957)
149. Yevgeny Zamyatin: We (1924)



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Contest Writing

There's a post over at The Rejecter today about Contests and Contracts. The Rejecter responds to a question about a subject rarely looked at, the obligations and restrictions upon you when you enter your work into a contest. One interesting restriction that sometimes happens is being unable to submit your work elsewhere while waiting for the contest judging to finish.

Let's be honest Speculative Fiction is a hard field to make money in, much less achieve recognition. This is really true of all artistic endeavours and while being unfortunate it does make what recognition there is all the more valuable. I have looked at many contests as routes to getting my work published. I haven't entered most though for a few reasons. The main one being cost.

Many contests require an entry fee, I understand that these fees are many times the only reason for the contest existing. The monies collected pay for prizes/andor/publication for the winners. This can be a good thing or a bad thing, especially in the age of the internet. There is very little accountability and trust possible with just email as a communication method. So, before sending out that work and the check with it, (or just your credit card info on a web form) how do you assess the validity of the contest?
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Google to the rescue?
A quick search for 'scam writing contest' turns up this page: Warnings About Literary Fraud and Other Schemes, Scams, and Pitfalls That Target Writers, from Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. I already had it bookmarked, but that's because I read the Writer Beware Blog.

The Key points to assessing a contest from the above sites and similar (Canauthors.org) sites (Writing-World.com) come down to some common sense questions:
*this is just a quick summary, I suggest looking to the linked sites for a more comprehensive approach to identifying scam contests and markets.

* Who's conducting the contest?
This is where the trust relationship comes in, if you are unsure of the contest sponsors or judges motives, then stay away. Some contests are run just to gather money, others are run to get your information and possible future business through marketing efforts after the contest.

* What's the Prize?
Some prizes are too good to be true - enormous cash prizes that when you read the small print are actually subject to a number of conditions and restrictions where in the end what a winner receives may be a fraction of what was promised. Or is the prize the reward of being charged to work with their agency or publisher?


* Is the contest Free? or for Fee?
Cost to enter doesn't have to be a barrier to entry, however I ask you this: If it's free to submit your work to any number of publishing houses and Speculative Fiction Magazines, why would you pay someone to judge the quality of your work. Winning contests is nice, but the measures of success in this industry have more to do with successful publication. Pay to enter a contest that you trust and see value in, but remember the fees should never be excessive, less than 25$ for a manuscript is appropriate.


And finally the most obvious one:

* Have you read the fine print?
I actually advise you to save a copy of the fine print to a file on your machine, or print it out. The 'Catch' is never in the big bold letters at the top of the page, the Devil lies in the details.

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Writing Wiki Wednesday: wikEd

So you want to build a Writing Wiki? You may have seen my previous post on the matter:
'Bricked Laptops and Data Backup'. There I discuss the value of the Writing Wiki and why I started one.
To sum:
The entire setup fits on a USB drive, is portable, and designed to be run through any web browser, thanks to the Modular Webserver System, MoWeS for short, from CH Software.
You can track anything you write and link it all together using Wikilinks. Wikilinks and wikitext are the code that determines how a wikipage (or article) will appear. Wikitext is analogous to HTML only much simpler to write, and sometimes much more powerful. Mediawiki Software is built on a database, this allows for dynamic generation of pages based on the content of that database.
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One example of that would be the Category tag for content, and the ability for content to be associated with multiple categories. Some of my categories are: Ideas, Research, Story, Work In Progress, Submitted, etc. To include an article in a specific category just put [[Category:Story]] *change 'Story' to any Category name - into the wiki page's code. I actually use Templates with pretty graphics that automagically put my documents into the right category, but that's for another day. In the meantime Categories are the easiest way to keep track of Wiki Pages as you create them. Each Category will have it's own page that tracks all articles associated with it, this page is dynamically generated everytime you go to it, and always up to date. I find categories very useful for quick access to documents.

To get started go to the CH Software page and follow their instructions, make sure to select the Mediawiki software and related packages. This can all be done with the free version of their software. CH Software has also packaged other interesting software (Moodle, Taskfreak, Joomla, Wordpress...) if you want to play around.

Now that you have your Writing Wiki, what do you do with it? Well lets start on tweaking it to make it more suitable for writing in. That's right, writing in. I don't open up a word processor to compose a new story or note. Instead I log on to my writing wiki and create a new page within it.

* If you have never used a wiki before I would suggest that you check out some of the excellent documentation on Wikimedia. In fact a great first project may be to build your own "Help Pages" within your wiki. I started that way, and as I make changes or add new functions to my wiki I create/update my help pages.


If you have edited any documents on your wiki by now you will have noticed the simple editing interface offered by the Mediawiki Software. What no 'find and replace'? How do I make a 'bulleted list'? Don't worry, there are ways to do pretty much anything in your wiki that you can do in a normal word processor. The first step is to get some more buttons to make editing easier.

Install WikEd, an externsion developed by Wikipedia User Cacycle. On the Installation Instructions Page there is a Section detailing how to install the full program onto your local wiki. This is the best way to install wikEd if you are like me and don't always write where you have an internet connection. The disadvantage is that once in a while you may have to update the wikEd software to keep up with bug fixes and features. How often is up too you as long as it works ;).

Now you have access to features like:

# Wikicode syntax highlighting
# Pasting, import, & conversion of formatted text from Word Processors and web pages
# Regular expression search and replace
# Edit preview and show changes on the same page without reloading
# Fullscreen editing mode
# Single-click fixing of common mistakes
# History for summary, search, and replace fields
# Jump to selected heading
# Type-ahead find
# Support for many languages
# Improved diff display
# Follow links and wiki-links (ctrl-click)

Missing, of course, is Spellcheck. There has been a lot of debate on how to implement something like spellcheck on a wiki. I personally sidestep the whole issue by putting the spellcheck in my browser. I run Firefox with the "Check my spelling as I type" option selected (Under Tools->Options->Advanced->General). I've also installed the Canadian English Dictionary add-on because I like 'u'. (not much of a joke I know)



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44th President of those United States

I say 'those' because I'm not American. However I have nothing but good feelings for my neighbours to the South nearly 99.999% of the time. With this new President will come a great number of changes in Science, Technology and Environmental policies.

Some of the changes that I await with Excitement:
The creation of the CTO (Chief Technology Officer) position, this is an important step to bring the American Government's Policies and Technology into the 21st Century.
The replacement of the current FCC Chairperson, with someone who is able to understand and work with the desires of consumers and business.
Finally the Changes in Energy Policy driven by people like Steven Chu as the Energy Secretary, while still having someone running the EPA who actually understands the environments needs/limits.

Ultimately though I wish them (the Americans) more satisfaction with this administration than they had with the last one.

Watching the inauguration of Obama some things resonated with me. This is an office that has passed non-violently between it's holders 44 times now in history. This is a remarkable achievement for any country when you look at the longer history for Humans. When I read Speculative Fiction I typically find Democracies to be in the minority. Many times it's the dream of a protagonist, but just as many times I've seen it reviled by characters. The sad thing is that rarely a different alternative to Democracy is presented in these stories other than the various forms of Tyranny that we've known throughout history.

Why is it that a world with spaceships, massive power generation ability, and advanced biomedical treatments has a King? Technology both changes and enables change within the societies that spawns it. It is illogical to expect modern soldiers to carry swords on the battlefield, not when Guns exist. It should be equally illogical to expect future societies to govern themselves in limited traditional manners when new technology will exist.

I don't buy a King with a spaceship, but I would buy something like Realtime Democracy, a constant monitoring of opinions and beliefs of the existent society. If you watch 24 hour news you might believe we are already there.


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The Age of the Cyborg impacts Warranty Coverage

There's a posting at robots.net that has collected a together couple of recent news stories on Cyborgs. Sadly they aren't the death ray wielding type, but still pretty interesting stuff.

The Second of the two stories (which I'll mention first), is a pretty standard piece that fits with traditional image of a cyborg. It's about Ginny Ong, 21, a student who can hear thanks to a cochlear implant.

It isn't exactly super hearing, but it's super that she can hear. Bionic augmentation/replacement of hearing or other senses is straight out of the pages of many books. In this case though it's just a part of her life, and someday the lives of many others who have hearing problems as the technology (40,000 US$) comes down in price.

The First story however is an essay entitled The Age of the Cyborg from some local (University of British Columbia) professors. They haven't juiced up local law enforcement yet, instead they are developing materials for nanoscale medical implants. These implants can be used as support structures inside the body, releasing medicine and aiding in the regeneration of damaged tissues. An example being skin on a burn victim, another being a damaged heart valve.

This is an interesting story because it shows an extension of the definition of cyborg, taking it beyond biomechanical wonders. Here is where Science starts to surpass and redefine Fiction. The Cyborgs these professors predict are invisible, subtle, in fact in many ways elegant. No noisy hydraulics or metal exo-skeletons, just normal people with a few artificial structures supplanting and boosting their biological body.

The Cyborg of the Future isn't the Hulking Silver Dood with the resonate voice, instead it's the seventy year old with a new hip, or it's a seventeen year old girl who enjoys the sound of the birds in the morning.


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Holographic Universe

And it seems that the resolution isn't perfect.

There's an Article at New Scientist that discusses some surprising results from the GEO600 experiment. The original intent of the experiment was to detect Gravity Waves. While they haven't succeeded at that they may have detected evidence that supports a Holographic Theory of the Universe.

From the article:

For many months, the GEO600 team-members had been scratching their heads over inexplicable noise that is plaguing their giant detector. Then, out of the blue, a researcher approached them with an explanation. In fact, he had even predicted the noise before he knew they were detecting it. According to Craig Hogan, a physicist at the Fermilab particle physics lab in Batavia, Illinois, GEO600 has stumbled upon the fundamental limit of space-time - the point where space-time stops behaving like the smooth continuum Einstein described and instead dissolves into "grains", just as a newspaper photograph dissolves into dots as you zoom in. "It looks like GEO600 is being buffeted by the microscopic quantum convulsions of space-time," says Hogan.

Now as a Speculative Fiction writer this opens up all sorts of possibilities, beyond the standard Matrix and 13th Floor references. It's easy to see where the fringe has taken the concept.

For me the really exciting story here is the human story. Imagine being the lone theorist who sent a package of equations to GEO600. Suggesting a wild explanation for what had till then been dismissed as random noise. The struggle to have your theories accepted and verified. Think of the moment when people realized that this wasn't noise but the very essence of the universe. That can be the end of the story as much as it can be a beginning.

As much as science fiction contains science, it's strength lies in it's ability to showcase the limits of human emotion and ability in novel environments. Science Fiction doesn't need to have spaceships and rayguns to differentiate it from contemporary fiction. Doing research on Gravity Waves in the contemporary world and discovering the fundamental structure of the universe can easily be called science fiction. We have the novel environment of the research facility, the excitement of new discoveries at the edge of human knowledge, and the vindication of our hero, the lone researcher. Very much Science Fiction to me, only today of course it's news.


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Bricked Laptops and Data Backup

So I consider myself an above average user of computers. I've grown up with them and worked in the industry doing some pretty advanced stuff. That's why I scoffed this morning when my wife said the laptop isn't powering on. Then I spent some time on it myself and the machine actually wouldn't turn on. It was dead, nothing more than a brick. After removing the battery, and unplugging it (on the theory that 'sleep' had become 'coma'), it still wouldn't turn on. At this point I considered smashing the laptop.

I should mention that I may have a rage issue early in the morning before coffee and of course the chronic pain doesn't help. After dealing with my personal issues I turned my attention back to the laptop. There are tricks and tactics that can be tried on a bricked machine, and I tried them. I also attempted to sacrifice one of my cats but they were too quick for me. So I settled on burning some incense and herbs and whispering sweet nothings into the built in mic.

My laptop eventually came back to the land of the living and I've addressed the bios and software issue that caused this. However this whole experience validates a project I started to prevent this kind of incident from wiping out my various files of stories and notes. Last year I created a Writing Wiki for myself. "What is a 'Writing Wiki'?" you ask. Well let me tell you my friend, (or frenemy, or neutral bystander), it's freedom. I built my wiki on the standard Mediawiki Software, the same software that powers Wikipedia. Only instead of my wiki being an encyclopedia, it's a collection of my work in writing.
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Wiki software is built on a database. Through the use of links and small snippets of code(wikitext) you can build and do pretty much anything a standard word processor can do: spell check, word count, publish to PDF and more. The more being the exciting part. I go to my wiki in my web browser and there is a webpage that keeps track of all the stories and ideas I'm working on. I can create project pages that link to my rough copies, my outlines, character notes and even responses from submissions. Built into the wiki engine is revision tracking, which adds another layer to editing. This means you can bring back that paragraph that you deleted last month, without looking for an old save of the file. I search my wiki much like any website, allowing me to quickly find something that I wrote quite a while ago, without having to remember filenames or folder locations. As well I have pages that track Writing Markets or contain Research that I've collected off the web or elsewhere.

I used Modular Webserver System, MoWeS for short, from CH Software to power my wiki. Using their software allows me to run the whole thing from a USB stick. Yes a USB stick, and when my laptop bricked this morning I had no worries about lost files, because I can plug that USB stick into pretty much any computer and voilà. I also backup the files from that USB stick onto the hard drive of my desktop, adding a layer of redundancy if I lose the stick.

I've done a number of things to set up my writing wiki by adding my own code to the pages or through the use of the many Extensions for MediaWiki. It's the kind of thing that organically grows to accommodate your needs as you work with it and play with it. To get started on building your own writing wiki check out MoWeS, it's free and comes with a reasonably up to date version of MediaWiki. A USB stick of 250mb is plenty of space to setup your wiki and play.

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Coming up with Short Story Ideas

The first submission for my writing group is due on the last Tuesday of the month. The first meeting is the following Tuesday. This is going to be the pattern going forward with the group. That way everybody has a week to read all the submissions and prepare their comments. This is an important part of the writing group. In a previous writing group I was a part of there was one member who would not read the submissions before the meeting. This led to a lot of awkward moments where he expected us to simultaneously accept his excuses for not reading our work and provide comments on his material. This kind of thing can act as a poison to the writing group. People resent the member for not doing the same 'work' as the rest of them. This is why the deadline is set a week before the meeting for this group. There should be few excuses with a week and weekend to read the submissions. That's all that is really needed too. Read the submissions and comment on what feelings the story inspired in you, and what you liked or disliked.

Of course all of the above on being a good group member is useless if you don't have a submission to begin with. This month and most months my group will be working on short stories. When writing a short story the first step is coming up with the idea. The idea doesn't have to be a completely plotted ready to write story, it can just be a scene you wish to write, or a vision of some new technology, or magical wonder. The point of the idea is that it gives you a place to start (or finish) and the other stuff is just words on paper that will eventually be a story. I find many times that as I begin to write I really don't know what my story will be about or how it will end, but as long as I keep exploring the idea the story will reveal itself.

Where to get ideas? I have a few places I like to go for inspiration.
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First off by just paying attention to the news, any news, provides all sorts of fuel for the idea machine. I tend to mix my reading between technology news, political and legal news, and oddball stories - 'Man bites dog' sorta thing. Beyond the news there are some tried and true places for inspiration. One I particularly like, more so because it helps me refine ideas, rather than generate them is The Grand List of Overused Science Fiction Cliches.


Some of my inspirational links:


Biology in Science Fiction


Daily Space


NewsNow Science


MIT Technology Review

*added May 15th 09
I also suggest browsing the articles on this blog tagged Story Ideas», they don't always explicitly spell out ideas, but can be great for inspiration.

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The Initiation of a Writing Group

From humble beginnings as an ad in Craigslist my Speculative Fiction writing group begins. What is Speculative Fiction you ask? Well, it covers the range of Science Fiction & Fantasy writing. Now you know.

A lot of learning and development has already happened for me and the group hasn't even begun. For example I learnt that putting an ad on Craigslist will draw a lot of emails - and giving out a non-anonymous email just fuels the fire. However that's the nature of the beast and I can always kill and create email addresses. One of the core components of the writing group has to be trust, we are going to be sharing our stories - good,bad and ugly - being able to trust the other group members not to wound you is important. That's why I used a 'real email address', one that clearly came from the local service provider.

Some of the highlights from the emails that I received responding to my writing group ad:
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'The Dood' with the obvious pseudonym who is a wiccan sorcerer. He had recently published his first novel (all 14 pages!) and the second would be published soon (at the same online website).

The very nice 'Retired Lady' who argued that the things described in bodice rippers are fantasy in nature and thus would qualify for Speculative Fiction. I was genuinely interested to see what she would write, just not in the context of *this* writing group.

'The Soldier' who wrote humorous stories about, well...being a soldier. Very interesting subject material, but again without aliens, time travel, psionics or Fairies it doesn't really fall into Speculative Fiction.

After a couple of months of the above and similar I did receive a response from a someone who actually wrote speculative fiction. She has travelled the world teaching English with her husband, and now lives here in the city. We've met in person, verified that we are not crazed axe wielding psychos and set a date for the first meeting. So with two (myself and Her) we have a writing group.

Humble beginnings still, but I did receive an email the other day from a self described pack rat of people. Seems she writes journals of her travel experiences, but now wants to explore fiction and fantasy....

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