Category Archives: writing

May 20, 2020 · 6:00 am

On Poetry – interview with @StephenSwartz1 #amwriting

This is the first in 3-part series of short interviews with novelists who also write poetry. Today features Stephen Swartz, a good friend who came though on short notice! But first, I’ll need to lay a little groundwork.

When I think of the Romantic movement in poetry, I think of poets like William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, John Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelley, William Blake, and Lord Byron.

According to Wikipedia, “The Romantic movement emphasized intense emotion as an authentic source of aesthetic experience, placing new emphasis on such emotions as apprehension, horror and terror, and awe—especially that experienced in confronting the new aesthetic categories of the sublimity and beauty of nature.”

I have a reason for opening with “the big guns of Romantic poetry,” so to speak. The roots of my guest’s writing life were shaped by Romanticism.

For some who write poetry, the muse, the inspiration to bend words is not always a constant companion. For some of us, our writing career begins with poetry, but as we branch out into other genres, the poetic muse slips into the background and emerges at odd times.

Yet we sometimes feel we are the only one who have wandered away from that beginning.  It helps to know that others experience this wandering too, that writing a novel doesn’t make us less of a poet.

Poetry is always waiting to be rediscovered, accepting of the fact it will be set aside when something shiny catches our authorly attention.

Unlike most spurned lovers, Poetry forgives us when we abandon it for greener writing pastures. When we return to it, Poetry welcomes us home with no recriminations.

And now, my good friend, author Stephen Swartz, has kindly consented to answer a series of questions regarding both his current work and his life as a poet.

CJJ:  When did you begin to write poetry?

SS: I probably dabbled at silly rhymes early on, but I would count my poetic career beginning at age 12 when I became a Romantic…and have remained a member to this day. I used to write love poems to the girls in high school and college – mostly unappreciated. My first poem publication (school newspaper) was a set of rhyming quatrains about a young knight fighting a dragon and saving the town.

CJJ: What is your favorite form, rhyming or free?

SS: Depends on the subject. Although serious subjects still can lend themselves to rhyming, modern poetry favors free verse. In the past two years I’ve dabbled in Twitter poetry (from posted prompts) and for the sake of the short format I often write haiku or limerick.

CJJ: For me, poetry becomes an emotional catharsis. Where do you find the emotional strength to write and publish something as deeply personal as poetry?

SS: In the past few years, poetry has been more a mental exercise (like for the Twitter prompts), although I do try to say something. Otherwise, I write when I feel an emotional knot that needs to be untied or cut and putting it out in poetic form is cathartic. They also help me remember what I felt at various times in my life, like emotional postcards.

CJJ: We all write what we are in the mood for. Which literary form, novel or poetry is easiest for you today?

SS: I just finished a contemporary crime novel set in my own city. It was easy in the sense I did not need to “make up” anything because the real features of the setting were right there. However, previous novels in sci-fi and fantasy had their easier parts when I was able to simply invent something rather than having it conform to known facts. I tend to shift back and forth with regard to genre. I feel the urge now to swing back to something more fabulous than realistic.

CJJ: What are you currently working on?

SS: I am rather in limbo at the moment. I should finish a sci-fi book I’ve been working on since my first NaNoWriMo. I started an apocalyptic plague novel when the lockdown began but lost interest at 5000 words; I may yet return to it. I also need to get back to Book 4 of my vampire trilogy, sitting at 35,000 words. And there’s Epic Fantasy *With Zombies to work on. Now that my summer staycation has begun, I may yet be productive!

Thank you, Stephen! You came though beautifully on exceedingly short notice to help me kick off this 3-part series of interviews with working poets who are also novelists.

Tomorrow, Thursday, I will feature an interview with poet/novelist  Shaun Allan, and on Monday, Maria V.A. Johnson has agreed to talk about writing poetry from an autistic person’s perspective.

ABOUT AUTHOR STEPHEN SWARTZ

Stephen Swartz grew up in Kansas City where he was an avid reader of science-fiction and quickly began emulating his favorite authors. Since then, Stephen studied music in college and, like many writers, worked at a wide range of jobs: from French fry guy to soldier, to IRS clerk to TV station writer, before heading to Japan for several years of teaching English. Now Stephen is a Professor of English at a university in Oklahoma, where he teaches many kinds of writing. He still can be found obsessively writing his latest manuscript, usually late at night. He has only robot cats.

SOCIAL MEDIA

Blog: http://stephenswartz.blogspot.com/

Facebook: Author Stephen Swartz

Twitter:

  • @StephenSwartz1 (general use)
  • @dreamlandtrilogy (The Dream Land trilogy specifically)

Follow Stephen on Goodreads

You can find all of Stephen’s books on his Amazon Author Page

 

 

 

 

 

5 Comments

Filed under writing

Tagged as , , , , ,

May 18, 2020 · 6:00 am

Poetry: Shape and form #amwriting

Poetry comes in many forms. In fact, Writer’s Digest University lists 100 of them: List of 100 Poetic Forms for Poets.

However enticing that rabbit trail may be, today’s post will cover only a few of the most common and well-known forms. The rhyming scheme of poetry is traditionally shown by using the first letters of the alphabet, such as: AABB

Another word to know is what we call a stanza, or how we divide our poem. Literary Devices says: In poetry, a stanza is a division of four or more lines having a fixed length, meter, or rhyming scheme.

A few of the most common poetic forms are:

Elegy  – a poem or song written to honor the life of someone deceased, such as W. H. Auden’s In Memory of W. B. Yeats, the opening lines which follow:

He disappeared in the dead of winter:

The brooks were frozen, the airports almost deserted,

And snow disfigured the public statues;

The mercury sank in the mouth of the dying day,

What instruments we have agree

The day of his death was a cold dark day.

Epitaphs – poetic writings on tombstones, such as William Butler Yeats’ epitaph, taken from his poem, Under Ben Bulben:

Cast a cold Eye

On Life, on Death.

Horseman, pass by!

Haiku – short Japanese poem, 5 syllables, then seven syllables, then 5 syllables.

I write one Haiku

Five over seven and five

Five Seven Five done.

Limericks have 5 lines, with lines 1, 2, and 5 rhyming with each other, and lines 3 and 4 rhyming with each other. The cadence ends with a stressed syllable. Limericks have strong rhymes, and a recognizable rolling verse:

The limerick packs laughs anatomical

Into space that is quite economical.

But the good ones I’ve seen

So seldom are clean

And the clean ones so seldom are comical.

Odes are poetry that praise a person or an ideal, such as this excerpt from Wordsworth’s Intimations of Immortality:

Turn wheresoe’er I may,

By night or day,

The things which I have seen I now can see no more…

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:

The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star,

Hath had elsewhere its setting,

And cometh from afar:

Not in entire forgetfulness,

And not in utter nakedness,

But trailing clouds of glory do we come

From God, who is our home…

Prose poetry is written in prose form instead of verse form without the line breaks associated with poetry. However, it contains the imagery and makes use of rhyme, repetition, fragmentation (short sentences), and most other poetic devices.

Quatrain. A complete poem consisting of four lines. There are fifteen possible rhyme patterns, but the most traditional and common are: AAAA, ABAB, and ABBA. Thomas Gray’s Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard is ABAB:

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,

The lowing herd wind slowly o’er the lea,

The plowman homeward plods his weary way,

And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

Rondel -13 or 14 lines in 3 stanzas. Wikipedia says:

“There are several variations of the rondel, and some inconsistencies. For example, sometimes only the first line of the poem is repeated at the end, or the second refrain may return at the end of the last stanza.  Henry Austin Dobson provides the following example of a rondel:

    Love comes back to his vacant dwelling,

      The old, old Love that we knew of yore!

      We see him stand by the open door,

    With his great eyes sad, and his bosom swelling.

 

    He makes as though in our arms repelling

      He fain would lie as he lay before;

    Love comes back to his vacant dwelling,

      The old, old Love that we knew of yore!

 

    Ah! who shall help us from over-spelling

      That sweet, forgotten, forbidden lore?

      E’en as we doubt, in our hearts once more,

    With a rush of tears to our eyelids welling,

    Love comes back to his vacant dwelling.

The last form I’m going to show you is the Sonnet, which was a favorite medium for William Shakespeare.

Wikipedia says: The Petrarchan sonnet is a sonnet form not developed by Petrarch himself, but rather by a string of Renaissance poets. Because of the structure of Italian, the rhyme scheme of the Petrarchan sonnet is more easily fulfilled in that language than in English. The original Italian sonnet form divides the poem’s fourteen lines into two parts, the first part being an octave and the second being a sestet.

On His Blindness by the English poet Milton, gives a sense of the Petrarchan rhyme scheme:

When I consider how my light is spent (A)

 Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide, (B)

 And that one talent which is death to hide, (B)

 Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent (A)

To serve therewith my Maker, and present (A)

 My true account, lest he returning chide; (B)

 “Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?” (B)

 I fondly ask; but Patience to prevent (A)

That murmur, soon replies, “God doth not need (C)

 Either man’s work or his own gifts; who best (D)

 Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state (E)

Is Kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed (C)

 And post o’er land and ocean without rest; (D)

 They also serve who only stand and wait.” (E)

I have experimented with writing in all of these forms, but I tend to lean most toward a kind of free verse or prose poem. On Wednesday, I will feature an interview with my good friend, Stephen Swartz. He writes novels and short stories in a wide variety of genres and often leaves comments for me in the form of silly rhymes.

Silliness aside, Stephen has been known to produce some beautiful prose poems and is always willing to talk about the craft.

Sources and Attributions:

Wikipedia contributors, “Rondel (poem),” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rondel_(poem)&oldid=925869026 (accessed May 17, 2020).

Wikipedia contributors, “Sonnet,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sonnet&oldid=951762201 (accessed May 17, 2020).

7 Comments

Filed under writing

Tagged as , , , ,

May 13, 2020 · 6:00 am

Poetry and Prose part 1 – Structure, #amwriting

In my previous post, I discussed how language and poetry were fundamental to how our human species survived and passed knowledge forward to future generations. Today, we’re going to look at two aspects of poetic structure.

Poets must convey an entire story in as few words as possible, and so must authors of other stripes.

An obvious trope of poets that we who write novels must make good use of are (what I think of as) power words. If we choose words that both carry emotions and have visual impact, we don’t have to use as many to show the story.

Rhymes are foundational poetry. I Have Seen the Stars is a short poem written as a class exercise in a seminar on the poetry of William Butler Yeats.

  1. We were limited to two stanzas of four lines each.
  2. We were to use both hard and soft syllables.
  3. We had to establish a rhythmic beat and stick to it.
  4. We were to use words that could be found in his poems but that might have fallen out of fashion.
  5. We had fifteen minutes to write it.

My poetic offering detailed an experience I’d had of being away from the city lights and seeing the night sky for what felt like the first time.

I have seen the stars hung bright

Across the inky dark of night

Such beauty there displayed for me

I scarce can know their mystery.

 

Heaven’s vault with diamonds flung

Summer’s sky with beauty hung

Bursting forth, the joy in me

Humbled by the majesty.

What are the power words/phrases in that poem?

  • Hung bright
  • Inky dark
  • Mystery
  • Diamonds flung
  • Beauty hung
  • Bursting, joy
  • Humbled, majesty

The poem was written in a traditional form and is end-stopped—that is, it has a pause at the end of each line. It is made up almost entirely of words meant to convey powerful images, and the fact I was constrained to find ways to rhyme forced me to think creatively.

When you are forced to rhyme and given a set of parameters, you develop an understanding of syllabic cadence, or how the sounds of syllables and their combination affect the flow of a sentence.

But while the impact of all poetry depends on the hard or soft sound of syllables and their number and repetition, not all poetry rhymes and not all is end-stopped. Sometimes authors use enjambment, the continuation of a sentence or clause across a line break.

So, if poetry doesn’t rhyme, how is it poetic? I can only use work here that I have the right to publish, or that is in the public domain, so I am sharing some of  my own work, for good or ill. Consider this poem, which is really a short story about my cat:

In February the House is Smaller employs both enjambment and end-stopped sentences.

In February the house is smaller,

Shrinking to my office, nearer the furnace.

The Room of Shame, decorated with

Files and dusty computers, books, and cat fur,

From Yum Yum, the Cat, dead these seven years.

She was old, even in cat years, and

This was her domain.

 

Like Jacob Marley and Scrooge’s knocker,

Her ghost inhabits this room,

Lurking behind boxes filled with books

And lit by the glow of the computer’s screen.

Little tufts of white fur hiding in places

The vacuum can’t reach,

A dusty memory keeping me company as I

Write novels that may or may not be read.

 

Four inches of snow fell last night, wet and heavy with water

And then froze, solid.

An iceberg enshrouded my bungalow, overtook my mini-van

And weighs heavily on the rosemary shrubs.

And I am safe and warm inside this much smaller house

With my books and my computer,

And the ghost of my feline, past.

 

The power words and phrases are:

  • smaller
  • shrinking, nearer
  • shame, decorated
  • dusty
  • dead
  • ghost inhabits
  • lurking
  • lit by the glow
  • dusty memory keeping me company
  • iceberg enshrouded
  • weighs heavily
  • safe and warm

In that poem, I used contrasting words that contained both hard syllables and soft to convey the atmosphere. I had trouble getting the rhythm right.

Contrast lends power to ordinary words.

In the previous poem, the structure is mixed. The opening lines are end-stopped, and most of the rest are enjambed. Many classical poets and playwrights, as early as John Donne, frequently employed enjambment mixed with end-stopped phrasing.

In The Good Morrow, Donne opens with enjambment:

I wonder, by my troth, what thou and I

Did, till we loved? Were we not weaned till then?

Born on 22 January 1572, Donne’s life and work still influence modern literature. One of his poems that modern authors reference and frequently borrow lines from is the one that follows, which is the fourth stanza of a larger work, Devotions upon Emergent Occasions (17th devotion, Meditation XVII). It was translated to reflect modern spellings by Wikisource:

“No Man Is an Island” by John Donne

No man is an island, entire of itself;

every man is a piece of the continent,

a part of the main.

If a clod be washed away by the sea,

Europe is the less,

as well as if a promontory were,

as well as if a manor of thy friend’s

or of thine own were.

Any man’s death diminishes me,

because I am involved in mankind;

and therefore never send to know

for whom the bell tolls;

it tolls for thee.

This is a powerful poem, resonating down the centuries and expressing the connectedness of mankind as a whole.

Donne employs symbols and contrasts, as well as references to things people all knew. In his time, when someone died, churches tolled their bells with special clappers on. The particular sound of those bells told the town that someone had died.

By writing these lines, Donne expressed his belief in these ways:

  1. No man is an island, entire of itself;

every man is a piece of the continent,

a part of the main.

This means that we are all part of something larger, the continent referenced here is humanity as a whole.

  1. If a clod be washed away by the sea,

Europe is the less,

as well as if a promontory were,

as well as if a manor of thy friend’s

or of thine own were.

This tells us that if one bit of dirt is washed away, the land is reduced. If one clod of dirt is as important as a chunk of land or a house, then even the least of human beings is as essential as our friends or we are.

  1. Any man’s death diminishes me,

because I am involved in mankind;

and therefore never send to know

for whom the bell tolls;

it tolls for thee.

Donne tells us that we are not solitary, islands apart, that when one person dies, we are all affected by the loss and that a part of us has died with them.

By using 81 words carefully chosen for the imagery and information they present, Donne expressed his belief in the cosmic connection, the divine thread that binds the disparate factions of humanity together into a whole.

That condensing of ideas into powerful words and imagery is what poetry is all about. This is why an author who wants to write memorable narratives should consider reading the creations of poets who are also novelists to see how they use their words.

I’ve mentioned the works of Patrick Rothfuss and Neil Gaiman in other posts, but here is a list found on Lit Hub. If you choose to take up this challenge, consider it part of your education.

Seven Great Novels Written by Poets

Credits and Attributions:

Portrait of the English poet and cleric John Donne (1572–1631), by an unknown English artist, National Portrait Gallery / Public domain. Wikimedia Commons contributors, “File:John Donne BBC News.jpg,” Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:John_Donne_BBC_News.jpg&oldid=335924688 (accessed 12 May 2020).

No Man is an Island by John Donne, Devotions upon Emergent Occasions (17th devotion, Meditation XVII), published 1624, England. Public Domain. Wikisource contributors, “Meditation XVII,” Wikisource , https://en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=Meditation_XVII&oldid=3748254 (accessed May 12, 2020).

I have seen the Stars, by Connie J. Jasperson © 2016, published 03-June-2016 on Life in the Realm of Fantasy, https://conniejjasperson.com/2016/06/03/flashfictionfriday-short-poetry-i-have-seen-the-stars/

In February the House is Smaller, by Connie J. Jasperson, © 2017, published 10 February 2017 on Life in the Realm of Fantasy, https://conniejjasperson.com/2017/02/10/flashfictionfriday-in-february-the-house-is-smaller/

8 Comments

Filed under writing

May 11, 2020 · 6:00 am

Thoughts on Poetry and the Evolution of Language #amwriting

I think of poetry and language as coming into existence as conjoined twins. I can remember anything I can set to a rhyme or make into a song.

Yet, much of the time, modern songs and poetry don’t rhyme. Even so, they have tempo and rhythm.

If it doesn’t rhyme, what makes poetry “poetic?” And where does it fit into modern narrative prose?

Poetry is a primal form of communication in the human species, the literary invention that emerged as soon as we had words. It presents thoughts and feelings as abstractions and allusions rather than the concrete.

Poets select words for the impact they deliver. An entire story must be conveyed using the least number of words possible. For that reason, choices are made for symbolism, power, and syllabic cadence, even if there is no rhyme involved.

Narrative prose is broader, looser, more all-encompassing, with no limit on how long it takes for the story to unfold.

Modern humans deliver highly detailed concepts and ideas with packets of noise formed into individual words. We learn the meanings of these sound-packets as infants. By stringing these meaningful sound-packets together, we can share information with others of our species.

I suspect using rhyme as a mnemonic is fundamental to human nature. Research with modern primates in the wild proves that, while we were still in Africa before the great diaspora, humans developed complex languages within our tribal communities.

By observing primates in the wild, we see that our earliest ancestors had the ability to describe the wider world to their children. With that, we could teach them skills and the best ways to acquire food.

We understood and were able to see the motives of another person.

We developed compassion and burial rites.

Early humans relied on the cadence of repetition and rhyme. They could explain the how and why of a great flood or any other natural disaster, passing it forward across many generations.

The availability of food is central to the prosperity of all life, not just humans. Our ancestors saw the divine in every aspect of life, especially around the abundance or scarcity of food. They developed mythologies combining all of these concepts to explain the world around us and our place in it.

With the ability to pass on knowledge of toolmaking, we had leisure to contemplate the world. We discussed these things while eating and sharing food with each other.

We now know that other primates also deliver information by using sound-packets. Gorillas have been observed singing during their meals. Humans have always sung.

Chimpanzees and Bonobos have been observed chatting during leisurely meals.

We humans love to sit around the table and chat.

The larynx and vocal cords of each primate species are formed differently, which affects how they communicate. They understand each other perfectly, but because they are so different from us, our human ears can’t differentiate the meanings of the individual sound-packets that make up their calls.

To us, their communications are just mindless screeching, and so we have always assumed they must not be self-aware.

I suspect that in years to come we will find that we have been wrong. We may be the only species we reliably converse with, but we are not the only self-aware species who communicate through vocalizations.

For many humans, dogs and cats are their beloved family members, self-aware people who love and accept them like no one else does.

This brings me to another point – if we can’t figure out and understand the languages of the other intelligent creatures in this world, i.e., Elephants, Cetaceans, and other Primates, then how can we ever expect to communicate with an alien extraterrestrial being?

And if we can’t recognize, value, and protect the individual self-awareness and personhood of beings like Elephants, Cetaceans, and other Primates, how will we recognize an extraterrestrial life-form? How will we behave toward them? After all, to us, these fellow creatures of earth have been nothing but resources for us to exploit.

Like modern Great Apes, proto humans used rhyme and cadence to memorize and pass on ideas as abstract as legends or sagas to their children and to others they might meet in friendly circumstances. By handing down those stories through the generations, we learned lessons from the mistakes and heroism of our ancestors.

Rhyme and cadence were fundamental to our ability to make tools out of stone and bone. The capacity to learn, remember, and reliably pass on knowledge was why the three human genomes we call Homo Sapiens, Neanderthal, and Denisovan could master fire. This is why they could develop the tools that made them the apex predators we became. We could reliably feed our young, rear them to adulthood, and still have time to create art on the walls of caves.

Every tribe, every culture that ever arose in our world, had a tradition of passing down stories and legends using rhyme and meter. Rhyme, combined with repetition and rhythmic simplicity, enabled us to remember and pass on our histories and knowledge to our children.

In times gone by, writers used words for their beauty, employing them the way they decorated their homes. Authors labored over their sentences, ensuring each word was placed in such a way as to be artistic as well as impactful.

In writing poetry, we are forced to think on an abstract level. We must choose words based on their power. The emotions these words evoke, and the way they show the environment around us is why I gravitate to narratives written by authors who are also poets—the creative use of words elevates what could be mundane to a higher level of expression. When it’s done subtly, the reader doesn’t consciously notice poetic derivations in prose, but they are moved by them.

We have no need to memorize our cultural knowledge anymore, just as we no longer need the ability to accurately tally long strings of numbers in our heads. Readers seek out books with straightforward prose and few descriptors. Words for the sake of words is no longer desirable to the modern reader.

Modern poetry has evolved too. The love of poetry continues, and new generations seek out the poems of the past while creating powerful poetry of their own.

Modern authors, such as Patrick Rothfuss in his novel, The Name of the Wind craft narratives packed with powerful, evocative prose. We eagerly read their work because it is both straightforward and poetic. Most readers are unaware that they are drawn to the subtle poetry of his work as much as to the story that unfolds within the narrative.

I write poetry, some that follow traditional rhyming, and much that does not. Regardless of the structure, the cadence of syllables and the words I choose are recognizably mine. The emotions they evoke and the way they portray the environment I imagine is what lends my voice to my work.

Authors like me who read and sometimes write speculative fiction can enjoy our modern stripped-down narratives, guilt free.

That said, we who love the rhythm and cadence of words can still appreciate beauty combined with impact when it comes to our prose. And, if you love dark, heroic speculative fiction and haven’t yet read The Name of the Wind, by Patrick Rothfuss, I highly recommend it.

Credits and Attributions:

Admiring the Galaxy |CCA 4.0 ESO/A. Fitzsimmons

12 Comments

Filed under writing

Tagged as , , , , , ,

May 6, 2020 · 6:00 am

The Author Community, by Mollie Hunt, Cat Writer #amwriting

This is the sixth and final post in a six-week blog tour series for the Northwest Independent Writers’ Association.  NIWA serves pacific northwest writers working to achieve professional standards in independent writing, publishing and marketing.

Many creative professions have a reputation for being competitive, hostile, and dare I say, catty, toward each other. Thankfully, this tendency for animosity, for the most part, has passed the author community by. Even as a budding writer, I was treated with respect by my fellows. I have been helped when I needed help, mentored when I needed mentoring, liberally complimented on my work, and generally accepted wherever I’ve gone within the writing circle.

This didn’t happen by chance, however. I did my part. Though I’m an introvert, I pushed myself to get out and meet people, ask questions, and make contacts. One of the most satisfactory way of doing that was to join writers’ groups. Along with NIWA, I am a member of Sisters in Crime, the Cat Writers’ Association, and Oregon Writers Colony. I have belonged to a few others as well, but these are the ones that have helped me learn, produce, and promote my books. If a group isn’t helpful to your work, then what are you getting for your yearly dues besides another name to add to your list of credits?

Each of those groups I listed offers me something different.

NIWA is a fellowship of local independent authors. Though I’m both self- and press-published, this group is extremely helpful. They put together communal bookselling events, host an impressive website and booklist, and offer a members Facebook page where I can communicate with others about anything and everything book.

My local faction of Sisters in Crime has information geared specifically for the mystery writer. They offer presentations from police, detectives, pathologists, and other professions we see a lot of in mysteries. One time, our group took the Ghost Tour of Fort Vancouver, because you never know when a ghost might come up in your novel.

Oregon Writers Colony supports members in all phases of writing, from “I want to write a book but don’t know where to start” to famous authors like Jean Auel. They have several different programs throughout the year, both to teach and inspire, as well as promote and sell members’ books.

The Cat Writers’ Association is the cat’s pajamas if your stories involve felines. They also have a stunning list of members from all branches of creativity. Bloggers, artists, photographers, as well as fiction and non-fiction authors make up this international organization.

There are many more writers’ groups, both national, international, and in your local area. I encourage you to look into them to see what they have to offer.

Besides writers’ groups, Book Faires and events are a great way to get to know other people in your author community. The more you participate, the more your circle of will grow.

Online and Facebook Groups offer another way of relating to those in your field and well and an opportunity to gather fans. Some groups allow you to advertise your work, where others are strictly for conversations about elements of craft. Try NIWA FANS AND FRIENDS to get started.

Once you begin to look for and engage with your author community, the possibilities open up exponentially. Good luck! And thanks for reading.

Thank you for following the NIWA Blog Tour. Let’s do it again soon!

Check out this week’s other participating NIWA blogsites:

About Mollie Hunt: Native Oregonian Mollie Hunt has always had an affinity for cats, so it was a short step for her to become a cat writer. Mollie Hunt writes the Crazy Cat Lady cozy mystery series featuring Lynley Cannon, a sixty-something cat shelter volunteer who finds more trouble than a cat in catnip, and the Cat Seasons sci-fantasy tetralogy where cats save the world. She also pens a bit of cat poetry.

Mollie is a member of the Oregon Writers’ Colony, Sisters in Crime, the Cat Writers’ Association, and NIWA. She lives in Portland, Oregon with her husband and a varying number of cats. Like Lynley, she is a grateful shelter volunteer.

You can find Mollie Hunt, Cat Writer on her blogsite: www.lecatts.wordpress.com

Amazon Page: www.amazon.com/author/molliehunt

Facebook Author Page: www.facebook.com/MollieHuntCatWriter/

@MollieHuntCats

Comments Off on The Author Community, by Mollie Hunt, Cat Writer #amwriting

Filed under writing

Tagged as , , , , , ,

May 4, 2020 · 6:00 am

Snares in the Depths #amwriting

Something lurks in the depths of the Word Pond that is our story, snares waiting to drown the unwary author.

An early trap is confusion: At first, we don’t know what to do with commas. Some frustrated authors will decide to do without them altogether.

This decision leads to chaos and an unreadable manuscript.

I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating:

Commas are to clauses what traffic signals are to streets. They govern the flow of traffic, although, in the case of sentences, the traffic is comprised of words, not cars.

  • Commas follow introductory words and clauses. Instead, they took a left turn.
  • Commas set off “asides.” Her sister, Sara, brought coffee.
  • Commas separate words in lists: We bought apples, oranges, and papayas for the salad.
  • Commas join two complete sentences, and once joined, they form one longer sentence. When used too freely, linked clauses can create run-on sentences.
  • Commas frequently precede conjunctions, but only when linking complete clauses. When connecting a dependent clause to a complete clause, don’t insert a comma. “I intended to go back to London but found myself here instead.”

Another early snare the new author must avoid is the long-winded sentence. How often do you link several clauses together with the word and? Conjunctions are the gateway to run-on sentence hell.

If you are deliberate in your use of conjunctions, em dashes, and hyphens, you will also use fewer commas. Craft your prose but use grammatical common sense. Brevity usually strengthens prose.

Another trap waiting for the unwary is descriptive TMI – too much information.

Don’t waste words describing every insignificant change of expression and mood. Consider this hot mess of fifty-one words that make no sense:

Eleanor looked at Gerard with concern. His voice changed so much in the telling of the story as his emotions came to the surface that it still seemed so raw, as if Timmy’s death had happened only days ago. In addition, his expressions also changed and his current one was akin to despair.

That waste of ink could be cut down to fourteen (14) words that convey the important parts of the sentence: Gerard’s raw despair concerned Eleanor, seeming as if Timmy’s death had happened only days before.

Using too many words mingled with catchphrases and acronyms to express simple concepts is a common requirement of corporate emails and documents for project managers. If you are coming from that environment, you must learn to write a lean narrative. Readers don’t want fluffy, meaningless prose littered with clichés and obscure words in their literature.

What does “Kill your darlings” really mean? All it means is don’t write self-indulgent drivel.

We all fall in love with our characters. Why make the point that people fall over themselves drooling at the beauty of the protagonist? Why make that point in every other paragraph? Is it that important to the narrative?

If it isn’t important to that scene, don’t include it. Gerard’s handsome visage and grace should be mentioned occasionally, but only where his god-like magnetism and charisma impacts the story.

Really–in real life, how often does that happen? However, if Gerard’s looks and charisma cause trouble wherever he goes, then it becomes a key part of the action and can be used to set up other scenes.

We write because we love words, but simplicity is usually best. Consider this morsel of “yuck.”

Delicious sounds captivated their eardrums.

Please, just say it sounded amazing. If music touches the protagonist’s soul, it’s good to say so.

We want to convey the fact the music was beautiful, and we don’t want to be boring. However, when we get too artful we are at risk of creating awkward visuals.

Odors and sounds are part of the background, the atmosphere of the piece, and while they need to be there, we don’t want them to be obtrusive, in-your-face.

This is an instance of prose working better when it isn’t fancy.

I hope these thoughts help get your writing week started.

Now, go! Write like the wind!

15 Comments

Filed under writing

Tagged as , , , , , ,

April 29, 2020 · 6:00 am

Reading to Impact Your Writing: Writing Books, Inspirations, and Beyond by Joyce Reynolds-Ward

This is the fifth in a six-week blog tour series for the Northwest Independent Writers’ Association. You can catch up with them at https://www.niwawriters.com/.

Generally, when the discussion about reading to impact your writing begins, many people’s thoughts turn toward writing references and guides. That’s good for a beginning. But reading books about writing mechanics, process, and the like should not be the only things you read as a writer. Part of developing yourself as a writer includes expanding your reach as a reader—after all, growth arises in many ways, and reading something for the purposes of growing your awareness of style, idea usage, and the like. Picking up a challenging new book in a genre you don’t normally read can often provide insights on your own writing. Or reading a favorite author’s journal or memoir about writing process may help you past your own struggles. It all really depends on what resonates with you. Here are some of my favorites.

 

For myself, reading journals, letters, and memoirs/autobiographies (not biographies!) of my favorite authors has been a good source of writing inspiration and development. I was an early fan of John Steinbeck, thanks to one of my high school teachers. As a result, one of the earliest writer reads that has stuck with me over the years is John Steinbeck’s Journal of a Novel: The East of Eden Letters. While writing East of Eden, Steinbeck would start every writing day with a short letter to his editor and friend Pascal Covici. It was part of his warmup process and a means of separating from daily concerns to developing the focus needed for the day’s work. In a similar vein is Working Days: The Journals of the Grapes of Wrath and Steinbeck: A Life in Letters. Because Steinbeck often used letter writing as a tool for warming up, his letters frequently reflect not only what was going on in his life at the moment but what was happening with his writing process—a valuable insight into the struggles that all writers have.

I tend to prefer journals and letters to memoirs and autobiographies because writers can and will embellish later accounts while journals and letters reflect the writer’s state of mind at the time they were writing. May Sarton’s Journal of a Solitude is billed as “the intimate diary of a year in the life of a creative woman,” and it does not disappoint. While ostensibly a book about the process of writing, Jay Lake’s Process of Writing 2005-2010 is a collection of blog posts Jay wrote about writing organized into topics which—really—tells you as much about Jay’s daily struggles with the writing life as it does anything else. Also, given Jay’s reputation as an extremely fast writer, he gives a breakdown of exactly what that looks like and what it means for him economically as a writer. His analysis of his differing rates of writing speed is something that I recommend every writer read.

And then we get to memoir and biography. One book that I think every writer should read is Anthony Trollope’s An Autobiography. Trollope wrote over sixty books over the course of his life, in part by exercising the discipline of rising early and writing 250 words every quarter of an hour for three hours before going to his day job with the British Post Office as a surveyor. His observations of the mid-19th century writing world (hint: Trollope does not like Dickens) are priceless and, if you have read Trollope or watched productions of his novels, you gain insights into how he built his characters. Ursula K. LeGuin’s essays on writing, often found mixed in with her other essays, are definitely worth considering.

And then there are the books explicitly about the craft of writing. Oh, the many books about writing techniques. I own a lot of them, and have bought and discarded many others. For me, the problem with many craft books is that they often speak to me at a particular stage in my writing or process. But as I progress beyond what they have to offer, I end up walking away from books I once loved. The reality about many books about the writing process is that they are often limited to a particular time and market. There’s nothing wrong with that, but if you pick up an old Writer’s Digest book about writing, you need to crosscheck it to ensure that certain things about the field have not changed. Heck, that is true of any book explicitly about writing technique, because the techniques change and evolve.

Furthermore, while I know of many writers who cling to their favorite writing advice book over the course of the years, for me, the books that have resonated the most are those where the writer speaks candidly about the struggles they face in the writing life. The letters. The memoirs. The autobiographies. Those details where the struggle of the creative life is chronicled without whitewash or embellishment. The advice books often move on, except for a select few…but oh, the value of a chronicle of a writer’s struggle. At least that is what works for me.

And what about you?

Other posts in this series by Joyce Reynolds-Ward (note: each website owner will post at some point during the week listed).

March 29-April 4th—Organizing Your Plot www.joycereynoldsward.com

April 5-11—Self-editing, grammar, and beta readers https://authorwilliamcook.com/blog/

April 12-18—Genre and cross-genre https://tanstaaflpress.com/news

April 19-25—My Approach to the writing process https://varidapr.com

April 26-May 2—Reading to Impact your writing www.conniejjasperson.com

May 3-9—Advice for new writers https://lecatts.wordpress.com

Joyce Reynolds-Ward is a speculative fiction writer from Enterprise, Oregon. Her short stories include appearances in Well…It’s Your Cow, Children of a Different Sky, Allegory, River, and Fantasy Scroll Magazine. Her agripunk thriller trilogy, The Ruby Project: Origins, The Ruby Project: Ascendant, The Ruby Project: Realization, are due for release in November, 2020. Her books include Shadow Harvest, Choices of Honor, Judgment of Honor, and Klone’s Stronghold. Joyce has edited two anthologies, Pulling Up Stakes (2018), and Whimsical Beasts (2019). Besides writing, Joyce enjoys reading, quilting, horses, and hiking, and is a member of Soroptimist International of Wallowa County.

You can find Joyce’s books at her website, Peak Amygdala or on her author page at Amazon.com.

 

4 Comments

Filed under writing

Tagged as , , , , , ,

April 27, 2020 · 6:00 am

#Interview: @Aaron_Volner Gets Wild in Deadwood #writerlife

Today I am talking with fantasy author, Aaron Volner. Aaron has a story in the anthology, “Getting Wild in Deadwood,” and has kindly agreed to talk about the evolution of one of his most daring protagonists yet, Adalyne Huntsman. I was privileged to be an advance reader for Aaron, and loved his story, “For the Love of Gold.”

CJJ: Tell us about the theme of this anthology, and how you got involved.

AV: “Getting Wild in Deadwood” is all about the history, mystery and romance that surrounds the town of Deadwood, South Dakota. Every story ties in either to the town’s storied past or it’s exciting modern life. Each features a romance sure to sweep readers up and take them on an emotional ride.

There’s an interesting selection of authors here, so the book has a lot of variety. While my own contribution is a historical fantasy starring a bounty hunter, there are tales about wild west outlaws, a reincarnation romance, even a time travel story in there.

This project was put together by the wonderful folks in charge of Wild Deadwood Reads, a huge book event that takes place annually in Deadwood, South Dakota (this year’s event is Saturday, June 20th). I agreed to contribute a story when they put out a call for interested authors.

I’d like to make special mention of Cyndi Faria, the author who spearheaded this project. She really went out of her way to make this a good experience for the rest of us who contributed, and I really appreciate everything that she did to help this anthology become a reality.

CJJ: Let’s talk about your protagonist, Adalyne, in “For the Love of Gold.” I love her! How did she come to life?

AV: Adalyne Huntsman,  a strong-willed bounty hunter with an unfortunate darkness in her past, took a strange path to come to where she is as a character. For one thing, in my original conception of the story the protagonist was actually male.

The idea for this tale came to me one night while I was shooting pool with my dad. Many of my best ideas come to me in pool games with him. Alas, my game hasn’t improved from it nearly as much as my writing has. Anyway, I was discussing the anthology with him and the requirement that the story be set in or around the town of Deadwood, when he shared with me his own story that took place there.

Our family lived in North Dakota for a year due to my dad’s work in the oilfield service business, which often took him across the border into South Dakota. To make a long story short, he went on an unusual call to a mine near Deadwood where a fault line had opened up in a lower level and was spilling hot water like a faucet. The water wasn’t as much of a problem as the heat, which was making it dangerous for the miners to work. So the mine owners reached out to dad’s company about the possibility of using their equipment to seal the crack and get the mine functioning again.

My imagination took that idea and ran with it, wondering what otherworldly things could spill from a crack in a mine. Such a thing might try to use the miners to protect itself. Perhaps the danger of it was how it enthralled people who came within, including the hero’s lady love.

Something about the idea didn’t sit right, and I soon realized that the story held a lot more interest for me with a female protagonist. The next thing I needed to figure out was who she was. I knew I wanted her to be tough, and self-reliant, but the challenge was determining in what way.

As I read a bit on the history of Deadwood I came across some information about the Gem Theater, a brothel run by the notorious Al Swearengen. One of his secrets to success in his industry was a tendency to beat or blackmail women into working for him. I asked myself what would happen if he tried that with my heroine, and a scene popped into my head: one of Swearengen’s goons trying to ‘persuade’ her to work at the Gem, and her turning the tables on him with some impressive gun play and a witty remark that would sting his pride.

Adalyne Huntsman evolved from that scene as a bounty hunter with complicated reasons for pursuing her chosen path. She’s a tough-as-nails woman who enjoys showing up men who underestimate her.

This presented a problem, though. The story had to include a romance, and I wasn’t sure what type of man would earn Adalyne’s respect enough to win her heart. I needed to seek the advice a real-life bad-ass gun-toting lady to learn how my bad-ass gun-toting heroine would fall for someone.

For that I reached out to my friend Helen M. Pugsley, very much a real-life bad-ass gun-toting lady and author of “War and Chess.” After a lengthy conversation with her about Adalyne’s development up to that point and her relationship with some of the other characters who appear in the story, Helen had some excellent advice.

She suggested that the way for a man to win Adalyne’s affection would be if he could make her feel safe. Not physically safe, as Adalyne has that covered herself. But emotionally safe. Someone that she can let down her constant guard around and be her true self. Someone she can share things with and feel entirely confident that it will stay between them, and who will still accept her.

Armed with that advice, I built out a secret for Adalyne that she would only share with just such a person, and began constructing her love interest, David. A man who has seen some of the worst sides of humanity, yet still retains his sense of wonder and fascination about the world.

I really hope that readers will like Adalyne, as a lot of work went into making her a real and relatable heroine. I have to say, she’s fast become one of my favorite protagonists that I’ve written.

CJJ: How can we buy this book?

AV: Orders for “Getting Wild in Deadwood” can be placed via the online form here. You’ll need an email and a PayPal account to place the order.

The books are being hand-shipped so as to include an awesome extra goody. With every order you receive a full-color insert featuring the cover art and signatures of all ten contributing authors!

This anthology is a print exclusive and only available for a limited time, so be sure to order while you can.

CJJ: I loved The Roc Rider. I understand you have a sequel in the works. Can you tell us about it?

AV: Yes, the sequel to Roc Rider is finally coming! “Chronicles of the Roc Rider:  Rising Storm” picks up several months after where the first book leaves off. Tanin Stormrush, the titular roc rider, has been working with new allies to try and unlock secrets from the memories he acquired from his enemy at the end of the first book.

We quickly learn that the stakes are higher than Tanin realized. His enemy has a plan that could remake the very fabric of reality itself.

Tanin’s promise to his late wife that he would rescue the roc hatched from the egg that was stolen from her proves more difficult than he anticipated. It turns out the enemy has taken to riding the creature, and it may not be in the mood to be rescued!

I’m really excited about how Tanin and his roc Zera grow in this book. Yes, we get to see them take their first flight together which is super exciting! I’m also really jazzed for people to meet some of the other characters that are introduced.

Lana, a woman from Tanin’s past and who was his fellow apprentice during roc rider training, brings an interesting dynamic to this story.

We also get to meet two of the mysterious Narn. Mentioned briefly in the first book, the Narn were invaders from beyond the great northern desert whom Tanin spent nearly a decade fighting with his original roc partner. Now, to save the stolen roc and fulfill his promise to his wife, Tanin might just have to look past his own hatreds and work alongside one of them.

The ebook releases on May 9th, with the paperback coming hopefully the same day or not long after. I’ll be hosting an online launch party via Facebook Live at 6 pm that evening to celebrate the launch.

CCJ: Where can people buy your other books?

AV: You can find all of my titles for purchase via my author page on Amazon. I also recommend that readers sign-up for my newsletter for regular updates about future titles, first reveal on new covers, and more.

Thanks so much for taking the time to talk with me about all this, Connie. I really appreciate it.

CJJ: Thank YOU, Aaron, both for visiting today and for talking about Adalyne Huntsman, who is one of the strongest women I’ve ever met. And I can wait to read “Chronicles of the Roc Rider: Rising Storm.”

 

About my guest today:

Aaron Volner is a guy who gets lost in worlds of his own creation and has to write books in order to escape. He lives in southwest Wyoming with his faithful dog, Andy, and a house full of plants from all over the globe.

Orders for “Getting Wild in Deadwood” can be placed via the online form here.

Purchase Chronicles of the Roc Rider 

Visit Aaron’s website at www.aaronvolner.com

2 Comments

Filed under writing

Tagged as , , , ,

April 23, 2020 · 6:00 am

Guest Post: My Approach to Marketing: Flirting for Fun and Profit by Thomas Gondolfi

Book signings and in-person sales events are where most indies make their money. Today’s post is on a subject we indies all want to know more about–marketing our work in person. My good friend, publisher and author Thomas Gondolfi, is quite successful at it, and has kindly offered to share his knowledge as part of the 6-week NIWA Blog tour. Without further commentary, here is Thomas Gondolfi and post #4.

Let me ask you a question. Answer truthfully as the answer is only to yourself. How many times a day are you the center of good attention? My guess, based on some solid data, is that even if you have a focused partner, a loving child, or an exceptional parent, your answer is going to be fairly low. If you don’t have one of those, the number approaches nil. Along comes a vendor who is eager to engage with you as his only focus. He isn’t pushing his product on you. He is genuinely interesting in finding out how you are different! Isn’t that appealing? This is the essence of my F2F marketing strategies.

The essence of flirting is the wholehearted, one-to-one focus that one person can give to another if they are sincere. No, it’s not about trying to get a date. No, it’s not plastered on as a veneer until you can have what you want. No, it’s not about hawking your books at them.

I know you have a preconceived notion of what flirting is. I’ll tell you that you are almost certainly wrong. I have many more credits than those required to have a minor in psychology (but my school didn’t offer one). I’ve done some of my own studies in this area. I find that the meanings given by the professional wordsmiths are wrong. What I’ve learned as a definition: Flirting – To give attention to one or more persons and / or their interests in a wholehearted way.

Sincerity is the key. You must want to engage and find out what is interesting about that person, otherwise you are fighting a losing war. Flirting is of its own, valuable. People have skills they are dying to share with someone who is open to listen and share. You may learn how to knit a yarmulke, garble an herb, or even fly a sailplane. Also, it can, and does, lead to friendships. I can immediately bring to mind three strong friendships, and innumerable lesser ones, that have developed over my years of vending books because of flirting. And if the two above aren’t enough, that level of absorption can also lead to new plots, characters, and skills to use in future writing.

So let’s pull back to our customers and how to flirt. I use the mnemonic HAMER to describe the steps – Hook, Absorb, Mutual Interest, Expand, and Release.

Hook is nothing more than what we do when writing the first few pages of our book/story. We have to grab the attention of the reader in the best possible way. I do this by using hints from the person themselves, usually clothing, hairstyle, tattoos and the like. The hook should have a question attached or the potential customer may just give you a high five and move on.

Absorb means now listening to what the person has to say. No, I mean really listen. It isn’t easy. Don’t think about what books you will sell them, your spouse, the sports tournament, your quilting project. Make them the focus of your entire attention.

Now take the information you got in Absorb and find something that you can share as Mutual Interest. I believe it is axiomatic that if you are interested, you can’t be feigning interest.

Once you have chosen that Mutual Interest you need to Expand upon it and share back. Offer something in your own experience about the topic. Inquire about their experience or expertise in an area. Something to continue the conversation and make them aware that you are paying attention. But keep your response to about half of the time that they have talked to you in the Absorb step. Remember you want them to be the center of attention, not you. Now let them talk again. Do three or four Absorb-Mutual Interest-Expand steps before you get to the most important step of all.

Release is even more important than the Hook itself. Many salesmen do the above steps and will never let the coin in the customer’s purse escape and hold on like a leech. The Release is the key to soft selling. You are telling the person that they are more important than pawning you wares on them (and you would be right). To do this, you find and give a reason to let the person go, such as “I know you have to make that afternoon panel on genre blending,” “I think you friend just went around the corner,” or “I don’t want to keep you from your shopping.”

This is the key moment. If there is any chance at all of making a sale, the customer will look down and ask YOU about what you have available. Often your interest will get people who might be on the fence about your wares to buy because you made them feel good about themselves.

Whether they purchased something or not, you have just successfully completed a flirt. I talk more in-depth about this technique in my book of the same title “Flirting for Fun and Profit”  but I’ve summed up the basics here.

Your sales totals will increase. BUT even if you don’t make a sale, you’ve made a connection with another person. It is a win all around.

Founding TANSTAAFL Press in 2012, Thomas Gondolfi is the author (and book parent) of the Toy Wars series, the CorpGov Chronicles, and Wayward School along with numerous other writing and editing credits which can be found on www.tanstaaflpress.com. He is a father of three (real children), consummate gamer, and loving husband. Tom also claims to be a Renaissance man and certified flirt.

Raised as a military brat, he spent twenty years of his life moving to a new place every few years giving him a unique perspective on life and people.

Working as an engineer in high tech for over thirty years, Tom has also worked as a cook, motel manager, most phases of home construction, volunteer firefighter, and the personal caregiver to a quadriplegic.

 

 

3 Comments

Filed under writing

Tagged as , , , ,

April 22, 2020 · 6:00 am

Writing Contemporary Fiction in a Time of Uncertainty #amwriting

The pandemic, combined with the political uncertainty of our time, has left many authors feeling unable to write. In an online group, an author who writes YA contemporary/near-future sci-fi novels said that looking at his keyboard made him feel like a deer staring into the headlights of an oncoming car.

This subject also came up at our last writing group meeting via Google Chat. A good friend who is an integral part of my writing posse is suffering from this crippling inertia.

The block these authors are experiencing is caused by the extreme uncertainty of our times and the constant barrage of bad and often conflicting news. No one knows what the near future holds, so writing something that will be affected either by the next election or how the pandemic progresses is a difficult proposition.

For some people, writing anything right now is impossible.

To write contemporary or near-future sci-fi, one must be able to predict a multiplicity of futures and decide which is most likely to occur. This is an iffy thing even in less turbulent times.

Chuck Wendig managed to nail how our society might react to a true global pandemic with The Wanderers, A Novel. Just as in the novel, we have deniers and blame-casters who categorically refuse to accept scientific evidence. We are blessed with fools aplenty.

Isaac Asimov in The Naked Sun, George Orwell in Nineteen Eighty-Four: A Novel, Ray Bradbury in Fahrenheit 451—these were the forward-thinkers of their time. These authors were able to extrapolate a possible future from reading about current events in the newspapers and watching the evening news on TV or radio.

These novels don’t describe a perfect example of how things are, but they contain glimpses of our modern life. In The Naked Sun, we find people who communicate almost exclusively via an internet of sorts and rarely meet in person.

In Nineteen Eighty-Four: A Novel, we see the effects of mass surveillance and the brutal regimentation of all aspects of behavior within a society. Dangerous thoughts are illegal, and the Thoughtpol (thought police) spy on everyone to detect and eliminate those whose independent thinking questions the powers-that-be.

In Fahrenheit 451, we are asked to consider a society in which books have been ruthlessly condensed to accommodate short attention spans. Minority groups protest the controversial, outdated content they believe exists in literature. However, comic books and pornography remains, as these feed the mainstream population’s desire for mindless entertainment. At the outset of the story, it is illegal to own a book.

These are novels that raise questions and ask us to take a hard look at ourselves.

These authors were conscious of how people react to given events, how the herd mentality takes over, and how mobs function. They also paid attention to the cutting edge science and theories of the day.

We denizens of the 21st century spend a lot of time on the internet, communicating via social media. Our phones and computers are under constant surveillance by our governments as part of the war on terrorism, and Google Earth knows where we are and what we are doing.

And finally, in many homes, reading takes a distant second place to television when it comes to family entertainment.

This raises the question, does our society shape sci-fi, or does sci-fi shape us? We tease about our cell phones and e-book readers being Star Trek devices. But all jokes aside, cell phones and electronic books and notebooks are integral parts of our culture that were described by Gene Roddenberry as part of his 1966 sci-fi televisions series.

So, while the early speculative fiction authors weren’t seers or clairvoyants, they took the information that was available to them and wrote stories that intuited a multitude of possible future timelines fairly accurately, some aspects of which closely resemble our 21st-century society.

This time of uncertainty will pass. We may never go back to standing next to strangers in a line at the grocery store, but we will create a new normal. We will find security in whatever form that new normal takes once we get used to the routine.

In real life, the good guys never win completely, but neither do the bad guys. One may have the upper hand for a while, but the pendulum swings two ways.

Pandemics are horrible, but they do eventually pass, and we will recover as a society.

This sense of powerlessness will pass.

You who write contemporary and near-future fiction and who are momentarily unable to put pen to paper will regain your creative muse, and words will flow. You will once again write insightful stories, delving deeply into what it means to be human. You will show us what a beautiful, interconnected world we live in, and how fragile each link in the web of life is.

The words will come, and you will write them.

Credits and Attributions

Eye on Flat Panel Monitor, Image by © Royalty-Free/Corbis

Dog Using Laptop Computer CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0)

2 Comments

Filed under writing

Tagged as , , , ,