My Icelandic Writing Advice

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Not long ago, I was in Reykjavik for Icecon, the second science fiction convention ever held in Iceland. I thought it was a terrific small convention. There'll be third Icecon in 2020 and if you have the opportunity to go, you really should.

Since I was there, the con committee asked me to participate in a brief writers' workshop. My part of it was more a lecture than anything else, really. But I tried to squeeze everything I knew into one hour.

One of the student writers, Debbie Lai, took notes and they've been posted at Friday Ten Min Club.

Notes are just notes, of course. Simplifications. But to see if you might benefit from them, try the following sample test. Most published writers will ace it.

What question should you ask before choosing a protagonist?

Why should your protagonist NOT be a nice guy?

What is the minimum number of characters a story should have?

How much of your research should you include in your story?

If you can't be good, be... what?

We all know what a story is. In one word, what is a story about?

Hamlet is notoriously badly plotted. Why. then, do we love it so?

Pencils down. All done?  Good. If you aced it, you already know. If not, you may proceed to check out the notes here.


Above: That's what I look like in Iceland. It's he northern light, I think.

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The Parable of the Creche

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Once a year, I post this story here. I think it says something valuable and true about human beings. So of course it speaks to the holiday season.

Happy holidays, everybody! I hope with all my heart that they bring you contentment and joy. Though, you being human...

The Parable of the Creche

When first I came to Roxborough, more than a third of a century ago, the creche was already a tradition of long standing.  Every year it appeared in Gorgas Park during the Christmas season. It wasn't all that big -- maybe seven feet high at its tip -- and it wasn't very fancy. The figures of Joseph and Mary, the Christ child, and the animals were a couple of feet high, and there were sheets of Plexiglas over the front of the wooden construction to keep people from walking off with them. But there was a painted backdrop of the hills of Bethlehem at night, the floor was strewn was real straw, and it was genuinely loved.

It was a common sight to see people standing before the creche, especially in the evening, admiring it.  Sometimes parents brought their small children to see it for the first time and that was genuinely touching.  It provided a welcome touch of seasonality and community to the park.

Alas, Gorgas Park was publicly owned, and it was only a matter of time before somebody complained that the creche violated the principle of the separation of church and state.  When the complaint finally came, the creche was taken out of the park and put into storage.

People were upset of course. Nobody liked seeing a beloved tradition disappear.  There was a certain amount of grumbling and disgruntlement.

So the kindly people of Leverington Presbyterian Church, located just across the street from the park, stepped in. They adopted the creche and put it up on the yard in front of their church, where it could be seen and enjoyed by all. 

But did this make us happy?  It did not. The creche was simply  not the same, located in front of a church.  It seemed lessened, in some strange way, made into a prop for the Presbyterians. You didn’t see people standing before it anymore.

I was in a local tappie shortly after the adoption and heard one of the barflies holding forth on this very subject:

"The god-damned Christians," he said, "have hijacked Christmas."

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Bones of the Earth! Cheap! Soon!

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And speaking of ruthless self-promotional news...

Bones of the Earth, my wildly entertaining novel of dinosaurs-and-time-travel will be featured in Early Bird Books, Open Roads Media's daily deals newsletter on the 19th of this month. On that day, the ebook will be downpriced to $1.99.

So if you like e-books, like SF, like dinosaurs, and don't already have a copy... well, this deal is for you.

You can subscribe to Early Bird Books here, so you'll get the direct link to the deal on the day it happens. If such is your choice.

Which is the whole thing in a nutshell. You couldn't ask for a kinder, gentler hard sell than that.

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Small Wonders Briefly Available

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It's that time of year again! Every December Dragonstairs Press (which, I have to remind people, is not my press but Marianne Porter's, I being but a lowly in-house content provider) issues a Solstice chapbook. Signed, numbered, hand-stitched, and scandalously underpriced. Those which aee not mailed out to Friends of the Press are then made available for purchase.

Newly out from Dragonstairs is Small Wonders, containing three seasonal and very short stories by your humble servant: "Midnight Journey," "A Horse Named Michael," and "The Mousewife's Tale."

Here's how the last story begins:

The Mousewife’s Tale 

Little girls, however winsome, grow up. Long before she left for college, Catherine outgrew her dollhouse and so it was placed in the attic, open side to the wall, against the day when her daughter or granddaughter might require it. 

What a treasure this was for a questing young mouse to discover! 

Wonderingly, the mouse crept inside, peering about with small bright eyes. Her whiskers twitched. There was a living room with rugs and chairs and ottomans and a dining room with a long table and chandelier. The kitchen was fully furnished. A staircase led to more rooms upstairs. 

But dust was everywhere. So, tying on an apron, the mouse grabbed a broom made from a toothpick and thistle-fluff and began to sweep. When that was done, she filled an acorn bucket with soapy water and mopped the kitchen floor. 

The doorbell rang and in trooped…

I personally like these stories. But, then, I'm biased. The perfect gift for the bibliophile on your Solstice list.

There are, as of this posting, exactly one dozen copies available, out of an edition of 120. You can find them at www.dragonstairs.com. The prices listed are not for the postage. The prices include the postage.

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The Mainstream Murray Leinster

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There was no more important writer in the period between H. G. Wells and Robert Heinlein than Murray Leinster. Who was actually a Virginian named Will F. Jenkins.

In a career that began in 1913 and ended with his death in 1975, Jenkins published some 1,800 stories in more than 150 periodicals, as well as 74 novels and collections. Only a small part of his output was science fiction -- and that was written over the horrified objections of his agent. (SF didn't pay as well as the slicks, which were his usual markets.) But Jenkins loved science and wrote science fiction for the fun of it, utilizing the Leinster pen name to protect his other fiction.

Making it ironic that today Will F. Jenkins is remembered almost entirely for his science fiction, which included the first alternate history story, the original first contact, and, in "A Logic Named Joe" (Astounding, 1946), a truly prescient description of the Internet.

If you're like me, you've probably wondered what Jenkins' other fiction looked like but never had the time and energy and resources to go digging through old mainstream magazines to find out.

Well, good news! "Ten Unique Stories by Will F. Jenkins from the the Murray Leinster Archives" has just gone up for sale in e-book and paperback formats. (Created and edited, though she takes no credit for it, in an act of filial piety by his daughter Billee Stallings.) And I wrote the introduction!

Here's how the intro begins:

Introduction: Will Jenkins, Writing as Himself  

“I have a new theory about the natural structure of story,” Will Jenkins said. I was in his house, Ardudwy, in Gloucester County, Virginia, along with a fellow student who was also a science fiction fan and an indulgent William and Mary professor who thought we’d get a kick out of meeting a real writer. “I think it goes back to caveman times. A bunch of hunters are sitting around a campfire and one of them says, ‘It was pretty clever of me, the way I killed that cave bear today. Of course, he had me down for a moment and I thought I was going to die. But then I came up with that trick.’” A pause. “‘When I left the camp this morning, I had no idea that…’”

 Jenkins let his hypothetical narrator trail off, and laughed.

 That was nearly half a century ago and I still cherish the memory of that one-time-only encounter with the man who, even then, was known chiefly for his seminal works of science fiction. Which is ironic, because…

If you want to read the rest of my essay, it's visible in its entirety using Amazon's "Look Within" function here.  Or you could simply buy the book.


And I owe everyone an apology . . .

Without meaning to do so, I let my blog lapse. I was busy, I was traveling, and I had rather a large backlog of work to see to. Mea culpa. I'm sorry for that.

But now the blog is back! And I'll have a lot of things to post about over the coming months. So welcome back.

I'll do my best not to wander off in a haze of forgetfulness this time.

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Gregory Manchess Paints... Me!

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So tonight, November 3, 2018, starting at 8:00 p.m. artist Gregory Manchess will paint a portrait of me... live! This will take place at the Artists' Reception of the World Fantasy Convention in Baltimore.

This is a big deal for me, not only for the obvious reasons but because I am a great admirer of Greg's work. Pictured above is his illustration for "The Mongolian Wizard," the first of a projected 21-story series being published on Tor.com. It's a terrific painting in its own right. But it also has virtues that you'll have to read the story to fully appreciate. First of all, it neatly encapsulates the tory without giving away any of its surprises. The faces of Ritter and Sir Toby (and the wolf Geri's, too, come to think of it) express their characters as I imagined them.

Most importantly, the illustration captures the essence of the story. If you looked at it and thought, "I hope the story's as good as the picture is," then you're going to enjoy the story. Conversely, if you thought, "That is exactly the sort of thing I would never read," well... Greg's just saved you the trouble.

While I'm being painted, both Greg and I will take questions about our work. So it should be a dynamic, involving event. If you're at the WFC, consider dropping by.

Oh, and spread the word, would you? This event was put together at the last moment, so not everybody who would be interested knows about it.

Thanks!


And you may be wondering . . .

Haven't I been saying I wasn't going to the World Fantasy Convention?

Yes, I did say that and, indeed, I'm still in Philadelphia. I'll be there only for the two-hours-and-change that the event will take. So if for any reason you want to see me...

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All Lives Lingers

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I keep an untidy office. Anyone who knows me knows that that's not an exaggeration.

Marianne and I came home this afternoon from a very pleasant lunch with Julie Phillips, the author of James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon, easily the best biography of a science fiction author ever written, and Samuel R. Delany who is, well, Samuel R. Delany.  We talked about Julie's bio-in-progress of Ursula K. Le Guin and a variety of other matters that I for one found interesting. Then, back home, Marianne set about baking and I went to my office to take care of some business.

Casually, I picked up a newspaper clipping from the floor and glanced at it to decide whether it should be filed or discarded.

It was Gardner Dozois' obituary.

Ah, me. I knew Gardner for something like 44 years and Marianne knew him for only a month or two less. What a kind and generous man he was! How tirelessly he worked for the good of others! How terribly, terribly sad I feel to be reminded that he's gone.

But here's the thing.

I had a friend (nobody you know) who did not live his life a fraction so well. I will not go into the details. Suffice it to say, whenever I'm reminded of him and the damage he did to others, I reflexively think: "[Name], you idiot!"

When you die, the facts of your life are suddenly, radically simplified.  It's as if an enormous hand reaches down out of the sky and with one finger draws a line under the column of figures contains all the pluses and minuses of your life. The zeros fall off. What remains is a simple number, maybe positive, maybe negative.

Which is how you will be remembered.

End of sermon. Please forgive me for making it. I was reminded of a friend today and it made me sad. At least it didn't make me angry.

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