Sharon L. Reddy's Blog: Spinner Spins, page 2

Your Journey

We can't know all the other's journey,
From where we came to where we are.
But we can share memories of laughter,
And gently touch each scar.

Stuck with it.

I was born a logician. Now that comes from Dad's side of the family, of course. (See Kansas City Superhero blog post.) Since Mom got him through all those, still called "English," communication courses he had to take, and neither he or my sister can spell, the words come from the British Isles, England and Wales, via a little town in Nebraska. My dad was an Irish-Dutch-and the rest of northwest Europe, small-town Kansas, gorgeous mix. I got that dumped on me, too. And to top it off my mom's blue eyes and peaches and cream complexion.

Kids did not like me, and I couldn't figure out why. This is where that first talent comes in. It never occurred to me they could be jealous. Envy of my miserable life, especially by those making it miserable, was completely illogical. I spent all my time on other worlds, in books, about ten a week. By the time I was 35, I had figured it out. When someone said I was beautiful, I said, "Don't blame me. My parents picked each other."

Now I'm 66, all I need for a Halloween costume is a broom and I'm running into it again. I write books for smart women. I said I don't write for the average reader and almost got kicked out of a group for "putting down people of average intelligence." Say what?! Illogical. Does not compute. If there was anything 'wrong' with average intelligence, it wouldn't be average!

I'm proud of what I've accomplished, but being conceited about what I was born with is illogical. I'm stuck with it and just can't view it as something embarrassing I should hide.

Now where did I write...

Sometimes, I remember something
and I think, "Where was that?"
It can take awhile, if I do remember
Where that was at.
It's not a big problem,
Something I need to fix.
But is it because of so many books
Or because I'm sixty-six?

"E-books outsell print books"

As if that hadn't been predictable since 1982. The forty-year lifespan of mass-market "trade paper" was in the briefs of the corporate executives making the decisions to buy publishers bleeding red ink. It was known the EPA was not going to grant another cleanup extension to pulp mills and the Forest Service wasn't going to renew clear-cut permits. At the time, I was studying Computer Science at the #1 ranked university for CS in the US.

By 1986, the most prestigious publishing entities had succumbed. 'Streamlining' to reduce costs began with experienced editors and proofreaders 'pink-slipped' and replaced with entry-level college graduates. The 'turnover' remains very high, because the wages remain low. Deals were struck to sell sawmills to foreign businesses, which the EPA could not force or fine for cleanup. Clearcut swung into high gear and mowed everything that could be shoved through those mills. Paper got cheap. That ended in 1989 and '90.

Mass-market print publishing is 30% waste. The new executives, from television, implemented plans to expand the market. The average reading level of the population, not readers, was seventh grade. That was instituted as the standard. Shorter books, chapter breaks more frequently, a great deal less expenditure on advertising midlist, were also implemented. Books would be chosen for their "marketability." The Blockbuster Method is described in detail in every Intro to Media Communications text, and a lot of dictionaries. Nothing that was negative to corporate image would be published, of course. (Check Analog magazine for editorials on the subject '90-'91. That's where the term dumbing-down came from.)

We messed up the plan. We said, "$9.99 and up for an e-book is ridiculous," all of us, writers and readers. The limitations of mass-market print publishing are known. The blockbuster method produces very few successes and a whole lot of flops. However, there is a legacy of the period, an entire generation who have known no innovation, no experimentation and no philosophical exploration in fiction.

A high percentage of the reviews of my work state the premise of a book is unique in that person's experience. Their surprise is painful testimony to the limitations of mass-market publishing. There's nothing 'wrong' with it, within its limitations, but the lack of other has been a dearth in our society and cap on the advancement of the art for far too long.

"E-books outsell print books"

Covering the book. There's help!

I just got wonderful help on all my new book cover designs. I always intended to replace them, but getting them published, works in progress, what promoting I actually do and cost or... enh! of pro services I've seen has kept me from doing it. Well, that's fixed.

Once Upon a Book Cover http://www.facebook.com/groups/194073... is an author's sweet dream. Now, you can check out the new cover for Hardline Lifer among others there, or see how good it looks on an Amazon page here, http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0051H8TSC

How about that? I wrote a real live testimonial. It's my first.

Wow what a concept!

So, for the last some months (I have no idea how many.) I've been exploring environmental apocalypse and creating a way through it. Mary did that. I had some great world leaders to write for those.

I write constructive societal change through leadership. Points of crisis are things that will change all of civilization, such as the speed of travel or communications, and especially a change in lifespan. Most are quite clear, but custom-survival conflict can accrete slowly and subtly. I write the heroes and the mentors.

Writing social leaders, who are also the big-badge undercover cop is fun. Lead society to change in the society pages, with style, and fight the parasites taking advantage of its weakened condition, with more advanced tech, bigger guns and uncompromising ideals, as in Platinum Mind and the SI series.

Question: If there are 200 worlds, many becoming overpopulated, how far out on the on the end of the line on the right of the bell curve are those people who are the most intelligent or talented? Fun stuff to extrapolate.

There is no advancement of art without experimentation.

I've said my work is 'avant garde' and an experiment that works for the intended audience, but I haven't explained what that is. In 1992, I began trying something new. Today, the most common story form isn't in first, second or third person. What is it? Voyeur, through the camera lens. Because of the way women visualize and communicate, it's possible to bring that POV to the written word.

I'm not in my books. No author intrusion, at all. The narrator is a character in the written form. There's very little description, but women visualize holistically. Basically, the success of the 50's soap operas was due to that. Two with coffee cups in a kitchen talked and 'thought' the story and it worked, especially well for women.

I've used that visualization and the old radio play technique of characters saying each other's names frequently, to meet the parameters of the experiment. POV is voyeur and no author intrusion.

All of the books are punctuated as dialog, the way the characters would say it. To make it easier for people using an ebook reader, monologues aren't broken into paragraphs. That's one of several things I did to reduce difficulty in keeping track of who's speaking. The object is not interrupt the reader.

It does take a couple chapters to get used to it, but once a woman has, she'll read it faster than other books. The books are built to be read fast. If you read them fast, you'll hit an identifier that tells you who's speaking before the question forms. It's a compliment that people want to know who said that, but it's not important the first read.

Did I say the first? Absolutely. Even the small books have more in them than you can get in one reading. They're built to be an entertainment bargain, good in 'reruns.' No book today can successfully compete as entertainment unless it is. Go back and 'listen' to the oratory of the president and the wisdom of the elder. The second time through, you'll discover you have built the visual image of the characters and you'll understand the complex society in which they function, often to steer it away from disaster.

That brings us to the story part of the experiment. My work has been called "Heinleinesque." I do 'social experimentation' in it. Exploring and defining family is part of the social component in most of my work. Societal construction is a logic process. Example logic chain:

This reliable source says the complex was built 15 years ago. A few pages later another reliable source says sixteen years. The most logical reason for the difference is they're counting from a different place, one the end and the other the beginning. That tells you the project took a year and from that you can extrapolate its size and the investment in it. If it's a public 'purchase,' the people either decided it's something they want, or they're mad.

A beer is a good basis for currency exchange and the difference in price between a neighborhood bar and a fine dining restaurant is a clue to the state of the economy. Every culture is constructed as the characters reveal and discover it.

Now, about those heroes. I write men for women, demigods and superheroes. Dr. Who, McGyver, do you like Torchwood? I've got a Captain Jack in one of my books. He's a myth and a legend, a real person and an attitude. The characters deal with the real problem. Villains do not get equal billing. You see, there's no one else writing fun 'science fiction fantasy' that really makes your mind run fast, for women. Did I mention it always frustrated me we didn't get a look at Wayne Manor? Raven said, "with a little Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous," in her introduction to my work. I'll use your imagination. You'll enjoy seeing what you created, the second read.

What else do I do that's specifically different. I write pilots. Assembling a band of heroes to solve a really big problem is a twice yearly, with supplements, event. Yes, that kind of pilot. It defines the type of ending. Now, the big 'weird.' Fan fiction readers and writers asked me to write for them. There you go. Have fun. Don't kill them off. Don't make good guys bad guys. It irritates other writers. Mention where you got them. Go ahead. Publish. Make money. Make a movie. Now if you use my story for the movie, I do want to talk. But you have specific permission to use my characters and cultures for your writing fun.

Science fiction is back!

Dystopia, utopia,
The have and have not,
Social dynamic theory
Neatly fitted to a plot.
Orwell, Brunner, Heinlein and more,
Showed us our society,
From the future's distant shore.
I'm not looking for fortune
And not a whole lot of fame.
Just sixty thousand people
Who recognize my name.

The lowest-common-denominator formula of corporate mass-market publishing severely curtailed the literary function of science fiction, as social commentary and forum for presentation of philosophical argument and experimentation in literary style.

A science fiction or fantasy author is a social dynamicist and a working philosopher.

In the 50's, we learned ethics in comic books and watching Saturday morning TV. That's what the 60's were about. It was the time of the great editors, when bold new work... Back when a book was the most common way for people to get a story. That changed.

Corporations bought publishers bleeding red ink and revamped for the only way print publishing might be profitable. Every book had to appeal to the broadest possible audience, so lowest common denominator and designed for the national average reader, to expand the market, was the correct business decision. They're whining because Amazon didn't stick to their timetable, or let them do it first. They hadn't changed a dot in the plan in thirty years. Transition to electronic publication, with it's very nice projected profit margin, and attendant personal income increase, had been scheduled.

The complete unfamiliarity of a man-against-society plot, especially when the good guys win, is astounding in its frequency. I write superheroes and villains are a symptom. The diseased or threatened society is what must be changed. I have a whole lot of fun writing romantic heroes with a whole lot of money. My 'sets' are right at home beside Tony Stark's pad.

The Kansas City Superhero

My father was Warren Moore Hageman, I think still 'acting' supervisor of the Internal Revenue Service Field Audit Division, when he put Nick Civella away. From Kansas City, he went to Boston, as head of the East Coast Presidential Strike Force Against Organized Crime. The SOP for investigation and enforcement of the racketeering laws was written as he did it. He received two Herbert Gallatin Awards. I think he was the only one to receive two, but haven't verified it.

He was a real nice, smiling guy from Marysville, Kansas, all the neighbors liked. Everyone called him "Bud," except those who feared an incorruptible servant of the people. They made him mad, when the River Quay became a battleground in a 'family quarrel,' and the dreams and hard work to build them were destroyed. I remember seeing it in his eyes, the implacable truth of his judgement of the Mafia. They had chosen to be parasites on society.

My daddy was an accountant. He did it with a mechanical pencil and a columnar pad.

I'm a science fiction author. I write idealistic superhero stories for smart women. I knew one.