Guy Stewart's Blog, page 13

Slice of PIE: “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" - Possibly My Favorite Movie

NOT using the panel discussions of the most recent World Science Fiction Convention in Chicago in August 2022 (I retired from education, but I STILL couldn't go to CHICon because we're on a fixed income now. SO... I will jump off, jump on, rail against, and shamelessly agree with the BRIEF DESCRIPTION given in the pdf copy of the Program Guide. But not today. Today, I go back to an essay I wrote that was both Irritating and, for me, inspirational...

My wife and I re-watched the movie, “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty”, starring Ben Stiller. The screenplay was based on a short story of the same name, written by well-known humorist, James Thurber.
Apparently they really have nothing to do with each other, so I’m going to treat the Stiller movie as a science fiction flick.

Why SF and not Fantasy?
It involves both psychology (soft SF) and technology (hard SF) – and advances in technology and how they affect society (classic hard SF)…

The premise is how advances in technology will affect society, in this case, how the internet affects the lives of people whose employ was in a paper magazine that depended on physical film images; at its heart, the kind of SF we all enjoy reading – the book I’m reading now is an exploration of what post-humanity will be like when our psyches can be uploaded to vastly more advanced computers and how that might overtake the biological Human. John C. Wright’s COUNT TO A TRILLION is no more hard SF than Stiller’s TSLOWM.

The psychology is obvious and where in Thurber’s TSLOWM, Walter never moves from his imagination to any kind of reality at all, Stiller’s Walter begins his life lost in a sort of fantasy world, he enters the real world and begins to bring some of those fantasies into reality.

Of course, the only way he can do that is by the application of everyday technology – a combination of jets, helicopters, ocean-going vessels, cars, subways, elevators, high-altitude/low temperature gear, and eHarmony (an online dating site)…

Most importantly to me, however, is that the movie is inspiring. While I can’t say exactly why, I do know that as a writer, I tend to live in my head as Walter did. I can also say, though, that I’ve had my fair share of adventures as a missionary in Nigeria (where we experienced a coup d’état) and I helped perform a puppet show on national TV; Cameroon where we experienced an attempted coup d’état, stepped on a scorpion in the middle of the night, and came down with malaria; and Liberia where nothing of “adventure” happened except that we traveled up and down the coast and I walked along a black sand beach. I was also in Haiti for two weeks, helping to lay the foundation of an orphanage. I guess traveling with a band counts – twice – counts too…two summers running a Bible camp in the center of the Chippewa National Forest and actually SEEING wild timber wolves. Having lunch with Newbery Award-winning author Kate di Camillo. Meeting Mary Grandpre, artist of Scholastic Book’s HARRY POTTER books and a cover of TIME magazine…I have a “real” letter from Madeleine L’Engle, a response to a letter I wrote her, as well as a different one from Anne McCaffery and another from David Brin…

I was the Science Museum of Minnesota’s Teacher of the Year in 1997…

OK, so I’m not exactly an example of Thurber’s Walter Mitty; but I’m certainly not Stiller’s Walter Mitty, either. It’s Stiller’s Walter Mitty, though who is the character of a science fiction movie. While it doesn’t involve space or time travel, it does involve MIND travel as we got to see what he was imagining – saving the dog from a building about to erupt into a fireball; the guy who came out of a LIFE Magazine ad from the Himalayas to talk to Cheryl; being Benjamin Buttons to Cheryl's Daisy Fuller; plus a few others I can’t recall (and can’t seem to find listed anywhere). For a moment, we see what he sees – or where he goes when life isn’t going in the direction he wanted it to. It's a sort of...time travel or psychotic adventure that moves me to want more in my life.

So there you have it – why I think Stiller’s SECRET LIFE OF WALTER MITTY is a science fiction film rather than a fantasy film and why it is SF in the very best of the tradition.

After reading Lisa Cron's book, WIRED FOR STORY, I started creating a framework for me to use her idea -- that we read stories to learn how to deal with real life. In an article my sister forwarded to me, Cron states: "The reader expects the story to revolve around one, single plot problem that grows, escalates and complicates, which the protagonist has no choice but to deal with...[which] is constructed to force the protagonist to confront, struggle with, and hopefully overcome a long standing internal problem. Story is about an internal change, not an external one...Can my plot problem...force my protagonist to struggle internally, spurring her to make a much needed internal change in order to resolve it?"

This is exactly what Walter Mitty does in the movie. Deep down, he feels he has no control over his life. So he creates fantasies in which he CAN control the situation to the extent that he becomes a hero. Real life is a lost job, a brutal boss, multiple relationship fails, a bossy sister, and the loss of an important film negative -- the only one on Earth. In his mind, he makes heroic decisions and people love him. Then he starts to make REAL (sometimes dumb!) decisions and gets hurt, nearly dies, and then hurts the person around whom his entire life has revolved...but he GROWS and then becomes a real man with a real woman who is interested in him. And he tells the boss off.

THAT is what story is supposed to do, and because we don't read (or even pay much attention to) stories anymore, we don't know what the HECK to do to make life better...“...we're wired to turn to story to teach us the way of the world.”

Image: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/07/d1/3b/07d13b89120aa69106d0410bd5671b52.jpg

POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAYS: Creating BELIEVABLE and REALISTIC Characters Who Are Not Like Me

Using the Programme Guide of the 2020 World Science Fiction Convention, ConZEALAND (The First Virtual World Science Fiction Convention), I will jump off, jump on, rail against, and shamelessly agree with the BRIEF DESCRIPTION given in the pdf copy of the Program Guide. I will be using the events to drive me to distraction or revelation – as the case may be. The link is provided below where this appeared on Wednesday, July 29, 2020 at 1500 hours (aka 3:00 pm). Indigenous authors come together to discuss the craft of writing, how they build futures and alternate worlds through an indigenous lens, their creative process and current projects.

Toni Wi: writer; editor; prospective PhD student
Sloane Leong: cartoonist, artist, writer (Hawaiian, Chinese, Italian, Mexican, Native American and European ancestry)
Sascha Stronach: writer
Darcie Little Badger: writer, PhD in oceanography
Rebecca Roanhorse: writer, Campbell, Nebula, and Hugo Award-winning (LOVED Trail of Lightning)

This would have been the first event on my list were I going!

However, I’m adding another pair of guests here – my Mind Guests: Nisi Shawl and Cynthia Ward, authors and workshop leaders. After following various leads, articles, and commentaries by other writers, I reached their “workshop book” WRITING THE OTHER, A Practical Approach.

In 1992, at the Clarion West Writers Workshop, “One of our classmates opined that it was a mistake to write about people of different ethnicities: you might get it wrong. Horribly, offensively wrong. Better not to even try.”(WRITING THE OTHER: A Practical Approach, Aqueduct Press, 2005; p 6)

It seemed to Ms. Shawl “to be taking the easy way out.” This led her to write the essay, “Beautiful Strangers: Transracial Writing for the Sincere” (Speculations, October 1999; retrieved from: https://www.sfwa.org/2009/12/04/transracial-writing-for-the-sincere/)

“Amy closed her mouth, and mine dropped open. Luckily, I was seated when my friend made this statement, but the lawn chair must have sagged visibly with the weight of my disbelief. My own classmate, excluding all other ethnic types from her creative universe! I think this sort of misguided caution is the source of a lot of sf’s monochrome futures.” (It can certainly be said of Children's Literature at this moment...)

It was certainly mine – though I occasionally tried to slip in a name that was not typically given to Caucasian newborns, like “Candace”, “Dejario”, and “Ozaawindib” – and as much of a cultural referent as I could in a short story.

After writing my novel, OUT OF THE DEBTOR STARS, and sending it in eventually to be evaluated at BAEN BOOKS, it has been sitting in my computer, awaiting a rewrite for a couple of years now. In it, my main character is white and Ojibwe. Where I live, the Ojibwe are the predominant indigenous people, though there are Dakota as well. The Dakota lost the war with the Ojibwe a long time ago, so, I wanted to create a character who was not me – I wanted to attempt to be a transracial writer.

The first roadblock I slammed into was an objection to Noah’s bi-cultural name. His first was a popular American name (though actually, Wiki (with infallible accuracy, and interested solely in passing correct, factual, and totally and completely bias-free information) points out that “in view of the Sumerian/Babylonian source of the flood story”, it was Hebrew only secondarily after being stolen from Sumer and Babylon…)

At any rate, Noah’s last name is Bemisemagak and the editor commented that it was too long and he’d just skipped over it...

Really? I get irritated when people refuse to believe that my name is Guy! (I have been subjected to a quick query of “more likely” alternatives: “Greg? Gary? Grant? (any my personal favorite) God?”

So, let’s trample on an indigenous name by noting that it’s too long and we’ll just skip over it...

Admittedly, I was weak on the history when I wrote it. Since then, however, I’ve read THE ASSASSINATION OF HOLE-IN-THE-DAY and a poetry collection by Ojibwe author and poet, Richard Wagamese, (resided in British Columbia, Canada), EMBERS: One Ojibwe’s Meditations.

I absolutely do not claim familiarity with the Ojibwe people, though I have passed through the skeletal remnants of their vast lands; I’ve secretly rejoiced at their prosperity and the white community’s vast irritation when, “Minnesota tribes were the first in the nation to negotiate and sign gaming compacts with a state government.” (https://mnindiangamingassoc.com/about-miga/history-of-indian-gaming/. My home also holds a far darker record – not only the largest execution of Dakota in the state’s microscopic history, but “The mass hanging of 38 Dakota men was conducted on December 26, 1862, in Mankato, Minnesota; it was the largest mass execution in United States history.”

I have a profound motivation to include “the other” in my writing. I’m trying to sell a short story that also takes place at this time, with Director Bemisemagak, but I haven’t had any luck yet. I wrote a contemporary YA novel, VICTORY OF FISTS in which Langston Hughes Jones is a biracial teen who is a genius, has anger issues, and works to deal with them by writing poetry. My agent tried 17 markets, all of them rejected it for reasons other than “a big, old, fat, white guy can’t possibly [be allowed] to write about a biracial teenager!!!!!” But it was clear that I was flying into the gathering hurricane that's roaring through YA, children's, and speculative fiction publishing as people who are leaders attempt to do IMMEDIATELY (and with fanfare) what should have been done wholesale decades ago.

While I hesitate to speculate, I wonder if the REST of the publishing community holds Nisi Shawl and Cynthia Ward’s enthusiasm for bofwhigs (Big Old Fat White Guys) like myself trying to include POC in my narratives? I think it’s important that POCs begin to appear in stories in the proportion in which they are in a society. While there may or may not be enough writers who are POC to cover that need, I’ll continue to include characters who are POC in my writing – whether people notice it or not. Larry Henry, the main character in my story, “Kamsahamnida, America”, was supposed to be black, based on Robert Henry Lawrence (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Henry_Lawrence_Jr.), First African-American astronaut, died before ever going into space. Robert Henry Lawrence? The Henry’s obvious; Larry is short for Lawrence…nah? *sigh*

I don't want to appropriate culture, I’m want to be part of the effort to ensure that hidden people who made the world are drawn forward to take their real place in history, in today’s world, and in the future worlds. For context, I've worked in a multicultural, average high school as a counselor for the past ten years; if you went there and asked around, others would speak for my behavior and character -- otherwise, you have no idea if I'm writing fiction or fact.

Shawl & Ward conclude with the following, “Tom Wolfe spoke at a Press Club lunch on the subject of ‘writing what you know.’ His point was that this is great advice, but that as writers it’s our job to continually know more…So welcome the Beautiful Strangers. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes with them. Do your best, and you’ll avoid the biggest mistake of all: exclusion.”

In my writing, I'm working hard to do this. I'm working to become transracial and antiracist. I am a work in progress.

Programme Book: https://sites.grenadine.co/sites/conzealand/en/conzealand/schedule
Image: 

Using the Programme Guide of the 2020 World Science Ficti...

Using the Programme Guide of the 2020 World Science Fiction Convention, ConZEALAND (The First Virtual World Science Fiction Convention), I will jump off, jump on, rail against, and shamelessly agree with the BRIEF DESCRIPTION given in the pdf copy of the Program Guide. I will be using the events to drive me to distraction or revelation – as the case may be. The link is provided below where this appeared on Wednesday, July 29, 2020 at 1500 hours (aka 3:00 pm). Indigenous authors come together to discuss the craft of writing, how they build futures and alternate worlds through an indigenous lens, their creative process and current projects.

Toni Wi: writer; editor; prospective PhD student
Sloane Leong: cartoonist, artist, writer (Hawaiian, Chinese, Italian, Mexican, Native American and European ancestry)
Sascha Stronach: writer
Darcie Little Badger: writer, PhD in oceanography
Rebecca Roanhorse: writer, Campbell, Nebula, and Hugo Award-winning (LOVED Trail of Lightning)

This would have been the first event on my list were I going!

However, I’m adding another pair of guests here – my Mind Guests: Nisi Shawl and Cynthia Ward, authors and workshop leaders. After following various leads, articles, and commentaries by other writers, I reached their “workshop book” WRITING THE OTHER, A Practical Approach.

In 1992, at the Clarion West Writers Workshop, “One of our classmates opined that it was a mistake to write about people of different ethnicities: you might get it wrong. Horribly, offensively wrong. Better not to even try.”(WRITING THE OTHER: A Practical Approach, Aqueduct Press, 2005; p 6)

It seemed to Ms. Shawl “to be taking the easy way out.” This led her to write the essay, “Beautiful Strangers: Transracial Writing for the Sincere” (Speculations, October 1999; retrieved from: https://www.sfwa.org/2009/12/04/transracial-writing-for-the-sincere/)

“Amy closed her mouth, and mine dropped open. Luckily, I was seated when my friend made this statement, but the lawn chair must have sagged visibly with the weight of my disbelief. My own classmate, excluding all other ethnic types from her creative universe! I think this sort of misguided caution is the source of a lot of sf’s monochrome futures.” (It can certainly be said of Children's Literature at this moment...)

It was certainly mine – though I occasionally tried to slip in a name that was not typically given to Caucasian newborns, like “Candace”, “Dejario”, and “Ozaawindib” – and as much of a cultural referent as I could in a short story.

After writing my novel, OUT OF THE DEBTOR STARS, and sending it in eventually to be evaluated at BAEN BOOKS, it has been sitting in my computer, awaiting a rewrite for a couple of years now. In it, my main character is white and Ojibwe. Where I live, the Ojibwe are the predominant indigenous people, though there are Dakota as well. The Dakota lost the war with the Ojibwe a long time ago, so, I wanted to create a character who was not me – I wanted to attempt to be a transracial writer.

The first roadblock I slammed into was an objection to Noah’s bi-cultural name. His first was a popular American name (though actually, Wiki (with infallible accuracy, and interested solely in passing correct, factual, and totally and completely bias-free information) points out that “in view of the Sumerian/Babylonian source of the flood story”, it was Hebrew only secondarily after being stolen from Sumer and Babylon…)

At any rate, Noah’s last name is Bemisemagak and the editor commented that it was too long and he’d just skipped over it...

Really? I get irritated when people refuse to believe that my name is Guy! (I have been subjected to a quick query of “more likely” alternatives: “Greg? Gary? Grant? (any my personal favorite) God?”

So, let’s trample on an indigenous name by noting that it’s too long and we’ll just skip over it...

Admittedly, I was weak on the history when I wrote it. Since then, however, I’ve read THE ASSASSINATION OF HOLE-IN-THE-DAY and a poetry collection by Ojibwe author and poet, Richard Wagamese, (resided in British Columbia, Canada), EMBERS: One Ojibwe’s Meditations.

I absolutely do not claim familiarity with the Ojibwe people, though I have passed through the skeletal remnants of their vast lands; I’ve secretly rejoiced at their prosperity and the white community’s vast irritation when, “Minnesota tribes were the first in the nation to negotiate and sign gaming compacts with a state government.” (https://mnindiangamingassoc.com/about-miga/history-of-indian-gaming/. My home also holds a far darker record – not only the largest execution of Dakota in the state’s microscopic history, but “The mass hanging of 38 Dakota men was conducted on December 26, 1862, in Mankato, Minnesota; it was the largest mass execution in United States history.”

I have a profound motivation to include “the other” in my writing. I’m trying to sell a short story that also takes place at this time, with Director Bemisemagak, but I haven’t had any luck yet. I wrote a contemporary YA novel, VICTORY OF FISTS in which Langston Hughes Jones is a biracial teen who is a genius, has anger issues, and works to deal with them by writing poetry. My agent tried 17 markets, all of them rejected it for reasons other than “a big, old, fat, white guy can’t possibly [be allowed] to write about a biracial teenager!!!!!” But it was clear that I was flying into the gathering hurricane that's roaring through YA, children's, and speculative fiction publishing as people who are leaders attempt to do IMMEDIATELY (and with fanfare) what should have been done wholesale decades ago.

While I hesitate to speculate, I wonder if the REST of the publishing community holds Nisi Shawl and Cynthia Ward’s enthusiasm for bofwhigs (Big Old Fat White Guys) like myself trying to include POC in my narratives? I think it’s important that POCs begin to appear in stories in the proportion in which they are in a society. While there may or may not be enough writers who are POC to cover that need, I’ll continue to include characters who are POC in my writing – whether people notice it or not. Larry Henry, the main character in my story, “Kamsahamnida, America”, was supposed to be black, based on Robert Henry Lawrence (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Henry_Lawrence_Jr.), First African-American astronaut, died before ever going into space. Robert Henry Lawrence? The Henry’s obvious; Larry is short for Lawrence…nah? *sigh*

I don't want to appropriate culture, I’m want to be part of the effort to ensure that hidden people who made the world are drawn forward to take their real place in history, in today’s world, and in the future worlds. For context, I've worked in a multicultural, average high school as a counselor for the past ten years; if you went there and asked around, others would speak for my behavior and character -- otherwise, you have no idea if I'm writing fiction or fact.

Shawl & Ward conclude with the following, “Tom Wolfe spoke at a Press Club lunch on the subject of ‘writing what you know.’ His point was that this is great advice, but that as writers it’s our job to continually know more…So welcome the Beautiful Strangers. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes with them. Do your best, and you’ll avoid the biggest mistake of all: exclusion.”

In my writing, I'm working hard to do this. I'm working to become transracial and antiracist. I am a work in progress.

Programme Book: https://sites.grenadine.co/sites/conzealand/en/conzealand/schedule
Image: 

MINING THE ASTEROIDS Part 23: Who Will Be "The Boss" Of...Everyone?

Initially, I started this series because of the 2021 World Science Fiction Convention, DisCON which I WOULD have been attending in person if I felt safe enough to do so in person AND it hadn’t been changed to the week before the Christmas Holidays…HOWEVER, as time passed, I knew that this was a subject I was going to explore because it interests me…

I think the title of the essay makes perfect sense to me! Some world-wide body needs to have control over something so HUGE as asteroid mining, because, let’s face it, letting space develop along the line of the free-wheeling Lawless West would have SERIOUS world-destroying consequences.

Certainly SOME people have considered this possibility because there ARE documents in place, signed by space-faring nations. On October 13, 202o, the nations who signed the ARTEMIS ACCORDS have their flags illustrated on the last page of the document. Notable signatures missing: Russia, China, North Korea…I hate to say it, but “naturally”. A few other of note who are included: Nigeria, Rwanda, Slovenia, the Czech Republic, and several others I didn’t even know had space programs!

This is obviously good. Of interest to me: “The ability to extract and utilize resources on the Moon, Mars, and asteroids will be critical to support safe and sustainable space exploration and development. The Artemis Accords reinforce that space resource extraction and utilization can and will be conducted under the auspices of the Outer Space Treaty, with specific emphasis on Articles II, VI, and XI.”

Those articles as expanded in the original Outer Space Treaty Entered into force October 10, 1967 are as follows (Note that THIS document was signed by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republic (aka USSR), The Peoples Republic of China (signed December 1983), The Holy See, Cuba (in June of 1977), Iran, Iraq, Pakistan…It seems more countries were interested in peaceful coexistence in space than there are today interested in peaceful coexistence on the ground…

The following are the three Articles mentioned above:

Article II “Outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means.”

Article VI “Parties to the Treaty shall bear international responsibility for national activities in outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, whether such activities are carried on by governmental agencies or by non-governmental entities, and for assuring that national activities are carried out in conformity with the provisions set forth in the present Treaty. The activities of non-governmental entities in outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, shall require authorization and continuing supervision by the appropriate State Party to the Treaty. When activities are carried on in outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, by an international organization, responsibility for compliance with this Treaty shall be borne both by the international organization and by the States Parties to the Treaty participating in such organization.”

Article XI “In order to promote international co-operation in the peaceful exploration and use of outer space, States Parties to the Treaty conducting activities in outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, agree to inform the Secretary-General of the United Nations as well as the public and the international scientific community, to the greatest extent feasible and practicable, of the nature, conduct, locations and results of such activities. On receiving the said information, the Secretary-General of the United Nations should be prepared to disseminate it immediately and effectively.”

There’s FAR too much here to explore in a single post. Consider this a “shot across the bow” of the rapidly steaming nation-states plans for the Moon, asteroids, and anything else that will feed a rapidly weakening Earth: “…it remains uncertain whether China or Russia will comply, given the current geopolitical circumstances and the fact that Beijing has submitted its own proposal to the U.N. Moreover, considering the existing lack of a clear global regulatory framework for space property, exploitation and ownership rights, individual nations like the U.S., Japan, Luxembourg and the United Arab Emirates have established their own unique space legislation and policies, which increases the risk of inconsistent and conflicting regulations.”

Ah yes, it appears that Humanity is on the cusp of exporting national and racial tensions to the innocent space bodies of the Solar System. We shall see...

Today’s Sources: https://spacenews.com/the-un-needs-form-parliament-regulate-space-mining/, https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Artemis-Accords-signed-13Oct2020.pdf?emrc=653a00; Original Space Treaty @1967) https://2009-2017.state.gov/t/isn/5181.htm#treaty
Foundational Resource: (A general Wikipedia post detailing what the authors currently know about asteroid mining: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_mining)
Noted Resources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_asteroid_close_approaches_to_Earth, https://www.pharostribune.com/news/local_news/article_7fcd3ea5-3c14-533f-a8d5-9bf629922f34.html, https://www.fool.com/investing/2022/04/29/like-asteroid-mining-be-careful-what-you-wish-for/, https://www.nps.gov/wrbr/learn/historyculture/theroadtothefirstflight.htm, https://hackaday.com/2019/03/27/extraterrestrial-excavation-digging-holes-on-other-worlds/, https://www.planetary.org/space-missions/every-small-worlds-mission
Image: https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/iss037e028227-orig-sq.jpg?resize=2000,2000

IDEA ON TUESDAY 638

Each Tuesday, rather than a POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAY, I'd like to both challenge you and lend a helping hand. I generate more speculative and teen story ideas than I can ever use. My family rolls its collective eyes when I say, "Hang on a second! I just have to write down this idea..." Here, I'll include the initial inspiration (quote, website, podcast, etc.) and then a thought or two that came to mind. These will simply be seeds -- plant, nurture, fertilize, chemically treat, irradiate, test or stress them as you see fit. I only ask if you let me know if anything comes of them. Regarding horror, I found this insight in line with WIRED FOR STORY: “ We seek out…stories which give us a place to put our fears…Stories that frighten us or unsettle us - not just horror stories, but ones that make us uncomfortable or that strike a chord somewhere deep inside - give us the means to explore the things that scare us…” – Lou Morgan (The Guardian)

H Trope: apocalyptic diary/journal/log
Current Event: http://news.discovery.com/earth/oceans/lost-continent-discovered-beneath-indian-ocean-130225.htm

Andrianampoinimerinatompokoindrindra Zehrezgi – who preferred to go by Andri Zee – tried to keep his last meal down as the boat rocked beneath his feet.

“Isn’t this exhilarating?” exclaimed Shamma Maslah.

“When do you think the hurricane is going to stop?” he asked.

Shamma burst out laughing. “There’s no hurricane! In fact this is the calmest day I’ve seen since we were out here.” She glanced at him and went to the railing and said, “If you don’t like the ocean, why’d you come out here?”

“This site is within the waters of my country.”

She made a face, saying, “I didn’t know you had a country. Not how you talk about it anyway.”

“Madagascar is my homeland!” She grunted and leaned over the rail, looking deeply into the water. “Watch out!” he cried, stepping forward, arm outstretched.

She looked at him and laughed, “What? It scares you when I lean out this far?” she said, leaning back over the railing. Suddenly the water below her grew dark and began to bubble, gently at first, then wildly. Water geysered into the air. She screamed and staggered backward, into Andri Zee’s arms and they watched in horror as...

A fluorescent orange conning tower surged out of the water, sluicing aside until the hatch on top opened up and a young lady waved at them.

Shamma shouted, “Laura! What’s going on?”

Laura shouted back, “You won’t believe what we discovered! Not only is Mauritia a sunken island – there was some sort of sealed chamber there!”

“What?” Andri exclaimed. Majoring in archaeology, THIS is what he’d come for! 
"Where is it?”
“They had to send down the big sub and they’re bringing up the entire chamber right now.”

Shamma looked at Andri then Liz, bobbing in the conning tower of the sub and shouted, “The time is all wrong! Mauritia sank when the dinosaurs died. There shouldn’t be anything there.”

Liz shrugged, “I don’t know about when it sank or what should and shouldn’t be there, but there’s something big and it looks like it was sealed. See you in a bit!”

*
They rendezvoused at the small sub dock. The massive winch from the ship platform had lifted a barnacled encrusted, roughly cubic case into the air and was swinging it over the helipad, where it lowered the box down.

The metal groaned as the cables above relaxed. Andri said, “It’s heavier than it looks.”

“Way heavier,” said Liz.

Shamma frowned. There was something about it. Something strange. Despite the noise around her, she could hear…not exactly hear…sense? Feel? She wasn’t sure. Something. The hot sun of the Indian Ocean beat down on the head of the crew. Men and women in trunks and halters scampered around the deck, disconnecting chains, cables, hosing down the object. SCUBA divers were lifting up from the waterline; heavy metal music abruptly blared from the deck speakers and the recovery work began in a part atmosphere.

Shamma found a spot, out of the way. Her work on the project was cataloging and identifying life forms; part of a survey team that had set out to begin to quantify the anecdotal evidence that the oceans were beginning to recover now that the world population had precipitously fallen during the H7N9 Pandemic of 2038-2042. With over two billion people dead, the Earth seemed empty now. It scared her sometimes. Abruptly, a migraine assaulted her. It had been years since she had one.

That was when heard a voice, speaking in Olde English. She only caught the first few words, vaguely familiar, but somehow wrong as well, “In the beginning, I created this earth to inhabit heaven...” The migraine became blinding and with a squeak, she passed out.

Names: ♀ UAE, Somolian; ♂ Madagascar, Ethiopian; ♀ Hebrew (diminutive of “Elizabeth”)
Image: https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51niGRrH6DL.jpg

JAX LUNAR LUMBER Chapter 6: Visitation Of The Most High Celebrity

On the way to the neighborhood Home Depot for the obligatory weekend project as well as a load of flowers and potting soil, I started musing on my hitch as a “yard ape” for a company called Knox Lumber. We, too were busy this time of year, and it was a familiar feel whenever I went to one of these stored. Know was one of the original “Do It Yourself” (aka DIY) stores, a precursor to today’s Lowes, Menards, and Home Depot. Eventually bought out by Payless Cashways https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payless_Cashways

the rumor in the store was that you could build an entire house by waiting patiently for a year while EVERYTHING went on sale…Rolling down the driveway, I suddenly had a thought and snickered.

When my wife asked, “What?” I shook my head. “No, what?”

I reiterated the train of thought above, then added, “I was wondering if it would be possible to build a colony on the Moon using just what you could buy at Knox?”

We pondered it for a few moments, then suddenly said in unison, “Yes!”

Inspired by Matt Weir, the result of my musings continues below.


We ended up having roughly a year to prepare for the arrival of Roza Rymbayeva Golovkin, named after a famous Kazakh singer and song-writer. She was a Sixth Generation descendant of the last Human to walk on the Moon in the 20th Century – Eugene Andrew Cernan was an American astronaut, naval aviator, electrical engineer, aeronautical engineer, and fighter pilot. During the Apollo 17 mission, Cernan became the 11th human being to walk on the Moon. As he re-entered the Apollo Lunar Module after Harrison Schmitt on their third and final lunar excursion, he became the Last Man to Walk On the Moon – the Last Walker in other words.

Now his six-times-removed granddaughter was standing in front of me, her face suffused with wonder. She said, “I don’t hurt anymore!”

“Excuse me?” I managed. That was two seconds before her Personal Handler, Sturdlan Vilbix,” they introduced themselves as, stepped in and started to talk as she grabbed me by the bicep and squeezed. It HURT! She had muscles trained under the full gravity of the world that had nurtured Humanity into intelligence. Now, here she was steering me further into Jax Lunar Lumber, using gestures to station dozens of drones in the ceiling, on the floor, on desks, in trees, and anywhere their cameras – I was pretty sure the glittering light twirling around the back and belly of each one was a camera designed to record, broadcast, and recreate every scene, every motion, and every nuance of the Six-Times-Great-Granddaughter Of The Last Walker – or “Six-T-Grandsdaughter-OT Last Walker”. That quickly morphed to antichrist, or 6T for short.

My own grandkids had warned me. They begged me to let them prepare a defense against this entity of The Media. After I finally gave in, the Council of Four convened – Noah, Natalie, Ronan, and Rayna – and gently ushered me out of the room and got to work.

When Sturdlan Vilbix appeared just as they’d predicted and started spreading their drones, little Rayna ran in, cute as a bug, and hugged my leg.

“Grandpa, do the Turkey Neck! Please! Please! Please!”

That was the code phrase they’d decided on for me to let them know if it was a Go-No-Go situation. Rolling my eyes, I shook my head several times, shaking my wattles of fat and making cheek noises. Rayna hugged me again and ran out of the room.

The Handler and 6T looked at me. The Handler said, “I’m sorry Mr..? What did you call yourself?”

“Owner and Proprietor of JAX LUNAR LUMBER.”

She flicked me away, saying, “Whatever. You’ll have to keep your children…”

“Grandchildren,” I corrected her.

They sighed as if the weight of the world was on their shoulders and said, “You’ll have to keep you GRANDchildren both out of our way and preferably off the premises. We have very important work here to do! Billions of Humans are clamoring to see me –” She stopped abruptly, glanced at Roza Rymbayeva Golovkin, Six-Times-Great-Granddaughter Of The Last Walker, cleared her throat and said, “I mean ONLY to speak for Madame Golovkin when I say…”

I flicked my fingers in her direction and a swarm of tiny drones, no larger than Ronan’s fingernails but shinier, flew as a swarm through the room. Moments later, every drone but those under the control of the Council of the Four fell to the floor, energy-drained into just so much ballast.”

“And you may be interested in something I say.” I grinned – and just happened to catch a glow of real delight in on the face of the former 6T…now reverting to Roza Golovkin…

Resources: The Moon Trees, https://www.urbanforestdweller.com/we-almost-forgot-about-the-moon-trees/ ; https://www.space.com/moon-colonists-lunar-lava-tubes.html
Image: https://external-preview.redd.it/xL2Y2UHb2B0JN5P162FShQfxqCTYNuOp3WEYxdF86j4.jpg?width=1080&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=6955074e421a5e98c69b2da35179a3a91faa5662

Slice of PIE ReDux: The Question I Should Be Asking: “Why Don’t I QUIT Writing?”

This essay has been revised and updated from the version that appeared on June 5, 2011, and again since January 2020; and once again in 2024!

Long ago, in this very galaxy, I wrote a column for an ancient blogsite called FRIDAY CHALLENGE in which I answered the question, “Why Do We Write?” I admit, I had a brilliant answer! (;-)) You can read my first thoughts here: http://thefridaychallenge.blogspot.com/2010/12/why-we-write_19.html

Since then though, I’ve had second thoughts about how important this question is to ask. You'd think I'd be satisfied with my career path...but there's a whole OTHER set of worries that come with a book; not least of which is distribution of said book and interesting people in it...

Let me back up about fifteen years, to the year of Clarke’s First Odyssey. The seed for this thought fell on the ground the first time. My wife and two young kids were out garage-saling. We stopped at a house that had kid’s toys and clothing and got out. While my wife checked for treasures, I wandered into the garage.

[Let me pause in the story to give you a bit of local tradition. While every house I know of has a car garage – it’s hard to start a car that’s been sitting out directly exposed to -27 cold for any length of time – when we build the garages, most of us don’t INSULATE them. No reason; like I said, it’s a tradition. Typically, the interior of a garage presents an image of bare pine studs with some sort of exterior insulation laid over the outside on which clapboard or stucco or other siding is attached. From the studs hang numerous brackets, hooks, pegboards, sheet rock, shelves and electrical conduit or Romex® cable and either bare incandescent light sockets and bulbs or an arrangement of fluorescent fixtures and bulbs. Garages are usually utilitarian spaces reserved for cars, tools, lawn mowers, canoes, fertilizer spreader, grass-clipping catchers, roof rakes, snow blowers, garden implements and snow shovels.]

In the garage – in addition to the traditional décor – every space between the studs had a 14-inch piece of pine stud nailed into place at 12 or so inch vertical intervals. On each of the 14-inch pieces, paperback novels were packed side-by-side from the base plate to the rafters.

There were hundreds of books. Possibly thousands and all of the books were marked FOR SALE. I started in a corner and began to scan for titles that contained the words “star”, “alien”, “invasion”, the name of a real planet, a name that sounded like the name of a planet or anything that looked in any way “science fiction-y”

A guy approached me and asked, “Lookin’ for something in particular?”

He was only a little older than me and acted like this was his place, so I said, “Are all of those yours?”

Grinning, he nodded and said, “I’ve read every one of them, too!”

I’d noticed that while it was a broad selection, it seemed to be heavily weighted toward horror, romance and thriller. I was impressed. “All of them?”

“I was gonna be a writer, so I was told I had to read not only in the genre I wanted to break into, but outside of it as well. And I was supposed to keep current, too.”

I wanted to be a writer when I grew up, too! I said, “Did you get many things published?” Thinking I’d found a writer-soul-mate a mere four blocks from my home, I found my heart was racing. I confess was hanging on his every word.

Shaking his head, he replied, “Nope, so I gave up.” He meandered away to help someone fill a paper grocery bag with books, leaving me startled and heart-broken.

At that point in my career, I had no professional publications despite decades of throwing short stories, essays and novels at the heavy, quarry-stone walls of the Citadel of the Editarchs. Even then, standing in that slightly dank garage, I didn’t seriously consider giving up.

Why?

In the cold, hard light of the up-side of the third decade of the 21st Century, I have to honestly say to myself, “Why don’t you just give up? Why don’t you take up a hobby in which you might not only stand a chance of showing improvement, you might even take lessons! You’ll NEVER get really published!”

Of course, since then, I’ve had 73 professional publications, an uncounted number of unpaid publications that others read and comment on (and not including my personal blogs), and I have international publications and the place of a "regular" in one prominent magazine. Yet even today, I confess I still feel that tug of rationality.

Then my inner writer exclaims, “What? Quit writing and give up this luxurious life of fame and fortune? ‘Get thee behind me, Satan!’”

My honest conscience fires back, “I’ll bet you have no idea how many times you’ve had stories, queries, articles and essays rejected.” It adds in a perfect Steve Zahn rendition of his quip from YOU’VE GOT MAIL, “As far as I can tell, the internet is just a new way to get rejected by women.” It adds in a snide voice, “You’ve submitted 973 times and published 93 manuscripts. That’s a pub rate of 9.5% since 1990. Pathetic!”

The inner writer then points out, “While that may be true, the earlier years were typically 0,1, or 2% pub rates. Last year you had only 2 of 32 manuscripts published. That’s only 9.3%, and you didn’t even get paid for either one of those!”

“True, but half of them were REQUESTED! And you’ve sort of become a kind-of regular at ANALOG!”

The argument subsides and I’m left wondering what was it, standing in that garage twenty years ago, that made me go back and keep writing when every logical bone in my body and the thousands of paperbacks on the wall said, “Take up STAR TREK model building! At least you’ll have something to show for it!”?

While there was probably a measure of sheer cussedness in there, I think what kept me going was a deep desire to speak my mind in a way that was so entertaining that no one would realize that I’d spoken it.

Boiled down to its bare bones and reconstructed like a dinosaur skeleton, I find that the reason I’ve kept on writing since I was thirteen might be summed up in the words of Jeremiah, “…read from the scroll which you have written at My dictation the words of the Lord to the people in the Lord’s house on a fast day. And you shall read them to all the people of Judah who come from their cities.” Jeremiah 36:6 (NASB)

I work to write what God directs me to – sometimes better than at other times. But always I want to write his word so that others can read them and see His glory and salvation.

And THAT’S the real reason I don’t quit, and after rereading this in 2021, in the waning months of the COVID19 pandemic, it still all holds true…and even today, three years later, I feel compelled to tell story. Lisa Cron wrote: “Story, as it turns out, was crucial to our evolution – more so than opposable thumbs. Opposable thumbs let us hang on; story told us what to hang on to.”
Story is crucial...to me.
Image: https://thewornbookmark.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/lr-b-small-3.jpg

Hey folks interested in EMERALD OF EARTH! Rampant Loon Pr...

Hey folks interested in EMERALD OF EARTH! Rampant Loon Press has stopped paperback and Audio Books anwhere except Amazon.com. They've placed EMERALD on KDP Direct! So, if you are a Kindle member, you can read EMERALD OF EARTH for free! If you want the PAPER BOOK or the Audio Book, Amazon is the ONLY place you can buy them!

Amazon.com: Emerald of Earth: Heirs of the Shattered Spheres eBook : Stewart, Guy: Kindle Store

IDEAS ON TUESDAY 637

Each Tuesday, rather than a POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAY, I'd like to both challenge you and lend a helping hand. I generate more speculative and teen story ideas than I can ever use. My family rolls its collective eyes when I say, "Hang on a second! I just have to write down this idea..." Here, I'll include the initial inspiration (quote, website, podcast, etc.) and then a thought or two that came to mind. These will simply be seeds -- plant, nurture, fertilize, chemically treat, irradiate, test or stress them as you see fit. I only ask if you let me know if anything comes of them? Regarding Fantasy, this insight was startling: “I see the fantasy genre as an ever-shifting metaphor for life in this world, an innocuous medium that allows the author to examine difficult, even controversial, subjects with impunity. Honor, religion, politics, nobility, integrity, greed—we’ve an endless list of ideals to be dissected and explored. And maybe learned from.” – Melissa McPhail.

Fantasy Trope: Fantasy Noir (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FantasticNoir)
Current Event: http://theirturn.net/former-racehorse-breeder-unmuzzled/

I’m not from around here. In fact, where I’m from, the worlds you ascribe to authors like JK Rowling and JRR Tolkien are pale representations of life in OUR 21st Century…

Even so, we got one thing in common – there are scumbags in both places. My dad is a cop in a place I’ll call Rowkien. He works in the biggest city, the equivalent of your New York or Los Angeles, called Mohrpohrq.

The problem is that I’m NOT supposed to be here and it’s really, really hard for a teenager with a horse’s body and a human chest, arms, and head to hide out until the gate that let him through to here opens again. It’s a good thing I learned how to glamour in Rowkien and for whatever reason, that kind of low-level magic works here, so I can make it appear that I'm a regular horse. The other problem is that what are totally COOL names in Rowkien -- like mine -- are not very...um...powerful here. My name's Hokey Flemm. Yup. Cool in Rowkien. Not so much here.

Keeping up the glamour is hard work and it makes me incredibly hungry. I also like to eat a whole lot more than just oats. We aren’t a vegetarian people in Rowkien. Especially us centaurs. I was losing weight and starting to look pretty scrawny. Worst of all, I couldn’t keep the glamour up for more than a few hours at a time, so I mostly had to let it down when I thought I was alone.

That’s how Waqas Said and me met, which just so happened to be the night both of us almost died...

Names: ♂ Rowkien; ♂ Pakistan Image: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/98/71/e5/9871e52bbc09c525af21b8f6471eab15.jpg

WRITING ADVICE: LIN OLIVER: Follow Your Weirdness

Lin Oliver has rubbed shoulders with some of the best-known writers of teen and children literature. Living on the West Coast, she and Steve Mooser initially planned and executed the first Society of Children’s Book Writers (and Illustrators who weren’t added until later) Conference 53 years ago.

Newbery Award winners like Richard Peck and Linda Sue Park; Caldecott medalists Eve Bunting and David Wiesner; New York Times bestsellers like Melinda Long and Kadir Nelson and senior agents and editors of the best-known agencies and publishers regularly appear alongside her name. She hobnobs and writes with well-known actors and directors like the creator of HAPPY DAYS’s legendary character The Fonz, Henry Winkler. Some of these people are undeniably weird. And she’s friends with them. Lin Oliver has obviously followed her weirdness to great success.
The question is, "How can I do that?" Did she follow her weirdness IN ORDER TO be famous, or was she famous BECAUSE she was truthful and followed her weirdness?
Having met her and heard her speak, I would venture to guess that it is the latter. She was simply being who she was…er…weird.

In order to tie myself into this, I should point out that I am now a retired science teacher and school counselor: I was one, the other, or both for 43 years. When people find out I’m a writer and a teacher, they automatically assume I’m an English teacher. The fact is that I am not even technically qualified to teach a semester-long class of Creative Writing in my school district because I don’t have an English degree. So, that’s weird, isn’t it?

I’m also a Christian and I try to work my world-view into my science fiction stories and novels. Definitely weird – and it may cost me sales. So I should stop that, shouldn’t I? Oh, I’m funny, too. Most people don’t feel that Christian and funny go together, either (they have images of the crazy monks in the old movie, MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL, hitting their heads on boards while chanting).

While I don’t shake hands with medal winners or bestsellers or movie stars yet, I continue to write and get published. I continue to follow my weirdness, because my weirdness is, after all is said and done, what makes me unique. The rest is all a matter of persistence and time.

The other part of following my weirdness is that I continue to submit stories even though 90 percent of them are returned to me – and I’ve been doing this for nearly four decades. If I don’t miss my mark, Lin Oliver has done the same thing.

And if that ain’t following my weirdness, I don’t know what is!
A caveat to that: after 54 years of writing, I now have a fairly long resume of published short fiction, non-fiction, a musical (the script side), curriculum (for the TV show NEWTON'S APPLE, and the Science Museum of Minnesota (which led to the Science Museum of Minnesota's Teach of the Year in 1993)...currently arriving at the publication of my first novel at the end of last March. Which means I've been writing seriously for over half a century! (Weird, huh?)
Image: https://findingyoursoul.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Dr-Seuss-WEIRD.png