Guy Stewart's Blog, page 37

POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAY: What Do HARRY POTTER, CHUCK (TV Show), STAR WARS (Original Trilogy), a new band called DURRY, and SPIDERMAN – Have In Common?

NOT using the Programme Guide of the 2021 World Science Fiction Convention, DisCON III, 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…I WILL NOT use the Programme Guide to jump off, jump on, rail against, or shamelessly agree with the BRIEF DESCRIPTION given in the pdf copy of the Program Guide. This explanation is reserved for when I dash “off topic”, sometimes reviewing movies, sometimes reviewing books, and other times taking up the spirit of a blog an old friend of mine used to keep called THE RANTING ROOM…

Short answer: HELPLESSNESS

Long Answer: The rest of this PIE.

HARRY POTTER appears in the first book as a baby in a basket being dropped off at his aunt and uncle’s house by a witch, a wizard, and a guy riding a flying motorcycle with a sidecar. According to most Earth biology, you can’t get much more helpless than a baby.

Most of you are familiar with the story, but if you’re not (“What Culture do you live in – the books are available in eighty languages and Braille!) the story starts with a helpless boy who remains pretty helpless for 1.2 million words. He also manages to defeat the Ultimate Evil with the help of hundreds of individuals who sacrifice their lives (including the most powerful wizard of the age) and wreaks havoc on TWO universes…and remains basically helpless except for the fact that he’s deeply connected to the Ultimate evil and destroys him through that fact with little effort of his own.

In CHUCK, we watch the ultimate Stanford University failure-turned-Nerd Herder (aka Best Buy Geek Squad member) accidentally become the most powerful database known to Humanity, the Intersect. Instead of overthrowing the world and becoming the Emperor of Man, he stays basically the same and is handled until he becomes one of the most powerful tools on Earth; while remaining a clueless, helpless nerd who loves his sister, and has a total dork for a best friend, wins the love of a deadly CIA agent who happens to be Greek goddess-level beautiful – because he IS who he IS: a helpless nerd who loves his sister and his mediocre job, best friend, family, and life.

In the STAR WAR Original Trilogy the same story is reiterated: LUKE SKYWALKER on the brown-end of the Universe on a farm in (almost literally) the middle of nowhere with a grumpy uncle and an aunt who knows everything but can’t do anything about it because she, too, is helpless. When Luke leaves, he’s helpless. When he gets two robots he’s helpless. Even when he finds out he can wield world-bending power…he’s helpless. He remains so for some nine-plus movies.

In 2020, quarantined siblings Austin and Taryn joined forces under their family name DURRY to make music together for the very first time. In 2021 their careers were launched by their tiktok viral track, “Who’s Laughing Now”. Quickly gaining notoriety because Durry bottled up a few inner monologues — everyone from parents, to society, to their church doubted they could “make it”. Their paean to helplessness and lack of support brought them to the attention of Limp Bizkit front man, Fred Durst and became one of Jade's Music You Should Know picks one week. Here's the video: https://youtu.be/M02UGmRYQ_4

SPIDERMAN, in all of his iterations, was a kid who lost his parents, then lost his uncle to gun violence (sound familiar?). On a field trip sometime in high school, he’s bitten either by a radioactive spider or a genetically engineered spider and suddenly has the powers of a spider – strength, speed, senses, and no fear of heights – oh, did I mention the ability to stick to anything?

So, Peter Parker has everything any kid could possibly want. He can beat any of his enemies to a pulp, he can take on super villains and after getting beat up some, beat them and live to go home to his Aunt May (who has variously been depicted as elderly to barely middle-aged…). He’s also friendly, works in his neighborhood, and is known as Spiderman. But his most defining quality? He’s shy, quiet, and has so few friends that virtually no one knows who he is. He has no influence on society except for the tiny lives of people he interacts with. Of course WE know he’s destined for greatness, but HE doesn’t know that. In fact, for much of his book-time and absolutely through a big chunk of his movie time, he continues to lament that he’s basically…helpless.

It's been my experience that the vast majority of people feel helpless. I venture to believe that it’s this basic piece of the Human condition that drives everything from the Mother Theresas of the world to the Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Putin’s

So what?

All of these people, whether real or imaginary, whether musicians or CIA agent, have somehow managed to draw to them literally MILLIONS of fans. Not necessarily billions of dollars…oops, I guess BILLIONS OF DOLLARS is correct, AND millions of fans.

In the beginning, they attracted people just like them – geeks, dorks, the unnoticed, the ones “real society” labeled losers. These losers – and let me tell you up front that I AM one of them. I made countless Batman costumes out of paper grocery bags and carved a STAR TREK phaser out of a block of wood and nailed another one on it for a handle, then pounded five nails into the front end for a barrel – and then when I shot someone, I made a shrieking sound while vibrating my tongue…

These people, like myself, live lives of helpless normality. NOT desperation. Regular people will never get a government data base crammed into their heads, and the only thing a normal person will get after being bitten by a radioactive/genetically engineered spider, is a rash. They will not receive letters with wings announcing that they’ve been accepted to a wizarding school. Dorky farm boys will not suddenly discover that their father left them a light saber that will symbolically challenge an interstellar Empire, and be hailed as one of the last of an extinct order of Jedi knights. A brother and sister will find it virtually impossible to have anyone but their mom and dad upstairs listen to their music.

What sets all of these stories apart? It’s not the “powers” they got – magic, technology, arachnid power, or a zillion dollar record contract and road tour?

They remained the same: helpless, endearing, dorky. What changed was the world around them. And everything changed around them NOT because they were different. It changed because they were NORMAL people who kept choosing to keep going and not giving up when their worlds seemed to be going to hell-in-a-handbasket.

They believed that what they COULD do was important.

Because Harry, Chuck, Peter, Austin and Taryn, and Luke didn’t become jerks because of their suddenly power. Of COURSE they could act like jerks sometimes (and did, “Are you listening Harry?), but there were normal people around them who brought them back down from their High And Mighty Spaces, elbowed them in the side, and reminded them that while they may be “The Chosen Ones”, their close friends knew better.

They were just normal people tasked with doing extraordinary things WITH THEIR FRIENDS, FAMILY, AND LOVED ONES.

Lisa Cron writes in her book, WIRED FOR STORY, “…we’re wired to turn to story to teach us the way of the world” (p 2). She also writes that our brains experience a story as if it were REAL: “A recent brain imaging study reported in Psychological Science reveals that the regions of the brain that process the sights, sounds, tastes and movement of real life are activated when we are engrossed in a compelling narrative.” (p 4)

When I read a story that is ABOUT a king, emperor, superhero, alien, or a 15-year-old guy, I’m just not as interested, because I can’t really connect with them. They aren’t part of my reality. I can, however, keep reading and putting away my pre-judgement, I can let myself sink into the STORY.

Harry, Chuck, Peter, Austin and Taryn, and Luke are all stories I can fall into because they’re about normal people. They’re about helpless people just like me. But ALL OF THEM BROKE OUT OF NORMALITY AND MADE A DIFFERENCE IN THE WORLD.

They all inspire normal people NOT by their greatness, but by their persistence and stubborn resolve to keep moving ahead and make a difference in their stories.

Which leads ME to believe that maybe, just maybe, I can break out and make a difference, too.

Image: https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRqrDpvtsj4_UYyotB5o8rZgxVjKLuEw6OyQQ&usqp=CAU

IDEAS ON TUESDAYS 547

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: Black Barf http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BadBlackBarf
Current Event: Ebola Outbreak (http://cydathria.com/ebola.html)

Haysam Akbhar-Sosa shook his head and said, "This is impossible. I can't do it."

Bao Coppage stood beside him. She said, "We don't have any choice. If Ebola spreads any farther, it's gonna take over the world." They looked down at the waves of refugees fleeing Egypt and the Middle East, ravaged by a nearly uncontrollable strain of Ebola. They were on foot, in cars, buses, being pulled by donkey, oxen, and even other humans whom they whipped. She said, "It's stop it here and now or we all go down."

"I don't much care if Europe and the US go down..."

"There are people of faith everywhere, Haysam. They're all gonna die. This strain of Ebola doesn't care if you're a holy man or an avowed atheist."

There was a long pause and she'd known him long enough to expect him to argue. But this time he said only, "I know." He leaned over the sights of the monstrous flamethrower. Mounted on the gondola of the massive helium balloon, they flew slowly along with the river of sick humanity.

"We might not have to do anything," Bao said.

He shot her a look and she was surprised when he said, "Thanks for trying to make me feel better, but it's either kill these...ghūl...ghouls..."

"You know what these things are?"

He nodded slowly, "They're from ONE THOUSAND AND ONE ARABIAN NIGHTS." He paused for a long time, then added, "My brothers would tell me stories about them after I tattled on them."

"Your brothers told you the stories?"

He snorted, "Yeah. They hated me because I was the baby of the family and mom loved me more." She scowled and looked at him. He batted his eyelashes and then burst out laughing.

Leaning into him, she opened her mouth to reply when a commotion broke out below. Directly under the gondola, all they could see was people bunching up instead of trudging on. Bao had to pull back on the throttle and then give it a short reverse spin.

"What's..." Haysam began. Then the faces below looked up at them. There was a wet, gurgling sound, then a mass of humans looked up, opened their mouths. An instant later, what looked like a fountain of tarry black liquid rushed up.

It wasn’t. They’d been told them to wear gas masks, so they were suited up. What no one had mentioned was tentacles. Black, dripping, horrible, the slender, pestilential whips grabbed them, slammed Bao and Haysham, then tore the masks from their faces. Convulsing in a paroxysm of agony, they screamed until...

Names: ♀ China, England; ♂ Egypt, BahrainImage: https://cdn.britannica.com/40/11740-004-50816EB1/Boris-Karloff-Frankenstein-monster.jpg

Slice of PIE: The Question Me, A Science Fiction Writer 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 today, June 2022.

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.

Let me back up about fifteen years, to the year of Clarke’s "Space 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 spreaders, grass-clipping catchers, roof rakes, snow blowers, garden implements, and snow shovels.]

In THIS garage however – in addition to the traditional décor – every space between the studs has 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…

Image: https://thewornbookmark.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/lr-b-small-3.jpg

IDEAS ON TUESDAYS 546

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: The Quest
Current Event: http://contemplativequest.com/, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice's_Adventures_in_Wonderland

Světlana Angelika pursed her lips, looking out over the hectares of forest. In the MSP Vertical Village, it was mostly deciduous trees – oak, maple, patches of white-barked birch, poplar – with a sprinkling of pine trees. The concourse she and Uthman Aali were on was packed with people. Not a hundred thousand, for sure, but too many to think. “We need to go somewhere,” she said abruptly, speaking in the too loud manner of all the inhabitants of Vertical Villages everywhere.

Uthman gave her a look that said, “You’re crazy.”

She slugged him in the shoulder. It was a little kid move – but then, they’d been friends since they were three years old. “No, I’m serious. We need to go somewhere real.”

Without changing his stare, Uthman said, “We can go up to the six hundredth floor...”

“No! I don’t mean here. This is all so...boring. We need to go,” she pause, “through a looking glass.”

“A what?”

“A looking glass! Haven’t you ever read Alice in Wonderland?”

“I might have seen a threevee of it once. Wasn’t it a cartoon?”

“Yes – and no, you haven’t seen this. Lewis Carroll wrote a novel, it’s true. But he was a mathematician. His logic is all over the book. Math. Everything.”

Uthman snorted, “It sounds like science fiction.”

“It’s fantasy – she steps through a mirror.”

“If it’s math and logic, it’s science fiction.”

“There are talking rabbits,” said Světlana. “And a talking, disappearing cat. As well as a talking, smoking caterpillar, talking mice, and soldiers made of playing cards.”

“OK. You win. It’s a fantasy. But what does it have to do with us? What kind of mirror can we jump through? I’m sure there are some here – but...”

“The windows. We can jump through one of those.”

“A window?”

“Come on, let’s go to the outer walls. We’ll leap through one of those!” She turned and ran, Uthman running after her.

Names: ♀ Czech, Roman; ♂ Arabic, Hindu
Image:
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/98/71/e5/9871e52bbc09c525af21b8f6471eab15.jpg

WRITING ADVICE: Creating Alien Aliens, Part 15: A VERY Alien Alien – Stretching My Imagination

In September of 2007, I started this blog with a bit of writing advice. A little over a year later, I discovered how little I knew about writing after hearing children’s writer, Lin Oliver speak at a convention hosted by the Minnesota Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. Since then, I have shared (with their permission) and applied the writing wisdom of Lin Oliver, Jack McDevitt, Nathan Bransford, Mike Duran, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, SL Veihl, Bruce Bethke, and Julie Czerneda. Together they write in genres broad and deep, and have acted as agents, editors, publishers, columnists, and teachers. Since then, I figured I’ve got enough publications now that I can share some of the things I did “right”.

While I don’t write full-time, nor do I make enough money with my writing to live off of it...neither do all of the professional writers above...someone pays for and publishes ten percent of what I write. When I started this blog, that was NOT true, so I may have reached a point where my own advice is reasonably good. We shall see! Hemingway’s quote above will now remain unchanged as I work to increase my writing output and sales! As always, your comments are welcome!

The editor at Stupefying Stories sent an email about a month ago with the following “bullet point”, discovered by his granddaughter: “…Portuguese man o' wars aren't individual animals, properly, they're siphonophorae…”

He thought it would make a moderately interesting column post…

I think he understated (or deliberately intended to spark the wild flight of sorta-fancy you’re about to read…) the effect the simple video and article referenced below would have on me!

So, first of all, I did a bit of reading about Order Siphonophorae in which there are about 150 species. Condensing the article on Wikipedia regarding the order’s Morphology – in other words “…the form of living creatures, and how all their pieces are put together and related to each other.” Our morphology would point out that we have two arms and two legs. The arms are divided into to joints and hands. The legs are also divided into joints and feet. The hands and feet are further divided into fingers and toes which are used to pick things up…”

The morphology of the “jellyfish” (not truly correct, just for you to get handle on what I’m talking about here!), in general is this:

Generally, Siphonophores exhibit one of the three standard body plans.

One group has a long stem with cells that have tentacles. One kind captures and digests food. One kind lays eggs. Another makes gas to fill a float and they mainly drift at the surface of the water. The second group give the jellyfish the ability to push water, making them sort of jet propulsion, pumping water back in order to move forward.

They are made up of a number of types of cells. A zooid is a single animal that is part of a colony. Jellyfish can have zooids that either stick to stuff or swim around. Zooids can develop to have different functions.

For example, nectophore zooids can move can work as a group and help the entire jellyfish move in water. When nectophores are located in one part of the jellyfish, they can coordinate the swimming of colonies. They can also work with reproductive structures in order to provide propulsion during the colony breaks up for form “baby jellyfish”.

Bracts are zooids that are made to protect the jellyfish as well as make sure the jellyfish doesn’t float too high or sink too far down. Gastrozooids stay in one place and digest food for the jellyfish, and palpons are also gastrozooids that make sure digested food gets circulated.

There dozens of kinds of zooids in your average – or even monstrously-sized jellyfish. Pneumatophores are gas-filled floats that help the colonies stay upright in the water. Some pneumatophores have an additional function of assisting with flotation and can even sense pressure changes in the water.

So now you have a general idea of the makeup of a jellyfish.

Now here’s where I take it a step further and create the possibility of a sapient jellyfish.

Jellyfish are not animals – they are a COLONY of thousands or millions, and in the case of the “beautiful *giant* siphonophore Apolemia recorded during the Ningaloo Canyons expedition, perhaps more than the 86 billion neurons that make up a Human brain.

But there’s nothing like that that we know of.

What if an alien creature had “neuroids”, individual animals that behave like neurons…

Let’s just say that the creature in the video formed an immense spiral for a reason. To bring not only the various creatures of the colony together, but to bring the neuroids into closer contact. What if the number went beyond 86 billion?

For example, as it is in the image, nerve impulses would have to travel from the tail to the head of the jellyfish. That’s stated to be about 118 meters long (390 feet!), stretched out, it would be as long as the US Bank Stadium in Minneapolis, where I live.

Say an impulse travels 100 meters in a second. That means if I stomp on the jellyfish’s tail, it would take a second (literally) before it knew it in its head. That’s not too long. A jellyfish could easily survive in its “strung out” state without being intelligent. But if it somehow NEEDED to be intelligent, it could begin to coil, bringing the neuroids into contact.

OK – the next big problem I’ve recently realized and talked about a bit here: https://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2022/04/writing-advice-creating-alien-aliens.html. I have the same problem now, HOW WOULD A SAPIENT JELLYFISH THINK? Not just what would they think about, but how would they think?

It’s a jellyfish for heaven’s sake! What would it think?

Let’s start with what would it FEEL.

Water temperature, salinity, chemical components; maybe it could sense sound – but rather than with ears, along the entire length of its body. Probably it can sense light, though “seeing” as we do wouldn’t be that important. We already know it can sense water pressure, and it can move. It can hunt, it can reproduce, and now it can think and given the number of braincells it has, it can probably think just as deep of thoughts as we can.

How much of the world would it be able to sense? We’re tempted to say, “It’s stuck in the water! How far can it go?” I’d have to point out that if you’re being perfectly honest, WE are the ones who are limited to the land – Earth is 71 percent water. That means our entire Human civilization is limited (at the MOST) to 29 percent of the Earth’s surface. Our Sapient Jellyfish can go pretty much wherever it wants to on the planet…

But see what I’m doing? I’m avoiding thinking about how would my intelligent jellyfish think? WHAT would it think about? Beyond the same things we do regarding survival, what would it need to think about? Getting food. It might never see the stars, but Humans have never been into the depths of the ocean – and we developed intelligence. We would both have faced predators. We would both have developed ways of protecting ourselves…but…

The biggest difference between Humans and Sapient Jellyfish is that one Jellyfish is an entire world. The parts of the Jellyfish ARE NEVER ALONE! They are always together; always experiencing each other. Would they even understand the IDEA of the alien? I think Humans get it because anyone outside of us is an alien. You don’t know what I’m thinking; I don’t know what you’re thinking. And even with my very dearest friend, my wife…I truly have no idea what she is thinking.

Intelligent Jellyfish would never be alone because it would be aware of all of its parts…

Now isn’t THAT an alien thought?

More on this later…

Resources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siphonophorae (basic background on the lifeforms and their characteristics); https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/deep-sea-predator-millions-clones (article is more informative on the Siphonophore discovered a bit over a year ago off the coast of Australia), the larger YouTube on the bottom is a more general survey of the creatures (colony????), the Tweet is just a 30 second clip from the larger video…); https://theconversation.com/it-feels-instantaneous-but-how-long-does-it-really-take-to-think-a-thought-42392 (how fast does a nerve impulse travel?)
Image: https://image.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/alien-human-600w-136457129.jpg

IDEAS ON TUESDAYS 545

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. Octavia Butler said, “SF doesn’t really mean anything at all, except that if you use science, you should use it correctly, and if you use your imagination to extend it beyond what we already know, you should do that intelligently.”

SF Trope: body transformations/cyber implants/the Borg…Current Event: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2qPWc32LS8&feature=related, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIqAnrjqb0Y,http://www., youtube.com/watch?v=QWTE97GteZA
[NOTE: STAR TREK’s Borg still creep me out and while they ended up defeated, compromised and hardly implacable by the end of all the series, I wonder if the writers did that to make themselves feel safer. When they first appeared in ST:TNG, they were anything BUT beatable…and they still creep me out…]

Hajnal Nagy stared at her lab partner. “What do you mean, they ‘creep you out’?”

Voytek Jankowski shook his head. “It doesn’t bother you that Ms. Hawkinson’s substitute is more machine than human?”

Hajnal shook her head. “Why should the ratio of Mr. Yakovlev’s flesh to metal and plastic bother you?”

“Didn’t you ever see the old movie, ‘Terminator’?”

“Duh. I like old movies as much as you do, so yeah, I saw it. But what does a time-traveling robot have to do with our substitute? He looks Human.” She glanced at the man where he was working with another student at the front of the chemistry room. While he certainly did look Human, the left side of his face was augmented by non-flesh implants. He’d told them he’d been in a car accident and they’d rebuilt his eye, ear and replaced the left side of his jaw with plastic bone and teeth. His hand was also partially prosthetic and, he’d added, even though they couldn’t see it, he carried a pacemaker to keep his partially damaged heart beating and had an implanted TENS unit to take care of his pain. He’d finally added that TENS was an acronym for Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation unit.

He’d written that on the white board, smiling and saying, “Isn’t this one of those ‘teachable moments’?”

“You didn’t think him talking about ‘teachable moments’ was sort of creepy?”

“Why would that be creepy?” Hajnal asked.

“I want to know what he thought he was teaching us.”

Hajnal rolled her eyes and got back to the work on the page of problems. Voytek said, “But...” Hajnal waved him off half a dozen times before he left in a huff. Once he was gone, she found herself looking up at Mr. Yakovlev. He was leaning on one elbow, pointing to a worksheet and trying to explain something to a student.

She muttered, “Stupid Voytek!” and got back to work. But she couldn’t help it. Her eyes were drawn back to his face. The plastic skin was identical in color to his real skin. The eye had a white sclera, but the iris was silver and the pupil wasn’t exactly round but a vertical oval, almost lizard-like. The fake skin on his hand was also a perfect color match and – she noticed with interest from where she sat – there were hairs on both of his arms. “Stupid Voytek!” she muttered. She turned in her stool so her back was to the front of the room.

She was sitting like that, hunched over the worksheet, when a voice said, “Do you understand orbital notation…” the voice paused, rustled paper, then said, “Ms. Nagy?”

Knowing that she was blushing crimson, she didn’t turn or look up, but hunched farther as she said, “Uh, yes, sir. It seems pretty straight-forward.”

He hummed, “Perhaps you’d like to come up to the front of the room and demonstrate your methodology for the rest of the class. Few of them seem to understand why you do not fill in the 5s1 orbital until after you’ve filled in the 3d5 and 4p3 orbitals.”

Someone from the class called out, “Hajnal gets it!”

Someone else started pounding on the table, “Let Hajnal teach us! Let Hajnal teach us!”

She finally turned around. Now that she was thoroughly embarrassed, she looked up at Mr. Yakovlev as he said, “This is a teachable moment, Ms. Nagy.” He smiled and she noticed then that his teeth, instead of being white, were silver. And as she looked, a tiny red light lit up on each one, while at the same moment, the vertical oval glowed blood red…

Name Origins: Hungary, Poland
Image: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e1/Falcon_9_Demo-2_Launching_6_%283%29.jpg/220px-Falcon_9_Demo-2_Launching_6_%283%29.jpg

Slice of PIE POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAY: DISCON III – #8 Crafting the Elevator Pitch: Pho, Irriarte, Bilmes, Bruto, Avery

Using the Programme Guide of the 2021 World Science Fiction Convention, DisCON III, 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…I will jump off, jump on, rail against, and shamelessly agree with the BRIEF DESCRIPTION given in 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!

"Success is equal parts preparation and luck—so be prepared when luck puts you in the right place at the right time! How do you get ready for a pitch opportunity with an editor or producer, when you may have less than a minute to sell your dream project?"

Diana M. Pho: Editor at Tor.com
José Pablo Iriarte: Writer
Joshua Bilmes: Owner of JABbberwocky Agency
Patrick LoBrutto: Former ACE Books editor, currently Editorial Consultant (with connections and project far too numerous to list, go here: https://patrickjlobrutto.net/)
Sarah Avery: Moderator

OK! So there was quite a lineup there! Everyone had something good to say. It was less organized than the others, but they all agreed on one thing: the pitch was “A way you approach an editor in order to get your foot in the door, or to interest them. BREVITY is key. You can get down to details later.”

Without further ado:

Diana M. Pho:
1) 30-45-60 sec0nds. You want to talk longer, arrange a meeting.
2) Title; word length; genre (but DON”T GET MARRIED TO the genre you choose – roughly!); plot; how big is the cast is; the protagonist, antagonist, and main supporting character for the protagonist; the FOCUS of the piece. Make it one, 60 second-long sentence.
3) Be EXCITED about your story. Passionate, knowledgeable, confident…Your enthusiasm can carry the pitch.
4) Respect the agent’s BOUNDARIES – don’t touch them, and be light. Respect their seconds and arrange a time later.
5) What kind of expertise do you have?
6) DO NOT SAY: “It’s difficult to describe”, or “It’s just like [current best seller]”. How do you want to envision the book? Open the doorway to how to POSITION it.7) Hollywood Log Line: “Dinosaurs now live and hunt alongside humans. This fragile balance will determine once and for all, whether humans remain apex predators or share it with history's most fearsome creatures.” [Jurassic World: Dominion] Like this.8) “Adjectives an author uses to describe their work [to an agent], go in one ear and out the other.”

Joshua Bilmes:
1) You elevator pitch should be like a press release – interesting stuff first, boring stuff last.
2) Title and first line – YOU NEED MORE THAN THAT! The pitch doesn’t matter without the rest.
3) Give the agent CONTEXT – where does it fit at B&N or on Amazon.
4) The agent should WANT to know more. Don’t give a boring pitch!
5) Be caught up in the pitch, but not ready for the follow up!
6) Give the CONTEXT of where your book fits! What books inspired you?
7) If you make a mistake, don’t kill yourself over it!

Sarah Avery
1) Don’t pitch what you haven’t finished!
2) Give me a map: PIXAR Pictures: “Once there was A…”, every day, one day, stuff happens, and FINALLY…
3) The pitch is in person. What are the social customs where you’re at.
4) It’s like “author-agent speed dating”. How much SHOULD you share?
5) Agents are gatekeepers; but don’t wave YOUR OWN red flag!
6) “I made my students read it and they all loved it!” is not a glowing endorsement.

Patrick LoBrutto
1) What have you had published?
2) The pitch isn’t working if the person doesn’t pay attention! You have to bring them with you with your words.
3) A casual approach works better. Aggressive approaches DON’T WORK! It’s not the ONLY time you can ever pitch!
4) Know what your novel is LIKE: (DAVINCI CODE meets JAWS). You have to be current and useful to the editor. What the characters like. Have a 1 page, 10 page, the whole novel WITH you…in case.
5) Best ones have never been published. IT’S ALL IMPOSSIBLE – I do it because I have to.
6) What the agent/editor already have – USE IT TO GIVE THEM TO COMPARISON.

José Pablo Iriarte

1) Manage your anxiety – the pitch is daunting! But don’t deliver a memorized…
2) Communicate! You understand the story’s structure – “I know what the story IS”.
3) There are many ways/opportunities to meet an agent/editor. You can put yourself in the way of opportunity.
4) Florida Writers – breakfast, genre “So, what is everyone reading?” You are a reader, too!
5) No misfortunes, lots of publishers. “Won’t work with SFWA” is a red flag.
6) ONE paragraph: Before – life is fine – then it’s NOT fine – what is the INCITING incident? – what’s the solution?
7) It’s not personal – it’s like the drug industry. You have to help yourself. Practice on your friends – but know that THEY ARE NOT PROFESSIONALS.
8) Creating the pitch is also a good way to help revise and rewrite the book. Your pitch is the first bit of advertising/marketing you write. It should be MEMORABLE; then REPEATABLE, and you should be willing to share it with LOTS of people at the drop of a hat!

Program Schedule: https://discon3.org/schedule/
Image: https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQY860vAI2izm2g2mUgxzT14fGVmoGh66B51g&usqp=CAU

IDEAS ON TUESDAYS 544

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)

F Trope: elves, gnomes and Halflings
Current Event: http://www.icenews.is/index.php/2011/07/02/icelandic-town-hopes-angry-elves-have-been-soothed-by-songs/

Geir Laxness glances at his cell. He’s got no mom and lives alone with dad, who is an anthropologist. The message says Mom on the address. He looks up and around himself. This is the third message he’s gotten from her and he is on his way to Marshall, Minnesota. Where she told him to go.

America is a strange place, but he doesn’t feel quite so strange in Minnesota. It feels…normal. Dad said he had worked with an Icelandic anthropolist out of the University of Minnesota in Marshall when he was young and before he got married.

Several people, three women and four men, have passed him by on the sidewalk, smiling and nodding to him. He’s certainly travelled a bit, so he’s seen a lot, but he’s always been shy. Like most people his age, he speaks fluent English and he’s reads lots of fantasy and likes LORD OF THE RINGS a lot. When he turned eighteen, he even read the Icelandic translation (which his few friends think is weird). One of his heroes is “Snorri Sturluson”, a descendant of Egil’s Saga’s hero, but he’s not even certain why, only to say that he feels a deep connection to the man. The standard modern edition of Icelandic sagas is known as Íslenzk Fornrit.” His online name is “Snorri”.

He skypes other friends all the time and has contacts all over the world. Dad is at a conference in Minneapolis, MN. He didn’t tell him about the texts from Mom. He probably wouldn’t understand. It’s his first time in the US interior and he manages to get away from Dad and go to a fantasy and science fiction bookstore called “Uncle Hugo’s”.

It’s not far from a REALLY intriguing International Marketplace. He’s wandered this far, though he’s not worried about getting back. His GPS is top notch. It’s needed to be as he’s been following texts from several people who say that they’re legendary Icelandic historical figures.

Geir’s hungry, but as he starts to cross the street a group of white kids, tattooed and heads shaved, on skateboards, cut across the street, throwing rocks and garbage at a black man and an Hispanic woman who are running from them.

They disappear back down a staircase to a bike trail below.

Geir looks , but doesn’t know to call 112 in the US. As he runs to the staircase, the Hispanic woman comes back up. She looks at him, then says in Icelandic, “Vinsamlegast aðeins þú getur hjálpað okkur."

“Please, only you can help us!”
She presses a folded sheet of paper into his hand. She gasps, and dies, falling backward and rolling down the stairs…

Names: ♀ Iceland
Resource: https://www.icelandicroots.com/minnesotaImage: https://cdn.britannica.com/40/11740-004-50816EB1/Boris-Karloff-Frankenstein-monster.jpg

Slice of PIE: MINING THE ASTEROIDS Part 4 – Practicalities: We Can DO It! But, What Is Our Greatest Obstacle?

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…

So, I’m going to make this an occasional feature of my blog – maybe even of Stupefying Stories if the CyberPunkMaster gives me a thumbs up…

Part 0: (before I started thinking about it…) https://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2016/05/slice-of-pie-asteroids-in-fictionand.html
Part 1: https://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2021/11/slice-of-pie-mining-asteroids-part-1can.html
Part 2: https://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2021/11/slice-of-pie-mining-asteroids-part-2how.html
Part 3: https://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2022/03/slice-of-pie-mining-asteroids-part-3.html

So, let’s say, “We can do it!” (Make sure you wear ruby slippers and click your heels together with your eyes closed.)
OTOH – from the Wright Brother’s 1903 powered flight with a Human passenger, to Virgin Galactic flying passengers to the edge of space – it took us less than 100 years of experience to make flying in heavier-than-air-craft so routine, it means NOTHING to most people.

We’re actually PAST the 1903 point of Wilbur and Orville – we have rockets that go into space. We have REUSABLE rockets. Humans have been in space without a break, for 23 years. We’ve been conducting experiments in space for longer than that. We’ve had rovers or Humans digging into extraterrestrial objects since the first Russian mission specifically designed to “excavate” the Lunar surface: “Luna 13‘s mission was to assess the suitability of the lunar surface for a manned Soviet landing that would never come. The main instrument was a penetrometer, attached to the end of a long boom deployed after landing. The instrument had a short rod with a sharpened tip and a small solid-propellant rocket motor to drive it down into the lunar surface. It penetrated 45 cm into the regolith and measured the density and consistency of the soil.”

So, we dug our first space hole a mere 56 years ago. Since 1966? Can I even count the number of profound societal and technological changes that have occurred? What I’m typing on now; my cell phone next to me; organ transplants; antivirals; digital books; 4711 CONFIRMED extraterrestrial planets; smart phones, smart cars; Artificial Intelligence; robot cows; cancer treatments; distance learning…anyway, the naysayers for asteroid mining are (maybe) as blind as the 1966 Luna 13…

Since February of 2001, we’ve landed six craft on five asteroids and a comet, with five more in serious planning phases between 2023 and 2028…

What will we NEED to land on an asteroid? At this point, money.

What will we need to start mining an asteroid – more money, but probably some advances in robotics and artificial intelligence, as well as tests to take terrestrial mining practices and translate them into effective, low gravity protocols. We’ll need people to go to the asteroids – not for the “glory of landing on the Moon or Mars or whatever”, but for the practical purpose of transferring our industrial processes into space.

Possibly THE MOST SERIOUS HURDLE?

Trust.

Trust seems to be in extremely short supply as I write this.

Why trust? How many governments – or individual Humans – would be OK with knowing that there are OTHER Humans out there who are in control of an asteroid (any one) that could, if dropped on Earth in a fit of pique or in response to a refusal of [name the country] to do what they want, end all life on the planet? At the very least obliterate an offending nation’s capital city and most of its politicians…

How long would it take before such a plan was hatched; then how long until that plan was REALLY able to be executed?

While I fear it may take a while to bring such a plan to fruition, all it would take is a few well-placed, educated, and determined individuals to pull off such an event. And while I believe that asteroid mining is absolutely possible for us as a world to achieve, I am completely UNSURE if Humanity as a whole will be able to mature in synch with the technology…

Then again, they said the same thing about nuclear weapons, and (as I write this) we’ve only used it against each other twice; and no terrorist has ever exploded a nuke anywhere on Earth.

Maybe we’ll make it to the point where asteroid mining will “save the world”!

I certainly hope so.

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://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/A2D5/production/_114558614_hls-eva-apr2020.jpg

WRITING ADVICE: Focus on Short Stories # 16 – (Redux!) Ray Bradbury "& Me"

In September of 2007, I started this blog with a bit of writing advice. A little over a year later, I discovered how little I knew about writing after hearing children’s writer, Lin Oliver speak at a convention hosted by the Minnesota Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. Since then, I have shared (with their permission) and applied the writing wisdom of Lin Oliver, Jack McDevitt, Nathan Bransford, Mike Duran, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, SL Veihl, Bruce Bethke, and Julie Czerneda. Together they write in genres broad and deep, and have acted as agents, editors, publishers, columnists, and teachers. Since then, I figured I’ve got enough publications now that I can share some of the things I did “right”. In this case, I’m going to use a quote from a famous “short story artist” and jump off from there.

While I don’t write full-time, nor do I make enough money with my writing to live off of it...neither do all of the professional writers above...someone pays for and publishes ten percent of what I write. When I started this blog, that was NOT true, so I may have reached a point where my own advice is reasonably good. We shall see! Hemingway’s quote above will now remain unchanged as I work to increase my writing output and sales! As always, your comments are welcome!

It's been a while since I decided to add something different to my blog rotation.

Today, I’m going to be looking at “advice” for writing short stories – not from me, but from other short story writers. In speculative fiction, “short” has very carefully delineated categories:

“The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America specifies word lengths for each category of its Nebula award categories by word count; Novel 40,000 words or over; Novella 17,500 to 39,999 words; Novelette 7,500 to 17,499 words; Short story under 7,500 words.”

I’m going to use advice from people who, in addition to writing novels, have also spent plenty of time “interning” with short stories. The advice will be in the form of a single quote off of which I’ll jump and connect it with my own writing experience.

Without further ado, let’s start with Ray Bradbury, a master storyteller in multiple genre, though perhaps best remembered for his speculative writing. Upon his death, The New York Times noted: “[Bradbury is] the writer most responsible for bringing modern science fiction into the literary mainstream”.

I started reading Bradbury’s short stories in THE MARTIAN CHRONICLES shortly after I graduated from John Christopher’s WHITE MOUNTAIN novels, Andre Norton’s entire body of work, and Heinlein’s juveniles. I found them weird and almost incomprehensible, but took from them a startling vision of Mars. Contemporary writer Kim Stanley Robinson evoked a similar sense for me in his epic, multiple-award-winning MARS trilogy (RED MARS, BLUE MARS, and GREEN MARS).

But we’re here to look at what Bradbury said about short stories – he wrote over six HUNDRED of them after all (he “only” wrote 27 novels…), so advice from him is perhaps wonted by anyone who wants to write short speculative fiction. We’ll start with a few quotes from him:

“Write a short story every week. It's not possible to write 52 bad short stories in a row.”

“I know you’ve heard it a thousand times before, but it’s true — hard work pays off. If you want to be good, you have to practice, practice, practice. If you don’t love something, then don’t do it.”

“You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.”


“Don’t think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity. It’s self-conscious, and anything self-conscious is lousy. You can’t try to do things. You must simply do things.”

“Ideas excite me, and as soon as I get excited, the adrenaline gets going and and the next thing I know I’m borrowing energy from the ideas themselves.”

“There’s no one way to be creative. Any old way will work.”

“The answer to all writing, to any career for that matter, is love.”

Wow! A lot to mine here, so I’ll focus on the one with which I have the most experience. In this case, I’m going to comment on two: “You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.”

This is a part of the “who I am” of writing. As a science teacher and school counselor (since 1981 and while that continued; I’ve been in the second since 2010), I’ve seen grief. If I dare count, three or four of my students – ones I knew well – have been murdered or have taken their own lives. There are few things as sad as the death of a child. In this, I don’t mean “child” in a derogatory sense. I mean it in the sense that even though life has dealt them misery, they are completely unequipped to deal with it the way an adult is. They have either been drawn into a life where their time intersected with bullets; or they have given up entirely and saw no reason to continue on Earth.

At the school I work at, we have had an influx in recent years of students from countries torn by civil and declared war. They have personally witnessed atrocities. Others have lost parents to death, murder, or incarceration. Of those, some have dealt with the crushing load of life in a self-destructive manner. Others have risen so far above their past that I am convinced they look down on the rest of us with sad resignation.

All of that to point out that if I were to completely immerse myself in the lives of these students, I would soon find myself lost in a dark, grim place. My writing – and you’ll see that I tend toward the hopeful and the silly – is my way of dealing with that darkness.

The second Bradbury quote, “I know you’ve heard it a thousand times before, but it’s true — hard work pays off. If you want to be good, you have to practice, practice, practice. If you don’t love something, then don’t do it.

This is one that anyone who knows me – in particular my wife – will roll their eyes in mock (I hope!) frustration when asked what I do in my “spare” time. I DON’T HAVE spare time – I am either living life to the fullest or I’m writing. I was going to say there’s nothing else, but that’s not being completely honest. I DO use the bathroom; I DO sleep; I DO spend time with my lovely wife; kids; kids-in-law; foster kids; grandkids; and less-frequently, my brothers, sister, and nephews and nieces…

At any rate, I LOVE writing and I spend an inordinate amount of time writing. I’m currently organizing my files (after thirty or more years of writing, filing, and carting the files around.) I’ve written A LOT of stuff. By last count, I’ve submitted manuscripts to markets 1139 times since 1990. 107 of them have been accepted and published somewhere. But to tell you the truth, I don’t know how MANY manuscripts I’ve written that never reached to submission stage; and of the ones I’ve submitted, I don’t know exactly how MANY manuscripts there are there.

So, with that in mind, I think I qualify for the idea of working hard and loving what I’m doing! Seeing my name in print those 107 times STILL thrills me – and I page through the magazines and websites to find them every once in a while. It’s fun!

In conclusion, the advice of Bradbury is sound and I will continue to apply it to my own writing. How about you?

References: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_count, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Bradbury, https://writingcooperative.com/6-quotes-by-ray-bradbury-to-make-you-a-better-writer-3b341e840a84Image: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhK6miXJMTMNyB3kzq-r6I2LVCTZJj0CDS0dPV2Qapl6e9rZPuHx2u5QKcKT1QGeDg1_tPMv-lpnuSr_eiBjwPXmex9mcgtuH2-SUtZEpGWV0_HdtJQelVt5K69NulJBUqNju5GNjHgQibXsIo4NeWpTOj4ai85jCRjMHOtwtkqshzxFvZPUSjXZNq6=s320