Christopher H. Jansmann's Blog, page 8

Holiday Magic

I mentioned a few posts back that I’d been thinking about writing a holiday-themed short story featuring one or more of my side characters. It’s an idea I’ve been kicking around for some time, especially since it would provide an incredible opportunity to get to know the supporting cast a bit better. As the temperatures turned cooler here in Arizona — and since I had a few weeks before starting work on my latest full-length novel — I decided to go ahead and give it a try.

Ultimately, I wound up writing two — Snow Drifts and Baubles. Both of them are from the perspective of one of my regular side characters — Suzanne Kellerman and Alejandro Ortega-Cortez, respectively — and both take place during that most magical moment on the calendar, i.e. the days surrounding December 25th. About the only mystery these stories delve into the nature of love itself, making them wonderfully light tales with a nice holiday twist entirely appropriate for the Hallmark Movie Channel’s Christmas Marathon. I don’t normally write within the romance genre, but I have to admit it was a startlingly refreshing change of pace to be able to focus purely on the emotions of my main characters, leaving the usually darker aspects of my investigative procedurals on the shelf.

Sadly, I have to hold Baubles back until next year as it unfortunately contains material that would seriously spoil the next two books in the Vasily Korsokovach Investigates series. I tried to make up for that mistake by setting Snow Drifts in that tiny window of time between the events of Blindsided and the second Sean Colbeth Investigates book, Outsider, a period when the relationship between Suzanne and Sean seems to have blossomed (without us seeing it happen). And I have to admit, I have something of a penchant for going back in time and filling the blanks; oddly, it’s far easier to do now that there are more books in the series that you might think. That’s not to say there weren’t some surprises that appeared as I was writing — even Suzanne can make her own version of a left turn, it seems. Like I always say, I might have created these characters, but they seem to have taken on a life of their own.

Snow Drifts is also the first ebook I am making available on multiple platforms. I’m not sure I will do that with the mainstream novels, but then again, we’ll see how it goes. I hope you like what I created — make sure you get your copy when it appears on November 7th on whatever platform you choose for reading.

Halloween

I have interesting memories about going trick-or-treating as a young kid. Maine is not exactly conducive for such things, as it tends to be downright chilly once October 31 rolls around on the calendar; on more than one occasion I recall having my winter jacket on over whatever costume I’d carefully selected that year. And, yes, there was at least one year when there was snow on the ground, too; it was always hard not mixing your holidays in those cases, as having every surface covered in white always makes me think of Christmas. Growing up, I didn’t know any different — at least, until I saw E.T.. Then I knew the miraculous nature of Halloween in Southern California — a magical place where you didn’t need mittens when holding your goodie bag.

I’m sure I was thinking of that when I wrote Blindsided; one key moment of the book takes place at a town-sponsored Halloween Party, something very similar to the ones I attended myself as an elementary student. As an adult, I have rarely dressed up for Halloween; it’s partly due to having spent most of my career in super-professional environments where that wouldn’t have been appropriate, but there is also a tiny bit of me that has never been comfortable pretending (as it were) in such a public manner. Don’t get me wrong – I have a vibrant imagination and had no problems entertaining myself or my friends on adventures exploring strange new worlds while I was growing up.

In some ways, as an adult, I guess I’ve never allowed myself the same freedom I had as a kid; the strictures of being a grown-up seem to have made me unable to throw caution to the wind and step out of my normal persona for a bit. There have been the odd occasions when a group of us decided to dress up for Halloween, and while those were cherished events in my past, I still feel vaguely surprised that I went through with it.

Writing is a different creature altogether. I have zero problems thinking like my characters when I am crafting my novels; even though they are just as much in the realm of the pretend as that Starfleet officer I was playing back in the day, I just don’t have the same hang-ups about losing myself in the role. On the one hand, they are fictitious characters, personalities that I’ve spun out of the ether; on the other, though, I can’t deny that, to me, they seem as real as those planets I was exploring in the backyard of my childhood home. I suppose that helps to keep the story grounded, while at the same time allowing me to, well, don the equivalent of a Halloween costume and live in the moment for a bit.

What a wonderful art form this is!

Key Phrases

I’m beginning to ramp up for the next novel, to be written during NaNoWriMo 2023 this November. I’ve already decided it will be Vasily story, since the last one (Solitude) was for Sean; I like bouncing back and forth between the characters so they remain top-of-mind for me. Often if I write two stories back to back for one of them, I sometimes find it hard to shift out of the mindset of the first and into the persona of the second — though there have been times when I’ve been on a role with a particular plot point, and writing two stories consecutively allows me to flesh out that story more fully.

There are all sorts of threads in the Vasily universe that I want to work with, not including the dastardly case I plan on dumping upon him; it will take place just a bit after the events in Mirage, which means I can do an October-based setting in Southern California. I’ve gotten close to that in prior books, but this one will finally let me lean into what fall is like along the Pacific. And, of course, it also opens the possibility of having a Halloween-themed event, one that Vasily might use to embarrass the heck out of his soulmate. Now that I think about it, Rosie’s mansion would make a fine haunted house, don’t you think…?

The mystery part of the story seems to have been inspired by something my brother said to me a while back. I forget the context — which is probably wise — but he said something along the lines of they’ve got to find the body first. That shot straight to my writing brain, and I’ve been toying with how to work that concept into the overarching story ever since. I usually lead with the murder in each of my novels, though I broke with that in Solitude for reasons that suited the plot. Having Vas in a situation where something could have happened but it’s up to him to piece together actual facts to prove it did seems strangely appealing and a nice change of pace from what I’ve done in the past. It’s early days, so we’ll see what I ultimately land on (though this is certainly a front-runner at the moment).

Requiem is another book where a key phrase inspired much of the plot. A friend and I were talking about growing up in the 1970s, and he made the comment that he was glad we were no longer part of the disco era. Suddenly I had visions of wide lapels, loud shirts and bell-bottoms — and the idea for a core part of the mystery that Vasily is thrust into solving. I never really know how this inspiration thing will strike me, but I’ve also been a writer long enough to sense I’ve stumbled upon something that needs to be written down and followed up on later. My iPhone is full of little notes for just that reason — ideas that I might use now or sometime in the future, things I just don’t want to lose. (Thankfully I have a large drive on my phone.)

As in the past, I’ll keep you up to date as I begin — and then work on — whatever my November project turns out to be. I’ll try not to spoil anything, but then again, knowing what’s coming later is kind of fun, isn’t it?

Shorts

I mentioned in an earlier post that I was thinking about writing some Christmas-themed stories for my characters that would be available in December. I’ve become enamored with the idea of stepping slightly outside of my standard mystery box and instead focusing purely on a character-driven vignette; and, while there is usually plenty of relationship subplots in my novels, I usually tell the story from either Sean or Vasily’s perspective. These shorts open up the option for me to take one of the many other colorful characters I have out for a spin, allowing me to see the world through their eyes.

While there are a lot of choices, for whatever reason, the first idea that popped into my head was a question: what does Alejandro think about when he’s getting ready to make a dive from the really-scary-tall ten-meter platform? That, in turn, made me wonder what he might be feeling since it was his second Christmas with Vasily, but first that they’d be celebrating together in California. Although we see a lot of Alex in the novels, the idea of hearing his take on their relationship was intriguing enough that I suddenly found myself with a cute tale loaded with romantic fluff worthy of a Hallmark Channel Christmas movie. (Okay, maybe not quite that level of fluff, but you get the idea.)

I didn’t think I’d be able to spin a mystery in so few pages — I’m not good enough to boil something that complicated into a short; I did, though, weave a secret into the story that is revealed at the end. Usually I leave enough context in the bigger novels that if you’ve been paying attention, you’ll snap your fingers at the reveal and nod to yourself that it all makes sense now; I’m taking a bit of a risk with this short, as much of that context is being drawn from the larger novels. I believe I’ve trickled enough hints into it that someone dropping by for this one tale will still enjoy it, but it will also be quite meaningful for anyone who’s read the five books in the series. We’ll see, I guess, once the comments begin to roll in.

As I like this format, I’m planning on doing more; the next one will be something from Suzanne’s perspective, a chance for us to find out more about Sean’s girlfriend and how she sees our intrepid detective. A lot has happened between those two — not all of it has been published yet, either — so I am a bit leery of putting out a Christmas tale for them before the wider Windeport stories are available. Then again, I’ve kind of wondered what Suzanne was thinking the day she met Sean at the Windeport Not-So-Scary Halloween Party… maybe we back up to that? I suppose holiday is a term that can cover a few sins, after all. Stay tuned for developments…

New Tech

If you’ve spent any amount of time perusing my books, you’re likely aware that both of my main characters have something of an Apple obsession. I honestly had no idea that my own love for that technology had percolated down into my writing; it took one of my beta readers asking me if I was getting paid for a product placement before I realized what had happened. (Full disclosure: I’m not.)

My wife and I recently traded in our trusty iPhone XS devices a few weeks ago for the 14; unlike Sean Colbeth, I don’t find it necessary to rush to the Apple Store annually and get the latest gizmo each September. I do keep track of them, though, and was aware that the latest ones had far better battery life. Considering how much we use our smartphones these days, I’d become acutely aware of how lousy your day can be when your phone runs out of juice. A year ago, my friend and I were celebrating our milestone birthdays at Disneyland; I started the day off with a fully charged phone, only to find that by lunch time the darn thing had dropped to forty percent. Between the app the theme park requires us to use now, taking a ton of photos and doing other more mundane activities (like, oh, checking my corporate email while on vacation), my iPhone had cried uncle and curled up into a digital corner.

Fortunately, Disney is aware of such modern concerns and had several of those smartphone battery vending machines scattered about the park. After locating one, I spent the rest of the day with my iPhone seemingly on life support, plugged into this short six-inch tube that was far too large to fit into any pocket. Any embarrassment I felt about toting this thing around like some sort of toy poodle was offset by seeing every fifth patron doing the same.

(I have a friend who is a die hard Android fan to whom I told this story some time ago; he smiled and told me the folks who weren’t charging on the fly had made a better choice in the smartphone department. Sadly, I have no way to dispute his claim and have had to live with the ribbing ever since.)

Fast forward to this year and, with my newly purchased iPhone 14 in hand, I eagerly did my second annual birthday trip to Disneyland with my friend. I had high hopes this time around that I would make it through the day without needed to, essentially, jump-start my phone and I was not disappointed. After a full fourteen hours hopping around the park, my new device had barely broken a sweat — or dropped below 75% on the battery meter. Oh, there were a few quirky moments, to be sure; for example, the much lauded 5G network doesn’t appear to be everywhere it’s purported to be. (To wit: I had full 5G coverage on the runway at LAX, but barely one bar of LTE inside the terminal. How does that work, exactly?) Nor, it seems, am I able to figure out how to get a good night photo of the moon even with all of the nice on-screen help. It seems I am doomed to scour the online help from Apple to determine where I’ve gone wrong.

I’m also in awe at how much storage they managed to cram into my new phone. My impression of volatile storage was formed back in the days when hard drives measured five inches by two inches by a half inch and barely held forty megabytes of data; the very idea that my new phone has half a terabyte (that’s 1,000,000,000,000 bytes versus 40,000,000 bytes for those of you who are visual) in such a small form factor just completely blows me away. At least I know I can snap photos without compunction — well, until my cloud storage fills up; I suppose there are limits, after all.

Hopefully this new 14 will last at least as long as my XS did; to help hedge my bets, I did also purchase the sort of case that is the equivalent of wrapping the phone in bubble wrap. It wouldn’t do to crack the display — I’ve done that once before and was immediately miserable. With care, though, I might just make it to the iPhone 18 or 19; I wonder what sort of storage those future phones might offer?

I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s over 3tb…

A Visit To Remember

When I was plotting out how Sean Colbeth would reconnect with his best friend Vasily Korsokovach in Outsider, I’d had in the back of my mind the notion that Vas — being a prototypical Southern Californian — would have a certain affection for Disneyland. That notion blossomed into his purchase of a condo in Anaheim specifically due to its magnificent views of the nightly fireworks show over Sleeping Beauty Castle. We (as readers) get a brief glimpse of said condo at the tale end of Outsider as Sean wrestles with whether to return to his old job in Maine or go private with Vasily. Fortunately (or not, depending on your perspective), Sean heads back East and leaves Vas to forge onward in his new career.

The depth of Vasily’s fondness for all things from the Mouse House didn’t truly become apparent to me as the writer until I began work on his first solo book, Pariah. Given that the events in that novel take place before those in Outsider, I knew I’d be able to explore the condo in more detail and get the insider’s take (from Vas) on why he’d purchased in that particular location. One reason was purely pragmatic, for the cost of housing in California more or less pushed him into something affordable; the fictitious Rancho Linda is modeled on multiple Orange County municipalities where there are a few too many zeros appended to end of any real estate listing. His other motivation, of course, was being able to see Disneyland from his condo, something I’m sure only super-duper-serious fans would truly appreciate.

In real-life Anaheim, there are no apartments, condos, or, frankly, single family houses located where I plopped the fictional building housing Vasily’s condo. There are good reasons for that, most notably being that the area immediately surrounding the park is taken up by 1) multistory hotels, 2) retail shops supporting them and 3) the network of roads to get guests to the park. I’m also certain that folks who live well outside of the circle that is the Anaheim Resort are quite tired of the nightly fireworks show, as well as the cloud of smoke and ashes that comes with it. One of the joys of writing fiction is my ability to craft a world as I see it or as I need it to be; for my purposes, allowing uber-fan Vasily to live within walking distance of the park was an opportunity too good to pass up.

A view of the DISNEYLAND Resort from a nearby hotel – this is more or less the angle that Vasily might have were his condo in this general location. (Photo: C. Jansmann)

As I dove further into Vasily’s backstory in Pariah, it gave me a chance to touch on the life he might have had if his parents hadn’t disowned him. Tying that back into his love of Disney allowed me to have him visit the very real, very exclusive Club 33 hidden above the Pirates of the Caribbean ride in New Orleans Square at Disneyland. Full disclosure: when I wrote those scenes for the book back in 2020, I had not actually been to the club myself. I based Vasily’s experience on research I had done, which included several thick reference books in my library covering just about anything you would want to know about Disneyland, Walt Disney World and the Walt Disney Company; I also have multiple biographies of Walt Disney himself, each of which describes the concept the founder had for the club and attached apartment in significant detail. In short, I had a lot of material to work with, enough to make some educated guesses about what dining in Club 33 might be like — and how someone who was no longer an official member might be treated.

Getting into the club myself had long been a wistful bucket-list aspirational dream, but I was also realistic about my prospects of fulfilling it. It seemed that the best I’d be able to do was live vicariously through my character — at least, until the phone call came in from my friend earlier this year. I’m not entirely sure how he pulled it off, but somehow he managed to score us an invitation to lunch at the club through another friend of his who, as it happens, has been a member for years. I’ll be honest, I thought he was pulling my leg — my friend is as much a Disney fan as I am, and well aware of my dream — so it wasn’t until I found myself standing with him at the literal door that I truly understood it was happening.

Out of respect for the members of Club 33, I won’t get into specifics of what (or who) I saw while I was dining there with my friend; frankly, I think the pixie dust of the experience has made the whole thing a but hazy for me anyway — either that, or the multiple New Orleans-inspired Hurricanes I foolishly ordered. (Pro tip: alcohol on an empty stomach is never a good idea.) What I will say is this: the service was extraordinary, the food, divine; the views, well, those were spectacular on a level I’d never expected.

Prime viewing location for Fantasmic and the fireworks

I got quite a bit right about the space and the experience, but actually seeing the rich detail in the dining room and the hand-painted artwork depicting portions of the park created a depth that I’d not captured in my original prose. Our table for two was nestled into a window that overlooked an interior section of New Orleans Square, giving us a unique view on the world below; after we were finished with our meal, we were able to head out to the wrought-iron balcony to take photos of the Rivers of America and Sleeping Beauty Castle just beyond. I could easily picture what taking in Fantasmic or the fireworks would be like from that spot, and immediately decided that Vas would do just that in a future book (assuming I can work it in).

All good things must come to an end: the folio from my lunch at Club 33. Time flew while we were there.

Time blew by while we were there; our reservation was for noon, and it was close to three when we finally rolled ourselves out of there, satiated in ways I’d never expected. I thanked my friend profusely, with a nod to his friend for allowing us the opportunity to experience such a wondrous once-in-a-lifetime thing.

We talked as we walked to our next destination about whether we would ever want to go back, and I found myself amazingly torn. I don’t doubt I would accept a followup invitation in a heartbeat, but part of me worries the second time wouldn’t be quite as magical as the first. That has happened to me before, and I simply don’t want to tarnish the experience I had.

For it is one I will treasure for a lifetime.

Potpourri, September 2023 Edition

Every now and again I have things I want to talk about, but none of them are long enough to fill an entire blog post. I usually set them aside until I can string a few of them together to create one of these quirky, Andy Rooney-style updates that spans practically anything you can think of…

The mug pictured above was one I found at Disneyland a few weeks back during my birthday trip with my friend. I suppose the saying on the side is more apropos for him than me, since I generally am disinclined to stake out a position along Main Street to watch the show — however spectacular it might be. Before you think ill of me and/or want to revoke my Disney fandom credentials, I have managed to do it at least three times; while each show was fantastic, the incredible throng of people all heading to the exits at the same moment has ensured I’ve spaced out the experience over the course of a few years…

Speaking of Disneyland, I somehow managed to lose my MagicBand between rides; I was majorly bummed as it was something I had bought with my wife when we were there in January celebrating our anniversary — so it carried a special significance. I was able to track down a replacement version, but had written off ever seeing the original again… until the night I returned to Tucson from Anaheim. That was when I received an email from the park — not only had my MagicBand been found, Disneyland had been able to connect it to my guest account and was prepping to mail it back to me. Now that is outstanding guest service…

I completed work on the latest Sean Colbeth novel this past August and have set it aside for a bit so I can do the final edits on the next release for Vasily, Requiem, due out in November. It took far longer than normal for me to get to the final page on Solitude; partly that was due to enforced downtime from COVID, but I also wasn’t as able to carve out time to write the way I have in the past. Overall, though, I like the story that came out, though I do plan on making some adjustments when I tackle the first revision. One thing that didn’t make the cut? I’d originally considered inserting the characters from my fantasy mystery into this story, although without the supernatural/magical aspect. It was something of a tacit admission that I might never finish that original manuscript, but as I neared the end of the book, I realized I’m not quite ready to give up on that idea and edited them out of the first draft.

What would you think about a Christmas-themed short story featuring my characters? I’ve been tossing around this notion of doing a small tale that might simply be a relationship-based vignette, either with Sean and Suzanne or Vas and Alejandro. Pure, unadulterated romantic fluff with a touch of comedy just for good measure — a nice palate cleanser, perhaps, before we dip into the decidedly broody novels that will be published in 2024. Let me know what you think by voting in this little poll:

Sean/Suzanne Christmas Cozy:

Rating: 0.5 out of 5.

Vasily/Alejandro Christmas Cozy:

Rating: 0.5 out of 5.

Depending on how well this goes, it might become an annual event.

Jimmy Buffet passed away earlier this month. I first encountered him back in the 1990s when he did a series of duets with some of the top Country artists of that decade, and then discovered his internet-only Margaritaville Radio; it didn’t take long for me to get hooked on the laid back island lifestyle that seemed to infuse everything he did. While I don’t consider myself enough of a fan to be called a Parrothead, I like to think I am Parrothead-adjacent… enough that I will sorely miss him. I’ll be sure to lift a house special to him next time I am in Orlando.

November is just around the corner, so that means I’m already sorting through ideas for my next novel. Vasily is up next in the rotation, which is good timing: since I’m editing Requiem at the moment, his voice will be fresh in my mind when I sit back down to spin out a new tale for him. I’ve come to enjoy ping-ponging between Sean and Vasily; they are such unique characters — no, people — that any chance I get to work with them is a good one.

All right, that’s it for now! Thanks for letting me ramble.

Inspirations

One of the things I missed dearly during the months when the pandemic forced us into the work-from-home thing were the chance conversations in the hallway with my colleagues. Until very recently, I hadn’t truly appreciated just how much information was passed back and forth during those happenstance meetups; from the (current) best coffee spot in town to the latest gossip, it was a subtle but surprisingly efficient method for keeping everyone connected. I can’t tell you how many times a friend has recommended a new book or television show as we passed each other heading to (or from) the restroom, or (perhaps more unfortunately) finding out about a bug in one of our systems from overhearing a group of students complaining (loudly) about it as they wander the corridors. Video calls just don’t fill that particular void in quite the same way.

I often will find myself taking a quick break when I pour my second cup of coffee each morning and poke my head into the office next door for just that reason — a chance to take a breather and to find out what is new in the world. The other morning, I wandered into a discussion about made-for-television master movies, particularly those that appear on the Hallmark Channel; specifically, one of my friends had been sucked into a marathon of Jesse Stone movies, the ones where Tom Selleck plays the titular small town police chief.

As it happens, I am a huge fan of Robert B. Parker, the author behind Jesse Stone; I first discovered Parker when I stumbled across his suave, Boston-based private investigator, Spenser. I’ve devoured the more than forty books in the Spenser series multiple times, and seriously enjoyed the more limited number of Stone novels; Parker’s writing is wonderfully snappy, with witty dialogue that reads almost as though you are in the middle of the action yourself. Spenser was my gateway drug, the one that led me into the entire private investigator genre; Kinsey Millhone (from Sue Grafton) quickly joined that club, along with Dashiel Hammond’s Sam Spade and Nick and Nora Charles.

Only then did I discover Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple, two wildly different characters who seemed to share the penchant for always being in the right place at the wrong time as well as being more observant than the average human being. Much like their more contemporary kin, they always seemed to be able to out-think the villain, but with a flair and panache that made being smart seem cool. For a budding nerd worried about appearing to be brainer than his schoolmates, it was refreshing to see people use their keen mental abilities in the pursuit of justice (and not be bullied for it as part of the process).

As much as I love my private eyes, the incredible P.D. James opened me to the possibility of a thoughtful police detective who was capable of taking down a cold-blooded murder while still having a private life. Adam Dalgleish, to me, felt like the first complete character I had ever read; his experiences — and the way James wrote him — brought him to life in a way that I’d never seen before, to the point where I often found myself just as interested in where his love life was going as whether he would ultimately prevail in the case he was working. Her style and approach affected me greatly, especially her insistence that every clue be available to the reader and not suddenly dropped in during the final reveal in the last paragraphs of the book. Elizabeth George took this model one step further with her Inspector Lynley series; she had the amazing talent of making a member of British aristocracy relatable to the average person. And, like James, George has this ability to sketch in a location so vibrantly you feel like you’ve been there on a prior trip.

These amazing authors have influenced me immensely in terms of how I view the mystery genre — as well as what it takes to craft a unique story that resonates with readers. They also continue to inspire me to push the genre forward with new characters and new stories, ones that are both timeless and timely. Hopefully that translates into crafting something someone will curl up on a couch to devour in a weekend, much like I once did with Spenser.

That, to me, is the highest compliment possible.

The Robots Are Coming…?

As someone who works with technology as part of his day job, I’ve had a front-row seat to the turbulent chaos that occurs each time a new disruptive advance is tossed into the universe. When I was just starting out in IT, the gray beard training me told about the mass retirements that had occurred when the organization we worked for replaced IBM Selectric typewriters with PCs running the first versions of word processing software; I’d naturally laughed at what had seemed like an apocryphal tale, but as I enter the final stretch of my career, I’m starting to realized I’m seeing an echo of that very trepidation as I warily eye what’s coming down the pike at me.

Photo by Enzo Abramo on Pexels.com

While I’m not likely to up and retire any time soon over a brilliant new version of Word, I have become increasingly concerned over how smart that and other tools I use daily have become. Case in point: a few months ago, I was blithely writing yet another email to someone, one of those endlessly soul-crushing parts of your administrative day that often never seems to end. As I tapped out a response to some query from a colleague, my eyebrows shot up when Outlook began to suggest the rest of the sentence I was crafting. I’m used to autocomplete — hell, half of my text messages would be illegible without it — but I wasn’t prepared for Outlook to literally finish my sentence as though we’d been a married couple for more than thirty years.

And yet, the suggestion was spot on — almost like it knew how I would phrase something, including my unique usage of semicolons and dashes. In a flash, I realized that what I thought had been an obedient technological servant had, in fact, been quietly scooping up everything I’d ever done and then promptly learned how to (at very least) sound like me. It was unsettling enough that I tracked down how to disable the feature and then unplug the giant vacuum in the cloud that seemed to getting smarter with every keystroke.

I’ve had even more hesitation in the application development software we use at the office, Microsoft Visual Studio. About a year ago, they introduced something called Intellicode. At first, it was actually a nice improvement over what we used to call Intellisense — an older system that made suggestions but only in a very high-level sort of way. Intellicode had a bit more AI, and was capable of understanding the context of what you were doing before making any sort of suggestions.

This past spring, it took the same sort of unsettling leap that Outlook made on me. Suddenly, as I typed out my algorithm Intellisense began trying to guess where I was going and then helpfully ghosted in the rest of the code. No longer was I getting a line or a variable; no, this sucker was literally trying to do my job. And, if I’m being honest, it actually did a pretty good job of it, too.

There’s an episode of classic Star Trek where Captain Kirk has to take a backseat to a computer that proves it can command the Enterprise better than a human; for a few months now, I’ve begun to wonder if people in my position — professional application developers — are going to begin to fade away, replaced by algorithms that were trained against our decades of hard work and experience. One of the pleasures I gain from doing the work I do is the creativity I can use when solving a problem for a client; it’s a bit sobering to realize that at some point in the near future, my clients will be able to ask the software itself for any changes they need.

Is it more efficient? Probably. Would the solution be as good? Most likely. Will I be needed? About as much as that Selectric typewriter.

I used to think that time was way out into the future, but as fast as tools such as ChatGPT are advancing, now I’m not so sure. I feel more certain that I might be the last of a breed, someone who will be replaced by a new class of professionals who will become the whisperers to this new tech — ones who know just what to say in order to tease out the sort of complex solution I would have created in the past.

Photo by Tara Winstead on Pexels.com

I worry in a similar way about the art of writing; there’s been a similar rise in the use of this smart technology in creating novels, plays and movies with minimal human interaction. Feed in the ten or so plot points you want and within minutes you have a first draft that — as crazy as it seems — winds up being pretty readable, if not predictably formulaic. I know this is one of many reasons the WGA is currently on strike out in Hollywood; I share their horror that there is a very real possibility episodes of our favorite televisions shows will be plucked out of the ether by a bot, no human intervention required.

Maybe I’m overreacting; then again, I’ve been in this field long enough to think I’m not. Change is usually good, and usually I’m on the side of progress. For the first time, I’m actually wondering if we’ve misdefined the term completely…

Unwelcome Hitchhiker

First, the good news.

I had an excellent long weekend in Las Vegas at ST:LV, the annual Star Trek convention that celebrated the 57th year of the franchise. My buddy and I have been attending for a number of years now and truly enjoy hobnobbing with other fans; I cannot emphasize how genuinely fantastic the people are that we meet each year, folks who truly embody the spirit of the show Gene Roddenberry created back in the 1960s.

This year was probably the most unique year we’ve ever experienced, though, and that is saying something given just how out there (pun intended) the franchise is. With both SAG-AFTRA and the WGA on strike, the vast majority of the stars and production personnel who attended the convention were barred from actually talking about the very show we were all there to celebrate. While we did know about this a few weeks out, I have to admit to having been a bit nervous about showing up at the Rio All-Suites Resort only to find the entire guest list had cancelled out. Fortunately, they didn’t — and instead treated us to an amazing long weekend of truly interesting conversation, providing extremely unique insights into the people who bring to life the show we care so much about.

(If you will allow me a momentary digression, I’d like to talk a bit about the Hollywood strike. As a reader of my works, you’re likely not surprised that I fully support both of the unions in question and have been taking note of the difficult task they are facing in representing the interests of their members. I’m not an actor, so I can’t speak to the concerns those folks have with the offer the studios made to them other than to be rather appalled by the digital likeness provisions. As a writer, though, I have an acute interest in the working conditions of those who fuel what the studios make — and an abject terror at the possibility any of them could be replaced by some version of ChatGPT. Wherever you stand on the issue of fair labor, please do your part and stay informed about the matters being discussed — and know that the vast majority of those represented by the two unions make far, far less annually than the $26,000 minimum required to be eligible for healthcare. We can do better.)

Did I mention Star Trek legos?

While there were all sorts of major highlights to the weekend — the Next Generation reunion panel, Star Trek legos, eating at Guy Fieri’s — I think the photo below represents the completion of one small dream that I was beginning to think was never going to happen.

I finally got the autograph of Michael Westmore!

At our first convention back in 2015 (or 2016, they are starting to blend for me now), we had a chance to see the master makeup artist Michael Westmore in action. Hailing from true Hollywood royalty, Mr. Westmore is the grandson of the scion of the family who essentially created the entire concept of movie makeup. Brought on to Star Trek in the late 1980s, he did all of the creatures for every show and movie in the franchise until the final film, Nemesis — something like eighteen(!) years of artistic creativity. My buddy and I watched in amazement at Mr. Westmore created in under 45 minutes the makeup for a character on one of the series — then saw him do it again a year later; I bought his autobiography as soon as I got home, and then promised myself I’d get it signed the very next time I was at the conference.

Between Mr. Westmore not appearing for a stretch and then the COVID pandemic, this turned out to be the first year that all of the stars aligned and I was finally able to get the book signed. Mr. Westmore was incredibly amazing to meet in person. I have to admit to floating on air for a few hours after the session, and may or may not have kept pulling the book out of my backpack to convince myself I’d actually seen him for real.

This model can be yours for a low sum that might max your credit card.

That, of course, brings me back to the photo at the top of this entry. As you have probably already guessed, I picked up a bonus souvenir from my trip — one that crushed me for a few days once I returned to Arizona. After avoiding COVID for three and half years, one unguarded (and unmasked) weekend in Las Vegas undid all of that hard work. Thankfully, the vaccines (and boosters) did their thing and kept the worst of it at bay — but not before I managed to infect a few people around me. It was a stark reminder that while the pandemic might be officially over, it hasn’t actually left the building. I’ll be far more careful in my upcoming trips this fall, and will anxiously await getting the next booster once I become eligible.

Now that I’m home, and now that I’m finally on the back end of this COVID infection, it’s time to complete the last sections of Solitude. With luck I’ll wrap it up before September, allowing me to clear the decks and beginning planning my next novel. Stay tuned for updates.