Zachary Ricks's Blog, page 4

A Couple of Thoughts Re: Proselytism

As of the drafting of this post, AT&T is still blocking access to the servers my website is hosted on. Which may result in some DRASTIC ACTION if it’s not resolved soon, seeing as how AT&T is my home internet provider and not being able to access my own website from home is unacceptable.

Last night, one of my friends pointed me to a recent Oatmeal comic. I like the Oatmeal. The comics on cats are hilarious and disturbing. The comic he recently did about running was hilarious and inspiring. But I knew I was on shaky ground when I saw the comic’s title, which was “How to Suck at Your Religion”.

And it was pretty much what I expected – a condescending view of religion and religious people in general, with specific call-outs to creationists, Catholics, and Mormons.

Look, people who know me, or have read the sidebar on my blog –> know that I’m LDS. And of course, the LDS church gets brought in for a poke in the ribs and a bit of a giggle. Which is fine. I mean, The Book of Mormon musical is on tour around the US right now. People get nervous about those nice young men in their clean white shirts and black name tags. I get that. I did that for two years myself in the Philippines.

But it’s an easy joke, and the bit that followed in which an alternate universe pair of rabbis are throwing a Torah at someone yelling about matzah balls wasn’t funny so much as it was mean.

So, here’s what I have to say about evangelism.

If I have something that I think is really great, cool, neat, good, wonderful, interesting, special, etc., then I naturally want to share it with other people. And if it’s my deep and abiding newfound love for Pacific Rim, everyone is pretty much okay with that. They accept my geeking out about a movie that runs a little over two hours and involves giant robots beating the ever-living tar out of giant monsters.

But if I start to geek out about something else that’s really great, cool, neat, good, wonderful, interesting, special – like, say, my faith – then suddenly it’s a step over the line? What the heck?

One of those is going to entertain you for a couple hours. The other hopefully helps you live a better life. But one of those is acceptable and the other isn’t.

My faith helps me define who I am and how I interact with the world. It gives me comfort when things are going badly and helps keep me humble when things are going great. It helps me treat my family better. It gives me standards of excellence for my external and internal behavior. It gives me hope.

But apparently according to some people, wanting to share that with others is just a step over the line. Espousing a view in which everyone on Earth is, not just figuratively, but literally brothers and sisters with a responsibility to treat each other well? Not welcome. But bring on the giant robots. Elbow Rocket! Did you see the Elbow Rocket!?

Right.

And it’s the last little bit of the comic that really kind of got to me, where the writer of the Oatmeal allows that if your religion brings you peace, helps you be better, blah blah blah, then fine, go right on living your religion… just keep it to yourself.

Which just goes to show you that Christians still don’t have the market cornered on self-righteousness. (Some of us are working on that. Sorry about that.)

Even in a (suuuper condescendingly) joking manner, implying that someone needs your permission to live their faith is pretty ballsy.

And it’s perfectly all right for a webcomic artist to espouse his point of view (in the form of a usually hilarious webcomic) in which he says it’s not all right for me to espouse my point of view (by actually going out and talking to people, or maybe sharing things here on my blog)?

Okay then.

Look, it’s a webcomic. It’s not the end of the world. And after I write this, I will head back over to the Oatmeal to read more about cats and mantis shrimp. The total impact this one strip is going to have on my life and the way I live is going to be vanishingly small. But it’s a part of the culture in which I live, and people I know and appreciate are sharing it, so… I kind of feel like I have to address it.

For which I blame C.S. Lewis. That jerk.

I have set a goal of blogging at least 500 words a day for 40 consecutive days. (Sundays excepted) This is day six. I will see you here again tomorrow.

Brain Fries With a Side of the Bard

After a long day of technical word-herding I find myself sitting down again for a swipe at blogging.

But there’s a good chance that it’s not going to get posted in time, because as I’m writing this, my website appears to be down with a 502 error. Ang mga problema ko!

Ah well.

The writing I was doing basically consists of taking the various rules of civil and criminal procedure for both the Federal and State courts and creating lists of deadlines for when things have to be submitted, how much time is allowed to respond to this or that, a general idea of how soon a court will respond to one thing or another, etc., etc., etc.

I had anticipated submitting this information in table form. You know -

Action
Deadline


Filing a Lawsuit
Any time allowed under a Statute of Limitations

 

Which would be functional, get the information across, and be a lot easier to throw together in the word processor / spreadsheet combination of your choice.

Alas, no. Instead, I’ve got to write this out in narrative form, with headings.

5.3.2.1.2 Filing a Lawsuit

Filing a lawsuit may be done in the correct court at any time allowed under a Statute of Limitations (SOL). The SOL is unique to any given cause of action.

It’s a more difficult way to present the information, but if that’s what’s being required, I’m happy to do it. I have no opinion as to whether the information is easier to ingest and interpret this way. But it gives me a lot of respect for people who do technical writing as their main job. It’s a difficult thing, getting information across accurately and concisely. Mucho respect to those guys. Hopefully, this won’t read like stereo instructions (Beetlejuice reference). 

It also is something I’m going to count towards my annual required Continuing Education, so that’s an added benefit as well. 

Suffice it to say that for the last couple of days between the research and the technical writing involved, it’s been difficult to read or watch or enjoy other things. Right now, I’m looking at the entire run of Martian Successor: Nadesico, and I just don’t have the time to watch it yet.

But with all this writing, and while driving the kiddo home from tonight’s church activities (Candy Tasting Party! Which is fun and all, and I’m sure there was a gospel message there, sounds a lot different from what I used to do as a kid in our church activities). I was listening to “Do I Dare to Eat a Peach” – an enjoyable podcast by Dan Wells, author of Partials and I Am Not a Serial Killer, and his brother Robison Wells, author of Variant. It’s a fun, if occasionally rambly listen. The rambles, though, are half the fun.

Anyway, they were talking about the ten best books you’re supposed to read in High School, and the discussion of how to present Shakespeare to kids in high school came up. Essentially, one of them (or it may have been that episode’s special guest, a man whose name escapes me, but is occasionally known as “The Love Bucket”) said that Shakespeare shouldn’t be read so much in High School as it should be delivered as a performance.

Which I thought was a fantastic idea. Shakespeare is some good stuff. But if you’re trying to present that to kids who are unfamiliar with the language, are struggling to read regular English in some cases, and then give them The Bard? Well, those kids are going to struggle a bit with it. Reading will be slow, and leaden. And it has the potential to kill a kid’s potential interest.

Anyway, this will be late. After a quick chat with my hosting company’s tech support, it appears that for some reason (GLARE) AT&T has decided to block access to my hosting server. They’re working to resolve the problem. So YOU may be able to see my website, but I cannot.

Dagnabit.

What do you mean, it’s not your Unbirthday?

Today was my birthday. It’s been a crazy year. I mean, a really crazy year.

I suppose that it would be appropriate at this point to do some kind of retrospective and reflect on the year past. Maybe some talking about goals to go after in the next year.

Okay. Last year was crazy on a number of levels. Not necessarily bad, especially since January, but cuckoo crazy. For example, this year I was (falsely) accused of assaulting a female coworker, and came as close as I’ve ever been to pursuing a lawsuit. (Defamation. That was an interesting week.) Also, health issues, work (good work), a week in Houston with my church’s Girls Camp (which included dealing with the repercussions of a snipe hunt that left one poor young lady emotionally distraught after actually “finding” the snipe – one of the older girls wearing a big squirrel mask. Which led to an ironic twist that I can’t really go into.) Also, being a gentleman of a certain age, and forgetting what happens when a gentleman of a certain age goes to the doctor, I went to the doctor. And I got to sing Moon River. (I’ve never seen Fletch, but I get that reference. And in case you don’t… )

The upcoming year promises to be another slice of interesting. The contract job will be coming to a close, maybe, at the end of August. (It’s been a monthly thing. Good job, Wesley. Nice work. I’ll most likely end your contract in the morning.)

The sequel to Battlehymn is due this winter. I’ve got to get it finished before the end of October – partly because I need to get back on the horse, partly because people are starting to ask about the sequel. And partly because… dang it, I want to GET TO THAT ENDING.

By which I mean, of course, book 3.

But what I’m suffering from right now is a big giant case of distractions. So many shiny things… and my GW2 characters refuse to level themselves… and…

And the last piece I guess that’s holding me back is just a lot of nerves and doubt. Doubt that I can actually get this book to do what I want it to do, doubt that it’ll be good enough. Doubt that I’m good enough. You know, pretty typical writer stuff that I’ve got to put on my big-boy pants and get over.

And just being in a generally crabby mood. It’s been a prickly year for me, and I find it difficult to relax my grip and enjoy things.

So I guess, as far as goals go, that’s probably the number one. Well, number two. Darn health issues. But it’s a SOLID number 2. Not that I’m having trouble in the number two department. Darn medication side effects.

To top it all off, my daughter, the Queso Kid, becomes Queso the High Schooler in a week and a half. And gets her learner’s permit at the end of the year.

Heaven help us all.

I have set a goal of blogging at least 500 words a day for 40 consecutive days. (Sundays excepted) This is day four. I will see you here again tomorrow.

Two More Shows

Adventure time has gotten really weird lately.

I mean, okay, it’s kind of always been weird. That’s kind of its deal. But I just realized that I’m, like, twenty episodes behind and in serious need of some catching up. And when I say weird, I’m probably just having a delayed reaction to the most recent Lemongrab episode, Too Old, which I found… odd isn’t a strong enough word.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the Earl of Lemongrab, and you have little interest in the show… go YouTube some Lemongrab. He’s weird. (PUT YOU IN MY OVEN!)

Here’s an example.

Yeah. Weird.

But the thing that really sunk home to me was in the most recent two episodes of the series – Fire and Frost, and…well, okay…Too Old. (Which was WEIRD.)

And the thing that bothers me is that I saw Finn doing something that was in-character for him, but was also kind of the wrong thing to do. And in doing it, he damaged a romantic relationship with someone he cared about. He also tried to kindle a new romantic relationship with someone who had already turned him down. It was painful to watch him go through that, because I remember doing things like that when I was trying to figure out dating and how to behave appropriately to young ladies, and all of that.

Everyone goes through a phase at something that they want to be better at where they are Not Good at it. I’ve heard it said that you have to go through stupid to get to smooth. But, man, stupid can be hard to look at. Especially when you’ve been there and done that.

This is maybe one of the many reasons that I don’t enjoy many current sitcoms. They rely on people doing really dumb things which I know are going to wind up being horribly embarrassing. It would cause any sane person not a small amount of emotional trauma, and it seems cruel to put a character through that. I wind up having to leave the room a lot when something like that is on the tv. Seriously, it’s almost physically painful to watch.

And that’s what happened with Adventure Time for the last two episodes. I’m totally hoping that Finn gets it together. I like that character a lot. (Same with Jake.)

I’ve started a new anime series as well, thanks to Crunchyroll. It’s called “The World God Only Knows, and it involves guys who are really into video games, loose souls, female death goddesses, and a bunch of other anime tropes that go into a series like this which is showing the signs of becoming a harem show.

Harem show. Tenchi Muyo is the quintessential example of this. A number of women all become interested in a guy. They all wind up living in close proximity and are thrown together in all kinds of adventures. Sometimes, those adventures involve space. And the guy winds up never really picking one of the girls.

This one has a twist. The protagonist, (whose name escapes me) is under contract to help the death goddess (shinigami in the lingo, in this case protrayed as an attractive young woman) collect “loose souls” which have escaped hell and have attached themselves to people in a parasitic manner. And the way to get them out? Have the person who’s been afflicted confess their love to the protagonist. Which he’s okay at doing, because he’s a video game expert in the ancient and studied art of the Japanese Date Simulator Game. He lands an authentic kiss on the young woman (one where she cares about him and kisses him back), and the heart of the young maiden is so filled with emotion that the loose soul is ejected and the death goddess can capture it.

And each of the young women, upon the loose soul leaving them, loses her memory of falling in love with the protagonist. The protagonist, however, does not lose his memory of getting them to fall in love with him.

It’s going to be interesting to watch how this develops, as they’re just starting to hint at the impact this is going to have on the guy.

And so long as they keep everything at least PG-13, I’ll keep on going with it.

I have set a goal of blogging at least 500 words a day for 40 consecutive days. (Sundays excepted) This is day three. I will see you here again tomorrow. 

Anime Review – Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood

Yesterday, I was talking about a few of the non-geeky books and stuff I’ve been reading lately.

Although, I suppose that’s not exactly accurate. In its way, The Tyranny of Clichés by Jonah Goldberg is a VERY geeky book.

For example: “…saying you’re being empirical, and wielding numbers like so many stage props, doesn’t make you empirical, any more than me wielding a giant hammer and speaking Norwegian makes me Thor.” (There’s a reason I love love LOVE Jonah Goldberg’s writing, and the pop culture references he throws in the middle of policy analysis are just one reason.)

But there are other things worth a person’s attention, and if we spent ALL our time analyzing policy and its (horrifying, debilitating) effects on the culture at large, we’d probably wind up depressed almost beyond words. And we’d run out of pop culture references to flavor our writing so…

Here’s something I’ve been watching / paying attention to lately.

Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood.

64 episodes of… how to even define it? It’s an alternate earth urban (sort of) manapunk fantasy set in a world with a technology level approximately that of 1920’s Earth. Magic in this world is called “alchemy” and works on a principle of equivalent exchange. You have the raw material to put something together and a basic understanding of how it all fits? You can use alchemy to create it. (Example, in an early episode, the brothers break a shopkeeper’s radio accidentally, then one brother uses alchemy to fix it.)

There’s one taboo. One thing that no alchemist is to attempt. The creation (or recreation) of human life. For, as the anime puts it, what is the equivalent exchange for a human soul?

Not that this stopped the Elric brothers when their mother passed away. The consequences of that night… Edward (the titular “FullMetal” Alchemist) lost an arm and a leg to… something. His brother Alphonse lost his entire body, and Ed has to bind his soul to a giant suit of armor. (Which causes tons of hilarious situations where people are constantly mistaking the guy in the giant suit of armor for the “Full Metal” Alchemist.

Two warnings about this show.

There are two series called Fullmetal Alchemist, and both start with the basic premise as outlined above. The first series, however, was written before the manga finished its run and differs from the manga in several particulars. The ending is completely different.
Both of these series are dark as anything. A lot of anime will start out looking like a pretty light adventure, and then about five or six episodes in, things take a rather ominous turn. FullMetal Alchemist did this in about episode seven. FMA: Brotherhood takes it’s first turn in episode 3. And then you hit episode 4, and things go REALLY dark.

But despite the fact that these kids are dealing with some really heavy issues, including the nature of life, the ethics of pursuing knowledge at any cost, the nature of the soul, if the armor-bound brother is really a person at all or just a construct of the brother’s alchemy? Is he a person or a clever automaton? And where did those body parts GO? All great stuff, lots of fun and adventure if really dark.

I have set a goal of blogging at least 500 words a day for 40 consecutive days. This is day two. I will see you here again tomorrow. 

That Horse I Keep Trying to Get On

Well the 40-day thing got I think about 4 days in before life happened.

Dagnabit.

Of course, the correct thing to do is start the clock over from today. Also, I’m dropping the daily word count from 1000 words (which if I’m just taking any time to put my thoughts together and not just throwing up words all over the page still will take me an hour or more to get done) to 500 words. I’m hoping that I’ll still hit 1000 words more often than not, but I’m not going to beat myself up about not hitting 1000 words. The goal is to get back into the habit of writing and posting and commenting on life, family, the universe, etc., not to increase my anxiety over “OH MAN, I ONLY HAVE 800 WORDS WORTH OF STUFF TO SAY ABOUT [SUBJECT]! NOW WHAT?”

So, more posts, potentially less words. But more consistency, which is one thing this process is shooting for.

The other thing it’s shooting for is less concern with torquing someone off or talking about something controversial. For example, I’ve been on a kick of reading books from people that would be associated with either a conservative or a libertarian viewpoint. Greg Gutfeld’s The Joy of Hate, for example. Albert Brooks’ The Road to Freedom. Glenn Beck’s Control. Dr. Helen Smith’s Men on Strike, just to name a few.

Men on Strike, in particular, has me doing a lot of thinking about gender roles, the way people treat each other, expectations of the culture, etc. I want to be able to talk about those kinds of things, and how my own position has shifted over the past few years. When you start to see statistics like “by volume, 69 per cent of mass media reporting and commentary on men was unfavourable [sic], compared with just 12 per cent favourable [sic] and 19 per cent neutral or balanced,” that gets my attention. (Read more at: http://phys.org/news83863660.html#jCp) And it should get everyone’s attention. No one wins when we consistently portray men as generally evil.

From that same linked article: “Men were predominantly reported or portrayed in mass media as villains, aggressors, perverts and philanderers, with more than 75 per cent of all mass media representations of men and male identity showing men in on one of these four ways.”

That helps no one. And the people most at risk are, unfortunately, women and children.

A quick aside: I like comics. And there are a few web comics that I’m particularly fond of. I think that there are good writers in the medium doing interesting things. One of my favorites is and sort of has been ever since I discovered it is Sinfest. Tatsuya Ishida definitely pushes my buttons on occasion, and the comic makes me think. (God is a recurring character in the comic, and appears as a hand emerging from a cloud into a little hand puppet.) But for the last while, I’ve been getting more and more discouraged by the outlook he’s putting on the page. There are plenty of female characters who are shown as caring, strong individuals. They’re portrayed as well-rounded, caring individuals. There’s plenty of them.

But there are very few positive male characters in the comic. And the portrayal of the adult male characters has been getting more and more aggressively negative. The comic still makes me think, but now it’s doing so with less of a gentle jibe and a “isn’t that funny how people are”, and more of a pointy elbow and a “look how horrible men are. Don’t they just suck?”

A while ago, I wrote a post about wearing a black hat. And in it, I pretty explicitly said that if society insists on forcing me into the role of a villain, at some level, at some point, I will internalize that role, and become the villain the society expects me to be.

As I said in that post: “You can only be called a stupid, ignorant bigoted hick for so long before you start to suspect that by golly, they really think I’m a stupid, ignorant bigoted hick. Huh.”

From the post just prior: “I have never felt that those who didn’t agree with me were enemies. But apparently, that’s how they view and describe me. So be it. Sometimes you have to wear the black hat. And so I shall OWN this black hat. And I will make it look good.”

And if society at large insists on calling men “villains, aggressors, perverts and philanderers,” then we should not be surprised if eventually men will internalize that perception of themselves and act accordingly. Smith quotes UVA law professor Douglas Laycock: “To corrode these bonds unnecessarily is a dangerous thing. And we should have no illusions about who is most endangered. In any outbreak of intolerance, in any reduction of mutual concern and respect, the weak and oppressed will suffer more than the strong and dominant. Those who are most endangered by stereotypes and prejudice have special reasons to avoid invoking their own stereotypes and prejudices against others.”

It’s hard enough to be a good man. How much harder is it when society keeps telling you how horrible you are?

I have set a goal of blogging at least 500 words a day for 40 consecutive days. This is day one. I will see you here again tomorrow. 

The Human Wave Garage Sale

So, last night I mentioned the Human Wave Garage Sale. I haven’t read everyone on this list, but I can tell you that the people I have read have been fantastic.

Without further ado, I present: The Human Wave Garage Sale (With my comments added to the standard copy.)

When did it become fashionable for published fiction to be full of self-loathing for qualities most intelligent humans value? Where’s the adventure, the courage, the fun? We suppose it was about the same time that Literature Majors became the arbiters of what was good and right in publishing. (Lord, save us from intellectuals, academics and other egghead experts. -Ed.)

Fortunately their reign of grey goo and boredom is at an end.  Having gone Indie, authors can choose to write humans as they wish.  And since most authors are (allegedly) human, they can even write heroic humans who fight for things that have meaning. (…and our readers, being also allegedly human, might enjoy reading about those kinds of things. You don’t HAVE to be human to enjoy it, but I imagine it helps. -Ed.)

The ennui of the cognoscenti no longer holds sway. The new bad boys on the block are Human Wave authors, whose characters might sometimes be trapped in dystopia but are never helpless. And if they must go down fighting, they do so gloriously and for principles bigger than themselves. (We may or may not also be bad enough dudes and dudettes to rescue the President. Our characters definitely ARE bad enough. -Ed.)

Be daring.  Be creative.  Be revolutionary.  Read (and write) Human Wave.

Sarah Hoyt

Ill Met By Moonlight – Young Will Shakespeare is a humble school master who arrives home to find his wife and infant daughter, Susannah are missing, kidnapped by the fairies of Arden Woods, the children of Titania and Oberon. His attempts at rescue are interrupted and complicated by a feud over throne of fairyland, between Sylvanus, king regnant, and his younger brother Quicksilver who is both more and less than he seems. Amid treachery, murder, duel and seduction, Shakespeare discovers the enchantment of fairyland, which will always remain with him, for good and ill. Free from the 1st to the 5th of August.

Spinning Away – In a world where the ability to pick what news will interest most people is very real power, Layna Smythe strives to stay ahead of her rivals and alive. She often forgets that she’s also lonely, until an attack reminds her of the man she left behind. Free from the 1st to the 5th of August.

Crawling Between Heaven and Earth – Sarah A. Hoyt’s first short story collection, initially published by Dark Regions Press in 2003.  Contains most of Sarah’s early published work. Free

Wings – Second short story collection. $2.99

 

Michael Hooten

Cricket’s Song, Book 1: The Cricket Learns to Sing – Cricket is a young orphan growing up on an obscure farm in the country of Glencairck.  He wants to be just like Harper, who plays for the people through the winter, but Harper is not content to let him just learn how to harp.  He teaches him the ancient traditions of the Bards of Glencairck, a noble order that is responsible for not just entertaining the people, but for providing impartial judgement to their disputes.  When Cricket is old enough, he enters the wide world  and finds that not everyone knows the old rules, or follows them.  He has to decide for himself what is right–and how far he is willing to go to defend his beliefs. Free for KindleAugust 1-5

 

Rawle Nyanzi

Alien Frontier – Fifteen-year-old Norma Teague must avoid getting drafted into an alien army. However, her home village demands that she go since she has a magic belt that lets her destroy any armor made of matter. $1.99

 

Thomas Sewell

Hitchhiking Killer For Hire – A border gang beats Ex-Special Forces soldier Sam Harper and leaves him for dead in the desert. Sam must discover “Why?” in this story of government corruption and human smuggling in the near future west. Dedicated to Louis L’Amour. Free for Kindle August 1st through 5th

 

Elizabeth Bruner

Flash of Fire – A collection of super short stories (1000 words or less) on the subject of fire. Ranging from the love of a volcano goddess to natural phenomena encountered as humans explore a distant planet, these stories evoke a sense of wonder and awe at the nature and power of fire. $.99 for Kindle August 1 through 5th

 

Zachary Ricks

Battlehymn – (Also Barnes & Noble)  It’s a story of giant robots, forbidden love, princesses in danger, and the power of rock ‘n roll. If you’re a fan of Macross, you might enjoy Battlehymn. $1.99

 

Cedar Sanderson

Snow Angel – When a child’s imagination leads his mother to a startling discovery, she must then protect him and his guardian from unknown danger. A human mother is fiercer than angels! Free July 31 to August 4

Little Red and the Wolf-Man – Little Red wears a red cloak, and keeps her shotgun hidden under it. But Grandmother has the biggest secret in the forest, and she is dying… can Little Red help the forest dwellers? $1.49

 

Mike Weatherford

Cynthia – (Also Barnes & Noble) Cynthia was a nice girl from a prestigious family, with a “nice-girl” education.  That didn’t help much when she found herself chased by an organized criminal element, captured by pirates, and stranded on a planet that was so deadly, human government had declared it forbidden.  Luck, in the form of Rat – a trained survivalist – can help, but will it enable her to survive? $0.99

 

Kiti Lappi

Novels:

Fourth Sword – A portal fantasy: woman from our world gets transported to one with an ongoing generations long war and working magic, and finds out, after some adventures and to her chagrin, that she was taken there for a purpose. $ 1.49

The Demons of Khemas – A tavern wench has fallen for a barbarian swordsman (not that she admits it). When he disappears she needs to find out what happened. $ 1.49

 

Short stories:

Nights of the Wampyrs — A small town has problems with a couple of vampires, and the only people who figure out what is going on realize they have to become vampire hunters. Old school vampires, based more on the European folk tales than the later fictionalized versions. First story tells of the birth of one vampire, the two others concentrate on the hunters.

    Raven’s Night $0.99

    After Night Descends $0.99

    Night Work  free from 1st of August to 5th, $ 0.99 after that

 

Dealing with Elves – A young woman is drawn to a forest where elves live. Urban fantasy, mostly a mood piece. Free from 1st of August to 5th., $ 0.99 after that.

The Task – A ghost story set in a traditional fantasy world, a peasant girls shelters for a night in an abandoned castle. $ 0.99

 

Sabrina Chase

Bureau of Substandards Annual Report – (B&N) Five short stories of that pearl among pan-dimensional bureaucracies, the Bureau of Substandards–and the stalwart security janitors, attack admins, and bemused subdirectors that serve there. $1.99

The Long Way Home – (Book 1 of the Sequoyah trilogy) (B&N) Webspace pilot Moire Cameron is one of the best–but even she can’t fly her way out of a catastrophic drive failure that triggers a time-dilation bubble. Left suddenly eighty years out of date, she is on the run in a world she no longer knows, caught in the middle of a human-alien war while agents of Toren hunt her for the information only she has–the location of the pristine world of Sequoyah. $1.99

Day 3 – The Straightness of our Rows

So, last night I hinted about talking somewhat about the quality of, nature of, need for… work.

I grew up on a potato farm in Idaho, and the one thing my dad tried (to varying degrees of success) to drill into my head was the need for work. That work could be its own reward. That productive labor was good for you in both mind, body and soul. And as I was listening to one of my favorite shows today, I heard him talking about farming and straight rows. It reminded me of my Dad.

To paraphrase the conversation I heard, this particular person was talking about how he had recently bought a farm and was cutting alfalfa. And how as he would drive around with his wife when they were out on the farm, he would stop every now and then and just look down another farmer’s field.

“Look at this guy’s rows,” he would say. “They’re so straight. You can tell this guy is a real artist.” Which isn’t usually the term you use for farmers, but it was appropriate in the context.

My dad, back in the day as I was working on the farm and riding the tractor, told me the secret of making straight rows. “Don’t look down,” he said. “I mean, look down a little to double check every now and then. But if you want straight rows, you look ahead to the end of the field. Pick a point over there and drive to it. And your rows will be straight.” Now, unfortunately at least once I did drag a cultivator over one of the irrigation spigots. Which he had told me to look out for. About ten minutes or less before I ran it over. (That ride home was a little awkward, let me tell you.) But that’s the secret to a straight farming row. And it’s probably the secret to a straight course in a lot of other areas in our lives as well.

In life, it’s easy – REALLY easy – to be bogged down in the immediate. In the here and now. In the mundane. In the thing that’s going under your wheels right this very second. That’s understandable. And you need to be aware of where your tires are. But if you really want to succeed in your goals, they need to be the fixed points in your life that you’re driving towards. You take them seriously, you put in the necessary effort, and you just… drive to them.

That doesn’t necessarily take into account a lot of stuff. Setting a goal of writing a book, or a play, or a piece of music isn’t necessarily the same thing as getting in a tractor and driving across a field. Stuff happens. Life happens. Distractions happen. Troubles happen. But the principle – set a fixed point and go to it – is one that I’m seeing the wisdom of more and more. It’s been easily twenty years since I’ve been on a tractor. It would take me some time to get the hang of it again. But I do see the wisdom of those things I learned there from my Dad.

Now, this person I was listening to then went on to lament that he hadn’t spent more time with his grandfather learning on the farm. Which made me think of my own grandpa. Grandpa Ricks was a tough ol’ hombre. Knew his business. But I knew exactly why I didn’t spend more time with him. Because he was constantly yelling at us “D#$@ KIDS! GET OFF OF THERE! WATCH WHAT YOU’RE DOING! YA D#$@ KIDS!” I giggle about it now.

Quick aside. From my father, I learned the Ricks Family Rules for cursing. You’re allowed to use two words. The D-word and the H-word. And you are allowed to use them in two contexts – dealing with farm machinery, and dealing with critters. So I guess we kids counted as critters. It’s accurate enough. I know I used those terms liberally moving pipe. My daughter doesn’t have much opportunity to curse out farm machinery living where we do. But I suppose she has plenty of experience with critters.

Meanwhile, without further ado, here is the new cover for Crown of Exiles Book 1: Battlehymn.

LASER GUITAR STRINGS!

I don’t know about you, but I think it’s pretty awesome. The artist, Madeleine Fisher, did a fantastic job and I couldn’t be happier with it.

One note in particular, if you look at the shoulder of that ‘mech, and you see the japanese writing on it, the writing actually says “Kami” for the Kami cohort. It’s little things like that which make my geeky little heart go pitter-pat.

I may have mentioned it yesterday, but it’s on sale right now for 1.99 at Amazon and BN.com – ebook only. It’s part of what I and some other authors are calling a Human Wave Garage Sale (there’ll be a new post up tomorrow early letting you know who else is involved and what the books are).

But what do we mean by Human Wave?

Sarah A Hoyt outlined ten points in this post, but I need about a hundred more words, so I’m going to outline them below.

Human Wave is meant to be entertaining. If it’s not as compelling as you can make it, you’re doing it wrong.
Human Wave is not anti-human being. You know that bit in The Matrix, where Agent Smith is telling Morpheus about human beings and how they’re a virus? Too often in science fiction, I get the feeling that the author is trying to say that about human beings. All human beings. You can’t do that and write Human Wave.


Just as Human Wave is not anti-human being, it is also not anti-male, anti-female, anti-skin-color-of-your-choice, etc. It’s fiction. Not agitprop.
It’s not all about the message. You can have a message (and you will, it’s inevitable), but the message is secondary to writing entertaining fiction. See rule #1.
Clear choices. Heroes and villains. Stakes. Conflict. These are necessary to entertaining, compelling fiction. Again, see rule #1.
A positive feeling to the story unless absolutely necessary. Not utopian, not dystopian, but… hopeful. Even if that hope doesn’t pan out at the end, let your character have a goal that they’re working for and believe in.
Understandable language. Human wave is accessible.
You’re allowed to counter “current scientific understanding.” Make it plausible, give an explanation, then go for it.
Don’t be boring. Again, see #1.
(more meta) Don’t whine about how your boring is better than someone else’s boring. Shut up and write. (Plant your rows.)

So, a bunch of authors have put their heads together and effective for at least 24 hours and potentially for a few days, a number of works are being presented that at least take a good swipe at meeting those goals.

Why not read something fun?

I have set a goal of blogging at least 1000 words a day for 40 consecutive days. This is day three. I will see you here again tomorrow. Possibly to discuss political correctness, or possibly to discuss wuxia stories. Because I didn’t get to the  Shaolin vs. Lama thing today. Kumite Mage. As soon as I’m done with Lamentation. OR while I’m getting Lamentation going again. Maybe I need to talk about time management.

Day 2 – The Cover Conundrum

Cover Art by Madeleine Fisher

Okay, so you may be familiar with a little short story I wrote a year or two ago called “Athena and the Mechanic.” Maybe not. But maybe. And if you are familiar with that, you also may be aware that the version I have up at Amazon is illustrated. I think the illustrations are fantastic, but that’s just me. (Note, that’s not an affiliate link. Neither is the next one.)

You may also be familiar with this book I have available for sale also at Amazon called Battlehymn. And you may be aware of the cover of this book, though I’d be frankly surprised if you were, because the cover is… not that great. What is it about? Space? Maybe? A moon? Space werewolves? Ummm… uh… yeah.

Exactly!

Cover art NOT by Madeleine Fisher

So, about a week ago, I contacted Madeleine Fisher, the young woman who did the cover and illustrations for Athena and the Mechanic, and commissioned a new cover for Battlehymn.

Which she totally, seriously, absolutely underbid.

I saw the cover this evening, and it looks, in a word, fantastic. Where the current cover (which shall soon be gone the way of the dodo and we shall not speak of it again) is completely mute as to the content of the book, the new cover has Shem and Naji and Princess Cassandra, and Shem’s got his guitar, and in the background there’s a giant mech and there’s a night sky with maybe a spaceship taking off in the distance, and it looks anime.

In fact, it looks really YA. Battlehymn is maybe a little too old for YA, but it looks YA. And you instantly know looking at it that this is a story about…

Giant Farking Robots.

Women Who Kick Butt.

Princesses.

And Rock And Roll.

You don’t know what that guy is doing with the guitar that looks like the strings are made out of LASERS. The girl in the background looks MAD. And she’s got KNIVES! And Princess Cassie… well, she’s a pretty blond princess and you have to have one of those in this kind of story. Also, GIANT FARKING ROBOTS. So you’re immediately clear on what it is you’re buying in to. It’s maybe more than a little ridiculous, but if you’re the kind of person who digs things like Macross, Gundam, or -may heaven have mercy on all our poor souls- Valvrave the Liberator, this might be something that is pertinent to your interests.

I will post the cover tomorrow, and it’ll get affixed to the book ASAP and the horrible cover art in Amazon and BN.com will be removed. REMOVED, I SAY!

But, back to the underbidding.

On the ol’ Galley Table Podcast, we used to talk a little about pricing and what stuff was worth. And at the end of that process, I came to the point where I said that if you believe your work has value, then you need to price it accordingly. Which is why Battlehymn was posted at $4.99 US. I believed that it had as much entertainment value as, say, a Grande Vanilla Bean Frappucino and a slice of pumpkin bread at the local Starbucks. Or thereabouts. I’m done with that in 15 minutes or so, it’s refreshing, starts my day off with a treat (or my afternoon) and I have no problem paying for that.

But a lot of writers don’t have a good sense of what their writing is worth. Same goes, turns out, for artists. Good artists. Who have done great work for me, and I think would do a pretty good job doing covers for other people, though I suppose you guys can be the judge of that.

So, to boil this down – first, I plan on overpaying my artist for the work she did. And I plan on paying her again when Lamentation finally gets written. (60,000 words in, and I’m not sure where I’ve gone wrong, but I’ve gone wrong some place, because it’s just not coming. I think I’m going to have to go back about 10,000 words, cut, and start from there. Which sucks, but at least it’ll get done. Once I find the copious spare time that I should be using writing.)

That cover should have a space elevator on it. More mechs. Possibly explosions. And a dangerous looking man with a scar on his throat. (Now that I think about it, maybe the space elevator fight is where things break down a little bit… that may need to get re-written.)

Second, Battlehymn is on sale for the next two weeks. $1.99 from today until August 14th. August 15th, back it goes to $4.99. And some time within the next few days, new cover, blah blah blah yakity shmackity.

Incidentally, I’m also sort of negotiating with the artist to put her concept art in the book as a bonus at the end. I figure, what the heck? It can’t hurt.

Oooooh, and I need to add the first chapter of Lamentation as well… THAT will spur some motivation in me to fix what needs fixing and get the darn thing finished by, say, September 1st.

You know. In my copious spare time.

Now, I did say that I was going to blog at least 1000 words, and I’m about 150 shy, so I’ll mention quickly two books I finished last night.

1) Michael Moorcock: Death is No Obstacle. This is a transcribed set of interviews between Moorcock, one of the most prolific and famous fantasy / science fiction authors out there, and Colin Greenland. Moorcock’s work ethic is PROFOUNDLY AMAZING. Also, more than a little guilt-inducing if you’re saying things like “in my copious spare time.” Moorcock outlines, among other things, how he would write a 60,000 word sword-and-sorcery book in three days. It’s all about structure, having good literary devices at hand, and then doing the work.

2) Steve Martin’s Born Standing Up. Where Steve Martin talks a lot about his early days doing stand up, banjo playing, and all kinds of… shenanigans, I guess. What struck me about it was that for a good chunk of that time, he was filled with the same kinds of self-doubt that I think a lot of creative people have. Is This Funny? is really the same question as Is This Good? And a lot of writers struggle with that. At the end of the day, all you can do is get out there and do the work. Which Steve Martin did. Boy howdy, did he ever.

So I guess that’s tomorrow’s post, then. Work.

I have set a goal of blogging at least 1000 words a day for 40 consecutive days. This is day two. I will see you here again tomorrow. Possibly to discuss work, or possibly to discuss wuxia stories. Because instead of watching Princess Mononoke last night, I watched Shaolin vs. Lama. Which I plan on borrowing heavily from for the book I’ll write after Crown of Exiles 2: Lamentation is finished.

Anger Anger Everywhere

I was reading something on the social networks today that had me raising my eyebrows a bit. It happens regularly, actually, and I think it’s one of the reasons that I’ve largely withdrawn from social media altogether. It’s becoming a perfect storm of stuff that is designed to make you feel some sort of emotion, outrage being one of the predominant ones going around lately. And what it makes me feel right now mostly is anger.

Hi. I’m Zach Ricks, and apparently I’m an angry white male. (I usually skip fear and plow right on to anger, then to hate, then… well… you know how that goes.)

For example, there are very few people that I follow on tumblr, and I have nothing but respect for them. Usually. But being human, occasionally someone will post something that has me scratching my head a little and wondering what kind of reaction they’re trying to invoke, and what kind of conversation they’re attempting to have.

The article I read today had to do with something that people I follow are posting and talking a lot about – gender roles, masculinity/femininity, appropriate standards of dress and behavior, etc. And over the last few years, I’ve developed a knee-jerk reaction when someone says something that comes across as critical of, say, traditional families or of men in general. Usually, I don’t respond, but I’m usually a little upset by it and about it. Today, I did something different.

Today, I took the text of the article this person had quoted, pasted it into a word-processing doc, and went through it line by line, trying to see where this person had a point and where the argument was… less than effective. Part of this, I’ll admit, was sheer vindictiveness on my part. Correcting the grammatical errors was emotionally gratifying. And the cultural references. I suppose I should feel guilty for that. But I don’t. And I suppose that lack of guilt… should also make me feel guilty.

Because that’s what it seems to be all about nowadays. It’s all about pointing a finger at some kind of cultural institution, be it schools, parents, society, churches, traditional families, the rich, the poor, the illegal immigrants, nutbars of various handedness, etc, and saying THERE! THAT person or institution is the reason that I am less happy than perhaps I should be because of their judging/bullying/sexism/condescension. (Okay, I will totally cop to condescension in correcting grammatical errors in someone’s emotionally-driven screed. Warmed the cockles of my gnarled, black heart, it did. See above re: lack of guilt, and spare a prayer for my immortal soul if you can.)

I want to point out a couple of things here. You may note that I am not linking to the post that drove me to fisking today. That’s on purpose.

The article isn’t important to what I’m talking about. It could have been about anything from white male privilege (don’t get me started) to the infield fly rule. It’s only here as an illustration of something that I’ve noticed about myself – that I get frustrated when I don’t allow myself the opportunity to really digest something and get to why I feel something is wrong / misguided / off.
Because the original article that got re-shared on my tumblr feed is from months ago, and while my reaction (and the re-share that prompted it) is pretty hot and fresh, the original content is a bit… stale.
I get the feeling that the person who wrote that article is trying to figure out how and what they feel about the issue they were describing. I get that from looking at other things the person had posted. My fisking, while intensely personally satisfying at the time, isn’t ultimately going to help that person.
Snark. There’s always a fair amount of snark in a good fisking, but sarcasm doesn’t help people come together on an issue. It’s great for making you feel emotionally better / superior. And it makes people on your side of the argument cheer, and people on the other side get upset. Which I guess a lot of people would call “winning”. But if the goal isn’t “winning”, but “increasing understanding?” My own understanding or someone else’s? Then snark, sarcasm, cynicism, bitterness, etc. isn’t just not helpful, it’s actively opposed to actually getting people together on an issue. It makes you and your argument toxic. And who needs to be swimming in that kind of emotional poison?
While the argument that comes out of an emotional screed like the one I read is usually full of holes like a piece of Swiss, the emotion that’s associated with it is genuine and if you go straight for tearing the throat out of the argument, it feels like you’re attacking the feeling the person has. Which gets interpreted as attacking the person as opposed to addressing their perception or argument. Which makes them defensive and results in their digging in their ideological heels and doubling down on their position. People need to be able to work through stuff and one time-honored way of doing so is writing.

Of course, back in the day, people worked through stuff in their own personal notebooks. You will note that the name of the blog is “Mad Poet Files”, and yet there is no poetry here. Because I wrote that stuff in notebooks back in the day, and you don’t need to have it inflicted on you. Today, we work through stuff by broadcasting our thoughts and feelings over the internet for all and sundry to read. I’m not necessarily knocking it. I recognize that I’m describing exactly what I’m doing right now writing this.

So, what can I draw from this to help me out going forward?

Well, I guess an appropriate fisking is not a bad thing. Writing helps me figure out why I feel the way I do about a particular topic. It also helps me get some personal distance between the argument and the emotion. That way I don’t get the argument and emotion conflated and can respond without the kneejerk defensive reaction. And it helps me point out the logical fallacies, argument holes, etc., in someone else’s thinking. Just as I’m sure people do to me.

It also helps me drain out the anger and frustration I feel when I see someone attacking something that I think is worthwhile, important, etc.

A quick aside here. Anger and frustration is a natural and appropriate response when someone attacks something that’s important to you. But if you have no outlet for that anger and frustration? No drain for it? That’s unhealthy. And it prevents you from seeing clearly and responding appropriately.

And now I go to spend the evening thinking about this, and probably watching Princess Mononoke. Or finishing “Michael Moorcock: Death is No Obstacle“.

I am starting a new goal of blogging at least 1000 words a day for the next 40 days. This is day one. I will see you here again tomorrow. Possibly with Mononoke or Moorcock related thoughts.