ZOMG NERDY NAIL WRAPS

So these arrived yesterday:

Those are nail wraps from Espionage Cosmetics – who, among other things, did the Browncoat Eyeshadow Collection and The Collection of Ice and Fire.  These are from their Kickstarter, and I’ll be curious to see how they work in real life – they’re kind of like stickers that go on your nails, and I suspect my nail salon will be mystified.
But I do intend to wear them to WeaselCon in New York next Thursday.  No, I won’t tell you which one – I actually have six more of these suckers.  And yes, Gini will be wearing them too, since I share.
I can’t wait to give you a review!

When Gays Are Beaten In Russia, Why Should You Give A Crap About SFWA's Shenanigans?

My critique buddy Charles Oberndorf had this to say on the SFWA scandals:

Given the disastrous stance in Soviet Union and Nigeria against gays and lesbians, given the lack of rights for women in most of the Middle East, it seems to me there are bigger fish to fry than a few outdated musings by two older guys who have done a lot for the field. To acts as if these musing were civil rights violations is plain silly.

I agree that the shameful treatment of gays and women overseas is a bigger deal than the internal politics of some writers’ organization.  But you know what?
I’m not a member of the Soviet Union’s culture, or Nigeria’s, or the Middle East’s.  Those people aren’t reading me – and even someone handed them translations of my essays, they’d probably view me – rightfully – as some idiot outsider trying to meddle in their morality.  That always goes well.
They’re also massive issues.  My chances of affecting what they think are small.   I can put in a vote to maybe have Congress condemn them, but realistically?  My voice in those organizations is miniscule.
My voice in SFWA, and in gaming culture, and in polyamory, is large.
Not as large as, say, John Scalzi or Seanan McGuire or David Gerrold or David Brin.  But I have a far better chance of affecting those cultures by writing and complaining about them.  Already, the fact that several prominent SF authors have spoken up has changed the culture of SFWA – maybe you don’t agree that it’s for the better, but by God when we spoke out loudly, things shifted.
Maybe that’s not, say, legalizing the protection of gays in foreign countries.  But we have made this space into something I perceive as friendlier to women.
And I think the idea that, “Well, this change isn’t as big as the global changes that need to happen, so why bother?” is pernicious and detrimental.  You change what you can, where you can.  Even if it affects five people, those five people’s lives are bettered.
I can’t change the location of the Olympics or arm-wrestle Vladimir Putin into being cool with homosexuality.  I can, however, speak out loudly in the smaller groups I’m involved with, and contribute significantly to creating change within them.  That’s vital.  In some ways, it’s more vital, as changes don’t happen in one global sweep; they happen in tons of little evolutions cascading through smaller structures until they achieve critical mass.
If this was a more equitable world, I’d devote hundreds of blog entries to the massive inequalities across the world, and those blog entries would change people’s minds.  But they won’t.  Those distant folks aren’t listening to me.
So instead, I’ll talk to the people who are listening, and maybe change a couple of minds in smaller cultures, and call it “good enough.”
This shit matters.
Keep talking.

The SFWA Shuffle: Is It About Respect?

When I was growing up, Walter Cronkite was like Jon Stewart times a thousand.  Walter was one of three newscasters – ABC, NBC, CBS was what you had – and he was by far the most trustworthy.  White-haired, placid Walter didn’t make a habit of going on rants like Jon Stewart, or Bill O’Reilly, or, well, any of the thousand cable jockeys.  He just mostly read the truth as he saw it.
There weren’t feedback forums in those days.  The best you could get was to wander on down to the bar and get into an argument with someone.  If you wrote a letter to the newspaper, the newspaper decided if they printed it – imagine having successful comment on a blog take three days to arrive, and having it be a big deal when it went through.
There was no community.  There was only Walter, holding forth, one man telling you the truth.  You believed in Walter, because you never had any reason not to.  And Walter only pronounced judgment a couple of times in his career – but when he said that we’d lost Vietnam, it was like God himself told us that things were over.  The tears of Walter Cronkite were a terrible thing to see, like the tears of America itself, inspired only by the death of a President.
You trusted the Godhead.
Now?  Nobody gets off light.  If you’re in broadcast, you’re not only one of a thousand folks on the screen, but your words are torn to shreds by a million Twitter-feeds and blogs and Facebook posts and comment forums the second they’re off your lips.  Trust is for suckers, the Rush Limbaugh junkies who lap up what he says uncritically – and note that his audience is mostly older folks seeking a Walter Cronkite methadone.  No, conservatives and liberals alike know to question, to poke, to prod, and to seek verification – even if it’s only verification from like-minded individuals.
One misstep, and the fallout is very public.  Rage used to happen silently, impotently, in phone calls to the station and flurries of letters, and the stations themselves got to determine how loud the dissenting voices were.  Now anyone can tune in to the constant stream of fury, and you’re not Walter Cronkite.  You’re literally only as good as your last broadcast.  Reputation counts for very little; even the longest-term of friends can be yanked off their pedestal by one misstep.
And I wonder.
There’s a SFWA petition going around because of the way that Barry Malzberg and Mike Resnick were “censored,” and what’s interesting is that aside from notable conservative Brad Torgerson – who also seems to idolize much of the past – I don’t think there’s a person on that petition who’s under sixty.
I wonder how much of that reaction is the Grandmasters Of Yore feeling threatened by this new culture that’s swimming up to engulf them.
See, they’re supposed to be Walter Cronkite now.  The elder statesmen.  When they speak, their words should fall on fertile ground.  And when they saw Mike Resnick and Barry Malzberg being savaged by these people who were nobody – nobody! – until Mike and Barry got taken off-stage, I wonder how terrifying that is for them, to see someone’s grand legacy simply not count.  The idea that these men’s decades of service, their reputation, would not shield them from the onslaught, well… the only reaction is that this must be censorship.  Nobody would call for the heads of respected statesmen.
And I wonder whether there would have been a petition if, instead of People Who We Know Are Brilliant Writers, the column had been written by Phil and Jackie Nobody, just two old folks recollecting the way an editor looked in a bikini.  I wonder if all these Grand Statesmen would have required a petition for that column’s removal, seeing that as the Thin End of The Wedge – or whether they would have cheered to see such ignorant rabble escorted from the room.
I suspect Robert Silverberg and Harlan Ellison wouldn’t have given a crap about Phil and Jackie Nobody.
See, to this generation, Who Gets To Speak is about who has the smartest thing to say today.  We’ve all linked to a blog post from someone we’ve never heard of who nonetheless articulated things beautifully, and we’ve all condemned a long-term hero who shoved his foot in his mouth.  Reputation counts for something – but in this new world, it will not shield you, and the reputation is not so much an acquired position so much as it is the accumulated head-nods of people agreeing with your wise positions.
But to that generation – and a generation is often a state of mind, not an age – they believe in Walter Cronkite.  One suspects they aspire to Walter Cronkite-hood, and are pleased to have gotten there.  Who wouldn’t?  Being The Voice is a wonderful thing.  And to them, I wonder if the reaction of “censorship” isn’t so much that “people are being fired for saying silly things,” but “people like us are getting fired for saying silly things.”
Walter Cronkite didn’t say silly things.  Whatever he said was made golden by the fact that Walter Cronkite said it.
And I wonder whether these otherwise quite-wise and compassionate people weren’t signing a petition against SFWA so much as they were protesting this newer and rawer and more brutal way of life.

Bring Your Own Goddamned Context, Guys: On The Latest SFWA Scandal

There’s another Science Fiction Writers of America kerfuffle this time around, and I think CC Finlay sums it up admirably.  Go read what he wrote.
But CC links to a pretty decent essay by David Gerrold – not that I agree with what he says, but I think he’s pretty even-handed and honest as a man can be who stands on the other side of this issue – who says this:

The indignation junkies immediately whooped up an outrage posse to complain that the bulletin was a sexist rag — Malzberg and Resnick’s response/explanation was judged and found wanting. They had to be flogged.
Okay, I exaggerate — but I know Malzberg and Resnick. I admire them. I’ve learned from them…

To which I immediately said:

Look, I don’t know Michael Resnick and Barry Malzberg – nor should I have to in order to parse their essays properly.  As writers, they above all people oughtta know that when someone’s reading you, you should not expect them to understand intent, but rather what you put on the goddamned page.
And I for one am sick of the idea that one can only interpret a given blog post via the rose-colored filter of knowing someone.  As anyone who knows me, I have stuck my foot in my mouth monstrously on more than a few occasions.  And when I have misrepresented myself so grievously, it is not the reader’s fault.  It is my fault for failing to provide my own context.
Am I happy to have friends who’ll defend me when I fuck up and come off as a misogynist asshole?  Absolutely.  Am I glad when they do?  Yup.
Do I use that personal knowledge as an excuse to come off like a jerk in print?
No, no, no.
I don’t give a crap what Barry and Mike are like in their personal lives.  Full truth is that I’ve been on a few panels with Mike Resnick, and he seems like a decent guy.   But would Mike Resnick expect me to know who he is in order to make sense of his latest novel on Africa?  If he wrote a chapter that, in its entirety, consisted of the words “Whoop whoop, the jungles are floppy,” would his friends rally around him, going, “No, no, Mike’s been to Africa, you see!  You gotta know what he means when he says floppy, which you can get by hanging around him at the bar!”
I suspect they’d say “fuck that.” You need to bring your own context with every story, amiright?
Well, that rule applies also to non-fiction.
What Resnick and Malzberg wrote was offensive to me – and worst of all, not particularly useful.  If it had been the “Barry and Mike toss around wimmen-in-bikini jokes while explaining how to break into the Chinese translation markets,” well, sure, maybe I mighta had something to offset the 1960s gags.  But there wasn’t.  And I don’t think it’s “censorship” to make an editorial decision, “Hey, this backslapping column that is routinely offending people while also providing no useful writing knowledge should be cut.”
Look, the SFWA Bulletin should be a place for everybody.  You wanna rail about politics?  You’re a writer, get a blog.  But I think a central place for SFWA’s membership should offend no one – not because I think that debates should not be had, but because I think there are appropriate places for debates.  You’re a dick if you start spouting your Ayn Rand bullshit at a kid’s birthday party.  You’re choady if you start spouting your pro-Obamacare beliefs in the middle of someone’s date.
There are plenty of on-topic debates for SFWA to have – hell, I’d love to see a raucous throwdown between traditional publishers and self-publishers.  But those are all related to the central subject of writing.  And I suppose the SFWA bulletin could be bawdy all the time and start prefacing every mention of Harlan Ellison with “Award-winning and breast-grabbing author Harlan Ellison,” or by referring to the military fiction authors in jest as “toothless gun yokels,” but there’s no sense in it.
If we can not offend our paying members in the central meeting place of our organization, then that is a good thing.
We’re all writers, man.  This is a hard enough goddamned gig without bringing in worthless crap that divides people.  If the bikini-clad woman on the cover gets chucked in the bin?  Fuck it, it’s a cover.  If that cover was a blank white expanse but the inside had Connie Willis telling me how to research on the Internet, a debate between Seanan McGuire and Jim Butcher on the best way to become a best-selling urban fantasy author, Chuck Wendig explaining how to raise your blog traffic and Mike Resnick explaining how to pitch an anthology, by God I’d be so happy with that fucking magazine I’d hug it in my goddamned sleep.
But no.  What we got was bikini covers and two guys taking up six pages to amuse the people who knew them already, and that’s not censorship to take that down, that’s a not particularly useful magazine.
And as for Barry and Mike, well, I don’t assume you’re bad people.  You said something a little dumb, doubled down, and are perplexed by this “negative feedback” you’re getting when you don’t come off as charming any more.  The problem is that this new generation – and we may be ingrates – does not care.  We have no gentle tide of your past charm to surf on.  All we have are the words on this page, right now, and what can you do for us, guys?
As always, the writer starts with a blank page, and a blank audience.  Stop blaming the page, and the audience, and write better.

The Power Of A Good Character Arc

“This story isn’t working,” I told my critique group last night, after hearing their comments.  “I wrote it the wrong way, and I need to tear it up and start all over again.”
Which was true.  I’d written the story in all-dialogue for some reason, a technique that’s inherently clumsy – you have to have people speak in clunky exposition to show what’s happening (“Why, you’re sprouting wings, Margaret!”), and there’s no good way of putting in vivid description without having poets spontaneously composing prose to speak aloud to one another, and if one character is concealing something then it’s difficult to show their side of things without even clunkier monologues.  So basically, I had a great story about a sexually dysfunctional warship – but doing it as a radio play for something that needed the visceral pleasure of military fiction was inherently distancing.
The interesting thing is that after my critique group had convinced me this wasn’t the way to go, some of the members still liked the story very much, and expressed concerns about me tearing it to pieces and starting over… Even though some of their complaints about the story were what had convinced me this all-talky approach wasn’t working.
That’s the power of a good character arc.
Which is to say the story was flawed, but the character’s journey was extremely potent – you had a body-dysmorphic woman who’d left her meat-shell behind to transfer her consciousness into a warship, and she had to come to acceptance with her new and far weirder body in order to be comfortable in her new existence.  That’s a really potent lesson to be learned, and as such the story is kind of guaranteed to work on some level for many folks.
Stories are, in some ways, a lesson learned by the reader, as experienced by the character.  That’s what the character arc is – the person within it has discovered something new (usually courtesy of a try/fail cycle or two where they demonstrate how their old approach wasn’t working), and proceeds to integrate that lesson into his or her life.
If you have something really universal that the character learns – a bold statement on love, or loss, or whatever – then everything else about the tale becomes easier.
A good character arc is like a sketch from a brilliant artist – you can rough out a few lines, and it has power and emotion even though many other aspects of it may be lacking.  In fact, I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that my most-beloved (or at least my most-discussed) stories are also the ones that have the strongest character arcs.  You have Lizzie learning huge lessons about warfare and friendship in Sauerkraut Station, and you have Irena learning what she really needs to do to save her brother in “Run,” Bakri Says, and you have poor Stewart learning about his significance in the place of the universe in Riding Atlas.  Whereas I have stories that I think are better written, but the lessons the characters learn within them are smaller, less interesting – and so they don’t connect with an audience as deeply.
In many cases I have tales I can’t sell, and I think that’s because the lessons the people within it learn are fractional – an incremental notch forward on their personality.  Whereas the easiest sales I get are the ones where the characters wind up totally transformed by the end of it, learning that everything they know is wrong: Lizzie facing the unfairness of battle and emerging scarred, Irena getting a different take on who her brother is as she loops through his time machine, Stewart seeking shallow intimacy but discovering the real intimacy after he faces down the entirety of the universe.
For me, the best thing I can possibly do with a story is to have a great character arc – a really significant lesson.  If I do that, then everything else can be forgiven.  And in this case, what I have is a character arc so great that people are responding, I think, to the potential of it, even if the shell that arc is currently carried within artificially stunts its impact.
The problem is that, being a pantser, I don’t know what the character arc is in advance.  Sometimes I get to the end and go, “Oh, that’s not actually that much of a change.”  And then that story tends to be a more difficult sell.  (Not impossible; just difficult.  Smaller lessons can resonate more deeply with smaller audiences, in much the same way an in-joke isn’t for everyone but those who get it often laugh harder.)
But this dysfunctional warship story is interesting, because I think what people are reacting to is more the potential of a story unlocked.  The word “important” was said more than once about the tale.  And I think if I was a pre-Clarion writer, the kind of guy who shrugged and said, “Eh, close enough,” I’d probably try to refine that clunky dialogue methodology down, and maybe switch a few scenes around, and eventually I’d come up with something nice.  The tale would be heartwarming to some no matter how I phrased it, because a) I’m a decent enough writer to make bad approaches look decent, and b) the pulsing potency of that character arc would resonate with some just because they want to learn the lesson that’s unlocked by my protagonist.
Yet I’m me, now.  I’m willing to say, okay, the central plot is great, but the housing is bad, and find some way to back off and rewrite it in a fashion that it not just harnesses but amplifies the strength of that core, until I get something that explodes out of the gate.
That may mean I write five more drafts until I get a good start on how to approach this, and then several more drafts until I refine the story’s elements so they all work in harmony.  That’s okay.  I have a good start.  And post-Clarion, I know that “good enough” isn’t good enough; I’m battling with much more popular writers in a queue of hundreds, and so I’d damn well better be the best.
But I’m heartened.  What I have is a tale that some loved in a very raw format.  That gives me hope that I can break it carefully out of the shell and put it in something more suited to it.