Steven H. Wilson

Okay, so, enough bitching about the things that make me angry... for now.  There are things I enjoy, too.  I've always loved Hallowe'en. The affection dulls a bit as you get older and make believe becomes less real to you.  But your kids enthusiasm can help.  And knowing you're doing something that offends the "religious" Right can't hurt. 

So this weekend, we indulged in something very Hallowe'en in nature: a haunted house.  Not just a haunted house, but Castle Blood.  225 miles away from home, but well worth the trip.  Been to one of those haunted houses where guys in sweats and rubber masks come running at you with chain saws?  Where strobe lights flash all the time and the text of the story is pretty much a few lines from The Blair Witch Project?  Yeah, I've been to those.  And some of them are well-executed.  But they are to a live Hallowe'en experience what the Texas Chainsaw Massacre is to the genre pioneered by the likes of Lon Chaney Sr. and Boris Karloff. 

Castle Blood, assembled by some of SF fandom's veteran costumers, is the intelligent person's haunted house.  In fact, one of their slogans, proudly emblazoned on the shirt my eldest son picked up at the gift shop, is "because chainsaws are stupid." 

Yes, there's eerie lighting, and yes, there are scare actors who throw open doors and scream at you.  But there's also a cast of colorful characters, developed and acted by talented performers, who are fun to get to know in between the scares.  There's a back story of a vampire clan who came to America to escape persecution, and the pirates they unwittingly employed to transport them and their castle, and the witches who once inhabited the ground on which it was rebuilt.  Guests are urged to participate in a game, making it an interactive experience.  Yes, you have to talk to the zombies, the ghosts and the mad scientists. 

If you're in the Pittsburgh area, it's not far away.  If you're out of the area, well, yeah, it's a haul.  And the town of Beallsville, where it's located, is not exactly a tourist attraction.  If you're like me, though, and you love to be reminded that there are still thousands of acres of open land that the developers haven't found, or you love driving on mountain roads, especially in the Fall, you'll find the area refreshing.  Or there's Washington PA, an active college town, 15 miles to the west, if you need civilization. 

But, if you're a fan of classic Hallowe'en traditions, it's not to be missed.  The Castle is open just three more nights this year, including Hallowe'en night.  If you have no plans next weekend, check it out.  (Disclaimer: Yeah, I am slightly affiliated – there are these talking skulls in the corridors, see, and they kinda talk in my voice...  But my fifteen minutes in front of a microphone is nothing compared to what the REAL cast put into this!) 

Catching up on my Cato podcasts, I heard an interview with Berwyn Heights mayor Cheye Calvo.  This is the guy whose house was raided by the PG County Sheriff's Department SWAT team because a couple of corrupt FedEx employees were using his front porch as a drop-off spot for marijuana.  County Police (who used the Sheriff's SWAT team because theirs was unavailable) were well aware that the FedEd employees were doing this to innocent third parties, and yet they still busted down this man's door, murdered his two dogs (because they behaved aggressively, meaning they acted like any dog would when jack-booted thugs bust down their master's door) and left him, handcuffed in his underwear, lying on his living room floor, staring at his dog's corpse for four hours.  While this was going on, Calvo's wife arrived home.  She was held outside and questioned by a rookie detective who spent a large part of the interview on the cell phone, scheduling appointments for her own dog, and gossiping with her girlfriend about how exciting her first raid was, it being on the Mayor's house, and all.  (BTW, the cops inside claimed they didn't know it was the Mayor's house, and that Calvo was lying about being an elected official.  'Course, I guess it's possible that Detective Gossip Girl was just smarter than they were.) 

So I checked the news, thinking, surely the County has made restitution and apologized for its actions.  Nope.   The Police Chief and the Sheriff conducted internal investigations, without interviewing the family, and decided the officers behaved properly when they busted open a door without a no-knock warrant and killed two animals who did not injure them in any way.  And, just yesterday, PG County Exec Jack Johnson (D - because, by his own words, there are no 'Rs' in PG County) said that, although he has not spoken to Mayor Calvo at all, he doesn't feel an apology is called for. ""Well, I think in America that is the apology, when we're cleared." 

So, it doesn't matter what I did to you, because now I decided that you didn't do what I thought you did.  I had no responsibility to look for probable cause or treat you as though you were presumed innocent, and you're just lucky I've now said you're not a criminal.  That should be good enough for you, because I'm the monarch and you're the serf, and you'll take what I damn well give you and like it.  I don't have to pay restitution for two non-violent animals, family pets (personal property if you must) that I killed, because they belonged to me anyway, because everything you own belongs to me. 

Is that it, Mr. Johnson?  Something like that?

Is it just me, or is government in this country, at every level, more unspeakably arrogant right now than it has been throughout my 43 years of life?  These elected and appointed officials think, because they've been given a job that everyone else is too smart, too honest and too decent to want, that they're better than the rest of us, and that we're not worthy of their consideration.  We're guilty until proven innocent, our labor is only to serve their causes, and our the inventory of our property is their personal mail-order shopping list. 

I don't know what's more upsetting – how many mental defectives there are in leadership positions, or how many more mental defectives there are who convince themselves that they're not committing an evil act just by voting for them. 

Okay, it's been a LONG time.  I'm not a great blogger, because I assume that people don't give a damn about the tiny little details of my life.  I wait until I have something to say that I think people might want to hear.  And, at age 43, I've reached the point where I doubt much of anybody really wants to hear what I have to say anyway. 

And I've been very busy on the mundane job, not to mention editing my new Arbiter Chronicles mini-series, which you can LISTEN TO if you click the words “LISTEN TO.”  Go back.  Click the link.  Go back 14 words.  No, don't keep reading, this is a silly blog entry.  The show is better.  It's 31 words back now.  Go back. 

Okay, you've proceeded against my better judgement, so.... I said a while back that I'd answer this question from the Liberty poll, so I will.  “Should government be eliminated altogether?”

No. 

A few people have said to me that this is basically the same question as the earlier one – “Is there a proper role for government.”  After all, if it has a role, it should exist, if it doesn't, it shouldn't.  Right?  Well, yes, and maybe the questions could have been worded better.  I think, however, there are talking points that the two questions don't share.  One looks at what government should do, and the other at whether we need it at all.  I think we do, but let me make a point that I hope will set me apart from the FDRs, the McCains and the Obamas:

Government is rooted in evil. 

In a perfect world, we wouldn't need government.  Everyone would respect the rights of others, and no one would have to protect the weak from the strong.  But we don't live in a perfect world.  People who are stronger sometimes do use their strengths without regard to the rights of others.  “Because I can” is used as a justification for taking what isn't theirs, be it property, money, labor or sex.  People like that should be prevented from infringing on rights.  This can't be a DIY venture, because we don't always have the strength to resist a strong person.  If they're better with their fists, we might buy a handgun, if we buy a handgun, they might steal an automatic weapon, if we build a fortress, they might take Janet Reno to dinner and have her send her stormtroopers in to burn our children alive in the name of Justice.  Any argument which says that it's always up to us to take care of ourselves when someone tries to take what's ours eventually ends up with might making right.  Whoever has the bigger gun has the better claim. 

Sorry, that's not Freedom. 

Yes, I believe it's always best to look after yourself, protect yourself, and be prepared to confront those who would try to intimidate you. But there's always going to be someone too big for you to fight on your own.  Furthermore, neither you nor your adversary is going to see what's happening objectively.  You may believe that bicycle to be yours, because it's been sitting in your yard for ten weeks.  But your neighbor put it there before you moved in, and he thinks it's his.  Should this be resolved by the two of you and your weapons, with the potential for innocents to be caught in the crossfire and your dependents to be left with no means of support? 

Okay, most people wouldn't resolve a bicycle dispute with weapons.  And most people don't need to be governed.  But a few take things too far.  A few don't respect others as being equal to themselves.  And that's my definition of evil.  Government is rooted in evil.  Government is needed when people stubbornly refuse to acknowledge the rights of others, and take forceful action against said others. 

So, no, I wouldn't eliminate government.  I want to know that, if someone claims what's mine, I have other options than taking up arms against him.  I'm willing to take up arms against him, but I don't think it should have to come to that.  Nor do I think that someone who doesn't have the ability to defend themselves should be left to their own devices and forced to depend on the private charity of others.  A quadriplegic has the same right to keep his property as I do, but he can't fire a gun or defend himself in a fist fight.  His ability to make others like him enough to defend him shouldn't be his only defense.  He has the same right to be an unreasonable SOB that I do, too, and shouldn't have to kiss ass to protect what's his. 

I think it protects our rights to have a neutral third party who can enforce some established rules. 
My good friend Eli has made the excellent point to me that what I'm defining is not government, it's governance.  I think he means by that that private mediators could do the job I'm assigning to elected government. That's probably true.  Robert Heinlein certainly explored the possibilities of private juries, which were very interesting. 

And really, I think that's about the only function government should be allowed to have.  After all, what's rooted in evil probably is evil, and shouldn't be given any more power than is absolutely necessary.  And if we stripped our current leviathan down to that level, we'd be cutting away so much fat that it would look, in comparison as if we had totally eliminated government. 

So, from the point of view of people who think that there's any practical difference whatsoever between our two presidential candidates or the political parties pulling their strings, I guess my answer might as well be yes. 

So, next question?  Yeah, the magazine is buried in my reading stack, so I have no idea.  I'll get back to you in another few months. 

Okay, so the first question from the Liberty poll:

Agree or Disagree - "There is a proper role for government, but that role is much smaller then the role government plays at present."

Agree with both pieces of that statement. Of course, most Americans would probably agree with part two. The role our government currently plays in our lives is ridiculously large. The fault for our government's size lies not in our stars but in ourselves. We've asked way too much of government. We expect it to fix everything, from the price of gasoline to the color of our neighbor's garage door to the pimples on our asses. We believe that if an action is right and just then the government should be the party to take that action. We can't trust individuals to act, because they might be motivated by that dreaded evil, self-interest. Government will be fair an impartial.

That's asking too much of anyone, but it seems it's what most Americans expect. Our news media and our politicians encourage that view. In an editorial shilling his new book Supercapitalism, former Clinton Secretary of Labor Robert Reich gives his definition of government: "Let us be clear: The purpose of democracy is to accomplish ends we cannot achieve as individuals."

That statement is way too broad a definition for me. It places no limits whatsoever on the power of government. It invites government to take on any problem, whether or not that problem is within its purview. I don't see government as the fix for all our problems. I see it as the fix for only one. Thomas Jefferson expressed this beautifully in the Declaration of Independence:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."

Government exists to protect freedom, which is something we're born with that other people just seem to want to take away. The idea that it should also put food on our table, money in our pockets, pills in our mouths and ethanol in our cars is quite a leap of bad faith from that original definition. Those who make that leap have recently reclaimed the title "progressives." They frighten me. They want to build a nanny state that does everything for us, maybe and maybe not remembering that a nanny is also prone to tell you what to do and where to go. (And most of them, you'll recall from the film, look nothing like Mary Poppins.)

There are those who would argue that, to enjoy freedom, we must also be guaranteed health, an income, a home, etc. I refer them back to Mr. Jefferson. He said, "the pursuit of happiness," not the guarantee.

For me, the proper role of government is to protect my rights: Help me keep thieves and invading armies off my land, stop those who would use force against me when I'm minding my own business, assist me in the enforcement of contracts. Perhaps assist in coordinating the use of shared resources like roads and rivers. All the other things we've come to count on government for are probably more than it should be doing.

And are there not even other ways that we can protect our property and rights without having governments? Well, the next question is, "Should government be eliminated altogether?"

And, on that note...

I've grown to hate arguing. Many people do, but I didn't used to. I used to enjoy the process of debating conflicting opinions with friends and acquaintances. It gave me a charge. It tested and refined my beliefs. Now I consciously avoid it.

I think that's because it depresses me to find out either how stupid people are, how easily led, or to realize that I have disagreements with people whose opinions I value and those disagreements likely will never be resolved. Maybe both sides see an aspect of the truth. Maybe one side is wrong. That means either I'm wrong or someone I respect is wrong.

I'm not sure which is more painful, but both hurt.

Another thing I've come to hate about arguing is that most people around me seem to be intellectual and emotional bullies. They express their opinions so harshly that to grant them any credence at all is to admit that you were, are, and always will be a fool for ever disagreeing with them. Like FDR, they accept nothing less than unconditional surrender. If their opponent makes the slightest mistake, they pounce on it and make the argument all about that little, tiny mistake.

Some people probably think I'm that kind of bully as well. When it comes to religious or political topics, however I think I tend to try and find acceptable middle ground with people. I may disagree with them, but I'm willing to concede that our different life experiences may just cause us to see things differently. That puts me at a real disadvantage when I try to argue with a person who can't conceive of ever being wrong.

Finally, I just don't have the energy any more. Almost 43 years into this life, I'm just tired of working so hard to get along with people who probably don't give a damn whether they get along with me or not.

Which leads me to this place. I have strong opinions about a lot of things, but I don't voice them much anymore, except to family members. Even then I'm careful with some. I've even taken to leaving the room when political topics come up, because I don't want my tongue to bleed from being bitten, and I don't want my head to start hurting from listening to selfish hatred.

I'd like to get some of my thoughts out there, though. Probably writing them down is a better way to do that, anyway, than sitting in someone's living room and arguing. It certainly allows me to concentrate a little better. 43 years later, my concentration ability is the worst it's ever been Takes me longer than it used to to think a coherent thought.

So, as some sort of therapy, I'm going to answer a poll that I missed. I subscribe to Liberty magazine, which tells you something about my politics, in case you didn't already know. (That's 'liberty' as in 'libertarian,' not as in 'Liberty Baptist.') Every ten years or so, they do a poll of their readers' opinions on a number of questions. I'm slow to get to my reading, so the results of the 2008 poll were published before I even knew they'd sent it out. My bad. But I have this blog, and I can answer the questions right here, expounding far more than any survey sheet would ever let me.

I'll begin with my next entry, for better or worse. Your opinions... um... are yours. If you decide to share them, a committee of your peers (anonymous and selected by me) will meet and let you know if they were welcome.

First question, coming soon, "Agree or Disagree - There is a proper role for government, but that role is much smaller then the role government plays at present."

"Shame is an unhappy emotion invented by pietists in order to exploit the human race." Blake Edwards said that, in his brilliant script for Victor / Victoria. I think it's apt to the breaking headline news that is Miley Cyrus's decision to expose (my god!) her bare back to the world. People are saying this girl should be ashamed of herself. If there's any shame to be suffered, it should be suffered by these holier-than-thou puritans who can look at a pretty young girl and see anything other than a pretty young girl.

Until this past Sunday, I had no idea who Miley Cyrus was. And then my friend Paige happened to mention her in conversation as "the anti-Brittney," a young woman to whom she thought her daughter (my beautiful goddaughter, Molly) could look up. So, even though I could give a damn about the kind of "news" that's common to People Magazine, my ears pricked up the next day when I heard that this upstanding young lady had caused a scandal. When I heard why she'd caused a scandal – by appearing bare-backed in Vanity Fair, by allowing candid photos of her bare midriff and of herself "almost" kissing another girl to be taken, I left the room, shrieking, "I hate this country!"

Okay, maybe I don't hate this country, at least not in comparison to the rest. But, when we throw back to our puritan roots this way, I'm pretty damned ashamed of it. This girl did nothing wrong, and yet she's been forced to apologize. Maybe she feels no shame. Maybe she's a cynical showbiz kid who knows it's all about image and the audiences are just enhanced cattle who happen to be able to speak. (They don't speak well, but they speak.) Somehow, knowing 15-year-olds as I do, I doubt she feels no shame.

Putting aside the whole question of whether or not Cyrus's behavior would be offensive to the stupid people if she were a boy (and we all know it wouldn't), what exactly motivates people to even have an opinion of this, much less such a harsh, judgmental one as we're being told many have? I guess part of it is how aware we are of sexual abuse against children. We don't want to encourage that kind of crime, or be suspected of encouraging it, so we lash out when someone sexualizes the image of a young person. I don't think that's a very big part of it, though, else we'd hear of a lot more backlash against shows like The Naked Brothers Band and against products like Barbie and Bratz.

No, I think what's behind all this is the fact that a lot of adults, even in this modern age, are not comfortable with their sexuality. They still see it as "dirty," and are still shamed by their own secret fantasies. Sexuality, to them, is the polar opposite of innocence. So children and teenagers, who should be innocent, can't have sexuality. This is, I believe, the same mindset that causes people to object to the sexuality of young people in my own fiction. One reader suggested that perhaps the disturbing thing about a character like Aer'La in Taken Liberty having sex is not that she has it – it's that she enjoys it! (Which is, I guess, saying that it's okay for her to be a victim, but not to own her own sexuality. I hope no one actually believes that, but...)

People who believe this are fooling themselves. And, by crying out that a girl like Miley Cyrus has done something immoral by making the gentlest show of her sexuality, they're making the world an uglier place. Teens have sex drives. Deal with it. I've had one since I was twelve. That's not saying they should be sexually active. It's certainly not saying that adults should lay a finger on them. But realistic adults – especially parents – should recognize that their kids have a sexual identity and let it exist. Don't make them feel guilty about it. Teach them morals, certainly, but teach them without victimizing anyone unnecessarily.

There's room for innocence, morality and sexuality all in the same package. What there's no room for is shame. So, if you're offended when a young woman displays her bare back, ask yourself what's in your package. Is it the girl who should be ashamed? Or is it you?

Every writer deals with rejection. It drives us to drink, to write bad poetry, to contemplate suicide and to become acquisitions editors. The simple fact is that there are more people who want to publish there writings than there are markets. Hell, there are more people who want to publish writings than there are people who want to read published writings. I've met writers who don't read, but far fewer readers who don't write. My Mother. Never knew her to write, though she reads constantly. That's about it. But a lot of writers don't read, mostly because it disgusts them to read what got published in their place.

The current market for writers seems to be dwindling. The advent of big box bookstores has led to a situation where more then ten times as many copies of a book has to be published, so each store can have enough copies to not sell, meaning even more copies are not selling, meaning a much smaller percentage is selling. So publishers are spending a lot more to sell the same number of books as always. So they're not willing to take chances. If you're not Steven King, John Grisham or Danielle Steele, they don't wanna talk to you. Authors with long publishing histories are now being utterly ignored. So, cuddly and cute as Tom Hanks was in that movie, big box bookstores aren't good for authors.

Worst of all, because aspiring writers are just not a valuable commodity, editors feel even less justified in making personal responses to them or telling them specifically what's wrong with rejected works. They never spent much time, but they spent some. When I first submitted to Analog fifteen years ago, I got a personal response, encouraging me and complimenting my style. When I last submitted last year, they didn't respond at all. And I do mean at all.  Four polite communications with return postage on my last submission. Nada. Nothing. To me that says, "You don't even matter." To them, it probably only says, "We're drowning in work."

And that's frustrating especially. You polish a submission until you can see it shine. You have beta readers look at it. You cut and cut and cut. And then you submit it to every market you can find. In the end, you're left to wonder, "What was wrong with it?" Honestly? Maybe nothing. It just may not have been flavor of the day. My friend Howie, an NYT Bestseller himself, comforted me by saying that, if my stuff wasn't selling, it was about numbers and nothing else. It was in no way about a lack of quality. That was kind of him, and I have to believe it or quit.

But those grains of doubt nag at you. What was wrong with a given story? Recently I received a rejection from the last available, paying market for my story "The Golem and the Gypsy Girl." I considered it the most commercial thing I'd ever written. It had a hook most people recognized, the Golem. It was set in the past, during an interesting time (in the Chinese sense.) It had, I think, an appealing protagonist, a young girl being forced to marry someone she didn't know.

So what killed its chances? Length? It was over 10,000 words. That's awfully long. But stories are as long as they are. You can always shorten them some, but there comes a point where you need to stop.

Was it my writing about a time I didn't live through, a place I've never been, one protagonist who isn't real and another who belongs to an ethnic group I only know through research? Maybe. I'd contend I know more about the Roma than the people who wrote all the Universal horror films did.

Was it the sex? People seem to be more squeamish about sex now than they have been at any time in my life, with liberal Democrats joining the religious right in a quest to sanitize our lives and public discourse. And more on prudery later.

Bottom line? You never know, because it's too much of a burden for editors to tell you. And I say that with no disrespect intended. It really would be a burden to tell every submitting author what was wrong (in the editor's opinion) with a story. Largely because most of them would argue the point ad nauseum.

But Robert Heinlein said, once you've finished a piece, you keep it on the market until it sells. I don't know how he would have reckoned the Internet and Creative Commons, but I'd like to think that, all paying markets exhausted, putting a story out for the public to consume without the blessing of the New York literati still constitutes "keeping it on the market." So my Golem and his encounter with a Romany girl will go on my podcast. And then my listeners can tell me what they do and don't like.

The point of telling a story is to have it heard, after all, by a receptive audience. Perhaps the best way to do that is not to first have all stories heard by people who hear too many of them and are sick and tired of listening?

I finished the bleeding Trek / Dark Shadows thang the weekend before New Year's. Now I have to actually read it. I'm one of those writers who doesn't have a clue what he said in the paragraph before the one he's working on now. 65 pages of script boggles my mind. 500 pages of a novel puts me into a coma from which I may not emerge for days.

I'm ambivalent about actually performing that script on the podcast. I think it's funny (from what little I remember from writing it) but... half the cast of Dark Shadows is dead, and I fear so are half its fans. What if no one gets it? But best not to show any doubt. Doubt for an author is just an opening for people who are too lazy to create anything themselves to tell you how to create it.

And, as if I hadn't written enough Trek parody with that show, I'm diving right into the show to be performed at Farpoint – Lux Radio Theater Presents the Road to Orion – Star Trek, as it would have been performed by Bing and Bob. The research has been fun, as the Lux Radio Theater is always fun. Where else can one hear the very dignified C.B. DeMille selling soap? Toilet soap, yet.

I don't imagine it'll take me too long to put that one together. I have a solid outline, and parody usually flows pretty easily. If it doesn't, it's not worth doing. I'm a firm believer that one should only parody what one loves. Is that odd? I guess a lot of people like to make fun of things they hate, but, for me, there's not much fun in hate. To parody well, you have to know your subject. Who wants to take time getting to know something they hate? That's not to say that a good parody or farce can't include caricatures of people we hate. That's probably healthy, hence all the pictures of Hitler on the comic covers of the 40s.

Still and all, I'll be glad to get past the parody and back to serious material. I left the final Arbiters series two script in first draft form – mostly complete, but once scene ends with "Atal says something along the lines of [fill in something here] as a pithy closing remark." I really want to polish that one and get it ready to podcast. And then there are those novels to write...

I have a lot to say on the non-Trek writing front, about a story that I'm going to feature in this week's podcast, but I think I'll save that discussion until later.

Actually, because we have only two writers, and one of them is exhausted. For three years, I've wanted to get some comedy into my podcast. The closest I guess we came was "Dead Aaron." I'd really wanted to create a series about some 1930s ghost busters. I imagine I still will create that series, but... with all my other projects, not now. Series creation takes a lot of time, as you can imagine. Aaron Spelling notwithstanding.

So, how to introduce comedy? Well, Prometheus Radio Theatre is a direct descendant of a comedy troupe (the Usual Suspects) that has 21 years' worth of material piled up. So I decided to start adapting some of our SF-Fantasy parody stage shows to audio. I'm beginning with one of mine, to make myself the guinea-pig for this. There've been at least a dozen writers associated with the Usual Suspects over the years.

I picked a show that I think got short-changed when it was originally presented – Planet of Dark Shadows. We staged this in 1991 at a convention called OktoberTrek. We lost cast members at the last minute, the understudies got sick, and some of our cast did not then (and still don't) believe me that rehearsal is crucial to success, and that you must rehearse using the lines you're going to say during performance, not whatever cutesy stuff pops into your head because you're tired of the lines.

Actually, this show had already been adapted once. It began as a prose serial – "A Star Trek / Dark Shadows Crossover" – in a fanzine my brother and I published for about a year back in the 80s. Seven years later, I turned it into – God help me – a musical. And now I'm adapting it yet again. I'm cutting the songs. If I don't have time to write a new series, I certainly don't have time to beat music out of our meager facilities. Which means that the plot point that were advanced in lyrics have to be turned back into straight dialogue. Oddly enough, there's one passage of lines in rhyme by Spock that I kept intact. Aside from the rhyme, the words as dialogue fit him to a tee.

Interesting challenge, this. It's very consciously written for the stage, with lots of visual humor. For audio, you paint pictures with sound effects, and most of your humor must be spelled out in dialogue.

I'm getting the chance to go back to the source material and restore some funny bits that didn't make it into the book of the musical. Not only do musical books necessarily need to be spare on dialogue, but the audience the Usual Suspects perform for has never seemed to enjoy the kind of dialogue which I really love to write. So, when I write for them, I gut stuff that I feel is very amusing and has good rhythm. (Okay, that, and that I know my cast is somewhat... er... approximate... when it comes to remembering lines. So rhythm gets shot all to hell anyway.)

So, anyway, it's more of a rewrite job than I thought it would be. I imagine it'll keep my busy for the next week or so, at any rate.

Okay, so, in the last week two people have said to me, "You need to update your blog."  So I'm updating.  I have to admit that I wonder if even ten per cent of those two people will then READ my blog. 

One of the things that kept me away was just not feeling that I knew what to DO with this semi-public forum.  But, recently, I've decided that I need a place to comment on how my writing career / hobby / call-it-what-you-will is going, if only to keep myself sane. 

I write every day, usually in little bits of break time that I can glean away from the bottomless pit of needs and wants that is my job.  That seems to work out pretty well.  Projects get started, projects get finished, projects get edited and produced and published. 

My latest completed project is a two-hour script for my audio series, the Arbiter Chronicles.  This is a "series finale," of sorts.  It's the 16th Arbiters script I've written.  Over the course of sixteen shows and seven years, I've decided that the series format is awfully cumbersome and hard to maintain.  It's hard to get the actors playing nine regular characters to find time in their lives to come in and record the shows.  So I've decided to end the series as it exists, and continue to develop the stories in other formats.  (More about that later.) 

About halfway through the plotting phase of this episode, I realized that this is really comparable to a screenplay.  So I dug out my notes from my screenwriting courses and tried to apply the rules of writing a successful screenplay to this script, "Contents Under Pressure."  Of course, you can't apply them all.  Audio is not film.  But the basic principles of plot and character still apply. 

I finished the first draft last week.  Bits of it are brilliant, if I do say so myself.  Bits of it are weak and plodding, I know.  As a whole, it's probably a little unfocused.  I find this is usually the case with an ambitious story.  Focus is usually a while in coming.  But at least it's done.  It exists, and now I have strong motivation to make it good. 

The bad news is, I don't have time to make it good.  I need to put some polishing touches on the next radio show I'm going to produce (more about that later, too), I have to write a radio play (two, actually) for performance at Farpoint this February, and I have a completed novel from two years ago to dust off, edit, and send to some agents.  So I'm probably a couple of months out from re-writing this one, although I did write an additional scene almost as soon as I finished it. 

In the meantime, to try and refine my script-writing edge, I'm reading Six Screenplays by Robert Riskin.  Riskin is the genius who wrote most of Frank Capra's films, including It Happened One Night, and  Mr. Deeds Goes to Town.  Probably the greatest screenwriter ever.  I think my family thinks I'm nuts, because I'm laughing so hard reading his script for Platinum Blonde right now.  (And I've never seen the film.)  It's sad, but Riskin's style of writing probably wouldn't sell a single script now.  He put in a lot of speeches, his stories had "messages."  And yet his dialogue is crisp and funny, and their are layers of subtlety in his characters that our modern "sophisticated" viewers can't begin to guess at.  And, if you try to tie any of his stories to a given political cause, you'll fail miserably.  The guy had his politics, but his stories lifted him beyond them. 

More on the next project tomorrow, I hope. 

Yes, I'm being faith-specific for the day. But Season's Greetings as well to dear friends who've recently finished celebrating Hanukkah and Yule. I hope that, between the celebrations of the birth of the new covenant, the miracle of the lights, and the coming of the new sun, we might all find it in ourselves to work for peace on earth and good will to all. It would be a refreshing change.

And my holiday offering... Just in time for Christmas, Podiobooks.com has launched Lester Del Rey's Badge of Infamy, read by Steven H. Wilson... hey, that's me! Our tale of a disgraced physician and his battle to save humanity from a Martian plague begins, by the way, on Christmas Eve, in the year 2100... Click Here to listen or subscribe.

Between being helpful, and stepping on toes. Lately, on the job and just in friendly situations, that fine line has been crossed an awful lot of times, and my toes are pretty sore.

On the job is probably more common. The temptation to “help” is strong, and, when someone asks you to do someone else's job for them, you might step in and do the job to cover for a co-worker, or to make a customer happy, or (let's be honest) to make yourself feel good, or look like the hero. Surely, if you're motives are noble, it's better to get the job done than to worry about who did it, right?

But what if you do it wrong? What if you break something? What if you don't know the whole story, and you're being asked to do something that the person whose job it really is wouldn't do for a very good reason? (It's not uncommon in the work place to play the “Mom said no, so let's ask Dad,” game.) And what if, while you're trying to be the hero and save the day, you make your co-worker look like an ass, because he or she didn't or wouldn't do that job that's supposed to be theirs? Maybe you don't care. Maybe that person is a raving incompetent, and deserves to be embarrassed. But, before you send that message, don't you think you should ask yourself if it's the message you intend to send?

And don't bank too heavily on the cast-iron ego of the person whose toes you're treading on. Don't be so sure that person will appreciate your help and just know that you would never insult him. He or she might not know that at all.

Like I said, it doesn't just happen on the job. How often do we make helpful “suggestions” to our friends? Or even to strangers? We figure we know something they don't know, and maybe we can help out. And, being honest again, we like to look like the person who knows more, the font of infinite wisdom. So we never hold back with those helpful suggestions, and, if we see a little job that needs doing in a friend's life, we sometimes just jump right in and do it.

But how does that look to others? And how does it make the recipient of our “help” feel? How does it feel to the homeowner whose house you had a little difficulty finding, when they open their door to you exclaiming, “You need bigger numbers on your mailbox!” or “You need a brighter porch light!”

Perhaps their TV and DVD player could be set up in a niftier manner, but should you grab the cables and re-arrange them without asking?  Or, if their kitchen layout doesn't make sense to you, should you start shifting things from one drawer or cabinet to another?  

Maybe their dog runs around a little too much, or maybe their cat likes to jump on furniture. Should you take it upon yourself to attempt to train the animal in front of company, or recommend obedience school to the owner in front of others? Or should you, perhaps, accept that this is the animal's home, and the owner's home, and they have a greater right to be comfortable in it, too?

Above all, ask yourself, “Do I have nothing that needs doing in my own life, that I have time to butt into others' lives?”

Maybe I'm just getting old and grouchy. (OK, that's not a maybe.) But I'm especially noticing of late how quick people are to “help” me without asking, and without thinking that, just maybe, I'm capable of handling my job and my life my self. I'm not exactly Donald Trump (and that's a good thing), but I think I've made it pretty successfully through these past 41 years. And I've yet to meet anyone who's really doing a lot better. So maybe, as a guy named Jesus once said, we should get the planks out of our own eyes before we grab our friends eyelids and start chasing the specks in theirs.

I'm just sayin' is all....

It's been one of those weekends...  Worked thirteen hours yesterday, and another six today on a server move.  I'll be cleaning up for the rest of the week.  Had more than my share of "how could I BE so stupid?!!" moments.  Oh well.  One of my professors in grad school told me that, in a career in IT, you WILL learn to forgive your own mistakes.  I'm not sure I've learned that, but, oh well...

But the week's had its up moments.  A very nice article in the Howard County Times about Prometheus Radio Theatre (already pulled from the website, so I can't link it), and a glowing review of my book Taken Liberty at http://www.sffaudio.com/2006/11/review-of-taken-liberty-by-steven-h.html Actually, it's a review of the audio book version. 

Finally got Prometheus's version of "Dead Aaron" up on the podcast site this week (http://prometheus.libsyn.com)

So, I don't think I'll list 50, but I have to say, I'm disappointed that the following were not on the list from SFBC...

Logan's Run, William F. Nolan & George Clayton Johnston
Time Enough for Love, Robert A. Heinlein
Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Robert A. Heinlein
Martian Chronicles, Ray Bradbury
Probability Broach, L. Neill Smith
The Humanoids, Jack Williamson
Jumping off the Planet, David Gerrold
Princess of Mars, Edgar Rice Burroughs
Titan, John Varley
Dreamsnake, Vonda McIntyre
Rissa Kergulen, FM Busby
King of Infinite Space, Allen Steele

So... feel free to bold, italicize... whatever...  Yeah, I've read and loved them all. 

Stole this from efbq...

This is a list of the 50 most significant science fiction/fantasy novels, 1953-2002, according to the Science Fiction Book Club. Bold the ones you've read, strike-out the ones you hated, italicize those you started but never finished and put an asterisk beside the ones you loved.

1. The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien
2. The Foundation Trilogy, Isaac Asimov
3. Dune, Frank Herbert
4. Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert A. Heinlein*
5. A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. Le Guin
6. Neuromancer, William Gibson
7. Childhood's End, Arthur C. Clarke
8. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick
9. The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley
10. Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury (shudder to confess. I LOVE Bradbury.)
11. The Book of the New Sun, Gene Wolfe
12. A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller, Jr.
13. The Caves of Steel, Isaac Asimov*
14. Children of the Atom, Wilmar Shiras
15. Cities in Flight, James Blish
16. The Colour of Magic, Terry Pratchett
17. Dangerous Visions, edited by Harlan Ellison
18. Deathbird Stories, Harlan Ellison
19. The Demolished Man, Alfred Bester
20. Dhalgren, Samuel R. Delany
21. Dragonflight, Anne McCaffrey
22. Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card*
23. The First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, Stephen R. Donaldson
24. The Forever War, Joe Haldeman
25. Gateway, Frederik Pohl
26. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, J.K. Rowling*
27. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams*
28. I Am Legend, Richard Matheson
29. Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice
30. The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin
31. Little, Big, John Crowley
32. Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny
33. The Man in the High Castle, Philip K. Dick
34. Mission of Gravity, Hal Clement
35. More Than Human, Theodore Sturgeon
36. The Rediscovery of Man, Cordwainer Smith
37. On the Beach, Nevil Shute
38. Rendezvous with Rama, Arthur C. Clarke
39. Ringworld, Larry Niven
40. Rogue Moon, Algis Budrys
41. The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien
42. Slaughterhouse-5, Kurt Vonnegut
43. Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson (I... Um... Really?)
44. Stand on Zanzibar, John Brunner
45. The Stars My Destination, Alfred Bester
46. Starship Troopers, Robert A. Heinlein (Sorry, RAH, but we're all ugly when we're mad)
47. Stormbringer, Michael Moorcock
48. The Sword of Shannara, Terry Brooks
49. Timescape, Gregory Benford (JFK? Seriously? We named an IMPRINT after this?)
50. To Your Scattered Bodies Go, Philip Jose Farmer

I read with great sadness that a long and brilliant career ended this past Friday, when science fiction author Jack Williamson died at age 98.

If you haven't read his work, I highly recommend you seek it out. My favorite of his books was Brother to Demons, Brother to Gods, a dystopian piece about genetic engineering. The Humanoids brilliantly shows that the worst kind of oppression is that which sets out to provide for all our needs. The Legion of Space is classic pulp, and probably the best of its kind.

I'd also recommend a DC Comics limited series in which Jack Williamson was the protagonist – Kevin J. Anderson's JSA – Strange Adventures.

I was privileged to meet Mr. Williamson about ten years ago, at a Writers of the Future dinner in Washington. No, I've never been selected for the contest. I was there as a guest of Dr. Yoji Kondo.

He bowed humbly when I told him how much his work had meant to me, then asked me if I was a writer. When I told him yes, he asked if I'd placed in that evening's competition. When I told him no, he wanted to know why not. I'd been too busy to write anything lately, I explained.

The science fiction legend wagged his finger in my face and said, “Shame on you! You should always be writing!”

I've long maintained that free advice is worth what you pay for it, but this was Jack Williamson, telling me to get off my ass. He'd probably said the same thing to a thousand aspiring writers. Still...

I took him to heart. I wrote a novella that month, and submitted it to several markets, which turned it down. I followed with a novel and a handful of short stories. All were rejected. But I've kept writing, every day since, when I wasn't suffering bouts of contagious editing, or recovering from prolonged sieges of convention management.

I've never sold a story to Analog or Asimov's. I have not won the Writers of the Future competition. But my first novel is selling enough to actually make money, and my weekly podcast is staring at its 100,000th download. I'm a writer, and I have readers and listeners who like my work. That's worth something.

Godspeed, Jack, and thanks for reminding me of what's important.

So, this was going to be a screed on how much I just realized I hate Republicans, since I just had a very frustrating argument with one about gay marriage. Then I calmed down and remembered how much I hate Democrats too, so there no reason to single anyone out. I have enough hate to go around...

(And I should clarify that I don't really hate the PEOPLE, only their dogged insistence on loving their parties and the despicable boobs their parties support for public office.)

No, said argument from the other day crystalized in my mind something I really DO hate, and not just in a gruff-but-lovable way: Labels. Specifically, labels as they're applied to people. More specifically, labels as they're applied to me. But enlightened self interested tells me that, if I hate them being applied to me, I should hate seeing them applied to anyone. So I do.

Case in point. I argued that anti-gay marriage legislation was a bad idea, because I'm not aware of a constitutional clause which empowers Congress to regulate marriages. I got called a "strict constructionist," and so my opponent proceeded to argue with me as if I were everything that name implied. Any supporting argument I made about human rights was rejected because a "strict constructionist" wouldn't agree with it. I also got labeled a "big government liberal." This took me by surprise, as I was arguing for LESS law -- in this case, that we do NOT need a law banning certain kinds of marriages.

But I was arguing to allow gay marriage, so I was a liberal, and liberals support big government. (How a strict constructionist can also be a big government liberal was never explained.) Finally, I was labeled a megalomaniac who wanted to run the world, because I thought I could pass any law I wanted and ignore any I didn't like. (This was because I said that it was a waste of Congress's time to debate a Marriage Amendment, and that all Amendments to the Constitution should contribute to the protection of life, liberty or property. Remember the REASON we have government? It ain't so we always have someone to whine to when we have a problem that's the result of our own stupidity.)

I'm often confronted by this. I believe in the right to choose, even though I don't like abortion. This makes me a liberal. I believe any responsible adult should be allowed to marry any responsible adult who doesn't have a conflicting, established contract. That makes me a liberal. I don't, however, think that there should be a law enacted granting a RIGHT to gay marriage... Whoops! I just shifted right, didn't I? I also believe that income tax is an abomination, and that the vultures (read: the government) don't have a right to pick through and redistribute my belongings just because I was silly enough to die. (I just said I don't like death taxes.) Now I MUST be a Republican, right? Oh, no, I'm a libertarian. But some libertarians would say I'm not entitled to that label unless I support the (genuflect as you read this) War On Terror. Or if I believe that there's a need for SOME government. (And yes, some would say that libertarians should oppose said "War," and that minimal government is necessary.)

Indeed, most of the debates I have with people bog down because my opponent is spending so much time trying to categorize me that he can't be bothered to listen to what I'm saying.

Labels are insulting. They suggest that we can't think, and develop our own moral and ethical code. That we need to pick the one which has one or two points we like, and blindly accept all the rest.

The saddest thing is that so many people DON'T object to being labeled. Indeed, they seem to revel in accepting the party line. If you challenge them on this, the most intelligent response you'll probably get (and you won't get one this intelligent very often) is "oh, well, you just have to be practical. Strength in numbers, and all that."

A lot of people are happy to let Rush Limbaugh or Ariana Huffington do all their thinking for them. Or to pick a single issue by which to judge candidates and government performance (and usually it's something that government can't do a damned thing about) and ignore all else. Gay rights, abortion, prayer in schools, "the economy" (whatever the hell THAT means)...

Me, I prefer to assume I'm speaking to someone who formulates their own opinions, and who assumes that I do the same. If you're going to argue, please argue with ME, not with some media hack's stereotype of a "liberal" or a "conservative."

A dear friend of mine often sends me motivational e-mails, and I appreciate them. Today, I got this one. I have no wish to hurt anyone's feelings, (and I really DO appreciate that my friend is thinking of me) but there's a fine distinction that the anonymous author of this doesn't understand. I think it's an important one.

"It is the VETERAN, not the preacher,
who has given us freedom of religion.

"It is the VETERAN, not the reporter,
who has given us freedom of the press.

"It is the VETERAN, not the poet,
who has given us freedom of speech.

"It is the VETERAN, not the campus organizer,
who has given us freedom to assemble.

"It is the VETERAN, not the lawyer,
who has given us the right to a fair trial.

"It is the VETERAN, not the politician,
Who has given us the right to vote."

Tell me I'm splitting hairs, but the veteran has risked death and personal injury to DEFEND my rights. He or she emphatically did not GIVE them to me. To believe that our rights are GRANTED by the government or the military is to subscribe to a belief in facism. If you're a religious believer in natural rights (I am), you believe your rights are given by God or the gods. If you're simply a pragmatic believer in individual rights, then you should understand that the granting authority has the RIGHT to take your rights away.

Government and the military have the POWER to abridge your rights. That's not the same thing as being a granting authority, unless you absolutely believe that might makes right. In which case, there is no objective morality. Anyone with a bigger stick is right.

For me, I believe that every human being has the same rights, is born with them, and any attempt to abridge them is an evil thing. Bravo to those who fight that evil, but let's not get carried away in our grattitude.

So we spent the past weekend at the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough, TN. I've always wanted to go. Being a recovering librarian (9 years clean -- haven't touched an information desk phone once, though I admit to shelving the occasional book...) I've known about the festival and wanted to go for years. I figured I had as much professional justification to go now as ever. Moreso, really, because the director of a theater group that deals in folklore should have a clue what's going on the in the storytelling world.

Lemme tell you, it's not cheap. We spent as much on tickets for the family as we would for a show on Broadway. But we got three days, not two hours, of programming, and I laughed almost as hard at times as I did last time I was at a Broadway show. (That was Spamalot, by the way. I clarify because "funnier than Les Mis" probably isn't a very complimentary distinction.)

Carmen Agra Deedy was hands down our family favorite. We saw her all three days. A children's author and storyteller, she was born in Cuba but grew up in Decatur, Georgia. Her ability to recount her childhood and make you laugh with her rivals Bill Cosby's. Donald Davis, of my semi-native North Carolina, was also hilarious, telling of a high school trip to Myrtle Beach, SC. There were ghost stories -- The Skeleton Man, La Llorona, Flannel Mouth, and "The Bargain" (a vampire story.) During several of these, a CSX freight train passed eerily through the town as we sat on blankets amid torches by the creekside.

"Quiet Riot," a team of brothers, were funny and fascinating. One brother narrated, while the other produced an amazing variety of sound effects with his mouth. Their closing, a version of "The Stonecutter," was well-told, but a little too slanted to suit an environmentalist and communitarian agenda for my tastes. But my hat is still of to their talent. Kuniko performed Japanese storytelling in traditional costume with loads of props. She also told the tale of the stonecutter, with what I assume was a more traditional ending. Japanese fairy tales, she explained, often have sad endings, but teach us to make happy endings in our own lives.

I didn't hear anyone who wasn't phenomenal, including six youth storytellers. These kids were inventive and knew how to entertain an audience, despite very different personal styles, ranging from hyperactively outgoing to retiring and shy. An eleven-year-old (maybe twelve since the brochure was printed) told one of my favorite stories to tell, "Dead Aaron." I'm always interested to hear other tellers' versions of that one. (And you can hear my dramatization of it coming soon on the Prometheus Podcast, or at the Prometheus Radio Theatre / Boogie Knights Hallowe'en show on October 28th!)

Jonesborough is very close to my parents' home in Yancey County, NC, so we took the opportunity to catch up with family and spend a few nights "The Chocolate House," the three-bedroom rancher my Father built there in 1954. It was my younger son's first overnight stay there, and he was fascinated. He wanted to climb the mountain and see the old logging trails left over from the days when a company called Carolina Spruce ran a lumber operation there. We hadn't really brought gear for hiking, though, and there are bears and rattlesnakes. Guess we'll have to go back soon.

So, we decided to replace the 10-year-old Sony 27" TV in our family room. It no longer had working tuners. It had once had two, to support picture-in-picture. The picture itself was beginning to
bleed. Today we broke down and bought ourselves an early Christmas present -- a 37" HD LCD flatscreen. We brought it home and disassembled the entertainment center (it won't hold a TV this big), set the old Sony on a dolly, and wheeled it out to the deck. I HAD planned to put it in the garage, and see if anyone was interested in a partially working TV.

Then I got it onto the deck, and it shifted on the dolly skids, dropping, oh 3/4 of an inch... and the bottom corner of the plastic case cracked.

"Huh," I thought, I'll have to be more careful with it."

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