incipit vita nova

Book View Cafe Featured on NPR

Great news this a.m. - a nice mention from Paul Biba on NPR's Tele-Read blog regarding Book View Press' first original book, The Shadow Conspiracy. 

I'm looking at the date . . . hmn  . . . The Shadow Conspiracy is available now -

In case one is wondering, "Richard Dadd" will be the lead story in the second Shadow Conspiracy volume.  If you want to read one of "those" stories, your next chance will be in March, with the release of Panverse Two all-novella anthology.  That one is called "To Love the Difficult," about the end of the world, two prickly people, and the healing power of poetry (Rilke).

Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue

One online site where I was doing work asked for a book recommendation.  I wrote the title of Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue by John McWhorter, and it automatically changed the title to Our Magnificent @#!%#$^! Tongue.

Professor McWhorter is using the word "bastard" in its original sense.  As someone who recently gained access to the OED online, I can share that this is correct - an illegitimate child is the original, first usage of the word "bastard."  To wit: 1297 R. GLOUC. 295 Of Fulke blode Wyllam bastard com. Fulke, of course, seems to be the 13th century guy of like mind to Tiger Woods!

That's not a "dot com," that's a "com" as in "come" (or today, past tense - "Of Fulke's blood William his bastard came").  It's middle-like English.

A linguist, formerly with UC Berkeley, and now with the Manhattan Institute (Dr. Manhattan's friend, I have to figure), Dr. McWhorter suggests a few elements of English syntax and grammar that he sees at odds with story-of-the-language traditionalists.  I am not exhaustively read in linguistics, so his approach of viewing language at the syntax and grammar level and conducting experiments by omission might be standard operating procedure for linguists.

Briefly, one of Dr. McWhorter's main arguments is that English owes a lot to the Celtic languages, particularly Welsh and Cornish (a language that died prior to the start of the 20th century, but which is now revived again).  He gives as an example the "useless 'do'" which is present in Welsh and Cornish - and current English.  As in "Do you see what they are doing?", and "Do you know how to speak Cornish?" and "I did do what you told me to do."

Cornish, as in a formerly-deceased, now-revived language.  McWhorter also discusses the use of participial verbs for the present and future perfect tenses - this is not common, either.  He has a very thought-provoking example of encouraging the reader to picture coming upon someone working at a computer screen and asking, "What are you doing?" and the person replying, "I am writING."  I am in the act of writing - and I have enough German, French and Spanish to instantly understand what he is getting at, and even remember my awful old Latin.  No, nobody else does say it that way.  It's expressing a state of action that most other languages are content to express with a simple present tense statement of action. 

People do not have enough grasp of English grammar, in many cases, to understand what McWhorter is getting at.  (One Amazon review uses a participle and calls it a gerund to describe the syntax I just described).  I don't have the linguistics background to know whether or not the book is a brief discussion of strongly-held, yet highly debatable points of view.  I do know that "do" isn't REALLY useless, and that the use of the -ing verb construction does have a meaning and does express a subtlety of time, continuation, and action that's different from saying "I write," or "Escrito," in Spanish.  McWhorter is easygoing about various grammar bugaboos, such as the use of the genderfree they as the singular indefinite pronoun.  I teach otherwise; however, my reason is not to destroy student freedom, it is to get them to pay attention to the words and what they write.  Thinking about the "meaningless" (vaguely meaningful 'do') and all - very interesting.  This book is highly recommended.

Write Anything: Ruth Shalit Barrett

Gender selection has been all over the airwaves, thanks to lots of articles in media about various procedures used to pre-select the gender of babies.  I listened to Bill Handel's semi-crummy solo show on the way to work from school, regarding this topic.  Bill knows a lot about it due to his side fertility and surrogate parenting business.  Then, I drove home all the way down Crenshaw and listened to John & Ken, who were covering the controversial topic of mothers who suffered extreme disappointment because they wanted a girl and got a boy, or vice-versa.

John & Ken featured Stephanie Lewis, whom they heartily trashed in John & Ken style, reading at length from an article by Ruth Shalit Barrett in Elle magazine.  Stephanie came on the air and said she'd been completely misquoted and misrepresented in the article.  Unlike many people who are interviewed and portrayed unflatteringly, and who later complain, Stephanie had numerous points of serious complaint.  First, the twin boys that were featured in the article making it sound as though they were babies are now 17 and getting ready for college, second, Stephanie now has 6 children, third, she and her husband later adopted a baby girl (which was misrepresented in the article as breaking up their marriage - a marriage that broke up later for unrelated reasons) and the various extreme methods for selecting gender that the article said that Stephanie used were not used - in particular, Stephanie said she'd never drunk "kefir," saying she didn't know what it was, and also that she'd never slept with a lime-soaked tampon, and never heard of such a thing.  It turned out that Stephanie had written a self-published novel (XLibris) that featured a mother with extreme gender disappointment that was inspired by her own life - and apparently the book's extreme plot ended up in the article presented as Stephanie's real life.

Stephanie shared the common ploy used by this type of writer - Ruth Shalit Barrett called her up and told her she was writing a sensitive article on the topic of parents who hoped for one gender of baby and got another, and had problems related to it.  She also told her that she'd read her self-published book and was going to write a positive review of it.

Uh.

Apparently due to the article's extreme portrayal, Stephanie says she's being trashed all over the internet, and I heard her receiving the John & Ken tongue-lashing before she went on the air and presented her side of the story.  Stephanie then said people should Google the author's name.  Ha ha!

Ruth is apparently nasty enough that this is her wedding announcement.  Her husband's father was with NY Magazine, and look!  Ruth also writes for them.  The article is down on Elle Magazine, but comments are still around. It's almost horrifying the degree to which others picked up on this article before Elle removed it.

The issue and circumstance is real in its basic essence - some people do want to select the gender of their baby so badly they'll go to an extreme extent.  There is a rare exception here in the U.S. that genetic testing may also be used to pre-select baby gender legally (it is disallowed in most other countries).  Some mothers experience normal post-baby hormonal fluctuations that cause "baby blues" and this can be made worse by expecting one gender, and getting another.  Baby girls are currently more popular and desired than baby boys in the U.S. - a very unusual and new phenomenon.

But bitchy prevaricating pieces of slag that humiliate the rest of us by their existence and set all of us back decades like Ruth Shalit Barrett?  They've been around forever.  I wonder what she's going to feel like when she stops being a "diminutive mantrap"?  Gosh.  I could not feel more sorry for her children.  You can read the reposted article here - at least for the time being.

  

Author Solutions . . . Send Your Dollar Now

I just finished watching the PR Video made by Author Solutions' President Kevin Weiss.  This current conglomerate, made up of bits and pieces of previous bottom-feeding organizations such as my former erstwhile employers iUniverse, is the brainchild behind approaching legitimate publishers such as Harlequin and Thomas Nelson with a deal they thought was too good to turn down - some sort of kickback for referring authors with rejected manuscripts on to a "special" side deal with Author Solutions.

The "Solution" for these authors?  Paying handsomely for the privilege of "publishing" their books, which Harlequin made vague noises might, if surviving the logjam of unpublishable slushy manuscripts now slapped between covers, someday, somehow become "real" Harlequin books.  This is why all legitimate writers' associations have now censured or outright said that Harlequin no longer qualifies as a professional publisher for the purposes of membership in the organizations.  Victoria Strauss correctly points up that Thomas Nelson hasn't gotten as much flak as they should have gotten, as a Christian publisher with an already-going concern offering high-end, pricey services to Christian writers and manuscripts that have failed the "traditional" publishing route - i.e., rejected by Thomas Nelson legit publishing, and sent on to their new, theoretically lucrative "pay to play" option.

Would it be an awesome new Quentin Tarantino film - Inglourious Basterds II, with an "all-star" cast of fresh new faces who'd paid for the privilege of being in the film?  Heck, why not push Brad Pitt aside, and find somebody with some real money who'll finance the picture for the privilege of starring in it?  That old acting system, where some people never get to be the stars . . . oldfashioned and outmoded.  Smart auteurs like Quentin will soon recognize the business potential here, and the person who can pay the most for the privilege clearly will be the best for the role.  And heck, when Academy nomination time comes around, the same rules should come into play.  The person who can most afford a starring role in the best director's film, can also pay for the best reviews, the best ads, and can offer the most lucrative awards to the Academy members to nominate, and later vote for them.  Clearly, the stars of "The Hills" should be ahead in this regard; "Speidi" already thinks it is the most famous, talented duo on the planet.

Most professional writers do earn barely at or above a poverty wage and I'm no exception to that.  However, it will be a cold day in inglorious hell before I bow to greasy, greedy, unscrupulous individuals such as this Weiss, preying eagerly on the dreams and hopes of well-meaning, innocent people.

What Are Kids Afraid Of?

The fears of kids today seem similar to the fears that I had growing up, but I have to say that my daughter Meredith had slightly different fears.  She wasn't afraid of any TV show or movie so far as I could tell.  Instead, she talked about fears related to problems at school or at home -- in other words, realistic.  However, she was afraid of the dark, just like nearly every kid at one time or another.

Today, one of my favorite movies is the original Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, starring Gene Wilder.  I think, however, that it legitimately scared me when I was a kid.  What did I find the most frightening?  Ending up like "blooberry" (Violet Beauregard), or sent off as a "bad egg," like Veruca Salt.  ("Salt's my name - I'm in noots [nuts]").  I think Veruca's father frightened me the most.  Augustus?  I did think he was funny, because I was in no danger of diving into a chocolate river against my mother's ineffective protests.

To be totally fair, these original Oompa-Loompas and Gene Wilder as the original film Willy Wonka are horrifying.  Their eyebrows are white, their hair is green, and their skin is orange.  They look completely insane, and Gene Wilder is more than convincingly crazy.  The scene at the end where he berates Charlie truly terrified me.  I thought it was real, and I didn't comprehend anybody "testing" anyone the way he'd "tested" Charlie and his Grandpa.  It was mean, and his soft-voiced anger and turned back really scared me.  His big blue eyes made me think he was nice, and I agreed that the bad kids should have had "bad things" happen to them, since I was a LOT closer to the movie Charlie than any of those pushy, loud-mouthed, selfish characters.  So, when he really "tested" Charlie right before the end of the movie, it really alarmed me.  I think I had nightmares about NOT passing the test and being thrown to the workhouse in the dark, or set wandering in dank, cobblestoned alleys . . .

The Oompa-Loompas are scary because they are child-sized, yet they are completely unsympathetic, look weird and act even weirder than they look.  It didn't help that, at the same time, there were Star Trek aliens with the same freaky appearance.

These aren't over-tanned hippies.  They're aliens that worshipped an alien computer called "Vaal" in one of the classic original Star Trek episodes.  They were supposed to be innocent and unspoiled, yet also willing slaves of this super computer "Vaal."  Basically, they just seemed brainless, had weird white hair, orange skin, and inexplicable face paint (later to be seen in Pirates of the Caribbean, I think - or sort-of).  They had white eyebrows too.  Scary.

Anything that is out of the ordinary or unexpected can be funny or delightful, but it can also go wrong and be scary.  It's hard to say whether or not Gene Wilder meant his original Willy Wonka to be scary, but I think he probably did.  I learned that the original script for the film was written by Roald Dahl, and his stories for adults were often quite scary, and stories for children always contained dark elements.  

I'm not sure whether being scary is a good thing or not, when entertaining children.  I guess the rule of thumb is - if it gives the child nightmares, it is probably too scary.  I had Oompa-Loompa nightmares, and I also had nightmares about horror films I supposedly wasn't allowed to see, like The Blob.  The Blob chased me all over my dreams, and I also had nightmares about "Inner Sanctum," which was a show I never saw, but with which my brother used to terrorize me by making the oven door creak and saying in an ominous voice, "Inner Sank-Tummmm."  Brrr!  And of course a short time later I could not wait to get home after school and watch Dark Shadows and all manner of other cheesy horror films.  But that's a story for another day.

Please Protect Me For At Least Five Minutes . . .

 At this summer's SCBWI conference in Los Angeles, I was waiting for my car to be delivered by the valet, and they actually brought it just prior to Sherman Alexie's car, and he'd been waiting much longer than I had.  Talking with him for a few moments, I was reminded of the fact that truly great people are always humble and warm.  I won't retell the story, but suffice it to say that somebody didn't recognize Sherman as Sherman, and for him being confused with some guy off the sidewalk and "not the Conference keynote speaker," he handled it better than anybody I've ever seen.  Which is to say, I realized that Sherman the man is as marvelous as Sherman the writer.  Rare, true.  But it exists.  Most of the great writers I've known have been absolutely beautiful people.

Now, visiting Sherman's website, www.fallsapart.com, I found a long list of "how to contact Sherman" for virtually anything anyone could imagine.  At the bottom of this page, which includes contact methods for kids in school (and I know that writers like Sherman that are assigned frequently in school are bombarded by requests for anything you can imagine, from 'Please write my report for me' to multipage requests for answers to highly specific questions about authors . . . who are not the authors they are writing, and may even be deceased, such as Mark Twain).  All of the instructions and the long list are based upon the plural "we" and they are all about protecting Sherman.  I support that cause.

This is all by way of saying, please, for five minutes, I would like to have somebody, sometime . . . protect me.  Thank you.  Here is a link to one of Sherman's new poems.  It's about coffee, and it's cool.

Harlequin: Lost Horizons, Abandoned Readers?

It's not like I post this every day, but I am for the second year, the Treasurer of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America.  After discussion, SFWA has joined with the Romance Writers of America (RWA) and the Mystery Writers of America (MWA) in issuing a statement regarding Harlequin Publishing Group's launch of a new imprint called "Harlequin Horizons" that is a joint venture with the company that incorporates an organization I was formerly familiar with - iUniverse - called Author Solutions.

This is link to SFWA's official statement. Here is a link to Ann Crispin's post on Writer Beware that covers both the RWA and MWA responses.

More than 75% of my lifetime earnings as a writer have been from nonfiction.  However, what I have earned from fiction is not inconsiderable.  Harlequin's Publisher/CEO Donna Hayes has responded to RWA's rapid action and censure (this is a Richard Curtis link). As can be seen from what is fundamentally an Author Solutions/Harlequin press release that appeared in the NY Times arts blogs 2 days ago, they honestly had no clue that people who actually earn their stinking money for them might object.

From my perspective, Harlequin's "marriage" with Author Solutions, which had previously established a similar arrangement with Christian publisher Thomas Nelson called WestBow Press, is a very negative one. What's wrong?  is a legitimate question that members of the general public might ask.

There are a few words in the SFWA statement that I contributed.  They are to this effect:  creative people, including artists, writers, and others involved in the fine arts (and crafts! Crocheted Oscar - worth a lot in my book!) should be paid for their work.  In each of our areas, there are generally-accepted professional standards and practices for payment.  Not only does this new Harlequin Horizon (they are dropping the "Harlequin" name . . . wow) imprint charge the writers, it requires a large amount of "sales" that are driven by the writers themselves - i.e. their friends, family and others they can convince, to even pay anything back to the writer.  As I put it, writers ought not be made to pay for the privilege of creating and looking toward achieving professional status and finding readers.

And also for the average readers out there wondering what the big deal is - Harlequin was planning on referring writers who submitted their romance stories to Harlequin, but were rejected, to this other "Harlequin Horizons" enterprise, where they would be offered the opportunity to pay for having their book published, starting at the low price of $599, and going on up, with some "packages" even more than $11,000.  These books wouldn't be put into bookstores or advertised at all.  The writers would be expected to pay up front, market and sell the books themselves, and the "Author Solutions" and Harlequin companies taking any "profit" for a long time (over 1,000 books sold) before the writer saw any financial return whatsoever.  In common language: a ripoff.  And opposite to what professional publishers have done for many years.  They might have said "no" to aspiring authors a lot, but at least they weren't turning around and then asking them for money for very little in return!

Book View Cafe: One Year Anniversary

Today is the first anniversary of Book View Cafe, which is now officially an author's cooperative.

I agree with our founder Sarah Zettel - it's almost impossible to believe that a whole year has passed.  Last year, I was posting about having a story on the front page of BVC.

Today, it's the first chapter of my first novel, Imago.

 Imago will be serialized for the next 34 weeks at BVC every Sunday.  I want to take some time to say a special thank you to Vonda McIntyre, whose volunteer efforts have been behind nearly every book and story that has appeared at BVC over the past year.  Vonda, already great at HTML, mastered the Joomla content management system that BVC has been using.

It's really hard for me to express how happy I am to have been able to be a part of BVC, from the very beginning.  In a small way, I did play a part in initiating the experiment, because I pointed up that there was no reason everyone had to sit around and wait for things to happen.  We could go out and make those things happen for themselves.

You can read Imago one chapter at a time, week by week, or you can purchase the whole book by subscription as premium content on BVC.  What is it about?  Um.  Things that are sort of true today - it was first published in 2001 and just about the only things that are not present today are the literal genetic "freaks" and of course, the PerfectTown (tm).

Wake by Lisa McMann

I just finished reading Wake by Lisa McMann.  Wake was published last year, and it's part of a 3-book series by Lisa.  

Wake tells the story of 17-year old Janie Hannagan, a high school junior (maybe senior, but I didn't see "senioritis" in this story) in Fieldridge, Michigan, and how she copes with her abilities as a "dreamcatcher". I'm not sure that's actually written in the book - Janie's abilities are more of a curse than a gift.  She has the ability to be "sucked into" other people's dreams, and it starts when she's very young.  At first, Janie doesn't have any control over her ability.  Throughout the story, she learns more about it and begins to have some control.  

Why is Wake such a cool book?  If you really could get "sucked into" someone's dreams, it would have the exact effect on you as it does on Janie. Imagine never being able to have a sleepover with your friends without getting "too close" -- Janie's best friend is also friends with a rich, snooty cheerleader who hates Janie.  Guess what?  Janie sees up close and personal the secret that lies behind the cheerleader's facade . . . she's not just interested as a "friend" and it's been going on a long time.

I made a rule with myself a long time ago that I would never do "reviews" because it was bad karma.  Since I am reading so many great books lately, I'm bending this rule -- I'll write about the great things that I'm reading and hope to encourage others to also buy and read these books.

Wake immediately draws the reader in by making each dream scene feel real and scary.  Nobody wants to get that "personal" with other people.  Think about it for a minute.  Would anybody want to see their friend's sexual fantasies, or even worse - deepest fears? Janie has a lot of other issues to deal with, too.  Her best friend is kind of distant, because she also has a secret that she's dealing with, and Janie's mother is a low-functioning alcoholic who always disappoints.  A little sunshine comes into Janie's life when Cabel Strumheller, a former stoner boy who once gave Janie a ride home on his skateboard, comes back for the new school year as a gorgeous, hot guy who really likes Janie.  Their relationship has its ups and downs and plenty of drama. 

Wake feels very real, and I wonder if there aren't some real Janies out there.  Janie doesn't really have a "super power," she has an ability that's going to affect her entire life, and the story is about how she chooses to deal with it. I can't wait to read the other two books in the series, and find out how Janie and Cabel's relationship develops, and Janie continues to gain more control over her abilities.  Book Two, called Fade, is already out, and Book Three, Gone, is coming out in February. 

Qualities of a Good Teacher

I got another one of those calls today.  I have only gotten a small number of them.  My former husband Mike got one - and he hasn't forgotten it to this day.  I was cooking dinner or lunch or something when the call came in and I could hear "the voice" clear across the room.

That would be a "Call from Harlan Ellison."

These calls are not lightly taken, so after some thought and writing on other subjects, I'd like to address something important for people to understand about Harlan Ellison.  It's a subject that now, I can view all ways having been on both sides of the desk, and a subject about which I can speak clearly - Harlan Ellison was and is a great teacher.

There are dozens of lists of qualities of great teachers on the internet. As somebody who is now also a pretty good teacher, I can give my own list of qualities that great teachers possess.

A great teacher should . . .

• Be open-minded and establish an atmosphere of respect.
• Have empathy and understanding toward students.
• Put the students and their learning first.
• Have clear command of the subject.
• Communicate expectations and expected performance clearly.
• Have clear command of the group or learning environment.
• Be flexible.
• Be passionate.
• Be committed.
• Be effective.
• Be inspirational.

By those standards, which are my own standards for myself, the Harlan Ellison that was my teacher many years ago (a shocking number - I just had my 25th college reunion, so more than 2 decades ago) easily met each of these criteria.  I always told people that Algis Budrys was my favorite Clarion teacher.  He was.  He was the most clear of the six instructors.  Kate Wilhelm was the most empathetic.  Damon Knight had the aura of master.

Harlan was the best.

This pipe picture above isn't just here because that is the Harlan "I remember," it's here for an important reason.  The picture could easily convince anyone that Harlan smoked a pipe.  He did not.  He told me that he never had smoked, nor did he drink.  This is a posed picture; the pipe is for "effect."  It's not lit and it never was lit.  I could probably find, and have heard many people insist in person, that Harlan's a big drinker and big smoker.  No, he isn't, no, he wouldn't, and no he didn't and doesn't.  It's all lies.

I understand now that Harlan has been "controversial" because people don't perceive the several layers of irony in which he sometimes cloaks his words and actions, and because they also fail to perceive that he has always communicated from a deep, honest emotional core.  It's in his writing.  It is his writing. It took me years to understand and acknowledge the reality of the greater than average number of people in the sci-fi and fantasy field that were crippled emotionally, or who simply didn't have the normal range of emotions, or a normal level of empathy possessed by the majority of the general population.  It's truly a clash of titanic human forces -- the enlightened, empathetic humanist Harlan vs. frightened dogmatic . . . skeptics.

I like to bring the subject of aspirations up to my students.  My aspirations were never huge.  I've achieved every aspiration I ever had.  Putting that aside, ten years ago, when I asked students what they most wanted, "fame" came out on top, "money" or "success," second.  For the past three or four years, "fame" is barely mentioned, and while "money" and "success" moved ahead, today the top aspiration is "happiness."  

That makes me very happy for our world.  Why?  Because people now understand that fame is a curse, not a blessing.  If Britney Spears didn't do anything else, she should always be remembered as the young woman who taught everybody that there is such a thing as "too much fame."  As to "money" and "success," you know what else people say that's very true:  you aren't taking either one of those with you when you go.

All that is left is happiness, which in large part, at least for me, derives from knowing who I am and behaving with honesty and integrity.  Because I write, honesty and integrity in what I put down on paper always has to come first.  

Which leaves me with the great teacher.  I've had more than enough personal attack and abuse to last a lifetime myself.  What it did for me is assist me in removing any pretense regarding human nature at its worst. However bad I might imagine that to be, I now know that all I have to do is double or triple that, and come out pretty close to how bad people can get in their abuse of others.  I do have quite an imagination and it's a fantastic assistance in predicting what people who are unhappy, uncomfortable and narrow-minded will do in pursuit of making themselves feel better for a moment or two.  The best moments in my life occur every morning when I wake up, wash my face and brush my teeth, and look myself in the eye in the mirror.  Harlan didn't teach me that, but he gave me a huge boost along that path.  Every quality, and every step I listed above:  that's what a great teacher does.  Teaching is one of the foundations of human culture -- it may be the foundation.

I am by far from Harlan's best, most diligent, most faithful student.  How many have read his books?  How many have worked with him and learned from him?  So many - and his books will live and grow.  Every generation, more and more people will discover that genuine, true, heartfelt voice.  

I hope in some way this will put paid to some of the abuse that Harlan has had to endure in recent years via the internet.  People may have noticed that I'm writing fewer internet posts than before.  I am working on a new book, and I've had a lot of writing projects between the spring and now.  I've decided to start writing for younger readers.  I was a 10th grade student myself when I first read Dangerous Visions, and I bought my precious little Shatterday with money from my first paying job during my junior year of high school.  A good story for kids to start with is "Jeffty is Five."  It will keep them thinking for quite some time.