Archon Panel Schedule

I am pleased to announce my first appearance as an official1 convention panelist!

I will be at Archon 39, in Colinsville IL (near St. Louis MO) on the weekend of October 2-4, 2015.

My panel schedule:

  • Technical Tall Tales: Strange and Frightening Tales of the Lab, Friday 7pm, Great Rivers A
  • Big Things on the Horizon: New Tech and Scientific Discoveries, Saturday 10am, Great Rivers A
  • The Martian: Could YOU Survive the Red Planet? Saturday 12pm, Great Rivers A
  • Beginning Writing and the Creative Process, Saturday 6pm, Marquette A

I’m very pleased with this lineup! Two panels where I can talk about neuroscience, one where I can share expertise gleaned from Mars, and one where I can share the pleasures and horrors of life as a newbie SFF writer.

Panel leads to some amusing logistical problems. I doubt I’ll be able to catch the movie version of The Martian before the panel, since the movie comes out right when Archon opens. I’ll try to arrange a special video message from my family Martian, but that may not work out for a host of reasons.

Three Lessons from Patricia McKillip

I’ve spent a lot of my reading time lately going through Patricia McKillip. A year ago, I’d never reead a thing of hers; now I’ve read the Riddle-Master Trilogy (Riddle Master of Hed, Heir of Sea and Fire, and Harpist in the Wind), A Song for the Basilisk, and the Cygnet books (The Sorceress and the Cygnet, the Cygnet and the Firebird).

I started this quest based on a recommendation, and then pursued it to the bitter end as an exercise to work on my poetry and mysticism. McKillip’s language is amazing: beautiful, evocative, dense with challenging layers of metaphor and elliptical meaning. My own storytelling runs to the linear and direct, or at least it used to: after a year of McKillip immersion, I think I’ve gotten a far better sense for the “beautiful prose” part, at least.

That’s the Zeroth Lesson I learned from McKillip: her astounding skill and craft at writing beautiful, layered prose. I’m calling that #0 because I want to get into three specific lessons from the last books I finished, the Cygnet duology. Minor spoilers follow:

First lesson: “You win, therefore you lose” is an unsatisfying conclusion to anyone’s arc. This is a lesson I first ran into long ago in roleplaying game design, and unfortunately it crops up at the end of Firebird. Rather than the protagonists determining the outcome, the villain succeeds, but his success destroys him, without any further involvement or intervention of the main characters. It’s a bit close to a deus ex machina, sadly: villain summons godlike entity, god turns out not to be villainous after all, sucks to be that guy. Thus Firebird was my least favorite of the six McKillips I read.

Second lesson: Your twist can be as meta as you want, as long as it rings true. I’ve long since recognized that an ideal twist (climactic or otherwise) is one that makes the reader say, “I never noticed that before, but now that you say it, it’s so obvious.” The first Cygnet book accomplishes this so wildly, I had to come back and reread the climactic scene the next night. At the moment when the external plot (action in the world, as opposed to character development “internal arc”) comes to a head, when the cruel gods/constellations are about to overthrow the Cygnet, the plot reveals itself to not be an external plot at all. It’s been there to serve as story and metaphor: not just to the reader, but to the characters themselves. McKillip twisted not just the plot, but the structure and nature of narrative itself. It took me some real work to wrap my head around it, but after it sunk in, you can be sure I’ll never forget it.

Third lesson: Never give a character a plot-stopping power. In both Cygnet books, one character is the Gatekeeper, with a deep-rooted mystical power over who comes and goes in the citadel where he works. Yet he fails at his job regularly! In fact, I don’t think we ever see him successfully noticing or keeping out a trouble-maker. Of course, there’d be no story if he kept the villains from coming in and mucking with the lives of our protagonists. But that’s precisely the problem: if his power works, there is no plot. Therefore his power has to fail, and he’s going to look like a loser. Unless you want your character to seem like an incompetent, better to avoid giving people plot-halting powers at all!

This post might sound critiquey, but only because I’m trying to distill specific writing lessons from a pair of her books — to find the rare bits of rough amidst the diamond. Let there be no doubt: I loved my McKillip Immersion Experience, and would recommend it wholeheartedly for anyone who wants to read or write amazing, gorgeous fantasy.

August 2015 Update

August was another month of chaos and travel, not to mention my day job finally spinning up. But I still got a fair bit of writing done!

  1. Ten stories currently out on submission, of which at least 3 have made it onto a shortlist. I’m pretty enthusiastic for all three, but at this point I just need to think of them as dice-throws.
  2. Currently juggling two revisions: Evil Prophecies and Fairy Gentrification.
  3. Long-term plans currently center around one smaller-scale revision (Banker Priestesses) and one deep rewrite (Conquistador Dragons).
  4. Apparently I like two-word Compound Nouns for my working titles. I do have actual/tentative titles for all these stories, but those have much less descriptive power for my blog-readers.
  5. As of this past Friday, I can officially start my “The Martian’s Husband” autobiography. Being married to a Martian is an amazing and terrifying thing, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world.

Part of me wants to post something about the Hugo results. However, I haven’t been active in fandom since ~college; I’ve never been to Worldcon or had a friend go to Worldcon. So while I have opinions2, I’d rather clear the airspace for people more invested in the struggle.

But speaking of engagement in fandom:

6. With luck, I should be participating in Archon as a guest! I can’t be 100% sure until the panel schedule comes out, but I’ve gotten a “first time guest/panelist” questionnaire, so things are looking likely. I’ll be doing mostly/entirely science panels, since my writing credentials are still fairly meager (unless #1 above turns out real lucky real soon).  I’m very excited about this: I’m slow to engage in communities because I’m a hermit at heart, and this will help toward my goal of pushing myself out there and joining in.

Surviving the Shortlist

Right now, three of my stories have been shortlisted for publication: two pro markets, and one semi-pro. This is great! But it’s also incredibly stressful.

One of the major sources of stress is uncertainty. Short story submissions are always uncertain, but being on the shortlist means the stakes are higher. Obviously there’s nothing I can do now to increase my odds, but is there something I could’ve done, should’ve done? Some element of my story that makes it more or less likely than its excellent competitors?

The two pro markets have each given me an estimated acceptance rate from their shortlist: one is 30%, the other is 50%. No data from the semi-pro, but based on my experience with the market, I’ll guess a rate of 33%. (Remember, these are rates for already-on-the-shortlist. Total acceptance rates run about 1/4/15%.)

Why bog down so much in the probabilities? Because for me, it helps to look at this stage of the process like a numbers game. From the editor’s side, it’s not stochastic; they’re making judgments based on all kinds of factors. Some are even semi-quantifiable: if you had to rank a set of stories by “prose quality” you probably could (even though your list would differ from the next reader’s). So, in theory, it’s possible to know which story is more likely to get selected.

But there are also a host of factors that are completely unknowable. Is your story too similar to another one? Or do they have parallel themes in a way that’ll make the issue/anthology stronger? Have they read too many robot romances lately? Or do they crave something more science-fantasy this week? All these things depend on the whole suite of submitted stories, and the editors’ tastes and moods. From the writer’s side, unpredictable. Might as well be stochastic, really.

So at this point, forget worrying about how good your story is. Doesn’t matter anymore. It’s all blind statistics, inside the black box of the editorial world/brain.

I find it quite liberating to know that I have a 73.05% chance of getting at least one of these three published soon.

The Martian’s Husband

This month I’ve been lax on blogging, and a little bit lax on writing, as life has grown increasingly chaotic. I’ve been busy helping my wife prepare for her trip to Mars.

That’s right. Mars.

My wife is a simulated astronaut for the upcoming HI-SEAS Mars simulation mission. She and the rest of the crew will spend a year on a cold red-rock slope, living in a solar-powered dome, never stepping outside without an EVA suit. It’s all part of NASA-funded research to study the conditions and crew dynamics of long missions in space.

She can explain it better than I can, of course. Here she is giving a radio interview, and here’s her blog, chock full of info on life and hijinks on sMars or preparation thereof. You can also follow her twitter feed at @humansareawesme.

Her blog has lots of great info for science fiction writers: you will find no better expert on Earth on the space-age challenges and surprises of living in an isolated human habitat beyond the edge of human civilization!

By the time you read this, she’ll be on her way to California and Hawaii for pre-mission training, and then the airlock will seal on the 28th. I’m going to miss her enormously during her year on Mars, but we’ll have ways to keep in touch while she’s gone. Besides, I always wanted to marry a Martian.

I say that last bit flippantly, but reveals a fundamental truth. I married her because she reaches for the stars, more literally than most of us can imagine. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Inspiration via Twitter

Inspiration comes from the strangest places. My current WIP 3 was inspired by an exchange on twitter. At first I thought it was a throwaway bit of silliness/sadness, but a day later the outline burbled up in my brain while I was on a bike ride.

The story is currently in Draft 1.5; I’m midway through the first rebuild, paused the last week or so while I worked on other stuff. But for the record, here’s the Twitter conversation that inspired the story, tentatively titled “The Gentry.”

Fourth Street Fantasy and June 2015

June was a busy month for me, in many ways other than actual writing: I moved into a new house, started a new job, and so forth. I also got sick… well, I’m sick now, but it started on the 30th so it still counts as June! Blame the illness if this post is some combination of short, rambly, and/or incoherent.

1) Attended Fourth Street Fantasy! This was my first time attending a convention in 8-10 years, and my first time as a writer. I learned a lot of things, had a lot of great conversations, saw a lot of great friends. Way too many folks to name: Viable Paradise classmates, folks I’d only seen as twitter thumbnails, professional writers and editors, new friends. I attended some fascinating panels, had thoughtful conversations on writing craft, got great advice, shared homemade pálinka, drank plentiful whiskey, talked neuroscience with Elizabeth Bear, and had a practically-jumping-up-and-down excited conversation with Max Gladstone. (Theological fantasy! Concepts made form! Behold the power of our genre!) So, yes: awesome con, would attend again; awesome people, can’t wait to see again!

2) Revised the banker-priestesses, conquistador dragons, posthuman romances, and sent them all out to markets and/or readers. Current count of active submissions: 7.

3) Very promising personal rejection from Strange Horizons on the story with Jews in the Hungarian revolution. I got a good strong reaction from the editors, very positive, even if it didn’t sell. And one of their critiques was actually useful (“oh, I hadn’t realized that would be a problem, good point”). Going out to Lightspeed as soon as they’ll take another story, and from there probably to Hidden Youth.

4) Not sure what’s going to happen with my story in Fictionvale. I still hope to publish as part of its final issue, and I had a great experience with the editor, but as of midnight tonight my contract is expired.

5) Got a hilarious new story idea. It started as a twitter joke, and then I found myself outlining it. Started putting pen to proverbial paper on it yesterday, but that was exactly when the sickness hit. Soon, though! Faeries and gentrification!

May 2015 Update

This month writing has been a bit slow, as I became a homeowner for the first time! The drag on my time4 may continue for a little bit longer, as my wife and I spend the next month on repairs and moving. And yet, I got a lot done…

1) Finished Meltwater, my posthuman romance story, and released it into the wild for its first submission.

2) Prepared two stories for release to markets that (re)open on June 1: one revision, and the first release of my contest-winner about Jews in the aftermath of the Hungarian Revolution. Consider them launched, albeit not until tomorrow morning.

3) Guest blog posting! Let me provide some useful science tips for writing about cyborgs!

4) Got my most interesting rejection letter ever. I’ve never before had a personal response wherein a reader just missed the point. To paraphrase: “The tone at the beginning was different from the ending.” Yes, that reversal of expectations is the joke; the threatening becomes humorous. “The description was lacking.” Yes, the POV character is not human, so she has unusual perceptual responses.

Oh well… After a day or two of frustration, I have decided to take it with amusement. A tiny bit of rewriting, and it’s already back off to its next submission!

 

And I’m back to the grind of rewriting. There’s always more awesome to include, isn’t there?

Cybernetics in SF Writing

My first-ever guest blog post is up at the Science in Science Fiction, Fact in Fantasy series on Dan Koboldt’s blog! If you want to learn some inside tips on how cybernetics really work — both modern and future-tech — you should follow that link and check it out!

Not only was it a lot of fun to work with Dan, we came to an amazing discovery together as we finalized the post. Once I move to St. Louis at the end of June, we will be working in the same building.

Go follow that link above to read my guest post, if you haven’t already! Because once you’ve read it, you’ll have enough context to understand these bonus bits of cyborg info. Consider this a reward for reading through from Dan Koboldt’s blog to mine!

  • Proprioception is what we call the sense of your body position in space. If your cyber-arm doesn’t have some way to deliver sensation (item #5 in my guest post), this is what you’ll lack. Life without proprioception is not impossible, but it is very hard. If you want to learn more about that life, there’s a 1997 BBC documentary about Ian Waterman, who lost all proprioception after an infection in 1971.
  • “Motor-control part of your brain” is a big but useful simplification. Your entire brain is involved in motor control, as implied by the last item in my guest post. There is one part of the brain that plays the biggest role in direct movement output: primary motor cortex, which controls movement kinematics and some kinds of skill learning, whereas other areas are more involved in motor plans, sequencing, preparation, etc.  However, primary motor cortex isn’t the only area that sends outputs down your spinal cord to your muscles. It’s the biggest source, but it still accounts for only ~40% of those outputs.
  • In the final part of my guest post, I boldly claimed that “cognitive” things like decision uncertainty end up reflected in “motor” things like hand trajectories. This also reveals a theory about the fundamental operation of the brain: we are always developing multiple plans for possible actions, and those plans exist in competition with each other until we select between them. Here is a scientific paper that reviews all these findings in lots more detail.
  • At the very end, I wrote, “Maybe controlling that second pair of arms is more like learning a second language.” Your brain handles things very differently when learned young, and language is just the most obvious example. (All child-learned languages involve a different part of your brain from adult-learned languages.) I’ve also just published a paper illustrating this in the motor system, but that would be a post of its own, if anyone’s interested.

One Sentence

Guess who won Steven Brust’s One-Sentence Worldbuilding Contest?

This writer!

For those of you too lazy to follow the link: I was one of the 5 winners5, with the sentence: “The legionnaires drove the sandgrouse from the oasis, and the spirits from their shrines, but they could not quiet the ghosts on the salt-flat wind.”

It’s the first sentence for a story I never wrote for a deadline in March 2014, so it’s been bouncing around in my head for a while now. I even wrote two different ending scenes for a challenge on the Other Worlds writing group. But that’s as far as the story ever got, beyond a couple-sentence outline in the back of my head. I suppose I should get around to writing the Tragic Salt Mummy story one of these days!