Sheila's LiveJournal

I have another blog about elements of science fiction up at the SFWA Nebulawards site:

http://www.nebulaawards.com/index.php/guest_blogs/things_that_go_bump_in_the_dark/

There’s much to be said for both basic methods of workshopping: handing out work ahead of time and reading aloud at the workshop. I’ve used both, but last night when the Asilomar group got together, I was struck by the distinct difference in the two methods.

I use the “hard copy ahead of time” method when I’m teaching. This works well for new, inexperienced writers and critiquers both. When you’re just starting out, it’s difficult to see problems in your own work, often no matter how many times you review it, and reading it aloud doesn’t help much. It’s also hard for beginning critiquers to catch difficult parts “on the run” as it were and comment usefully on them. Too often, on-the-spot critiques descend to the level of “I like this and can’t see anything wrong with it.” And the real problem with that is the beginning writer is likely to believe it.

lt’s too hard for the writer to have to listen to comments at first – and take notes if necessary, which it usually is. Even when the critiquers will be giving back the piece under discussion with comments added, many writers are shy and have difficulty listening. I often tell my students that if they think they’re going to be too overcome with it all to be able to listen appropriately, then they should bring a tape recorder; that way they miss neither the oral comments or the written ones. (The first time I underwent the workshop process, my blood was pounding so hard that I couldn’t hear a thing that was said, good or bad.) The “hard copy” method has another advantage – you can get more done in the time allotted.

But for experienced writers, there’s a lot to recommend the “read aloud” method. Last night, when my critique group got together, I realized how amazing it is that experienced writers can catch so many glitches in a story that they’re listening to for the first time. Nobody needs to comment on everything of course, or even see the problem in the first place. But a good group will cover the bases pretty efficiently. The real benefit is for the writer reading his/her work aloud. Last night, for instance, I recognized an organizational problem as I read ( another essay on aspects of SF that I’m doing for the NebulaAward website) – ahead of the critiquers pointing it out. Clumsy phrasing, passages that drag, become crystal clear when you have to read them aloud. Yes, it takes time, and our sessions tend to take three or four highly intense hours to work with five or six writers’ work – and that’s with setting a word or page limit. Beginning writers would soon be exhausted.

My group has been together (at least the core of members) for more than thirty years. Jerry Hannah hand-picked the first group while we were at the Santa Barbara Writers’ Conference, and we met twice a year for three or four days in the conference center at Asilomar State Park – thus our name. I remember the heady, in-depth discussions of points of craft that occurred, almost like taking a Master Class. Since then, the group has grown, and now there’s a Northern California group (mostly Bay Area) and a Southern (mostly LA area), and we meet every other Friday night.

Sometimes people will say, “You’ve published a lot! Do you really still need a workshop?” The answer to that is, Yes! I don’t think I would’ve got this far without my colleagues urging me to improve. Or they’ll argue that workshops influence a writer’s style and choice of material to the work’s detriment. My answer to that is, if you find yourself in such a controlling environment, run don’t walk to the nearest exit. A good critique group doesn’t tell you how or what to write; they identify what is and what isn’t working in whatever you choose to write.

Jerry taught us well, and I value the help I get from my workshop group. Now I need to get back to the piece I read last night and work on that reorganization problem!

Since my all-too-brief visit to Africa, I’ve been reading accounts of life on that fascinating continent from a variety of sources and countries. Some were accounts written by colonials, some by genocide survivors, and some, like Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s NO FUTURE WITHOUT FORGIVENESS, were accounts of the process of healing. THE BOY WHO HARNESSED THE WIND is an absorbing account of how one teenage boy in Malawi – a high school drop-out (his family couldn’t afford the fees) – taught himself enough science out of library books to build a primitive-looking windmill to supply his family’s small house with electric light.

You can probably imagine, it wasn’t an easy task. Once he got the idea that he could harness the power of the wind that his village had in abundance, William Kamkwamba had to scavenge and re-use other people’s scraps and discards – everything from beer caps to bicycle wheels – to cobble together his first windmill. The small amount of power it produced at first lit only small bulbs recycled from abandoned automobiles, but its effect was magical. Trial and error brought sturdier, more powerful structures, and the family finally didn’t have to choose between choking on kerosene fumes or going to bed when the sun went down. Along the way, William and his family had to deal with devastating famine when the crops failed, a corrupt central government, disease and death. His greatest dream was to go to school, but the family had no money to pay for secondary education.

The story is an inspiration in itself, but it also brings up the point that perhaps we are wrong to think that the way to help Africa solve her problems is by massive financial aid that all too often gets siphoned off by government agents and never reaches the people it was meant to help. The large, sexy projects Western engineers favor are not as useful to people in the villages as the smaller, more homely ones. Windmills for making electricity – compound by compound – or pumping water out of wells, and mosquito nets for every bed, go a long way to making a difference in people’s lives, and they have an immediate effect.

The story is worth reading, told in William’s own words with help from a western journalist with a deep love of Africa. I heartily recommend it.

[Discussion over on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/sheila.finch?ref=profile]

At last -- a cracker that is truly gluten free and tasty too! Blue Diamond (the nut people) has put out six varieties of "Nut-Thins" made with crushed nuts and rice flour, and absolutely no gluten. So far, I've tried the cheddar cheese, smokehouse and country ranch, and they live up to the advertising.

Unless you have problems with gluten, you won't appreciate how wonderful it is to find a cracker to eat with cheese that doesn't taste like sawdust (rice cakes, ugh!). But even if you can tolerate wheat, these make a nice change.

Matthew Shepard, December 1, 1976 - October 12, 1998.

No -- not a new Finch novel, but a novel with my name on the cover deserves *some* recognition don't you think? I can't wait to read this one from Jeff VanderMeer, coming next month!

Have you been watching the PBS series on the National Parks? Ken Burns is a genius at the long, well thought out and visually stunning documentary (remember the series on jazz that he did? and the Civil War?)

The films are giving me serious wanderlust. I started thinking about which parks I’ve visited and which I’ve yet to see (too many of the latter, unfortunately). I’ve been to Sequoia and Kings Canyon, but not Yosemite; Death Valley and Joshua Tree; the Grand Canyon but not Bryce Canyon – or any of the wonderlands of Utah. I’ve been to Mesa Verde, Rocky Mountain, Carlsbad Caverns, the Petrified Forest, Denali and the Hawaiian Volcanoes.

And since I once had a snapshot of me by Old Faithful – a sidetrip on a journey back to my husband’s family in Ontario Canada, I must’ve been in Yellowstone, however briefly, though all I have to show for it is a hazy memory of waiting for the “show” and thinking it’d better be good (it was). The visit to inlaws had obviously traumatized me.

That leaves an awful lot of parks I have to put on my new Bucket List. What I’d love to be able to do is get hold of a VW Westphalia with the pop-top roof, load up the dogs and set out on the road. Some of my warmest memories of traveling are camping around Europe with three children in a VW camper.Hmm. I wonder if you can rent one?

I can at least hop over to Amazon.com and check out books on the parks – and dream.

Great news! My fantasy story, "Fortune's Stepchild" will be in the next LACE AND BLADE anthology, edited by Deborah Ross and published by Norilana.

Even more good news, my workshop mate, Samantha Henderson, has sold a a story to the same anthology (I'm sure she'll blog about it). Time to celebrate this Friday night at workshop!

My story features a young, penniless nobleman who took ship with Sir Francis Drake (thus the statue of Drake at the head of this blog) for the voyage around the globe -- and then had second thoughts in the New World.

The weather has been nice here in the mornings, with a healthy layer of marine fog that keep the temperature down, at least until noon. The greys and I have taken advantage of this for long walks along the bluffs, admiring the ocean views and the passing joggers and people walking dogs. Needless to say, the greys love this part! But while Jack is friendly to all, two-leggeds and four, Annie is afraid of little dogs.

I’m not sure why this is. I’ve seen her go snarly mouth to snarly mouth with a mean-looking Rottweiler, and pitbulls don’t faze her. I had to take her home from the dog-park once because she thought she could answer a pit’s challenge. But little dogs make her hide behind me until the menace has gone away.

Meanwhile, Jack has started to bark when somebody he doesn’t know comes to my door. To understand the magnitude of this, you have to know that greys don’t make great watch-dogs, and they usually don’t bother barking. Too much energy, maybe? They’re both nine now, Jack edging towards nine-and-a-half, so they’re officially seniors – although greys can live to be twelve to fourteen with good care, and I know of at least two that made it to within days of their sixteenth birthdays. They’re basically “little dogs on long legs” according to one vet!

So I’m giving them a break from playing therapy dog at the hospice because I’ve noticed Jack is showing signs of stress lately, for some reason. If I take Annie without him, she’ll sulk and he’ll be heart-broken. He wasn’t too thrilled with the last Meet n’ Greet we did for Greyhound Rescue, either. (Since his devastating illness a couple of years ago, I’ve kept a close watch on where he carries his tail.) I think his energy level is just a lot lower than normal.

Now, if only Nicky the Resident Feline God will quit bossing them about....

This is a review of District 9:

http://www.nebulaawards.com/index.php/guest_blogs/district_9_review_we_have_met_the_alien_and_he_is_us/

After wasting too many hours worrying over the Google settlement -- should I opt in or out? -- and trying to make sense of the (deliberately?) confusing settlement, and after getting advice from my lawyer daughter who read the settlement and said, "It *seems* as if it *might* be a good idea to opt out" (and she's rarely this wishy-washy in her advice)...

I decided to throw up my hands and go by the default position of staying in. Sigh.

Today's paper reports that a number of people have come forward claiming Joe left Lucky to them in his "will" -- or whatever. The Lutheran church that held a memorial service today (not tomorrow, as the paper first reported)asked that Lucky not attend -- to forestall rioting, I suppose.

On solider ground, the cops have arrested a suspect in the hit-and-run that claimed Joe's life.

Musings on why descriptions of destruction and obliteration appeal to us:

http://www.nebulaawards.com/index.php/guest_blogs/the_fascination_of_apocalypse/

The Press-Telegram reported to day that Lucky has been adopted by a local nurse. And there will be a memorial service on Thursday for Joe at the Lutheran church that gave him shelter. I'm usually at a Treatment Team meeting at the hospice on Thursday mornings, but I think I'll slip out and attend, then return to the hospice later.

I'm very relieved to learn about Lucky's happy ending to an otherwise sad story.

I first met Joe, a homeless amputee, when I came to volunteer at Wells House Hospice in Long Beach, four years ago. Joe got around by wheelchair, but what I noticed most about him was that he had a faithful dog, a black Labrador mix named Lucky. I started the practice of bringing my two greyhounds to the hospice every Saturday as therapy dogs, and they and Lucky became good friends. Hospice is full of interesting, needy people, some homeless like Joe, some on compassionate release from prison, some abandoned by their families, but they almost all seem to respond to a dog's unconditional love.

Soon after I met him, Joe had to leave the hospice because he wasn’t immediately terminal (the definition of a hospice), which can be either a good or a bad thing for a patient to hear, depending on circumstances. Joe, I learned, had gone to an assisted living facility. I also later learned that he didn’t stay there, for some reason, although he was plagued by poor health, especially seizures which apparently frequently landed him in St Mary’s hospital ER .

Some weeks later, I saw Joe and Lucky outside the RiteAid near the hospice, obviously homeless again. I gave him a couple of dollars “for Lucky.” Then late one very cold November evening last year, as I was bringing the greys back from their last outing of the day, we ran into Joe and Lucky again, far from what I thought were his old haunts. While Lucky and the greys became reacquainted, I asked if Joe was doing okay, and he told me that a local church was giving him food and a place to sleep. That was a long way from where we were. But he insisted he was okay, just heading to a pizza shop nearby where they sold by the slice. I asked him to wait while I ran indoors and found some dog biscuits and a dollar or two “for Lucky.” After that, I ran into the two of them at intervals, usually outside a RiteAid, but not obviously begging. I would usually find some spare bills “for Lucky.”

But last week, Joe’s own luck ran out. He was hit crossing a downtown street by a driver who never stopped, and thrown from his wheelchair. By the time paramedics arrived, he was already dead. Lucky was nowhere to be seen.

Then something strange happened. Lucky arrived on her own at St. Mary’s ER where she’d been with Joe so many times. The staff recognized her, and also recognized the fact that she needed closure too. So they wisely allowed Lucky to see her beloved friend one last time. They say she jumped on the gurney and licked his dead face, then had to be pulled away and out of the room. The staff at St. Mary’s and the paramedics who responded to the accident are trying find a loving home for Lucky. It wouldn’t be right for such a loyal, faithful friend to end up at the pound.

Those who have no sympathy for the plight of the homeless will probably read this as an exercise in sentimentality. But I know that our creator cares about all of us, indiscriminately. Rest in peace, Joe. And good luck on your own, Lucky.

Thanks to Diane Turnshek, I've just learned that a short story of mine is aboard the International Space Station, part of the recreational reading library.

It's "Ceremony After a Raid," first published way back when Patrick Price was editing AMAZING STORIES. Here's the URL:

http://www.governmentattic.org/docs/ISS_Media_2008.pdf

Each day that I walk through the doors of the hospice where I volunteer and enter the warm, peaceful atmosphere inside, I am angered by the Republican attempt to derail health care reform, preying on the fears of the elderly by lying to them about end-of-life discussions. For one thing, it was never suggested that such discussions be mandatory, only included if a senior wants them. But more aggravating to me is the pernicious idea that such advance discussions are a bad idea, leading to euthanasia of the elderly.

I’ve had an advanced directive on file with my health provider for well over a decade – Kaiser requires you to state what procedures you want or don’t want in order to keep you alive when you go in for surgery. I see nothing wrong with it being MY choice whether I’m hooked up to machines that do my breathing for me, or being endlessly resuscitated only to continue on as a vegetable in a sterile hospital ward, wasting my family’s money and emotionally draining them too.

What I’ve learned in almost five years as a hospice volunteer – where you’re asked to make those decisions upon entry, or have a relative with power-of-attorney make them for you if you’re unable – is that the overwhelming majority of patients are happy the issue is settled. Some come to us from a hospital where “heroic efforts” were made to prolong a life that was obviously terminal. (I don’t blame doctors here; their training and their mission is to save lives.) But at some point, our lives are over and to my mind it’s better to face that fact and make sure the remaining days or months are calm and peaceful – and pain free.

In hospice, a patient gets palliative care; by and large, that means as much or as little painkilling medicine as the patient needs or wants. Some opt for less, dealing with a little pain so they can stay conscious to talk to relatives, achieve reconciliations, settle outstanding matters. It’s their choice! In addition, they and their families get all kinds of support from the staff, nurses, chaplains, social workers, and volunteers who have the time to listen to stories and even take the more ambulatory patients on outings to the park or the mall.

Wells House in Long Beach, where I volunteer, has two resident cats, visiting greyhounds (mine), musicians who play “Oldies” at lunchtime every Thursday, or a DJ who plays Rock and Country outside on the pleasant patio, a Karaoke afternoon, and birthday parties for the residents. And the promise that when the time comes your end will be a peaceful transition – and you won’t be alone.

What’s wrong with that? If the health-care bill will pay for more people to have that discussion ahead of time, then it’s beneficial to my way of thinking.

I wish somebody had warned me, when I wrote the first lingster story, that I had just set out to create a whole series of tales about communicating with aliens, my own universe, let alone an entire Guild of Xenolinguists with all its rules and precepts. I might have taken the endeavor more seriously right from the start instead of having to make it fit as I went along, with too many occasions where I found myself thinking, Oh no! I didn’t say that in a previous story, did I? How on earth am I going to get around it?

The novel that came to be called Triad (1986) started as notes on South African native cultures that quickly morphed into notes about an alien one. I was at UCLA for a quarter on a fellowship, studying South African literature, crafts and (dabbling in) language. It wasn’t the first novel that I’d written (actually it was the fifth – or sixth if we count a perfectly ghastly one that eventually went into the trash can) but it was published as my second. But somewhere in the writing the word xenolinguist appeared, and a Guild that trained them. The author hardly noticed.

“Babel Interface” was supposed to be a one-off story about alien communication (which I’d been convinced for many years wasn’t going to be as easy as Star Trek portrayed it). It’s a story whose birth pangs I don’t even remember – that’s how casually I dropped in details about the “Guild” back on Earth that Tomas worked for, or the fact that such communicators were called “lingsters,” or the field pack of interface drugs they relied on. But there they were.

I didn’t sell that story right away (several editors disliked it thoroughly), and I went on to write other stories. Meanwhile, I continued reading books about language, a major passion of mine. And somewhere along the line I started wondering what Whorf and Chomsky, Pinker – and all the other linguistic scholars whose books I bought as soon as they were published – might have to say about talking to aliens. I began noodling around with an article on how we might eventually approach the problem. I’m not even certain that I took the matter too seriously even then, judging from the title: “Berlitz in Outer Space.” But I had fun dreaming up the first class in Xenolinguistics 101.

An editor finally bought “Babel,” and wanted to see “Berlitz” too. He finally printed both in the same edition of Amazing Stories in 1988. But even then I didn’t seem to understand the trap I’d laid for myself. “A World Waiting” was under construction about that time, and I was thoroughly distracted by the marvelous experience I’d just had of hearing my unborn granddaughter’s heart beat and seeing her ultrasound picture which I knew was going into the story somehow. Then one morning I realized that my lingster (the term had stuck) was dragging her luggage into a tent and that the luggage had a logo on it – and the Guild of Xenolinguists finally made it into the author’s consciousness.

The rest is history, or maybe bibliography. There are now two novels and eleven stories about the lingsters, not to mention a couple of borderline stories where the lingsters themselves never appear.

What would I have done differently if somebody had warned me at the beginning what I was doing? Well, for one thing I wouldn’t have founded the Mother House of the Guild in Geneva. I had to do some hand-waving in “First Was the Word,” last written but first in the timeline, to explain that. And, if the reader notices, Triad is apparently set in a female-dominated world which had to be conveniently ignored in later stories. The role of Artificial Intelligence changed over the years too, from Earth’s warm and fuzzy CenCom to the Venatixi AI that acknowledges no loyalties. Little details like that. About midway through, I stopped and wrote myself a “bible” of the Guild and its teachings; I wish I’d had it from the beginning.

So do I now know all there is to know about the Guild and the lingsters? Heavens no! At least, not consciously. I’m currently working on a longer story – maybe a novella – set at the very end of the cycle, and I’m constantly surprising myself with things my unconscious mind apparently knew that I didn’t. Such as why Humans and Venatixi fought a war in “Out of the Mouths,” or who the Sagittans were whose presence Gia experienced in Triad.

Maybe I had to hide the fact I was creating a series from myself in order not to scare myself off from writing?

The three of us spent a couple of hours at the hospice today, the dogs performing their roles as therapy dogs. I really could hardly spare the time as I'm working hard on a story with an August 1st deadline, but the dogs hadn't visited the patients since before July 4th when I was away. And last week I had a nasty bout of sciatica that made me not want to walk dogs anywhere. The residents were beginning to complain that we were abandoning them. (Very often, the first words I'm greeted with when I go in alone the rest of the week are, "Where are Jack and Annie?")

For Jack and Annie it was as if there'd been no break. They waltzed right in like the pros they are and began lavishing affection on people who wanted it -- or in some cases, didn't know they wanted it, but the dogs saw they *needed* it and persuaded them. They have an instinct for that.

The house's two cats came out of hiding and glowered at the greyhounds, but my dogs have been put in their place by our own resident cat, and as a result they wouldn't dream of offending any cats anywhere, any time.

Now we're home, they've had dinner and are snoozing, and as soon as I sign off here I'm going right back to that story.

Last night I went with friends to an old-fashioned tent revival/folk festival/sacred Eucharist held in a Hilton Hotel ballroom at the Anaheim Convention Center. It was one of the most moving and inspiring ceremonies I’ve ever attended. It didn’t hurt that Bishop Gene Robinson presided, or that Retired Bishop Suffragan Barbara Harris preached the sermon, or that the ceremony included Afro-American spirituals, breathtaking singing from the choirs of All Saints Church, Pasadena, traditional South-African and Kenyan chants, Teresa of Avila’s words set to music composed by the Taize Community of France, and Spanish and Latin responses.

All that and incense too!

By now (especially if you’re Episcopalian) you’ve figured out that I went to an event at the General Convention, hosted and presented by Integrity USA to be an inclusive celebration of the LGBT community in the Episcopal church. My friend estimated there were at least a thousand people attending, and when they all got carried away by Bishop Barbara’s firebrand words and yelled “Amen!” (Or, “You tell it, Sister!”) the rafters shook. What a fantastic speaker she is! I wish I had a transcript of her words. And such a tiny woman too. Hearing her, joining the singing of beautiful music, and being in the presence of Bishop Gene (one of my heroes), was almost overwhelming for me.

Episcopalians (at least most of them) have come a long way from the stuffy Country Club image I remember from when I first encountered the church over here (I was “C of E” at home, naturally). And it didn’t hurt that the ceremony was preceded by a no-host cocktail party. One glass of wine does wonders loosening up the stiffest Episcopal joints and voices! But sadly, the church does have dissension in its ranks over issues such as the ordination of an openly gay bishop (Bishop Gene), the ordination of women, and – of course – the biggie: Gay marriage.

I think last night’s joyous celebration was a portent of the future where all nationalities, all creeds, all genders and sexual orientations, must come together if the Human family is to survive.