Don’t Ring The Bell!

I usually don’t click on list articles that aren’t from Cracked.com, but Navy Seals are frickin’ awesome and when I saw 10 Life Lessons From A Navy Seal I figured what the heck. Number ten really jumped out at me.

#10. If you want to change the world don’t ever, ever ring the bell

“in SEAL training there is a bell. A brass bell that hangs in the center of the compound for all the students to see.

All you have to do to quit—is ring the bell. Ring the bell and you no longer have to wake up at 5 o’clock. Ring the bell and you no longer have to do the freezing cold swims.

Ring the bell and you no longer have to do the runs, the obstacle course, the PT—and you no longer have to endure the hardships of training.

Just ring the bell.”

Being a writer can be a lonely business. When you’re on the bottom tier and you see a lot of your peers succeeding (all after a lot of hard work) it can be tempting to hit that bell. In this case, to push away the keyboard and say “no one would miss me if I just slipped away quietly from the writing community”. I’ve felt that temptation more than once. When that feeling rears its ugly head I have to dig deep and find my motivation.

Some times that motivation is external. I went to Balticon this past week. These are my people. They have my back. They want me to succeed. They are my fans, colleagues, and cheerleaders. They would miss me if I faded away. I know all of this, and yet when more than one of them affirmed my writing I was surprised. That’s not because of anything they did or did not do. I have a very poor sense of self and figure that in spite of their constant support over the years a lot of them are encouraging me not because of anything inherent in me. It’s because they’re awesome people. Whether that’s true or not, they’re there. So I keep writing. The bell remains unrung.

That’s not enough though. It’s a full year between Balticons. And even if there were one a week, there should be more to this whole thing. So, what keeps me going? Why don’t I just tap out? It would mean no more long waits between reviews. It would mean not worrying about getting the daily word count down. It would mean no more pouring over a manuscript looking for that last typo or bit of awkward phrasing. Just walk up to the bell, give it a good whack, and leave it all behind.

You know what else it would mean? No more Ginnie Dare. No more Father Ian. No more Libertarian Wank Fiction. I know there are people who would miss those things, but more importantly, I would miss them. I keep writing because telling these stories creates new worlds. If I didn’t write then these things wouldn’t exist and while none of them may change “the world”, writing them has changed my world for the better. Maybe my writing never will change the world. Maybe it already has. Those things are out of my control. What is under my control? Staying away from that big brass bastard.

In the words of my writing Drill Instructors, I say “MO CHECK!”. You say “WRITE!”.

MO CHECK!!

Finish Your Shit

I was challenged at Balticon by a good friend of mine. He’s an author and a podcaster and I greatly admire. He pulled me aside and said something along the lines of “I just want to make sure that you are finishing your shit.” He’s seen my tweets about the Write or Die word counts I’ve been achieving and he wanted to make sure that those words were going somewhere.

See, this isn’t such a bad question actually. I have something that another writer calls “biblioterminophobia” or fear of finishing a book. In my case that’s fear of finishing writing a book. I’ll get very close and then get focused on something else for far too long. This pattern will repeat itself if I’m not careful and I’ll end up with six or seven unfinished projects.

Right now I’m actively working on the following:
The Harvest (second draft)
LWF Satire (unfinished first draft)
Nancy – Unauthorized Predation (unfinished first draft)
Untitled dieselpunk story (unfinished first draft)

That’s four right there. I am committing to finishing the second draft of The Harvest and the LWF satire by the end of June. That will require me to put the brakes on the other things for a bit. It helps that I’m getting on The Magic Spreadsheet bandwagon.

I’m glad that I’m part of a community that strives to encourage writers to follow Heinlein’s Rules:
1. You must write.
2. You must finish what you write.
3. You must refrain from rewriting, except to editorial order.
4. You must put the work on the market.
5. You must keep the work on the market until it is sold.

The last two are somewhat flexible given various attitudes towards self publishing, but rule two is far harder than any of the rest, for me at least. What rule is tough for you? What are you doing to overcome that?

Picture credit Tania Pires

God Loves, Man Kills (Guest Post)

I hope you enjoy Winston Crutchfield’s guest post and will check out his Kickstarter!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1910926153/opposing-forces-powered-by-fate-core/widget/video.html

The “X-Men” franchise has a long history of social commentary, using mutants as a blanket stand-in for groups historically or presently suffering persecution. Perhaps the strongest and most consistent social commentary addressed the Holocaust perpetrated upon the Jewish population of Nazi Germany and Nazi occupied nations, a theme that has persisted throughout the life of the title. In the 1960s, Stan Lee included stories about prejudice and racism as a response to the equal rights movement of the time. The popularity of the franchise flagged, waiting until Chris Claremont and John Byrne took the reins in the 1970s to really take off. Claremont and Byrne routinely addressed issues of intolerance and hypocrisy, eventually culminating in a story I consider to be the magnum opus of the series: “God Loves, Man Kills.”

Resisting the urge to delve into a literary breakdown of the story, I’ll say only that my reading of the story and the characters reveals the ultimate motivation of the antagonists to spring not from hatred or fear but from selfishness and pride. That in fact hatred and fear are themselves the products of both selfishness and pride. Claremont uses the speculative fiction format to address in a poignant way the results of these cardinal sins and the contrast between selfish and selfless actions. In Claremont’s story, it is not the origin of the people that determine their status as hero or villain, but the actions which they undertake.

I am a mutant. I was born different. The Bible tells me so. “Even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will.” (Ephesians 1:4-5) Paul’s instruction in the letters to the Thessalonian church explains that we are not privileged to know the roster of salvation but must identify people based on their actions, that actions both determine and reveal one’s character.

In Claremont’s story, the lines between human and mutant are seldom clear. The leader of the anti-mutant agenda has a mutant son. A prominent anti-mutant senator is himself a mutant. Some people who are possibly not mutants are certainly innocent victims. Some of the mutants act in ways that cast them as the villains. Some of the humans are clearly in the right to hate and fear mutants. Actions on both sides are divisive and extreme; no one seems to be clearly in the right without ambiguity. If this story used existing racial or other subdivisions, it would swiftly result in heated opinions and accusations of intolerance, hatred, and self-superiority. But these are mutants, so everything’s okay. Right?

Stories like this are important because they give us an emotional buffer between our own situation and a clear assessment of the same. My status as a mutant does not automatically entitle me to special consideration or treatment. If I am shunned because I am a mutant, I have no right to insist that others accept me over their own objections. I must choose between peaceably coexisting with my neighbors and demanding that they accommodate my mutant status. I must remember that sometimes hate and fear are based on an entirely understandable reaction to the harmful actions of other mutants. And I must remember that in the end, they only way people will know I am a mutant is through my actions.

What kind of mutant do my actions reveal me to be? What do yours? Are we to be hated and feared? If so, our mutations will reveal themselves in a character given to abuse, hatred, deceit, greed, dissipation, selfishness, and hubris. (1 Corinthians 6:9-11) If these are the marks of my mutation, I have good cause to question my character. What then is my recourse? Do these things reveal my character? Can I change my character by changing my actions? Scripture emphatically affirms that this is so, and gives clear instruction on behavioral principles.

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.” (Galations 5:22-23)

Winston Crutchfield’s blog and podcast may be found at Critical Press Media, where he attempts to maintain a balance between geekery and scholarship. His project “Opposing Forces: a tactical manual and bestiary of foes for Fate Core” is currently funding on Kickstarter.

http:criticalpressmedia.com

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1910926153/opposing-forces-powered-by-fate-core

Crash Into Love

Taken from a collection of stock photos.
Taken from a collection of stock photos.

This story was inspired by this photo taken from a collection of stock photos. Click the picture to see the rest.

Bob tugged at his orange jump suit. He hated the color, but it was traditional for Impact Study Units to wear them. Humans always told them there was something about the color that helped the scanners to pick up what happened to them in a crash. Even though Bob had something approaching free will and self-determination, he never thought to question the story or anything else. He did as he was told like a good little machine.

He walked out onto the testing floor and was pleased to see Barbara standing by the vehicle they were testing today. The lights shone off of her dusky skin creating a halo.

“Unit 3167. Please proceed to the testing environment.” The voice came to him from the loudspeakers above.

He snapped out of his reverie and nodded to the Inspector behind the glass. The hover van was a new model and from what little he knew there were major issues with its design. He was no engineer, but his eyes were sharp and he’d been in thousands of crashes. He could see that any high speed collision would be bad news.

“Good morning Bob.” Barbara nodded to him.

“Good morning.” He held out a hand and she shook it. There was reluctance in the action. “What’s wrong?”

“Units 3167 and 4598, step into the testing vehicle.”

“We don’t have to do this.”

Bob tilted his head. “Do what?”

“Test this death trap. I have a friend that can get us another assignment.”

He looked from her to the van. The thought of riding it into the wall didn’t appeal to him, but it was what he was built for. The analog to pain he experienced was bad, but it was necessary for the betterment of humanity. The idea of doing anything else was completely alien to him.

Barbara stepped forward and put her arms on his shoulders. “I want to leave with you.”

Bob felt a warmth in his chest cavity. There was an ache there as well, not unlike the time he’d caught a steering pylon to the sternum. “I want to leave with you too.” He put his arms around her waist.

“Units 3167 and 4598 get into the vehicle immediately or there will be repercussions.” The Inspector’s voice was snappier than either of the ISUs was used to.

“He sounds angry.” Bob whispered into her mouth as they leaned in closer.

A klaxon began to sound.

Barbara’s lips touched his. He didn’t know what the consequences of ignoring the Inspector would be and suddenly didn’t care. Tradition and towing the line would be a thing of the past for them as they entered their new future together.

When the hover van hit them it was going eighty kilometers an hour. Bob’s head popped right off of his neck. The inspector sent out one of the little clean up bots to pick up the pieces and made a check beside a few of the columns on his report. The bumper on the van had prevented any damage to the impeller when it hit the ISUs. His bosses would be pleased.

The Swimming Nun

This story was inspired by the first photo on this post – http://www.buzzfeed.com/daves4/unexplainable-stock-photos. I’m not sure if I have the rights necesary to post the picture here. But that’s okay, I think it stands by itself. Enjoy!

Sister Gertrude stood on the edge of the thousand mile long “pier”. The Archdiocese had chosen her as part of the first contact group with the race detected only recently on mankind’s first successful interstellar colonization. Pope Justinius declared that the so called “Neo-Atlanteans” had souls, and they needed someone from the Church present to make it official. Why they had chosen a nun instead of a priest she could only speculate.

Gertrude couldn’t help but picture herself in a habit, hands clasped and speaking to the fish as if she were in a children’s book. Instead she wore a monstrous dive suit that was really more like a small submarine. They group of five people present all wore similar getups. The Neo-Atlanteans couldn’t survive at a depth of less than four thousand feet. Current technology would allow them to survive at a depth that the fish people found pleasant. One error at that depth meant nearly instant death.

At the captain’s signal they jumped off of the pier and into the cold and murky water below.

“Everything all right there, sister?” Captain Harris’ voice came on over her communications channel.

“Yes, Captain.” She made her voice as strong as she could. Thankfully she needn’t worry about piloting her suit. They were slaved together and moved as a school of fish would.

Science office Awani’s soothing alto broke in. “Captain, we’re picking up NAs at the right depth. They’re holding. We should be there within the hour. All suit systems are in the green.”

Gertrude brought up a display that would give her a more meaningful view than the darkness outside her face plate. They were eschewing any kind of lights since their new friends were sensitive to anything in the visible spectrum. The passive sonar gave her little more information. Unlike Earth’s seas, the ones here contained little life for the first thousand feet that was visible to the naked eye. A rich soup of plankton and other microscopic creatures was it. Knowing that there was nothing out there comforted her. The over active imagination granted her by God made her envision all sorts of things that didn’t exist on this planet or anywhere else.

“Something coming up on the active sonar, Captain. It’s huge.” Security Officer Chovanec’s voice wasn’t panicked. SOs didn’t panic. They had a reputation for stoicism that was legendary. Still, those last two words held something other than information.

She “looked” down with her own systems and saw that he was right. A mass, a singular mass and not a group of creatures, rose towards them. She had the luxury of fear, but she didn’t let it paralyze her. She prayed even as those around her went into action.

“Abort. Abort. Nautilus V this is Captain Harris. I am authorizing a full abort of this mission.”

“Roger, Captain. This is Nautilus V. We concur. Unidentified biomass will overtake your position in three minutes. Activating emergency boosters. We are bringing you out of the water and you will rendezvous with air support.”

Gertrude saw the engines on her companions’ suits come to life. She knew that they would be out of the water in less than two minutes. When she didn’t feel her own suit vibrate with unleashed power she was confused. Then the systems lights on her display all went red.

“Sister. We’re having a problem activating your thrusters. We’ll have it figured out in no time. Hold tight.”

She nearly laughed. As though there were anything else she could do? “Roger, Nautilus V. Holding tight.” She looked down into the blackness below. She could sense no movement or lights of any kind. She took a moment and adjusted the sonar and then in a moment of inspiration she turned on her hydrophones. At first there was nothing but a hiss. Then alien music, more beautiful than anything she’d ever heard, played through the speakers. She was filled with a bliss only rivaled by that when she received her calling. Here truly was a manifestation of God’s heavenly choir, found under an alien sea and originating from a creature of unimaginable size.

Her fingers moved of their own accord and her suit descended rapidly. She needed to experience more of this song. When the call came from the Nautilus it went unheard. Her own voice, echoing the alien song, filled her helmet and the creature enveloped her entirely in its bulk.