I’m currently on the road, headed to the Nebulas in Kansas City. So many new sights and smells and tastes visiting new and old friends and places! Keep well and I’ll have new exciting updates to share after the Nebulas.
Making a Scene
For a couple of years, I’ve been, off and on, working on a new book: The Ground Never Lies. It’s about a geomancer with an anger problem who has come to believe she is unloveable, but discovers a capacity for love she didn’t know she had.
As I wrote the story, I realized that I couldn’t tell the story with a single time line. I wrote the “present day” timeline first, and then went back and started writing an earlier timeline that explains how she has come to the conclusion that she is unloveable — and explains how she developed her other abilities and skills.
Now that these are both (mostly) written, I need to somehow marry them together. As a first step, I’ve begun to carefully separate the two narratives into individual scenes. As I’ve done this, I’ve had a surprising realization: I suck at writing “scenes.” I have a tendency to just write the story. Maybe if I had ever had any instruction in writing, someone might have explained that stories can have “structure” and you can use it “intentionally.” Oh, well. Live and learn.
Now that I’m doing it, it’s giving me new insight into how to organize each scene and give each a dramatic arc that leads naturally from one to the next. Fascinating! What an idea!
Better late than never, I guess.
Worldcon Participation Quandary
I was excited to be offered a place on the program at Worldcon in Seattle, but recent events about Worldcon have left me in a quandary. I will probably still attend, but I’m dismayed and discouraged by what’s happening.
I first attended Worldcon in 2023. I applied to be a participant with little expectation of getting on the program, and was very surprised when I ended up with eight appearances. I applied again in 2024 and, expecting to be selected, made all of my arrangements to travel internationally to Glasgow. When I was not selected, I decided — at significant expense — to cancel all of my arrangements. So, when I applied for this year in Seattle, I wasn’t sure what to expect.
I filled out the interest form to be a participant in October. In January, I was very excited to be invited to be a participant. And, in early April, I had the opportunity to fill out the panel selection survey, to propose myself for particular roles. And then, just before May, the Worldcon Chair issued a statement, followed by an apology, and then a clarifying statement, about the use of ChatGPT, a generative AI Large Language Model (LLM) in the participant selection process, that included the actual ChatGPT prompt they used to investigate participants.
Basically, they tried to use ChatGPT to assess potential participants (who were identified by name to the system) for disqualifying attitudes, statements, and behaviors. The system collected information and provided it for review, along with an assessment of the suitability of each name.
The reaction of the speculative fiction community was swift and almost universally negative. A few people have tried to speak up for the organizers, but most expressed outrage. A number of prominent people have withdrawn as volunteers and participants. Or even pulled their works from consideration for awards.
Large Language Models are reviled in the writing community for many reasons: they have been unethically developed, frequently exhibit bias, and are known to “hallucinate” false information. Moreover, they represent an existential threat to the writing community, if their corporate masters are allowed to profit from the unethical use of the source materials that were used to train them.
Others, with more expertise, have written about the shortcomings of using Generative AI in general, and ChatGPT in particular, for this purpose. Both the choice of tool and the nature of the prompt meant that the results would be potentially biased and untrustworthy.
Many people ran the prompt on their own name to see what their report looked like. Out of curiosity, I finally decided to do that too, to see what they would have found when they investigated me. The report about me was banal with no wildly incorrect information. (I could speculate at length about why, but the reasons aren’t really germane to this discussion.)
I have written about my grave concerns about the use of generative AI and that fact that I do not personally use “AI” for anything. I had previously never used ChatGPT. And I regret having given into my curiosity to use it now.
My overall reaction has been dismay. Worldcon was already going to be thinly attended due to the unsafe conditions traveling to — or even within — the United States for many people. Now, even more people are canceling their plans to attend for this unforced error.
My initial hope was that they would reject the work done by AI — the fruit of the poison tree — and redo the participant selection process — even it meant I risked being denied a spot on the program. But, unfortunately, they seem to have doubled-down on retaining the work done to date.
So, I’m left with a quandary. I don’t plan to take any immediate action. I don’t even know if I’ve been selected to appear on any panels. And I have other obligations to fulfill at Worldcon: My publisher has applied to sell books there — presumably including my forthcoming book. Furthermore, as Secretary of SFWA, I would like the opportunity to meet with and coordinate with my colleagues. But I’m left dismayed and discouraged. And deeply unsettled.
Wet Times in Watch City
For the week before the Watch City Steampunk Festival, I kept checking the forecast and trying to decide what to do. There was rain predicted the day before, but the forecast kept changing: some days, it seemed like it would clear up before the festival opened. And other times, it looked like it would be a washout. The night before, I decided that I would just have to drive there and make an assessment.
I had thought there would be another attending author. I’d met him previously at Readercon was hopeful he’d come early enough to help me set up. But it turned out he actually couldn’t attend. I was luckily able to recruit my son to go with me to help with load out, load in, and to give me breaks to use the facilities.
My son and I got up at 5am for the two-hour drive to Waltham. Normally, the drive would be a half-hour shorter, but it was slower driving in the rain. When we arrived, light rain was still falling. But looking at the radar made me think that the heaviest of the rain was over. The radar image was fascinating: the storm was rotating counter-clockwise, almost like a hurricane, very nearly centered on Waltham. But most of the heaviest bands of rain were to the north and the whole system was moving slowly northeast.So we started unloading. We set up the canopy and the table, put up the banner, and brought just a minimal subset of books to display.
My wife looked at the picture and said we should have lowered the banner and/or raised the table cloth. She tracked down the picture from last year to show me how it looked before. I said that Daniel and I had agreed that the weather had left us “rain damaged.”
Business was slow all morning. A few people stopped to look, but nobody bought anything. It continued to rain and was chilly, with temps only in the low 50s. I put on a heavier coat and my gloves. But, little by little, the sun began to peek out and the festival became more lively. And sales picked up.
I hadn’t brought a wide selection. In addition to what was listed there, I brought Romancing the Rainbow, my books of haiku, and a few other things. But a lot of people buying books here had seen me before — either last year at Watch City or at Readercon, Arisia, or Boskone. When I had signed up to do Watch City, I thought I’d have a new book out. But it’s been delayed. I had hoped it would be out in June, but now looks like it may be delayed yet again. In any case, several people said they already had either Revin’s Heart and/or Better Angels: Tour de Force, so their choices were pretty limited. One young woman, who already had Revin’s Heart bought a copy of Romancing the Rainbow. A young man, with his parents, was very interested in Revin’s Heart but really liked the bundle of novelettes, so his parents paid the extra $10 to buy him the bundle. A young woman was interested in the Esperanto books, saying her dad spoke Esperanto. She bought him a copy of Premitaj Floroj. A young man, who had been a student employee of mine ten years ago, remembered himself to me and took a card, so he could order a book. I gave away a lot of cards.
Another vendor stopped by to ask me how we did. I indicated that sales had been lackluster. He said he’d done very well: he’d sold 24 copies of his new release. He made encouraging comments about small-press and indie publishing.
A lot of people were puzzled by the “Small Publishing in a Big Universe” moniker. Once they heard what it was, they agreed it sounded like a great idea. One woman mentioned the Independent Publishers of New England that is conceptually similar. I should look into them some more. She mentioned upcoming events I might consider.
After we packed up, we drove to Dirigible Brewing for dinner and a beer. The weather by then was perfect. Still cool, but sunny and pleasant for drive home.
Leverett Peace Pagoda
I visited the Leverett Peace Pagoda today. It’s only a short drive from Amherst. You park at the bottom and walk up the mountain for around a quarter mile. It’s always an opportunity for quiet reflection. It is one of many pagodas constructed after Hiroshima and Nagaski by a Buddhist order dedicated to opposing nuclear weapons.
I can’t remember when I first discovered the Peace Pagoda. I probably hadn’t been living in the Pioneer Valley for more than a year or two. At the top, there is the amazing pagoda with gold statues at the cardinal points. Nearby, there’s a little pond with an island in the middle. Just beyond, built in the foundation of an older temple that was destroyed by fire, there is a little zen gravel garden. Usually, there are several strings of multi-colored prayer flags fluttering in the breeze. The pond is covered with lily pads and has frogs, tadpoles, minnows, and newts. It’s the among the most peaceful places I’ve ever visited.
Over the nearly 30 years I’ve been visiting, a number of changes have occurred. Over many years, they built new temple near the pagoda. There is a new area near the pond dedicated by and to native American people. A number of new monuments have been erected. There are number of new buildings and residences on the road up to the pagoda. But the message of the pagoda is the same.
At some point, I started writing haibun in Esperanto about interesting places in the Pioneer Valley. In 2010, I published Patro kaj Filo ĉe Sukerpanmonto (Father and Son Visit Mount Sugarloaf). Three years later, I published Spuroj sub Franc-Reĝa Ponto (Tracks Under French King Bridge). And in 2014, Morto… kaj vivo en Amherst, Masacuseco (Death… and Life in Amherst, Massachusetts), a haibun about a visit to the Emily Dickinson homestead, that tied for second place in the Belarta Konkurso. I had always intended to follow it up with a haibun about the Peace Pagoda. I made notes and had started writing it, but it was around that time that I had my falling out with the Esperanto movement. And I pretty much quit doing anything with Esperanto.
I think the last time I visited the Peace Pagoda was shortly after I got out of the hospital. I wasn’t well enough to make the climb, so I drove up and parked near the top. This time, I made the climb on foot. With my reduced lung capacity, it’s a struggle. But I had my walking stick and walked slowly, while other people passed me on the climb. Going back down was also difficult. I injured a knee in a fall maybe 10 years ago and doing downhill is painful. But I used my stick, took small steps, and made it back down.
It was a glorious day in the sunshine at the top. I sat to enjoy the view, walked around the little island, and was inspired to write a haiku.
pinpinglo falas / a pine-needle falls
aliĝas la aliaj… / and joins the others…
jam mararmeo / already a flotilla
As I was getting ready to leave, I ran into another old man at the announcement board getting ready to mow the lawn. He mentioned a ceremony planned for early June. I thanked him and said I had been coming for nearly 30 years and it was nice to see the changes and on going commitment of the community. He said he’d been coming for nigh on 30 years himself. “It doesn’t seem we’re getting any closer to peace, though,” I said. We shook our heads sadly and parted.
Maybe I should finish that haibun…
Using Travel to Enrich Fictional Settings
One of many advantages of being an academic is having the time to travel. Two years ago, my son and I went on a summer road trip to BayCon. With the end of the current semester, we’ve embarked on a new adventure.
I’ve had the good fortune to travel widely over my life. The experiences of many of the places I’ve visited have featured in my writing. Here are just a few:
Drenched with sweat and coated with dust, bouncing along on a wagon behind a tractor, stacking bales of hay under the hot sun.
An ancient Roman aqueduct, with a double row of arches, spanning a valley and still delivering fresh water thousands of years after construction.
The gritty, polluted atmosphere of São Paulo. Doors with multiple locks. Windows barred. Every big truck with a small follower car, a plastic dome in the roof that can pop off and, inside, several heavily-armed burly men.
The desert southwest of the United States with red rocks contrasting the dark green of the piñon pine and juniper. Scattered potsherds everywhere. Cool canyons with cottonwoods and huge tree frogs that are invisible until you spot one and then realized you were surrounded.
Climbing above the treeline of a high mountain pass with the sky all around and snow still in the shadows of the peaks. Beautiful alpine flowers blooming in the sunlight.
Thermal features steaming in a barren plain with twisted grey dead trees scattered across the landscape. The omnipresent smell of brimstone.
The golden sand of a tropical beach and the ocean in three or four shades of blue. Waves breaking over the distant reef, with huge cumulus clouds riding the trade winds out to sea.
Driving through mile and mile of sprawl — strip malls and auto dealerships — only to enter the boarded up decrepit buildings of an old downtown swallowed by the sprawl, and re-emerging on the other side to miles of further sprawl on the other side.
Standing at the rusty metal border fence, outside the United States, looking in, while armed border control guards drive white SUVs back and forth, watching — always watching.
Rolling through the run-down backside of the metropolis by rail, then diving underground into a subterranean warren of grimy cement pillars dimly glimpsed though uncertain light as the train rolls into Grand Central Station.
On a dirt road, trying to bicycle back onto the map. Racing a summer thunderstorm moving in from the west, and arriving at a country store just as the first drops start to fall. Lightning. Thunder. The power goes out.
Walking through a seemingly pristine forest, only to discover an old rail grade, piles of mine tailings, and old cellar holes, to remind you that, less than 200 years ago, the entire region was clearcut and occupied. Now abandoned.
I’ve posted previously about using geomorphology and botany for settings in fiction. Of course, it’s not just the physical and biological characteristics that make a setting. The people in a place are also essential components: How they look. How they dress. How they speak. How they interact. Plus the economic circumstances and level of development. And the cultural institutions and their manifestations in the landscape: houses, businesses, churches, government buildings, and their architectural styles.
When I first tried to write, I found myself frequently drawing from literary sources for my imaginary settings. But the longer I’ve lived, and the more places I’ve visited, I find my own recollections are so much more vivid and nuanced, that they are my primary source for constructing settings.
My current adventure has already taken me several new places I’ve not visited before. We spent several days in Asheville for a wedding and then drove through the Smoky Mountains, through Tennessee and Kentucky, to Illinois. Next week, we’ll go to the SFWA Nebula Conference in Kansas City. I look forward to all of the new experiences to come. Don’t be surprised if there are some new settings in my writing in the coming years!
A New Staff
When I was a kid, I started walking with a staff as a walking stick. My family lived in a forest in southwest Michigan. My brother Philip had a friend, Richard Molenaar, and they were always doing all kinds of creative fictional things, making fantastical maps and stories and artwork. At one point, they constructed an imaginary religion and used a wind-thrown tree in the forest as their “Temple of the Staff.” I liked imitating things that my older brother was doing, so I cut a staff too and started walking with it. In those days, I usually cut a staff of ironwood (Ostrya virginiana), which I would often mark with runes.
I had learned to make runes when I read The Hobbit in fourth grade. Tolkien had adapted futhorc runes when he created the dwarven map and I had reverse engineered them once I realized that it was just a substitution cipher of the English text from the book. My friends and I exchanged all of our notes in class in runic when I was in high school, so I was quite proficient at writing in runic, once upon a time. It worked really well, although one time I wrote the note in Spanish and my friend (who was studying French) was very puzzled when he tried to read it.
Years later, when I moved back to Michigan for graduate work, I decided to cut a small red oak (Quercus rubra) tree in the forest and made two staves. I peeled the bark just at the top on each and, on one for myself, I carved an S rune and, on one for my wife, I carved an A rune. I still have those staves, thirty years later. I used them only occasionally for most of that time but, when I fell on the ice several years ago, I injured my right knee. Since then, I’ve found using a walking aid helpful, and so I’ve taken to using a staff pretty much any time I have to walk for more than a few blocks.
The staves are pretty long — around five feet — so they don’t really fit conveniently in the car. When we began our road trip, it became clear, I couldn’t bring either of my existing staves, so I decided I would undertake to make a new staff while en route.
When we arrived at Phil’s apartment, I mentioned my plan and inquired whether there might be a good place to cut a staff. He said that he had a number of walking sticks already that I could borrow to see if any might be right. One was from the Kalamazoo Nature Center, but it was too short. Another was a big crooked piece of osage orange driftwood. It was closer to what I wanted in height, but just wasn’t a good fit.
We puzzled for a while about where to cut a staff but we couldn’t come up with a place where it would really be appropriate to do that. So I fell back on my plan B: to look for a wooden handle at a hardware store that I could adapt to be a staff.
We went to a local hardware store to see what was available. They had axe handles and shovel handles, but they were all too short. Push broom handles were longer, but too narrow. There were dowels, but they were also too short. There was a really long piece of heavier wood, but it was so long there was no way to carry it in the car. A wheelbarrow handle was long enough, but the bottom two-thirds was squared off, making the whole thing a bit cumbersome and heavy. There were a bunch of other cylindrical objects that we joked about making into a staff: water pipe insulation (not rigid enough). Florescent light bulbs (too brittle). Eventually we gave up. I nearly resorted to going to one of the large chain stores, but Phil remembered another local hardware store and, after we looked there, we found a dust mop handle that had a metal part at the end (to hold the dust mop), but which was otherwise about the right length, diameter, and heaviness. Plus, it was absurdly cheap (like $10). We bought some rubber feet and took it home to work on it.
I wanted to decorate it a bit and had been thinking about how to do it as we investigated the various possibilities. I considered buying a dremel motor tool and routing out some runes, but that was a bit more expensive than I had bargained for. Phil suggested wood burning. He had an old woodburning kit he had gotten as a teenager that he’d been carrying around for fifty years. So, after cutting off the metal head and sticking on a rubber foot, we got out the woodburning kit and I gave it a try.
I wanted to put on a rune, or runes. When I had carved runes before, it was enough work that I just put on a single rune at the top. But with the wood burning kit, I aimed to do three runes to spell out SDB. I looked through the various tips and selected one that was rather like a standard screwdriver. It worked admirably to made wide, even strokes for runes. Then, I added a diamond-shaped mark between the B and the S, to make it clear in what order the runes were to be read. But then the rest of the staff looked very plain, so I considered adding more runes.
I experimented making small runes with the wood burning tool. By pressing the tip into the wood, I could easily make small line segments and, from those, I could construct runes. Putting one above another, I could make the stem and then I could add two more to make a T or an A rune. But a D rune required like 8 little segments and was so hard to keep aligned that the result wasn’t really readable. So I decided to cheat: I went to the store and bought a pack of fine-point sharpies and so I could just write the runes in several colors.
I decided to have the text spiral around the staff. I wound a piece of masking tape around and around the staff and then wrote out the words of La Vojo in runes going down, above the tape in black, and then back up below the tape in red. It only took me about 40 minutes of focused effort and, although the runes are little scribbly, I’m quite satisfied with the result, which is very mystical.
On Saturday, Phil’s Historical European Martial Arts group was tabling at their local farmer’s market. I went along and took my staff. Even before I was introduced, my staff was an object of great fascination, which I found quite gratifying. And it serves its primary purpose, as a walking aid, very admirably.
