Author Archives: Poseidon's Scribe

Looking Back, My 2023 Predictions Assessed

We’ve arrived at that time of year again, when I judge how well I did at this time last year in foretelling the attributes of science fiction books in 2023.

In past years, I’ve tried various techniques, but this time I used a sure-fire method—palm reading. Let’s see how well I did:

  • Prediction: Artificial Intelligence. A continuing trend, yes, but in 2023, we’ll see a twist. Authors will get past the Frankenstein reruns and the cute-robot-is-nobler-than-humans plot. Novels will show us more sophisticated AI, computers with a different order of intelligence, one alien to us.
  • Prediction: Classics redone in LGBTQ. Authors will explore the contours of the LGBTQ realm by rewriting classic tales, but repopulating them with LGBTQ characters.
  • Prediction: Private Space Flight. I jumped the gun, er, rocket, in predicting this for 2022. 2023 is the year we’ll see spaceships funded by billionaires without government involvement, for better or worse.
    • Assessment: It took some hunting, but I found what might be an example. Skeleton Crew by HT Aaron appears to involve private space flight, though I may be wrong about that.
  • Prediction: Terraforming. Once seen as an extension of man’s dominion over Earth, terraforming will show its warts in 2023. We’ll see stories of botched terraforming, opposed terraforming, and weaponized terraforming.

Before you congratulate me on my foresight (I know you were about to), maybe you shouldn’t credit my palmistry skills. What’s really improved is my after-the-fact ability to find books that fulfilled my prophesies. For those prediction assessments that cite only one or two examples, it’s clear I didn’t forecast a major trend.

I made no personal predictions last year about how my own writing would fare in 2023. Probably a good thing I didn’t.

Watch this space next week to see my spot-on predictions for the world of science fiction in 2024. Considering my past track record, the law of averages says you’ll be amazed at the prognosticating prowess of—

Poseidon’s Scribe

December 24, 2023Permalink

Writing Performance Review for 2023

Few people look forward to performance reviews, and I’m not one of them. As an upside, I’m my own boss. Downside—I’m my own harshest critic.

Time to assess my writing for 2023. As in past years, I’m using The Writer’s Performance Review scorecard by book coach, Jennie Nash.

This year, I examined the rating descriptions in greater detail and it resulted in a lower score than in previous years. For each attribute, you rank from one to five. One = below expectations. Two = partially meets expectations. Three = meets expectations. Four = exceeds expectations. Five = far exceeds expectations.

It’s a comparison of actual performance during the year to expected performance. Based on that, a score of three isn’t bad. It means you’re doing what you expected to do. If you scored three in all twenty attributes, you’d get 60.

As my assessment turned out, I did get a 60. Mostly 3s, but also one 5, four 4s, four 2s, and one 1.

That 1 rating applies to “strategic thinking,” and I’ll do more in 2024 to discover the influencers of my genre by checking out podcasts and Youtube videos by reviewers and authors.

I’ve also committed to some corrective actions in the areas rated as 2:

  • Organization and Planning – I’ll use the Pomodoro method to manage my time.
  • Goal Orientation – I’ll follow the Stephen Covey method of setting large goals, then breaking them down into smaller goals, and weekly tasks.
  • Genre Knowledge – I’ll read more books in my genre.
  • Target Audience Knowledge – I’ll spend some time listing characteristics of my ‘ideal reader.’ That’s how I get to know my fictional characters better, so it might work for readers.

As for writing accomplishments this year:

  • My story “Turned Off” got published in The Science Fiction Tarot. 
  • I finished the second draft of one novel, and
  • I made good progress on the first draft of another novel
  • I completed another round of edits on my upcoming short story collection, The Seastead Chronicles, and am hoping for its publication in 2024.

    Most employers and employees keep annual performance assessments private. As both employer and employee, I display mine to the world as a service to other writers.

    May all of us who scribble words have a successful 2024. That’s the New Year’s wish of—

    Poseidon’s Scribe

    December 17, 2023Permalink

    The Amazing Christmas Machine

    Though I usually blog about writing, today I’ll depart from that to focus on a fun historical story for the holiday season.

    Among my late father’s belongings, I found a scrapbook of family history compiled by my aunt. It included an article copied from “A Lake Country Christmas,” Volume 2, 1983, pages 3 and 4. Written by Cindy Lindstedt, the article bore the title “Christmas Memories: The Southard’s of Delafield.”

    It concerns a Wisconsin farming family living in a house with a prominent mulberry tree. The article singles out a man named John Southard (called ‘Papa’) and his children Margaret, Grace, and Bob, during a particular Christmas in 1938 or ’39. Here’s a paragraph from the article:

    “The strangest memory is the day in 1939 when Papa, then in his 70’s and dependent upon a wheelchair to get around, engineered his special Christmas project. With a bushel basket hoop as a foundation, he called for various sizes of wood. The mystified but obedient children complied with his requests, and Papa pounded and puttered. Margaret was asked to cut and paint three plywood reindeer and a Santa and a sleigh. Soon the finished product was unveiled: a Delco-powered, motorized Santa who sent his reindeer “leaping over the mountain” in front of his sleigh, as the large, circular contraption rotated vertically. Although Grace, Margaret and Bob were in their twenties, squeals of delight rustled the branches of the Mulberry tree that day the wonderful machine first rumbled into motion (and many Christmas seasons hence, whenever the invention has been viewed by later generations).”

    Children of today might spend fifteen seconds watching such a machine spin before asking if it made sounds or lit up, then lose interest. During the Great Depression, though, when electrical machinery was rare and expensive, a time before mass-marketed toys, even a crude rotating wheel would entertain a whole family.

    One phrase in the article stood out to me—Delco-powered. Today, we know AC Delco as a General Motors-owned company making automotive parts including spark plugs and batteries. At first, I assumed Papa Southard’s Christmas Machine drew its power from a car battery.

    However, the term ‘Delco-powered’ probably meant something different in the late 1930s, something that would have been remembered in those rural communities in the 1980s when the article appeared. In the decades before electric lines stretched to every remote house, Delco sold a product called “Delco-Light,” a miniature power plant for a farm. A kerosene-fueled generator charged a bank of batteries to run electric equipment inside the home. I believe the article referred to a device like that.

    I’m a little unsure of my relationship to Papa. I had a great-grandfather named John Southard, who lived in that area and would have been about the right age at that time. However, John is a common first name and many Southards lived in that region of Wisconsin. My grandfather wasn’t named Bob (the only son of Papa mentioned in the article). Moreover, my own father would have been seven or eight years old when Papa built the Christmas Machine, and my dad never mentioned it, though he wrote a lot about his childhood.

    Still, it’s interesting to think about a time when a wheelchair-bound tinkerer in his eighth decade would cobble together a mechanical/electrical wheel to entertain his family at Christmas time. Can’t you just hear that motor hum and the wood creak, and see the three reindeer leading the way, pulling Santa’s sleigh up, down, and around?

    Leaving you to imagine that, I’ll wish you a Merry Christmas from—

    Poseidon’s Scribe

    December 10, 2023Permalink

    Would the Julie & Julia Formula Work for You?

    If you’re struggling as a writer, not achieving the success you imagined, Catherine Baab-Muguira has a solution for you. She calls it the Julie and Julia Formula. Does that formula work?

    In a wonderful blogpost on Jane Friedman’s site, Ms. Baab-Muguira described the formula. At its essence, she says “you can reach your dreams by loving another person’s work.”

    Give your obsession free reign, she says, and your book will write itself, fueled—even supercharged—by your passion.

    That formula worked for Julie Powell and her obsession with Julia Child—several books and a movie resulted. It worked for Ms. Baab-Muguira and her obsession with Edgar Allan Poe. It also worked for several other authors whom she lists in her post. I’m happy for the success of those authors, and find it easy to see why the formula can work.

    Most writers choose subjects or settings or genres over which they obsess a bit. But the J&J Formula is more than just ‘write what you know.’ It’s more like ‘channel your passion for another person (often another writer) into a sort of tribute book.’

    The formula can work because:

    • You’re an expert on, and confident about, your subject;
    • Your passion for the subject will infuse your work, creating enthusiasm in the reader; and
    • That same passion will sustain you throughout the writing project, helping you to power through the down times.

    However, just because the J&J Formula sometimes works, that doesn’t guarantee success in your case (nor does Ms. Baab-Muguira claim it will). I believe two factors determine whether the formula will work for you:

    • The popularity of the person (or subject) you’re obsessing over; but mostly,
    • How well you write

    As I said, your obsession will suffuse your writing, resulting in passionate prose. However, if you obsess over someone or something obscure or uninteresting to others, you’ll have to make up for that through truly strong or unique writing. (I’m thinking here of the famous honey badger video).

    Conversely, even if you obsess over a very popular person, poor writing won’t gain you many readers.

    In short, the J&J Formula may work, but don’t think of it as a sure-fire path to mega-sales.

    In my own case, perceptive followers of my blog know of my passion for the novels of Jules Verne. However, you’ll search the best-seller lists in vain for any mention of my name (so far). Is that due to Verne’s obscurity, to my lack of writing talent, to my poor execution of the J&J Formula, or to some defect in the Formula itself? Who knows?

    My own formula, for what it’s worth, comprises four words—write well and often. I believe good writing tends to get noticed. Even if it doesn’t, you’ll be proud of having written it. The J&J Formula may prove a good way for you to write well and often, but it’s not the only way.

    If you’re writing a lot with nothing to show for all that work, give the Julie and Julia Formula a try. Perhaps you’ll succeed with it, as others have. If not, well, you got no rose-garden promises from—

    Poseidon’s Scribe

    December 3, 2023Permalink

    Extraordinary Visions eBook

    A year ago, you got excited about the publication of Extraordinary Visions: Stories Inspired by Jules Verne. Then you learned the book wasn’t available in your favorite format, the ebook. Disappointed, you kept checking, as days became weeks became months.

    Good news! Your patient wait is over. You may now purchase the ebook version. It’s available from the publisher, for the Amazon Kindle, and soon from other booksellers. I’m sorry it’s taken so long.

    Those of you who prefer to read on electronic devices can now enjoy this anthology of over a dozen stories, all crafted by today’s authors. These tales sparkle with the lure of distant travel, the wonder of scientific discovery, and the drama of high adventure that typify Verne’s novels. With each story, you’ll see an accompanying illustration selected from original drawings in Verne’s works.

    Two appendices close out the book. The first provides the source of each illustration. The second gives a complete list of all JV’s published works, most now available in English.

    To reiterate, you may now purchase Extraordinary Visions in ebook format here and here. I’m confident you’ll delight in reading this anthology, co-edited by Reverend Matthew T. Hardesty and—

    Poseidon’s Scribe

    November 26, 2023Permalink

    Decrypting Critique Comments

    When you seek comments about your writing from others, sometimes the feedback will confuse you. What do you do about that?

    Feedback can come from critique groups, beta readers, editors, or anyone whom you’ve asked for a review. Often busy with their own lives, these commenters might, in their haste, provide comments you don’t understand.

    They may just leave a question mark without explanation, or give you vague advice, such as ‘reword this’ or ‘this bothered me for some reason.’ Worse, their hand-written remarks might be illegible.

    As you go through your manuscript incorporating their suggestions, how do you proceed when you encounter confusing feedback? Should you ignore it, dismissing it as irrelevant? After all, if they can’t take the time to give you useful comments, why should you waste time deciphering their code?

    I recommend you take such comments seriously.

    The most certain way to get the strange comment decrypted is to ask the commenter to explain it. Ask the person, “You wrote [whatever it was]. What did you mean?” Such direct communication should clear up the matter, or the critiquer might not recall the comment. Either way, you’re no worse off and possibly ahead of the game.

    If you can’t get back in touch with the reviewer, or if doing so doesn’t clarify things, I still urge you not to dismiss the comment. For cryptic observations, it sometimes helps to revisit them a day or two later. A fresh look and some deeper thought might reveal the comment’s meaning in a useful way.

    In his book Novelist as a Vocation, author Haruki Murakami gave interesting advice on what to do about comments with which you disagree. I think his guidance also applies to comments you don’t understand.

    Murakami recommends making a change of some sort to your manuscript. If you disagree with the comment, you need not comply with the commenter’s suggestion, but make a change to some third way (different from both your original text and the reviewer’s proposed revision) with an eye toward improving readability.

    His rationale recognizes that the reviewer did take the time to read your manuscript. As they did so, something tripped them up. Something yanked them out of your story. Since that happened to one critiquer, it could happen to one or many readers if you get your story published unchanged.

    As I mentioned, this advice also works for confusing or illegible comments. In these cases, review your text again while imagining you’re a first-time reader. Read it aloud. You may well discover what the critiquer meant. Even if not, consider making a change intended to lessen confusion and enhance understanding.

    Even the most bewildering comments can result in improvement to your stories, and those of—

    Poseidon’s Scribe

    November 12, 2023Permalink

    Taking Vonnegut’s Story Shape Theory Further

    Is it possible to depict all story plots in graphical form? If you could, would you find some graph shapes more common than others? The late author Kurt Vonnegut thought so.

    In 2004, he gave a lecture describing his system and that talk is so good, you ought to watch the video, at least the part starting at minute 38. He’s entertaining. Someone has animated Vonnegut’s graphs at this delightful website.

    His lecture covers several basic story types illustrating a protagonist’s experiences of good or ill fortune as ups and downs on the graph. If the author writes well, the reader will feel uplifted during the ‘good fortune’ periods and sad during the ‘ill fortune’ portions.

    The main story types Vonnegut presents in his lecture are ‘Man in a Hole,’ ‘Boy Meets Girl,’ ‘Cinderella,’ and ‘Metamorphosis.’ Watch the video to hear his descriptions of each one.

    Vonnegut comments that we humans often struggle to recognize and appreciate times of good fortune in our own lives. Therefore, I think, we often experience, and can relate to, the uncertainty of Hamlet.

    Then Vonnegut’s system breaks down. He tries to illustrate Shakespeare’s ‘Hamlet’ and ends up drawing a boring, straight line. Since Hamlet doesn’t know if the ghost he’s seeing is real, or significant, he spends much of the play in a state of uncertainty, not knowing if he’s experiencing good fortune or ill fortune.

    Still, it is possible to depict uncertainty on a graph. Scientists use error bands, often shown as shaded areas.

    My graph is one possible way to depict the uncertainty faced by Hamlet. In general, readers don’t like uncertain characters or vagueness about their state of mind. If a character doesn’t know if her life is good or bad at a given moment, the reader could dismiss her as being stupid.

    With a skilled writer, like Shakespeare, however, we understand Hamlet’s confusion and sympathize with him. We don’t think he’s dimwitted or insane, despite his attempts to feign madness.

    You can depict uncertainty on a Vonnegut-style story graph. In fact, I think the entire mystery genre involves uncertainty to some extent. For much of these stories, the detective can’t tell if a given clue gets her closer to solving the case or not. The detective strives to diminish uncertainty until the end.

    I’ll leave you with one more observation about Vonnegut’s graphs. I don’t believe the ones he covered in his lecture constitute the only possible graphs, and I think he would have agreed. Story graphs may take any shape, but some (the ones he showed) work better with readers than others.

    In the end, it’s the writing that matters. It’s how you convey the emotional highs and lows to the reader that counts. If you tell a good story, you can make almost any graph shape work.

    This concludes your combined Math and Language Arts classes for the day, thanks to your favorite professor—

    Poseidon’s Scribe

    November 5, 2023Permalink

    48-State Odyssey

    I just completed a road trip to all forty-eight contiguous states. First of all, my apologies for not visiting people I know in many of those states. The point of my trip wasn’t for visiting, but just to get through it in a reasonably short time.

    During the trip, my wife and I drove 9898 miles in 21 travel days. We made the journey in two loops, a counter-clockwise western loop covering the states west of the Missouri River, and a clockwise eastern loop. That allowed us a break in between.  

    Having just completed our tour last night, I’m still compiling statistics and organizing notes I took. I promise to write more about this trip when I can. For now, it must suffice to say I enjoyed the chance to ramble the roads of this country and touch the soil of each of our connected states.

    Though not the first to make a journey like this, I’d guess only a tiny percentage of Americans have done it. People talk about the number of states they’ve been to, but that’s the result of many disconnected trips taken over years or decades.

    Occasional traveling provides stimulation for writers, and my journey accomplished that. As I said, you may look forward to more about this forty-eight-state odyssey, as written by—

    Poseidon’s Scribe

    October 29, 2023Permalink

    End the Backwards Book Trend

    In recent years, a distressing trend has infected TV shows featuring household interior design. I’m talking, of course, about the display of books backward—pages out—on bookshelves. This must end.

    Somehow, this bizarre book-positioning method caught on and became a thing. Normal people, in normal homes, now arrange their books this way.

    Why? Some claim they prefer the monotone look of shades of white on a bookshelf to the chaos of multi-hued book spines. Others say they enjoy choosing books to read at random without knowing author or title.

    Those reasons strike me as rationalizations for a decision really more about imitating a new fad seen on TV.

    An internet search reveals the reason cited by these shows for hiding the spines of books. They blame it on copyright law. If they exhibited the titles, they say they’d have to obtain permission from the publisher of each displayed book.

    That explanation doesn’t ring true. What bookseller, publisher, or author would sue because they didn’t want their book spine displayed before a nationwide audience? With print book readership in decline, you’d think these entities might even pay the TV show for the publicity of some bookshelf space.

    Further, if the interior design shows fear copyright lawsuits, why do TV news programs routinely feature interviews of people with properly displayed book spines on shelves in their background? Shouldn’t the same legal threat apply to news shows?

    Turn your books around the right way, I say. Stop this insidious disease before it spreads further.

    If it continues infecting more homes, I’ll implement my own method of protest and no doubt it will catch on with other authors. I’ll get my publishing companies to print my book titles and my name on the page side of my future books.That way, if you turn the book around, you’ll still see what’s also printed on the spine.

    I don’t expect things will go that far. Fads come and go, and this one must die of its own accord. As the newness fades, and as people search in vain for specific books on their shelves, they’ll realize how silly they’ve been.

    They’ll turn their books around to reveal the informative spines once more. As they do so, they’ll pause a moment to thank—

    Poseidon’s Scribe

    October 22, 2023Permalink

    My Weekend at ICON 2023

    This past weekend, I attended and spoke at ICON 48, the science fiction convention in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. What a great time!

    Bill Pitcher, me, Tony Penticoff

    On Friday night, I spoke at a very imaginative panel on the topic of “Dyson Spheres and other Megastructures in Space.” Tony Penticoff did a marvelous job of monitoring the panel (and making an informative presentation) while Bill Pitcher and I talked about various aspects of these structures. The ten audience members seemed engaged, and asked several detailed questions.

    Michael Fraska and I

    My first Saturday morning panel covered “Embracing Technology isn’t only for the Young.” (How would I know? I’m not old yet.) Still, Michael Fraska and I talked about that topic in an informed way and I think the three attendees got something out of it.

    Me and Myron Williams

    Next came an Author Meet and Greet. I sat at a table with Myron Williams while prospective readers stopped to talk. To my surprise, I sold a couple of books.

    Me, Tom Ashwell, and Jim Hines

    After lunch, I moderated a panel on the topic of “Riding the Publishing Roller-Coaster,” and authors Tom Ashwell and Jim Hines (ICON toastmaster and Hugo award winner) helped the seven members of our audience understand the ups and downs of the writer-publisher relationship.

    Me and Paul Price

    In mid-afternoon, I moderated a panel called “The Rapid Increase of Population Growth” with retired EPA scientist Paul Price. He gave the eight-member audience a much better understanding of the rise in human population. Though the world’s populace may experience some problems in the near term, it may be best to worry about something else.

    Nobody attended my scheduled author reading with fellow author Trisha Anderson. I chatted with her for some time, though, and spent a pleasant half hour learning about her novels.

    Joseph Isenberg, me, and Tony Penticoff

    Saturday night, I served as a panelist for two artificial intelligence topics. The first, “Artificial Intelligence in World of Creators,” drew a crowd of three people, but moderator Tony Penticoff and panelists Joseph Isenberg and I explored how AI may soon create stories as well as human writers can. We might have to adapt to a future where AI writes better fiction.

    Tony Penticoff, Bill Pitcher, and me

    The next panel, “How AI Will Transform Our Lives Over the Next Five Years,” garnered an audience of eleven. Tony Penticoff moderated this panel as well, and Bill Pitcher joined us. A lively discussion occurred, with great audience participation.

    Me, Tom Ashwell, and Athena Foster

    Sunday mornings at scifi cons tend to be subdued after attendees have stayed up late the past two nights, and a sense of winding down pervades the hotel. However, eight alert and curious audience members gathered for a 10:00 am panel titled “First Time Authors – How to Get Published.” I moderated, while authors Tom Ashwell and Athena Foster imparted excellent advice.

    At noon I moderated an interesting panel called “Writing a Compelling Fight Scene.” Author Alexis D. Craig did a masterful and enthusiastic job of educating the ten-person audience about how best to do that.

    Rachel Aukes, me, and Megan Mackie

    My last panel, “How Do I Get My Work Out There?” started at 1:00. Author Rachel Aukes moderated, and author Megan Mackie sat on the panel with me. I believe the six attendees of this panel walked out with solid tips on how to get their manuscripts published.

    All in all, a wonderful con, and, having grown up in Cedar Rapids, it represented a nice homecoming for—

    Poseidon’s Scribe

    October 17, 2023Permalink