Here is my last, stray post from ArmadilloCon 2008. On "Stump the Panel" the panelists are supposed to come up with mundane and science-fictional uses for objects supplied by the audience. Indeed, in Rhonda Eudaly's, S. Andrew Swann's, and Lou Antonelli's imagination things like a pen, a nail file, a little red thing that evaded detection, and a box of Tictacs become something completely different. Especially the nail file. Rhonda had to restrain her imagination regarding this object, because there were children in the audience. :-)
And here is an article about a "Stump the Panel" from the ArmadilloCon 2006. That one was longer, funnier and more imaginative, mostly thanks to James P. Hogan. Ah well, maybe we'll have one of those again some day.
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Showing posts with label ArmadilloCon 2008. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ArmadilloCon 2008. Show all posts
Friday, September 19, 2008
Wednesday, September 03, 2008
ArmadilloCon 2008: Campfire Stories
Joe Haldeman and Joe Lansdale told a few good stories ot the Campfire Stories panel, which took place on Saturday night in a darkened room. The four panelists were seated around a beautiful fake campfire. Joe Lansdale had entertained us Austin fans with his storytelling before at Nebula awards. The point of his Toastmaster's speech was how Texas is so weird it can't help but churn out great numbers of science fiction writers. He illustrated it with a story about the time an epileptic woman visited his house. It can be found in my article on Nebula wards ceremony. He recalled it here at the Campfire panel, as well as other incidents from his life. He shed some light on his family background, which kind of explained how he acquired all that colorful life experience. :-) Joe Haldeman was not to be outdone. I'll post only one of his stories here, as the other might contain a bit too many controversial details. ;-)
One day Joe Haldeman was riding his bicycle home from a grocery store in his neighborhood in Florida. (I did not quite understand whether his neighborhood was in a "good" or "bad" part of town.) In these most mundane of circumstances (oh, and yay Joe for using a non-polluting form of transportation!) he got shot by a man in a passing car. The car sped away. The shot wounded him in the butt, but the wound wasn't very serious. He managed to bike home, then had his wife take him to the emergency room. The X-ray showed constellations of old schrapnel wounds. The X-ray technicians asked Haldeman: dude, which one is new? They couldn't tell, and neither could he. Thinking the wound wasn't serious, he declined surgery. He was afraid of surgeons more than of getting shot. The ER professionals replied: "dude, you don't know where that bullet is now! It went into your butt, by this time it can be in your brain!"
Once they figured out which of the multiple wounds showing up on the X-ray was the new one -- it looked round from several different angles -- the surgeon agreed it was better not to operate, since he would have to cut so deep into the flesh it would cause more harm than good. "But if you leave the bullet alone..." he gestured to the X-ray: "what's one more spot to a leopard?"
Joe Lansdale's first experience with violence happened when he was 5. He had a little dog with who he bonded very deeply; they were like brothers, going everywhere together, and eating out of each other's dishes. A neighbor once saw Joe's dog digging in his flower bed, so he whacked the dog in the head with a pipe, grabbed him by hind legs and tossed him in a ditch -- all that while Joe was watching. Devastated, the boy went home and told his mother, who then went out, found a phone (they didn't have one at home) and called Joe's father. The father came home and headed straight to the neighbor's house. When the neighbor answered a knock on the door, Joe's father said nothing, just hit the guy really hard in the face. When the guy collapsed, the father took him by the ankles and swung him across the flower bed until the flower bed was completely flat. Then he tossed the guy in the ditch. His method of revenge was ironic, Joe said, because Joe had not told him that this was exactly what the guy did to the dog.
Surprisingly, the dog survived and lived until Joe was 17 years old. The neighbor survived too, but moved shortly afterwards. Back then people weren't so eager to sue as they are now, Joe said -- in fact, the neighbor would have been mortified to let the public know he had the hell beaten out of him. So he moved.
Joe Lansdale talked at length about his father, adding details that puts this story in context. His father was a carnival wrestler and boxer. He could bend coins with his bare hands. He could squeeze an apple with his hand to a pulp. People who tried to take advantage of him did not try to do it twice. One time, when he worked as an automechanic, a guy tried to take his car back without paying for the work; Joe's father knocked the guy out so badly, the guy forgot he had a car to begin with. Joe told of a few more episodes of his father solving conflicts with his fists, scaring poor Joe to death, and making even the local cops fear him. The only person he was scared of was Joe's mother.
After Haldeman and Lansdale spun their yarn, there was a moment of silence, until Bill Crider said: "I once stepped on a gum." He and Scott Cupp seemed a little embarrassed they did not have anything to top Haldeman's and Lansdale's tall tales.
Joe Haldeman's story
One day Joe Haldeman was riding his bicycle home from a grocery store in his neighborhood in Florida. (I did not quite understand whether his neighborhood was in a "good" or "bad" part of town.) In these most mundane of circumstances (oh, and yay Joe for using a non-polluting form of transportation!) he got shot by a man in a passing car. The car sped away. The shot wounded him in the butt, but the wound wasn't very serious. He managed to bike home, then had his wife take him to the emergency room. The X-ray showed constellations of old schrapnel wounds. The X-ray technicians asked Haldeman: dude, which one is new? They couldn't tell, and neither could he. Thinking the wound wasn't serious, he declined surgery. He was afraid of surgeons more than of getting shot. The ER professionals replied: "dude, you don't know where that bullet is now! It went into your butt, by this time it can be in your brain!"
Once they figured out which of the multiple wounds showing up on the X-ray was the new one -- it looked round from several different angles -- the surgeon agreed it was better not to operate, since he would have to cut so deep into the flesh it would cause more harm than good. "But if you leave the bullet alone..." he gestured to the X-ray: "what's one more spot to a leopard?"
Joe Lansdale's story
Joe Lansdale's first experience with violence happened when he was 5. He had a little dog with who he bonded very deeply; they were like brothers, going everywhere together, and eating out of each other's dishes. A neighbor once saw Joe's dog digging in his flower bed, so he whacked the dog in the head with a pipe, grabbed him by hind legs and tossed him in a ditch -- all that while Joe was watching. Devastated, the boy went home and told his mother, who then went out, found a phone (they didn't have one at home) and called Joe's father. The father came home and headed straight to the neighbor's house. When the neighbor answered a knock on the door, Joe's father said nothing, just hit the guy really hard in the face. When the guy collapsed, the father took him by the ankles and swung him across the flower bed until the flower bed was completely flat. Then he tossed the guy in the ditch. His method of revenge was ironic, Joe said, because Joe had not told him that this was exactly what the guy did to the dog.
Surprisingly, the dog survived and lived until Joe was 17 years old. The neighbor survived too, but moved shortly afterwards. Back then people weren't so eager to sue as they are now, Joe said -- in fact, the neighbor would have been mortified to let the public know he had the hell beaten out of him. So he moved.
Joe Lansdale talked at length about his father, adding details that puts this story in context. His father was a carnival wrestler and boxer. He could bend coins with his bare hands. He could squeeze an apple with his hand to a pulp. People who tried to take advantage of him did not try to do it twice. One time, when he worked as an automechanic, a guy tried to take his car back without paying for the work; Joe's father knocked the guy out so badly, the guy forgot he had a car to begin with. Joe told of a few more episodes of his father solving conflicts with his fists, scaring poor Joe to death, and making even the local cops fear him. The only person he was scared of was Joe's mother.
After Haldeman and Lansdale spun their yarn, there was a moment of silence, until Bill Crider said: "I once stepped on a gum." He and Scott Cupp seemed a little embarrassed they did not have anything to top Haldeman's and Lansdale's tall tales.
Sunday, August 31, 2008
ArmadilloCon 2008: Living With A Creator
"Living With A Creator" panelists were five spouses of creators (writers and artists): 3 women and 2 men. Perhaps unintendedly, the panel provided material for observations as to how an experience of living with a creator differed along gender lines. Take housework. One writer's husband said one of the perks of living with a professional writer is that he never has to lift a finger around the house. Never needs to rush home to feed the dog, does not have to take time off to wait for a plumber, and hardly knows how to operate a washing machine! It's all his wife's job because she has the flexibility of being at home whenever she needs to. It was apparent that not all spouses viewed it the same way, though. One artist's spouse said her husband's cleaning is a sign that he is in the "incubation phase" of his new work. When he's thinking about about his next project, but haven't started it yet, that's when he cleans -- as a way to procrastinate a little before plunging into work.
This reminded me what I heard on another panel, "Why I Write", in which more than half of the panelists proceeded to tell us why they don't write. Some of them put their writing on hiatus for predictable reasons, such as jobs and personal lives being too overwhelming at the moment. One author said that even though her husband lets her stay home and write, she can't. Instead she spends hours on Facebook. "Perhaps having a regular job to go to would help me structure my life for writing?" she asked. "I feel very guitly not writing, but I enjoy playing games on my computer". Well, well -- it resonated with what I've been thinking, that I am lucky my financial circumstances do not allow me to write full time. Otherwise I would be like her, and I would certainly not be a nice "creator" to live with. :-)
Do creative professionals and their spouses often collaborate? Is it common for spouses to offer ideas to writers / artists? The prevailing answers were: yes to the second, no to the first. Spouses' suggestions are not taken very often if at all, though some good may come out of unsolicited offering. When Joe Haldeman is facing a roadblock in the plot of a book he's writing, his wife Gay Haldeman tends to offer him ideas on how to proceed; he rejects them all, but after a few rounds of that he often figures out what to do next. So all this bouncing of ideas off of one another is not in vain. And Karen Lansdale once helped Joe Lansdale come up with an ending for his story which he had not been able to figure out himself, probably since he had been looking at it too long. So Joe put her name on that story. (I don't know if didn't mention the title of the story, or I just didn't catch it.)
A big part of the panel revolved around the more mundane aspects of writers and artists jobs, that are not much different from any self-employed person's. The panic attacks that set in when you find out you've miscalculated the taxes you owe by $8000; the compromises necessary to balance the interactions between a spouse that works alone all day, and the one that comes home in the evening fried from their job. People who work at home face characteristic challenges of loneliness and lack of motivation. Two panelists revealed their writerly spouses seek distractions from solitude. One writes while watching old movies to keep her company, another works while reading a newspaper and chatting with a friend on the phone. (And I thought I was bad for checking email every 30 seconds while writing! :-) But unlike me, they had produced something publishable. So perhaps not all is lost for me despite my distractibility.)
There weren't many stories about dealing with the more esoteric or glamorous aspects of a creator's life. No groupie stories -- imagine that! Not even in science fiction writers' lives! :-) Perhaps we should have invited Neil Gaiman's wife to the panel. :-) And what about the perception of creatives as brooding, emotional, self-absorbed types -- isn't there a rich vein for stories there? The panelists didn't go far into that topic, except to admit that their spouses' moods are indeed affected by whether their creative project is going well, and what kind of reviews their books have been getting. One panelist put it this way: living with a woman who's writing a book is like living with a woman who's just had a baby. All her attention goes to it, so you have to learn to take a second seat.
And the upsides of living with a creative professional? For one thing, you get to go to exclusive parties at conventions; though not all spouses enjoyed convention going, and some found SFWA parties boring, it turned out to be worthwhile for some of them when they unexpectedly ran into a Very Important Person they've always dreamed of meeting.
In a more extreme case, Gay Haldeman recalled someone saying to her: "I'm thinking of stealing your Rolodex", because there were all those famous people from Stephen King to George Lucas in it. "Oh, are they?" Gay replied. I don't know what I should be more envious about: the fact that she had rubbed shoulders with all those people or that it was so commonplace for her she didn't realize it was noteworthy! :-)
A less tangible perk of living with a writer or artist is that your kids (if you have them) often venture into creative professions too -- if only because they don't know any other way of life. In addition, they may develop other kinds of creativity, such as finding ingenious ways to talk back to grownups. David Lee Anderson's wife said their son never put his name on his homework, even though that was required in school. When asked why he didn't do that, he said: mom, you sign a painting when it's finished. "He never finished his homework," David Lee added.
Pictures from ArmadilloCon 2008 are available in my photo gallery.
This reminded me what I heard on another panel, "Why I Write", in which more than half of the panelists proceeded to tell us why they don't write. Some of them put their writing on hiatus for predictable reasons, such as jobs and personal lives being too overwhelming at the moment. One author said that even though her husband lets her stay home and write, she can't. Instead she spends hours on Facebook. "Perhaps having a regular job to go to would help me structure my life for writing?" she asked. "I feel very guitly not writing, but I enjoy playing games on my computer". Well, well -- it resonated with what I've been thinking, that I am lucky my financial circumstances do not allow me to write full time. Otherwise I would be like her, and I would certainly not be a nice "creator" to live with. :-)
"Creatives" not too willing to collaborate
Do creative professionals and their spouses often collaborate? Is it common for spouses to offer ideas to writers / artists? The prevailing answers were: yes to the second, no to the first. Spouses' suggestions are not taken very often if at all, though some good may come out of unsolicited offering. When Joe Haldeman is facing a roadblock in the plot of a book he's writing, his wife Gay Haldeman tends to offer him ideas on how to proceed; he rejects them all, but after a few rounds of that he often figures out what to do next. So all this bouncing of ideas off of one another is not in vain. And Karen Lansdale once helped Joe Lansdale come up with an ending for his story which he had not been able to figure out himself, probably since he had been looking at it too long. So Joe put her name on that story. (I don't know if didn't mention the title of the story, or I just didn't catch it.)
Creative or not, it's tough to work in solitude
A big part of the panel revolved around the more mundane aspects of writers and artists jobs, that are not much different from any self-employed person's. The panic attacks that set in when you find out you've miscalculated the taxes you owe by $8000; the compromises necessary to balance the interactions between a spouse that works alone all day, and the one that comes home in the evening fried from their job. People who work at home face characteristic challenges of loneliness and lack of motivation. Two panelists revealed their writerly spouses seek distractions from solitude. One writes while watching old movies to keep her company, another works while reading a newspaper and chatting with a friend on the phone. (And I thought I was bad for checking email every 30 seconds while writing! :-) But unlike me, they had produced something publishable. So perhaps not all is lost for me despite my distractibility.)
What about the glamorous aspects of a creator's life?
There weren't many stories about dealing with the more esoteric or glamorous aspects of a creator's life. No groupie stories -- imagine that! Not even in science fiction writers' lives! :-) Perhaps we should have invited Neil Gaiman's wife to the panel. :-) And what about the perception of creatives as brooding, emotional, self-absorbed types -- isn't there a rich vein for stories there? The panelists didn't go far into that topic, except to admit that their spouses' moods are indeed affected by whether their creative project is going well, and what kind of reviews their books have been getting. One panelist put it this way: living with a woman who's writing a book is like living with a woman who's just had a baby. All her attention goes to it, so you have to learn to take a second seat.
The upsides of living with a creative
And the upsides of living with a creative professional? For one thing, you get to go to exclusive parties at conventions; though not all spouses enjoyed convention going, and some found SFWA parties boring, it turned out to be worthwhile for some of them when they unexpectedly ran into a Very Important Person they've always dreamed of meeting.
In a more extreme case, Gay Haldeman recalled someone saying to her: "I'm thinking of stealing your Rolodex", because there were all those famous people from Stephen King to George Lucas in it. "Oh, are they?" Gay replied. I don't know what I should be more envious about: the fact that she had rubbed shoulders with all those people or that it was so commonplace for her she didn't realize it was noteworthy! :-)
Gay Haldeman, David Lee Anderson's wife, and Karen Lansdale. More pictures from ArmadilloCon 2008 are available in my photo gallery.A less tangible perk of living with a writer or artist is that your kids (if you have them) often venture into creative professions too -- if only because they don't know any other way of life. In addition, they may develop other kinds of creativity, such as finding ingenious ways to talk back to grownups. David Lee Anderson's wife said their son never put his name on his homework, even though that was required in school. When asked why he didn't do that, he said: mom, you sign a painting when it's finished. "He never finished his homework," David Lee added.
Pictures from ArmadilloCon 2008 are available in my photo gallery.
Saturday, August 30, 2008
ArmadilloCon 2008: What You Should Have Read
"The Year is Half Over: What I Should Have Read" is a traditional panel at ArmadilloCon, where a bunch of avid and discriminating readers recommend recent must-read books in the science fiction / fantasy genre. The panelists are an assortment of writers, editors and booksellers. Without further ado --
Rick Klaw recommends "Somnambulist" by Jonathan Barnes. It's a late Victorian era / Edwardian novel about a magician. It's the oddest novel you'll read this year, or perhaps any other year, says Rick. The ending is a little weak, but by that time you don't care. He also recommends Ann and Jeff Vandermeers' anthologies "Best American Fantasy" and "The New Weird" -- a collection of really odd stories. They also have a collection named "Steampunk". When you finish reading it, you'll have an idea exactly what steampunk is.
Rusty Hevelin recommends reprints of Robert Heinlein, and Jack Williamson, who's still as good as when he started selling in the 20s.
Sheila Williams didn't recommend any specific novel or story collection, but mentioned a few new authors she likes very much, such as Ted Kosmatka (especially his story "Divining Light" which came out in a recent issue of Asimov's, and got many fan letters from engineers and scientists, who all wanted to perform the double slit experiment described in the story), also Felicity Shoulders, who has a story "Burgerdroid" in Asimov's. She also mentioned recent stories by Elizabeth Bear (March), Stephen Baxter (September) and Nancy Kress, but I didn't catch the titles of those stories.
Science fiction:
Charles Stross: Saturn's Children -- his take on the later Heinlein. If Heinlein hadn't gone crazy and was still writing well.
Iain Banks: Matter -- a new Culture novel. Incredibly fascinating far future.
Greg Egan: Incandescence -- Greg Egan is probably the most out there hard SF writer there is; keeps up with the cutting edge of matehmatics.
Greg Bear: City At The End Of Time
Melissa Snodgrass: Edge of Reason
Joe Scalzi -- Zoe's Tale
Joe Haldeman: Marsbound
Chris Roberson: The Dragon's Nine Sons
Cory Doctorow: Little Brother
Peter Hamilton: Temporal Void -- finishes current duology
Richard Morgan: Steel Remains -- a very bizarre far future world
Alistair Reynolds: House of Suns -- new space opera
Neal Stephenson: Anathem
Fantasy:
Thomas Disch: Word of God -- in this novel Thomas Disch reveals that he's God, and that his opponent is Phillip K. Dick, which he's been fighting for all eternity.
Ursula Le Guin: Lavinia
Terry Pratchett: Nation
Diana Wynne Jones: House of Many Ways -- a sequel to Howl's Moving Castle. Willie thinks D.W. Jones is the one who God should have tapped on the shoulder, saying, hey, I'm gonna give you millions -- instead of JK Rowling.
Naomi Novik: Victory of Eagles
Adam. Roberts: Swiftly -- Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels turn out to be real.
Jeffrey Ford: Shadow Year
James Morrow: Philosopher's Apprentice
Gene Wolfe: Evil Guest
Joe Abercrombie: Last Argument of Kings
J. M. McDermott: Last Dragon
Matt Hughes: Hespira
Tim Scott: Love In The Time Of Fridges -- surreal. Too absurd to try to explain in 2 sentences.
Sean McMullen: Time Engine
Steve Erickson: Toll The Hounds
In addition to all this, Willie mentioned "Go-Go Girls of the Apocalypse" by Victor Gischler. I'm not sure which category it falls into.
UPDATE:
Another person emailed me other recommendations that were mentioned on the panel, that I didn't catch.
Eric Marin recommends: ShadowUnit.org -- crime fiction with a supernatural twist, from TV concepts
Sheila Williams:
-- a Gulliver' Travels redux thingie by Gord Seller
-- "Lester Young and the Jupiter's Moons Blues" in the July Asimov's
-- David ????, "Flowers of Nikosia" in December Asimov's, about a Nirvana cover band
Madeleine Dimond: Michael Chabon, The Yiddish Policemen's Union
Some other people recommended:
-- Scott Lynch, The Lies of Locke Lamora
-- Michael Swanwick, The Dog Said Bow-Wow
Rick Klaw recommends "Somnambulist" by Jonathan Barnes. It's a late Victorian era / Edwardian novel about a magician. It's the oddest novel you'll read this year, or perhaps any other year, says Rick. The ending is a little weak, but by that time you don't care. He also recommends Ann and Jeff Vandermeers' anthologies "Best American Fantasy" and "The New Weird" -- a collection of really odd stories. They also have a collection named "Steampunk". When you finish reading it, you'll have an idea exactly what steampunk is.
Rusty Hevelin recommends reprints of Robert Heinlein, and Jack Williamson, who's still as good as when he started selling in the 20s.
Sheila Williams didn't recommend any specific novel or story collection, but mentioned a few new authors she likes very much, such as Ted Kosmatka (especially his story "Divining Light" which came out in a recent issue of Asimov's, and got many fan letters from engineers and scientists, who all wanted to perform the double slit experiment described in the story), also Felicity Shoulders, who has a story "Burgerdroid" in Asimov's. She also mentioned recent stories by Elizabeth Bear (March), Stephen Baxter (September) and Nancy Kress, but I didn't catch the titles of those stories.
Willie Siros' list of this year's must-read books
Science fiction:
Charles Stross: Saturn's Children -- his take on the later Heinlein. If Heinlein hadn't gone crazy and was still writing well.
Iain Banks: Matter -- a new Culture novel. Incredibly fascinating far future.
Greg Egan: Incandescence -- Greg Egan is probably the most out there hard SF writer there is; keeps up with the cutting edge of matehmatics.
Greg Bear: City At The End Of Time
Melissa Snodgrass: Edge of Reason
Joe Scalzi -- Zoe's Tale
Joe Haldeman: Marsbound
Chris Roberson: The Dragon's Nine Sons
Cory Doctorow: Little Brother
Peter Hamilton: Temporal Void -- finishes current duology
Richard Morgan: Steel Remains -- a very bizarre far future world
Alistair Reynolds: House of Suns -- new space opera
Neal Stephenson: Anathem
Fantasy:
Thomas Disch: Word of God -- in this novel Thomas Disch reveals that he's God, and that his opponent is Phillip K. Dick, which he's been fighting for all eternity.
Ursula Le Guin: Lavinia
Terry Pratchett: Nation
Diana Wynne Jones: House of Many Ways -- a sequel to Howl's Moving Castle. Willie thinks D.W. Jones is the one who God should have tapped on the shoulder, saying, hey, I'm gonna give you millions -- instead of JK Rowling.
Naomi Novik: Victory of Eagles
Adam. Roberts: Swiftly -- Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels turn out to be real.
Jeffrey Ford: Shadow Year
James Morrow: Philosopher's Apprentice
Gene Wolfe: Evil Guest
Joe Abercrombie: Last Argument of Kings
J. M. McDermott: Last Dragon
Matt Hughes: Hespira
Tim Scott: Love In The Time Of Fridges -- surreal. Too absurd to try to explain in 2 sentences.
Sean McMullen: Time Engine
Steve Erickson: Toll The Hounds
In addition to all this, Willie mentioned "Go-Go Girls of the Apocalypse" by Victor Gischler. I'm not sure which category it falls into.
UPDATE:
Another person emailed me other recommendations that were mentioned on the panel, that I didn't catch.
Eric Marin recommends: ShadowUnit.org -- crime fiction with a supernatural twist, from TV concepts
Sheila Williams:
-- a Gulliver' Travels redux thingie by Gord Seller
-- "Lester Young and the Jupiter's Moons Blues" in the July Asimov's
-- David ????, "Flowers of Nikosia" in December Asimov's, about a Nirvana cover band
Madeleine Dimond: Michael Chabon, The Yiddish Policemen's Union
Some other people recommended:
-- Scott Lynch, The Lies of Locke Lamora
-- Michael Swanwick, The Dog Said Bow-Wow
Here are lists of books recommended on other "What You Should Have Read" panels: at ArmadilloCon 2005, ArmadilloCon 2006, ArmadilloCon 2007, ArmadilloCon 2009, ArmadilloCon 2010.
Sunday, August 24, 2008
ArmadilloCon 2008: John Scalzi's Guest of Honor interview
John Scalzi's interview took a different format than the usual Guest of Honor interview. There was no interviewer; Scalzi paced back and forth, shooting the breeze with the audience. He probably didn't say anything one wouldn't find on his blog. It's how he said those things that made him so entertaining. He acted out various stories from his life as little skits. For example, he said, after you win a Hugo, you get only a week to be flaunt it -- and he did a skit of a person who mentions his Hugo award in every other sentence. After a week is over, he said, you're supposed to be blase about it -- yeah, I won a Hugo, it's no big deal.
Then there was a rich vein of humor in his attempts to find out what it's like to be a 16-year-old girl. He had to do that in order to get the "Zoe's Tale" protagonist's voice right. "Hard as it may be to believe, I've never been a 16-year-old girl," Scalzi said. He also never understood girls in high school. "You can ask people I went to high school with. They'll say, "no, John. Noooo."" So what were his options? Hang out with teenage girls at the mall? He illustrated this dilemma with another skit, that began with his sidling up to a girl in the mall, and ended with a restraining order.
And so the interview continued in this spirit. As far as creating Zoe's character, his wife turned out to be his greatest resource. After all, she was a 16-year-old girl once. It took a lot of tries to get Zoe right, but eventually he succeeded, and became proud of Zoe as one of the finest characters he ever created. He also told this story at the writers' workshop to illustrate his point that writers should venture out into unfamiliar territory and not be afraid to fail. In Scalzi-speak that's called "the power of suck".
Later on in the interview he commented on Neal Stephenson, openly admitted to stealing from other authors, and talked about why he could not afford to be as polemical in "Old Man's War" as Heinlein was in "Starship Troopers". Finally, he revealed an unexpected fact about himself.
The whole article is available on my website.
Then there was a rich vein of humor in his attempts to find out what it's like to be a 16-year-old girl. He had to do that in order to get the "Zoe's Tale" protagonist's voice right. "Hard as it may be to believe, I've never been a 16-year-old girl," Scalzi said. He also never understood girls in high school. "You can ask people I went to high school with. They'll say, "no, John. Noooo."" So what were his options? Hang out with teenage girls at the mall? He illustrated this dilemma with another skit, that began with his sidling up to a girl in the mall, and ended with a restraining order.
And so the interview continued in this spirit. As far as creating Zoe's character, his wife turned out to be his greatest resource. After all, she was a 16-year-old girl once. It took a lot of tries to get Zoe right, but eventually he succeeded, and became proud of Zoe as one of the finest characters he ever created. He also told this story at the writers' workshop to illustrate his point that writers should venture out into unfamiliar territory and not be afraid to fail. In Scalzi-speak that's called "the power of suck".
Later on in the interview he commented on Neal Stephenson, openly admitted to stealing from other authors, and talked about why he could not afford to be as polemical in "Old Man's War" as Heinlein was in "Starship Troopers". Finally, he revealed an unexpected fact about himself.
The whole article is available on my website.
Saturday, August 23, 2008
ArmadilloCon 2008: Getting the Biology Right in SF
On "Getting the Biology Right in SF" the panelists skewered writers for common biology-related blunders we see in books and movies. The aspects of biology covered in this panel ranged from human anatomy and physiology to ecology.
As an emergency room physician, Kimberly Frost was uniquely qualified to educate writers on what kind of injuries a protagonist could sustain and still survive. One of the highlights of the panel was her showing the audience how far her blood would spurt if the arteries in various places of her body were cut. The panelists noted that there are lots of individual differences in how much bodily damage a person can incur and survive, but feats like jogging 500 miles with a gushing wound (one of the panelists has actually read a story where this happened) is flat out impossible. Yet human body is capable of less ridiculous, but still impressive performance under duress. Paige Roberts told a story about her ex-husband, who had half of his right hand blown off by enemy fire; the bullet severed the nerves that controlled the two outermost fingers, but he still had control of his index finger. So he clamped the wound down with his other hand and kept shooting, and saved a dozen soldiers' lives. In a few hours, though, he was flat on his back in a helicopter, being medevac'ed. Adrenaline can only take you so far.
Kimberly Frost has first-hand familiarity with what happens when movies and books use medical facts irresponsibly. For example, too many times in the movies you see people breaking the glass with their limbs when they want to break into a house or out of it, and the glass just breaks away. But in reality it doesn't work that way. Kimberly has seen people who tried to do it: some of them cut themselves only superficially, and doctors were able to fix them up, but others cut their tendons that way. Paige writes erotica, and she is careful not to give readers ideas to try things that would be very dangerous in reality -- like bondage with a rope tied around one's neck.
Later Paige Roberts and John Moore got into an animated argument on whether the difference between your and opponent's body mass is a deciding factor in winning a fight. John Moore argued that it was; Paige, who's done martial arts, thought other factors matter more. She said she would have little difficulty throwing a tall, muscular guy across the room, but would find it impossible to do the same to a short person with a low center of gravity.
On the ecology front, one the most interesting observations was the one Kelly Persons made about Frank Herbert's "Dune". "Dune" is often praised for its ecological theme, but the problem with Dune is that it doesn't have any ecology. "It's a planet with one species on it. There's no energy input into the Dune world," Kelly said. It takes a lot of energy to power a worm that's as big as a locomotive to move underground. What did worms eat? And where does the oxygen come from, given that it's a desert planet? John Moore asked.
Why is carbon, not silicon the basis of life? was a question from the audience. Because, says Kelly Persons, carbon is able to form long chains, while silicon can't. A combination of silicon and oxygen can form long chains, but only under certain conditions. If you are writing about an alien silicon-based life form, the temperatures on the planet where it evolved would have to be very different.
As an emergency room physician, Kimberly Frost was uniquely qualified to educate writers on what kind of injuries a protagonist could sustain and still survive. One of the highlights of the panel was her showing the audience how far her blood would spurt if the arteries in various places of her body were cut. The panelists noted that there are lots of individual differences in how much bodily damage a person can incur and survive, but feats like jogging 500 miles with a gushing wound (one of the panelists has actually read a story where this happened) is flat out impossible. Yet human body is capable of less ridiculous, but still impressive performance under duress. Paige Roberts told a story about her ex-husband, who had half of his right hand blown off by enemy fire; the bullet severed the nerves that controlled the two outermost fingers, but he still had control of his index finger. So he clamped the wound down with his other hand and kept shooting, and saved a dozen soldiers' lives. In a few hours, though, he was flat on his back in a helicopter, being medevac'ed. Adrenaline can only take you so far.
Kimberly Frost has first-hand familiarity with what happens when movies and books use medical facts irresponsibly. For example, too many times in the movies you see people breaking the glass with their limbs when they want to break into a house or out of it, and the glass just breaks away. But in reality it doesn't work that way. Kimberly has seen people who tried to do it: some of them cut themselves only superficially, and doctors were able to fix them up, but others cut their tendons that way. Paige writes erotica, and she is careful not to give readers ideas to try things that would be very dangerous in reality -- like bondage with a rope tied around one's neck.
Later Paige Roberts and John Moore got into an animated argument on whether the difference between your and opponent's body mass is a deciding factor in winning a fight. John Moore argued that it was; Paige, who's done martial arts, thought other factors matter more. She said she would have little difficulty throwing a tall, muscular guy across the room, but would find it impossible to do the same to a short person with a low center of gravity.
On the ecology front, one the most interesting observations was the one Kelly Persons made about Frank Herbert's "Dune". "Dune" is often praised for its ecological theme, but the problem with Dune is that it doesn't have any ecology. "It's a planet with one species on it. There's no energy input into the Dune world," Kelly said. It takes a lot of energy to power a worm that's as big as a locomotive to move underground. What did worms eat? And where does the oxygen come from, given that it's a desert planet? John Moore asked.
Why is carbon, not silicon the basis of life? was a question from the audience. Because, says Kelly Persons, carbon is able to form long chains, while silicon can't. A combination of silicon and oxygen can form long chains, but only under certain conditions. If you are writing about an alien silicon-based life form, the temperatures on the planet where it evolved would have to be very different.
About the writers' workshop from personal perspective
I got some useful critique. But the main points I would need to address to make my story better are nearly impossible to implement due to their paradoxical nature. As I said before, I chopped my story down from almost 8000 words to a little over 5000 words. Naturally, a lot of action and dialogue was cut out. So what was the main advice I got from people who critiqued my story? They wanted to see more dialog and action in some places, showing how certain things happened, instead of just being told in one paragraph "this is what happened". But those were exactly the places where I compressed 2-3 pages into one paragraph! Ironically, they also said I should cut down the story to 5000 words and I may be able to sell it. So, expand it and cut it down. Thanks so much. :-)
To be sure, I'm not blaming the people in the critique group for contradictory advice. It is not their job to be consistent. :-) Their job is to point out the flaws they saw. They are not obligated to also figure out how to fix them. Any kind of feedback is valuable, even if it's contradictory. I have nothing but thanks to the people in my group. But... I still feel the universe is laughing at me. ;-)
The ArmadilloCon aftermath wasn't all bleak. While it's not a direct consequence of the writers' workshop, I got some metaideas on how to salvage my earlier story ideas. Some fairly good ideas from my earlier stories that were so bad they aren't worth rewriting, can be cannibalized into new stories, that will hopefully be short. (Who am I kidding? my inner voice whispers.) However, I started to approach my story ideas by calculating how many scenes it would take to tell a story. I think that to fit under 5000 words a story should have no more than 2-3 scenes. I'm sure other people's mileage would differ, but for me, this calculus is pretty accurate.
Oh -- the bat-watching after the Thursday's pre-ArmadilloCon dinner unexpectedly turned out fruitful for me! While not expecting to see anything more than an underwhelming stream of black specks flowing out from under the Congress bridge, I saw an older man in a skimpy, sparkly cheerleader's uniform, milling about in the crowd. I joined several tourists in snapping a picture of him. He obligingly posed against the Austin downtown skyline. Later I found out this was actually the elusive Leslie, the "keep Austin weird" icon! I say elusive, because for all I've heard about Leslie, I've never seen him -- and I've lived in Austin 9 years! So, now I know that unlike Santa Claus, he actually exists.
To be sure, I'm not blaming the people in the critique group for contradictory advice. It is not their job to be consistent. :-) Their job is to point out the flaws they saw. They are not obligated to also figure out how to fix them. Any kind of feedback is valuable, even if it's contradictory. I have nothing but thanks to the people in my group. But... I still feel the universe is laughing at me. ;-)
The ArmadilloCon aftermath wasn't all bleak. While it's not a direct consequence of the writers' workshop, I got some metaideas on how to salvage my earlier story ideas. Some fairly good ideas from my earlier stories that were so bad they aren't worth rewriting, can be cannibalized into new stories, that will hopefully be short. (Who am I kidding? my inner voice whispers.) However, I started to approach my story ideas by calculating how many scenes it would take to tell a story. I think that to fit under 5000 words a story should have no more than 2-3 scenes. I'm sure other people's mileage would differ, but for me, this calculus is pretty accurate.
Oh -- the bat-watching after the Thursday's pre-ArmadilloCon dinner unexpectedly turned out fruitful for me! While not expecting to see anything more than an underwhelming stream of black specks flowing out from under the Congress bridge, I saw an older man in a skimpy, sparkly cheerleader's uniform, milling about in the crowd. I joined several tourists in snapping a picture of him. He obligingly posed against the Austin downtown skyline. Later I found out this was actually the elusive Leslie, the "keep Austin weird" icon! I say elusive, because for all I've heard about Leslie, I've never seen him -- and I've lived in Austin 9 years! So, now I know that unlike Santa Claus, he actually exists.
Saturday, August 16, 2008
ArmadilloCon writers' workshop: pros' advice and a story construction game
The writers' workshop started with advice panels on writing. Some of the advice the pros gave was debunking common writing myths, so in a way it was metaadvice. Sheila Williams, the editor guest of honor, shared some good, compelling pieces of wisdom. It's all the more valuable coming from the mouth of the Asimov's editor. She identified mistakes made by beginning authors with accuracy that made me hang my head down in embarrassment a s I recognized myself making them in my own writing.
Then Don Webb conducts an audience participation game. He and the audience collaboratively construct outlines for two genre stories: an immuno-defficient woman in a bubble encounters a giant germ (horror) and a little slave boy in the 19th century American south meets aliens (science fiction). For this, the audience needs to decide: the story's genre (SF, F or H), who is the protagonist, where or when the story is taking place, and, most importantly, what is the driving force for the story. If it's horror, what is the protagonist afraid of? If they are aliens, what do they want?
After the critique sessions, ArmadilloCon guest of honor John Scalzi gave a closing speech for the workshop students on the power of suck -- why a beginning writer should suck as hard as he/she can. :-)
The whole article can be found in my web site.
The pictures from the writing workshop and the rest of ArmadilloCon 2008 can be found on my web site.
Then Don Webb conducts an audience participation game. He and the audience collaboratively construct outlines for two genre stories: an immuno-defficient woman in a bubble encounters a giant germ (horror) and a little slave boy in the 19th century American south meets aliens (science fiction). For this, the audience needs to decide: the story's genre (SF, F or H), who is the protagonist, where or when the story is taking place, and, most importantly, what is the driving force for the story. If it's horror, what is the protagonist afraid of? If they are aliens, what do they want?
After the critique sessions, ArmadilloCon guest of honor John Scalzi gave a closing speech for the workshop students on the power of suck -- why a beginning writer should suck as hard as he/she can. :-)
The whole article can be found in my web site.
The pictures from the writing workshop and the rest of ArmadilloCon 2008 can be found on my web site.
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