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Not Dead Yet

I thought my muse was dead. Since November, I’ve had a really hard time writing. I sort of thought my muse had gasped her last. But for some reason, I was able to write an article for the survival/prepper blog I contribute to from time to time. Here is the link, in case you’re interested.

survivalblog.com/2024/12/15/staying-sane-and-happy-in-isolation-by-m-j-e

So, I guess my muse is not dead yet. I suppose I’ll get back to writing fiction again at some point, but in the mean time,  I’m waiting on some works by the writers I do editing for–looking forward to those. And perhaps I will find a publisher for the stuff that’s already done.

Be patient. I’m pretty sure I’ll be back.

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November 2024

Anyone who writes a dystopian story hopes that it will never come true. A few years ago, my novella, “Wasting Water”, was published in Undeniable: Writers Respond to Climate Change. It is a coming of age story of a young girl growing up in a world where continuous drought has ravaged the interior of the United States. This was my vision of a possible world where climate change had gone unchecked. When I wrote that story, I believed we could reverse the dangerous direction of our activities that contribute to this possible future. Sadly, the people on our planet may now have gone beyond the point of being able to reverse the effects of climate change and the deadly results of it. I am not alone is seeing the disaster unfolding.

The World Wild Life Fund says this: “More frequent and intense drought, storms, heat waves, rising sea levels, melting glaciers and warming oceans can directly harm animals, destroy the places they live, and wreak havoc on people’s livelihoods and communities.”

The United Nations says: “Climate change is the single biggest health threat facing humanity. Climate impacts are already harming health, through air pollution, disease, extreme weather events, forced displacement, pressures on mental health, and increased hunger and poor nutrition in places where people cannot grow or find sufficient food.”

This November there was an election. In the past, our new president-elect has stated that climate change is a hoax. He appears to have no intention of curbing the human activities that contribute to this undeniable future. Ironically, the very things he has promised to do, curbing immigration into the U.S. and reducing consumer costs, are the very things that a warming world will aggravate.

Climate refugees are fleeing places that can no longer support them through farming or that are so ravaged by extremes of weather that their homes are being destroyed.  Their numbers are increasing, and they will continue to flee to anywhere they can survive. They believe one of those safe places is the United States. Whatever measures will be taken to try to stop them, there will be more and more of them because they have no place else to go. Unfortunately for us all, the U.S. is becoming a place of doubtful refuge. Rising sea level, hurricanes of unprecedented severity, wild fires, floods, and droughts are causing people within the United States also to become climate refugees.

As for reducing consumer costs, especially the cost of groceries and housing, the new administration will have to deal with the challenges of food production becoming increasingly compromised by changing climate and the threats to housing in places ravaged by floods, storms, and fires . All of this is already observable.

The results of climate change increasingly threaten building and maintaining housing.  Even if a house can be built, no insurance company will take on the risk because it is too high, making getting a mortgage impossible. This may be a minor concern compared to the end of life on the planet, but for some people, this is such an urgent issue that the survival of all living things is secondary. That species are dying–the last white rhino died this week–and other species, both of plants and of animals, are declining in number or are vanishing, is less important than affordable housing. One’s own survival instinctively comes first, but the death of our fellow creatures is a harbinger of our own demise.

I don’t want my dystopian story to come true, but I’m afraid it has already begun. Perhaps, during this National Write a Novel Month,  I can write a new story. One where people change their behaviors to try to pull Earth out of the fire. Where people realize the world is fragile and full of humans and animals who deserve to live their lives without hate, fear, starvation, or extinction. Where there will be no wars across the globe causing terrible suffering. The role of science fiction has so often been to inspire hope. And perhaps even change. It may be too late, but I can’t give up. I owe it to my planet and all who live here.

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Are We There Yet?

Sometimes I wonder how you know when you have arrived. Who is a writer and who is a poser, who is an author and who is a writer? How much difference is there? A writer writes, of course, but an author is published. But how published, where, how often, and how successfully?

Barbara Cartland, the romance novelist, wrote 723 books including 160 that were published posthumously. But she pales in comparison to Maria Lopez, a Spanish writer who has written more than 4,000 novels. And what about translations? In 2006, Guinness World Records named L. Ron Hubbard the world’s most published and translated author, with 1,084 works in 71 languages. J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series has been translated into 85 languages, some with fewer than a million speakers. I’d say those folks have arrived.

About that posthumous publishing. If you are mostly known for things published after your death, are you a successful author? Emily Dickinson wrote throughout her life, but her only publications during her lifetime were one letter and 10 of her nearly 1,800 poems. The first volume of her poetry was published four years after her death, but a lot of her work was heavily edited because of her unique writing style. Since 1890, Dickinson has remained continuously in print, but it wasn’t until 1955 when Thomas H. Johnson published Dickinson’s Complete Poems that her original style was on display. Still, she’s is counted as a success by most everyone.

What about self published books? Are those worthy of being considered  successful? Reedsy Discovery has a pretty convincing list, with Paradise Lost, The Martian, and, for better or worse, Fifty Shades of Grey being among the publications we might all agree are successful in one way or another.

So, what about that writing? Do you have to make your living at it to be considered successful? Anthony Trollope worked a full time job as a civil servant but wrote 1000 words every day before breakfast. He wrote a heck of a lot, too: 47 novels in addition to short stories, essays, and plays. He was one of the most respected authors in Victorian England, all while working a day job. Stephen King spent some of his early writing career teaching, Geoffrey Chaucer was a politician, and the list goes on. Still, successful authors all.

If you are published, is someone willing to give you money for your work? What does that success look like? I discovered it can vary a lot. You’d think really prolific writers would make a lot of money, but that isn’t necessarily true. Prolific Stephen King is worth $500 million, while cartoonists Matt Groening (“The Simpsons”) is worth $600 million, and Jim Davis (Garfield) $800 million. The ridiculously prolific James Patterson clocks in at $800 million. J. K. Rowling, with fewer books but perhaps more movie deals, as of 2024, was estimated to be worth $1 billion. She is surpassed by Elisabeth Badinter, a French writer, philosopher, and historian, regarded as the richest author in the world ($1.8 billion). Better known in Europe than in the U.S., she  writes non-fiction, not novels or cartoons. You would have thought that someone as prolific as Barbara Cartland would have been pretty rich, but after her death, her estate found itself with a final value, after all the bills were paid, of $0. She’s in good company. H. P. Lovecraft, Edgar Allan Poe, and Oscar Wilde made money from their writing, but all died poor. Still, they are all regarded as successful in their craft. To my mind, if anyone is willing to hand you some money for the writing you did, that is success.

Let’s go back to the question of how much you have to publish to be considered a successful author. Harper Lee, who worked as an airline reservationist until she quit to work full time on her novel, famously only published one book, To Kill a Mockingbird. But when your one novel wins a Pulitzer Prize, that seems pretty successful. She finally did publish another book 55 years after the first one.

It’s not so very easy to know when you have succeeded. Success can take a lot of forms.  According to various dictionaries, you are an author if you create something literary with the intention that it will be published some day. By this definition, you just have to create to be an author however that creation is handled after the work is done. (But with editing being what it is, is it ever done? That’s for another blog post.)

I’m thinking if I keep writing, keep attempting to get more things published, and maybe die with a whole lot of stuff ready for my family to cash in on, I’m bound to be able to claim I have arrived in the hallowed halls of authors. In the mean time, maybe it’s time to focus on those 1000 words a day before breakfast.

Image: One thousand words before breakfast. By Marilyn Evans

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Vicarious

At a certain age, you’re supposed to make a bucket list–stuff you’re going to do before you kick the bucket. Then, later in life, you start doing the things on that list. Once upon a time, welding and juggling were on mine, but I’m not so interested in those things now. Not to say I won’t give them a try (again) at some point, but they are nowhere near the top.

Also at a certain age, you begin to realize there are things you are just never going to do. Still, you may feel like you’ve made enough of an effort that you can count those things as close enough.  I’ll never be in the Olympics, but I have managed to do all the things that are part of the modern pentathlon; that is to say, over the course of my lifetime, I have been a pretty good swimmer, I’ve been a runner, and a pretty good shot with a pistol, I’ve ridden my horse over some largish jumps, and I was a passable foil fencer in my younger days.  Among  other common aspirations, I’ve acted in a couple of plays, and been on television more than once. I’ve shaken hands with some famous people, most notably to me, a Nobel laureate. I’ve written some articles, novels, and short stories. But the time has come to admit, some things I’ll never do, like through hiking one of the three great trails: the Pacific Crest, the Continental Divide, and the Appalachian (although I have at least set foot on the PCT, a bit of which is pictured here).  It’s not looking good for writing a screen play either, but there’s still time.

My list is pretty long, and some things I may still accomplish, like seeing an active volcano and a glacier (visiting Iceland looks like the best bet for knocking out both of those). Other things just aren’t in the cards. A photography safari in Africa is looking iffy, although if I go to South Africa I can also visit penguins, so two tick marks on the list at once.

The good news is, I can experience a whole lot of bucket list things vicariously. We’re all vicarious athletes when the Olympics are broadcast. Thanks to You Tube, I can join through hikers on the three great trails and more trails besides.  I visit with hundreds of cats on line, solve mysteries through books, do all manner of strange things through podcasts, visit the far reaches of the world through documentaries. But best of all, I write my ambitions, fantasies, dreams.

I always thought I would live on a farm. That didn’t work out, but through my stories, some of my characters have. While the idea of owning a little shop very much appealed to me at one time, I know next to nothing about retail, but one of my characters does and is pretty successful at running her little store.

Writing lets me live my life vicariously through my characters without having to personally suffer all the things I have to put them through to make the story interesting. Researching what I dream of and desire, then living out the fantasy of that life or adventure vicariously through my characters is being a lovely way to round out my bucket list.

Image: The Pacific Crest Trail. By Marilyn Evans

 

 

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Garden Update, August 2024

We’re a bit more than half way through the summer, and it’s about time to let you know what the garden is doing. Short answer, amazing! At least compared to some years.

Early on I had a small but steady supply of blueberries. AND! Even a few gooseberries before the birds wised up. No mulberries this year, but I hold out hope for next year. Not sure about the potatoes yet, but I’m pretty sure I’ll have a good crop.

I have chard! Yes, huge red-stemmed, green-leafed chard. And a sane amount of cucumbers, one at a time, large and lovely and very tasty. No need to chase down people to give them away or leave them by night on the neighbors’ doorsteps. You will notice in the photo that the cucumber had a girdle mark–they keep insisting in growing into the netting.

The tomatoes have been amazing, but in spite of my best efforts, something is getting inside the netting and eating a few. As long as they don’t take more than their fair share, I’m good with that. I tried growing bok choi and am amazed both at how well it has done and how tasty it has been in my stir fries. I’ve even frozen some for the winter along with a good supply of the tomatoes to go into stews and soups and such like.

As for the less than glorious, the ears of corn were very teeny tiny, but still tasty. The green beans were few and far between, but still okay. The eggplants have been small, but nice in a ratatouille.

The jury is still out on the leeks. The pumpkin and cantaloupe vines are making blossoms, but I have yet to see much in the way of potential fruits. We’ll see. I’m letting the onions and garlic take their time. I’m hoping for a nice harvest someday soon. And the herbs have been, as always, a delight.

I had some nuts on the European hazel tree, but I’m pretty sure some people of the squirrel persuasion relieved me of that concern. However, the American hazel bushes have nuts that might actually become an edible sometime in the near future. And, of course, there are a gazillion black walnuts. Everywhere. More than even the squirrels can eat.

And finally, the wild flower bird and bee garden was a bit weak, but a huge stand of volunteer sun flowers (from the bird feeder fall out) made up the difference. My accidental tribute to the embattled Ukrainians.

In all, I’d say it has been a pretty good year, thanks, I suspect, to the early and often rainfall. Less intense heat would have made weeding a better time, but I’m not complaining. Much. Not with fat, juicy tomatoes like these.

Image: A representative sample of my harvest this year. By Marilyn Evans

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More Bingeing

I’ve said before in these posts that I’m lousy at delayed gratification and that binge watching television programs is a wonderful way to satisfy my intemperate lusts. I just finished watching all sixteen seasons of Criminal Minds over the course of the last year. That is a lot of mass murderers. I’ve slowed to a crawl for the rebooted series, now called Criminal Minds: Evolution. I’m watching television more than usual because I’m not reading much fiction at the moment. When I’m working hard on a novel, I prefer to read nonfiction to keep from stealing too much from whoever I’m reading.

Some of my favorite authors were/are wonderfully prolific. When I discovered Robert B. Parker, I cold-bloodedly found every book he had ever written (at the time), and with the help of inter-library loan and honest to goodness brick and mortar stores, read them in order. When he died, his greatest character, the private detective Spencer, had to live on in the hands of other writers. This seems to happen a lot in science fiction with other writers writing in the style of. Or in the case of mystery writer Dick Frances, his son took up the reins. Fortunately for me, Lindsey Davis, the creator of the Didius Falco and the Flavia Albia mysteries, is still alive and writing. My other current favorite, C.J. Box, creator of the Joe Pickett novels is also writing away, and I have a lot of reading ahead of me to catch up. But until I finish The Siege of Zarmina, no fiction for me.

To keep my brain busy while I’m between writing sessions, I’m indulging my new addiction, podcasts. Between If Books Could Kill and Maintenance Phase, along with a few others, these keep me company when I’m walking around the neighborhood getting in my steps or when I’m sweating away in the garden. As for nonfiction reading material, I’m currently enjoying The Way of the Hermit: My Incredible 40 Years Living in the Wilderness, by Ken Smith with Will Millard.  It’s a wonderful book, but I had a hard time acquiring it–the publisher can’t seem to keep it on the shelves, and the library didn’t even have it in yet but already had seventeen people on the waiting list. I did finally get the last copy at my favorite Barnes and Noble. Ah, to have a book so successful.

With any luck, Zarmina*, my third novel, will be done and ready for beta readers before the end of July. That’s the goal. In the mean time, I’m still waiting for the contract to come from the publisher who expressed interest in The Gingerbread House.  After that, a short break–probably to read a whole bunch of mysteries–then on to finishing Wickham’s Daughter, then starting the sequel to The Gingerbread House. Then maybe finish Head of the Family and take a serious stab at Jocasta of Thebes. Ambitious, I know, but I’m not getting any younger.

*The working title for The Siege of Zarmina has always been The Iliad in Space.

Image: Bingeing on nonfiction and podcasts between writing sessions. By Marilyn Evans

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In Two Thousand Years

My husband and I like watching Time Team, a British television program where a group of specialists swarm into a place somewhere in England, Scotland, Wales, and occasionally other places to spend three days trying to figure out what was going on in the past. Using written records, if there are any, and excavating with a series of trenches to find artifacts, they are able to tell from what they literally dig up what the people were doing in that spot and when. Some items they uncover are indicative of specific times and situations. If Samian pottery is found, there were some well-heeled Romans or Romanized Brits hanging around. If there are flint blades and axes, it’s prehistoric. Glazed floor tiles indicate medieval buildings, often churches.

I used to wonder what the archaeologists in the future will identify as our defining artifacts–early 21st century. When I went for a walk on Earth Day, I finally figured it out. Armed with a trash bag and latex gloves, I went around my neighborhood and the park picking up trash. The biggest contributor to the hoard I accumulated were fast food containers including cups and plastic single use liquor bottle. Those little plastic bottles show up everywhere. They are washed down the gutters into the sewer system then into the water ways and the ocean. They are sold in ten packs or individually. They are everywhere–liquor stores, grocery stores, convenience stores. And the plastic lasts forever.

I’ll admit, I’m mystified by why people throw trash out of their cars and onto the ground in the park’s parking lot when there is a trash can ten feet away. I don’t understand why it is so difficult to not pollute the place where you live and play and walk and drive. Who enjoys drifts of blowing garbage?

In one or two thousand years, if there are still people on Earth, the big blue marble circling the sun, those people may wonder who lived on the planet that we are so close to destroying–or at least making difficult if not impossible for humans to live on. When they dig down to our layer, they’ll find the index artifact to be single-use plastic liquor bottles. Then again, maybe, just maybe, we’ll stop making a mucked up mess of our planet before it’s too late. Fingers crossed.

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Aspirations

“What do you want to be when you grow up?”

“What’s on your bucket list?”

Two questions to bookend a life. Both ask, what are your aspirations. I wanted a pony when I was five years old. By the time I was fifty-five I had the ability to earn enough money to support a horse, had the knowledge to take good care of one if I had it, and knew how to ride. When I was a pre-teen, I wanted to be a mad scientist. In my twenties I got jobs working in laboratories. Maybe not a mad scientist, but perhaps a disgruntled one. When I was in high school, I had the idea I might like to write. Throughout my life I’ve written a lot of technical and business documents, but my first novel wasn’t published until I was in my sixties.

At some point, I got the insane idea that it would be really great to hike the Triple Crown of backpacking–the Pacific Crest Trail, the Continental Divide Trail, and the Appalachian Trail. I’ve never once in my life done an overnight backpacking trip. I’ve owned a Kelty Tioga backpack for decades and used it along with a Eurail pass to travel all over Europe, but that was another time and another aspiration. I’ve seen the movie and read the book Wild multiple times, listened to hiking podcasts, dreamed a lot. But my knees don’t think this long distance hiking with a heavy pack is a good idea. The days when I could even consider these treks is past. In fact, my sleeping in tent days seem to be over. And yet….

When I was in California on family business, my husband and I took a break one afternoon and drove an hour and a half up into the mountains. There, for the first, and maybe the only time, I got to set foot on the Pacific Crest Trail. I “hiked” about one hundred yards down and back along a trail that begins at the the U.S. border with Mexico and ends just over the border into Canada. To hike its 2650 mile length usually takes a through hiker many months. I’ll never do that, but I consider the aspiration to walk on that trail satisfied. I’ve been there, I’ve seen it, I set foot on it.

Not all aspirations, hopes, dreams will be fully realized, and sometimes it takes decades to accomplish even a part of a goal. But that doesn’t mean it has to be abandoned. Or that the whole trail needs to be hiked. I suppose over my lifetime I’ve come to be happy with adjusted expectations. And my bucket list keeps growing. Some items have been scratched off as complete, some removed as no longer important to me. It would be kind of nice to learn to juggle and to weld, but those aren’t really high on my list any more.

I think that I may yet set foot on the Continental Divide and the Appalachian Trails–not to hike their length, but to see them, walk a bit. My new aspiration is to earn the Jackson County Parks Department’s badge for hiking all the zone trails. That is doable, I think. And what do I want to be when I grow up? Well, I’m still working on that one.

Image: Me on the PCT. By Jonathan Hutchins

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The Late Winter Optimist

Once again I have succumbed to the siren song of the winter seed catalog. In spite of my optimistic post of the past, I really was teetering on the edge of full surrender to a life free of the agony of gardening. But that little bomb that came in the mail, in the bleakest time of the year for a Midwestern gardener, sucked me in. I perused. I made selections. I inventoried my existing stash of seeds. I ordered new seeds. I counted back from the days for the last projected frost, days to germination, best days to plant by the moon according to the Old Farmer’s Almanac. I have a three page blueprint for the layout of the garden beds with an eye to companion planting. I’ve evaluated my fences and acquired new posts to keep them upright. Of course, the weather, beasts, weeds, and all will conspire against me. I imagine the chipmunks in their underground bunkers laying plans for their spring assault. There must be some kind of twelve step program to help people like me, the gardening addicted. And yet, the leek seeds all germinated, spreading their tiny contagion of optimism.

Even in the deepest darkest throes of winter, there is room for optimism. There has to be. Otherwise we’d give up, shrivel up, and…well, you know. Recently a family emergency called me out of state. My cat sitter, who spoils the kids so mercilessly that when I come home I get the, “Who are you and what have you done with Aunt Laurie?” treatment, watered my little starter seedlings. Not only have the leeks survived, but they are thriving. I made it home just in time to plant the other seeds on schedule: tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, and my eternal overachievers, the cucumbers. They may or may not come up in seven to fourteen days.

More dead-of-winter hopefulness has reared its lovely head: a publisher has expressed interest in The Gingerbread House.  Add to that the news from an editing client that his book has been accepted by a publisher, and things are looking pretty good. But to keep me grounded in reality, a flash fiction piece got rejected. Review, possibly rewrite, submit somewhere else.

I have discovered that sitting on a plane for several hours contributes to my optimism. I managed to do a first draft of a short story that has been tickling the back of my mind, and got down pages of notes on the various novels that have need of my attention. In fact, most of this blog post is the product of flying through the air in a metal tube. Perhaps if I become a world traveler I’ll get a lot more written.

Unfortunately, I may be headed back out of state in the near future. Probably all of the plants will die while I’m gone. I don’t care. I’m hopeful now. And that’s a good place to start.

Image: Optimistic leeks. By Marilyn Evans

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Algorithms, Censorship, and You

Have you been the victim of a static algorithm? You might be entitled to compensation. Well, no, probably not.

I’m a member of a Facebook group where people express candid opinions. Recently one of the active members had a post removed by FB because, it said, its algorithm identified inappropriate language (we think it was because of a four letter word associated with fornication and other fun activities). Now, this group has adult members who in the real world use some pretty salty language, and we would be shocked, shocked, I tell you (I said, clutching my pearls) if everyone suddenly went Church Lady on us. The algorithm apparently has set parameters for what is fine to post and what is not without taking into consideration the person using it, the group, or the situation. This is not AI as far as I can tell, because Artificial Intelligence learns and might in time figure out that this group likes its colorful language.

So, here it is–the problem of censorship in its infant phase, telling you what is and isn’t acceptable in a private group. Mind you, I totally agree with the unacceptability of hate speech, bullying, denigration, and all the other stuff that is not acceptable in just about every circumstance. But, I sort of wonder how these authors would promote their books on Facebook or other sites that make determinations about the use of certain words. And to top all that off, that same word shows up elsewhere on FB. Why one place and not the other?

As I have said many times, I don’t believe in censorship (except every copy of Godzilla Versus the Smog Monster should be burned), but if we must censor, shouldn’t it be from a set of agreed upon standards? Shouldn’t it be consistent, fair, take into consideration context? But that is harder than it might seem. In 1964, Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart was asked to describe his test for obscenity. He responded: “I know it when I see it.” He probably didn’t. We have been struggling with defining limits on speech and other forms of expression for a very long time.

We as a society have agreed to remove some words from use because of their charged past. Recently I was watching the television series about Bass Reeves, the first Black deputy U. S. Marshall west of the Mississippi, based on a biographical book series by Sidney Thompson. When a White woman, the former owner of Bass and his wife, offers to take them back into servitude and to be kind enough to keep their children from being “field n*****s”, it was profoundly shocking to hear the “N word” spoken. When Jennie slaps her and throws her out of her home, I was cheering along with everybody else, I’m pretty sure. Words do have power, and words can hurt. But knowing when to use those words can be important. I’m sure the actress who had to utter that word struggled to keep from flinching, but the power of that ugliness was necessary because it conveyed the ugliness of the time.

I think most Americans believe we are free and open minded. Yet a tiny handful of people have been challenging and succeeding in getting a huge number of books banned. Minority opinions have overridden the majority and demanded removal of access to literature often about other minorities, underrepresented people who struggle to have their voices heard.  It seems like a kind of madness for one tiny group to silence another tiny group when most of us want to hear what they have to say so we can judge for ourselves from a position of knowledge and exposure to different ideas and points of view.

High schools and middle schools have become a hot bed of censorship.  We appear to be so terrified of offending and controversy that we silence needed dialogs. The students of Jackson-Reed High School were denied the opportunity to host a  Palestinian cultural event, and the same school pushed back on teachers covering Art Spiegelman’s graphic novel “Maus” and “Night” by Elie Wiese which both deal with the Holocaust.  The thing is, if Vladimir Putin is determined that the Ukrainian country and culture have no right to exist,  and Benjamin Netanyahu thinks 25,000 dead Palestinians are not enough, perhaps children should be taught and adults reminded what genocide looks like.

So back to our algorithm. Who decided f*** is not okay for Facebook posts in a members only group? Why is it okay in some places and not others? Where is the contingency, the consideration for who and why it is used? Can we challenge it? (Apparently, these decisions can be challenged.) Or should we just let someone else decide what we can and can not say? To that I say, f*** no.*

*This is not a members only blog and anyone can find and read it, so I will in this instance self edit. However, if you would care to hear my vast array of colorful nouns, adjectives, epithets, and verbs, feel free to contact me, and the horse I rode in on.

Image: Me and the horse I rode in on. By Jonathan Hutchins.