101 Thoughts on Self-Publishing -- 014: The Writer as Demiurge

I think a lot of writers have at least a suspicion that what they produce doesn't come from them, that it comes
from somewhere--something--else. Maybe it's just superstition, maybe it's a conceit that we engage in, but I've heard or read enough writers express this idea that I felt it was worth exploring.

We are all familiar with the idea of the muses: goddesses in Greek mythology who inspire humans to create great art. I find it interesting, however, that there were muses not only for the arts but for the sciences. Greek scientists may have believed that their discoveries were divinely inspired, discoveries that laid the groundwork for the advancement of science which, ultimately, would come to reject such superstition.

A lot of writers get asked, "Where do you get your ideas?" My stock answer is "Everywhere." Every experience I have, every person I meet, every book I read gets thrown into the stew of creative juices inside my head. Every once in a while I scoop out a ladel-ful, add some seasonings and turn it into a story.

So are the muses simply experience filtered through the mind? Do ideas seem to come from nowhere, from some divine source, because we cannot fully comprehend how memory works and so the end product seems somewhat more mystical in origin that we realize?

A Possible Depiction of the Gnostic
Demiurge (Source)

Or is there really some greater force at work? Are we essentially the literary equivalent of the Gnostic Demiurge, toiling away in ignorance and believing that the worlds we create truly are of our own making? Is there a true source for "ideas" upon which we all draw? Is there something that sets off the creative spark, just as some people believe a divine spark was required to turn simple organic compounds into life?

If you believe in a soul or in a creator, this idea is not so far-fetched. In fact, there may be evidence of such a thing occurring on a massive scale. Around 50,000 years ago, human beings were more or less physically identical to us. Technologically, however, they were indistinguishable from earlier hominids. But something remarkable seems to have happened. There was a rather rapid development of technology. Existing tools and weapons were improved upon. But something else appears in the archaeological record, something that had never before been seen on this scale: the development of art. Cave paintings, ornaments, sculptures. And before this, humans had lived in isolated groups. Now evidence of trade networks appears. Humans also begin to spread out into previously uninhabited areas. This is the emergence of what anthropologists call "behaviorally modern humans." In essence, it is the first time humans, Homo sapiens, began acting like humans rather than earlier hominids.

There is some evidence for human culture prior to this, but what explains the cognitive explosion that occurred? Why did humans--seemingly suddenly--develop this awareness? Was it simply the result of gradual cultural and biological change coming to a head? Has the archaeological evidence showing the slow development of culture simply not yet been found? Or was art--consciousness--given to us by some force beyond our comprehension?

In Christian Gnostic belief, the Demiurge, the creator god, was ignorant of the true god. He believed he was solely responsible for the creation of the Earth. Because of this ignorance, his creation was flawed. Because of it, evil was allowed to exist. Traditional Christians, the Gnostics believed, worshiped this false god. The Gnostics, however, had the knowledge, the gnosis, of the true god.

So is the writer a demiurge? Could we somehow tap into pure inspiration if we only knew the truth about where our ideas come from? Does our ego get in the way?

I can only answer the last question with any certainty: yes. Ego is the writer's greatest enemy. When we write to satisfy ego, when we serve it rather than the story, our craft suffers. Like the Demiurge, we let our ego flaw our creations. We worry about what others will think, we worry about marketability. We try to emulate the styles of popular writers, we follow literary formulas. None of these things are necessarily bad or wrong, but we must be aware of the fact that they get in between the inspiration and the story.

Wherever that inspiration comes from--whether from us or from some unknown source--be true to it. Write not only from the mind but from the heart. Honor the act of creation and recognize it for the miraculous event that it truly is.

Best,

Michael K. Rose

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12/21/12: Why Nothing Happened Today

Nothing has happened today so far. And nothing will happen today. Big surprise, right? Of course, I doubt there ever were very many who really believed the world was going to come to an end. But there are many, many more who believe there occurred today some sort of spiritual event. Some sort of cosmic realignment. Some sort of grand awakening.

Well, it didn't. People are going to be just as selfish, greedy and craven as they were before today. People will also be just as kind, generous and caring. Because here's the truth about December 21, 2012: it's just another day. People did good today. People did bad. There was plenty of both love and hate to go around.

I think that if a person needs to believe something happened today in order to feel fulfilled in his or her life, then that person has been cheating themselves out of the ability to enjoy and appreciate what they had before today. Your life is not any more special or meaningful now than it was yesterday. If you think it is, I'm sorry for all the lost meaningful days you've let slip by.

Why didn't anything happen? Well, it's because all the beliefs surrounding this date have no basis in fact or history. The Mayans, or any other ancient culture, did not have the ability to predict the future. A belief that their calendar means something significant is no more reasonable than a belief in the predictions of Nostradamus or Edgar Cayce.

Isn't it time that rational, intelligent human beings stop believing in such nonsense? Isn't it time that we create a culture in which people must require something beyond a "feeling" before they wrap their lives up in a falsity? And the way we do that is by making it unacceptable for charlatans to ply their trades. Anyone who claims to predict one's future, or put one in contact with dead relatives or spirits, or tell who you were in a past life, should be able to demonstrably prove that they can do the things they claim. If they can't, they should be charged with defrauding the public.

But here's the worst part about it: many of the psychics/spiritualists/whatever-they-call-themselves believe they really can and are doing these things! How dangerous is it to have a person who believes their own claims telling others what they should and shouldn't do? It could easily lead to financial ruin or worse. And I, for one, am tired of seeing earnest people, people who are hurting or desperate, people who are trying to find direction in their lives, buy into it.

I do not claim that some people don't have clairvoyant powers. But if you do, how base is it to use such powers for financial gain? And I would bet money that 99% of the people offering up such services for a fee cannot offer any proof that their claims have veracity. As I said before, this if fraud, plain and simple.

So nothing happened today, no matter what charlatans the world over would have the willing believe. Today wasn't special. But it was, in the sense that every day is special. Every day is a gift. Don't spend your life waiting for some future event that may never come. Don't spend it searching for answers that aren't there. If you want the meaning of life, here it is: be good, be kind, and try to live a life that is meaningful. Interpret that how you will. But whatever you do, live for the here. Live for the now. Spend time with those you love. Try not to add any misery to the world and, if you can, add some joy. I'll end with one of my favorite quotes by one of my favorite authors:

“Three things in human life are important: the first is to be kind; the second is to be kind; and the third is to be kind.” - Henry James

Separating Man from Manuscript

I was having a cigar and listening to excerpts from Wagner's Ring cycle this evening (don't judge me!) and I began reflecting on how such a horrible man could write such beautiful music. But then I realized I was being unfair. Was Wagner really a horrible man? His antisemitism is a matter of public record. But as with most things, it was quite a bit more complicated than that. He had Jewish friends; he described one of those friendships as "one of the most beautiful friendships of my life." Few men—or women—are entirely good or entirely bad. Bad people can do good things and good people can do—and believe—bad things.

So where should one stand when it comes to literature? Must I not read another word of Lovecraft after being exposed to this poem? Should Orson Scott Card's views on homosexuality prevent me from reading his books? What if I found out that an author whose work I enjoy is an unrepentant asshole? How do I—how does anyone—separate the man from the manuscript?

Yes, good people can believe what I, from my perspective, would consider bad things. But as long as that perspective is not overtly manifested in their artwork, is it still "ethical" for me to enjoy that work? Axl Rose seems to be a generally despicable human being, but in my mind "November Rain" will always stand as one of the greatest rock songs of the early 90s. Do I have to stop liking Manhattan and Chinatown because of Allen's and Polanski's inappropriate (and criminal, in the latter case) behavior with young women? I read a great deal of Victorian literature and racism and sexism are often on display.

Is there a certain line an artist must not cross before his or her work should be universally shunned? I really don't know. As with all things ethical, it is often situational. I may be able to overlook something another may not and vice versa. I think what a responsible person must do is acknowledge that all people are flawed in some way. We must acknowledge the uncomfortable positions some of the great artists of the past have held and understand that we are all products of the time and place in which we live. It cannot excuse everything but this understanding should help us to not let the ugly details of their lives detract from the good or beautiful things they may produce. So I will continue to listen to Wagner. I'll continue to read Lovecraft. And I'd like to know what you think about the issue. Leave a comment below if you'd like to chime in.

Before I close, I'd like to bring up one more aspect of this "separating man from manuscript" idea. If you are reading this, there is a good chance you follow writers on Facebook or Twitter. Social media has enabled readers to have unprecedented access to the people who are writing the books they enjoy. If a writer posted something that, to you, seemed racist/sexist/bigoted/what-have-you, how would it affect the way you buy and read their work?

An Interview with Scott Fitzgerald Gray

Today, I am very pleased to share this interview I conducted with Scott Fitzgerald Gray, author of the science fiction novel We Can Be Heroes (see the SpecFicPick Book Feature here). Scott describes himself as a specially constructed biogenetic simulacrum built around an array of experimental consciousness-sharing techniques—a product of the finest minds of Canadian science until the grant money ran out. Accidentally set loose during an unauthorized midnight rave at the lab, the S.F. Gray entity is currently at large amongst an unsuspecting populace, where his work as an author, screenwriter, editor, RPG designer, and story editor for feature film keeps him off the streets.

Michael K. Rose: Scott, I'd like to start by asking a question I ask the writers I interview for my webzine SpecFicPick. I know you already answered it when I interviewed you for the site in July, but I'd like to ask it again because I think it offers a fantastic insight into not only the mind of a particular writer, but into the shared culture of speculative fiction writers: What role do you believe speculative fiction plays in society?

Scott Fitzgerald Gray: I mostly just repeat what people far smarter than me have already said in response to this question, which is that speculative fiction is a literature of unrestricted ideas. SF is a place where literally any question can be asked dramatically—questions of technology, sociology, culture, ethics, morality—with the ramifications and repercussions of those questions generating new questions in the reader. A kind of catalytic cycle of ideas and philosophy, as it were. When I answered the same question on the site in July, I mentioned how the use of “speculative fiction” as opposed to “science fiction” sums up my own personal take on the genre, which at its best is about wrapping the live wires of raw ideas in the protective sheath of narrative so that we can grab onto them without killing ourselves. Speculative fiction is an exchange of raw ideas and unbridled imagination, and shows us how to map those ideas onto the framework of human experience. There's absolutely nothing wrong with analyzing or exposing the big questions of life through philosophy or history or sociology or any other strictly academic pursuit. But in the end, academic analysis can rarely hit us in the heart like speculative fiction can—and it's when we get hit in the heart that we really start to care about things.

MKR: I, too, am drawn to speculative fiction because of it's ability to act as a catalyst for ideas. I believe that if we want our society to continue in a generally positive direction, we need more literature that does this as opposed to the generally meaningless pop fiction that seems to dominate the bestsellers lists. Do you think it is the responsibility of all writers to hit someone "in the heart," as you say? How much room should we allow for those who only want to entertain? In other words, what would be your ideal ratio for meaningful fiction versus entertaining pop fiction?

SFG: I don’t have a problem with people who want to write solely to entertain, or with people whose purpose in reading is just to be entertained. But I think stories that pack a real emotional punch are invariably better stories than those that shoot for mere entertainment—and as writers, I think we should all be obsessed with telling the best possible stories. I don’t view it merely as a social or intellectual obligation. To me, there’s never been a conflict between stories that entertain and stories rich in meaning and ideas, because I think the best stories do both. Whether you’re talking about George R.R. Martin or Frank Herbert, André Norton or Marion Zimmer Bradley, Hemingway or Joseph Conrad, there’s a vast field of popular writers whose works manage to marry exciting narrative and bold ideas, and those are the writers whose creative example I desperately try to follow.

Having said that, though, I’m not sure that there is an optimal ratio, just because the balance really depends on the story. As an example, it’s interesting to think about The Lord of the Rings and the films based on that novel. A book like The Lord of the Rings is necessarily built on the intellectual foundations of its historical backstory. Without that backstory, it’s hard to imagine the book being as amazing as it is. But at the same time, the films were forced to dispense with a lot of that backstory strictly because of time constraints, yet the films still managed to create a story that’s emotionally compelling in its own way.

MKR: I fully agree with you that the best stories contain both elements. However, it is my opinion that (unfortunately) much of what is "popular" is geared almost exclusively for entertainment as opposed to delivering meaningful ideas. As a writer, do you find yourself intentionally trying to insert meaning into your work, or does it happen naturally? Do you give serious thought to elements like themes and motifs?

SFG: Full (and equally unfortunate) agreement. But from my perspective, I think it’s important to say that I don’t think it’s all that much harder to write emotionally compelling, thoughtful, character-driven fiction than it is to write fiction that’s just entertaining. I think some writers might believe otherwise, though, and I think writers are sometimes reluctant to dig deeper into their stories because they’ve gotten used to simply writing on the surface. Delivering meaningful ideas in fiction is really just a matter of wanting to explore those meaningful ideas. As writers, if we have the will to push a story, the story will respond.

As far as analyzing the process by which I cram meaning into my own work, I’m not sure that “intentionally” is as apt a word as “compulsively.” It’s not like I craft a story and then look for places to nail down the thematic elements and the big ideas and the deeper character story. Those elements just kind of come together in the process of digging into the story. Sometimes you start out with an idea or theme that you know you want to explore, whether it be something like emotional loss, the perspective of madness, political allegory, or what have you. But sometimes you just start out with raw plot and the inclination to tell a story that’s exciting and memorable—only to discover that themes and motifs you never expected to focus on have woven themselves into the work and demand that you address them. One of the things I’m very evangelistic about as a writer is outlining, and I think that my own process of outlining has a lot to do with how my stories unfold and expand on different levels. Working on an outline, I feel like I’m working with story at its most primal, and it’s easy to see themes and motifs unfold at that level of raw narrative energy.

MKR: Can you tell me a bit about your most recent work, We Can Be Heroes, and the meaningful ideas you compulsively explore in it?

SFG: LOL, etc. But the new book is actually a pretty good example, because it was a story in which I both started with some specific themes I wanted to explore, then found myself exploring new things in the course of the writing that I hadn’t expected to. Without giving too much away, one of the Big Points in the book is to examine the notion of what it means to be truly alive versus what it means to just go through the motions of life. What is human versus what only appears to be human—which is a concept I hope a lot of people know because it’s a big part of the work of Philip K. Dick, and his books were a huge inspiration for We Can Be Heroes. Not in the sense that I think the book feels in any way like a PKD novel, but because my inspiration for that underlying theme came about as a response to his work, and to parallel questions raised by William Gibson in Neuromancer. But even as I knew from the get-go that those ideas were ones I wanted to explore in the story, I discovered that as the story took shape, I was inspired to dig a lot more into personal themes of isolation, alienation, and love than I had originally intended.

In its earliest outline-level incarnation, the story was more focused on the action/adventure side of things. And though there’s still plenty of that in the book, and though the characters were strong enough in the original concept, the character story got stronger as I reworked the outline and the writing eventually kicked into gear. A couple of the darker plot points and the mechanics of the relationships between the characters were things that came very late to the narrative mix, because I discovered that the more things I threw at the characters, the more resilient they were forced to become and the stronger their story became. There’s a line very near the front of the book (in the chapter that relates the significance of the title) that talks about living in a world in which telling someone you love them is the bravest thing you’ll ever do. That became one of the key meaningful ideas in the book, and was one of the last parts of the book I wrote, and I would never have predicted at the outset that it would have become as important an idea as it did.

MKR: Thank you for your great answers, Scott. Is there anything else you'd like to mention or links you’d  like to share?

SFG: Thanks to you for the questions, and for the chance to prattle on. As far as links to share, I’d be cementing my reputation as the worst self-promoter on earth if I didn't mention my website as a good place to go for more info on my writing and other projects (including an extended free sample of We Can Be Heroes. But for more useful information of benefit to the struggling writer, I’m a big fan of the collective of voices that is the AmWriting blog (to which I’m an occasional contributor), Phil Athans’ Fantasy Writer’s Handbook, David Farland’s Writing Tips, and Chuck Wendig’s TerribleMinds. I don’t think there’s ever been a better time to be a part of the community of writers, and particularly the community of fantasists. Being able to share the experience of, and the ideas underlying, a book like We Can Be Heroes is a huge treat, so thanks.

Speculative Elements in Literary Fiction by Benjamin X. Wretlind

Hello, all! Today I am very pleased and thrilled and excited and... all that good stuff to share with you a guest post by my friend, Benajmin X. Wretlind, a truly masterful writer whose new book, Sketches from the Spanish Mustang, arrives July 1st! I have had the opportunity to pre-read Sketches..., and I can tell you, it is a truly a work of brilliance. If you can't wait that long to get your hands on some Wretlind, I also highly recommend his novel Castles: A Fictional Memoir of a Girl with Scissors, a disturbing glimpse of madness... or is it?

I now turn you over to Ben for his thought-provoking discussion of Speculative Elements in Literary Fiction. This kicks off his blog tour for Sketches from the Spanish Mustang. Keep an eye on his blog so you don't miss out!

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First, I'd like to thank you Michael for allowing me to write all over your blog.  It's a great place to kick of the Sketches from the Spanish Mustang Blog Tour, and it won't be a surprise to your readers to know that you suggested the first topic: Speculative Elements in Literary Fiction.

I'm going to quote a definition from Wikipedia (the parts that are correct) that I've quoted on my blog before and will likely quote again.  What is literary fiction? 

Literary fiction is a term that came into common usage during the early 1960s. The term is principally used to distinguish “serious fiction” which is a work that claims to hold literary merit, in comparison to genre fiction and popular fiction (i.e., paraliterature). In broad terms, literary fiction focuses more upon style, psychological depth, and character. This is in contrast to Mainstream commercial fiction, which focuses more on narrative and plot. Literary fiction may also be characterized as lasting fiction — literature which continues to be read and in-demand many decades and perhaps centuries after the author has died.

When I asked a few people what they thought of when they heard the term "literary fiction," the responses I received ranged from “Vladimir Nabokov” to “classics, Dickens, Bronte” to “old stuff.” But it's a term, according to the above definition, that wasn't in common usage until the 1960s. (I'll assume that before then, all stuff was "old stuff.") On top of age, there's a whole book of articles that could be written debunking the notion that literary fiction is just plotless words jotted down for the sake of being fancy.  I won't do that here, but I will say: it's not true.

Literary fiction, in my view, is more a kaleidoscopic of work that includes elements of romance, thriller, horror, science fiction, mystery, the American Western, etc. It is cross-genre. Within that kaleidoscopic of genres, then, it's only natural for us to find the speculative elements.

Here are a few titles I think we can (mostly) agree fit the definition posed above regarding literary fiction: Metamorphosis, War of the Worlds, A Christmas Carol, Wuthering Heights, Gulliver's Travels, Beowulf. Are there speculative elements in each of these?

As kids, we were fascinated by the supernatural, especially as we investigated the world around us. We've all grown up since, but many of us have never grown out of our desire to know more. It's a part of who we are. Think of the strong beliefs which existed in the time of William Shakespeare.  What of the beliefs that existed in around the time of Nathaniel Hawthorne? Charles Dickens? Do you think, just because we listen to music on iPhones, drive hybrid cars or make our own donuts at home these days, that we no longer believe in the supernatural, the paranormal, the speculative?

In a poll conducted by Gallup in 2010, 71% of Americans confess to having had a paranormal experience of some sort. While only 34% believe in the existence of ghosts, 65% believe Ouija boards are dangerous, 41% believe in extrasensory perception and 37% believe that houses can be haunted.  Let me put that in persepective: if there are roughly 300 million people in the United States, about 213 million people confess to having had a paranormal experience of some sort.

Hmmm...

I don't like polls myself, but what I do find interesting is that people generally want to believe there might be more out there. It's this desire to want more which drives people to look for more in movies, television, books.  How many want to believe in sparkly vampires? How many want to think in some distopian future? How many people really think Harry Potter is real?

Combine those desires of what people want with the cross-genre possibility of literary fiction. What you end up with is "lasting fiction" which is peppered with the speculations of a generation.  For me personally, I wrote speculative elements into Sketches from the Spanish Mustang not as a deus ex machina or because I thought they'd be neat, but because they fit the character's personality as much as the story. A Ute who believes in spirits is not uncommon. An immigrant farmer who was brought up in Mexico to believe his grandparents' tales of nahuales is not far-fetched.

What about the claim in that above definition that literary fiction is "principally used to distinguish 'serious fiction'...in comparison to genre fiction and popular fiction?" Well, let me ask you this: would you consider The Road by Cormac McCarthy to be serious fiction? What about Wicked by Gregory Maguire? State of Wonder by Ann Patchett? 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami? All of these are serious works, and yet they are replete with speculative elements.

Speculation (wondering the big "what if") is as natural for humans as it is to love or hate or laugh or run amok in the water sprinklers on a hot day.  That it finds itself in literary fiction is no surprise.  What is surprising is that so many people shun literary fiction because of the label without knowing what's in it, casting it off as "old stuff" without a modern-day focus.

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SKETCHES FROM THE SPANISH MUSTANG

In Sketches from the Spanish Mustang, a haunting, heart-warming and often brutally direct exploration of the lives of seven people in the mining town of Cripple Creek, Colorado, a woman must come to grips with the failings that cost the lives of her husband and child. Bestselling author Michael K. Rose says: "Mr. Wretlind has penned a tale of such emotional and literary depth it will haunt the reader long after the last page is turned." 

With a pencil, a sketchbook and a keen eye for the details of the soul, the woman's lines and smudges, curves and tone reveal the stories behind her subjects. Life emerges on the page — vengeance, salvation, love and death. The artist's subjects fight for survival, only to be saved in the sketches of a woman with a gift . . . and a curse.

International Book Award winner Gregory G. Allen calls the book a "unique journey that rips away the outer layers of people allowing us to stare into their souls where humanity is universal: no matter the genre of writing."

Sketches from the Spanish Mustang will be available at all major online retailers for $14.95 on July 1st, 2012.  It will also be presented in an electronic format (e.g. Kindle, nook) for $5.95.

BIOGRAPHY

Benjamin X. Wretlind, the author of Castles: A Fictional Memoir of a Girl with Scissors and Sketches from the Spanish Mustang, has been called "a Pulitzer-caliber writer" with "a unique American voice." Aside from novels, he has been published in many magazines throughout the past 10 years.

Being Garrulous (again) with Benjamin X. Wretlind (Part 2)

This is the second part of a conversation between author Benjamin X. Wretlind and myself. Please see Part 1 here.

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MKR: Besides leaving a legacy through your writing, is there anyone you hope to inspire? Is there any message you hope to convey, any ideas you want to put out into the world?

BXW: I think you touched on a sort of running theme when you interviewed me way back when. I like to say people are the sum total of their experience and if we just look at the outside, we'll never really understand them. That often leads to stereotypes, discrimination and even bullying. For example, in each sketch in my novel Sketches from the Spanish Mustang, there is one man who is seen through the eyes of each character.  Most assume he's a crazy nut, a homeless man who talks to himself.  However, there's a very long history to that man--war vet, disabled, wife and child, etc.  Why does he act in a particular way, and why does he appear the same, yet different, in strangers' eyes?

I used to think people were generally bad. There was no good in them, so why bother to understand them. The older I get, however, the more I've started to see each person as that sum total of their history.  If that's the case, if I interact with that person don't I become another summand in their equation?  Shouldn't I want to instill something of value to their present?

I do have a lot to say on this subject, but I'll leave it at that right now.  For your part in writing science fiction, what do you want people to see in your characters? Do you have a central theme you're running off right now?

MKR: When one is a child, it seems that everything and everyone is good and beautiful. Sadly, some children learn too soon that that is not the case, like Maggie, in Castles. I think that as we age the misery in the world overshadows the beauty of it. We may remember a beautiful spring day for a short while, but we'll really remember the tornado that took out ten houses the next block over and swept a family of four into oblivion. A kindness done to us by a fellow human being may linger in our memory for a day, but an act of vicious cruelty can haunt us for a lifetime. I fully understand, then, the inclination to see people as inherently evil, especially considering the influence of Christianity on our culture that very explicitly states that the reason we no longer reside in Paradise is because of our wickedness. And it was this view of humanity as inherently base, as our bodies essentially worthless when weighed against the immortal soul, that led to the terrible conditions of Medieval Europe during which most everyone's life was "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short," to quote Thomas Hobbes. And the worst part was, that was accepted!

In my view, it really took Enlightenment thinking, humanism and deism, to introduce to the Western world the idea that every human life has worth, every human being deserves to live peacefully and free of oppression. Here was an idea that if there is no immortal soul, if this body, this life, is all we have, how can any one of us justify bringing misery to another human being? We still haven't achieved the ideal of the Enlightenment but we are much closer and at least now the goal is there, where before there was only doom and gloom.

I love your view of human interaction. Yes, we each play a part in the lives of everyone else we encounter. Some of these roles may seem trivial but suppose it is something as simple as smiling at a stranger who looks sad? We may have brought a little joy, a little hope, to that person. We must always attempt to give value to one another's lives rather than take value from them. This is the foundation for forming a more-ideal society.

Now, after all that, I will answer your question. I realize I do go on. You asked "...in writing science fiction, what do you want people to see in your characters? Do you have a central theme you're running off right now?" In Sullivan's War, I hope that readers go away asking two very simple questions: what makes a man good? and what makes a man bad? This is touched on in Book I but explored in more depth in Book II. I don't have an answer for that. I am reminded of the difference between morality and ethics: if one is moral in the Christian sense, one does not lie. So, if one were living in Nazi Germany and a Jew ran by followed by the SS who asked which way he went, you would have to tell them the truth to remain moral. But if you are to be ethical, you must lie and send them in the wrong direction. I know situational ethics get a bad rep and I do believe there are universal ethical laws, just as there are universal physical laws. But it's something to think about. To whom do you owe your ethical fealty?

Another idea I explore in Sullivan's War is that of justification. Is it acceptable to do a "bad" thing if it ultimately leads to a greater good? In your stories, it seems your characters engage in an awful lot of justification but of a more personal, selfish kind. This also interests me. We seem to be able to justify an awful lot if it serves our own greater good. Counteracting this is one of the key challenges of society, I think. Is this a theme you have intentionally been exploring in Sketches from the Spanish Mustang?

BXW: I don't know if that internal justification is a subconscious result of turning 40, but Sketches from the Spanish Mustang is filled with it. I'd like to think I've been impervious to middle age, but the more I write, the more I realize I'm probably not. I really enjoy exploring a character's inner child, what makes them who they are. In A DifficultMirror, which I started when I turned 28, actually, the history of a person is forced out in the open and how they deal with whatever mistakes they've made is explored in depth.  That's dark fantasy, however, not reality. In reality, we all have our skeletons, our histories we hide away so no one can see.  However, no matter what we do, we are the sum total of our parts and we can either accept what we've done or try to justify it in some way. 

As I sit here talking about this, I realized that the characters in my upcoming novel Driving the Spike must justify their actions. Are they good, are they bad? Much like you explored in Sullivan'sWar, there is a difference between morality and ethics. Did you start out with that theme before you penned the first word of Sullivan's War or did it come out as you wrote it?

MKR: It evolved. Sullivan's War started as the story about Frank Allen investigating the murder of Assemblyman Gene Palmer. From there it got tied in to Sergeant Riley's Account, then a third story I had written called "Promises," the story of a bounty hunter tracking down a criminal, got incorporated into the beginning of Sullivan's War: Book II. Now, early on I must have decided that Sullivan's War would address these issues of right and wrong because the title All Good Men Serve the Devil was there from nearly the beginning. I actually wrote out a bit of dialogue to incorporate that line before I got to that scene in the book. By the time Book I was finished, however, I felt that it was heavy on action but character development and exploration of theme were a bit lacking. I attempted to correct that with Book II.

My next project, Chrysopteron, started a bit aimlessly but as I wrote the overarching theme began to reveal itself. It was at that point that I wrote an outline to make sure I hit on all the thematic points I wanted to address: hope, loss, faith, sacrifice, right and wrong (again). I ended up shuffling the organization a bit and added another story line but the thematic structure remained intact. I hope readers will pick up on it and appreciate what I am trying to do. Of course, the reader applies additional meaning based on his or her own perceptions. I think the best authors are able to convey their own meaning but be subtle enough about it that the reader happens upon it without explicitly being told. But I guess some readers will completely miss the point, no matter what you do. Do you worry that readers will completely miss the point of your work? Do you care, as long as they pull some meaning from it? Or are you even content for your work to be perceived as just an interesting story, with the reader taking nothing away?

BXW: I really don't worry about what readers get out of my novels, as long as they get something.  There's a meme that's been passed around regarding meaning that you've probably seen.  "What the author meant" vs. "What your English teacher thinks the author meant."  While I can laugh at the simplicity of the author's statement ("The curtains were blue") and the teacher's meaning ("The curtains represent his immense depression and his lack of will to carry on"), I find this meme more telling of what literary snobs think we should get from a novel.  For example, if the New York Times says Castles reeks of abuse and discord, then to me they didn't get it.  Conversely, if the Colorado Springs Gazette says Castles is a view into the growth of a woman through abuse and neglect and carefully questions how environment can affect genetic mutations in the brain, then I think they're pretty close.  Now, what do my readers come away with?  I would hope the literary snobs don't mutate my message, and I hope I write it clear enough that it sinks in with the masses.

I've been very focused on the themes presented in Sketchesfrom the Spanish Mustang. As I mentioned before, it's important to me that I impart the idea that people are the sum total of their days and not just a present manifestation with or without obvious merit.  I do worry the message won't reach the reader, but all I can do is try.

Do you ever worry?

MKR: Do I worry about the message not reaching the reader? I wouldn't say I worry, per se, but I do make a point of writing afterwords for my major works. I do this not so the readers "gets it" but because I want to communicate with the readers on a more personal level. I want them to know what went into creating the story, the inspirations, etc. I think that knowing these things does enrich a text.

I like how the focus of much of your work is trying to make the point that a person is the sum of his or her experiences. It's a profound message, and yet so simple. For example, I am the product of very fortunate circumstances. Because of where and when and to whom I was born, I have been able to cultivate a life of ease and comfort in which I can spend a great deal of my time writing, reading, traveling, focusing on art, philosophy, etc. rather than worrying about where my next meal is going to come from. Reading about the problems that the characters in Sketches from the Spanish Mustang face really reinforces how good my life is, how petty my problems.

Do you think that you are trying to point humanity (or America, at least) in a different direction? Do you want readers to go away thinking that if people are the sum of their experiences, perhaps society as a whole could do something to make some of those experiences more positive? Or is it up to individuals to engage one another and help their fellow human beings along?

BXW: Afterwords are often my favorite part of a book, and I really enjoy reading them.  James Rollins typically puts in a fact or fiction section at the end based on his research.  I know it sounds petty, but that's cool.

I really never thought my writing could point America or the world toward any lofty goal, however I would like to reach at least one person.  It's very important I leave a mark on someone's life, whether or not that's with Sketches from the Spanish Mustang, Castles, the upcoming A Difficult Mirror or the next novel I'll start working on this summer.  That next novel--Driving the Spike--is probably going to be the closet I get to pointing humanity at anything, but I sincerely doubt it'll have the lofty impact I want it to have.

I think there's something to be said about a person who engages another without expectation of reward, and even the smallest attempt to help another can make the biggest impact.  To help without expectation of reward, I truly believe, makes a man (or woman).  Most of us drop money into the Salvation Army bucket during the holiday season, but how many take a full Saturday and sort donations in a food bank warehouse or stand on a serving line at a soup kitchen or walk ten miles for autism research?  These things are small and there is no reward save the feeling you get for helping.  Sadly, there are a lot of people who don't look at life this way; they expect something tangible in return for their effort--getting paid to be a foster parent, getting a t-shirt from a MS walk, showing off some certificate from the two hours they did something for someone.  Helping shouldn't be like that.

I guess I got on my soapbox again. I tend to do that.

Being Garrulous (again) with Benjamin X. Wretlind(Part 1)

For those few of you who read Chewing the Cud in the Myriad Spheres, the previous conversation between Benjamin X. Wretlind and myself, here is another exciting installment! Due to its lack of brevity (which is chiefly my fault) we have decided to break it into two parts. Enjoy!

BXW: So I was reading over your latest blog post, Inventing a Universe, and a thought popped into my head: during the writing of Sketches from the Spanish Mustang I spent a great deal of time getting into the characters' heads, walking the paths they might take, looking at the town through their eyes.  Likewise, with the novel I intend to start this summer, Driving the Spike, I have already started the process by walking some railroad tracks where an accident occurred 108 years ago.   The idea, of course, is to see the world through the eyes of my characters.  However, with Science Fiction, especially with imagined worlds (or parallel universes like you discuss), how do you see the world though your character's eyes?

MKR: What I like to keep in mind is that people are people, whether they lived ten thousand years ago or ten thousand years from now. If I were a Clovis hunter following herds of mammoth across the Great Plains I think that, despite the vastly different way of life, my fellow hunters and I would sit around the campfire at night and shoot the breeze just as I do with my friends today. The technology would be different, our clothes, our language, our way of perceiving the universe would all be different but we would still be human beings. A heart not unlike mine would beat in the breast of my Clovis twin. I would want food, shelter, love, companionship. In the two hundred thousand years our species has wandered this Earth that has not changed and there is no reason to believe it will change in the near future.

Now, I have never taken down a mammoth with a spear. But I can imagine it. As a writer, imagination is key to understanding other people, people who eventually become "characters." Would it help if I could go back in time and see how a hunting party surrounded and felled a mammoth, where they jabbed their spears, how many of them it took? Of course. But I can't, so if I were to write a mammoth-hunting scene my imagination would fill in the blanks that the archaeological record has left behind. So it is with science fiction. When we write about the future we are not writing from a blank slate. We have all of human history to draw on to understand how human beings will react in different situations. For example, we know that we tend to be suspicious and aggressive when encountering intelligent beings not like ourselves (from history, we have the sad lesson of the Europeans' encounter with the indigenous Americans. In my fiction, look at the treatment of the Squamata in Sergeant Riley's Account and Sullivan's War: Book II.) Another example from history that I draw on is the simple fact that people generally want to be free of oppression. The entire Sullivan's War series is about this and how many times throughout history has a power structure has fallen due to the discontent of the oppressed? Here where I live in the Southwest, Hohokam civilization collapsed around 1400 CE and there are Pima legends that indicate that the people rose up against the powerful.

So writing science fiction is simply writing about people. I cannot see alien worlds or travel through hyperspace in a ship but my brain is capable of understanding what they might be like. My imagination can fill in the gaps left after taking the entire shared experience of human culture into account. I see their worlds because their eyes are like mine. I share their hopes and desires because those are common to all human beings across history. And my invented universe is not that different from our own, when you really examine it. There are real-life parallels to many of the things I write about.

Now, what I find interesting is that in Castles you described experiences unfamiliar to you despite the fact that those experiences are real for all too many young women across the country, across the world. For me, that is as remarkable a feat as bringing to life an alien landscape. We've talked about this before, but would you care to talk a bit about Maggie's story?

BXW: As I've mentioned before, I believe Maggie spoke through me in a way that's really hard to describe without coming off sounding--how should I put it?--bat-shit crazy.  The fact I squirrel away information that comes to me via media may have enabled my subconscious to postulate how a woman might view a certain situation more so than a man who is trying to force the character into action.  For example, I had a lot of trouble near the middle of the story related to Maggie's view of abuse at the hand of her boyfriend because that's just not something I'd ever experienced.  Somehow after a few months or years, though--and after dealing with abusive people as a manager--Maggie spoke up.

Getting into a character's head is important to me, and that's one reason I like to interact with their supposed environment if I can, and if I can't, then to spend an inordinate amount of time researching that environment. However, in A Difficult Mirror, a dark fantasy epic novel to be released (hopefully) next winter, I couldn't walk around the environment since it didn't exist.  Not that I couldn't take clues from other stories, but that the environment just didn't exist.  (That's a bit vague, I know, but the novel isn't out yet.)

You brought up something I'm curious about. I've mentioned to you before that I was never a huge fan of science fiction; that distinction fell to my brother. I was the fantasy type, the one who believed in dragons and wizards and spells, oh my!  However, some historic science fiction I've read has held a sort of special place in my heart simply because of the impact on our present.  I am, of course, talking about the work of Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, or Arthur C. Clarke.  Even Philip K. Dick. Their imaginations of technological advances helped pave the way for our present.  Writers like Ray Bradbury or George Orwell, on the other hand, wrote people into the future--much like you describe--and did so without the need to characterize or build up technology that didn't exist.

How do you view technology in your stories? How do you imagine worlds without borders or limitations, and do you hope to one day create something that would inspire some future geneticist or engineer?

MKR: Technology. Well, let me first point out that I am not technologically-minded at all. I am endlessly fascinated by it but if I had to actually try to describe how an intricate piece of software or hardware operated, I'd probably be trying to do it with sticks and a length of string. So, the technology in my stories isn't particularly original. I'll readily admit that. I rely on many tried and true tropes of the genre: hyperspace travel, energy weapons, fold-up tablet computers, three-dimensional displays. Now, since the Sullivan's War story line is supposed to take place about five hundred years in the future, this may seem like pretty low-tech stuff. I actually have a reason for this that will eventually reveal itself as I continue to explore this universe. I will just say that just because a technological advance is made doesn't mean it will be readily accepted.

I suppose I am comfortable with a certain level of technology, a level that has already been explored by many science fiction writers and is accepted and liked by a great many science fiction readers. Again, my own ignorance about technology prevents me from currently writing anything like cyberpunk. I just don't have the background to do it justice. So I really don't see my science fiction as the type that will inspire future engineers. Rather, I see my work as inspiring (if, in fact, it inspires anyone at all) future humanitarians, future philosophers. Remember, science fiction is about exploring how humans respond to fantastical situations as much as it is about inventing and describing cool technology. This is one of the reasons I consider 2001: A Space Odyssey to be my favorite book. Clarke had the scientific knowledge to make the technology one hundred percent plausible but the story is, essentially, about humanity. I mean, it begins with the dawn of consciousness, with the evolution (via external means in his story) of creatures that would one day become human beings! Because of his invented world of the near future, his characters--Dave Bowman in particular--are able to have experiences that no other humans have before experienced. How it affects them is just as fascinating as how future technology, such as the HAL 9000 computer, might work (or not work). How does the realization that an alien intelligence has visited our solar system affect them?

I often think about what would happen if we were to wake up one day and have undeniable proof that we were not alone in the universe. What effect would it have on world religions? I mean, in the 16th century Copernicus developed a heliocentric model of the solar system and while no one with any sense would deny the truth of this model today, there are many who still have a very geocentric, or Earth-centric, view of reality: that we, human beings, are at the center of God's divine plan, that, in fact, we are created in God's image and are his chosen species. Remember, it was only two thousand years ago that not only were humans God's chosen species on the planet, but a very specific group inhabiting the Levant were his chosen race. I speak from a Judeo-Christian perspective, of course, because it is the tradition that has most shaped the Western world. Now, this type of thinking has been used to justify and explain our dominance on this planet. But what if another, intellectually superior species managed to cross the vast distances between star systems and arrive at ours? God wouldn't seem to favor us so strongly then, would he?

I do believe in a creator. To believe in a specific god requires more faith than I have, though. I must trust that the creator, whatever it may be, gave me the ability--via evolution--to observe the world empirically for a reason. We are a species that is meant to question the world around us, not invent angels and devils to which to ascribe the mysteries of the universe. To return to my main point, this is my focus when I write science fiction. I hope to inspire future dreamers, people who will look at our world and see it for what it really is but also see what it can be if we throw off the shackles of tribe, of clan, of race, of nation, even of species. I know that to date my work hasn't explored this as fully as I would like but I am working toward it and my next project, Chrysopteron, will fully explore these ideas.

Read Part 2 here!

My Twitter Manifesto (with Jokes)

or A Public Declaration of Intent Regarding My Use of the Social Networking Site Twitter.

Article I. On Following

To paraphrase Mr. Alfred Doolittle in Pygmalion/My Fair Lady: I'm willing to follow you, I'm wanting to follow you, I'm waiting to follow you. That is, assuming the following criteria are met:

1. You have followed me and continue to follow me. To be blunt, I despise those who go through and follow hundreds of people a day to get follow backs, only to unfollow them the next day and repeat the vile process.
2. You are a real person. I can't tell you how many lonely, attractive women wanting to "chat" or "fuck" have followed me. I should only be so lucky! These immediately get reported for spam and will have no help from me in building a list of schmucks to exploit. I also report for spam any account whose tweets consist of unexplained links to websites with an .ru suffix.
3. You are a real person who posts things relevant to my interests. If you are a writer, I will follow you. Period. Post as many links as you like to your books, your blog posts, etc. These are the things I want to see! However, if you're just trying to shill accounting/home business/advertising services on me, look elsewhere. As no one I've ever known has said, "That dog don't hunt."

Providing you meet the above criteria, I would love to be your Twitter friend. If, for some reason, you are eligible for my Follow but I haven't followed you, let me know! Contrary to what I've written in "The Cult of Michael" Handbook ($29.99 + shipping and handling) I am not perfect. I miss things. Also, believe it or not, Twitter isn't perfect either! I know! Sometimes it decides that I shouldn't be following certain people. I might think otherwise, but it doesn't really want to give me a say in the matter, so there you go.

Article II. On Mentions and Retweets

I love it when people mention me or retweet me. It makes me all tingly inside. So if you do one of these things, do so knowing that I am grateful for your support. I will do my very best to thank you and retweet something of yours in return but it is not always possible. Sometimes, it is just a matter of me not having the time and by the time I do have the time, assuming I haven't lost track of the time, I won't remember the time you took the time to help me out. It happens. Sometimes. So, if you have been sending out a stream of tweets saying how wonderful I am only to be met with cold, disdainful silence, I apologize. I really do try and if you don't hear back from me it means nothing other than I am busy and/or lazy.

Article III. On Self-Promotion

I do a fair bit of self-promotion (get the exciting SciFi/Horror short story Sleep for only 99 cents!) but I try not to be obnoxious about it. I balance tweets about my books with tweets about books by other writers and links to useful blog posts (like this one). So, I am not one of those who will huff and click the unfollow button if you are spreading the good word about your latest masterpiece every five minutes. I have found many wonderful books via such shameless self-aggrandizement. Not that you're doing that. No, I'm sure your book tweets and humble and self-deprecating. But if they aren't, I don't mind! I love supporting Indie authors and if you follow me on Twitter, that's what I'll be doing! Get used to it. Run, jump, shout and scream about your book. I might just join in the revelry with a retweet or two. If such enthusiastic drum-beating about how great my writer friends and I are bothers you, you probably don't want to follow. But if you want to read some great books (like Sullivan's War: Book I) then I'm your man. If you want me to retweet something, let me know! Tweets are sometimes easy to miss, so send me a DM if there's something in particular you want me to share. As I said, I love supporting fellow Indie writers and if I end up reading and liking your book, watch out, because the world is going to hear about it.

Article IV. On Friendship

I have met many people on Twitter that I now consider friends. It is a great forum for self-promotion, sure, but friendship is an even greater thing than that. I am very liberal in who I will consider a friend and if you share some of my interests, there's a good chance I'll consider you one. I love joking with people and chatting about books, science fiction, classical music and nerd stuff in general. Feel free to chat me up any time!

You can Follow me on Twitter by going here:
https://twitter.com/#!/MichaelKRose

I look forward to engaging with you!

Best,
Michael

Classic Science Fiction 04: “The Last Question” by Isaac Asimov

(Note: After writing this I realized that it is less an examination of "The Last Question" than it is an expression of the thoughts and feelings the story inspired in me. But after all, isn't that what fiction is for?)

What is the ultimate fate of humanity? Annihilation. If our descendants are still around in five billion years and even if they somehow manage to escape our solar system when the sun expands to incinerate the Earth, they will eventually die, along with the rest of the universe. Some 100 trillion years from now star formation will cease. The universe will slowly die. Entropy will be irreversible. I doubt we would be recognizable as humans by that point but it wouldn't matter. Everything we had accomplished, all our scientific advances, all the great art and music, the books and poems, would all have been for naught. Even if the universe then collapses back upon itself and gives birth to a new big bang, a new universe, all matter will have been reverted to the molecular state. Nothing that existed before will exist any longer.

Isaac Asimov's "The Last Question" chronicles several generations of humans and their descendants pondering the question of how the entropy of the universe can be decreased. They address this question to various incarnations of supercomputers and the answer is always the same: "INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR MEANINGFUL ANSWER." I will not reveal the ending in case you haven't read it (you can read it here) but the asking of the question, not the ultimate answer, is what fascinates me most about this story.

Everything humankind has accomplished will eventually be destroyed. No matter what happens to the universe, every trace of us will ultimately vanish. What does this mean? How does one process this information?

I suppose most people just end up ignoring it. They may read about entropy, etc., may briefly realize what this means, then slip comfortably back into their lives. Perhaps this is the most logical response. After all, what can you do about it? Nothing. Why let if affect you?

But I do not believe this is the correct response. What we should do is realize that no matter what happens in the future, we have today. We have the people around us that we love and care about, we have the ability to make today better not just for ourselves but for others. When you look at life on the scale of the entire history of the universe, isn't it a bit mind-boggling that of all the possible outcomes, your life is one of them? Doesn't it give you pause to think that the chain of events that led to your existence goes back nearly fourteen billion years in an unbroken line?

As Carl Sagan said, "[s]ome part of our being knows this is where we came from. We long to return. And we can. Because the cosmos is also within us. We're made of star-stuff. We are a way for the cosmos to know itself."

What do we take away from this? How should we live our lives, knowing this? I've written before about wishing to leave a literary legacy. I've expressed the hope that my work is read a hundred years from now or more. It is an egotistical wish, to be sure. But I think about legacy in more ways than one. If there is some message I can impart to future readers, if one of them reads my work and goes away thinking about notions of right and wrong, thinking about what could be done to make our little corner of the universe more just, more peaceful, then my legacy will have been secured. But I need not write a single word to accomplish this. If I can have a positive influence on the lives of the people I know, if I can live by example and show them that a life of joy and contentment can be had without exploiting or hurting others--that, in fact, the joy is more pure than if I had gained it on the backs of others--I will have left a legacy. If they, in turn, try to live their lives according to the same ideals, they can leave a legacy when they are gone.

The future illuminates the present. What can happen tomorrow tells us very clearly and without hesitation what we must do today. If tomorrow we may die, then today we must live. If tomorrow a child will go hungry, then today we must arrange to feed her. If tomorrow a war may begin, then today we must ensure peace. These are not difficult things to grasp. We have the means to largely rid the world of misery. Why haven't we? Is it the nihilistic strain within humanity that says that ultimately it won't matter? No. It is the selfishness that says whatever I give to them, I cannot have for myself. Well, that ultimately won't matter either. But if you can bring a little joy, a little happiness to someone's life, if you can remove a little misery from the world, that does matter. That will have an effect here and now. And if enough of us do it, it can have an effect until the universe comes to an end.

Perhaps we shouldn't ask "how can entropy be decreased?" but rather "how can joy be increased?" And let it not be the last question, but the first. Humanity's joy is my joy, humanity's accomplishments are my accomplishments. What benefits the planet benefits me in a very nontrivial way. Maybe that is what I am after when I speak of legacy. I want a way for my life to have not been trivial. To do this, I write. But I also live my life as well and as ethically as I can. I suppose that even if I don't leave behind a literary legacy, this will have been enough. This will have made a difference and my life, in that unbroken chain leading from the beginning of the universe to its end, will have been a link worthy of that legacy.

What Science Means to Me

I am a science fiction writer. I write in other genres, but science fiction is my first love. I love the possibilities, I love, as I said in a recent interview, asking and answering the "what ifs?" But this is the fiction part. Let's examine the science part for a moment.

It is an ironic fact that science makes science fiction more difficult. The pulp science fiction stories of the '30s did not have to adhere to the truths of the universe because those truths were not known. Rocketry was in its infancy, there was still very serious speculation about life--nay, civilizations--on Mars and Venus and the relationship between time and space that Einstein had proposed was not fully--or even partially--understood outside of the offices and laboratories of physicists.

So we had rockets taking off then landing vertically on Mars or Venus and encountering bizarre alien creatures. We had ships travelling to distant stars via standard propulsion and returning a mere months or years later.

But as science progressed, as we learned that Mars was a cold and barren landscape with little liquid water, as we learned that the atmosphere of Venus was poisonous and oppressive, as aeronautics advanced and the vast distances between the stars became insurmountable with any technology the mind of man could then dream of, those stories came to seem... ridiculous. Especially reading from our 21st century perspective, those stories are not just implausible but laughably so.

But those stories laid the groundwork for something wonderful. Future thinkers read them and let their imaginations run rampant. Some of them went on to become the physicists who showed the implausibilty of those stories. I think that for many, science fiction opened up the world of science. I recall a television program that interviewed several scientists and engineers who were directly inspired by Star Trek. Science fiction, even in its infancy, was mind-expanding stuff!

And so it was--it is--for me. But here I must make a confession: while I am endlessly fascinated by science, while I would say I know more than the average American about the evolution of the universe, much of it I find completely baffling. I simply cannot comprehend how a human mind was able to come up with relativity or string theory just by observing the universe and conducting thought experiments. I cannot do it. I am not a genius. I received my degree in anthropology, a safe, secure discipline. There are many questions still to be answered, of course, but it is much easier to get a grasp on human civilization and culture than it is the formation of the cosmos.

And here's another confession: the science in my science fiction is not "hard" by any means. I rely on tried and true tropes such as hyperspace travel. However, I think I did come up with an interesting way to explain how hyperspace travel works and if you've read Sullivan's War: Book II you can let me know what you think of it.

But despite this, despite my vast lack of understanding and my reluctance to use science rigorously in my fiction, science still means a great deal to me. It means that as a species we are beginning to get a grasp on the true origins of the universe. The physical laws that we observe are a part of the creation and if one believes in a creator, as I do, then those laws can be seen as a kind of guidepost toward the truth. Those laws have repeatedly struck down the fears and superstitions of less-enlightened ages. Science, and the knowledge that we receive through it, is a gift.

For example, an intellectually honest person cannot rigorously study biology, geology, astronomy, anthropology, archaeology, primatology, paleontology, linguistics, physics, history, mythology, genetics, medicine or theology and still believe in creationism, that the Earth, and by extension the universe, simply came into being fully-formed, or very near it. One may still believe in a creator, that there was some impetus for the creation of matter, but all of the ancient creation myths--and the modern ones--must be cast aside through the use of the greatest gift given to humanity, be that gift from a creator or otherwise. They must be cast aside by the gift of knowledge.

Through science, the truth is illuminated. Through science, ignorance can be left in the past if we so choose. Through science, we can make the world a better place for our descendants and leave a legacy of striving to understand the marvelous universe that surrounds us.

What does science mean to you? I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments section below.

Inventing a Universe

"If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch,

you must first invent the universe." - Carl Sagan

Let me begin with a confession: I believe in parallel universes. I believe that any possible universe that can exist, does exist. There are people much smarter than I am who could tell you all about string theory and probabilities and lots of other stuff that it requires a degree in physics to pretend to fully understand, so I won't get into that. I will only say that I have no proof for this belief. There is nothing supporting it besides faith. Just as I have faith that there is a creator, I have faith that there are parallel you's, parallel me's.

As a writer I am completely astounded by the fact that everything I write, everything that I put down on the page, has or is or will happen to someone in one of these universes. The Myriad Spheres universe in which the Sullivan's War story line takes place is really out there (or over there, as the case may be). When I write, do I somehow subconsciously tap into this reality? Probably not, but it's an idea that I fancy.

So when I find myself writing about this universe, I feel like I owe something to the people in it to get it right. And this is where another confession comes in: I didn't get it right.

The very first story I wrote in this Myriad Spheres universe is a short story called Sleep. All the elements were there that would eventually lead to this fully-realized universe, encompassing forty-six inhabited planets, most of them governed by an interplanetary body called the Stellar Assembly. This idea of thousands of freighters traversing the cosmos via hyperspace was also there. But I didn't quite know why all these freighters would be, for the most part, privately owned. In fact, the justification for this system wouldn't come until much later, in Sullivan's War: Book I - All Good Men Serve the Devil:

     The interstellar passenger ships were among the largest of the space-faring vessels. There were, of course, larger cargo vessels operated by a few corporations but most freight was transported by smaller ships. Due to the vast distances and long travel times between markets a system of small-fleet operations, or even individually-owned cargo ships, had developed. A corporation, no matter how organized, simply couldn’t keep track of its ships and cargo on such a large scale, especially when news of any problems or delays took months to reach headquarters.
     Passenger operations were a little different. Flights didn’t have to be arranged on short notice to fulfill the varying demands of the interstellar marketplace. The passenger flights were scheduled years in advance. Every Monday a flight left Earth for Faris, every Tuesday for Oceanus and so on. And with an estimated sixty billion people spread out across forty-six inhabited worlds, there was never any shortage of passengers.
     Often, those who needed to make last-minute plans would have to book passage on the much more frequent and flexible freighters.

Now, this is something that worked to my advantage when it came time to write Sullivan's War. Rick Sullivan needed a way to get from planet to planet under the radar and he could do this on freighters but not on passenger ships. But this has nothing to do with my mistake. In fact, in Sleep there are two.

First, I list the travel time between Silvanus and Faris as thirty days aboard the Ares, which I mention is an older ship and isn't moving as fast as newer vessels. When I finally sat down and plotted out all the distances using tokens and a tape measure (writing science fiction is sophisticated work!) I discovered that it would have to be one month and twenty-seven days for all the other travel times in Sullivan's War to make sense. Oops! I highly doubt that any reader would ever realize this (or care) but it made me realize that it is very difficult to invent a universe, even if it is already out there, fully formed, just waiting for my psyche to tap into it.

The second mistake I made has to do with the planet Faris itself. In Sleep, the main character Jane searches the Freight Transporters' Database and finds out that Faris allows for orbital disposal of waste. If you've read Book II of Sullivan's War you'll know that the Farisians are highly protective of their planets' environment and probably wouldn't cotton to this sort of thing. Oops!

I know that as I continue with the Rick Sullivan novels and write other stories in this universe (I have half a dozen ideas to develop) I will make more mistakes. But you should know that I really am trying to get it right. I am trying to keep the details of this universe consistent, I am trying to create a believable world, given a few not-outrageous suspensions of disbelief. And I think that readers are responding to this. I have had several nice reviews commenting that they enjoyed the political nuances that are at play throughout the Sullivan's War series and that the universe seems plausible and authentic. I am trying to make this universe as real as possible, and that includes creating a full history that takes into account politics, technology, the biology, geology and environments of various planets, inter-planetary conflict and more than a few remarkable individuals like Rick Sullivan who are destined to have a greater impact on history than most other people.

I take great pride in inventing this universe and if you have read Sleep or the Sullivan's War series, I want to tell you a secret: there are many elements within each story that, if you like my writing and continue with it, you will see come into play in future stories. It is my hope that each story I release will contain a small nugget of information that savvy readers will pick up on and remember when they read the next book. Just to reveal a couple, the hyperspace entities that are introduced in Sullivan's War: Book II will play a very big role in Rick Sullivan's future adventures. And the Squamata, the species native to Edaline that were introduced in the Prologue to Sullivan's War, Sergeant Riley's Account, will make an appearance in Sullivan's War: Book III.

If you haven't read any of my work but do decide to pick up one of my books, I hope this information will enrich your reading experience and bring the Myriad Spheres universe alive for you. It is very much alive for me and despite the unsavory elements that inhabit some planets (and the Stellar Assembly) I think it's a place full of wonder and excitement. If you would like a glimpse of it, please see the links below.

Best,
Michael K. Rose

Related Links:

Sullivan's War: Prologue - Sergeant Riley's Account
Sullivan's War: Book I - All Good Men Serve the Devil
Sullivan's War: Book II - A City without Walls
Sleep - A Science Fiction/Psychological Horror Short Story

Chewing the Cud in the Myriad Spheres

The following is an e-mail conversation between Benjamin X. Wretlind and myself between March 6th and March 14th. Both Ben and I thought it would be interesting for readers to see how a couple of Indie writers look at the world. We tried to talk mostly about writing but, of course, it quickly got sidetracked into the meaning of life, what makes for good art and Justin Bieber.

MKR: Ben, we’ve both written about the topic of “legacy.” In your case, you have stated that the reason you write is to leave a legacy (link). I wrote that I believe writers–at least this writer–have an obligation to leave something of value to society, something that enriches our culture rather than cheapens it (link). Do you have any further thoughts on this?

BXW: I’ve been thinking about this a lot, lately, although I don’t like to admit it’s because I’m almost 40 and I’m falling victim to that whole “mid-life crisis” thing. I actually spent a good amount of time in the early ‘90s studying philosophy and various religious texts to see if I could come up with an answer to the question that was on my mind: not what the meaning of life is but if it’s a reasonable goal to expect to leave something of value for future generations and if so, what defines value.

I read your blog article on the topic of whether or not a writer has a responsibility to leave a legacy behind, and I thought it amusing that a snippet of Star Trek IV popped into my head after one of your statements. If I may quote your blog:

“Good art has staying power. A work of art may take the nation by storm for a summer–think of films or pop songs or mass market thrillers–but who will remember it a year from now? A generation from now? In two hundred years the works of Mozart, Beethoven, Mahler, will still be performed. Adele? Probably not. MC Hammer? Certainly not…Great art has to transcend those boundaries and be as meaningful for a person a hundred years from now and a continent away as it is for those who were around when it was created.”

And now the Star Trek IV banter between Kirk and Spock:

Kirk: You mean the profanity? That’s simply the way they talk here. Nobody pays attention to you unless you swear every other word. You’ll find it in all the literature of the period.
Spock: For example?
Kirk: Oh the neglected works of Jacqueline Susan. The novels of Harold Robbins…
Spock: Ah, the “Giants.”

While amusing, the conversation sort of “fine tunes” your statement that great art must be as relevant centuries from now as it is now. Does this mean that we must–and I stress must–create art that lasts the test of time? Should that be our goal and a good part of the legacy we leave behind? Or should we focus more on art in the now–write that which is fits into whatever Jell-O mold that’s currently in vogue?
Personally, I say screw the Jell-O and write what you want, hoping Spock reads it years from now.

MKR: On that same topic as that Star Trek quote, I personally feel that Catcher in the Rye hasn’t aged well at all. I feel like it’s one of those novels that got onto the high school reading lists because it was about a teen-aged kid and teachers have clung to it ever since based on that alone. Mainly, I think Holden Caulfield’s attitude/personality is not reflective of “the Universal teen,” so to speak. He came out of a very specific Jell-O mold that doesn't play in the 21st century. His particular brand of “angst” just doesn’t seem authentic.

As to whether or not we must leave something that will last the test of time, I think we must at least strive to do it. Ultimately, it’s not up to us. But if we only write books that are in the currently popular mold, it’ll be like disco: rarely spoken of and, when it is, much maligned.

Tell me, when you were studying philosophy and religion did you find the answer you were looking for? It’s actually funny that you mentioned that because yesterday I wrote a blog post about politics and religion in fiction (link). I’ll probably post it sometime today. And while we’re on it, do you feel there is one specific “meaning of life?”

BXW: I think there is only one meaning, but it’s different for every person. For me, the meaning of life, the universe and everything is 42. Or was that the answer?

No, I didn’t find what I was looking for in those religious and philosophical texts, and although this sounds like a U2 song, I still haven’t found what I was looking for. I think, like you said, it’s reasonable to strive to leave a legacy–and for those who have the gift of storytelling, perhaps leaving a legacy might even be considered a responsibility. However, there are those who want to leave their mark and, believe me, the mark they leave doesn’t have the impact they hoped it would.

I’ve been tossing around a blog post on literary fiction, what defines it and how it can be marketed well. Not that I have any idea how to market anything (see here), but it’s been an interesting research topic. Part of the Wikipedia article on literary fiction (link) contains an interesting line, especially in light of our conversation here. “Literary fiction may also be characterized as lasting fiction–literature which continues to be read and in-demand many decades and perhaps centuries after the author has died.”
Interesting….

MKR: You say the meaning of life will be different for every person. But wouldn’t you say that there are some things that definitely aren’t the meaning of life? For example, can desiring to die a millionaire be a valid meaning? True, if one has children that will leave them in good shape financially but what if one neglected his children during life to amass that fortune? I guess my point is I reject the idea that anything can be meaningful–truly meaningful. What if someone sees it as their life’s goal to build the ultimate Justin Bieber fan site? That may be the meaning of that individual’s life but is it valid and valuable to society as a whole? This also gets back to my art vs. great art discussion. I am very liberal in what I will call art. If fact, the only criterion I have is that it must have been intentionally created as art. Now, it may be created to serve other purposes as well–religious or architectural, for example–but there is still an artistic desire in the heart of its creator. But just because I will call something art does not mean it is great art.

So, I think the meaning of one’s life–whatever it may be–must have meaning to society as a whole. And for that meaning to be great it must endure, as we’ve talked about. In a hundred years Justin Bieber will be dead and his music will be largely forgotten. If that fan site exists at all it will be rarely visited. What will that person’s life work have amounted to?

How many millions of lives have been spent worrying about ultimately inconsequential things? How many billions of days were wasted on idle frivolity? It’s kind of a depressing thought but the overwhelming majority of humanity is destined to be forgotten. Once we are dead and everyone who knew us personally is dead we will be nothing more than unvisited gravestones, ghosts in photographs and meaningless names. I think that the meaning of life–my life–is to avoid this fate. I probably won’t have children so I won’t leave a genetic legacy but I hope that I can leave a lasting literary legacy. Which is why I like that definition that you provided for “literary fiction.” It is exactly what I hope to accomplish.

If one considers one’s own life, it can be largely broken up into three pursuits, each occupying about a third of our life. The first third is occupied by work, the second third by sleep and the last third by everything else. It is in that last third–unless one is fortunate enough to have a job that allows one to work toward one’s legacy–that one must accomplish all of this. Eight hours a day–perhaps six or even five, when one takes out time spent preparing for work or bed, commuting, taking care of the necessities of life–are left to us to achieve our dreams. It is ironic that such little time is given to us to work toward immortality. Even eternity has an expiration date.

BXW: Sorry for the delay in responding. I got stuck on the Justin Bieber fan site.
You say that eternity has an expiration date. Can you elaborate on that a bit?

MKR: Simply that if we want to be remembered for eternity we have a very short time in which to accomplish that. As a self-professed idler, I am guilty of this myself, but how much time do we spend watching television, surfing Justin Bieber fan sites, oversleeping, playing video games, etc., when we could be working toward immortality? Of course, there are things we have to do and things we do because they bring us pleasure; this is understandable. Human interaction is important, maintaining good mental health is important, having some form of release is important. But I think that the vast majority of us here in the Western world (I won’t pretend to presume what the lives of those in developing countries are like) seem to spend an inordinate amount of time on frivolities. What are your thoughts on it?

BXW: We do spend a lot of our time on frivolities, but perhaps some of life should be spent that way. In my own world, I write early in the morning before anyone is awake. In the free time I have after the day job, I usually paint, read or sing poor karaoke tunes with the significant other. I think it’s necessary for a writer who has the ultimate goal of immortality via art, to work at it as much as possible. However, as James Howell told us in 1659: “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.”

Of course the addition to that proverb as written in 1825 by Maria Edgeworth warns us that “All play and no work makes Jack a mere toy.”

I guess, in that respect, life must be balanced appropriately with the pursuit of immortality.

MKR: You are, of course, correct. As writers we place upon our shoulders the task of revealing the world, revealing life, in a unique way. To do this we must, of course, live life! A writer who attempts to separate himself from the world so that he might work at his art is doing himself a great disservice. I think that the important thing is to spend a good portion of your time doing things of value, things that will strengthen your craft as a writer or improve and enrich your life–or the lives of others–in some way.

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Benjamin X. Wretlind is the author of the literary horror novel Castles: A Fictional Memoir of a Girl with Scissors as well as the ongoing Sketches from the Spanish Mustang.

If you've enjoyed our conversation, feel free to add to it in the comments section below! Look for to a continuation of our ramblings over the next month or so!

Links:

Benjamin X. Wretlind's Blog

Benjamin X. Wretlind's Amazon Author Page 

Michael K. Rose's Amazon Author Page

A Conversation with Benjamin X. Wretlind - An interview I conducted in January

Chewing the Cud with Author Michael K. Rose - An interview Ben conducted in February