21 Feb 2023

The Ponce Chronicles, Winter 2023—Part 1

posted in: personal news, Ponce Chronicles, Puerto Rico | 0

Here in Ponce, Puerto Rico, folks have been busy for a while. Allysen and Jayce came down in late January, and Allysen’s brother and a friend joined them, and a little later, their wives. I stayed in Boston with McDuff for that part. When I came down on February 14, everyone except Allysen had gone home, and I caught the baton in midair. Lots to do! (In case you missed the previous installments, this is work on the house that Allysen’s parents built in the 1970s and ultimately retired to.) If you look really closely at the picture above, you can see Allysen in the living room, working away at her job. And here she is, having just heard some horses go by on the hill above.

Some important stuff was already done. Andrew and his friend Paul replaced the two skylights that had blown off in Hurricane Fiona, and the bent gate was fixed, and Allysen and Jayce between them scraped and painted the stairs down from the parking pad. All of which was work I was delighted to miss! Because of my pulmonary fibrosis (can you hear the O2 machine puffing in the background?), I am officially off the “strenuous and hazardous” work details, meaning no heaving lifting, sawing, painting, etc. Nothing with dust or chemicals in the air.

That’s left me with a bunch of smaller jobs, like drilling into concrete to reattach a door to the tool shed (masked!), figuring out how to cover up a counter gap left from the earthquake a couple of years ago, figuring out how to put mosquito screen over various odd-shaped openings around the skylights where you have to attach to concrete, figuring out how to replace the broken cover over the pool pump equipment. But no deck building! No, no, no, not this year, and not any year ever again. Oh, and figuring out where and how to store the backup generators that somehow got stashed in a really inappropriate place.

Part of “figuring out” things is figuring out how to buy what you need. There’s Home Depot and Costco, of course, but they don’t have a lot of what we need. Take storage for the generators. The obvious solution is a small shed, and we even agreed on where one could go. But the two stores I just mentioned don’t have the right size. Amazon, of course, has everything, including exactly what we need. But most Amazon merchants won’t ship to Puerto Rico. Why? I don’t know. I’ve probably complained about this before, so I will spare you the rant.

Still, we’re making progress. We have vowed to spend some quality time on this trip actually enjoying the island where Allysen spent several years growing up, and we even have plans of where we want to go.

I am reserving more time to myself, to work on the book. So far, though, I have not found my way through the quicksand that has impeded my progress with the story. (If you are tempted to ping me and ask, “When is the next book going to be done?” please don’t. When I have something to report on that, I will report it.)

Meanwhile, I have seen only one (!) stray cat and no dogs, and that makes me a little sad. But we do have the occasional hummingbird, and a very sweet horse that wanders into the yard just below us, and that always brightens our day. And the trinitaria behind the house are beautiful!

 

9 Feb 2023

On Characterization, and Other Excerpts from Odyssey Workshops

posted in: interviews, Odyssey, writing | 0

Odyssey Workshops Logo

Odyssey Writing Workshop is a long-running, intensive, hands-on training camp for folks just learning to be science fiction and fantasy writers—one of the most demanding and most rewarding in the business. On a couple of occasions in the past, I have been privileged to be a guest speaker at Odyssey, and on one of those occasions, I spoke on the subject of creating believable and interesting characters. I don’t really remember what I said, but I must have hit something right, because the folks at Odyssey have just put up an excerpt as the latest in their podcast series featuring guest authors.

You can listen to it right here, or here. It’s also on iTunes, I’m told.

Better still, especially if you’re interested in the craft of writing, browse the whole Odyssey Podcast home page for the many fascinating topics, by a whole host of authors. Some of them also talk about characterization. In fact, I just found one such by my friend Craig Shaw Gardner.

Lots of good advice to be found there.

5 Feb 2023

Lost Carver Masterwork Discovered!

posted in: early writings, my books, personal news | 4

Title: The Mysterious Midnight Ride. Completion date: circa 1961. Age of the author: ~12. Circumstances of discovery: cleaning office.

Mysterious Midnight Ride, cover illustration

Here it is, folks. You’ve been clamoring for the archivists to uncover this work (seriously, a few of you have), and now it’s before you. My first story set to paper, when I was in 6th grade. My co-conspirator in this was my childhood best friend, Mike, now better known as classical music composer R. Michael Daugherty. I say co-conspirator rather than coauthor, because while we devised the story together, we each wrote our own version. I wonder if his has survived. I seem to recall that he wrote in the first person; mine is in third person. That’s about all I remember about it.

Herewith, I present you with The Mysterious Midnight Ride, complete and unexpurgated!

4 Feb 2023

Plot Devices (…vices…vices)

posted in: movies, storytelling, writing | 4

Is there an echo in here? I wonder how many stories have used this device:

Any reader of The Hobbit remembers this. In their quest for the Arkenstone, the dwarves and one hobbit make use of the prediction that on Durin’s Day, the last light of the setting sun will shine directly upon a keyhole enabling entry to a secret passage into the mountain.

In The Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones makes use of ancient instructions to find the location of the Well of Souls, where the Ark is kept hidden. The light of the rising sun, passing through the headpiece of the properly positioned Staff of Ra, shines directly onto the location of the Well of Souls in the fabled Map Room.

In the 1959 movie Journey to the Center of the Earth (which I started watching while feeling under the weather today), the location of the passage leading into the Earth is revealed when the sun shines through an opening in a nearby peak, directly onto the mouth of the passage. (In the Verne original, I believe, the mechanism is similar, but less cinematic.)

Reuse of plot devices is a time-honored tradition among storytellers, of course. How many other stories have used this device? If you can think of examples, list them here in the comments!

31 Jan 2023

From the Galactic Archives: Revisiting an Old Friend

posted in: archives, Battlestar Galactica | 1

I’ve been home alone with McDuff, the canine nugget, for the last week. (Wife and daughter headed to Puerto Rico to work on the house. More Ponce Chronicles to follow, soon.) I gave myself a few days to crash, after they left. I decided to rewatch Battlestar Galactica: The Miniseries and travel in time back to the days of writing the novelization. It was fun!

It reminded me that I never got around to posting on my website the essay I wrote for the compendium about BSG, Somewhere Beyond the Heavens. Well, there’s no time like the present!

Here’s how it starts out. Click at the end to read the whole thing.

Writing the 2003 BSG Miniseries Novelization

 

“So, Jeff, how would you like to write the novelization for Battlestar Galactica?”

That was what my Tor Books editor, Jim Frenkel, asked me, out of the blue, one day in 2005. Until that moment, the thought of writing anything related to Galactica had never crossed my mind.

As it happened, this was the day after I had finished writing the long overdue first draft of my novel Sunborn, a challenging project that had nearly done me in. I had let out an enormous sigh of relief at completing the rough draft. When Jim called me that next day, I assumed it was to find out how things were going with the new book. Instead, he asked if I had seen the new Battlestar Galactica on the Sci-Fi Channel, and if I liked it.

“Well, yes,” I said. And, “Sure, talk to me about it. But you’re aware, right, that I have this unfinished book to finish? That you’re waiting for? I just wrapped up the first draft, by the way.”

“Perfect!” he said. “You need a break. You should do something different for a while, and this is right up your alley. I’m editing the Galactica tie-in books, and I think you’re just the writer to novelize the miniseries. Also, it will be fast. Can you write it in two months?”

“Uhhhh…” My mind raced. I am a notoriously slow writer. Most books take me years to complete. Could I even type a book in two months? I wasn’t sure. I had never written a novelization before; I was used to writing my own stuff. “Can you give me three?” I asked.

I did not start out as a fan of Battlestar Galactica….[more]

18 Jan 2023

Reunited!

posted in: adventures, computers, personal news | 1

My laptop and my Android tablet, left behind over a month ago at the LAX security checkpoint, have come home! Welcome, you prodigal devices! Let us feast and celebrate. You will always have a home here.

Kudos to the LAX Lost and Found department, the L.A. Airport Police who actually do the work to reunite 5-7000 items with their owners every month, and the shipping company that handles mailing the items home. Eridani and Tabula Nova were very well packaged and sent out promptly after I paid the quite reasonable $35 for Priority Mail. Hey, kudos to the USPS, as well!

Thank you, thank you, thank you, all.

 

14 Jan 2023

Revenge of the Squirrels?

posted in: personal news, quirky, Star Trek | 0

I can’t prove it’s the squirrels. But the lights in the tree in front of our house mysteriously stopped working last week. I say mysteriously, because they all went out at once. Sure, you say, the power went off, or a fuse blew, or a wire broke. Maybe. But the power is not out. I isolated the first string from the bottom, and it no longer works. But even with it cut out, neither do the rest of the lights. I isolated the second string from the bottom, and it no longer works. But neither do the rest of the lights. Whaat? At that point I got cold and stopped trying. I laid out a little circle of (different) lights on the ground under the tree, just to have something.

I cannot prove this was the work of squirrels. But they have the means, and the motive. (Sharp teeth, and we forcibly evicted their people from the property last year.) Coincidence?

As Kahn said to Kirk, “Revenge is a dish best served cold.” I think the squirrels have been watching too much Star Trek.

3 Jan 2023

Out with 2022, in with 2023

posted in: year end wrap-up | 1

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Happy Tenth Day of Christmas! Happy New Year!

Here at the Star Rigger Ranch, we celebrated Christmas with family and good friends and good food, and celebrated the new year by completely failing to notice midnight come and go. The homemade eggnog tasted good, though, and we finished Season 3 of Jack Ryan, which give or take a few wobbles in the final episode was amazingly good throughout.

I am very happy to say good riddance to 2022, and I hope the screen door hit it in the ass on its way out. Welcome 2023! Try to do better, please.

2022

Marked at the beginning by some significant challenges for some family members. (Weathered and largely overcome, thank God.) Colored throughout by continued creative block for the guy trying to finish his book series. (To the point that I have sought out professional help in rooting out the cause of the block.) Brought low by the dreadful news from the Ukraine, under assault by the murderous Putin. Smacked upside the head by my diagnosis of pulmonary fibrosis, which continues to affect our lives on a daily basis. (I will write more about this another time, but suffice it for now that I seem pretty stable since bringing supplemental oxygen into my life back in August.) We lost Captain Jack, our border collie mix, gone from our lives since October. I do miss him. And on a more minor but certainly aggravating note, I am still awaiting the return of my laptop and tablet, lost at LAX in December, identified in lost-and-found inventory, and claimed, but not yet acknowledged.

On the plus side, there were some good things to remember. A great family reunion in June. A couple of wonderful trips to Tanglewood during the summer. A memorable family Thanksgiving. A trip to L.A. that gave us quality time with both family and friends whom we had not seen in too long. A low-key but very enjoyable Christmas season, as noted above. Also, I got new print editions finished and released into the wild of four of my earlier books. Yay. There are probably other things I’m forgetting.

2023

What will you bring us, 2023? New hope and new treatments for this disease that’s trying to kill me? (Not if I get you first, little frakker. We have not yet begun to fight.) Peace for Ukraine? Politically in the U.S., who knows? Another dysfunctional Congress? Or will the people who actually care about the good of the country find a way to some kind of common ground? There are hopeful signs, at least on the state level.

Did I mention that we are planning to move, later this year? Yep. Twelve feet, straight down. We are planning to trade apartments in our two-family house with daughter and her husband. We’ll be closer to the ground (not so many stairs), but will have a lot less room. This is a serious challenge! We are already working on the process of downsizing: culling the books and media, getting rid of years of accumulated sediment, as well as distributing ancestral belongings to other members of (Allysen’s) family. I have begun the painful but necessary task of seriously pruning my SF library. Man, that hurts. But it needs to be done. For the move, but also so that we don’t saddle our children with as much stuff to sort through and dispose of as we are having to deal with from the generations before us. It promises to be a long slog. Target date, end of June. Updates to come.

Happy New Year, everyone! What are your hopes for the coming year?

Captain Jack finding strength at the end for a last look around his territory.

 

14 Dec 2022

Star Rigger Autographed Set

posted in: autographed books, Etsy, my Etsy shop, Online book sales, print editions, Star Rigger Universe | 0

In keeping with the spirit of giving great gifts to the ones you love*, I’ve just added a new item to my Etsy store: a complete autographed set of all six books in the Star Rigger Universe, in snazzy new trade paperback editions from my imprint Starstream Publications! Need I say, this would be a terrific gift for the holidays for anyone who loves science fiction in handsome paper editions. Also, I would love to sell some of them. (Seriously, though, I do enjoy the contact with appreciative readers when they ask for autographed copies. The income is definitely secondary in the autographed book business. )

Here’s what’s in the set:

Panglor
Dragons in the Stars
Dragon Rigger
Star Rigger’s Way
Eternity’s End
Seas of Ernathe

That listing is in the order of the internal chronology of the stories in the Star Rigger universe— quite different from the order in which I wrote them. In fact, the last shall be first, if you look at them in order of composition. Seas of Ernathe was my first novel, and Star Rigger’s Way my second.

If you already have all the Star Rigger books you want, there are lots of other choices in my store, with more being added daily (depending on how you define daily). Chaos and more!

*This works even if the one you love is yourself!

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