[EDIT: the social media platform upon which I usually conduct my spamming is throttling pages that refer to controversial things like "vaccines" so I shall compensate by spamming this blog ad in more places than I typically do.]
I lost my mind while writing this; it shows. Since the antiliteracy branch of the conservative fringe has decided to do battle with the whole concept of “books for kids” I’ve moved from YA to adult fiction, mainly by shoveling a few layers of gratuitous sex and violence over my regular style. Usually I do a lot of overthinking with regard to the plot, but this time I went seat-of-my-pants with a portal fantasy overlapping with a search for a missing goddaughter, and a crew of villainous book banning types to reap some retribution.
While I was writing it, my very own missing goddaughter surfaced. I hadn’t seen her for a couple decades, following a disagreement with her mom. She turned out to be dying, from the consequences of many bad choices, and we weren’t in contact for long. I changed the character from a long-lost goddaughter to an adopted-out son.
I can’t even count all the obstacles that sprouted while I was writing this thing. I got some personal discouragement from a famous writer that I admire (in fact, the very same one whose book inspired the name of my doomed goddaughter), an injury that left me limping and using a cane, my cat had a life-threatening illness and nearly died. My collaborator from my last book was laid low when her husband suffered a catastrophic illness. I had the honor of working with editor Sumiko Saulson, who also had an onslaught of troubles during that timespan, and we both survived a bout of Covid19.
I finished it though. I have no idea if what I’m currently writing is any good, I always feel like there’s major room for improvement (although I’m getting better with practice). I’ve decided to cease all collaboration and publicity until I find my post YA groove, including working with editors, sensitivity readers, and even cover artists. I’m not doing the convention scene either, and I’m not throwing any more launch parties. Just self-pubbing. Maybe it’ll catch on, maybe I’ll get bored and do something else, or die of old age. Right now I’m only writing because I love to write.
It took me fifty years to figure out how to finish a novel. Once I began I had a dream of spending my old age traveling to SF cons and deducting them, while hanging out with other small time genre writers. The pandemic ruined many of those things, like travel, and conventions, and socializing in general. I did do a little traveling during the covid days, with compulsory masks on airplanes, and hotel housekeeping leaving the fresh towels outside your door, and I captured a little bit of that in Approaching Storm.
Another thing the pandemic ruined for me was conspiracy theories. I used to think they were sort of funny. I know a lot about cults and conspiracies, because I’m an intensely curious being and my fact-checker energy is strong. I’ve always been on the skeptic side, because I’m well aware that if you have proof, you can present it to a judge in exchange for valuable prizes.
Plus there’s a certain type of personality who gets enthralled with conspiracies – stubborn, controlling, always wants to be right, full of the kind of backwards-skepticism that places more credibility in YouTube influencers than scientific journals. I do not get along with this type of personality. At all. They don’t like my pedantic ass either.
In fact, there was a period in my life where I deliberately sought out weird fringey groups of people who believe in strange things, like cryptids, and UFOs, and occult secrets from the distant past. I read about philosophy, I joined new age religions, occultist orders, off brand Christian sects, and meditation circles; I collected zines and avant garde comix. Hung out with a lot of freaky science fiction writers and wannabe cult leaders and people like that. And I also spent a serious amount of time learning how to sort out the unsubstantiated hogwash from the mainstream knowledge and secret truths.
Occasionally the conspirazoids are correct. For example, the US government has done shady things like deliberately give people syphillis and withhold treatment, just to observe and document the progression of symptoms.
Other times, the conspirazoids are reckless and irresponsible, like when they started the Satanic Panic back in the nineties based on a couple of lurid paperbacks, and lots of innocent people got locked up or lost their livelihood. I actually got interested in the conspiracy subculture right around then – I wanted to either find the culprits and expose them, or determine conclusively it was all showmanship. The latter happened, although I met lots of interesting people.
One of them contacted me right around the time I was writing this book. Asked me why I wasn’t busy fleecing the sheep, as he put it, by writing conspiracy drivel. The market is booming, he told me, and as a science fiction writer who is familiar with conspiracies, I was missing out on a gold mine.
I’m lawful though. I was talking with someone about the very sensitive subject of getting paid for my books. And the truth is that my annual writing income is in the low three digits, and I’ve built that over several years. My writing income has been higher in other years but I’m in Hard Mode now – my own IP and content, limited ability to do traditional-style marketing due to the pandemic.
Not to mention that I’ve spent several years developing a rep in Young Adult fiction, which is currently a minefield as culture warriors battle it out over what they think minors should read, so here I am, rebranding toward sexy violent adult thrillers. While questioning my motivation for being a writer in the first place. Maybe I should go back to playing guitar.
I haven’t gone toward fraud, negligence, misrepresentation, or anything of that nature. I know all about how to do it, and have spent a little time on the fringes of pseudoscience. I’d like to say “I’m better than that” but in all honesty, I’m not that great, I’m just not interested in deceit. I’m more of a debunker. So instead of writing yet another breathless account of butterfly slaves and underground tunnels full of mutant minor sex workers (the kind of story one of the characters in Approaching Storm is addicted to), I wrote this book instead.
Even though my writing hasn’t really paid off aside from an occasional surprise amount sufficient to purchase a rideshare fare, pizza, or album (usually I spend it on albums), I have had lots of benefit from my writing in unexpected ways. I’ve made enough to join SFWA and hope to eventually make it into the HWA, and being a professional writer is a good source of positive self esteem. I’ve made some friends and deducted some visits to dinosaur museums on my taxes. In writing this one, maybe I’ll reach someone sorta like me: approximately homeschooled with not-too-literate religion-professing parents that actively discouraged them from getting educated, and get them to look up some of my references, and ask some questions, and read some forbidden books, and discuss why they’re forbidden, and who’s forbidding them.
Anyway, that’s a whole lot of blathering, so I’ll shut up and play some music. I'll start with a Grateful Dead song name checked in Approaching Storm.
Since it's my first novel set in the here-and-now, I referenced lots of music to set the scene. For instance, this song is playing on one of Aunt Lana’s monitors and even features the guy in the dedication (he’s the one with long hair): Lucifer, by SHINee.
This one is playing in the apartment of Lana’s neighbor Neil, who believes that young Billy is nearly as good as Jerry Garcia: Dust In A Baggie, by Billy Strings.
Elton responded by laying low for a few years and then coming back with one of my favorite songs, I'm Still Standing.
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