Month: December 2010

Another day of my brain not quite engaging. There is something physical going on, not sure what it is. The book makes crawling progress and I want it done already.

More tomorrow, including a rather long post (I mean REALLY long) percolating.

Hopefully the cats let me sleep tonight, instead of having cat fights over who gets to sleep on my legs.

Meanwhile, I have homework for you kids. Tell me what you think of “mashups”. A) what they are. B) what appeals about them and how lasting their appeal.

Most people seem to think that my musketeers/vampires book is a mashup, but I never thought of it that way – no more than the mysteries. Perhaps they are an elaborate, professionally written form of fan fic. I stole the setting and the characters (well, more or less the characters. Dumas never delineated them very deeply. Not that this is a criticism, but it was a picaresque adventure and a different time) but the situation, the development and the plot have very little to do with the Three Musketeers other than occasional nods to it. It’s more of a – what would the Three Musketeers be like in a world taken over by vampires. I certainly don’t use any of the original text.

I know Pride and Prejudice and Zombies did very well, and the idea was interesting and cute, but it seemed rather a bit of a “one trick pony.” Like knock knock jokes, it seemed like something that would be fun once. I can see – sort of – a future for what I tried to do with the musketeers, because it’s more like altered art from found objects… which, in itself is an idea as old as time. Much of the work of Greek playwrights — some of it excellent — was improving on, elaborating on altering or expanding the works of Homer.

But strict mashups… I’m not sure about.

Perhaps I’ll have a clearer idea when I’ve read Sense, Sensibility and Sea Monsters, but in the interim, what do you guys/gals think?

There’s this disturbing trend I’ve observed recently – okay, the last thirty years.

It’s part of what I was talking about yesterday, in a way. For a book to be considered serious, or introspective or relevant, it has to attack the past or western culture or civilization or tech or… humanity.

Not that there is anything wrong with attacking these, mind, to an extent. And they used to be shockers and a very good way to attract attention immediately. And I’m not saying the mindlessly chauvinistic “our people, right or wrong” was much better. For instance, the cowboy-and-Indian trope became really tired after a while and when my brother gave me a book called – I think – (in Portuguese translation) The Mace of War, detailing all the injustices against Native Americans it was a mind-altering experience. Literally. And very worth it.

I’m just saying that these days, by default what you hear is against-whatever-the-dominant-culture is.

I first realized this when I was studying for my final exam in American culture in college. The book changed opinions and contradicted itself but it was ALWAYS against the winners and against whatever ended up being the status quo. So, the book was against the North of the US, because the North… won. Even though it had before been against slavery. It was very much against modern US and raged against… embalming practices for three or four pages. (Because they divorce us from the Earth. Just SILLY stuff.)

And then I started noting this trend in everything, including fiction. Think about it. Who is to blame in any drama: the US; the successful; the British; the Europeans; the… humans.

Years ago when Discovery Channel put out its “future evolution” series, my kids and I were glued to the screen. We’re the family for whom the Denver Museum of Nature And Science is home away from home, the place we will visit if we have an afternoon free, the place where we have watched lectures and movies. I refer to it as “molesting dinos” and it’s usually my way to celebrate finishing a book.

So we were glued to the TV. Except that after the beginning, I realized the way it was going, and I started predicting it. Instead of taking a “what might humans become” the people who wrote this went down a path where first humans and then everything VAGUELY related to humans became successively extinct, till the only warm-blooded survivor was a bird, and then that too became extinct. In the end, tree-dwelling SQUIDS inherited the Earth.

Yes, you DID read that right. Tree. Dwelling. SQUIDS.

The contortions were capricious and often absurd, but you could predict where it was going.

It’s been a while since we had cable, but I understand there was a very popular series called “Life After US” about what would happen to the works of humans if we were suddenly extinct. And people watched it, fascinated and – from the tones of posts about it – a little wistful.

This is when you must step back and go “What is wrong with us?” “Is this a sickness of the soul?”

The answer? Yes and no.

Part of it, of course, is wanting to shock, wanting to revolutionize, wanting to be innovative… in safe ways – in (dare we say it?) politically correct ways. It’s easy and approved of to attack: males, America, western civ, humans.

People who select works at publishers and studios and all that are often liberal arts graduates and they come from this curious world where they still think the establishment is circa 1950s and that they’re telling something new and wonderful.

Part of it is, of course, that we do see problems in our own culture, in our own society, in our own species. Of course we do. We are an introspective culture. We examine our consciences, we find ourselves lacking, we try to improve. This is, in general a good thing – though perhaps a little perspective is also in order.

Part of it is politeness/sensitivity to other cultures, mingled with the consciousness our ancestors were often wrong. We’ve been taught the crimes of colonizers in various lands and most of those colonizers (and colonized, at least for most of us) were our ancestors. We’re conscious we’re big and others are smaller. It’s a peculiar form of noblesse oblige. We don’t want to trample others by pointing out faults in other cultures or other species. I understand this, because I learned to drive in my thirties and lived in a mountain town with lots of foot traffic downtown. I was excruciatingly careful driving through there, because I could crush a pedestrian and not notice. This is why we tend to turn our flagellation upon ourselves.

And part of it is sicker/darker. I notice this tendency every time we discuss a great figure of the past, from George Washington to Heinlein – as different as they are. I call it “counting coup.” George Washington? Well, he was slave owner. And he had wooden teeth. And Lincoln? Well, he was very ill, and besides, he was probably gay and in the closet. Heinlein? Despite all his efforts at including – for his time – minorities and giving women starring roles, he must have been closet racist and sexist, donchaknow? Because he doesn’t fit OUR superior notions of inclusiveness.

What is going on here – besides tearing at our own past, and thereby continuing the self-flagellation – is being able to prove we are “superior” to these high achievers. We might do nothing and achieve nothing, but we are superior beings because we’re more moral than they are.
Individually, none of these trends is really bad – or at least not for those of us who grew up with the opposite tradition.

Oh, the constant and predictable chest-beating becomes boring. At least it does for me. Maybe it doesn’t for other people?

But think of (grin) the children. They have no perspective. All they hear is how their country, their culture, their SPECIES is evil. How things would be so much better without us… How things would – ultimately – be much better if… THEY hadn’t been born.

It’s not healthy. It’s vaguely disgusting. And the best it can do is engender the MOTHER of all backlashes and bring about a cultural chauvinism the likes of which you’ve never seen. The worse… well, one of the other cultures we don’t criticize because they’re small and we’re big becomes the norm.

And before you cheer them on, let me put this in perspective: Western civ has committed crimes. ALL human cultures throughout history have committed crimes. Slavery? Since the dawn of time. Exploitation? Since the dawn of time. Murder? War? Genocide? Yep, and yep, and yep. And many of those cultures STILL do all of those things and don’t feel in the slightest bit guilty, mostly because we handily and frequently blame OURSELVES for their behavior and they get our books, our TV series and our movies.

Such as it is, the West has brought the greatest freedom, prosperity and security to the greatest population.

Yes, there were crimes committed, but a lot of them were the result of a clash of world views – tribalism met the state. Look, it’s not that Native Americans or Africans lived in a state of innocence and harmony with nature. If you believe that, you need to study history and put down Jean Jacques Rosseau. And get out of your mom’s basement. And take the Star Trek posters off the wall. And the Avatar poster, too, while you’re at it.

To the extent the native were innocent and helpless, it was because of their mental furniture. What gave colonizers the edge was not their weapons or civilization (Oh, come on, back then, there wasn’t that much of a distance.) It was their mental furniture. To wit, they had overcome tribalism and organized on a large scale. Most of the colonized (excepting some small empires) hadn’t. So they would attack in ways that worked in tribal warfare: exterminate a village or an outpost. And the reaction of the colonizers (who by the way also didn’t understand the difference in mental furniture and therefore thought this made the native peoples’ “bestial” or “evil) was to exterminate all of a tribe or a federation of tribes. And it worked because westerners were united as a MUCH larger group. Which made them stronger. Western civilization started overcoming tribalism with the Romans. That was the real innovation.

If you think that we’re rich because of those acts, you must study economics. It doesn’t work that way. If anything those acts made all of us worse off. We’re way past any wealth we could plunder off others. We’ve created wealth. The whole world lives better than it did five hundred years ago.

And if you’re going to tell me the fact that all humans are flawed proves that we’re a bad species, you’ll have to tell me: As opposed to what? Dolphins are serial rapists. Chimps commit murder. Rats… Every species we examine has our sins, but none of our redeeming qualities.

Heinlein said it was important to be FOR humanity because we’re human. Beavers might be admirable, but we’re not beavers. He was right. But beyond all that, we’re the only species that tries self-perfecting. We exist – as Pratchett said – at the place where rising ape meets falling angel, but as far as I know, we’re the only species reaching upward. (Of course, we wouldn’t know if there are others and again, we have to assume we are it. The others have flaws too.)

We are part of the world and in it. To love the other animals of the Earth – or the hypothetical alien – and hate us is strange. Are we not animals? Are we not of the Earth? And who the heck can compete with sentients who exist only in the story teller’s imagination.

By all means, let’s protect the weaker. Let’s shelter the little. But let’s not beat ourselves because we’re bigger and stronger. Let’s USE our powers for good instead.

Am I saying that you shouldn’t tell these stories then?

No, I’m not. I would never repress anyone’s right to create, or anyone’s opinion. But I’m asking you to think. I’m asking you to pause and go “The west is bad… as opposed to? Humans are bad… as opposed to?” And tell your kids that, ask them those questions.

And then, perhaps, every now and then, try to imagine a story from the contrary view point. Just to wake things up. And to keep others thinking.

*Crossposted @ Classical Values.*

Finger Painting

One of my earliest memories, when I became conscious of being an artist of sorts – or of being compelled to create that which didn’t exist – was a strong envy of plastic artists. You see, in Porto, Portugal, when I was growing up there was the Academy of Fine Arts for the plastic artists, but there was nothing for writers.

Even here, there still is very little for writers. Kris Rusch and Dean Smith gave as their reason for starting the Oregon Writers Workshop the fact that there is no mentorship system, there is no established pathway to become a professional writer in this country. Or, frankly, in most others.

This is because as writers we use tools everyone thinks they know how to use. Words. We shape entertainment and, yes, often art, out of an instrument that other people use to order dinner, ask for coffee or yell at the cat. (Yeah, we use it for those things too.) And it’s no use whatsoever saying that there are also finger paints used by toddlers and whistles used by referees. Most of those instruments are of a different quality than artists’ instruments. It’s easy for people to understand that. More important, it’s easy for the artists themselves to view themselves as artists. They have to use specialized means. There is an instruction. They are “real.”

We writers, on the other hand aren’t very “real.” Most of the time I start my mentoring by assuring the mentee that he or she is indeed a writer. This must be the only career in which one needs that assurance. Not that they are GOOD writers, mind. Not that they have the kiss of the muse, just that they are, in fact, artists.

And in the dark of night, in the secret of my own soul, after twenty books and over a hundred published short stories, I wake up and wonder. Am I real?

Those of us who progress beyond the beginning; those of us who continue and persist soon realize that words are just the… fingerpaint. What we really, truly deal in are emotions.

The Greeks writing their theory of drama knew this. The purpose of the play was to manipulate the emotions to produce a cathartic release. I’m not sure anymore what the purpose of that release was – other than the fact that people seem to want to experience emotions and therefore will patronize your play. It’s entirely possible that was the only reason, though I suspect it was more that it would bring you closer to the gods.

For me stories serve the purpose of amusement – always and of course. If the Odyssey weren’t a thumping good tale it wouldn’t have got retold, no matter how grand its aims – but more than that, they serve the purpose of… allowing us to be other people. They allow each of us, in a small way, to leave the confines of his own skull, of his own circumstances, of his own appearance and to – outside his/her body – experience things he or she couldn’t otherwise experience. Cathartic release – as I’ve posited in another post – might serve the purpose of imprinting people with experiences in the way that false memories can be created. Make something vivid enough and it’s as if people lived it. Only this experience can be shared by a lot of people.
Needless to say, in the past, this art has been used for a lot of purposes, one of them being forging national identity (google Lusiadas) and glorifying heroes (Odyssey) as an ideal for people to be.

Enter the modern era where we compete for the limited attention span of people with a lot of other entertainment. We writers – who aren’t quite “artists” or aren’t sure of being quite “real” artists, remember. Let’s call us velveteen artists – sometime ago realized one of the easiest ways to get attention was reaching for the shock, particularly at the beginning of a story or novel.

Look, you can do this with words, or unlikely situations, but when you’re trying to get out of the slush pile, you often try to do it with the concept of the piece. You reach for the biggest, boldest, most twisted concept.

There’s nothing wrong with that – to an extent.

But like looking at canvas with big splotches of paint might have been liberating in an era when the normal art was carefully delineated and worked with a fine brush, reading stories that start with, say, the character being raped, might have been – no, were – pulse pounding works in a time when most works wouldn’t even show your character going to the bathroom.

Showing your character in pain, bleeding, suffering, showing the horror as well as the glory of war – all those things were important. They were new, they were fresh, they would induce catharsis at their resolution.

The same with works that questioned our history – works where Western civ was the villain. Works where – say – women were the more powerful gender, or all humans were hermaphrodites. In the seventies – yeah, I was young, but I remember – these were innovative concepts that made you draw a sharp breath, just on the edge of being repulsed, but not quite – and then keep going.

You didn’t need much more, mind. Hit upon a concept big enough, powerful enough, and you didn’t need the fine detail, the painstaking brushwork you needed for more “mundane” work. (Part of the reason “literary” fiction writers hate us genre writers, is because they think our concept mojo gives us an unfair advantage. Which it does, if we know how to use it.)

But art has cycles. Everything that was new and shocking becomes the establishment; the expected. Throwing paint at canvas now has to follow rules, obey ideas of “good taste.” And there is a movement afoot to create realistic paintings once more. Paintings that are “better than real.”

In writing? I don’t know. If there’s anyone out there who still thinks attacking western civ – or males, or for that matter humanity – is shocking and induces catharsis, they must have been living under a rock or perhaps too much in their own heads. This has become the expected – the established. It’s easier to sell a female action character than a male one. Particularly if you are female. It’s easier to sell a YA with a heroic female character than a male one. A male one is almost unexpected and shocking. I can’t even imagine a work that glorifies western civ. And don’t sneer. There’s at least as much – more, from a prosperity-perspective – to glorify in Western civ as in any other culture. But it feels somehow indecent, of course. It feels like running other cultures down. (It’s not, but never mind.) It feels taboo. Which, of course, would shock us and surprise us. Which is risky. And daring. And will have trouble getting past the gatekeepers, and we all know it.

And there hinges part of the issue. We have to pass the gatekeepers, and most of the mass of writers – as of everyone else – are not rebels. They have to wish to challenge the establishment. They want to be “real” artists and some of that involves the kiss of the establishment and the appropriate laurels.

More difficult – far more difficult – is to build that catharsis of everyday elements, until the realization hits you, until the understanding explodes in your mind, until you “get” it.

Even more difficult is to write in such a way that your reader questions the easy answers; that your reader thinks and discovers unexpected facets in his world.

And that, my dears, is when the blue fairy of art touches you and you became a real artist.

I’m not there yet. I’m working on it. But Dave Freer is – I highly recommend Dragon’s Ring. Heck, I highly recommend everything Dave Freer writes, but I insist you go and order the paperback of Dragon’s Ring, if you haven’t.

Terry Pratchett is also a real writer. He rarely starts with shock. He weaves HUMOR into his work. He dares you to laugh, in the midst of the most serious parts. But when it all comes together, you get it, suddenly and completely. If you don’t believe me, go and read I Shall Wear Midnight. Read Night Watch. Read Monstrous Regiment.

Heinlein was real as well. Read The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress. Or Revolt in 2100. Or Have Spacesuit, Will Travel.

Other names off the top of my head in no particular order: Georgette Heyer; Shakespeare. Go read. See how art can be found in the subtle tints, in the chiaro escuro, in the subtle shading between light and darkness – in the turnings of the human heart, the coils of the human soul.

Finger paints are well and good when you’re making a poster. Hate and Love, murder, betrayal and eating babies for breakfast are fine, strong, shocking ideas. But adults find catharsis and joy and sorry in the more subtle shadings.

There’s an infinite spectrum between red and blue. Use all of the shades.

*Crossposted @ http://madgeniusclub.blogspot.com*

There used to be a type of science fiction that was the equivalent of the current craze in craft mysteries (which is itself an outgrowth/side spur of the craze in cozies. Remind me sometime to explain how the cozies became craft mysteries. I have the sane theory and the one that involves my certainty that people unnamed are fostering an unhealthy trust in authority. I can give you either or both, depending on the day.) You have mysteries for basket weaving, mysteries for scrapbooking, mysteries for crochet, and mysteries for house-flipping. My own furniture refinishing mysteries (under the pen name Elise Hyatt) sort of kind of tie into that genre. I do talk about furniture refinishing, but I like to believe (maybe I’m fooling myself) that they stand on their own without the craft interest.

The idea, is, of course, simple – the publishing houses believe that people who either practice or are interested in any given craft will also want to read about it. I don’t know if this is true, but I do know that some of the crafts/ideas will draw me, as a matter of course. Say, a mystery where the main character is an amateur chef will always interest me, because I like to cook elaborate dishes. Ditto a mystery where the character likes to make clothing from vintage patterns. I don’t do this, but I intend to, as soon as I have time. I’ve bought the patterns and I day dream about it, so… I’d also be interested – though it’s not a craft – in mysteries about a Natural History Museum, investigated by a volunteer, because I’d like to have time to volunteer at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.

Back when science fiction was healthy enough to – without fantasy, or with minimal fantasy – take up a whole block of shelves in a bookstore there were many subgenres, ranging from hard science fiction through soft sociological science fiction, through various situational subgenres like post-apocalyptic; colonization of new planet; space war, etc.

One of these subgenres was the episodic, gimmick science fiction. I say that with the greatest respect. These were ideas that were so cool in and of themselves, that they drew readers. They’d also draw readers from people interested in that field. They did, usually, require at least some specialized knowledge. Not always – Star Trek could be considered episodic, gimmick SF in that you have an initial setup that allows for meeting tons of aliens and having a new adventure each episode, and there were any number of “galactic federation clone” sf.)

My favorite of these, which did require specialized knowledge, was James White’s Surgeon to the Stars and other such books. In fact, when it became clear that my older son’s bent was towards medicine, I gave him those books to read, one summer. He enjoyed them immensely – just as I had when I was a young teen, savoring the setup of wildly alien life forms and the problem solving that hinged on alien biology/medicine.

Recently I stole them from my son’s room and have been re-reading them. Oh, the story telling could stand some updating. We tend to demand a different time of setup these days. But that’s current narrative fashion. I still enjoy them a lot.

And I wonder if there would be a market for this still. Did Science Fiction die? Or was it murdered? I keep hearing that kids today don’t read sf because they’re living it, but that doesn’t wash. I fell in love with sf though my life was, by my parents’ standards, more wildly futuristic than my children’s is by my standards.

I think science fiction was a victim of publishing trends emphasizing things like “social relevance” and “scientific accuracy” and such. Not because I’m an absolute believer in fluff. I mean, yeah, sometimes readers just wanna have fun, but it’s almost impossible to write something that’s totally devoid of the author’s beliefs and views.

It’s just that when you demand “social relevance” you’re falling into what’s now trendy and considered a worthy social concern. In the same way “scientific accuracy” tends to mean “accurate to what we know today”. In conjunction, those two make for very boring stories, which I think turned the readers off in droves.

But perhaps I’m full of it and what killed sf was its own success and the publishing of masses of stuff that wasn’t so good.

In any case, now that electronic publishing is providing a greater field to play in, will there be place for fun again? Will there be – once more – the episodic gimmicky science fiction? Will there be a place for my Translator to the Stars series?

What do you think? Is my enjoyment of this type of subgenre proof that I need to bring out the tweezers and elevate my eyebrows some? Or is it, once again, that all readers “just wanna have fun” and ready-built niches are easy to get into and enjoy?

This is where I get picky on words. Today, in the middle of reading an otherwise enjoyable romance, I was brought to a complete stop by the misuse of the word “ancestors.”

The author speaks of the founder of the main character’s line, and then assures us “his ancestors went on in that way.” It is clear the “his” refers to the founder.

I don’t know why but this is a peculiar American mistake. You rarely find it elsewhere. And it gives me a complete sense of disorientation EVERY time.

“Ancestors” come before the person. (from Ante — before.)

DESCENDANTS are those who come after the person.

I have at times wondered if the peculiar American antipathy to this term comes from the fact that it comes from descendere and implies that one’s descendants are less than oneself — something that is a denial of the whole concept of continuous improvement.

Such a sentiment is, of course, laudable. But attacking the meaning of the words is not. And confusing a poor writer who all of a sudden goes “oh, time travel! It’s science fiction, after all” is definitely NOT a goodness.

Over the last two months all machines in this house have been failing — dishwasher, washer, and the cat boxes (Litter robots. Yes, they are worth it, but they cost as much as our newest dishwasher.)

Because the wave of breakdowns hit JUST as we started doing the con circuit, we didn’t have time to shop for the machines. (I’m convinced I’d love cons if only there were a portal directly from my living room to the con. What I dislike is not cons or interacting with people — I’ve mentioned I like fans, right? — but the travel, the disruption travel introduces in my life AND the stuff I have to deal with when I come back, due to either leaving the guys/kids here alone, or our having forgotten stuff that was supposed to happen while we were gone.)

Over the Thanksgiving break we bought the dishwasher, plus washer and drier and replaced the sofas. Today the washer and drier were relieved.

Still outstanding is a freezer which we bought because our deep freezer has been defrosting/refrosting willy nilly. Considering it’s older than our marriage well… poor thing has earned retirement.

And where is the money for all this coming from, you’ll ask? Ah. Well… let’s say I’m going to have to write more and hope it sells. Particularly since I’d dearly love to kidnap my husband somewhere the last week of December for our silver anniversary.

However, until then, at least I’m spared losing a day a week at the laundromat and two hours a day washing dishes. Which goes to show you saving time/lacking time is the same thing as saving money/lacking money. You need to have money to make (or even save) money, and you have to have time (to shop for appliances that allow you) to save time.

Now, somewhere along the line, I’m going to need to find the time to tuck-point the basement entrance (don’t ask.)

A friend of mine says my husband and I buy Victorians so I have an excuse not to write. I don’t think so. On the contrary. I need money so I don’t have to rebuild this house from the bottom up with my bare hands.

As such, perhaps I should shut up, bid you good night, and go to bed. Tomorrow, hopefully, I’ll get to write most of the day.

The non promotion promotion

Yesterday I was hanging around in the kitchen with my older son, waiting for the coffee to brew, and he made some joking comment about my being oppressed when I was growing up.

I told him I was oppressed enough, or at least women were, in that time and in that place – as they still are in many times and in many places.

Yes, I like to point out and do – often – that it wasn’t a gigantic conspiracy of men against women that kept women down for six thousand years because frankly most men can’t conspire their way out of a paperbag. (I suspect women are naturally better at it. No, don’t hurt me. Just women seem to be naturally more socially adept. But even women couldn’t manage a conspiracy of that magnitude.) And I like to point out – and do – it wasn’t shoulder to shoulder but the pill and changes in technology that liberated women or at least that made attempts at liberation reasonable instead of insane. (Of course, shoulder to shoulder makes for better movies and books, which is why everyone believes it.)

However, as I told the boy, given the conditions biology set up, women were “oppressed” enough in most cultures and in most places. Yes, men were oppressed too at the same time, because this type of shackles is double-sided, but the oppression of women lingered a bit longer than that of men – say a good couple of generations by habit and custom and because humans simply don’t change that fast. Which is why the oppression of women is remembered as such and the men are remembered as being on top.

So I told him in Portugal, until the seventies, women weren’t allowed to vote and, oh, by the way, a married woman couldn’t get a job outside the house unless her husband signed papers saying that they needed it, due to economic hardship. (Which of course, meant the dumb bastard had to sign a paper saying he wasn’t man enough to support his family. Made it really easy on him, it did.) I’m sure there were other legal and economic hobbles that went with that. And I told him of course in many many countries in the world that inequality persists, only much worse.

Which is when I realized he was squirming and looking like he’d done something wrong.

Guilt. My poor kid was feeling guilty of being born male.

Guilt is a useful enough emotion, in small doses and well administered. For instance when I was three I stole some very small coin from money my mom had left on the kitchen table. I don’t remember what – the equivalent of five cents. I stole it to buy a couple of peanuts at the store across the street (they sold them by weight. In the shell.) My mom made it clear to me I’d made it impossible for her to buy her normal bread order when the bakery delivery (no, don’t ask. Delivered. Door to door. Every morning. I missed it terribly my first years in the US, but now they don’t do it in Portugal either, anymore) came by the next morning because she didn’t have the exact change. It wasn’t strictly true. The money amount was so small she just said “I’ll make the rest up tomorrow.” But she told me it was, and how she had to be short a roll. My understanding there were larger consequences for my stupid theft made me feel guilty, and that ensured I never did it again. The same, with varying degrees of justice, managed to instill the semblance of a work ethic in me in relation to school work.

However, the guilt my son was feeling was stupid, counterproductive, all too widespread AND poisonous.

Stupid because he could hardly be held accountable for something that happened thirty years before his birth, even if he has the same outward form as the people who benefitted from an inequity. (And benefitted should be taken with a grain of salt here. Countries in which women are kept down might offer an ego bo for the guys, but they are far less materially prosperous on average. Everyone suffers.) Counterproductive because guilt by definition can never be collective. Well, not beyond a small group like, say the Manson family. You get beyond that and you can’t assign blame with any degree of accuracy. So, going and yelling at my father, say, for “keeping women down” when I was little would be as insane as yelling at my son. Why? Well, because a) he didn’t and wouldn’t (he was raised by a strong woman, practically on her own, while my grandfather was in Brazil, working and grandma ruled the extended family with an iron fist.) b) to the extent he enforced societal rules, it was usually to keep us from getting in trouble with society in general (which, btw, included women. In fact women were the greatest enforcers of “you shall not be seen anywhere with a young man you’re not dating” rule that got me in the most trouble.) c) his standing up and talking given who he was and the amount of social power he had (or in fact didn’t have) would have changed nothing except get him treated like a lunatic.

I’m sure there are good men in Saudi Arabia who find it abhorrent and painful that women can’t drive, for instance. I’m also sure they enforce that rule on their women because they don’t want them fined or imprisoned or worse. They can’t DO anything. Not as individuals. And they’re too busy feeding their families to organize and run campaigns no free women. Also, there have been some men who have organized and tried to make a difference, but there weren’t enough of them. That “grain of sand” stuff only works dramatically in movies. In real life, it’s more one generation raising the other; one friend talking to the other – until the balance TIPS.

And once it does making them feel guilty would be a counterproductive. Sorry for breaking Godwin’s law, but did we persecute ALL of the German people for Hitler’s crimes? No. Could any of them have spoken up? Many did. But most people who were alive at that time were good people caught in a social mechanic they couldn’t break out of – not individually. And they weren’t connected enough to form cohesive groups.

While we’re speaking of Germany, look at collective guilt and collective punishment for “crimes” that people supposedly committed which no individual could have stopped. If you’ve studied the mechanics of the avalanche leading to WWI (I have. There’s a novel about the Red Baron and time traveling started, and it will eventually get done) there was a certain unstoppable force to it. It was going to start sometime. Someone was going to fire the first shot.

It was Germany. They invaded other countries. The “Hun” entered European mythology of the early twentieth for reasons both good and bad. (Google WWI Belgian Nuns, for instance. Much of it was propaganda, but a lot of it, doubtless, happened.)

When they lost the war, they were treated as if they and they alone and they collectively were guilty. The penalty levied was so high they could not and would not pay and that it was crushing the man in the street.

There were other reasons leading to the rise of Hitler. However, THAT punishment facilitated. It might not have happened without it. The “in for a lamb, in for a sheep” is a normal human reaction. If you’re held constantly guilty of things you did NOT do and could not have changed, you’re going to DO something anyway. I mean, how can it get worse?

To a certain type of woman – or man, though we’re only giving some tenured college professor males that kind of power – it is sweet to be able to play the victim ad nauseam. Particularly when you’ve never actually been victimized. And it is great to be able to make men squirm with stories of past injustice and feel guilty for things they are either way too young to have done (anyone born after the fifties, pretty much) or could not have changed if they tried, but which many of them mitigated in small ways.

And to a certain type of man – or woman, but in this case it doesn’t apply – it’s a great feeling to go around apologizing for the crimes of your ancestors. If you feel your accomplishments are diminished by theirs, apologizing gives a quick leveling. You recognize they did wrong, therefore you must be better than them. It’s a stupid feeling that ignores that you’re probably also doing things that your descendants will apologize for, but hey, it’s much better than actually trying to achieve something. Less work. Instant boost.

This dynamic gives power to passive-aggressives and bullies, the exact type of person you don’t want to have any power. And it makes good people feel like they’re bad and if they’re bad they might as well act it. It can, for instance, make young men very attracted to religions that DO oppress women (and no, sorry, that’s not most main line Christian religions, where you can leave if you want to.) Frankly, I think it’s a miracle more of my son’s generation hasn’t converted to one of those. I think it’s a witness to their essential decency, given the books, the movies and everything else designed to make them feel guilty for crimes they never committed.

So, let’s stop right here, okay? Being born with a penis is not a sign of guilt. Original sin and original taint are religious concepts that work ONLY in the mystical framework designed to control them and forgive them. In this workaday world of ours, they get in the way and engender a cycle of resentment and backlash.

Honestly, if aliens wanted to stop humans from reproducing, they couldn’t have come up with a better idea than this! Or if they wanted to ensure those who reproduced oppressed women again, this time without any real biological excuse.

You guys stop feeling guilty – even vestigially. You women, stop holding the cudgel over their heads. It’s not fair and it stopped being productive a while ago.

Now go forth and be free. It’s a brave new world and we’re the creatures in it. Don’t let inappropriate guilt twist it.

Crossposted at Classical Values

And in case you missed this

Sarah reads beginning of Darkship Thieves: (warning: 27MB)

Oh, yeah, that IS my real accent and, oh, no, it’s not Russian and further oh no, I don’t have any explanation.

Also, I’d thought I’d given all these away, but I just found an (L size) shirt with the cover of Darkship Thieves on it. Tell me why you deserve it by any means and in any venue you choose. I’ll pick someone to get it.

Update: Welcome readers of Larry Correia’s blog. Thank you, Larry, for the bomb-DST-on-Amazon campaign.

For anyone who has read it yet, I loved Larry’s Monster Hunter International. It takes off on a dime and keeps going at the fastest pace of anything I’ve ever read. And his vampires are REMARKABLY sparkle-free.

So, I’m cleaning my basement so we can get the washer and dryer in. Also, I’m trying madly to finish A Fatal Stain.

Is this the post to say I’m not posting? Sort of. I promise to post tomorrow.

Meanwhile, if you haven’t visited my site, consider:

Free Sarah Stories

Also, my friend Kate Paulk’s Knights In Tarnished Armor comes out this weekend from Naked reader. For a free preview, look here: Knights In Tarnished Armor Sample
It’s one of my – and Dave Freer’s – favorite pieces. Twisted, mind, but… er… Kate’s mind is. And that’s a compliment.

And for fun – just don’t expect me to finish it SOON, here is the first chapter of the next Musketeer’s Mystery (The Musketeer’s Confessor) which will probably be published electronically as soon as I have time to finish it. Needless to say, it is QUITE unedited, so don’t hit me for typos and such:

The Obligations Of Friendship;The Limits of Trust;
A Sudden And Fearful Death

Monsieur Aramis suspected he was about to be caught in a trap.

This feeling was new to the man who, having joined the musketeers to escape a charge of killing his opponent in his very first duel, had soon become known as one of the four most fearsome sword-fighters in France.

Slim,blond and poised, Monsieur Aramis talked like a court fop, and might be discounted by those who didn’t know him well at all. Those who knew him, on the other hand, were aware of the sudden death deal by his word and, more importantly, the intrigues and traps that his cunning mind could build for those who chose to cross him or to attempt anything against the King, the Queen or Aramis’ friends: Athos, Porthos or D’Artagnan.

Which was why the fear that looked back at Aramis from the depths of his polished tin mirror struck him as so odd. As did the feeling that there were things moving in the depths of events around him, vast shadowy conspiracies that would strike him when he least expected it.

He turned around from the mirror with an impatient movement that made the cloak he’d flung over his shoulders twirl about in a wide arc. He was not used to wearing a dark cloak, made of plain wool. In fact, the one he now wore was his servant Bazin’s, and therefore much too short and much too wide, since the musketeer’s servant was neither known as tall nor slim.

Let it be, Aramis told himself. The more ill-dressed, the less like himself, and that too was a good thing, when he suspected there were conspirators in the shadows, aiming for Aramis. Or perhaps for that Chevalier D’Herblay who hid under the name of Aramis and Aramis’ musketeer uniform.

His movement brought him face to face with one of his friends – Athos. The only one to whom Aramis had confessed his errand tonight. And if the look of fear in Aramis’ own eyes scared the musketeer, he wouldn’t even dwell upon the expression in Athos’ dark eyes.

Athos was not, at the best of times, of a clear and open countenance. A thirty year old man, he looked younger, or at least well preserved, with clear pale skin, long black hair and the sort of manner that, in old breeches and moth-eaten, outdated doublet, could allow him to throw back his head and step forward and, suddenly, look nobler and more important than Aramis in his well-cut silks and velvets or even their splendid friend Porthos, in his gold embroidery and jeweled rings.

But Athos’ blue eyes, so dark that they resembled nothing so much as the unlit sky of an August night, never showed fear. Sometimes they did show rage. Or perhaps something else, that Aramis was loathe to examine for fear it would be polar coldness and uncaring. But today they looked yet more unreadable than normal, half-hooded by his lowered eyelids.

Athos too looked strange, his pale countenance touched by red fire at the cheeks, as though he were running a fever, or perhaps excited by what they were about to do. But what Athos could find exciting in keeping a rendez vous that would possibly lead to their arrest. Perhaps, and Aramis would not forebear to think it, Athos longed for death and knew he was about to meet it.

And on that thought, Aramis stopped. “Perhaps,” he said, as his hand felt underneath his cloak for the sword pummel that felt like security and aid in trouble to him. “Perhaps we should not do this, Athos.”

Athos made a sound like hitting his teeth with his tongue, hard. The dark eyebrows lowered over the half-veiled eyes. His hand, too, went to his sword, and Aramis wasn’t sure it was not a threatening gesture.

But then he let go of the sword and sighed. “Can you think of anything else we might do in the circumstances?”

Aramis felt his fingertips touch his forehead, before he realized he had raised his hand, and turned away from his friend to hide his confusion. He walked to the window of his chamber, swathed in heavy, expensive velvet, the gift of one of Aramis’ lady friends. “I don’t know. Perhaps I should meet with Saint Clar in private? In … in these chambers?”

“What?” Athos said. There was to his voice a tinge of that irony that Aramis normally deployed so freely and which he disliked excessively hearing used against himself. “Do you think perhaps that your chambers are immune from being spied upon? Or do you believe perhaps, that being used to a stream of visitors, the Cardinals spies will forebear to notice this one? It would seem to be that being male, he would stand out, considering none of the others are.” A brief pause, which, were his interlocutor anyone but Athos, Aramis would have expected to hear laughter. “Unless, of course, you can convince him to wear a dress.”

“Saint Clar is a priest, Athos. In holy orders!” Aramis said, his confused outrage forcing the words out, even as he turned around to see that though Athos wasn’t laughing, an amused smile turned the tips of his lips upwards. “Oh, very well. So am I, in my heart, and I recall all too well that I was forced into a green dress. But I was in danger of my life.”

“And you wore a sword beneath,” Athos said, in appeasing tones.

Aramis ignored the comment he didn’t know how to answer, and instead, went once more over what he knew so far, “Saint Clar is a somber man, of an exacting tone of mind. I know such is not the norm in those that climb to the confidence of people in power, but Saint Clar is so openly and obviously saintly that he has managed to become the confessor to half the court. At least the higher reaches of it. I… I have not spoken to him since my days as a seminarian, and in fact, I’m not sure how he found who I was or under what name I was hiding.”

Athos was examining his fingernails, a seemingly riveting occupation that Aramis normally employed to avoid giving anything away with his expression. When had his friend become so accomplished at employing Aramis’ own weapons against himself?

“Perhaps some… seamstress let him know it,” Athos said. His face turned in such a way that Aramis could not see if he was smiling or not. Which was very good, because if he were smiling – mocking Aramis’ for his human frailty that made it hard for him to resist female charms even while he was, as he viewed it, on a transitory detour to his vocation as a priest – Aramis would have to challenge him to a duel. “Or perhaps the niece of your theology teacher?”

Instead of saying what he wished to, Aramis expelled breath in a hiss, and said, “Perhaps,” then proceeded to the main point. “But the fact remains he would not write to me, nor ask me to meet him at this celebration tonight, were it not that he believes he has encountered something that needs my help and expertise.” He opened his arms wide. “And before you suggest the expertise he needs might be theology or the lives of saints, there is only one thing in which I am more qualified than my old friend Saint Clar – dueling. Using my sword.”

Athos opened his mouth and for just a moment looked like he was about to make some ironic comment, but then shook his head, as if answering himself. “No, Aramis, there is something else in which perforce you must be better than your friend, unless… That is, I don’t suppose your friend is as expert in court intrigues as you are.”

“Of course he is, Athos,” Aramis said, curtly. “He might not participate in them, but he has to know of them. He is the confessor to most of the would-be intriguers. Unworldly and saintly he might be. But a fool, he’s not.”

Athos inclined his head. “But then…” he said, considering. “You forget that there is another ability that you have, beyond the use of your sword. Or do you believe that the way the four inseparables have managed to discover the murderer in four mysterious deaths hasn’t made its way through court.”

“But what death?” Aramis asked. “For Saint Clar to be concerned, it would have to be an important death, at court. And there has been known. At least… Poor Mousqueton’s affianced bride was murdered, but she was only a servant, and I doubt that Saint Clar would even be aware of it.”

“So it must be a death we can prevent. Some… great conspiracy, as you told me before. Which means…”

“A conspiracy against the king, the queen or the cardinal.”

“All of which are dangerous, particularly the last,” Athos said. “And all of which are a good reason to have sent back a note to Saint Clar saying you’d meet him in this public feast. In the confusion of people, no one will note that you saw him, or said anything to him. While if he comes to your lodgings…”

“Yes, yes,” Aramis said, impatiently. “But it doesn’t feel right. To be doing this, and without our friends.”

“There is no reason to risk Porthos’ or D’Artagnan’s lives in this,” Athos said. “Yours might be implicated, anyway, at least if anyone knows this friend of yours approached you. And mine…” he shrugged as though to signify it did not matter.

Aramis had to agree with him. The four of them might be inseparable, but there was no reason to risk the lives of Porthos – a towering red headed giant who would never recognize a court intrigue if it danced naked in front of him – and D’Artagnan who might be a cunning Gascon, but who, at nineteen, was only slightly older than a child and had much life and promise in front of him.

But, Aramis thought to himself as he climbed down the stairs of his lodging next to Athos, he could not like the expression in Athos’ face, or the look of odd excitement just barely repressed that seemed to permeate his friend’s movements and gaze.

The most fearsome thing in this possible trap, Aramis thought to himself, was that as far as Aramis was concerned, Athos might very well be in on it. Or at least, Athos had never before shown this much interest in anything that involved going out in public and never – Aramis thought as he looked at his friend walking amid the festive crowds, hurrying to the public gardens for the feast being given by the king to the city – had looked this alive. And even though Athos liked his wine almost as much as he liked air to breathe, Aramis had trouble believing that it was his interest in the free-flowing wine that quickened his step and made him look much younger.

The wonderful idea that he was about to meet the unknown with only an unknown to guard his back made him groan. Too late he thought to cover his bright-blond hair with the hood of his cloak, an indiscretion he could only attribute to his nervousness. Not the least of fears – beyond the risk that he would attract the attention of some enemy – was that Porthos and D’Artagnan would see Athos and Aramis leave Aramis’ lodgings and know that the different, separate excuses they’d given for not attending the feast were lies. Aramis might lie to his friends, but his tender conscience smarted at the idea he might wound them by having them know themselves deceived.

The further they walked away from Aramis’ lodgings, the more they found themselves engulfed in a jostling crowd. This was a new experience, since normally the crowds gave enough room to the king’s musketeers and their swords.

This crowd, however, wasn’t thinking of any such thing, but only of amusement. Men and women walked hand in hand, men called to their friends, and small urchins squeezed through the increasingly heavy press of bodies, doing whatever it was that Paris urchins did. Twice, Aramis had swatted a small hand intent on rummaging through his garments, doubtless for coin.

More and more the press of bodies pushed them and squeezed them, and led them this way and that. It was all that Aramis could manage to keep the dark hood of Athos’ cloak in sight.

He felt considerable relief as he saw, ahead, the trees of the gardens and the blazes of light of the luminaries placed amid them to light the festivities.

For a moment, he looked, to orient himself. The note he’d sent St. Clair had said that they should meet at the edge of the garden, where the wall to the nearby cemetery provided shelter and shadows, in which they might hide to talk. By the orange tree, next to the cemetery wall, Aramis had said. He looked at the trees visible now and over the press of people – fortunately fanning out and giving him more breathing room – to find that familiar landmark, then turned back to Athos to motion that he should follow. And stopped. Athos was nowhere to be found.

Oh, of course Athos had been wearing a dark cloak and hood, which would make him indistinguishable in the current press – but the thing was that Athos was never really indistinguishable. At most the dark cloak might retard recognition by someone who didn’t know him very well or did not expect him to be there. There was to Athos’ bearing, his way of walking that distinctive mark of the high-born that would have made him easily identifiable, were he dressed as a farmer and covered in manure – an image that made Aramis bite his tongue to prevent himself smiling. Particularly since there was nothing to smile about, as his frantic look all around discovered neither trace nor sign of his friend.

The idea that some unnamed persons had gotten hold of Athos and dragged him away blossomed in Aramis’ mind only to be dismissed. He couldn’t imagine Athos being dragged away without fighting, and indeed, killing most of his opponents. He gathered breath to whisper “Athos,” though his circling turn didn’t show him Athos within the reach of his voice.

And then he saw him. Athos. Beneath one of the nearby trees. His head was turned, and he was speaking to someone – a small and graceful figure, dressed as a page, but, Aramis would swear to it, not a male. In fact there was something haunting about what he could see of the woman’s rounded cheek, the shining blond hair beneath the page’s hat pulled just so as to hide most of the hair and most of the face.

Had it been any other musketeer, this would only have occasioned an impatient sigh from Aramis, and his proceeding to get his friend. But Athos did not voluntarily consort with females. The disaster that had propelled him into the musketeers involved a woman who had married Athos under false pretenses and whom Athos had executed when it was revealed she was a common criminal. The incident had left Athos with an invincible hatred and disdain for women. His comments on the subject were legion. It was not possible nor credible that the older musketeer had taken advantage of Aramis’ errand for an assignation.

Which meant that Athos must be… involved in some conspiracy. Perhaps the very conspiracy meant to ensnare Aramis.