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I don’t believe in fear of success.

No, that’s not exactly true.  There might be people out there who are genuinely afraid of doing well and succeeding.  I just have never met any.

I’ve met any number of people who, unconsciously or consciously sabotage their career, their love life, or their economic well being.  Some of these people use “Fear of Success” as their excuse.  I guess because it sounds so much better than “I’m not sure I’m good enough” or because they, themselves, don’t understand their self-destructive behavior.

Look, we all have self-destructive behavior.  I, myself, have found there are things I MUST do even when it will destroy my career or lose me half my audience. Is this a fear of success?  I don’t think so.  I think in my case it comes closer to “there are things that are more important than my career.”  I find myself pivoted into issues where my speaking out will alienate editors and sometimes writing friends.  At that time, the decision comes down to “Is this topic/idea more important than my career?”  In other words “Is it bigger than me?”  If it is, I speak out.

It’s a balance.  Part of my duty (something to talk about later) is to ensure I maximize my income, so we give our boys a better start in life than we had BUT with indie I can write confessions on the side.  I can even (Hey, there’s such a thing as single malt and a mild buzz) write erotica under a deep pen name, if I’m starving.  So if you remove my duty from it, what is left is what matters most.  That’s the only deciding factor.

So, that’s number one.  Sometimes people know behavior is self destructive, but really, for them, to their value set, it’s the only thing they can do.  You simply can’t know from the outside.  And yeah, they might fob you off with “fear of success” because they can’t or don’t want to explain it to you.

Then there is not knowing where to start.  I think this is less of a problem with the net, because you have all these writers and publishers blogs to consult.  In my time, not knowing how to start was huge.  For instance, mid-eighties all the houses needed synopsis.  I simply had no clue what a synopsis looked like.  I didn’t send novels out for five years.  I had no idea HOW.  The thought of reducing my entire novel to ten pages gave me cold sweats.  I’d done precis in college, but had no clue if that was what I should do.  (Answer – yes, no, maybe.)  Then someone local published a small chapbook called “proposals that sold.”  I immediately started sending stuff out again.  Got an agent the next year.

You’ll say “you could have figured it out on your own” and undoubtedly, I could.  Not to the conventions that would sell, mind, but something that at least meant I sent stuff out.  Wouldn’t have made any difference, but it would have looked better to myself, in retrospect.  But isolated as I was, ignorant as I was, and afraid of approaching “real writers” for fear they’d laugh at me – among other things, because I am ESL writing in English.  How crazy is that? – it was one last, overwhelming barrier.  The straw that broke the camel’s back applies to this type of situation, and I’ve seen my kids go through it.  I don’t know who the joker is that decided kids must apply to college while finishing their senior year – usually during first finals.  Perhaps it is because both my kids were AP/Honors/Advanced and it’s more demanding.  But I’ve seen them let college applications slide, refuse to jump the hoops for scholarships, and kind of willy-nilly blow deadlines.  I think it’s because they can’t cope.  It all climbs up, and they can’t cope.  That was the “How do I write a synopsis?” was to me.  Not a fear of success, but a neurotic shutting down and hiding under the bed.

But the most common “fear of success” thing I see is actually a fear of failure.  I get that.  I have that too.  Like most writers I have the bottomless, negative self confidence in my writing.  I understand just enough of what I do, to know how much I don’t understand – in fact, how much I don’t get – about how my writing works.  And what’s not under my control freaks me out and makes me afraid it’s not god enough.  So I live in fear of failure.  Like Wily Coyote, running mid air, sometimes I try to run hard enough to escape the inevitable lack of ground under me.

However, there’s something people who fear failure do that prevents success.  (This reminded me of it.  Apparently writers are not alone.) I think the first question that anyone asked me as a more experienced (I wasn’t published yet) writer was “How long do you leave a submission in, until you pull it?”  At the time to me this meant gibberish.  “You leave it till it’s sold or rejected.”  But no.  Later on I came to know my modus operandi was amazingly rare.  I didn’t pull books or shorts, but everyone else did.  And at the time doing that ranged between stupid and suicidal.  Stupid if the book or story had been just waiting, but suicidal if it had been making its way up from undereditor to editor to managing editor or, worse, if it was on the executive editor’s desk, ready to be sent to you with an editorial rewrite request or even an acceptance.  An editor who has gone through the process of accepting an unknown will never forgive the unknown for spitting in his face and withdrawing.  So unless you’re sure you’re J K Rowling and Pratchett and Heinlein rolled into one, this was an insane thing to do.

Now… other considerations obtain. and therefore, in addition to the above, I’ll give you a few touchstones for figuring out if you’re committing suicide in a complex manner.  If you’re doing any of these things, don’t.

– Don’t pre-reject by not submitting.  If you write a short story you think would be perfect for Analog or Asimov’s – or even a long shot there – don’t not send it in.  At least if you think the prestige of a traditional publication is still worth it.  (For most people it is.  For those who are, like me, midlist, it might not be.)

– Don’t commit suicide by removing stuff that the editor might want.

– If you’re traditionally publishing, don’t air dirty laundry in public.  (Don’t even try the quoque tu, Sarah.  I am only traditionally publishing through Baen and they’re family and through Naked Reader, where I have a say.  The others… meh.  Let the laundry hang.)

Those are old points, mind.  Now remember the market is changing very fast, and even if you’re still traditionally published, there are new caveats:
– Don’t confine yourself to traditional only.  Always remember, belt AND suspenders.  If you’re riding in the titanic, a lifeboat seems puny, but it will save you drowning, if the thing hits an iceberg.

– Follow industry blogs and indie writers’ blogs too.  I can’t say this enough.  FOLLOW those blogs.  DO it.  I don’t care if you don’t have time.  It’s the equivalent of being on the deck of the titanic and saying you don’t have time to use the binoculars.

– If you go to conventions, be aware of what is happening with the publishers there and what their authors think of them.  The days of pitching blind are gone.

– Keep trying.  Or to quote what an acquaintance-I-hope-will-become-a-friend quoted at me from Heinlein, in another context, last week “The cowards never started and the weaklings died on the way.”

You’re afraid of failure, and failure is a real danger particularly these days, with the industry crumbling under us.  So, what are you going to do?  Are you going to curl up and die and admit you can’t cut it?  Or are you going to fight?

Never give up.  Never surrender.

*This is the Fantasy novel I’m posting here for free, one chapter every Friday.   If your conscience troubles you getting something for free, do hit the donate button on the right side.  Anyone donating more than $6 will get a non-drm electronic copy of Witchfinder in its final version, when it’s published.
There is a compilation of previous chapters here  all in one big lump, which makes it easier to read and I will compile each new chapter there, a week after I post.  When the novel is completed and about to be edited the compilation page will probably be deleted.

Oh, this is in pre-arc format, meaning you’ll find the occasional spelling mistake and sentence that makes no sense.  It’s not exactly first draft, but it’s not at the level I’d send to a publisher, yet. *

For previous chapters, look here:  https://accordingtohoyt.com/witchfinder/

The Threads of Time

Caroline knew this was a dangerous spell, but she’d seen Gabriel do something like it.  Not to this level, she thought, as she stared at the wounds on the dragon-woman’s back.  She needed to reach for a time when the woman’s back had been whole, and superimpose it on her mutilated back.

Of course, doing that in fairyland might be more difficult than doing it in the human world.  Or at least more dangerous.  But Caroline had realized long ago that you didn’t have a choice between something you really liked, and something you dreaded.  Or not usually.  You had a choice between two things that were both unpleasant, and you tried to choose between them for the least unpleasant one.

In this case, she could choose to ignore the woman’s need and keep herself safe.  But then it was unlikely she would be allowed to walk the rest of the paths of fairyland till she found Michael.  And even if she were, she wouldn’t have the allies she was supposed to acquire through her journey.  She knew the rules of fairyland.  Everyone did.  They were built in to the earliest stories told to the smallest children.  In fairyland, you had to help three people in desperate straights, and then – after you did that – you’d get where you wanted to go.  Distance in fairyland wasn’t straightforward, or measured in meters.  It was measured in feelings and the heart, and three good deeds were the sacrifice needed to get where she was going.

To rescue her brother Michael.

She pulled back a strand of her thick, curly black hair.  It felt clammy.  All of her felt clammy, as if the clearing had suddenly got very hot.  The dragon woman turned back to look at Caroline over her shoulder.  Her eyes were the oddest Caroline had ever seen, a golden-orange, as though it had flecks of fire burning in its depths.

“I’m going to do something…” she said, and looked into the woman’s eyes, and swallowed.  “I’m going to use magic that might feel odd to you.  Please, bear in mind, I do it only from the best intentions.  It is the only way to heal you.”

The large, fiery eyes blinked.  “Do it, then,” she said, intently.  “Do it and be done with it.  I cannot bear to be captive here while my baby might need me.  Do what you have to do, no matter the risk.  You were sent to me by the paths, they must know you can heal me.”

Caroline wished she could be anywhere near that certain.  She put her hands up and recited the incantory protections for when one worked with time.  For all the good it would do her, here, in the heart of a place built entirely of magic, and while using the magic on a sentient being.

She was going to die of this.  No.  She banished the thought, forcefully, and lifted her hands, to let the magic flow through her palms, onto its destination.

Then she did what she dimly remembered watching Gabriel do.  She remembered seeing it – and she might have – though it would have required her to link to his mind and look through his mind’s eyes.  Perhaps she had.  She had been very young and very unguarded, and Gabriel, too, hadn’t guarded against her.

Because of that, she could remember the mental vision of time as a tapestry.  She’d once seen a tapestry weaving machine.  Michael had wanted to see one of the new manufactories, operated almost exclusively by magic, where men did no more than feed thread to the machines, and clip the finished product, or clean around the working, moving parts of the machine.

She and Michael had escaped through the window of their nursery while their nanny was asleep and walked down to the village, where one of the manufactories was.  It had taken them the best part of the day, and when they’d been found – through a spell cast – Seraphim had collected them in the carriage.  She remembered being afraid he was finally going to give them the spanking that he and Gabriel so often threatened Caroline and Michael with.  In retrospect, though, she thought what he had done: sitting white faced and tight lipped next to her in the carriage for the full hour drive back home, had been far worse.  As had the fact that neither Seraphim nor Gabriel smiled at or talked to Caroline or Michael for a good two months.

The manufactory itself she hadn’t thought about till now.  Michael had been fascinated by the gleaming, moving parts, the thread moving into place, all without the touch of human hands.  Caroline had looked at the people cleaning accumulated lint from the machines, or feeding them the colored thread.  They were children, little older – or perhaps younger – than herself.  It was the first time she’d been aware of her good fortune and her station in life.

Now, though, as she reached for the threads of time, she saw it exactly as that machine in that long ago manufactory.  There were threads – the life of each person, the path of each object everywhere – being fed into time, and what emerged was the completed tapestry.  Reaching out, she touched the mind-seen strands mid-air.  There were Caroline and Michael going to see the manufactory.  There was Gabriel, coming in in the middle of Seraphim’s birthday party, in that outlandish outfit, all rags, with the livid marks of whip marks across his face and the exposed parts of his skin.

Caroline blinked at this.  She’d been born after Gabriel had joined the house, and she was quite sure that, though she’d heard him described as filthy and covered in rags, she’d never heard of whip marks.  Whip marks why?  Who’d dare whip the child of the Duke of Darkwater – even if a bastard son?  She blinked, and shelved the thought for another day.  For a moment that thread, and the one next to it – Gabriel and… she blinked again – Seraphim’s? gleamed with the bright blue of strong magic.  It was tempting to see what was happening to them.  But she could not.  Not in the middle of this working.

Instead, she concentrated on the thread of the dragon lady – a thread of pure fire woven through the tapestry.  It was tangled and twisted, and ran along side two other threads, both of which seemed to merge with those of the Darkwater family.  If Caroline had time–

Enough of this foolishness.  She didn’t have time.  Instead, she ran her fingers along the length of the thread displayed by magic in front of her eyes, but in fact existing in dimensions humans couldn’t see.

There.  There was the last time this … person had been whole.  Now…

Carefully, Caroline took the time thread betweent wo fingers.  She couldn’t cut it and retie it, as Gabriel had done to the bird’s thread.  The bird had just been injured, and, presumably, its thread had touched no one’s fate but that of the cat who had dragged it.  This woman’s fate was enmeshed with various others – men, women, and possibly elves.  If Caroline cut the thread and tied it again, she would do damage to all those fates, and all of those people’s magic and – by extension – her own.  The recoil itself would kill it.

The recoil of this…  She tried not to think about it.  No point in it.  Instead, she took the thread and carefully, deftly, looped it around her fingers.

Touching that much power, that much strength, gave her an almost physical shock.  And as she grasped it to tie it together at the base of the loop, bringing the woman’s whole body in close proximity to this moment, she felt as though her fingers burned with it.  Her every instinct told her to let go, to let the thread fall into its natural position, to leave it alone.

The instincts were wrong.  She must – she must – rescue Michael.  She bit her lip against the pain and the burn that was forming welts in her small fingers, and forcefully tied the knot.

“Oh!” the woman said, and it sounded like some of Caroline’s pain had rebounded on her.  Her face flashed white and drawn, then for a moment it seemed about to change into a dragon’s.  But Caroline did not let go of it the thread.  She was not done.

Holding the thread and the woman’s life and existence through time, in her hands, she closed her eyes and forced those missing parts of her body – the clipped wings – forward through time and in existence in the presence.

She would never be able to explain it, but it felt as though the wings, on their way to the present, passed through Caroline’s own body, and her magic.  Her body they could not have passed through.  Not really.  But her magic, they might have, and it felt as though every sharp bit, every rough surface shredded her magic on the way through, leaving it bleeding and torn, like skin raked by claws and teeth.

Nausea hit afterwards, a nausea so strong that Caroline felt she could neither keep her eyes open, nor focus, nor even stand.  The threads fell from her suddenly lax fingers, and snapped into the tapestry, the loop still in place.  Her fingers hit the grass of the clearing.  She was aware of the threads vanishing from her magic sight, but she couldn’t think, couldn’t concentrate.  She clutched her middle.  She closed her eyes.  Nausea ebbed and flowed in her like a tide, and she groaned with the feeling that her body was made of nausea, a sharp point of discomfort and uncertainty, dissolving and twisting through the currents of time.

I shall dissolve completely and be gone, she thought, and whimpered with fear, thinking Gabriel had been right.  Of course he had.  And it wouldn’t be needed for him to punish her.  She was going to die of this.

“Thank you,” the woman’s voice said somewhere, outside her misery.  “If you need me, at any time and anywhere, call out to the dragon of the fire lake.  I am in your debt.”  And then there was the sound of wings and a feeling of unbearable heat.

Caroline opened her eyes, to find herself enveloped in flames.  Looking up, she saw the dragon, flying just above her, and blowing flames from its – her? – nostrils, which surrounded Caroline completely.

No.  I saved you, she thought.  You’re not supposed to kill me.

But the fire wasn’t killing her.  Hot, yes, but not lethal, it twined around her, an ocean of living flames.  It seemed to move through her, searing.  It was as though every weak place in her magic, every slow place, were burned away, leaving only the best, clear and glimmering in the firelight.

And then it was gone.  There was the impression of words in her mind “A gift of gratitude” and then the dragon was gone, flying away and through, to another time and another place.

Caroline didn’t know what the gift had been, and now she couldn’t asked.  She stood up.  The nausea was gone, but she felt as though she’d run for miles and miles.  Her breath came in short pants, her body was sweaty, the clothes sticking to her.  And her eyes seemed to prickle with sweat that had run into them.  And she was thirsty.  But you can’t eat or drink in fairyland.

On shaky legs, she made to take a step towards where she hoped the path was.

She heard the sound of hooves from behind and before she could turn to look, a male arm twined around her middle, and a voice said, “We have need of you.”

At first she thought it was a rider, and that he was bare from the waist up.  Then she realized it was a centaur who had got hold of her and was carrying her, held only by his strong arm, while his hooves galloped madly into a shifting landscape of fog.

My grandmother had a saying when someone was simply failing to get it.  “I’ve seen them blind,” she said.  “But never before have I seen them without a place for the eyes.”

Lately I’ve been thinking about this as the industries under attack by tech (not that tech is doing it on purpose, mind) just fail to GET it and think if they just paddle a little harder, they won’t go down with the Titanic and rescuers will be here soon, and then everything will go back to the way it was.

First, let’s establish something – what is happening to these industries is not simply a matter of technology rendering processes or ways of doing things obsolete.  Yes, that’s happening.  But the reason it’s taking such effect is that those industries – through business practices, through the fact that they were de facto oligopolies and gave immense power to a very few people, through series of unfortunate events and through sheer bullheadedness and refusal to listen to business facts – were running themselves into blind alleys.  Or had already run themselves there.

I’ve pointed out before how strange publishing had got, with a sort of circular reasoning where someone in an office decided what the numbers should be, then pushed the book to get EXACTLY those numbers, then took those numbers as confirmation they’d picked the right book and were publishing exactly what the public wanted.

The insanity was added by the fudge factor in the numbers – for instance, the reported print run was usually double the real printrun, it was almost impossible to find out exactly how many books were printed (reprints of less than 1k don’t have to be reported to the author and don’t count as reprints.  Whether they’re reported faithfully and to whom is a bit nebulous) and ebook numbers were largely pull from… er… air.  Sales reports could also be iffy in general – we’ve all heard of “bestsellers” who, it turned out, hadn’t sold.

So, basically, someone made up numbers, the same made up numbers came back to them and they said “Yes, we’re giving people what they want.”

Anything that went against this was swept under the rug.  The inconvenient facts, such as that print runs have shrunk 90% since the seventies, were “explained away” by telling us that people simply didn’t read as much (not quite true) and that movies and games were eating publishing’s lunch (true that, but only because games give boys something books no longer do: male heroes and action-packed story lines.)  If you pointed out that they weren’t publishing any books for boys, they’d tell you boys were sexist for not wanting to read girl books.  If you told them that they weren’t doing space opera, they told you no one wanted space opera.  If you told them Baen was doing quite well at that, they sneered “Oh, they’re right wing, and right wing people don’t read.”  (This despite the fact that baen has authors of every possible political persuasion and that to be blunt, I have yet to see different reading habits among my friends of different political stripes.  They will read DIFFERENT things [sometimes] but they all read about the same.  Stuff like time and career and education have more to do with it than political persuasion.  AND if you think that there is a great difference in education, you’ve been reading the wrong “analysis” – i.e. slanted ones.)

So, their denial of reality now shouldn’t surprise us.  They’ve had practice.  It’s just that they’re not getting how it has changed.  They no longer have control of printrun of distribution or, pretty much, anything.  They can’t make up numbers and have them echoed dutifully back at them.  But that doesn’t mater against the muscle memory of the years they could put their fingers in their ears and yell “lalalalalala” and reality didn’t intrude in their beautiful, ordered world.

I’ve said before here the next industry to be turned upside down and shaken by tech – like a rat in a terrier’s mouth – is education.  It’s probably a good five/six years from where publishing is now, but it is coming.

Yesterday, when reading this article, I knew it was true.  If you don’t wish to click through, don’t.  The claim of the article is simple: long distance learning via the net makes no difference.  People want/need to learn with other people.  Yoga videos didn’t end Yoga classes, therefore, there, colleges are safe.

Yes, that sound you hear is me giggling hysterically.  This reminded me so much of the articles as little as a year ago saying “Oh, ebooks have a ceiling.  No one wants to read books on a computer screen” and completely ignoring the Kindle and the nook and…

My long-distance-learning experience is now 5 years old.  And what they’re talking about is older than that.  HOWEVER what they talk about is older than my experience.

I took a correspondence course, once.  I never finished it.  I don’t know what the rate of finishing is.  In my case, I took it in lieu of going to Clarion, because I had two kids under five and couldn’t afford the time.  So I took a writer’s digest course in writing.  I was actually pretty faithful with it, but I got published halfway through.  Also, mostly, my teacher said “You’re good.  Keep going” which I didn’t feel improved my writing (though perhaps my mood.)

THAT was about twenty years ago.  Then my younger son had to be home schooled for a year and I discovered Great Courses.  This is what they’re talking about I that article – about that level – they’re recorded lectures by great professors.  They’re good to learn, if it’s something you’re not on a schedule to learn and don’t need to push yourself.  In other words, if it’s not something you particularly need to know.  I have used them to get background on an historical era or to understand the current thinking on something.

It works pretty well for homeschoolers, if the parent can get involved and do continuous homework/testing/further explanation, as well as make sure the kid is engaged with the video.  As good as classroom?  Not a chance.  Part of the reason the younger kid went back to school is that Dan didn’t have the time and I didn’t have the knowledge to extend his math lessons to where they needed to be.

BUT that’s old tech.  Those video lectures have existed since the mid eighties, I think.  Certainly since the early nineties.
In the middle of that same year, I discovered Lukeion Project.  It’s an academy online that teaches the classics, history and ancient language on line.

Marshall had become madly interested in the Greek classics, and they looked good.  And then under “they tempted me with knowledge” I realized they had Greek and Latin courses.  So I signed up for both.  (I keep meaning to go back, but not till the kids graduate.)

These are CLASSES.  They’re not teleconferences.  They’re more like instant messaging plus voice, but in a virtual classroom with fifteen or so students.  You get the teacher, speaking, and you can type questions.  If it’s a question that’s not relevant, they answer in typing.  If it is relevant to the rest of the class, they say “so and so has asked.”  You can ask and answer questions in voice too.

Let’s be honest.  I have a degree in languages.  I’ve found I can keep improving languages I know on my own, but not learn them on my own.  However, as far as my experience (or my kid’s) went there was no difference between this method and being in a classroom.  I stayed with it and worked my tail off, to the detriment of my health, since I was also writing six books that year.  I even made friends and developed a sense of fellowship.

The difference was as great between that and video lectures as between reading on computer and on kindle.  It’s simply not the same thing at all.

I’m not discounting that there might be groups of learners in small towns, who get together to study.  Humans are social animals.  BUT trust me, take it from someone whose writers group is virtual (and if I could figure out how, I’d mimic that classroom thing for that) and whose professional connections are all on line: distance learning is a contender and will only become more so.  It has a different “texture” from in person learning (you’re not as likely to check out the cute chick/guy across the classroom, for one.)  This is just like Kindle has a different “feel” from paper books, but it’s not inferior.  Just different.  HOWEVER it’s immeasurably more efficient and cheaper than a system that while not as sclerotic as publishing is becoming unaffordable and more dedicated to internal approbation by professors’ peer group than to actual results.

Will it work for exercise?  I don’t know.  That’s more a matter of forcing people to do things most of them frankly are resistant to.  I think the tech is NOT quite there yet.  You need camera connection to be reliable, and my experience with the things is that it sucks.  And the teacher would need a bank of monitors to see every student.  Give it ten years.  And it might never work for Yoga, because well… most people who do yoga want to be seen doing yoga.  It’s a culture as well as an exercise regime.

Will it work for art?  Probably.  With better video.  Will it work for mechanics/hands on assembly?  Um…  That is more difficult.  I’m not ruling it out, but I think it’s a long way off.  Like comics and art books, they’re still better by the old methods.  But it’s changing.

HOWEVER, most learning subjects do not require you to assemble stuff or for the instructor to read/see more than your words.  And those subjects and the way they’re taught will change and fast over the next four/five years no matter how much the establishment screams “Inconceivable!”

What can’t go on, won’t go on.  And creatures without eyes are limited to very restricted environments.  Dark ones, too.

It goes without saying that all writers are crazy.  At least it goes without saying because people inform me of this everyday of the week and twice on Sunday.

I maintain I’m not crazy, I’m eccentric, and I have proof.  They send me checks and I cash them.

But jokes aside, most people perceive writers as insane, whether we are or not.  Part of this is the fact that we do something other people don’t do.  No.  I’m not talking about sitting at the keyboard and waggling our fingers.  It’s the other stuff we do – the stuff with our minds.

While it’s not unusual for small children to have imaginary friends and to blur the line between reality and fantasy, it is unusual for grownups.  Someone was posting on Facebook yesterday how she’d told a nurse that she wasn’t upset when her heart went out of control.  She was writing and she was “in a different planet.”  Of course, then she had to work not to be sent to the psych ward.

I’ve learned – well, it’s been twenty seven years.  I’m a slow learner, but I’m not utterly stupid – not to let this stuff slip, but sometimes it still happens.  Like, when I get a call from the library, because I’ve blown returning that book by… six weeks, and I say “Oh, I’m sorry.  I was so submerged in this novel.”  And of course, the woman gets confused since the book that’s late is actually an history book.  Or like the late at night waitress who overheard Dan and I discussing how to get rid of a body.  Or how sometimes, in the presence of strangers, I turn to Robert or Dan and go “No, maybe I should use elves.  I think magic works better than science for that one.”

When we do that, we’re not giving writers a better reputation.  But, as they say in game shows, wait, there’s more!

Part of what goes on inside our minds when we’re creating worlds, is that we obsess on all kinds of little details.  Sometimes the details are only relevant for our particular story, and if what we’re studying is historical, it’s all too easy to go beyond the bounds of reason and become the world’s greatest authority on Venetian silver thimbles of the late fourteenth century.

That in itself is not a problem, unless you can’t help babbling on for months about Venetian silver thimbles.  Or how much superior they are to those inferior thimbles from Paris.  Then you might find that you lose all your friends, or at the very least, that your family learns to tune you out.  (There is a reason that if the words “Kit Marlowe” pass my lips, I stop existing to Dan and the kids for the next hour or so.  Or at least while sounds come out of my mouth.)

But that is not a terrible problem.  People shrug and let it go, pretty much.  It’s more… the habit of mind it creates.  Yeah, while you’re creating your world, these little details are life or death.  In the real world, things are rarely that fine grained, and you really don’t need to keep correcting people on points of minutia.  You need to establish your credentials in your world building so people believe your voice in the book.  In the real world, if you climb on a soap box and start preaching against Paris silver thimbles, people are ONLY going to listen for the novelty value, and before the men in white coats arrive.

But wait – there’s more!  In addition to what goes on internally in a writer’s mind, there’s something else that propels us to acting crazy (even when we’re not… really) and that’s the fact that our profession has no milestones.  Or rather, it has very few, and you can spend your entire professional life and never hit one of them.  Oh, if it’s a professional life, you’ll hit the small ones: you’ll sell short stories.  You’ll sell a novel.  You’ll sell multiple novels.  Those are the common ground of all professionals.  But then comes the crazy making stuff.  In the days of indie, what is “sell”?  I mean, you could have ten novels up, make 1k a year on each of them off Amazon, but are you published?  I mean, you just pushed that button.  (Dears, the answer is yes.)  What if you’re making a living (sort of) but you’re only published small press?  (Well, the way the market is now, you’re not alone.  You might also be better off, until NYC publishing clears itself up.)  What if you’re professionally published by one of the big six?  You’re published, but your books never seem to be in the local store.  You’re not a bestseller.  You’ve never won an award.  What do you tell people when they ask what you do for a living?  How do you present yourself?  We’re a social species, and one that is geared for status.  After a while, of people not understanding how hard you work, or that having three books out in this climate IS an achievement, you start acting crazy.  You start trying to explain to strangers how great your achievement are, and yelling, and windmilling your arms..  And then people believe you’re a crazy writer and think that’s the reason you’re not a best seller.

But wait – there’s yet more!  If you work for one of the traditional houses, EVERYTHING that goes wrong is your fault.  The things that go right is never to your credit, not unless you’re already a bestseller.  Instead, you “lucked out” or the editor did a “brilliant job.”  But if the book never makes it to the shelf and therefore doesn’t sell?  Your fault.  The cover was horrible and no one would touch that book?  Your fault.  Virtually no promotion, your fault.  This goes on until you go completely insane and enter one of two modes: continuous self promotion (which puts people off) or continuous self-justification (it’s not really my fault) which puts people off, and sometimes makes you wonder if you REALLY are crazy to be in the field, because clearly you stink on ice.

Of course, all this is made worse if you’re still trying to break in and not managing it, or if you’re just trying to get to that next level.  Look, even in indie, this field is not a meritocracy.  It’s closer than it was in traditional, but it’s not ALL how good you are.  It’s how good you are and how much you appeal to people RIGHT NOW.  This has to do with having the right idea at the right time, written in the right way.  There is now way to tell what that is, without widespread and expensive research.  You can’t do it.  So… you go crazy trying.

But WAIT – there’s even more!  Add to this complete lack of definition of your position in relation to the role you want to reach, and your completely nebulous status socially, AND the fact that the people who do have some control continuously tell you it’s all your fault, the fact that most of us work from home or at least alone.  If you work from home, nowadays, when the job entails having a blog, and doing promo work, and going to cons, chances are you’re writing around the clock and when you should be sleeping, even.  And that this is getting in the way of your normal non-writer contact with people.  And your also important contact with non-writer people.  (As if I knew any of them.  Ahahahahah!!!!!!)

But… yeah, there’s still more.  As you hurtle down the path to a mental breakdown because your book on Venetian thimbles didn’t sell, and some twit’s book called The Mystery of the Parisian thimble is a bestseller – because she was promo-ed out the wazoo, being a publisher’s step sister’s daughter – you have to be nice TO the twit who wrote about Parisian thimbles, nice to the editor who dropped your book on the floor AND nice to the fans of the twit.  After all, there are tons of them, now that she’s a mega bestseller.  You start pacing the floor in the middle of the night, picturing poisoning those martini’s she’s sipping on a tropical beach, while watching the skimpily clad hunks.  The anger just builds and builds, till you could radiate enough menace while sitting at your keyboard, to level a small third world country.  It’s going to escape somewhere, and you end up reducing the waitress who brought you a sesame bagel instead of the requested poppy bagel to tears with your pithy remarks.

But wait… yeah.  You know that most publishers are strictly non-earl-greyans, reformed, but you can’t stomach any tea but earl grey.  At parties and cons, you hear people on whom your success depends making fun of earl-grey drinkers, and talking about how stupid AND evil they are, and about how if they could they’d rid of the world of earl grey tea and those who drink it.  And you can’t speak.  It goes to build that anger, until you’re hunched over your keyboard, smelling the bergamot fumes and going “Ah!  You can have my earl grey when you pry it from my cold, dead hands, you Lapsong Souchong drinkers!”  You start posting in pro earl grey blogs under a nom de plume, and some days you think you’ll come apart from the tension between your public and private persona.

I’m here to tell you it doesn’t have to be that way.  Particularly nowadays, when you have other options.  Yes, it’s still a crazy profession.  No, you can’t do much about a lot of the things that drive you crazy.  But you can take a deep breath and do something about YOURSELF.

First – you have to live a life of the imagination, and yes, it will seem weird to most people.  It will seem weird to you sometimes.  Just accept it.  It is what it is.  Make sure you realize what you’re doing for work is what you’re doing for work.  It’s about as weird as my husband going off into some weird programing language analogy in the middle of dinner – and as normal.  Every profession has its special insanity.  Embrace yours.  When you must communicate with strangers, make sure you explain first.

Subsection of first – try to be in touch with other writers every once in a while, or, if you can, develop a group of writer buddies.  Not a critique group, though they can be that too, but people you can call up and say “I have Kit Marlowe again” and they won’t go “What?” but instead go “Oh, no.  What now?  Mysteries?  You know you have to finish the contract stuff first.”  Your friends make you feel perfectly normal.  (Often by being crazier than you.  Or at least you can tell that to yourself.  It’s very comforting.)

Second – learn that outside your head, no one wants to hear you go on and on about Venetian thimbles.  I mean, they’ll endure small amounts, but…  So, just take a deep breath, put the minimum needed into the book (the readers don’t need to suffer for YOUR research) and learn that what’s fascinating to you will make even your writing friends sleep.

Third, create milestones for yourself.  And don’t let them be dependent on anyone outside yourself.  “I want to sell a short story” is not a reasonable goal.  You can’t control the markets.  “I want to write ten short stories this year” is a reasonable goal.  “I plan to complete a novel” is a reasonable goal.  And what do you tell aunt Minnie, when she asks you why nothing has sold?  I don’t know. Rehearse.  It’s always best to say as little as possible and not to come across as defensive.  If you get asked why you haven’t won an award yet (hey, took me eleven years) saying “I don’t know.  I guess my stuff is just too odd for awards” works.  Particularly if you add, “It’s not what I’d like to do, it’s what I do.”  People tend to leave you alone, if nothing else.  But if you say “It’s all rigged, rigged!  They’re all against me” EVEN if it is true (I know a few cases) people think you’re crazy.  The only way to make that last one fly is to make a deliberately crazy face and say “but I’ll show them all!”  Then look normal, shrug and go “who knows?  Eh.  Maybe it will happen eventually.  Or not.”  And in the end, that’s what you need to cultivate, too.  Maybe it will happen.  Maybe not.  Let it go.  You can only do your best. The rest is not yours to decide.

Fourth – sh*t happens.  Repeat after me SH*T HAPPENS.  And sometimes it happens to people who don’t deserve sh*t.  This applies both if your traditional house just dropped your book on the floor – no, it doesn’t mean they’re evil.  Sometimes there’s huge stuff going on behind the scenes.  Okay, some are evil too, but that’s not the point – and if your indie book on Amazon didn’t sell a bazillion copies.  Perhaps it’s your fault, but more than likely it’s not.  It just wasn’t the season for Venetian thimbles.  Maybe what they really want is a book about venetian hooker shoes (Platforms.  Like all writers, I’m a font of useless knowledge.)  SH*T HAPPENS.  It’s not your fault.  Yes, you have to be good enough (remember those goals you set for yourself?) But beyond that, it’s in the lap of the gods.  Let them deal with it. It’s their job.  You just keep doing the best you can.

Fifth – you can’t anticipate what will sell.  Accept that.  You just do the best you can and you write what interests you.  Look, you have a better chance of making it with a book you REALLY want to write.  Interest tends to show through.  And no one wants the fiftieth clone of Twilight.  Or the five hundredth.

Sixth – control the work.  Control your expectations.  You can only do so much.  Sometimes that’s a lot.  Often, it’s not really.  Accept what you can do, and what you can’t. Work with that.  Pace yourself.  Take weekends off.  Take the occasional week.  Your work will be better when you come back to it.  (This is something I’m just learning.)  Writing is what you do. It might even be who you are.  But the well must be refilled sometimes, or it will go permanently dry.  If you can’t do the blogging, don’t.  If you hate cons, don’t go.  Do whatever promotion you feel able to, or none.  No one has found an effective form of promotion, yet, beyond “write the next book.”  So, do so.  At a reasonable pace.  (Oh, listen.  I’m working on it.)

Seventh – Envy is a sin, and it distorts everything.  Who knows, maybe the Mystery of the Parisian Thimble is good.  And if it’s not to your taste, maybe the author is still a nice woman.  So, she got promoted and you didn’t.  Yeah, that’s unfair.  But remember?  Control what you can control. Work on improving your writing.  And if she’s not insufferable, make friends – genuinely, with no resentment.  Tell yourself you NEXT book will leave hers in the dust.  It will be so good.  Then work on that.

And if the writer and the publisher are both insufferable, WHY ARE YOU WORKING WITH THAT HOUSE?  Don’t tell me it’s the only option you have.  No, it’s not.  You can always go indie.  Listen to me – make a sign and hang it over your desk.  Write on it “Life is Too Short To Work With *ssholes.”  (If you’re a minor and mom would object, feel free to write the last word as “idiots.”)

What about the fact that these Lapsong Souchongers disrespect Earl Greyans all the time and make bad jokes about them?  Well… If they think everyone who drinks deeply of the bergamot is evil, they are going to stop working with you when you reveal yourself.  So what?  See that sign I just told you to make?  Yeah.  Read it.  One thing you can be sure is that there are as many people out there crazy in tea love with Earl grey as there are with Lapsong Souchong .  Maybe more.  Work for them. Yeah, you’ll have to go indie, and you might never get an award.  Big deal.  You’ll be able to say what you think, and call your soul your own.  TRUST me.  It’s worth it.

Most of all, above all realize that writing – no matter how much you grew up worshiping writers – is not some amazing occupation for other people.  It’s a boring job and maybe a little weird.  So don’t go proclaiming your writerly status like it’s some sort of badge.  Let it go.  If they ask, tell them, but don’t try to impress them.  You have nothing to prove.

In the same way, writing – whatever your mom told you – doesn’t mean you’ll die in a garret of absinth poisoning, after catching syphilis from a Parisian whore (Hi mom.  I still haven’t even MET a Parisian whore.  And Absinth makes the heart grow fonder.)  You don’t have to act like it’s a terrible vice.  Again, if they ask, tell them.  Don’t try to defend yourself from imagined scorn.  You have nothing to prove.

Follow these few points, and you’ll still be a crazy writer, but no one will KNOW.  After all, you’d not want your characters to know you’d gone unhinged.  They’d never think of venetian thimbles the same way again.

*This is where the title comes from, and a lot of it (though obviously not all) applies to my career in traditional publishing, particularly “I’ve been saved by a blessed fatigue.”

And this time I’m not actually referencing the cartoon in Writers’ Digest many years ago.  This is not a matter of “there is a book in you, and it will have to come out.”

When I say “there are many books in me” right now, I’m not talking about the multitudinous confusion of voices that keep me awake in the night going “I’m only eighty thousand words.  A slim volume.  You could type me in three days.”    (And don’t get me started on the fights between my pen names.  In the same way it’s not madness if you’re rich enough, it’s merely eccentricity, it’s not schizophrenia if you get paid for it.  It’s merely being “driven” and “prolific” – that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.)

What I’m talking about, instead is about he stories that go to making up all of us.  Stories are an amazing thing.  See, we’re finding that false memories are very easy to implant, and though I can’t prove it, I suspect we’re more susceptible to a well written book than a movie when it comes to remembering it vividly as though it had happened to us.  Though this might depend on your type of intelligence.  I’m more verbal than visual and that might make a difference to me.  I don’t know if more visual people experience movies int hat way.  I don’t.  To me the books are more “real” because I get to know what people are feeling from inside their heads.  It’s a way to experience things that don’t happen to me – to live someone else’s life for a while.

I think this might be one of the reasons that biography is often found inadequate to explain historical figures, in way or another, and that to get the full rounded picture of someone, you need to know what they read – particularly what they read over and over until it became a part of them.

You could probably explain a lot about me, by knowing I was raised on Enid Blyton’s adventure series (pre-modernization) which means I absorbed a lot of British concepts of fair play and manners from the early twentieth century.  Into that fell Mark Twain, the adventures of Captain Morgan (with original color lithographs, showing every beheading and sword-wound in loving detail), then a lot of very odd books – including the complete work of Thomas Mann – and then Clifford Simak, and a lot of Heinlein.  Somewhere with that were a lot of WWII memoirs and fictionalized biographies.

With those books in me, how could I not feel more comfortable in an anglo-saxon culture.  What is otherwise inexplicable, becomes inevitable when viewed that way.

At the same time I was reading a lot of non fiction and philosophical works, which informed me, but did not mold my personality.  However, to this day, I remember growing up in England and having adventures with my cousins (and Tim, the dog) off the coast, during summer hols.  I remember fighting for Luna’s freedom alongside Wyo and Manny.  I ran the Way Station with Enoch.  I was a slave in an alien planet, sold to an old beggar-man who was really an intergalactic spy.  Oh, yeah, and I went riding with the musketeers on that long hail-Mary pass to retrieve the Queen’s jewels from Buckingham.  I remember the horses dying under me, and perfidious inn keeper laying a trap for us.

Those experiences have become part of my soul in such a way, that should there be a weighing of the heart after death, I’ll have to explain why we chose to let Mike harass the Warden.

Yes, of course, I was also there, at the end, when the Earth got bombed, and I became a smuggler to hide the books that civilization might rise again, maybe that will count in my favor.

I am as much a child of those books and those authors as I am of the relatives who raised me, of the landscape I grew up in.  Sometimes, I think I am more so.

This is both good and bad:

It is good because for many of us, it gives us a chance to have children we never had – to touch generations yet unborn.

It is bad, because it gives us a chance to touch generations yet unborn.  How are we touching them?  Whose influences are coming through our writing?  Is this what we want the people reading us to become?  Do we even know?  How much control do we have?

Just like with having children, when you find out that you didn’t just reproduce yourself, but ancestors you never even met, your literary children will go on paths you can’t predict, and forget new ways of seeing things, give people experiences for good and ill that you can’t imagine.

Embrace it, own it.  Be proud of it.  Imperfect you might be.  Not the equal of the giants who formed you.  You might struggle and hem through word.

But in the world of tomorrow, a world past your death, that book will be part of someone.  It will make someone act the way they remember your characters acting.

And just like with sending your DNA forward, you’ll be alive and present in that moment, in the heart of humanity yet to be.

Making predictions is hard.

Particularly about the future.  What’s even harder is to influence the world one way or another – be it with your writing, or your teaching, or just your wonderful sunny personality.

When I opened Darkship Thieves with “You always get what you don’t want” I was merely echoing my grandmother’s oft-repeated aphorism.

I don’t know if you went through the same, but I remember being three or a little older, and starting to daydream about my adult life.  Of course the early dreams were crazy stuff, but they’d be.  I had no clue how adults lived, after all.  But then the older ones got sharper and more defined.

Look, I’m a realist.  Always was.  At age eight, I was going to grow up and live in Denver.  (This was so far back I did not know Denver was not by the ocean.)  At age fourteen, I knew what the US immigration policy looked like, and I knew a couple who had been on the waiting list for ten years (both Phds though, I’ll grant you, not stem.)  At age three I dreamed of growing up and having babies, but at age twelve I knew most boys filled me with an irresistible desire to hit them hard over the head to stop them talking.  (I didn’t know about duct tape.  Also, most girls gave me the same issue.  Middle school was hell.)  At age five I dreamed of being pretty and popular, but at age ten, I knew neither was likely to happen.

So I could extrapolate my life quite well.  I was going to get a Phd, teach in college and look after my parents in their old age.  I can’t tell you, given my trajectory, how LIKELY that future was.  like 99.9% likely.

Instead, because of a friend delaying in the bathroom in tenth grade, (after a badminton match.  We’d just showered, but she insisted on stopping by the bathroom on the way out of the school.) And my getting bored and looking on the bulleting board, I ended up in the United States for my senior year in highschool.  (Well, the poster showed a girl coming out of an egg with a suitcase.  It said “get out of your shell” and a number.  NOTHING about what it was.  If it had said “exchange student program” I’d never have thought about it.  But it didn’t.  So I called the number to find out what it was, and they said “How about we send you the papers.”  And I said “sure” knowing my family couldn’t afford it.  Turned out it cost very little and… we…  The rest is history.)  This in turn led to my becoming… a sparring partner (wash your mind.  We just argued A LOT) with my family-liaison’s son.  Which, four years later, after a nasty breakup, led to my calling him and… well…  We’ve been married twenty seven years.  And I’m a professional writer, something that seemed impossible even thirteen years ago.

Okay, if I just disqualified myself from future-prognosis, I assure you I’m not the only one.  If you look back at your own life, you’ll find that while each step at the time was perfectly logical according to who you are, the trajectory would have seemed wildly improbable to you at ten.  Or twenty.

Maybe you never thought you’d marry.  Maybe it’s your profession that surprised you.  Or where you life.  Few of us live predictable lives, because we don’t live alone.  We are factors in a chaotic system, but we are not the only factor.

A-propos de quoi am I telling you this stuff?

To be bluntly honest, I think it’s part of what’s ailing science fiction.  It’s impossible to listen to Heinlein juveniles, or anything else from that time, without catching that sense of confidence of “this is how the world will go.”  It’s also impossible not to see how different the world is from anything they could have predicted.  Rather like being 14 and trying to extrapolate your life at sixty.

And this means that anyone reading it today knows that it’s not “an accurate prediction of the future” – impossible to convince ourselves our predictions are any more accurate.  (Unless we’re really, really egotistical and lack self-examination powers, which mind you, a lot of us do. But not enough to maintain the illusion.)

So am I saying that science fiction is passee?

No.  Science Fiction was never about predicting the future.  The clue to this is that writers were not in carnival fairs, and didn’t say “cross my palm with silver” (Okay, I lie about that last one.  Though I prefer gold.  Or would.)

The contradiction of science fiction is to make it sound like it’s about the future – like the writer can see into the future and see clearly enough to make it real and believable to the writer.  But it should not – and I don’t think it ever did – have pretensions of being accurate.  (Again, if we could do that, we’d win the lottery.)

But then, what good is it? you ask.  Well, let’s put it this way – your daydreams of being a grown up when you were very little were in no way accurate.  BUT they were important.  They gave you an idea life wasn’t static, and you wouldn’t always be a kid, dependent on your parents.  It got your mind working towards such ideas as “I’ll live independently and need to make a living.”  So, as each new stage arrived, in what is, looking backward, years of vertiginous change, you weren’t scared.  You’d tried this on, if in slightly different form, in your mind.  You could think about it clearly now because it wasn’t new and scary.

Science fiction is like that for our entire species.  We can – and do – look to the future through it.  Science fiction is the dreams of mankind.  (Fantasy, too, but it’s a different thing.  It’s like those daydreams you had – what you didn’t? – that you’d find out you were a dragon shape shifter.  You knew they’d never come true, but it was fun to think about it on a summer afternoon, and work out exactly how you’d hide it.)

In a time of rapid change – now – we must dream ahead.  The future will not be what we expect, but it will rhyme.  (I didn’t become a college professor looking after my parents, but it could be argued I think too much, and look after my kids…)  If we’ve looked ahead and sort of seen ourselves in a very different society, we’ll be able to think of developments more clearly.

(Take clones – please.  While the real cloning didn’t resemble SF, people who read SF were nothing phased by cloning.  While their co-workers ran around talking about the end of the world they read the articles, absorbed it, compared it to the scenarios they’d read before, then said, “Oh, look.  This is not that different from twins.  No, it doesn’t do anything to your soul.” etc.)

So, we need science fiction.  And what type of science fiction do we need?  Distopic?  Hopeful?  Human wave?  (Now old) New Wave? Space? Earth Bound?  Feminist? Politically incorrect?  Hard?  Or scientific sacred-cow goring?

Yes.

We need all of the above.  Only a wide range of dreams can prepare us for an unknown future and allow us to try on new ideas and new ways of facing the world, so that whatever the world throws at us, we have at least some notion what is going on.

This is why having gatekeepers establish “one correct type” of science fiction is so pernicious.

What we need are tales of wonder and the imagination.  The crystal ball are broken, but our dreams aren’t.  Dream a little dream (or a big one) today.

Edited to add: Welcome Instapundit readers and many thanks to Glenn Reynolds for the link!

*Okay, so it’s late and only one chapter.  In my defense, I’ve been hit with an emergency request and I need time to work on that, since it must be done today.  It is, you could say, a debt of honor.  I WILL try to give you two chapters next week.  At least this is not a short chapter (grin.) Oh, I might have repeated cards.  If so, I’ll deal with it on rewrite.  I kept trying to edit and getting confused :-P*

*This is the Fantasy novel I’m posting here for free, one chapter every Friday.   If your conscience troubles you getting something for free, do hit the donate button on the right side.  Anyone donating more than $6 will get a non-drm electronic copy of Witchfinder in its final version, when it’s published.
There is a compilation of previous chapters here  all in one big lump, which makes it easier to read and I will compile each new chapter there, a week after I post.  When the novel is completed and about to be edited the compilation page will probably be deleted.

Oh, this is in pre-arc format, meaning you’ll find the occasional spelling mistake and sentence that makes no sense.  It’s not exactly first draft, but it’s not at the level I’d send to a publisher, yet. *

For previous chapters, look here:  https://accordingtohoyt.com/witchfinder/

Symbol and Sign

She cut cards like a card sharp, and it caused him to raise an eyebrow at her, before he knew what he was doing.  Heaven knew she’d not be the first member of her family to have a wicked addiction to the gaming tables, but the disaster that had been her great great grandfather’s reign didn’t need a reprise.

But she looked up as she brought the deck back together and grinned at his expression.  “You need not look so dismayed, your grace.  I was not weaned on betting or card games.  Please remember Earth is different.  Mostly I learned to play Go Fish with my grandmother’s friends when they visited.  And one of her friends taught me to cut cards.”

“Go … Fish?” Seraphim asked, wondering if she was trying to insult him in a subtle way.  But no, it didn’t have that tone.

“Oh.  Yes.  I imagine in Avalon even quite young children of good houses play Faro and loo in the nursery.”

“Not silver loo,” he said, in the hopes of making her laugh, and it worked.  Her silvery laugh rang out, though she looked as though not quite sure he was joking.

“Well, in my world,” she said, softly and seemingly unconscious of knowing this was not quite her world.  “Children don’t play for money.  I think Go Fish is primarily designed to help you learn the suits.”  She disciplined her features, amusement banishing.  “Now, if you excuse me, even my poor methods require me to concentrate before I scry.”

She took a deep breath and steepled her hands over the playing cards. Elegant hands with long slim fingers, and Seraphim saw them bedecked in rings, and for a moment, wondered if he was having a premonition.  Then he realized her hands resembled those of the Queen, which he usually kissed, when he visited.  The Queen, of course, usually wore rings.

Something like a non-physical pain seized his middle making his breathing difficult.  After Nell went back to Avalon, after she was returned to her family, all he’d see of her were those evenings when his family got invited in to discuss important magic policy points.  She’d give him her hand to kiss…

He realized his eyes wanted to fill with water, and he refused to allow it.  Stupidity.  Of course she was the princess of Avalon and of course she had to go back.  He might have used her parents’ grief to get her to understand this, but her parents’ grief was true nonetheless.  And also, the kingdom needed her.  Without her…  He refused to think about it.

The king had refused to name a successor because, of course, naming a successor was the same as admitting his only, beloved daughter was either dead, or gone so far from this world that she might as well be dead, for all she’d never come back.

And neither the king, nor his father, nor yet his father’s father had had any siblings.  Four generations back, there was a numerous family of seven girls and two boys.  All the girls and the younger boy had been married to royal houses in Europe.  If the king died without descendants – or with no descendant able to come back and claim the throne – the isles would fall pray to the dynastic ambitions of a dozen ducal families in the kingdom itself, who would claim their distant relationship to the king – on the level of Seraphim’s own, at least five generations back and more – was preferable to turning the kingdom over to strangers.  At the same time, the territorial ambitions of Europe would be unleashed too, and he doubted that there would be a kingdom small enough not to send at least a second son to stake a claim.  Even the Portuguese royal family were cousins, he thought.  And the Low Countries too.

Behind his eyes, which closed in an attempt to block out his thoughts, images of armies descending on his beloved homeland and laying it to waste while killing its peasants and raping its magic passed like a blood-soaked painting succeding another.

He was called back from these troubling visions, by a slap of a card on the table.  “This,” Nell’s voice said, slowly.  “Is the questioner, who I think for this purpose must be you, as you’re the only other person present, and one involved in this matter.”  She lay down the king of Clubs and Seraphim grinned at it, because he suspected half of Avalon would expect him to be the king of hearts in any reading.  But clubs was more like it.  His was wealth acquired by work – or at least it would be, if he had his way.  Right now the wealth was largely imaginary.  Even his exalted position – before this adventure – was something precarious that only work could secure to him.

“And this,” Nell said.  “Is myself – since I’m also involved in this matter.”  She lay the queen of Hearts over the top of the King of Clubs, crosswise.   That not-quite physical pain troubled Seraphim once more.  The Queen of Hearts.  A woman who represented home.  As Nell must, being the rightful princess of Avalon.  A woman who represented love– His brain skittered away from that thought.

Over the last few days, he’d been closer to Nell Felix than he’d ever expected to be to a woman not related to or married to him.  She’d helped him with details of every day life and shown him the mysteries of zippers, among many others, which had required a level of closeness he’d not expected to have with a decent woman not betrothed to him.

Truth be told, before his discovery of her origins, he’d thought that he would have to do the decent thing and marry her.  Where this would leave him with Honoria, was not something he wanted to contemplate.  It was quite possible that Honoria had severed her relationship to him in his absence, particularly since he was fairly sure he was now considered a fugitive to justice.  If not, then he must perforce jilt her when he returned, and marry Nell.

He was fully aware that in either case this would cause a rift between the two houses, possibly for generations.  Though he supposed, Michael being sixteen, he could be offered as a husband to Honoria, a sacrificial lamb in Seraphim’s place.  Michael, being who he was, and married already to his inventions, was likely not to notice a forcible marriage, anyway.  He’d drift gently through the ceremony, then disappear into his workshop to sketch a magic powered ring-bearer.

The image made him smile, and then he remembered both that Michael was a captive in fairyland, and might well be dead now, and that he could not possibly marry Nell.  She was the princess of Avalon.  The ROYAL princess of Avalon.  What talk had there been of her marriage, over the years, should she return?  Something about Francis of France.  Seraphim shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He hoped not.  The rumors about Francis were almost as ugly as those about the fellow that Penny had taken up with at Cambridge.  They were definitely as … odd.  Such a marriage, royal or not, was not likely to result in the harmonious union that the current monarchs enjoyed.  It would also probably not result in children.  Unless– He put an end to the thought, quickly, before it could fully form.  He was not his father.

Nell was out of his reach by position and birth.  And anything of an underhanded nature, anything disrupted of the vows of marriage – undertaken for love or by duty – would be beneath his honor.  He sighed audibly, and realized that Nell had lay a row of cards above them.

He stared down at the ace of diamonds; the three of diamonds; and eight of clubs; a ten of clubs; an ace of clubs.  He looked up at Nell and waited for her interpretation, knowing there were as many interpretations as readers, and it was important to know what the one scrying thought it all meant.

“These are the roots of the trouble,” she said, her eyes troubled.  The long, elegant index touched cards.  The three of diamonds, “Legal trouble, or trouble with the law.  I think this is a given, for you and me, both.”  The eight of clubs, “This trouble would seem to result from jealousy and greed – though I don’t know whose.”  The ten of clubs.  “Travel to distant lands.”  Her lips quirked.  Then her finger pushed at the ace of diamonds, bringing it out of the row.  “This one is troubling, because I have no idea what it means – I get a strong feeling it refers to a piece of jewelry.”

“Perhaps it is your pendant,” Seraphim said.

She inclined her head, though apparently not convinced.  “And the ace of clubs.  This represents happiness and wealth,” she said.  “And I fail to see how that can be at the root of our problems.”

This time Seraphim inclined his head, acknowledging his own confusion.

“These,” she said, rapidly slapping cards down.  “Are the people and things who can help us.”

The Jack of clubs, the Jack of hearts, the Queen of clubs, the Queen of spades, and a five of spades.  Nell frowned at this array at the feet of the two original cards, then, rapidly, reached into the deck an covered the Jack of clubs with a cross wise Jack of Spades, and then over the two, slanted, set the four of clubs and the six of diamonds.  Then she seemed to regard this mess, and the whole row with a look of utter bewilderment.  “Uh,” she said, and scratched her nose, in an endearingly young-looking gesture.  “That, I think, your Grace, must stand for your family, but…  Is your mother perhaps contemplating a second marriage?”

“What?” the exclamation was wrenched from him, uncouth bluntness and all.

Nell sighed. “Well,” she said.  “I’d assumed this,” she set her finger on the Queen of Spades.  “Was your mother.  It usually stands for a widowed lady.  And this,” her finger on the Queen of clubs, “I assumed was your sister Caroline, who seems self-willed and intelligent.”

“She is that.”

“And this,” the Jack of hearts, “Would stand for your brother…”  She paused, seeming bewildered.  “Either of your brothers, to be sure.  Since it often stands for a male relative.”

“To be sure,” Seraphim agreed.

“But this,” she pointed to the small pile.  “Is clearly someone about to embark on a second marriage which is fraught with perils and complications.  And, as you know, the Jack, can stand for either male or female.  Usually for young, but not always.”

Seraphim felt a sick lurch in his stomach.  His mother had been widowed long enough and surely she was allowed to marry again.  But what if she chose unwisely?  He would go a long way to keep her from hurt.  She had told him nothing of another relationship.  What would she keep from him?

But Nell’s hands were rapidly slapping down another row of cards: the two of spades, the Nine of Spades, ten of spades, the three of spades and the four of clubs.  Her finger pointed as she said, “Gossip and intrigue; bad luck in all things, destruction and deaths; imprisonment and unwelcome news; unfaithfulness and broken partnership; changes for the worse, lies and betrayal.  That seems to be at the root of our troubles.”

“Intrigue me,” he said.  “I’d have thought that we had been plunged into this by loving kindness and a wish to help us.”

“Don’t be scathing,” she said.  “It is clearly trying to tell us there is a vast conspiracy underlying this all.”

“That too we could have gathered.”

“Undoubtedly.”  The finger poked at the ten of spades.  “This one worries me.  Whose imprisonment?”

“Michael’s maybe,” Seraphim said.  “Or yours being sent to this world.”

“Very possible, and in fact part of it, I sense,” she said.  “But I also sense that’s not complete.  There is more in this.”

“The conspiracy.”

“No, I mean, there are other people imprisoned.”

Seraphim’s stomach lurched again.  “I’ve had dreams,” he said.  “It is very possible that even now Gabriel is in jail.”  He tried not to think of what the law thought of half-elves and how harshly it dealt with those unpredictable creatures.  “It is my ambition to bring him out safely before they can do one of the curious things they love doing to half elves, like stripping him of his magic.”

Nell almost let the pack of cards fall.  “Strip him of– Is that even possible?”

“Very possible.  If you don’t mind destroying the mind with it.”  To her credit, she looked as sick at this as he felt.  “That,” she said.  “Must not be allowed.”

She slapped a row of cards down.  “These are the people arrayed against us,”   The three of clubs, covered by the nine of hearts; the seven of hearts; the nine of clubs; the king of spades.  After a while, and hesitating, she covered the king of spades with the eight of hearts.  “Someone who is making a marriage or attempting to make a marriage to gain advantage from his partner.”  Honoria.  Seraphim’s stomach lurched.  “But it’s covered by the dream card.  This marriage is a key to all this person’s hopes and dreams.”  Honoria.  He really was an abominable cad, Seraphim thought.  Well, he would marry her, then.  It wasn’t as though he could marry Nell.  “And unfaithful, unreliable person who breaks his promises.”  Seraphim’s mind lurched to that damned necromancer that Gabriel had got enmeshed with.  Seraphim should have killed him.  But at the last minute, the man’s gallant deloping at their duel – firing into the air, which admitted his guilt in the matter – had touched Seraphim’s compassion.  At least the cad and the filthy necromancer knew he was a cad and a filthy necromancer.  Seraphim’s hand had deviated a few inches and not got him through the heart.  A mistake that.  He’d make sure the hunt to find him resumed.  Yes, as a half elf, he was likely to be put to death for Necromancy.  But then better that than endangering Penny.  “A new lover or admirer to whom you should not be resistant.”

“Beg your pardon?”

“I don’t know,” she said.  “It’s among the people or things that might either attack us or array to make our life difficult.  How would I know.  It’s probably your mistress or something.”

“I don’t have a mistress.”

“No?  Gossip would have you any half a dozen of them.”

“Indeed.  Carefully laid gossip, m’dear.  The truth is I can’t afford a single mistress, much less six.”

“Very well then,” she said, and pursed her lips, in clear disapproval of his morals, which made his having a mistress or not a question of money, not of heart.  “It might be a relationship for someone else.  I daresay it will become clear.”

“I daresay, like most scrying, probably much too late.”

“Indeed,” she agreed.  “And these.”  She tapped on the juxtaposed cards.  “These are – or is, perhaps – an ambitious, authoritative man and a” she frowned.  “An intruder.  Someone from elsewhere.”

“Covering the ambitious man?”

“Yes, not merely involved with him, which would be crosswise, but covering.”

“Oh,” Seraphim said.  He shook his head.  “Someone from…  An elf?  A changeling?”

She started.  “Yes.  Yes.  Definitely that.”

Seraphim sighed.  “Not a surprise.  They are involved in this to their black hearts, I’d say.  It worries me, because Gabrie–”

At that moment, they both felt it: like a tearing midair that indicated someone had opened a portal nearby.  Nell dropped the cards and ran out the kitchen door, Seraphim following more slowly, out the door, past the small patio, through the gate in the fence, to a field they’d watched the mechanical plows – Nell called them tractors – dig up the day before.

In the middle of the field were two men, one of them standing and swaying on his feet.  “Mr. Penn,” Nell said.  “But who is it with him?”

Seraphim stared, “The damned necromancer,” he said.  “But why is he digging in the dirt with his bare hands?”

Ladies, Gentlemen, Fireflies, Dragons and Life Forms Not In Compliance with The ATH bi-annual Commenting Life Form Survey, kindly give a warm According To Hoyt welcome to Stephanie Osborn.

The Displaced Detective series, which Twilight Times Books debuted in late 2011, involves bringing Sherlock Holmes from an alternate reality (supported by judicious use of M theory) into “our” modern world. (In actuality, even the spacetime continuum depicted in the books isn’t really ours, but it’s close enough to hardly tell the difference. The only way one can tell this is in knowing Colorado Springs, CO and environs, especially the geology, which I studied intensively during my trips there some years back.) This was my way of bringing my two favorite genres, SF and mystery, together, and using my favorite detective into the bargain. But it wasn’t a simple task.

 

The first thing I had to do was to determine if Holmes was in the public domain. There’s a long story there in itself. It seems that the initial copyright on all of the stories expired 75 years after Doyle’s death as per normal, and then was, through much legal wrangling, pulled back under copyright again by the estate, but THOSE copyrights have now expired entirely in the UK, and all except for the Casebook collection has expired in the US. So Holmes was in the clear for me to use as a character, despite much controversy on the subject.

 

I’ve read Holmes since I was young, and I’m so familiar with the stories that I can beat the average person hands down in a trivia contest. (Another Holmes aficionado, maybe not quite so readily, but I can make it a good horse race.) I’ve also read a lot of the aficionado studies, and much of that stuck in my memory too. But I wanted to make sure I got the character right, so throughout the writing of the books, I’ve periodically immersed myself in the original Conan Doyle stories. I’ve joined the Nashville branch of the Baker Street Irregulars (The Scholars of the Three-Pipe Problem) under the name “Boswell,” and I participate in their activities whenever possible, which adds to the ability to study and get more perspective.

 

But that’s hardly all I’ve done.

 

I acquired several broken-in pipes, ranging from a long-stemmed pipe to a half-bend pipe, in everything from apple-wood to briar-wood to clay. (Contrary to popular belief, Meerschaums are not the pipes that Holmes actually smoked, in all likelihood; they were introduced by stage actor William Gillette, because that type is well balanced for hanging from the mouth while he delivered his lines.) And I learned to smoke them. It turns out that there is a distinct talent to smoking a pipe; it is not easy, and it almost always requires lighting twice. The first time seems to heat the tobacco, and goes out quickly; the second time actually lights the pipe properly so it will stay lit – if properly seen-to. A pipe ignored for more than a minute or so will go out entirely and require the whole double lighting protocol all over again. Tobacco is an interesting substance; the smoke is very soothing to the smoker, and aids in putting aside things that one does not desire to think about, and I can see why it would have helped Holmes concentrate. Unlike most, however, I was fortunate not to find myself becoming addicted to the stuff.

 

As brandy is one of the more commonly mentioned liquors in the Holmes stories, I also researched the brandies in existence at the time. Now, brandy is the common English term for cognac, and it was developed by distilling wine. Given the long periods of time required to transport kegs of wine via ship, often the wine spoiled, or turned into vinegar, by the time it arrived. Transporting bottles was a poor idea; should the ship encounter high seas, the bottles would break. Converting the wine to brandy was a way to keep the liquor from spoiling, and proved to be tasty in and of itself.

 

Myself, I thought Holmes might be a bit of an Anglophile, and so I selected Hennessy as the brand I would drink with my pipe; my research demonstrated that it existed in Holmes’ time, and was easily obtainable now. (Interestingly, Glenlivet, a popular old single malt Scotch, was a relatively new label back then.) However, as Holmes was related to the French painter Horace Vernet (a real person in our own timeline) via his grandmother being Vernet’s sister, it is entirely possible he might have favored French cognac. Watson referenced brandy, however, not cognac. And so I felt my selection was reasonable for my research.

 

Unfortunately one night I discovered the reason why so many Victorian gentlemen retired to the study after dinner for a smoke and a drink. Firstly, you should know that I emphatically do not like the sensation of being drunk, on the few times it has ever happened by accident, and so I stop when I feel the buzz hitting, if not before. But it seems that tobacco “potentiates” (multiplies) the effects of any drug with which it is used. I later found that this is the reason that hookahs using a blend of opium and tobacco were used in opium dens; it provided a bigger high for less quantity of drug. In my case, the tobacco rendered the alcohol in the brandy much more potent than I had expected. It is the first, last, and only time I have ever been so drunk I threw up. I immediately decided at that point that I had more than enough knowledge of pipe smoking to write Holmes effectively, and while I still continue to collect pipes as an eclectic hobby, I no longer smoke them. Brandy, not so much either.

 

As mentioned, Holmes and Watson were both smokers – pipes, cigars, and cigarettes. But the cigarettes were hand-rolled, and all were lit with either matches or hot coals, or possibly at the jet of a gas lamp. The fusee, a type of flare or flintlock, was the first kind of automatic lighter, and was not particularly safe, especially, I gathered, for men with facial hair.

 

There are other things that I had to take into consideration, such as the items of everyday existence. When Holmes was introduced to the modern day, he discovered that simple things like personal hygiene had changed considerably. Whereas we take the modern disposable razor for granted, as well as shaving foam or gel, Holmes would have used a straight razor, shaving soap, and brush, and would periodically have visited his barber for a beard touch-up. The beginning of what would become our modern razor was developed about that time, and was termed a “safety razor,” because the blade was contained within the head and it was more difficult to produce a serious wound with it. (No Sweeney Todd types with that.) Toothbrushes looked much the same, but were made of different, more natural, materials – when they were used at all. There was no such thing as toothpaste, per se. Various tooth powders were used, ranging from baking soda to literal powdered stone, e.g. pumice – which often eroded the tooth enamel, undermining their purpose. Deodorants existed; one of the first that was introduced (as “Mum”) later became the brand “Ban.” But they were typically pastes or creams applied with the fingers. After-shaves, while in use, would have been basic preparations of alcohol or witch hazel, possibly lightly fragranced, blended and provided by the local apothecary, or as known in London, “chemist.” Likewise any personal fragrances, colognes, etc.

 

Then there was the matter of furniture. Holmes’ flat at 221b Baker Street contained an item of furniture known as a tantalus. My research indicates that the tantalus still exists today, but we know it by different names: the wet bar, or liquor cabinet. That liquor cabinet would contain multiple decanters, likely of crystal, and probably with a metal sign hanging around the neck of each, denoting its contents. The cabinet also would have contained a “gasogene,” the early form of a seltzer bottle. It consisted of two bottles held together with wicker or wire, one containing tartaric acid and sodium bicarbonate which reacted to produce carbon dioxide, and the other containing water. When the handle was depressed, carbonated water emerged for mixing into drinks – when the thing didn’t explode from pressure, that is.

 

A proper gentleman such as Holmes, would be attired from the skin up as follows: vest and pants (these today would be called boxers and undershirt – NOT a t-shirt, but a tank top style), stockings (socks), a shirt with replaceable collar (ring around the collar? Throw it away and get another), button-up trousers (modern pants, trousers, or slacks, but with a button fly) held up by braces (suspenders), a double-pocketed waistcoat (“WES-kət,” now known as a vest), and if in public or with visitors, a suit-coat of various styles, and a tie of some sort, approximating the modern bow or regular tie, or something even fancier. The tie was often referred to as a cravat. Shoes were leather, usually ankle height, and buttoned up. Note also that some men of the era wore corsets, although there is no evidence that Holmes or Watson did so.

 

Accessories would include cufflinks and a pocket-watch. The watch was properly placed in one waistcoat pocket; the chain was threaded through a buttonhole in the waistcoat and over to the other pocket. On the other end of the chain would be some necessary trinket such as a pipe tool (for cleaning and/or tamping one’s pipe) or a jack-knife (pocket knife), and this would be tucked into the waistcoat pocket opposite the pocket-watch. In addition, when going out, no London gentleman would be caught dead without his cane (young or old, handicapped or no), kid leather gloves, and silk hat (top hat). Optional accessories included studs instead of shirt buttons, a stick pin for the cravat, spats (to protect expensive leather shoes from the mud on the streets and in the gutters, which not infrequently still contained the contents of chamber pots, at least in certain parts of London), watch fobs, and overcoats and wool scarves in winter.

 

The only skin which showed on a Victorian male or female in public – if they were of any station at all – was the skin of the face and upper neck.

 

So imagine Holmes’ surprise to be in our modern society: women in trousers and jeans, short sleeves on everyone, low necklines, sport coats, shorts, and so forth. Hats are rarely seen except for cowboy hats in some circles, and baseball caps in others; top hats are only stage props. Canes are for the elderly or injured; t-shirts are worn as outerwear – and let us not even mention swimwear! To quote Dr. Skye Chadwick, Holmes’ foil and the other protagonist of the series, a Brazilian string bikini would “make your Victorian sensibilities run away screaming, if not outrightly curl up and die.” Holmes actually finds the military uniform much more comfortable mentally, as they are styled more along the lines to which he is accustomed, and uses them freely (under the government’s sponsorship) in his disguises.

 

As the series progresses, I’m finding myself delving into other historical aspects, such as the differences in dialects just within the city of London during Holmes’ time. How many people, outside of dialecticians, could tell the difference – or even know there was one – between an East End and a Cockney dialect? (Not many.) What do rural Englishmen sound like? (Not so different from redneck Southerners, but with a slight twist.) What exists in London today where 221b should be? (A bank headquarters.) Did 221b ever exist in our reality? (No, it didn’t. Upper Baker Street, where Holmes’ flat would have existed, didn’t get numbers until 1932. The street numbers only went to 100 at the time Conan Doyle wrote the stories.) Did the Baker Street Irregulars really exist? (Yes, they did, but not as street urchins. In WWII the headquarters of the Special Operations Executive, an espionage, reconnaissance and surveillance organization that eventually merged into MI6, was located in Lower Baker Street, and took on the nickname, which is not to be confused with the international fan organization of the same name.) Is there an Underground station nearby that Holmes and Watson could have used? (Yes, the Baker Street Station, one of the world’s oldest.)

 

It’s been a fun ride so far, and I’ve no doubt it will continue to be!

 

~~Stephanie Osborn

Stephanie’s Website

http://www.amazon.com/Case-Displaced-Detective-Arrival/dp/1606191896/
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-case-of-the-displaced-detective-stephanie-osborn/1106607718

http://www.amazon.com/Case-Displaced-Detective-Speed-ebook/dp/B0063XNLL8/
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/books/e/2940013631014
 

The kid’s team wasn’t really counting on winning regionals in Denver, so getting ready for world finals has been much like herding cats without the benefit of tuna.

This would be okay, except of course I’m trying to get the grossly overdue Royal Blood out the door.  This means I’m either at the office writing, or at some robotics-connected thing.

All this to say the next chapter of Witchfinder isn’t ready.  I’ll do it/them (I’m hoping to have at least two) by Sunday.

I’m awfully sorry.
— Running out the door to the office RIGHT after I post this.