[Note from Steve: It’s been awhile, but here’s another potpourri of comments on current news—in other words, I’ll forsake my usual verbosity in order to cover more items that have caught my attention.  A lot of newsy comments for very little money?  Consider it a selection of tapas and pick and choose what you like….]

Item: Has our country gone mad?  Last week (Tuesday) we all received the news that the recall elections in Colorado were successful.  Dems Angela Giron from Colorado and John Morse from Colorado Springs were recalled and replaced by Republicans because they were strong supporters of gun control legislation.  This recall was backed by the NRA, of course, and now they will shiver the timbers of any legislator who dares to cross them.  The recall was also backed by the Koch brothers and other conservatives who had it in for these two because of other progressive misdeeds.  Colorado moves farther to the right…will it soon be competing with Arizona, Florida, Kansas, and Texas?  Just wait…they’ll soon ban teaching Darwinian evolution in schools.

Maybe the middle of the country and the South should secede.  I’d support it if they’d return all the federal funding they’ve spent over the years!  I urge all ski enthusiasts to boycott Colorado this winter.  Hit’em where it hurts—in their bank accounts!  (With the floods, that might not be necessary now.)  Yeah, I know, the Colorado districts involved are tiny and other people would suffer from the boycott, but Morse was State Senate President, or something like that—he was a representative for the whole state in that sense.

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[Note from Steve: Sabrina Chase is a prolific and successful writer in a genre that is difficult to break into—I know that from personal experience.  I discovered her in my role as a lurker reading Joe Konrath’s blog—you never know when or where you can find another interesting author!  She has written mostly novels: Firehearted, The Last Mage Guardian, The Long Way Home, Raven’s Children, Queen of Chaos, The Scent of Metal, and The Bureau of Substandards Annual Report.  Like yours truly, her scientific background is in physics; but also like many physicists, she does something else in her day job—she currently works as a software developer.  So yes, she’s a “mad scientist,” but maybe only to the extent that she’s also a writer.  For further details, check out her website.  Without further ado, let’s enjoy her candid answers to my prying questions!]

Sabrina on Writing:

Steve: Why, how, and when did you start writing?

Sabrina: I suffer from being a quick reader, meaning I read far more quickly than my favorite writers could produce books. To kill time I started making up my own stories, and one thing led to another. At first I tried short stories, but it’s not my natural length. (I’ve gotten better at writing short form over the years.) One day I showed a short story to a friend, and he insisted, “There has to be more! Write the rest!”  And so I did—it turned into my first book, Firehearted.

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If you haven’t already realized it, President Obama is a lot better at winning elections than he is at foreign policy.  There’s a huge cow-pie out there called Syria and he’s about to put both feet into it—possibly even trying to take a swim.  Maybe he already has by the time I make this post.  If so, take this as a plea to get the hell out of Syria.  If not, let’s make sure he doesn’t jump into the fray.  Syria is different.  I hope to show you why, but frankly the issues are about as clear as that cow-pie.

I’ll start with the bottom line: An attack, any attack, on Syria will have unpredictable consequences.  Moreover, given that Mr. Obama has disavowed Mr. Bush’s policy of a pre-emptive strike—we should defend ourselves only when attacked or in imminent danger of attack.  The situation in Syria doesn’t meet either of those conditions.  As messy and violent as the Syrian civil war might seem, the fighting there doesn’t threaten the U.S. or any of its interests in the region.  Mr. Obama himself has said this.  One should ask: what the hell is he doing?

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#314: New books, old books….  This week you were able to read a pre-release excerpt from my new sci-fi thriller No Amber Waves of Grain, closing the “Clones and Mutants Series.”  My other new book out this fall is the speculative fiction anthology Pasodobles in a Quantum Stringscape—no excerpts here because you’ll find some of the stories in the “Steve’s Shorts” category of this blog (they’re re-edited and reformatted for you in the new ebook).  All my other books are still available as ebooks except Soldiers of God (someday I’ll get around to releasing a second edition of that because it’s the sequel of No Amber Waves of Grain and prequel to Survivors of the Chaos).  You can check out all the “old books” here.

#315: Interview preview.  For sci-fi fans, look for my interview of prolific sci-fi writer Sabrina Chase next Wednesday.  She gives candid answers to my interview questions.  If you’re an author who wants to be interviewed here, use my contact page and I’ll send you a list of questions.  Like my reviewing activity, these interviews are examples of my efforts to give something back to the community of indie writers and readers.  Of course, as readers, you can help indie writers by simply buying, reading, and reviewing our books.  I can’t over-emphasize this.  The DIY indie movement in writing needs your support!

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(Roderick Craig Low, England 2026, Amazon UK Authors, 2.0 edition, 2013, ASIN B00BU80YBQ)

England 2026 is what I call neo-dystopian.  It portrays England “after the Discord,” a bleak police state in economic collapse.  It’s a collection of diverse city-states glued together by a brutal and scheming Gestapo-like force, the CLIP, aided by a network of citizen spies, the Harkers.  The “neo” means that there are glimmers of hope for a better future.  I recommend the book for all lovers of this genre.

The story follows Robert Oliver, a PV (Paperless Vagrant), as he returns from France to look for his daughter.  At seventy-plus years, the man is in no shape to make the journey, mostly on foot, but he doggedly perseveres.  If this brings to mind Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, let me say that Low’s book has better prose and is not nearly as depressing.  It’s more akin to John Christopher’s No Blade of Grass (see below), although not as lean.

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“Want cream or a gun with that latte?”  Starbucks allows you to have a gun with your bad coffee when the gun isn’t expressly prohibited by state law.  While I don’t expect anyone to shoot the barista because the company’s coffee is so bad, allowing guns seems a bad policy.  Of course, it’s bad policy to allow people to carry guns in the first place, no matter where you live (OK, maybe on the edge of Damascus, but they won’t help you against sarin gas).  Only people in special occupations should carry guns.  Period!

Recent cases around the U.S. present good evidence for gun control.  A disaster like what happened in Newtown would have occurred in Decatur, Georgia, if the school accountant hadn’t talked that mental case into putting down his weapons.  She earned my complete admiration.  But she, or anyone else, shouldn’t have to do that.  The crazy dude stole his automatic weapon from a neighbor.  Why did the neighbor have an automatic weapon?  Because he could.  It’s his right to have it for target practice (Why not something more challenging than a target shredder?  Why shouldn’t the range only allow rented guns?) and hunting (Can we equip the deer and other game with something as lethal against humans?).

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[Note from Steve: This novel will complete the “Clones and Mutants Series,” making it into a trilogy.  Although it’s the sequel to Full Medical and Evil Agenda, it’s a stand-alone, just like all my novels.  For those who read the first two books, though, you will also find here Kalidas Metropolis and friends, the genetically enhanced super-soldier Sirena, and others, as well as your favorite evildoer, Vladimir Kalinin aka Rupert Snyder aka Sergio Battaglia.  But the latter also battles wits with a new villain….  Look for No Amber Waves of Grain, coming soon this fall!]

Chapter Eleven

Seoul, Korea

Gerard Fuchs didn’t like the East.  He knew many languages, but not one from the region.  His least favorite country was China, although he guessed their brand of fascist capitalism would soon become the standard world model—China Inc, his colleagues called it.  Korea was bad boy number two.  It was becoming almost as bad as China.  His favorite was Japan, which now was much tamer.

“You look jet-lagged, Mr. Fuchs.”  Kim Mun-Hee seemed sympathetic.  Interpol had assigned him to Fuchs.  Although a successful Interpol agent in his own right, the man from Lyon considered the Korean to be little more than a translator.

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Last week I considered some of the incorrect advice often given to writers.  Now I’d like to consider some editing myths.  Some of these have been created by people with an agenda (for example, a copy editor wants to make money, after all); some have been created by traditional publishers who are threatened by the indie writing movement; and some are just old warhorses that should be eradicated once and for all.

Self-published books and indie writers often fight negative stereotypes.  Every stereotype has some basis in fact, but they’re often nasty extremes designed to insult.  Irishmen are drunks (yes, we tend to like our liquor).  Writers are nerds (yes, we tend to be introverts, but not always nerds).  Psychiatrists are nuts (I won’t touch that one).  Women are distracted drivers (most men could never compete with Danica Patrick).  Men never ask for directions on a road trip (why should we?  We always know where we’re going.  Sure!).

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(John Betcher, The Critical Element, Amazon Digital Services, ASIN B00EARNQ2I)

This author continues to release entertaining and interesting thrillers in his James Becker series.  For those readers not familiar with previous books, the protagonist Beck, now a lawyer, was a special ops type.  He’s aging now but still managing to get into trouble.

This time Beck is dueling with North Korean agents in home state Minnesota.  They are intent on carrying out their revered leader’s plan for mass murder on American soil.  Confusing the issue is a financially stressed veterinary supplies salesman bent on initiating a plague of foot-and-mouth disease in U.S. livestock.  The first plan is more of a stretch than the second (except for the target), but the reader will find Beck’s analysis of a terrorist’s mindset at the end of the book is spot on.  This analysis effectively explains that no idea is too absurd for a sick, psychotic person with his mental wires frayed and crossed.  (The “underwear bomber” offers more real-life evidence if you need it.)

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Confused by all the blogs, magazines, and books claiming to tell you what you need to do to be a successful writer?  I used to be, because often advice from different sources is contradictory.  I’ve said it before in this blog: there are no sufficient conditions for writing success!  To use a cliché, there are no silver bullets.  There are some necessary conditions.  You have to be able to write, for example.  I’ll limit this discussion to writing fiction because that’s what I do.  I’m guessing what I have to say is partially applicable to non-fiction, but you might want to look elsewhere.

First, let me start by tilting at the windmills of word games often used in writing advice.  Writer’s Digest plays these games all the time.  For fiction, writer and author are interchangeable.  Yes, I know, advice columnists often play the game of saying anyone can be a writer, but only some can be an author.  There’s a bit of dishonest snobbery in that, but also an implied degree of commitment.  If you’ve writing any piece of fiction—short story, novella, novel, flash fiction, biography, etc—you’re the author of that piece.  You own it.  The government even says you own it.  You’re also a writer.  Maybe you’re not a full-time writer—many people can’t make a living at it—but you’ve sat down and put words into your word processor or even on a napkin to get there.

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