November is NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) time, so I was interested to see a wannabe author write to the “Personal Tech” column of the NY Times: “…what free or cheap software would work to temporarily lock me out of Facebook and other time-sapping sites?” The Times’ columnist surrounded the correct answer with a lot of blather (that’s called padding, folks), but that correct answer was spot on: “One free approach is to just unplug your home network router….” Well, yeah! Beyond the absurdity of this interchange and the two split infinitives that would have made these person’s high school English teachers cringe, neither uncommon today, the Times’ columnist skirted two issues associated with the query.

First, let’s kill the myth: A novel cannot be written in a month. We’ll ignore NaNoWriMo’s definition of novel—50 kwords, their minimum, isn’t a novel, irrespective of the fact that The Great Gatsby, about that length, is called one (that length of story could only be called a novel in YA literature, and Fitzgerald’s genre, whatever it is, can’t be called YA). OK, echoing a famous politician’s infamous husband, I suppose it depends on how you define “written.”

I produced some of the manuscripts for my novels in a month. In the days of typewriters, we used to call such manuscripts “first drafts,” but those novels of mine included content editing because one can do cut and paste with almost any modern word processing software. That still doesn’t meet my definition of “written.” A manuscript has to age a bit—you might like Beaujolais, but the equivalent in a novel isn’t particularly good for readers’ palates. Moreover, as you copy edit (or fight with your copy editor, who you pay NOT to respect what you’ve written), you will see other content editing that needs to be done, and your beta-readers will see more (maybe that getaway car changed from red to blue in the middle of a chase?).

In brief: the whole NaNoWriMo concept is a gimmick at best and a way to encourage sloppy writing at worst. But let’s move on to a bigger question: what the Times’ reader was really worrying about is how to handle distractions when writing. Avoiding social media is only part of that. While anyone can publish a book nowadays (but many people shouldn’t, considering all the crap out there—NaNoWriMo contributes to that glut, of course, and Sturgeon’s law definitely applies), finishing a good novel, no matter the time taken, is an accomplishment that requires focus and concentration.

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[Fate sometimes brings people together in strange ways…]

Broken Lives

Copyright 2016, Steven M. Moore

                Max Phillips put his cellphone back in his pocket. Judy can be really annoying!

He knew his younger sister meant well, but the invitation to join him for a sail was for her and her husband, Mark. Now she was playing matchmaker and bringing along a female friend of hers!

He glanced around the sailboat. He’d have to clean up Wave Rider now. It was good enough for Judy and Mark, but he didn’t know how Judy’s friend would react. Is Judy setting me up with a blind date? He decided he should have said no and save himself a lot of trouble.

After returning from Afghanistan and to his divorce, he had bought Wave Rider. Weekends on the water seemed therapeutic, and his shrink encouraged them. His job had always been stressful, but at least it had waited for him when his National Guard unit went overseas. His wife hadn’t. There had been trouble before he left, though. He knew it wasn’t easy to be married to a cop.

He decided he needed to get some more food and drinks along with tidying up the boat. Sailing with a complete stranger with unknown expectations didn’t appeal to him, but he supposed that Eileen Barrows was OK if she was a friend of Judy.  It would still be awkward.

Curly greeted him at the little convenience store in the strip mall not far from the docks.

“Heading out for another day on the water?”

“You’ve got it. I need to replenish the supplies a bit. I’ll need an extra lifejacket. Judy’s bringing a friend.”

“Moe will have that next door.  Is the friend male or female?”

“Female.” He saw Curly’s raised eyebrows. “Yeah, she might be setting me up. She has this idea that I need a woman in my life. Been there, done that.”

“What about that partner of yours?”

“Helen? She’s happily married to a great guy. One of our MEs.”

“Didn’t know that. You went sailing alone with her the other day.”

Max frowned. “You’re looking for a scandal, aren’t you? I ride alone with her in a squad car too. I’m good friends with her husband. You’re like the media, man, looking to dredge up dirt.”

Curly raised his hands in protest. “Not me, man. Just sayin’. Some people might think it was strange.”

“Yeah, some people. Are you all out of those sea-salt potato chips?”

“I’m due for a shipment today. I’ll order more. They sell well.”

“I get them for Judy. She seems to think NaCl from sea salt is better than table salt. Buys water in bottles too. I’ve stopped arguing about it.”

“I’m not going to argue about it either. I make more money off both.”

***

Max just had time to store the supplies and clean up the boat before Judy, Mark, and Judy’s friend, Eileen Barrows came onboard.

“Mark and I will get us out of the harbor while you two organize some refreshments,” Max said.

“Hey, I thought I was going to practice my sailing skills,” said Eileen.

“Mark and I will organize the refreshments,” said Judy with a smile.

Gee, thanks. Max nodded at Eileen. “OK, sailor. Let’s get to it.”

She hauled up the anchor and Max started the tiny engine that would take them out to the bay. Once past the entrance to the harbor, they raised the sails.

“You can take the helm,” he said, taking one of the deck chairs.

She took over and seemed to enjoy the sun and stiff breeze ruffling her short reddish brown hair. Max eyed her. She didn’t have potential as a pinup or model, but she had that clean, all-American look that would turn heads in the city. And, even better, she didn’t have that come-hither look and swinging hips that characterized his ex.

OK, that’s the physical part. Do we have anything in common? “How did you meet Judy?”

“We’re both RNs. She took me under her wing when I started at the hospital. I’d been a housewife for a while, so it was good to have someone do that.”

“And your husband?”

She frowned. “Three tours. I lost him on the last one.”

Oh, shit! A military wife. Just what I need. “I was over there too. It was hell.”    Read the rest of this entry »

[If you haven’t already voted, what are you waiting for? Don’t like any presidential candidate? Then vote for Buddha. But vote–local down-ballot races and ballot questions might be more important to you than whatever “psychopathic personality” resides in the White House (there might be two–the quote is from Kurt Vonnegut.]

Even in junior high (middle school for those in the Midwest and East), I recognized the truth of the adjectives in the title. In California, at least back then, we had to pass a “Constitution Test” at the end of the eighth grade—probably nowadays only immigrants seeking citizenship have to show they have this general knowledge. (The Constitutuion is like the Bible–people claim to know it, few do, and many misunderstand it and misquote it.) Every election I confirm that original, youthful analysis. Diehards who hold up the Constitution as a holy relic to be worshipped and never changed are blind to the flaws in that grand old document that seems to show its age and irrelevance with every election cycle. The Electoral College represents the worst lack of vision the Founding Fathers had.

There are many—they often wrote an erudite, flowery, but anachronistic English that was ingenuous in many cases and aristocratic in others (the Electoral College falls into both classes).  They did throw the “all men are created equal” in the Declaration under the bus—Jefferson’s flowery idiocy is just plain wrong, and the Constitution basically corrected it by considering that all citizens should have equal opportunity and rights if we add in the amendments (it took a while to correct that women weren’t allowed to vote and slaves were fractional men).

They also left too many things open to interpretation. The Second Amendment means, for example, that our National Guards, the successors to those old militias, can exist and carry arms, nothing more, but the NRA and many other extreme gun aficionados think that it means you have the right to carry an automatic and own a military-style weapon like an AR-15. The Electoral College, however, prevents a true democracy, clearly not what the Founding Fathers intended. Here are some negatives to prove that point:

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Social Security can pay every penny owed for the next 18 years. Lift the cap on taxable income and it’ll be solvent for decades.—Bernie Sanders

***

Free PDFs for the asking: see the “Free Stuff & Contests” webpage.

In libris libertas!

Winter’s coming! We’ve been through our few days of Indian Summer (should we call it Native American Summer to be PC?) and some weather a few weeks ago already seemed like late November. In lieu of hibernating, you might want to consider stretching out in your recliner with a good book and a glass of wine or something stronger. A fireplace also helps chase away the winter doldrums. While streaming video series or computer games are an alternative, books are less passive and stimulate your mind more. And you can multitask a lot easier: Books, drinks, and music are hard to beat.

Something new to read? There are many books out there just waiting for your perusal, but I would be very honored and pleased if you chose one of mine! There are twenty-two to choose from—all written to entertain you; all with current themes to stimulate your mind. (See the list on the “Books & Short Stories” webpage.) Every book can be read independently, even books in a series. I refuse to be formulaic. I might repeat some characters—they’re always clamoring for their stories to be told—but each story is fresh and new. There’s a reason Blarney Castle is on my “About the Author” webpage—my muses are really banshees with tasers, and they know all about the stories I’ve told and the stories I have yet to tell. Choose one story already told from my catalog and relax in that recliner to enjoy an entertaining read.

Facebook Redux. I got tired of posting “normally” on FB because (1) way back they stopped letting me share my blog posts (Google+ allows me to do that, and I RSS to both my Amazon page and Goodreads); (2) since then, they have censored me on numerous occasions (over-compensation for conservatives’ complaints?); and (3) many times I would make an innocent comment and some jerk would climb on her or his soapbox and skewer me (why I never use Twitter, not even at 3 a.m.).  (Apologies to all my FB friends—it’s not your fault.) I have increased the number of mini-posts on my author page. These posts contain short reviews of classics, quotes, some wacky definitions, and newsy items to complement the longer ones in this blog. Check it out. (That’s one reason these “News and Notices…” have diminished in number. Another is that I’m spending more time writing!)

Blog slant. Besides this newsletter, this blog also features op-ed posts, among many others. While I never worry about an author’s political opinions when deciding to read her or his book (otherwise I wouldn’t have read Card, Clancy, Crichton, Heinlein, Hogan, and many others), I often fear that my political opinions irk some readers and cause them NOT to read my books. I was pleased to learn that Hugh Howey, who became famous for the post-apocalyptic Wool tales, has included op-ed posts at his website—his “The Greatest Threat” is a recent example, found on his blog “The Wayfinder” (named after his Wayfinding series, I guess?). His website can be found here . Thanks to author-friend Scott Dyson for bringing this to my attention—Scott is a regular commenter to this blog (news flash! we don’t always agree—reasoned comments are always welcome whether I agree with their content or not).

New Smashwords addition. The ebook Angels Need Not Apply has been added to Smashwords. That means that this title is available there as well as retailers where Smashwords distributes (Apple, B&N, Kobo, etc) and its associated book lenders—these offer other ebook formats preferred by those who don’t have Kindle readers or don’t use the free Kindle app. Smashwords even offers the Kindle format (.mobi). Of course, you can still find this ebook on Amazon. It contains several themes which are still current; it also has a new cover. Read the rest of this entry »

[The future won’t be without morally ambiguous decisions that must be made. This story describes a few.  Starship Brendan’s medical officer Carlos Obregon has appeared in short stories contained in Pasodobles in a Quantum Stringscape and Fantastic Encores!  He’s a bit of a Sherlock Holmes/Dr. Watson alloy. For more notes, please see the end of this story. Enjoy.]

Dr. Carlos and the Slave Woman

Copyright 2016, Steven M. Moore

Once starship Brendan left orbit, Captain Wilson stopped pacing on the bridge.

“It’s incredible how much a planet can change in two hundred standard years,” he said to no one in particular.

Loves Rapids, the navigator of the small ship in ITUIP’s exploratory fleet, spun her special chair around.  The tentacles around the Ranger’s mouth fluttered a bit, body language indicating this representative of the Human’s first-contact friends was about to say something witty.  The translation emitted from her decoder box drowned out the original buzzspeak.

“I’d like to remind the captain, if I may do so, that a huge change occurred in Human civilization on Earth between the year 1900 AD and 2100 AD.”

“You’re sounding like Obregon,” said Wilson with a growl.  “That backwards slide wasn’t nearly as bad as what we’ve just witnessed on Charity.  I’m going to ask ITUIP to put the planet in quarantine.”

“Loves Rapids has become quite the student of Earth history,” said Carlos Obregon, coming onto the bridge and sitting in the captain’s chair.  The medical officer smiled at Wilson.  “But I’ll agree with you.  That was a near disaster.”

“How are the wounded doing?”

“Under Chen’s supervision and resting in the portadocs.  They’ll have some new body parts in a couple of days.  They showed remarkable restraint, considering.  It could have been a bloodbath.”

Wilson went to his chair and gestured for Obregon to get up.  The doctor smiled and vacated the chair with a more gallant gesture.

The captain made himself comfortable and sighed. “This is one of those cases when I wish ITUIP gave medals of valor.”

“Thank the nebulas they don’t.  We have enough bureaucracy to—”

He was interrupted by the message from Lt. Riley they all received on their com implants.

“Riley to bridge,” said the head of ship’s security. “We have stowaways.”

“This is Wilson.  How could that happen?”

“They hid in the samples storage locker on the shuttle.”

“Empty because we didn’t take samples,” said Obregon.  “And we leave the ship open like idiots. Guess we have bio samples now.  Do I need to examine them?”

“Chen’s already beginning that.  They’re members of Charity’s slave race.  The adult female is in bad shape.  The male child seems to be in good condition.”

“I’ll be right down,” said Obregon.  He nodded at Wilson.  “You’ll have to return them to the planet.  ITUIP Protocol.”

“No way,” said the captain.  “They don’t belong there anyway.  If anything, we’ll drop them off on their home planet.  That’s a small bending of the Protocol.”

“That might be difficult.  Edgerton and the others are still trying to figure out the slaves’ origins.”

***

The shuttle’s landing on Charity had started what was expected to be a routine update on a primitive humanoid society.  The last explorer ship to visit some two hundred years ago had reported a sparsely populated agrarian world.

In near-Earth space, the Human form was more common than not.  The Rangers were the exception rather than the rule.  Galactic peoples tended to be bipeds, with minor differences in physiology and culture and different evolutionary trees, but evolution had still opted for a body with two arms and two legs and a brain encased in a skull.  Exceptions to that rule, like the Arlmati, the Rangers, and certain collective intelligences like the Singer, weren’t that common.

From space they’d seen more villages and more planted fields this time.  Their instruments hadn’t detected the hidden walled cities with their teeming millions.  About half that population were slaves.  George Edgerton, the ship’s xenosociologist, and other scientists had taken the shuttle down to the planet, accompanied by a minimal security detail chosen by Lt. Riley.  Now three scientists and two of the four security detail were dead, and others were critically wounded.  The sneak attack from the nearest city’s inhabitants had been massive.  The shuttle had barely escaped.

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There is a tragic flaw in our precious Constitution, and I don’t know what can be done to fix it. This is it: Only nut cases want to be president. This was true even in high school. Only clearly disturbed people ran for class president.—Kurt Vonnegut

H A P P Y  H A L L O W E E N !!!!!! Please watch for the little goblins and ETs in the streets tonight.

Free PDFs for the asking: see the “Free Stuff & Contests” webpage.

The Accountant. Gavin O’Connor, dir. I generally find the pretty-boy half of the Affleck/Damon duo (Good Will Hunting) overrated as an actor and a bad role model for all his philandering, so I was surprised when Ben Affleck as creative accountant Christian Wolff did a pretty good job in this movie. His highly functional autistic character, a money-manager for several criminal concerns, comes across as almost believable in this movie, but I’d like to hear what experts say. Like Rainman, Wolff is intensely focused and very good with numbers; unlike Rainman, Wolff had an Army father with a broomstick up his butt who thought the only way his son could protect himself from those who considered him different and bullied him was to beat the crap out of them. His brother Brax, played well as an adult by Jon Bernthal, is also a victim of his father who cares too much about his father’s treatment of Christian. In this sense, this movie can be seen as a general indictment against parents who end up destroying their children’s lives, and not just children with special needs.

There are several characters who are superfluous here. First, consider Treasury agents Ray King (played by J. K. Simmons) and Marybeth Medina (played by Cynthia Addai-Robinson)—I’d write one of these two out of the script. Medina is a token black good character (Hollywood’s answer to the Oscars fiasco?) where Hollywood couldn’t leave well enough alone, making the character have a shady past when she grew up in Baltimore (turns out it was only shady because “the system” made it so, maybe making that subplot into a wee bit of a pithy social statement). Too much attention is paid to these two, and then they become irrelevant (they don’t even show up for the climax). Simmons is an old agent who’s guilty of always looking for the “big case,” messes up with another accountant turned informer, and generally uses Medina’s past as leverage to control her. Maybe the two characters should be combined.

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The minimalist writing technique I use applies to action scenes as well as it does to other writing elements when constructing your short story, novella, or novel. Often called hard-boiled in the detective literature, it means adding just enough detail so your reader can participate in the creative process and form his own picture of the action taking place. The key words of course are “enough detail.” Goldilocks says not too little and not too much, but just enough. But what is “enough detail”?

First, you have to state who the participants are. Even if it’s Detective Joe fighting a mysterious stranger, you have to say his opponent is a mysterious stranger. Second, you have to say who is doing what to whom. He did something to him can be confusing—generally speaking, the reader knows these are different people, but which one is Detective Joe and which one the mysterious stranger? Third, strong action verbs are better, the correct verb must be chosen for each action, and cause and effect must be logical. Hit, for example, is often too generic. Is the hit a slap, punch, stiff arm, fist to the windpipe, etc? Fourth, use internal dialogue carefully. Detective Joe won’t hesitate and think about using his left or right fist—he’ll probably just react.

While most of my books have action scenes sprinkled through them, when I wrote Rogue Planet I carefully studied novels containing battle and swashbuckling scenes because almost the whole book marches from action scene to action scene, with only a wee bit of respite. In brief, some stories have a lot more action than others. When the scales are tilted to action, the author better work a bit more on getting it right. That depends on the readers, of course—it’s all subjective—so I should say, getting it right for most of the readers, many of whom read a lot and aren’t too forgiving about major gaffes.

Rather than take examples from my books, though, let me consider a true life incident that was on the news recently. A perp allegedly tried to steal some things in an NYC deli, got into a fight with the employee, and then dashed out. A sixty-nine-year-old woman was standing in his way. Cut to the endgame: the old woman is in the hospital with a brain hemorrhage.  I want to focus on the action in between that I didn’t describe.

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Russians

Copyright 2016, Steven M. Moore

Part Five of Five

Fonseca watched another black SUV pull in behind the VW.  He left the McDonald’s and approached the car.

“Sergeant Fonseca,” he said, offering his hand.

The man behind the wheel shook it.  “Special Agent Morales.  Anita called us from the houseboat.  Don’t tell me we’re too late.”

“The professor’s car is still here.  They’re not.  Waitress said they left with two thugs.  Her word, not mine.  She thought that our two on the run didn’t want to go with them. Said they left in an SUV.  Probably the one we’ve been looking for.”  He patted the agent’s vehicle.  “Hard to tell the bad guys from the good when you use the same kind of car.”

“Have you searched the VW?” said the woman sitting next to Morales.

“And you are?”

“Never mind.  Just search the damn car.”

“I’d rather wait for my CSU colleague. He gets mad when I muck up a crime scene.”

“There’s no time for that, detective.  Help him, Eddie.”

“She sure has a broom handle up her ass,” said Fonseca when they were inside the VW.  He’d taken the rear of the car, Morales the front.

The FBI agent made no comment.  “These might be significant,” the agent said, holding up two memory sticks a few seconds later.  “Keep searching.  We have a laptop aboard.  I’ll see what’s on these.”

“Gee, aren’t we high tech.” But Fonseca remained in the VW.  He already had the backseat up.

A bit later, the woman’s voice called to him.

“This is what we need, so let’s go after the Russians.”

That’s confirmed. The Russians are the bad guys. And that doesn’t include the professor. “How do we do that?  Travel back in time to when they were kidnapping the professor and the girl?” Read the rest of this entry »