Happy New Year and an SFR trope

Pete and I decided to spend Christmas on Norfolk Island, a remote volcanic peak in the South Pacific between Noumea and New Zealand. The island is a fascinating place full of history and I've written a series of posts abut it on my own website. (You'll find them here) I'm a writer. History excites me. But I can't see myself writing another historical fiction novel in the near future.

Then again…

One of the most popular tropes in SFR is 'aliens need Earth women'. I don't write it, I don't read it – but on our recent visit to Norfolk Island I had to admit that the concept might be actually plausible. After all, most of what we write/read in SFR probably has its counterpart here on planet Earth.

Come with me to the European beginnings of that wonderful country I call home – Australia. In the 1780's Britain had a growing problem with convicts. As a result of its harsh penal system, and the even harsher conditions for the less well-off, who resorted to theft to survive, the jails were overflowing. Some prisoners were kept in the hulks of sailing ships that were past their use-by dates. The gentry wanted the riff-raff out of England. After the American war of independence ended in 1783 the Americans wouldn't accept any more English convicts.

What to do?

Answer: ship them off to the other side of the world. What about the Great South Land, mapped by Captain Cook in his great voyage of exploration in 1770? So it was decided. Eleven ships set sail from Portsmouth carrying around 1500 convicts, settlers, and marines. They settled on the shores of Port Jackson at a place they called Sydney Cove. Here's a potted history.

It wasn't an easy life. Europeans at that time didn't really understand that things were not going to be the same as at home. The seasons were different, the climate was different, crops failed, starvation loomed, illness threatened. And to top it all off, most of the settlers were men. Some women were transported on the First Fleet, but not enough to form a stable society. So the powers-that-be in England emptied the jails of women – especially those sentenced to death – and sent them off to the fledgling colony on the Lady Juliana as part of a second fleet. The ladies were lucky – unlike the crews of the other ships in the second fleet, the captain of the Lady Juliana was a reasonable man who looked after his passengers. To be sure, the 'ladies' were happy to look after the needs of the captain and his crew, and any gentlemen they might encounter when they were in port. Only one woman died on the journey to Australia, in stark contrast to the many men who died on the other ships.

One of the females on the Lady Juliana was 11-year-old Mary Wade, sentenced to death for highway robbery (stealing another child's clothes). After a good deal of adversity, Mary went on to be the mother of 21 children, one of Australia's founding mothers.

History isn't about dates and names. It's about real people living in times often not of their making. This article about the Lady Juliana provides so many plot bunnies to anybody writing stories. For fantasy or science fiction, just tweak your settings.

Here's another story to whet your appetite – the mutiny on the Bounty. Forget about the mutiny itself, let's get to the story of what happened to the mutineers. After he'd set Captain Bligh and eighteen loyal crew adrift in the Bounty's longboat, Fletcher Christian was left with a few loyal mutineers and a number of crew who would have gone with Bligh if there'd been room. Christian knew he'd have to disappear to avoid the noose – the Admiralty would come looking when the Bounty didn't show up. The Bounty had spent five happy months on Tahiti, so Christian eventually returned there to off-load the dissenters. He left again with eight loyal mutineers, six Polynesian men (three were stowaways) and twelve Polynesian women. Substitute 'alien' for Polynesian, and you have your SFR trope. Christian and his motley crew ended up on Pitcairn Island, safe from being found because Pitcairn's location was wrong on the Admiralty maps. The history is simply fascinating and you can read some of it here.

As 2018 begins, I'll make one promise to anybody interested – I'll write a sequel to For the Great Good. Puss will be going into space again, in the Dryden Universe. It should be fun.

Wishing everybody a wonderful 2018. And here are a few photos from Norfolk Island to widen your eyes.

2018: Looking Ahead And Upwards #amwriting #amediting

2017 was not a good year, not one that prompted me to be optimistic either in real life or in fiction. However, much to my surprise and despite a hefty laptop repair bill right at the start, I finished the year almost $50 in PROFIT for publishing: my first in five and a half years as an author. Mostly down to not paying out for any promotion (which never pays me back in sales at the time and rarely leads to follow up purchases, so a waste of money for me). I currently have funds enough from the past two years to edit and cover another short story, or possibly a novella: a healthy starting point.

However, I still have two unpublished novellas with edits and covers already paid for, plus a short story from even further back. Financially, my publishing plans should be obvious - get those three pieces done, out, and earning back their costs before I move on, but I've really struggled with them. I'm not sure if that's down to burn out, actually getting worse at writing, or my editor expecting more of me than I think I'm capable of. I guess she believes in me more than I do. :P

Coming 2018...

The other nice surprise for me was, despite minimal promotion, my only release last year sold well enough in the first couple of months to have almost make its costs back (I'm about $8 down still). Not bad going considering (although probably down to my buying a premade cover for just $15 rather than my usual cost). Still, it proved to me I actually have a small band of dedicated readers who auto-buy my release, and that's a nice feeling.

Keir is still selling consistently, and there finally seems to be some follow on purchases for Keir's Fall. From what I've read on the success of series and a couple of review comments, it seems book three needs to be done...which means book 2.5 also needs to be done. >.<
So my writing/potential publishing plans need to be:
Finish up and publish the two outstanding novellas and possibly the short.
Finish book 2.5 in Keir's series. Publication of that and book three depends on finances. Right now I don't see me having the funds for a 2018 release (sorry!).
I would really like to finish up a couple of short stories and finally do an anthology collection, enabling me to release all the shorts in a print book.
I want to finish the sequel to When Dark Falls and turn that into a series (I even have a name for that!).
Even those aims are ambitious considering I have less time than last year, and I'm cautious about trying to do too much and end up with burn out again. It's taken me 18 months and a lot of readjustments to recover from that, so I really don't want to risk it again, not when I'm feeling just that little bit more optimistic. We shall see...

Status Update
Reunion is that little bit closer to done. I got the next round of edits back from Dani just after Christmas, but between chickens, work, and getting the monsters back to school I've not had time to really dig back into them yet. It shouldn't take me long but...

Chook Update
The weather's been rather mild so far, though that does inevitably mean wet (my girls' least favourite because it means I don't let them out into the wider world of the garden so often). It also snowed, which they took exception to, even refusing to come out of the coop - I can't blame them! I tried putting down some hay to help keep their feet off the cold ground, but they took a rather dim view of this strange new flooring even when tempted by mealworms. Silly things.

Snuggled up - left to right is Pitch, Effie, and Firefly
with Scoop and Kyru in the foreground.

But this past weekend we added to our flock, this time with a couple of Orpington bantams instead of Pekins. They're bigger than the Pekins, though these two youngsters still have a few weeks growing to do, and are reputed to be the sweetest chickens on the planet. At the moment they're rather timid and are going through the process of finding - or rather being told - their place in the pecking order, my least favourite part of chicken keeping. Fortunately it's mostly by them running away, placing them squarely at the bottom to the point where even little Firefly - smallest and youngest of the entire group - is rather lording it over the newbies and taking a bit too much extra effort in going up to them and having a go. I can't really blame her - she's enjoyed some protection from her higher ranking surrogate mum Pitch but still had to run the gauntlet finding her position...at the bottom. So I guess it's only natural for her to now take a certain pleasure from no longer being the new girl.

But let me introduce our additions. This is Kala, a gold laced Orpington bantam. She's the braver of the two and likes to keep up a quiet but constant commentary on her explorations. She apparently also likes to sit on a shoulder to get a good look around rather than be held.

This is Phasma, a silver laced Orpington bantam. She's much more reserved and nervy, though she's now found her voice which is almost a purr. She will tolerate being held but would much rather run away and hide.

At the moment, the names seem a bit ironic being as they're both from kick-ass female villains of rank, but the names fitted their colouring. Hopefully in the next few weeks they'll settle in and their personalities will emerge a little more clearly.

You can see the size difference between Firefly on the left and Kala on the right, but it hasn't stopped Firefly asserting her position!

On Changing Gears (and Photo Blog)

Hope you all had a wonderful holiday break and are off to a fresh start for a shiny, new 2018.

I ended my year with a big realization. I seriously need to switch gears. And it started with this...

We had a lovely Christmas Eve day, with perfect weather, strolling Old Town Albuquerque. It's been many years--probably more than a decade--since we took the time to visit the plaza during the holidays, and the last time was in sub-freezing temperatures, so we especially appreciated the warmth and sunshine this year. We didn't even need the light jackets we wore!

We had a delicious New Mexican meal and relished the ambiance at High Noon--a local landmark restaurant where the building dates to 1785 and is uniquely Spanish colonial--strolled the quaint streets of Old Town and enjoyed perusing the rich offerings of jewelry, pottery and art.

The atmosphere was bright and festive. Luminarias lined the streets, the stucco shops were adorned with evergreen wreaths, garlands and chile ristras, the aroma of burning juniper was in the air, and the huge Old Town Christmas Tree towered over the square. We were fortune to miss the big crowds, because we left just as it was turning twilight--when the largest number of visitors start to arrive for luminaria tours, the procession or posadas, and other events.

Let me share a few photos.

 

 
 



 

 

The plaza has an interesting way of dressing up their pots and planters

 for the winter. I think the color is provided by pansies, cold-loving ivy, 

and various types of kale. Whatever the botanical components, 

they were gorgeous.

 

 

Our late lunch at a landmark--the High Noon Restaurant

--and delicious plates of blue corn chicken enchiladas. Yum!

There was even a crackling fire in the kiva fireplace.

 

Some of the pottery offerings. The large elk pot was done by

Acoma Pueblo artists. The brown egg-shaped pot with the

sun symbol is Navajo and was fired with pine resin.

 Blue is the traditional color for doors here, and that dates back

centuries.  Some believe the unique color keeps out evil spirits.

Others claimthe blue doors had Middle Eastern influence

or that they symbolize the Pueblos sacred color for the

Southwest. This blog provides many insights into "Taos Doors"

along with some beautiful photographs, many from Taos, NM. 

 

The gazebo on the plaza where mariachi bands, 

dance troupes or singers will sometimes perform.

A giant prickly pear cactus in front of one of the shops.

The famous San Felipe de Neri Church (above) on the plaza

and our new ornament to commemorate Christmas Eve 2017.

 

 

 

Luminarias lining the streets and walks. These were a bright shade

of blue that added color even before they were all lit for the evening.

(Also known as farolitos in some areas where luminaria = bonfire.)

 

...and back home to the ranch.

 

 

After our wonderful day, I started to ponder why we'd waited so many years to enjoy the very things that drew us to New Mexico in the first place. Are we so preoccupied with our "busy-ness" that we no longer remember how rich and lush and colorful life can be?

 

And that got me thinking about my writing.

 

Truth is, the last two years have been a whirlwind of deadlines, timelines, marketing plans and promotional pushes, and while it was great experience and the end result was truly worth achieving--a USA TODAY bestsellers title--it also resulted in my only producing two novelettes and had an overall detrimental effect on my enjoyment of writing as a whole.

 

Like our revisit of Old Town, it seemed I'd been so preoccupied with the "busy-ness" of selling that I no longer enjoyed how rich and lush and colorful the act of writing itself can be. Had I lost the passion to write? I feared my honest answer to that question might be "yes." At least it would be if I continued down the same joy-killing path.

 

So I've decided to dedicate 2018 to getting back in touch with the reasons why I love writing to begin with. I'd already made a goal to kick out more titles for 2018, but now I've adjusted that goal. Now I want to completely enjoy crafting new titles, no matter the number or how many I sell.

 

And I realized to do that, I need to curtail all the promotion and marketing and truly focus on what I love best--the enjoyable art of writing stories.

 

In other words, I need to downshift out of this high gear where it's starting to feel like all I'm doing is spinning my wheels...and let those creative tires find some traction again. 

 

Because I never want writing to evolve into a joyless, tedious job; I want it always to be a marvelous adventure.

 

Hope you had a great start to your New Year. Have a great week.

 

THE SHAPE OF WATER: ROMANCE, BUT NOT SFR

THE SHAPE OF WATER, the unusual film now playing in cineplexes across the country, is billed as a science fantasy. And, as much as those of us in the science fiction romance community would like to see a romance between a lonely human and an apparently alien being light up the big screen, there are good reasons why this particular offering by creative genius Guillermo Del Toro doesn’t quite fit the SFR mold.

At first glance, the premise certainly seems to slip right into our orbit. In a hidden research facility, a mute (not deaf, mind you, just voiceless) cleaning person (Sally Hawkins) falls in love with the captive amphibian creature that is the subject of experimentation by a sadistic government operative (Michael Shannon). With the help of her partner on the cleaning staff (Olivia Spencer), a sympathetic scientist/Russian spy (Michael Stuhlberg) and her gay next-door neighbor (Richard Jenkins), she rescues her lover, and they make their escape together. SPOILER ALERT: Yes, they have their happily-ever-after. If you believe.

We have a lot of the standard elements of science fiction in this film, and though technology and “the future” are often invoked, they are seldom put in a good light. The setting is 1962, but none of the shiny, space-going optimism of that time is apparent here. The lab where the creature is captive is a dark, depressing place, far from the brilliance and can-do spirit of NASA. And what goes on there is more the realm of The X-Files   than THE RIGHT STUFF. 

Elisa, our heroine, by contrast, loves old musicals (in fact, she lives in an apartment above a movie theater) and old-fashioned romance. In one memorable scene in the film, she imagines herself dancing with her Amphibian Man to one old show tune. (Hokey, yes, but somehow it works.) She woos her lover with food (by sharing her lunch) and, later, music. And because she doesn’t speak, they communicate with signs.

You may have surmised by now that THE SHAPE OF WATER requires quite a lot of faith on the part of its audience. Like much of Del Toro’s work (PAN’S LABYRINTH being the best example), this film has a sort of dream-like quality that doesn’t lend itself to logical interpretation. It’s more magical realism than science fiction—beautiful, even touching on an emotional level. But not plausible.

This idea of plausibility—no matter how far-fetched or how far in the future—is what ultimately grounds science fiction romance for most of us. We rely on the science to create worlds in which things make sense (internally, at least). Love can still happen between aliens and humans—but lovers must be compatible somehow. Death can be overcome—with science. Happy endings can be found—if all obstacles have been overcome. 

I suspect those readers out there who say they never read science fiction are afraid those conventions won’t apply—that no matter how beautiful the writing or touching the story, it won’t be plausible to them. After having seen THE SHAPE OF WATER, I have to say I understand that point of view. The film is lovely in its way, but ultimately unsatisfying. I am sympathetic to these characters and their unique love, but I’m not sure I truly believe in them. 

Still, Del Toro’s creature is gorgeous; Hawkins, Shannon and Spencer are at the top of their acting game; and THE SHAPE OF WATER is like nothing you’ll see in theaters all year. It’s well worth a trip to see it. Definitely a GO.

Cheers, Donna