This post is specifically for Richard Crawford.  When I asked a few friends for topics I should write about on my blog, Richard cheerfully suggested trucks.  He was looking out the window at the time.  So, without using the word “defenestrate” even once, I’m going to talk about my thoughts on trucks.  My primary focus will be on their usefulness to me as a writer.

As much as it seemed like a joke topic, there’s actually quite a bit we can talk about.  To start with, the “truck” vehicle category is quite broad.  It could describe a small pickup, like the Mitsubishi Mighty Max.  Or it refer to a huge 18 wheeler hauling huge loads down a crowded highway.  All along the truck spectrum, you can find cultural touchstones, from country music and Southern Pride to CB radio lingo.

As a writer, trucks are amazing because of just how many implications come packed inside the concept.  If the writer describes a character as owning a truck, the reader immediately starts imagining tertiary details.  Baseball caps, five o’clock shadow, boots, maybe a denim jacket or plaid shirt.  Without any prompting, there are all of these delicious stereotypes to draw upon.

Quick sidebar… stereotypes have their uses.  We shouldn’t use them when dealing with people in real life.  Applying stereotypes to individuals is the first step in prejudice and objectification.  But stereotypes still exist within the culture, and using them as a shortcut in fiction isn’t explicitly evil.  The writer channels The Dark Side when they perpetuate painful stereotypes.  But like tropes, touching on a stereotype can be useful for setting up the reader’s expectations.  Good writers often take the opportunity to turn those expectations upside down.  For example, the parable of The Good Samaritan was based on the stereotype (at the time) that Samaritans weren’t nice people.

Okay, back to trucks.

When writing The Repossessed Ghost, I described two characters as owning trucks.  The first was a young woman that thought herself to be above others.  I reflected this characteristic in her choice of vehicles.  She thought herself better than others, and in her big shiny truck, she sat higher than everyone else.  She also drove like the rules didn’t apply to her, going over curbs and taking up multiple spaces when parking.  The truck allowed her to get away with this sort of behavior.  I was able to use the truck to convey some aspects of that character’s personality without explicitly stating them.

The second character that owned a truck was a man that pretends to be a psychic, selling his services to celebrities and performing on stage.  With this character, the truck is a part of his mask.  He wears jeans most of the time, but his nails are manicured, and his hair is perfect.  He drives a truck because he wants people to believe he’s down to earth, a man of the people.  A simple man with a gift, which he shares (for a nominal fee) to the people that need him.  There are a lot of lies surrounding this character, but the truck is also a reflection of the truth about him.  Where the first character with a truck in the story drives over curbs and can’t stay in her lane, this guy maneuvers his truck with skill and precision.  Again, it’s a reflection of his character.  He is observant and in control, even when he’s behind the wheel of a tall pickup.

That’s how I used the trucks in my story, and I only scratched the surface of how trucks can be used to convey subtle ideas about character or theme.

Do any of you remember when Senator Ted Stevens talked about the internet saying that it’s “a series of tubes”? It’s been a long time, so I forgive you if you’ve forgotten.  In that same speech, he also said the “Internet is not something you just dump something on.  It’s not a big truck.”

In addition to being somewhat hilarious, Senator Stevens’ words demonstrate what I’ve been talking about.  Trucks are something you can dump stuff on and haul away.  We all accept that description of trucks.  If a writer is crafting a metaphor about getting dumped on, with the expectation that they will carry someone’s burdens, a truck may serve.

Trucks aren’t the only things in our world that carry connotations or hidden meanings.  The exercise I’ve done today with looking at trucks can be applied to lots of things.  What do you assume about a character if I mention that they’re carrying a Starbucks coffee cup in one hand?  What do you think about when I describe a rocking chair, sitting on a porch, its paint faded and flaking?  What comes to mind if I mention a tube of cherry red lipstick, sitting on the edge of a nightstand, or maybe at the bottom of a purse?  We imbue objects with cultural meaning.  As writers, we can tap into those objects and use their ideas, like drawing power from a fresh battery.

Thanks for the topic, Richard.  Talking about trucks has been fun.

I enjoyed it.

If you liked the first one, I think you’ll like 2049.

I’m probably going to be thinking about it for a while.

The contents of the movie have me really thinking about what I’ve been putting into Synthetic Dreams and the questions I’ll be playing with.  I have some original ideas, but I’ll definitely be treading on some thematic ideas that have been touched on by movies like this one.

It’s worth seeing in the theater.  It does have some slow parts, but it’s a gorgeous film, and everyone is great in it.

Go watch it.

Right up front, let me just state that I have no intention to make this a political post.  I want to talk about lying as it relates to my life and writing, and not talk about Trump.  Even though it would be so easy to talk about the Liar in Chief, I want to keep this topic positive and constructive.

Besides, Trump is a terrible liar.  To writers of fiction, you have to be great at lying.

In Steven King’s On Writing, one of the major points he makes is that writers should strive to tell the truth.  What he means is that what we write should ring true, and we shouldn’t be lazy or cowardly.  If in the course of your story your main character would pull the trigger, jump out a window, or set fire to a building, then you must let them shoot, defenestrate, or commit arson.  If they would say “shit!” and not “poop!” then you must let them use profanity.  The idea of truth in this sense is being true to the spirit of the characters and the story.

But unless you’re writing a memoir or non-fiction, your characters aren’t real.  The setting might be based on a real place, but it’s still the land of make believe.  Perhaps the events that transpire in your story are drawn from the memory of real life events.  But as soon as you started putting them on paper, they became fantasy.

The fiction writer is playing make believe.  They’re having wakeful dreams, lucid visions blossoming under the gaze of their mind’s eye.  While having such a fit, they flail at a keyboard or scrape a writing instrument across a page, putting their hallucinations into a permanent form.  Or maybe they go off in the woods and talk to themselves, recording their ramblings until they can be transposed later.

I can dress it up a hundred different ways, but the truth is that the writer is engaged in artful lying.  If they’re really good, their lies will transport the reader to a completely different place, with characters that never existed, except in the shared story between creator and consumer.

Who cares, though, right?  What difference does it make?

I care.  To me, it’s more than just semantics.  I believe that the world is pushed and pulled by the words of writers, and there is value in being aware of what’s going on.

Whether it is a book, a movie, a political speech, or an advertisement, there are writers involved, crafting messages that will sell something.  Usually they’re selling an idea.  Almost always, that idea is a work of fiction.  Perhaps it’s just a small lie, but even an embellishment is still a deviation of the truth.

Our culture is saturated with lies.  Marketing.  Politics.  If I were feeling particularly blasphemous, I might throw in Religion.  Behind all of it, there are writers making the lies as believable as possible.

So how does the writer do it?  How do writers deceive the whole world in all of these different areas?

Sometimes it starts with a grain of truth.  You draw on a memory that is related to the fiction and focus on the details.  Maybe you’ve known someone like the character you’re trying to create.  Maybe the setting is reminiscent of some place you liked to play as a child.  Often, a simple truth can be the snowflake that starts rolling down the hill, growing as it moves, gathering all of the special lies that stick to it until in the end, it is unrecognizable from how it began.

Whether the writer starts with a truth or not, they have to commit.  They have to see the vision and believe it.  The writer is the first person that must be fooled by the lie.  If they do not believe it, no one else will.

Like other forms of lying, the writer’s tale can come apart in the details.  It’s important for the writer to keep track of those details that the reader will latch onto and pick at.  If you present a character as being left handed and bald as an egg shell, then they better stay left handed and hairless unless you have a reason for the change.  Inconsistencies give the game away.

Like a stage magician, the writer may have to use obfuscation or distraction to keep the reader from digging at details you’re unprepared for.  If you’re building a space station in your story that relies on centrifugal force for gravity, you either need to do the math and figure it all out in advance, or you need to have an airlock explode as soon as one of the characters start to ask how it all works.

A good writer is a great liar.  Without that skill, who would believe that a race of short, furry footed people would trek across a barren land to throw a magical ring into a pit of fire?  Who would believe that a farm boy from a desert planet would turn out to be the offspring of the Empire’s chief mass murderer, and that they would face off with swords made of plasma?  Without the art of the lie, the stories we embrace fall apart.

I’ve talked before about Plotters versus Pantsers, and where I fall within the spectrum.  To summarize, Plotters want everything planned in advance.  They craft outlines which capture the high-level structure of their story.  Within the nodes of the outline, they outline further, laying out the chapters.  Within the chapters, they outline the scenes.  They go deeper and deeper with their outlines, until it’s a small step to just writing the story.  They string up their structure with prose, sewing flesh onto the skeleton of their ideas.  Famous Plotters include Brandon Sanderson and Jennifer Brozek.

Then there are the Pantsers, though they may prefer to be called Discovery Writers.  They aren’t bound by the constraints of an outline.  They start with a vision.  Then they sit down and write.  They are the first readers of their stories, the words appearing beneath their cursor with the movement of their eyes.  They need the surprise.  They often have an idea where things are going, but they’re more prone to let the characters take over.  Famous discovery writers include Stephen King and Dean Wesley Smith.

It’s interesting listening to writers that are at the extremes of the spectrum, because they seem to have such disdain for the opposite approach.  I remember listening to Dean Wesley Smith on a panel at my first WorldCon (Reno, 2011).  He described how he refuses to outline because when he does, he spoils the story for himself, and he no longer has any desire to see it through to the end.  Years later, I listened to Jennifer Brozek at a different convention.  I think it was a Con-Volution, but it might have been somewhere else.  She talked about the outlining process, and how when a Discovery Writer finishes their first draft, THAT’s their outline.  Both had compelling arguments that resonated with me.

And of course, in Stephen King’s book On Writing, he talks about plot like it’s a clumsy tool.  He talks about the story like it’s a fossil buried in the ground.  The Discovery Writer works at the excavation, carefully revealing the finer details.  The Plotter, on the other hand, goes into the same excavation site with a bulldozer.

As someone that is still trying to perfect his writing methods, I think about these perspectives on writing all the time.

It’s clear to me that each writer is different, and that the methods of one may not be appropriate as the techniques of another.

For myself, I’m starting to think that I need different techniques for different stories.  For example, when I started The Repossessed Ghost, I already had a character with a strong voice in my mind.  I’d dabbled with him in a few short stories years before.  I’d played him in a roleplaying game.  I liked Mel, and I thought he deserved to be in his own story.  But I wasn’t entirely sure what that story would be.

I started with a scenario.  He’s a repo-man, and he finds a ghost in a car.  What happens next?  I thought that he’d become a suspect in her murder.  So I went that direction.  One thing led to another, and the ideas started to fall into place very organically.  I wasn’t sure how the story would end, and I didn’t really know what the main conflict would be.  Somewhere in the middle of the first draft, I started to think the book was a strange love story.  I even tried to end it as a love story.  That turned out to be a bad idea.

The first draft of that story involved a lot of Discovery Writing.  I wound up editing it for about 3 years, and maybe it’s still not really done.  I certainly don’t want to work on it anymore, right now.

That approach worked for that story, but it isn’t going to work for Synthetic Dreams.  That story is too complicated.  I’m coming into this story with strong ideas about the world and the themes I want to explore.  I didn’t know who the characters were until I was about to start writing.  I really like the main characters now, and I want to see what happens to them.  But they weren’t the ones that drove this story into existence.  This story isn’t going to go anywhere unless I chart a course.  So for Synthetic Dreams, I’m doing a lot of outlining.

In November, I’m starting an entirely different story.  Like The Repossessed Ghost, I have a strong sense of the main character.  But like Synthetic Dreams, the story is big.  There are mysteries involved, and I have to know in advance what crimes my main character will be solving.  I need to know the bigger picture so that I can make the smaller pieces fit together into a coherent whole.  In preparation for NaNoWriMo, and to make sure that this new story makes sense, I’ve done some outlining.

There is no magical one-size-fits-all solution.  If there was, we’d all be doing it.  Instead, we fumble around, experimenting until we find something that works for us.  And sometimes what works once doesn’t work the next time.

I think I like it like that.  When I talked about playing music, I mentioned how I like to go into situations that scare me a little bit.  Well, every story is a little bit scary.

I just got home from practice, and I’m unwinding with some bourbon and Pringles.  Those two things don’t really go that well together, but I wanted salt, and I wanted a drink.  So here we are.

Last night, I wrote about the concert band.  I talked a little about my history, and how I feel about it now.  Tonight, I’ll do the same with the swing band.  Though I’ve had enough to drink that I probably won’t be quite as eloquent.

I’ve been asked a couple of times what “RC” stands for in RC Swing.  Honestly?  It doesn’t stand for anything.  I think the strategy was to imply that it stands for Rancho Cordova, but it’s never been decided.  It could be “Royal Crown” or “Remote Control.” Maybe “Really Clever.”

I think it was October, 2014 when I was invited to sit in with RC Swing.  I was hesitant to commit, because November was coming, and I wanted to have another successful NaNoWriMo.  I said I could come for a little while, and now it’s 2017, and I’m still playing with the band.

The music we play in RC Swing is more fun than the music we play in the concert band.  There’s no denying that.  I always enjoyed Jazz Band more than Concert Band in school, and it’s still true today.  There’s more freedom of expression in the swing band.

When I first started with RC Swing, I didn’t have any real expectations.  I thought it was temporary, and I figured I was just another player in the band.  I was playing first alto, but that didn’t mean anything to me.  I enjoyed the music, and I was willing to do whatever needed doing.

I discovered that lead alto in a swing band usually has more responsibilities than I was used to.  I didn’t mind.  There were things for me to get used to, and I was being challenged in ways I hadn’t been challenged before, but that’s the kind of environment where I excel.  It’s like something I alluded to last night.  I like the pressure.  I like being just a little bit scared, and forced out of my comfort zone.  At least when it comes to performing.

For a period of time, I became more and more involved with RC Swing.  I did announcing.  I helped with a few set lists.  I was invited to leadership meetings.  I felt like I was one of the leaders.  I don’t know how much of that was me insinuating myself.  But I was definitely more involved.

Things have changed over time.  Perhaps I butted heads with the manager of the band one too many times.  These days, my role is much, much less.  That, in turn, has had an impact on my feelings about the band.

I still love the music.  I still do my best in performances.  But I don’t feel as connected as I used to.  When I first started, I really looked forward to the Tuesday practices.  Most of the time these days, I go into them with apprehension, and I often feel downright terrible at the end of the night.

We’ve got a gig this Saturday, then nothing scheduled for a long while.  I’ve told the band manager that I’m taking November off so that I can make sure I have a successful NaNoWriMo.  If we don’t have anything else going on this month, I might just start my break after this Saturday’s gig.  I obviously need a break from the band, at least for a little while.  Sometimes you need distance to appreciate what you have, and I’m hoping that after a good long break from RC Swing, I’ll miss it and want to come back.  Right now, I’m really looking forward to the taking the time off and focusing on writing.

This is starting to sound kind of negative, and I don’t mean it to.  There are some very talented musicians in the group.  I just need a break.

If you’re in the area this Saturday, you should come to: 6414 Brace Rd, Loomis, CA.  We start playing at 7PM, and there’s a small fee at the door.  But it’s going to be a great concert.

I play alto sax with The Rancho Cordova River City Concert Band.  I’ve been playing with the band for several years.  We are a 501(c)(3) non-profit charity, dedicated to providing music to the local community as well as promoting the arts.  I’m the current president.  Those are the basic facts, but I want to talk about some of the history, and how I feel about the band.

For starters, I wasn’t the first Buhl to join the band.  My daughter joined about a year before I did.  Melissa dropped her off every Monday night for a while.  When Melissa got tired of that, she made me start dropping Bryanna off.  I dropped her off exactly once, then started bringing my sax and playing with the band.

Those first couple of years, I had mixed feelings about the band.  I didn’t feel like I was being used to my fullest potential.  I felt frustrated and disconnected.  I didn’t really know anyone other than Bryanna.  I didn’t feel fully engaged.  After Bryanna quit, I nearly quit, too.

Then in 2014, we hosted a convention in Rancho Cordova, and for the first time, I felt like a part of the band.  I felt like I mattered.  I volunteered my time, helped with stage crew, and when my competence was appreciated, I felt like I belonged.

That convention was an interesting experience.  I got to spend some time with my old High School teacher, Larry Hudson.  The band had worked really hard on the set list, and we played better than we’ve ever played.  I played with the convention band.  It was an amazing week.

But that convention came with a cost.

The president of the band at that time, Gary, had a gambling problem.  Worse, he was in positions of authority and responsibility, not only in the River City Concert Band, but also the Sacramento Valley Symphonic Band Association (SVSBA).  He was president and acting treasurer of both organizations.  And he’d been cooking the books and stealing money from both organizations for awhile.

He’d talked of big game, about how we had sponsors and donations.  About how the fundraising we’d done had been enough to pay for the convention.  But shortly after the convention, Gary got sick, and the people that the band owed money started calling people other than Gary.

That’s when we found out how screwed we were.  Almost $20,000 debt.  And we had nothing.

The SVSBA had been hurt bad, too, and maybe I’ll talk about that organization in another post.  A lot of people were hurt by Gary’s actions.

Before all that had gone down, I’d looked up to Gary.  I wanted his approval.  He had a grandfatherly way about him, and he seemed generous and kind.  He commanded respect.  He had clout.  And then we all found out the hard way that for as much as we loved him, he had stolen from us to feed his own addiction.

Several of us regrouped.  We worked out a deal with the city of Rancho Cordova.  Part of that deal was formally changing our name to Rancho Cordova Rivery City Concert Band.  There were other parts of that deal which didn’t sit that well with me.  It was my first brush with local politics.  We made compromises, did all of the proper paperwork, and now we’re a 501(c)(3) and our organization is much stronger.  We’re close to paying off our debt.  We may have been knocked for a loop by the actions of someone we trusted, but we got back up and kept playing music.

How do I feel about the band now?

I believe in the organization.  The board is full of people that volunteer and follow through.  We’re a good team.  The band is full of good musicians, and most everyone steps up and does what needs to be done.

I don’t think we are playing as well as when we played for the convention.  For the convention, we had a goal in mind, and we had a lot of really good pressure to force us to excel.  We haven’t had that kind of pressure for a long time.  We don’t have anything pushing us to reach beyond our comfort zone.  I would like us to take on something that scares us a little, because I think that’s the fire that forges us and shapes us into something beautiful.

We’ve purchased some new percussion, but we don’t have a way to practice with it very easily.  We don’t have very many percussionists right now, either.  Logistics for moving equipment is still a concern.

One of my long term goals for the band is to find a permanent practice location.  Some place that we can call our own, and where we can keep and use our equipment.

The challenge there is that for us to achieve that goal, I have to overcome one of my weaknesses: reaching out to people and asking them for stuff.  That is not easy for me to do.  I stress out about it.  A lot of times, I can push these types of tasks off to other board members.  But this particular one has been challenging.  We’ll get there.  It’s just taking longer than I like, and it’s my fault.

Those are my thoughts about the band, for better or worse.  Like any family, it has its share of problems.  But it is a good band, and I’m glad I’m still a part of it.

It is Sunday, and according to my schedule, I should be writing about politics.  But today was also the last day of Con-Volution 2017, and I’ve had some experiences today which make me want to talk about writing.

I’ve written about fear before.  It may be the best article on writing I’ve ever written.  I’m convinced that fear is the main enemy of the writer.  It’s also the enemy of a free society, but I’m not talking about politics today.  We’re sticking to the writing life and leaving politics for another day.

I’ve also written about pride.  Pride is a two-edged sword.  A little bit can help the writer get through some tough situations, but too much keeps them from seeing their mistakes.  Too much pride in the writer prevents them from reaching their potential.

This weekend, I’ve gone through some experiences where I’ve experienced both fear and pride, sometimes one right on top of the other.

Every convention starts with fear.  I’m always a little bit afraid that I’m going to make a fool of myself.  That I won’t fit in, or that I’ll say something stupid, or that the community will realize that I don’t belong and show me the door.  This isn’t a major fear anymore, but it is still present, like some persistent static when trying to listen to a song on the radio.

Once I start going to panels and I start talking with people and blending in, that fear mostly goes away.  It resurfaces when it’s time to go to the after parties.  The fear is manageable.  It’s the kind of fear that most introverts feel when presented with a large crowded room.

During Con-Volution 2017, I had moments where fear got to take a backseat to pride.  I participated in workshops, and there were moments when I reached for words and found them.  At one point, I wrote about a battle field and set up a powerful scene on the spot.  I only wrote a few sentences, but for a few moments, I felt like the greatest writer to ever put pen to paper.

My ego is not powerful enough to support such pride, so I quickly stepped back down to reality.  But I did still feel proud of myself, and from that experience and a few others during the convention, I felt justified in pursuing my writing hobby.  I thought for a few minutes that maybe my dream of becoming a full time writer could become a reality.  I just needed to keep going.

Today, I received some fuel to rekindle the fear and lower my expectations.  I’d sent The Repossessed Ghost to a friend, and we talked about it today.  He didn’t like it that much, and while that made me a little bit sad, it didn’t crush me.  What did crush me was the fact that part of the reason he didn’t like it was because a couple of important chapters were out of order in the print.  This error pulled him out of the story and prevented him from reading it as it was intended to be read.

I’m not that worried about my friend not liking my book.  It hurts, but it’s not the end of the world.  From the things we talked about, it wouldn’t take much for me to make him happy.  He wanted more descriptions of the main character, which is something I don’t want to do for a few reasons.  I’ll think about it, and if I work on it again, I’ll keep his advice in mind.

Obviously, my friend not liking my book stoked the fiery fears of failure.  But the real terror is discovering that the copy I’d sent to an important editor ALSO had the chapters mixed up.

You can’t just swap chapters 10 and 21 in the book.  It doesn’t work.  And it looks amateur.  It’s a stupid mistake.  One that I’ve never made before.  I’m not even sure HOW I made the mistake.  All I did was hit compile in Scrivener.  I checked the first dozen pages or so, and everything looked fine.  Just as it always had.

But the mistake is there, and I sent it to someone that has the potential of promoting my book in the direction I want it to go.  When I sent it to this editor, it was like buying a lottery ticket.  As long as he had it and I hadn’t heard from him, I’ve been able to feel like I’ve been moving towards the fulfillment of my dream.  But now it looks like that lottery ticket was misprinted, and can’t possibly be a winner.

Normal fear sucks.  Justified fear is even worse.

There’s been some ups and downs this weekend.  I’ve had moments where I felt confirmed as a writer.  I’ve had moments that have brought me down to reality, like concrete shoes on a man tossed out to sea.  Moments where I’ve found it very difficult to breathe.

It will be okay, though.  I just have to persevere.  Whether it’s pride swelling me up, or fear tearing me down, I just have to push on and keep going.

I will get through this, one way or another.

Last night, right after I posted about Day 1, I started sneezing, my nose started running, and I felt weak.  Even though the night was still young, I felt like going to the parties would be a bad idea.  Melissa and I stayed in and tucked in early.

Because we went to bed early, we woke up a little bit early.  Looking at the schedule, the earliest thing I wanted to attend wasn’t until 2PM, so we set off to walk around, play some Pokemon, and get breakfast.  We ran into Michael and David right outside and joined them in walking over to Peet’s Coffee.

After breakfast, we headed back to the hotel, found a table out on the patio, and I did some writing while Melissa read her book.  It was time well spent.

That pretty much sums up what the whole day was like.  Melissa and I floated around the convention, our meanderings interrupted by interesting conversation and occasional panels or workshops.

The first panel we attended was about Quantum Computing, presented by Kevin Roche.  Kevin did a great job presenting the material.  He kept it entertaining.  He made sure to avoid dry math, and he used some good analogies and anecdotes to keep it interesting throughout.  I must confess that I knew much the subject material before doing in since I already had an interest in quantum computing.  Hunched down so that people sitting behind me could see, I started to get a little drowsy.  But Kevin did such a good job that I did not fall asleep and embarrass myself.

The next panel was a workshop about jump starting the creative spark, and then applying different techniques to keep the working.  Mark Gelineua and Marjorie Hazeltine were the presenters, and they gave me some techniques I hadn’t thought of or used before.  I had fun with the writing exercises, and I took some good notes.

The last panel was another workshop, again lead by Michael.  This one was about four steps for immersing readers.  This was also a fun exercise.  I especially enjoyed Melissa’s participation, because she overcame her fears about other people reading her work.  She demonstrated that she can engage in creative writing and hold her own.

After the panel, I stayed behind and talked with a couple of the people that participated in the workshop.  This is what these conventions are really about.  Meeting new people with this special common interest, and sharing our enjoyment and enthusiasm for the subject.

There isn’t too much more I can say about the convention today.  In terms of quantity, I don’t believe the program is as strong as it has been previous years.  On the other hand, the programming I’ve participated in has been more engaging, and I really like the focus on participation.

If this is a new starting place, then I would love to see how the convention grows from here.  I like the venue.  I like what programming there is.  I just wish there was a little bit more of it.

Tomorrow, Melissa and I will have to leave a little bit early.  I have too much real life to get back to and contend with before Monday.  We’ll get breakfast with a friend, attend a panel at 10AM, then probably head out.  If I don’t write about Con-Volution tomorrow, I will say now that I’m glad Melissa and I came this year.

I was going to write about current events on Fridays, but since I’m basically on vacation at a convention, I’m going to take a break from the news.  Let’s talk about Con-Volution 2017!

Melissa and I arrived pretty early, which was lucky.  Apparently, we managed to skip a bunch of traffic.  We showed up at the hotel a little after noon, checked in, put our bags away, and wandered around the hotel, learning the convention’s geography.

The interesting thing about Con-Volution this year is that it’s in a new location.  This year it’s in San Ramon, at the same Marriott that I used to travel to for Dundracon.  Wandering the halls brought back a lot of memories.  It’s a really great venue for a small convention.

From what we can see this first day, Con-Volution 2017 is smaller than it has been in previous years.  Though the opening ceremony isn’t the greatest gauge for the size of a con, I noticed that there were about as many guests of honor as there were people in the audience.

Registration was okay.  I would have preferred that they started at 1PM instead of 2PM, since the 2PM start time only gave them an hour before opening ceremony.  But the line was short and moved fast enough for us.  Melissa and I were pre-registered, so we got our badges very quickly.

All of the programming is online.  I went through and picked out everything that interested me.  The selection seems thinner this year than previous years.  Again, this gives me the impression that Con-Volution is smaller this year than previous years.

An interesting change this year with the programming is that everything is workshops and round table discussions.  The entire focus of the con is to be more engaging.  Their mission is to teach and to inspire the community to do more with their creative talents.  I think it’s a noble goal, and honestly, it’s a welcome change from the standard panels.

After opening ceremony, Melissa and I went to a workshop lead by Michael.  The workshop was all about helping writers find their voice.  Michael gave us seeds for a story, then had us write in five minute bursts.  Each time we wrote, the scenario was changed slightly, and we had to use different viewpoint and tense.  The exercise forced us to really examine the voices we were using for our stories.  It’s very effective.

I want to take a moment to talk about Michael.  I’m proud of him.  When he runs a workshop, I can see the kind of teacher he could be once he gets his MFA.  He’s truly in his element when he’s in front of people teaching.  He does such a great job, and I’m glad I was able to participate.

After the writing workshop, Melissa and I went to a round table discussion on rebellions.  I wasn’t sure what to expect from it.  I hadn’t read the notes on it that closely.  It was an interesting discussion that started primarily with rebellion in science fiction, but quickly moved on to touch on historical revolutions, revolts, and some current events.  The discussion actually deviated into other, non-rebellion topics (such as the latest Wonder Woman movie), but it all seemed very organic, and I think everyone had a pretty good time.

After that, Melissa and I wandered off to get dinner.  It wasn’t awesome, but it wasn’t bad, either.

Back at the convention, we attended the meet the guests event.  I did my best, but I’ve never felt particularly comfortable walking up to strangers and talking at them.  I met a few of the guests, engaged them in conversation, and managed not to embarrass myself.  And that was fine.

When that event ended, Michael’s latest incarnation of his Bard for Life show took place in the same room.  Again, he did a great job.  I heard some material I hadn’t heard before as well as some I nearly have memorized at this point.  The crowd was very receptive.  After the show, two of the guests of honor tried to buy him a drink, but he wisely had David take the drink for him.  This weekend, David is Michael’s Designated Drinker.

And now I’m back in my room, scrambling to get my thoughts transposed out of my head.

I think Melissa and I are going to have a good time this weekend.  It doesn’t matter if the convention is small if everyone involved is having fun.  And, honestly, I’m meeting some interesting people.

Justine Diamond, this post is for you.

I’m going to be honest.  When Justine suggested this as a topic, I really had no idea what I was going to talk about.  I write science fiction and fantasy, and I read a lot of science fiction, but I don’t feel particularly qualified to talk about the genre in any meaningful way.

That’s a strange sentiment, isn’t it?

I’ve been reading science fiction for more than thirty years.  I’ve been writing off and on for nearly thirty years, and most of what I write is science fiction.  I’ve been attending science fiction conventions for the last seven years.  I spent many, many years writing Star Wars fan fiction with friends on a Star Wars MUSH.  And in spite of all of that, I feel like an unworthy authority on the subject.

With that in mind, take all of the following with a grain of salt.  These are just my opinions, and some of them are very loosely held.

Let’s begin with books.

I grew up with Robert Heinlein and Isaac Asimov.  I read a couple of other authors during my formative years, but I primarily spent my reading time enjoying the works of those two men.  I particularly liked Lazarus Long, and I just sort of ignored all the squicky stuff.

The last three books I’ve read are Mother Go by James Patrick Kelly, Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan, and The Fall of Hyperion by Dan Simmons.  I tried to read The Mote in God’s Eye by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, but I just couldn’t get into it.

In terms of quality, I think science fiction is just about as good as it’s ever been.  There is more of it than at any time I can remember.  There are plenty of stinkers, but there have always been campy, silly, or just plan bad science fiction books.  Heck, even my hero Heinlein wrote stories of questionable quality.

But I think there is greater inclusiveness with science fiction now.  Not only is the geeky material more readily accepted by the main stream, more diverse voices are getting heard.

I don’t want to get too much into the politics or the puppies, but I think the more people you have writing science fiction, the better.  One of my friends has been going on a crusade on twitter and social media, talking about how male authors have a harder time getting published now.  I disagree with him, and even if he’s right, I think the scales will eventually balance, anyway.  As a male writing science fiction, if it is harder for me to publish than it used to be, then I’ll just have to become a better writer.  I am up to the challenge.

In terms of content and subject matter, I think we’re in a better place than we were when I first got into science fiction.  For example, I really love the multi-dimensional subject matter in Jason Hough’s Zero World and in Peter Cline’s 14 and The Fold.  I think the solidly grounded work of Andy Weir’s The Martian is some of the best science fiction ever written.  There is some really great stuff being written these days.

Moving on to movies and other media, we have the special effects to really make science fiction look good.  Unfortunately, I think that’s where things can go a little bit sideways.  Some movie makers seem to get so caught up in making their movies look good, they forget to make their movies actually good.

For example, I’m lead to believe that Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets looked amazing, but didn’t deliver much of a story.  I didn’t go and see it, so I’m going off of word of mouth, reviews, and the poor showing at the box office.  I also heard Life was underwhelming.

It’s not all bad, though.  The Martian was almost as amazing on the screen as it was in the book.  The last Mad Max movie was exceptional.  I’ve enjoyed the latest Star Wars movies, and I’m looking forward to The Last Jedi in a couple of months.

Star Trek, on the other hand, seems to be going through a bit of an identity crisis.  The rebooted movies focused more on action and adventure and left a lot of original fans feeling like they’d been cheated out of compelling science fiction.  I haven’t Star Trek: Discovery yet, and I understand that it’s very dark, and very action oriented as well.  I’m hearing mixed things about it.

In general, I think science fiction is as good as it’s ever been.  Compared with fantasy, I think fantasy has been fairly dominant for a while, but I think science fiction is resurging.  I think there’s more demand for good science fiction than there was five years ago.