In my February 25th blog I promised you a post a week at my Association of Temporal Anthropologists blogsite. My last post was March 25th and it is now May. I apologize for the neglect but I cannot say I am sorry. I have been busy on family business.
I spent April in Montana helping my sister-in-law to take care of my mother-in-law, Jo, dying of cancer. My sister-in-law is disabled and couldn’t do it on her own. I was not the only one helping, but I was the only one without a nine-to-five job I had to get back to. Indeed my nephew and his fiancée postponed their wedding to help.
Before you say what a nice person I am, I did it for the sake of Karma--not my Karma but for Jo’s Karma. My mother-in-law has been the primary care giver for at least three people dying of cancer. Indeed her biggest regret was that she had brought my sister-in-law to Hamilton to take care of her, and now her daughter was taking care of her. Jo was an excellent patient, always cooperative (at least as much as her failing body would allow her to be) and she forced herself to stay upbeat. To the end she was doing what she could to take care of those caring for her.
April 1st Jo was given the final diagnosis of 4 to 6 weeks. She slowly slipped into a coma and passed away peacefully on May 1st. Her last words to me were “I love you.” She was the best mother-in-law one could ask for, never treating me as if I was not good enough for her son, but rather treating me like I was somehow special.
It’s difficult to write when you are hovering over someone who is too weak to press a call button or yell for help. And grief is a bit distracting. However life goes on. I have a second book to edit, which I promised Jo I would dedicate to her. And of course I need to keep up my blog--my attempt at getting attention without being too obnoxious.
To make up for the silence I am posting a short story I have been working on: High Stakes Poker on the Mississippi. This is one of Dr. Wendell Howe’s last projects as a Temporal Anthropologist before disappearing and presumed dead by the 27th century. This tale takes place a couple of months before my book Walking a Fine Timeline.
Click here to link to my short story. I hope you enjoy it.
Thursday, May 9, 2013
Friday, March 15, 2013
What is Steambunk?
In my book Walking a Fine Timeline I have a character named Dr. Wendell Howe. When Dr. Serendipity Brown and her assistant, Sherman Conrad, get stuck in the year 1851, they run into a gentleman in a top hat and frockcoat calling himself Dr. Howe. They assume he is a native, until he recognizes Serendipity as the inventor of time travel. She has not announced her invention to anyone, save Sherman. How could Howe know who she is unless he himself is from the future?--Serendipity’s future!
Wendell tells them he is a Temporal Anthropologist from the 27th century. Temporal Anthropologists are trained to fit so well into their chosen time period of study that they no longer fits in their own. Wendell can’t stand 27th century clothes and wears a frockcoat in 2660. He even shaves with a straight razor. What necessary future technology he has with him is carefully disguised to look Victorian.
A lot of people have told me Wendell is steampunk. Purists would beg to differ. Steampunk is Victorians with futuristic things like computers and rockets created with Victorian technology. Think H.G. Wells and Jules Verne. Wendell is just the opposite. He is a man from the future with Victorian things like pocket Bibles and glasses that are really a computer and camera using 27th century technology. He is faux-Victorian. Wendell is what I call “steambunk.”
I wrote a story called “The Spirit of Tea,” which features Wendell throwing a tea party for the Wild Bunch (the real Wild Bunch, not the warm fuzzies of popular culture) and living to tell the tale. I was surprised when it was accepted into Gears & Levers 2: A Steampunk Anthology. So I guess steambunk is now an “official” subgenre of steampunk.
I invented the term just as I invented Temporal Anthropology. I have since learned a few other people who never heard of me have also invented Temporal Anthropology. Let’s face it, it’s a no-brainer term. What else would you call someone who travels into another time to study another culture? And even though Wendell is from England, Victorian England is a totally different culture than 27th century England (or even 21st century England.)
Perhaps all those folks who show up to steampunk conventions in carefully recreated period Victorian garb and not the pseudo-Victorian that is true steampunk are really steambunk.
Now here is the kicker. After I wrote my book I ran across a forgotten novel called The British Barbarians by Grant Allen. Published in 1895, the exact same time as H.G. Wells The Time Machine, it is also a time travel story. While Wells has a Victorian inventing a time machine and traveling into the future, Allen has a man from the 25th century travel back to the Victorian Age and try to pass himself off as a native. By the way the time traveler, Bertram Ingledew, talks he appears to be an anthropologist. He later admits he has come back in time to study the barbarians of Victorian England. Allen never uses the term Temporal Anthropologist but that is what his hero is. (Just goes to show you, no matter how clever you are, someone else has already came up with the idea.)
So if H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine is steampunk, then Grant Allen’s The British Barbarians is steambunk. There you go, my newly invented term has a long and illustrious history.
Wendell tells them he is a Temporal Anthropologist from the 27th century. Temporal Anthropologists are trained to fit so well into their chosen time period of study that they no longer fits in their own. Wendell can’t stand 27th century clothes and wears a frockcoat in 2660. He even shaves with a straight razor. What necessary future technology he has with him is carefully disguised to look Victorian.
A lot of people have told me Wendell is steampunk. Purists would beg to differ. Steampunk is Victorians with futuristic things like computers and rockets created with Victorian technology. Think H.G. Wells and Jules Verne. Wendell is just the opposite. He is a man from the future with Victorian things like pocket Bibles and glasses that are really a computer and camera using 27th century technology. He is faux-Victorian. Wendell is what I call “steambunk.”
I wrote a story called “The Spirit of Tea,” which features Wendell throwing a tea party for the Wild Bunch (the real Wild Bunch, not the warm fuzzies of popular culture) and living to tell the tale. I was surprised when it was accepted into Gears & Levers 2: A Steampunk Anthology. So I guess steambunk is now an “official” subgenre of steampunk.
I invented the term just as I invented Temporal Anthropology. I have since learned a few other people who never heard of me have also invented Temporal Anthropology. Let’s face it, it’s a no-brainer term. What else would you call someone who travels into another time to study another culture? And even though Wendell is from England, Victorian England is a totally different culture than 27th century England (or even 21st century England.)
Perhaps all those folks who show up to steampunk conventions in carefully recreated period Victorian garb and not the pseudo-Victorian that is true steampunk are really steambunk.
Now here is the kicker. After I wrote my book I ran across a forgotten novel called The British Barbarians by Grant Allen. Published in 1895, the exact same time as H.G. Wells The Time Machine, it is also a time travel story. While Wells has a Victorian inventing a time machine and traveling into the future, Allen has a man from the 25th century travel back to the Victorian Age and try to pass himself off as a native. By the way the time traveler, Bertram Ingledew, talks he appears to be an anthropologist. He later admits he has come back in time to study the barbarians of Victorian England. Allen never uses the term Temporal Anthropologist but that is what his hero is. (Just goes to show you, no matter how clever you are, someone else has already came up with the idea.)
So if H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine is steampunk, then Grant Allen’s The British Barbarians is steambunk. There you go, my newly invented term has a long and illustrious history.
 |
| Grant Allen - the first steambunk author? (He stole my idea 113 years before I invented it.) |
Friday, March 8, 2013
Support Your Local Indie Author
Okay, I don’t like bugging people because you all have lives of your own, but if you read my book and like it, please tell someone. Put a review on Amazon, Good Reads, SmashWords or your own blog. Then let me know about it so I can put it on my website.
Now you are saying “I don’t know how to write a review.” You don’t have to be a literary major with a detailed critique. It doesn’t have to be long. A few sentences are fine. It also doesn’t and shouldn’t be over the top like “the greatest book I ever read.” Just give your honest opinion. What would you tell a friend if you recommended the book to them?
The New Yorker sure as heck won’t review an Indie author. We are rebels, an underground movement fighting the establishment. And when you support an Indie author instead of some big publishing house telling you what to read, then you are a rebel, too. We don’t have the backing of mass media, we need a grassroots campaign.
Most people probably assume I am self-published because no publisher wanted me. It’s just the opposite. I never submitted my book to anyone. I have heard too many horror stories. The New York Publishers are using practices that would not be tolerated in other business community, like contracts a lawyer couldn’t understand (you have to get a specialized one) or tricking writers over the phone into “signing” verbal contracts (legal in New York.) Even if they play fair the best you can ever hope for is 8% of the profits (and that’s only if you are a superstar.) I’m a small town girl who is used to being treated fairly. I decided I didn’t want to deal with these guys.
Another problem is I’ve heard so many authors complain about how they get rewritten by publishers--not to make a better book but to sell more copies. They don’t recognize their book anymore. Throw in some S&M scenes and some zombies. I have heard of many authors being turned down with “we love the book, but we don’t think the general public (who we think are morons) would like it.” I am willing to rewrite to make a scene better, but not to make it “sell better” to people who watch slash films.
Thanks to Print On Demand and ebooks, authors can circumvent the big boys to get to the readers. The good news anyone can publish now. The bad news is anyone can publish now. There is a lot junk out there from writers who don’t bother to get an editor and polish their first draft. So Indies need reviews, word of mouth, to let other readers know what is worth reading.
If you don’t like my writing, that’s fine. It just means you prefer a different genre or style. (If everyone liked the same thing I would have to write about sparkly vampires.) However, I do want you to support the Indies you do like, since they are in the same boat as me. At least hit the “like” button on their Amazon page.
Be part of the Indie Uprising. Viva la Revolution!
Now you are saying “I don’t know how to write a review.” You don’t have to be a literary major with a detailed critique. It doesn’t have to be long. A few sentences are fine. It also doesn’t and shouldn’t be over the top like “the greatest book I ever read.” Just give your honest opinion. What would you tell a friend if you recommended the book to them?
The New Yorker sure as heck won’t review an Indie author. We are rebels, an underground movement fighting the establishment. And when you support an Indie author instead of some big publishing house telling you what to read, then you are a rebel, too. We don’t have the backing of mass media, we need a grassroots campaign.
Most people probably assume I am self-published because no publisher wanted me. It’s just the opposite. I never submitted my book to anyone. I have heard too many horror stories. The New York Publishers are using practices that would not be tolerated in other business community, like contracts a lawyer couldn’t understand (you have to get a specialized one) or tricking writers over the phone into “signing” verbal contracts (legal in New York.) Even if they play fair the best you can ever hope for is 8% of the profits (and that’s only if you are a superstar.) I’m a small town girl who is used to being treated fairly. I decided I didn’t want to deal with these guys.
Another problem is I’ve heard so many authors complain about how they get rewritten by publishers--not to make a better book but to sell more copies. They don’t recognize their book anymore. Throw in some S&M scenes and some zombies. I have heard of many authors being turned down with “we love the book, but we don’t think the general public (who we think are morons) would like it.” I am willing to rewrite to make a scene better, but not to make it “sell better” to people who watch slash films.
Thanks to Print On Demand and ebooks, authors can circumvent the big boys to get to the readers. The good news anyone can publish now. The bad news is anyone can publish now. There is a lot junk out there from writers who don’t bother to get an editor and polish their first draft. So Indies need reviews, word of mouth, to let other readers know what is worth reading.
If you don’t like my writing, that’s fine. It just means you prefer a different genre or style. (If everyone liked the same thing I would have to write about sparkly vampires.) However, I do want you to support the Indies you do like, since they are in the same boat as me. At least hit the “like” button on their Amazon page.
Be part of the Indie Uprising. Viva la Revolution!
Monday, February 25, 2013
Where's Wendell?
TimeTweets, which allowed Dr. Wendell Howe to tweet to the folks back in the 27th century from the 19th was an experimental application. Unfortunately the Institute of Time Travel Enforcement Agency has found out those tweets were somehow bleeding into the 21st century! They had no choice but to try to convince everyone on Twitter this was all a hoax. The Enforcers were also forced to erase Wendell’s memory of Twitter and all the friends he made. He will miss not being able to Tweet on those lonely nights in the field...except he doesn’t remember so he can’t really miss it. He will however feel there is a void in his life.
Soon Wendell will disappear mysteriously on his trip to 1851 in a few months. After a long hunt, the Institute will announce they found bits of him in the past. The University of Cambridge and the whole town will have Wendell’s funeral in 2662, but don’t worry, he is very much alive. And you will just have to read my book to find out what happens to Wendell. (Okay, the free 14 chapter preview will tell you where he went, but not the whole story. For that you have to buy the book.)
My @Wendell_Howe Twitter site was an experiment in marketing. (Gawd, I feel cheap.) But writers have to market their own books nowadays, no matter how they publish. In reality, the aim of a writer is not to make everyone buy his book, since not everyone will like it, but to just let as many people as possible know it exists.
I was going to promote myself on Twitter back in 2009, but after a couple of months I discovered just how boring my life is. So I decided to Tweet as one of my characters. I set Wendell back four years before the events of the book. I figured I would have the book published in a year (naïve me.) Now I have to stop Wendell's Tweets, or I will have to rewrite the book with him Tweeting all the way through it. If I had been smart I would have set @Wendell_Howe back twenty years.
But then maybe that would not have been good, either. Wendell’s tweets were taking up a LOT of my time. I had to do a lot of detective work to find out if a certain building was where Wendell was in the past. What did it look like then? What sort of food would he be eating? How long would it take in 1894 to go from point A to point B by ship? Could he run into a certain person on that date or were they somewhere else? I would spend hours tracking someone down only to learn they were out of town that month. And I’m such a stickler for accuracy, it had to be right.
Not that it wasn’t fun. I’m one of those crazy people that actually likes doing research. I also learned more about Wendell. If you have been following @Wendell_Howe all this time you will recognize some of the things he mentions in the book as things he did while on Twitter. (Like seeing Central Park being built or the driving of the Last Spike on the Canadian Railway.)
@Wendell_Howe was cutting into time I could have been working on my novels. I have a first draft for my second book I need to rewrite, polish and get edited. I also need to finish the draft on my third book, but keep getting distracted by scenes in my head from the fourth book I have to write down. (Yes, there are voices in my head and it’s usually my characters having conversations.)
Also things have come up in my personal life that require more attention. No, thank God, my husband doesn’t want a divorce. My Mom is pushing 80, is having health problems and needs more of my help.
Though Wendell is gone, he is not forgotten. Archibald Cocker, the student Wendell was mentoring to become a temporal anthropologist, will have a Dr. Wendell Howe (@Wendell_Howe) memorial Tweet site. He will also be the webmaster of the Association of Temporal Anthropologists blog. On the blog will be articles by other temporal anthropologists out in the field, doing things Wendell could never do in eras he could never go to. Archie will also occasionally put up old articles written by Wendell before his disappearance. Since I won’t need to know where every building and person in town is, I can just concentrate on one event. I plan to do a post a week. And Archie will announce it on Twitter.
Keep in mind I love forgotten historic trivia, so I promise some surprises. I also have other Temporal Anthropologists I want you to meet. They are from my next book (as well as in my head.)
Thank you for following Wendell and keeping him company...yes, I do think of him in the third person (and so does my husband.) And I know you will all make Archie feel welcome.
Go to Scablander.com and download the 14 chapter preview of Walking a Fine Timeline. Try it on for size; see if you like it.
Ebook available for $2.99 at Smashwords, Amazon, AmazonUK, Barnes & Noble, Kobo and iTunes.
Trade Paperback available for $13.99 at Amazon and AmazonUK.
Soon Wendell will disappear mysteriously on his trip to 1851 in a few months. After a long hunt, the Institute will announce they found bits of him in the past. The University of Cambridge and the whole town will have Wendell’s funeral in 2662, but don’t worry, he is very much alive. And you will just have to read my book to find out what happens to Wendell. (Okay, the free 14 chapter preview will tell you where he went, but not the whole story. For that you have to buy the book.)
My @Wendell_Howe Twitter site was an experiment in marketing. (Gawd, I feel cheap.) But writers have to market their own books nowadays, no matter how they publish. In reality, the aim of a writer is not to make everyone buy his book, since not everyone will like it, but to just let as many people as possible know it exists.
I was going to promote myself on Twitter back in 2009, but after a couple of months I discovered just how boring my life is. So I decided to Tweet as one of my characters. I set Wendell back four years before the events of the book. I figured I would have the book published in a year (naïve me.) Now I have to stop Wendell's Tweets, or I will have to rewrite the book with him Tweeting all the way through it. If I had been smart I would have set @Wendell_Howe back twenty years.
But then maybe that would not have been good, either. Wendell’s tweets were taking up a LOT of my time. I had to do a lot of detective work to find out if a certain building was where Wendell was in the past. What did it look like then? What sort of food would he be eating? How long would it take in 1894 to go from point A to point B by ship? Could he run into a certain person on that date or were they somewhere else? I would spend hours tracking someone down only to learn they were out of town that month. And I’m such a stickler for accuracy, it had to be right.
Not that it wasn’t fun. I’m one of those crazy people that actually likes doing research. I also learned more about Wendell. If you have been following @Wendell_Howe all this time you will recognize some of the things he mentions in the book as things he did while on Twitter. (Like seeing Central Park being built or the driving of the Last Spike on the Canadian Railway.)
@Wendell_Howe was cutting into time I could have been working on my novels. I have a first draft for my second book I need to rewrite, polish and get edited. I also need to finish the draft on my third book, but keep getting distracted by scenes in my head from the fourth book I have to write down. (Yes, there are voices in my head and it’s usually my characters having conversations.)
Also things have come up in my personal life that require more attention. No, thank God, my husband doesn’t want a divorce. My Mom is pushing 80, is having health problems and needs more of my help.
Though Wendell is gone, he is not forgotten. Archibald Cocker, the student Wendell was mentoring to become a temporal anthropologist, will have a Dr. Wendell Howe (@Wendell_Howe) memorial Tweet site. He will also be the webmaster of the Association of Temporal Anthropologists blog. On the blog will be articles by other temporal anthropologists out in the field, doing things Wendell could never do in eras he could never go to. Archie will also occasionally put up old articles written by Wendell before his disappearance. Since I won’t need to know where every building and person in town is, I can just concentrate on one event. I plan to do a post a week. And Archie will announce it on Twitter.
Keep in mind I love forgotten historic trivia, so I promise some surprises. I also have other Temporal Anthropologists I want you to meet. They are from my next book (as well as in my head.)
Thank you for following Wendell and keeping him company...yes, I do think of him in the third person (and so does my husband.) And I know you will all make Archie feel welcome.
Go to Scablander.com and download the 14 chapter preview of Walking a Fine Timeline. Try it on for size; see if you like it.
Ebook available for $2.99 at Smashwords, Amazon, AmazonUK, Barnes & Noble, Kobo and iTunes.
Trade Paperback available for $13.99 at Amazon and AmazonUK.
Saturday, February 9, 2013
Pulp-O-Miser
Okay, this has nothing to do with anything except it's just neat-o. Thrilling Tales of the Downright Unusual has an onsite application called a Pulp-O-Miser. With it you can make mock covers of mid-twentieth century science fiction magazines. You simply choose a mag title, foreground figure, background, and come up with your own story titles, or just let the mad scientist who designed this generate random ones.
Here are a couple I made:
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As you can see they are even look pre-worn to give it a more authentic appearance.
Pulp-O-Miser claims to be the brain-child of mad scientist Cornelius Zappencackler but is fact from writer and illustrator, Bradley W. Schenck. Bradley is also the talent behind Retropolis: Art of the Future That Never Was
So go ahead and create your own circa 1950 sci-fi mag cover with Pulp-O-Miser.
.jpg)
As you can see they are even look pre-worn to give it a more authentic appearance.
Pulp-O-Miser claims to be the brain-child of mad scientist Cornelius Zappencackler but is fact from writer and illustrator, Bradley W. Schenck. Bradley is also the talent behind Retropolis: Art of the Future That Never Was
So go ahead and create your own circa 1950 sci-fi mag cover with Pulp-O-Miser.
Monday, September 3, 2012
Hey! I'm Exotic...Somewhere
I really haven’t been keeping up this blog because I feel I really don’t have anything worth saying. I live my life vicariously in my writing. However as dull as I think my life is, there are places in the world I would be considered exotic.
Anyone who gets on Twitter and just talks to people in their own neck of the woods is really missing out. As homogenous as the world has appeared to become, there are still cultural differences brought on by history, environment and attitude. We all live someplace unique even if it doesn’t seem so.
One time on Twitter I was complaining about my husband and his friend (both Gemini) getting lost on some back road in an attempt at finding a shortcut. (I was dragged along.) We found ourselves in the middle of nowhere with only a farmhouse every ten miles. Wheat farmers have to have HUGE fields to grow enough to survive. Beyond that was land completely empty because it was too rocky to plow.
A girl twitted back to me “OMG what a lonely country you live in!” I looked at her location. She was from India, a land known for being crowded. I realized this poor girl would be as freaked out standing in an empty wheat field as I would be in a noisy city like Bombay. She considered my world as exotic as I would find hers.
Indeed many have romantic notions about the West, yearning to see sagebrush and tumbleweeds. Sorry but sagebrush is related to goldenrod and wrecks havoc on your hay fever, and tumbleweeds are a nuisance that pile up like snow drifts. And there is nothing romantic about a dust storm! And yet there are bars in Tokyo where people dress up like cowboys, yearning for them wide-open spaces.
People in Britain drive past castles until they are invisible to them. Sitar music is background noise to people in India. Brazilians don’t look twice at wild orchids. Australians cuss out kangaroos jumping in front of their cars. And New Yorkers think anyone who can’t talk AND listen at the same time is mentally challenged.
So as you go about your daily grind and figure you have to live in the most boring place in the world, remember someone somewhere would consider your town exciting and you quite exotic.
Anyone who gets on Twitter and just talks to people in their own neck of the woods is really missing out. As homogenous as the world has appeared to become, there are still cultural differences brought on by history, environment and attitude. We all live someplace unique even if it doesn’t seem so.
One time on Twitter I was complaining about my husband and his friend (both Gemini) getting lost on some back road in an attempt at finding a shortcut. (I was dragged along.) We found ourselves in the middle of nowhere with only a farmhouse every ten miles. Wheat farmers have to have HUGE fields to grow enough to survive. Beyond that was land completely empty because it was too rocky to plow.
A girl twitted back to me “OMG what a lonely country you live in!” I looked at her location. She was from India, a land known for being crowded. I realized this poor girl would be as freaked out standing in an empty wheat field as I would be in a noisy city like Bombay. She considered my world as exotic as I would find hers.
Indeed many have romantic notions about the West, yearning to see sagebrush and tumbleweeds. Sorry but sagebrush is related to goldenrod and wrecks havoc on your hay fever, and tumbleweeds are a nuisance that pile up like snow drifts. And there is nothing romantic about a dust storm! And yet there are bars in Tokyo where people dress up like cowboys, yearning for them wide-open spaces.
People in Britain drive past castles until they are invisible to them. Sitar music is background noise to people in India. Brazilians don’t look twice at wild orchids. Australians cuss out kangaroos jumping in front of their cars. And New Yorkers think anyone who can’t talk AND listen at the same time is mentally challenged.
So as you go about your daily grind and figure you have to live in the most boring place in the world, remember someone somewhere would consider your town exciting and you quite exotic.
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Twelve Days of Christmas
Here is my story submission "Beautiful Woman" to the 12 Days of Christmas project for "Seven Swans a Swimming". 12 Days of Christmas
The title is not what you are thinking, and neither are the seven swans.
By the way, it has nothing to do with my books or time travel.
The title is not what you are thinking, and neither are the seven swans.
By the way, it has nothing to do with my books or time travel.
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