Jim Macdonald and I have a reading at 1 PM in Griffin, here in the Westin hotel, and we’re going to be reading a brand-new, just-finished short story . . . one that we’ve been mulling over for a long time, that finally came together in this past week.
If you’re here at Boskone, we’d be delighted to see you there.
If you’re driving into Boston from out of town, you have to get lost at least once on Massachusetts Avenue.
Normally, our GPS navigator saves us from this, but the rules caught up with us this trip, because the navigator went toes-up on us shortly before departure. Fortunately, we were able to access Google Maps via my phone — not by using the phone’s web feature, because it doesn’t really have one, but by calling our younger son back in Colebrook and having him find the necessary directions and relay them to us.
After that mini-adventure, we made it safely to the Westin hotel, and our first programming item is a signing at 2 PM in the Galleria. We’re signing alongside Ken MacLeod and Charlie Stross, so if you’ve got a book (or a short story in an anthology, or a bookplate, or whatever), feel free to bring it in and we’ll happily sign it for you.
And if you’re one of the people who mostly own our stuff in electronic format . . . if you can figure out how to get us to sign that, we’ll happily do that as well.
(Surely somebody, somewhere, has invented an app for getting author signatures on e-books. Heaven knows, they’ve got apps for everything else.)
The current snow depth, as indicated by the height of the snow cap on the top of our bird feeder:
And it’s still snowing.
At least we should have decent driving weather tomorrow for the trip down to Boskone, and the weather down below for the weekend is supposed to be fair and not too cold.
Debra Doyle and James D. Macdonald
Autographing
Saturday 14:00 – 15:00, Galleria
(We’ll be autographing alongside Ken MacLeod and Charles Stross, a couple of overseas guests from the UK, so if you’ve got anything by us you’d like to have signed, feel free to bring it in so we won’t let New Hampshire down.)
Debra Doyle
Design Your Own Mythology:
Saturday 15:00 – 16:00, Harbor III
What goes into mythmaking? Panelists share their experiences in creating mythologies and pantheons — offering up dos and don’ts, tips on resources, and things to think about as you try creating a coherent mythology of your own.
James D. Macdonald
From Rapiers to Ray Guns
Saturday 16:00 – 17:00, Marina 1
From epic fantasy to space war, speculative fiction is rife with useful tools and weapons that can be used in battle. How much does a writer or reader really need to know about these weapons for fictional frays to feel real? What weapons work best for close-quarters or downrange combat in specific settings?
Debra Doyle
A Muddle of Mad Scientists
Saturday 20:00 – 21:00, Burroughs
From Dr. Frankenstein to Dr. Faustus, Mrs. Coulter to Dr. Horrible, genre fiction is filled with a long list of the crazily creative geniuses known as mad scientists. Why do we love them? What makes the mad scientist character so appealing in horror, comedy, and everything in between? Join us for a mad, mad discussion featuring some of our favorite screwy scientists/inventors from the past, present, and future.
James D. Macdonald
Abracadabra! Making Magic Real
Sunday 12:00 – 13:00, Marina 1
In writing fantasies — from epic to urban– how do you keep your story’s magic feeling fresh and new? It’s a challenge. Rules and boundaries can help, but how do you make the “science” of the supernatural seem, well, natural? Panelists discuss the perils and potentials of using magic in fiction.
Debra Doyle and James D. Macdonald
Reading Sunday 13:00 – 13:30, Griffin
At least until the driveway gets shoveled clear. Which is going to be a task which is not mine.
And we have more snow predicted for mid-week. Fortunately, Friday is projected to be cold and sunny, because that’s the day we’ll be heading down to Boston for the Boskone sf/fantasy convention. Watch this space for the unified Doyle&Macdonald convention schedule, to be appearing Real Soon Now.
Meanwhile, I have an editing gig to work on, which I have grievously neglected the past two days, because the household was afflicted not only with snow, but with a nasty but fast-moving bug that somehow slipped under this season’s flu-shot radar. (Better last week than this coming weekend, is all I can say.)
And so do the winter electric bills, because we heat our (big, old) house with electricity. We used to heat it by means of a wood-burning forced-hot-air furnace in the basement, but gave that up after about a decade and a half – wood is cheap, compared to other locally available heating methods, but it’s a hassle from start to finish.
First you have to purchase the firewood, which means finding a reliable Firewood Guy – something that’s a lot harder than you’d think, because your typical reliable Firewood Guy is usually just one year away from selling his chainsaw and his skidder and retiring to Florida, so calling last year’s supplier almost never works. Once you’ve got the firewood, it has to be stacked, all eight or nine cords of it (a cord, if you’re interested, is a stack of logs measuring 4’x4’x8’, and if you’re ever in the business of purchasing cordwood for yourself, make certain you specify “full cord”, because unscrupulous dealers are not above selling you so-called “face cords” which are only half the width of a proper cord.)
Then the stacked wood has to be heaved down into basement where the furnace lives; this will have to be done repeatedly throughout the winter, usually in the dark on bitter cold nights, because that’s always the time when one or another of the house’s occupants comes into the office and says, plaintively, “There’s no more wood in the basement and the fire is getting low.” At which point somebody – probably you, because why else would they have come into the office to complain about it – has to suit up in full north country outdoor gear and go move some logs.
After that, you have to go down into the basement and heave yet more logs, this time from the basement into the furnace. And you’ll have to do it again before you retire for the night, and as soon as you get up in the morning (forget about sleeping in, if you heat with wood), and every four or five hours throughout the day.
So once I started having paranoid fantasies about chimney fires, and about the insidious threat of carbon monoxide, and about tripping and falling on the rickety basement steps – but especially about the basement steps, because I have the sort of ankles that can turn on a crack in the kitchen linoleum – I said the hell with this, and switched to the backup electric baseboard heat. I have dreams of converting the house to oil or propane, because all the ductwork is still in place, but a project of that expense and magnitude would require major money up front, and Hollywood hasn’t bought one of our novels yet.
Which is why one of the early posts on this blog, back when I was just getting started, was my Fire in Fantasy Rant, and why I’m taking this opportunity to point a discreet finger at the Editorial and Critique Services link up there above the header. If you’ve got a novel in need of editing, you have it in your power to help me make the electric company very happy.
What Lies Beneath: Adding Subtext to Your Story Alcott Fri 8:30 PM
In real life and in storytelling, what -isn’t- being said is often more gripping than the actual dialogue between your characters. How can you use subtext to develop your characters and boost suspense? What dialogue tricks, body language, and setting communicate there’s a story which isn’t being told? Our panelists will teach you how to make your characters lie, dodge, and evade the thing they don’t want to face, all while foreshadowing the existence of inner demons.
Reading: Doyle, Ronald, Macdonald Hale Sat 10:00 AM
Expecto Patronum: Animal Symbolism in SFF Marina 1 Sat 5:30 PM
Symbolic and magical connections to animals are a standard trope in fantasy. But they are also prevalent in science fiction. From Black Panther to the Mockingjay, characters’ connections to particular animals can say a lot about them, especially in the context of the culture that produced them. What do animals mean in SFF, and how have they changed as we learn more about biodiversity and the changing natural world?
The 100 Year Old Barbed Wire: The Great War & SF Marina 2 Sun 1:00 PM
We are in the midst of the centenary of World War I. The US was not hit badly by it compared to Europe, and in 2017 the centenary of US involvement (6 April 1917) is coming up. How did the war and its aftermath change society and our idea of the future. Could “Brave New World” or “Things to Come” or other early classics of speculative fiction been written without the war’s impact? Why do so many alternate histories use earlier or later events as a changing point rather than this one?
Reading: Doyle, Ronald, Macdonald Hale Writing Sat 10:00 AM
Just the Facts: Vaccines Alcott Sat 8:30 PM
Why do we need a flu shot every year? Why do more people have to get vaccinated when the vaccine is less effective? What kind of harm _can_ they cause? And why is the U.S. having measles outbreaks again when Pakistan and India are eliminating polio? Come hear the science, the anti-science, and the ongoing discussions of immunology and epidemiology.
Pew-Pew-Pew! How to Write a Sci-Fantasy Gunfight Hale Sun 1:00 PM
Whether you write steampunk, gritty urban fantasy, post-apocalyptic fiction or futuristic sci-fi, chances are you’ll need to write a gunfight. What kind of firearm (gun, pulse cannon or ray-gun) should your characters use? How should they secure and store their weapon? What are their weapon’s limitations? What materials will provide cover when the enemy fires at them? Don’t let your gunfights be like the Stormtroopers who always miss!!!
Going Viral: How Pathogens Spread Faneuil Sun 8:30 PM
Zombies don’t really work, but viruses do. This is a look at fast versus slow pathogens and how they can spread. Maybe it’s time to buy that house in Madagascar?
Or, what our driveway looked like yesterday morning:
And it snowed some more, after that. And it’s snowing now.
In weather like this, there really isn’t much to do except stay inside at the computer and listen to the chatter of the road crews on the office scanner work on the various projects currently in hand.
(This is also why the very next editing gig that comes in has got “studded snow tires” already written on its metaphorical forehead.)
…(and, as I write this, seven and a half hours, but who’s counting) until the US presidential election is over, and whatever comes next, comes next, but in any case I should stop getting multiple daily polling calls and stacks of four-color glossy political ads.
Meanwhile, to keep us all going, a recipe – not a simple one this time, but one that I got from my father quite a while ago. It’s become my go-to recipe for when somebody phones up and says, “You will bring a cake to the bake sale, won’t you?” Obligatory writing reference: This is kind of like being asked to contribute a story to a charity anthology, except that you can’t keep re-using the same story from one anthology to another, but you can definitely make the same cake every time.
Anyhow, this is Marvelous Mississippi Mud Cake (or Triple-C Chocolate Cake, as I usually call it up here in far northern New England, where the marvelousness of Mississippi mud – providing, as it does, “the richest land this side of the Valley Nile” – is not exactly common knowledge):
Generously grease a nine inch Bundt pan – 10 cup capacity. (This is a place where the recipe betrays its age and regional origins – I don’t think recipes say “grease” any more. My father would have used Crisco; I generally use Baker’s Joy spray.)
Position rack in center of oven and heat oven to 325 F.
Melt chocolate in the top pan of a double boiler over hot, not boiling, water. (Another indication of this recipe’s vintage. These days, I melt my chocolate in the microwave.) Remove chocolate before it is completely melted and stir until smooth. Set aside.
Sift together the flour, salt, and baking soda and set aside.
In a two cup glass measure, dissolve the instant coffee in the boiling water, stir in the cold water and the bourbon or other flavoring and set aside.
Beat the butter with vanilla and sugar in the large bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle beater until well blended and smooth. (Or, like me, use a handheld electric mixer because that’s what you’ve got.) Beat in the eggs one at a time, beating after each addition. Beat in the extra yolk and the sour cream. Scrape down the bowl and beater. Add the melted and slightly cooled chocolate and beat until the batter is smooth
Remove the bowl from the stand. (Obviously, if you’re not using a stand mixer, you can skip that step.) By hand, using a spoon or rubber spatula, stir in small amounts of the flour mixture and the coffee-bourbon liquid. Beat until the batter is smooth; it will be quite thin. Don’t worry if the batter looks slightly curdled.
Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Bake until the cake top is springy to the touch and slightly cracked looking and a cake tester inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean — about 65 to 70 minutes. Do not over cook.
Cool the cake on a wire rack for 15 minutes. Top with another rack or plate and invert. Lift off pan, Cool completely.
Top with light sifting of confectioner’s sugar or cocoa. Serve with bourbon-(or cognac, or whatever booze you’re using)-laced, slightly sweetened whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.
This makes a decidedly grown-up chocolate cake. Treat yourself; after the campaign season we’ve all had, you deserve it.
…is that if people keep telling you that there’s something wrong with your story – they’re probably right.
They may be – in fact, they quite likely are – wrong about what, exactly, is wrong with your story, but that doesn’t mean you should ignore the fact that you have a problem and the problem is real and you need to fix it.
The same thing, I would make bold to say, applies to politics.
(This is not, however, the point where I expound upon my grand theory of What Is Wrong With Our Politics and How to Fix It, because that sort of thing is not remotely within my skill set. Your story, though, and how to improve it . . . that I can figure out, and gladly, too.)
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