More Whining about Outlines

I stink.

I've been sick (nasty sick) for the past 24 hours or so. The sort of sick where having oatmeal for dinner was a big accomplishment. I'm pretty sure that it was food poisoning, but that's a trickier thing to diagnose than most people realize.

I'm feeling much better now, after having slept all day. I may even take a shower. The idea of going back to bed makes me tired (heh) but if I don't, my sleep schedule will be even more messed up than it already is.

All that aside, I had a fantastic time at Radcon. I was able to hitch a ride with the amazing and talented Sara Mueller. We spent the entire time talking while my poor daughter listened to the music loop over and over because we weren't paying attention to the CDs enough to notice when they'd gone back to the beginning. And then, after a good lunch at the Atomic Pub, we got to be on a panel together.

To Outline or not to Outline: We had a huge number of panelists, and still the non-outliners outnumbered the outliners five to one. Seriously? Being a non-outliner, I wasn't surprised ... which is directly opposite to my point. My point being that it's harder for me to find those little surprises when I outline. Good outliners find their twists and shockers in the outline. Bearing in mind that I don't know a large enough group of writers to call my observations in any way definitive, scientific, etc. and also bearing in mind that my stints with outlining have been brief ....

Outliners who struggle often run into the following situations:

The story moves from scene to scene in a very linear, logical fashion such that the reader will see the ending coming a mile away. This isn't a huge problem if the story is incredibly entertaining, and the characters are fun to watch. A good sign that the story is working even if everything is fairly predictable is that the author is having a ball writing it. If you're having fun, chances are the reader will have fun too.

The writer skips around the book as s/he writes, planning to fill in later. After all, it's all planned out, right? Why not write the scenes that you're excited about writing and get to the others when you have a really good idea on how to approach them? I've noticed two pitfalls here. The people I know who write this way have a much more difficult time finishing the project. They never get around to writing those harder scenes. Also, there's often a flow issue. When scenes are written in order, they often lead into each other naturally, even when there's a pov switch. Our brilliant subconscious has a great sense of word and tone choice that can subtly connect one section to another. This is less of an issue if there are radical jumps in the storyline. Interestingly, I've heard many writers who write multiple points of view or who employ time travel or make a story of characters who are in different parts of the world and never meet often write the whole story of each character/setting/time and then carefully break these up and fit them together like a puzzle. Very kewl!

Outliners also sometimes spend so much time outlining that it gets in the way of their actual writing. Why not put off putting words on the page when it's so easy to delay in favor of tweaking the complicated and scary middle game portion of the book?

I tried using the Snowflake Method. Developed by writer and engineer Randy Ingermanson, I found it to be an incredibly helpful tool. If I were to outline, this is the method I'd use. Having said that, if I went much past step five or six, the project began to languish. I lost a lot of the sense of excitement of discovery, and I became reluctant to write the project. It felt like it had already been written, if that makes sense. When I write, I'm telling myself a fun story. I like it when things pop out at me from nowhere, and I love it when I realize what's really going on (which sometimes forces me to go back to the beginning and change and add a few things.) Snowflaking necessarily took away that feeling in process. The surprises all happened in the outlining stage, and it became less interesting to actually write the dang thing.

Having said all that, there are many fine outliners out there writing great books. Also, different books require different approaches, and different styles of outlining. If I were writing a murder mystery, I wouldn't dream of going in without some sort of over-arching plan. I'd have to know whodoneit at minimum, and preferably have an idea of what sort of clues might be available. Maybe I don't write them in part because it would take so much effort and planning on my part. Writers who can write these books may be able to write them without an outline because their brilliant minds are geared for it. But I will say that of the mystery writers I know, at least back in the early days, they wrote with a plan. With experience, a plan may become less necessary--or their ability to outline effectively becomes so honed that it just becomes part of their genius.

It's worth it to try to outline once or twice if you've never attempted it. It can be a fantastic tool, and there's no way to know if it'll enhance your writing or not until you give it a go. It didn't work for me, but it might work great for you. Also, don't be afraid to bubble diagram or use any other creative development tools out there. They exist because they work. When I get stuck, I sometimes doodle around with bubble diagrams, but usually I do better with a hot bath or taking a walk.

I may write about the rest of the panels later on. You know me. Sometimes I get to it, and sometimes the chickens get out of their yard and I have to tell y'all about chasing them around the garden for an hour. Until next time ....

Tissue Repository

Every year I've been to Radcon, I've been offered a chance to go on a tour to a facility of scientific importance. This year I went to a tissue repository where a team of international scientists are studying radiation in the human body.

I think one of the most important things I learned was how much we don't know about radiation and its effects on the human body. Some very dedicated people, in spite of difficulty obtaining proper funding, are trying to determine basic information like what it means to get a certain dose of radiation. Radiation exposure isn't like walking through a room filled with flour and you get some on and inside of you. Science is acquainted with things like the amount of energy emitted by a given amount of radioactive material, and has some information about where various kinds of materials 'like' to deposit in the body, but I got the distinct impression that not very much is known at all about what that means in the long term.

Some people are aware that radioactive substances and radiation are part of our natural environment. A few people are even aware that life developed on this planet during a time when there was a lot more natural radiation flying around. I don't think that many people know that cancer rates are higher for people who live in areas that have very little local radiation, though if you think about it, cancer cell sensitivity to radiation makes this a natural conclusion. If you have a single cell of cancer form in your body and the local natural radiation takes it out before it can divide, well, you don't develop that cancer. So what's a good amount of radioactivity to be around? Funding is required to investigate. What if your friend Bob got exposed to radiation while helping clean out the debris from a really old toy or watch factory when he accidentally knocked over an old, unmarked container of radium? What kind of long term risks can he expect? No one knows.

It's not all about funding. In order to study radiation in the human body, these research facilities need folks who have been exposed to radiation to donate their bodies to the project. Some people might think that after radiation exposure, people just keel over very quickly from cancer and then their bodies can be studied. In reality, most of the people the project studies die from some other cause, like heart disease. Now, it may be that there is an increased risk of heart disease after radiation exposure, but they don't know. They'd need funding and subjects to study in order to find out. Either way, folks tend to live long lives seemingly unaffected by their exposure (with the exception of people with really high exposures from serious accidents, as have happened in Russia and Japan.) The number of people who have been exposed to radiation in the workplace are relatively few, and they have to renew their commitment to donate to the project on a frequent basis, so that's also a limiting factor. Having said that, a remarkable number of people have come forward to further this research, people I personally felt very grateful toward. Theirs isn't a small gesture--and the scientists treated the remains throughout ever stage of inquiry, including when we toured the building--with respect. There doesn't seem to be much breakdown on that side of the equation. It seemed to me that, overall, the project had far more issue with grant money than anything else.

Anyway, they're trying to study stuff that is of extreme importance. Whether we need to use this information should there be a dirty bomb attack somewhere in the world, or to help ensure the health and safety of power plant workers, or suggest better ways to treat cancer through radiation, or to answer questions most of us don't even think about, this isn't some idle point of scientific curiosity. I hope they get better funding soon, in the interest of furthering medicine.

Radcon 2010

Here I am at Radcon. I have a schedule, and it's a very nice schedule ... I just don't have it in hand right now. I'll most likely comment on some of the panels I'm on and the panels I manage to go to sometime after this weekend, as I have in the past, rather than at-con. In the past I've been too busy to post while I'm here, and I doubt it'll be any different this year.

So far I've run into lots of great people and I'm only half out of my mind trying to prepare for my panels.

I'll be reading with Broad Universe, so if you want to hear my work and you're in the area, pop on in. I believe we're reading at 2pm on Saturday. I probably won't read the one that makes people cry, although that one will be my default if I panic at the last minute.

Now for some last-minute research.

BTW, first thing in the morning I'll be going on another kewl Hanford tour. This tour will cover the tissue repository. Important scientific stuff. I suspect I'll come away with lots of info and a few story ideas. The very existence of this facility is a story unto itself. I don't want to get too far into its purpose until I've had the tour, but I will pose this: what should a society do with radioactive materials when they're of human origin?

The Artist's Eye

I didn't get to go to many panels at Radcon.  One was a two hour sketch session.  I had to leave about an hour in, but that hour helped loosen me up.

I've been to a few art classes over the years.  I've actually been a life model at more classes than I've personally attended, and I got to learn a lot at those.  I've noticed there are a lot of different ways of going about teaching people how to sketch, and I have a preference.

One really common way is the part analysis.  It can be fascinating.  Students learn how to draw individual portions of anatomy like eyes, noses, mouths, ears, hands and so forth.  Gray's anatomy is often referenced in such classes, getting into the nitty gritty of muscle under skin.  But these studies miss something important.  Overall composition and proportion.  

One of the most effective proportioning observations is through DaVinci's "Vitruvian Man"--an elegant display of DaVinci's understanding of Vitruvius' mathematical proportions combined with his own studies in human anatomy.  Deeper study into these proportions reveal that the 'golden ratio' or golden mean visible in the Vitruvian man echo throughout nature and inform some of the world's most compelling design elements, including (often purposefully on the part of the architect) architecture.  One of the most exquisite is how it appears in the nautilus shell.  If you can see the similarities between the Vitruvian man  proportions and how they connect with a nautilus, you've made an ancient connection that can change the way you see things forever.  I chose the link for golden mean because it's a little indirect, so it makes you think.  Where is the golden mean in the Vitruvian Man?  It's not immediately obvious.  A clue is how the circle and the square interact.  Also, look at the small lines in the joints, and look for both squares and rectangles.  You'll know you have the right ones when you look at the nautilus on the link and see the same sort of square/rectangle relationships.

So as cool (very cool!) and fun as it is to learn about creating volume/mass in noses and thickness in eyelids and the proper placement of iris and pupil when drawing eyes, in many ways I wish these things were approached after (well after!) loose sketch technique.  It's easy to tighten down.  This is so important, I want to repeat it a different way.  It's very easy to obsess on details and fail to achieve a harmonic whole.  I didn't want to pick on any particular person, so I did a search for fan art to pull up a bunch of amateur (remember, amateur is 'love of' and there's nothing wrong with or pitiful about amateur efforts) art.  Some of the images are very effective and well-executed.  Looking at the ones that don't work as well for you, can you detect a sense of piecing together parts like Dr. Frankenstein assembling his monster? Those parts can be perfectly executed, but do they work together? Is there harmony?  The golden mean isn't the only proportion set that works--do you see some proportions on the more aesthetically pleasing art that aren't golden mean proportions but still transmit a sense of harmony and layers of interlocking relationships?

Not only does obsessing on details tend to distract or detract from overall proportions, but it steals motion from art.  The more I focus on a mouth or nose or ruffles or whatever my brain fixates on, the less time I spend moving my pencil or brush around the page grabbing the flow. Flow seems like a touchy-feely abstract-y kind of term, but going back to DaVinci's observations, it's not just about finding the right proportion of forearm to upper arm or shoulder width to torso length, but proportioning the negative spaces under an arm, or discovering why the extension of a hand in gesture is so elegant and dance-like, why the fall of a skirt or the texture in hair is pleasing to the eye, why one shadow on the wall creates drama while another overwhelms or creates a distraction, and why when you make a particular change from reality (say, pile on more hair than the model has or alter the angle of the head) it works better.  If you find the squares and rectangles, find the curves, find the S, find the concentric ovals, find the diagonals and triangles and deepest shadows and lightest lights and all the neat things that make a piece of art inviting before you nail down the details it's far more likely that you'll create something that will take your breath away.  Focus on the details at the cost of overall composition, and that's what the viewer will usually do too.  If the details are perfect, the viewer will see the art as perfect too (and sometimes it's a very static, still-life kind of perfection--great if that's what you want to transmit, not so great if it's meant to transmit life and motion.)  If there's the tiniest problem, that problem will leap and shout and generally make a nuisance of itself.  Great composition overwhelms the positive and negative quirks inherent in detail, and reveals a world of fire and shadow, wind and stillness, distance and intimacy.

It's possible to create vibrant original art by focusing on details--through reference materials that themselves have excellent composition.  There's absolutely nothing wrong with taking reference photos or movie posters or your favorite family portrait and creating Boris Vallejo-type art.  Go for it.  That's the way I went, actually.  But I wish that I'd learned the other way from the beginning.  It's been (relatively) easy to copy what I see from photographs and magazine ads and books on facial expression and all that.  I could have drawn grids on paper and rendered exact copies of images on a square-by-square basis at any stage of my art education.  But to learn how to scribble and block and circle and confine and explore form rapidly on a page and develop raw excitement--I've had to unlearn so much to progress, especially that impulse to put every eyelash in the right place.  The eyelash is only as important as I make it.  If I make the play of complementary colors more important than the eyelash ... see how that works?

I imagine I'll arrive at the same artistic destination eventually, but I strongly feel that I would have created so much more original beauty on the way if I stepped back and explored the squares, rectangles, spirals and raw shapes of the universe rather than spending hours with my sketch pad drawing a model's eye.  Something to think about, the next time I pick up a pencil and draw.

First Readers

The thing about first readers we initially discussed is that there are actually two kinds:  the 'slush' readers for agents and editors, and the readers that writers employ to get feedback on their work.  Both got chatted about during the panel.  I'll just hit the key points.

Slush first readers:

*They're not the enemy.  Actually, they desperately want to read something good.

*Most of the stuff out there is not good.

*If you're a new writer, starting out slow won't work.  That's a luxury for established readers.  Hook hook hook! 

*Like agents and editors, slush readers can tell in a short time if they'll like something.  Sometimes within the first sentence.

*They have criteria to meet before they hand a manuscript to the editor or agent.  Don't send stuff that doesn't fit the guidelines--even if they like it, the first reader can't/won't send it up.

*They work fast.  In some ways it can be a kindness to have your manuscript rejected quickly by a first reader than to wait on the much-busier-agent-or-editor's desk for months, only to get rejected then.

Beta/first readers for writers:

*There are many kinds.  It's good to have a variety.  

*Fan/audience readers usually can give only a touchy-feely sense of the book, but this is good.  Fan readers are much less critical and much less apt to suggest story changes (making it theirs rather than yours) or spend huge amounts of time on inappropriate line edits.

*Skilled/writer/editor readers can give great technical critiques and can usually not only tell you when something isn't working but why.  Skilled first readers are much less likely to miss, give you a chance to redeem yourself or ignore a flat area that editors and agents will glitch on.

*Technical/educated readers can fact check for you or look at continuity.  These are often good at spotting logic problems, contradictions and missing pieces as well as many plot issues that other readers may miss.  They may also be scientists, historians or others with special knowledge in a particular area who will keep you from making obvious mistakes.

I suggested that it might not be the best idea to repeatedly send the same material to the same readers over and over again.  Yeah, there's the issue of burnout, but more importantly a writer needs to learn to rely on their own skills.  I think when writers are starting out, repeated feedback can be extremely helpful, but as they progress, one pass should do, unless there are radical changes made that change the story enough that it's practically a new story.  There wasn't noticeable (to me, oops) disagreement with this.  An exception of course would be in a cowriting or other close working relationship that is writer/writer, writer/editor, or writer/agent or equivalent.  For example, my DH and I sometimes reread each other's stuff, helping with the polishing process.  My two critique groups would kill me if I tried to do that!

We talked about how to find readers toward the end.  I think one of the more important options was to connect with pros.  Sometimes writers will make enough of an impression (or just catch a pro on a good day) that the pro will offer to look at a story or help with an aspect of it.  Don't let such an offer pass you by.  They're rare.  Follow up immediately.  Also, it's a good idea to take classes and connect with other writers that way.  Regardless of what you get out of the class, you'll meet like-minded folks, and that would be a great way to start a critique group.

Do you have first readers?  How did you find them?

Master World Building

Master World Building with Deby Fredericks, Christine Morgan, Chris Bruscas and Vicki Mitchel

I'm pretty sure some folks were missing.  I don't remember this being such a big panel!  Anyway, I felt massively under-qualified to be giving 'master' level advice, but there I was.  It turned out to be okay.  There were a couple of folks with years of gamemastering (don't laugh--the best game masters are excellent world-builders) and the authors had a broad range of publishing experience, so I felt like I fit right in.  Except for the part where I came in late.

It boiled down to the fact that the master world builders make the world feel real.  In a short story it's a little easier.  The readers of short stories don't expect a completely fleshed-out universe full of countless worlds.  But they still expect a sense of uniqueness and a sense that this is a real place where real beings go about their business.  Key observation:  The characters and their problems will suggest the environment/world as much as the descriptive passages.  You know how creative writing instructors tell you to describe the surroundings in terms that suggest the character's mood or circumstances?  It goes the other way too.  The way the character acts and feels will suggest what the world is like.  

In novels, a fleshed-out world is expected.  Where writers fall down is not in ideas, but complexity.  Think about planet Earth.  We have thousands of cultures, political and geographic boundaries, societies that have evolved from the climate and the kind of neighbors (or lack thereof) they have.  If there's a rich diversity of mutually-respectful tribes or clans or races, what has kept them separate?  Why aren't they essentially a mono-culture?  Is it biology?  Are there political stressors, cultural taboos, or are they educated to have preferences/biases?  If one group is at war with another, what happens when refugees from the opposite side show up in town?  Are they killed?  Taken in as fellow victims?  Are they tolerated but viewed with suspicion and allowed to starve?  Think about Chocolat and how many cultural and social things are going on in that story, from the origins of the little girl to the effects of a war long passed to the treatment of elderly diabetics to influences of the church and on and on and on--and yet it fits together as a cohesive whole with a strong theme.  

When I have a story idea, I try to figure out where that character would come from.  What would her family background be?  Is he local or is he a foreigner?  Is she from a hot climate and is used to siestas?  Is he the product of a sea or air or space faring society?  Is she from a marginal, subsistence society, or a rich, technological one?  Is he from a society in flux or under pressure, or is he part of a superpower nation or federation that's been stable and straining under the weight of its own government?  

From the pure world part of the world-building, it's a good idea to educate yourself about our world at just about every level.  The moderator asked us all for our top three suggestions on college courses that are the bare minimum requirement to get by.  Other than the thought that a keen observer who travels a lot can get by without a lot of book learning or classes, the list came out to be: anthropology, world geography, astronomy (especially focused on our solar system,) geology, biology,  and sociology.  (I may have missed a couple.  History comes to mind and I don't know if any of us thought to suggest it as our top three.)  He then asked for suggested books.  We came up with  Cows, Pigs, Wars and Witches by Marvin Harris, and An Incomplete Education by Judy Jones and William Wilson.  (At least that list is shorter!)  

I pointed out that when authors go forth to research and read, to keep in mind the sources of information.  I really admire Desmond Morris' work, but when I last read The Naked Ape, I was struck by the gaping holes and erroneous thinking surrounding his observation of homosexuality.  Some of it might have been correct, but I realized that I needed to do some filtering not just of that section (where science and psychology hadn't explored very far) but all of it.  We've come a long way since the 1960s.  This is true when reading primary sources from various periods clear through modern studies--who is writing this, why, and from what perspective?  Being a critical reader helps in more than one way.  Not only does it create a healthy skepticism (it's very easy to lend unearned authority to written work) but it teaches an author how to recognize our universal and sometimes invisible biases and turn those around to inform character and world development.  Characters can be very well-meaning, educated, wonderful people and still be blind to the rosy tint on their glasses or the sense of superiority with which they carry themselves.

World building isn't restricted to fantasy and science fiction.  Even when a novel is set here on our world in modern times, Texas is different than Mongolia is different than Hong Kong is different than Antarctica.  Writers can't ever take setting for granted.  They may not have to describe a mailbox in detail, but they'll still have to give the reader a strong sense of place, of unique culture, of conditions that are tied to the story because that story couldn't happen anywhere else.  Master world builders have living, lush settings that connect to plot and characterization. 

Most of this won't end up on the page.  But if you have a character travel, run across characters from other races, cultures or social strata, adventure through more than one season, or discover a new or unique anything to him (be it a cave, a butterfly, an isolated group of people, an artifact or whatever) the experience on the page will lack depth unless you have a sense of how weird, rich and deep the real world runs and therefore how weird, rich and deep your world should be by way of description, implication and character reaction.  To do anything less is to cheat your reader of the glorious possibilities, and nobody likes a cheater.

My Teeth Twinkle

My Teeth Twinkle with Alma Alexander, Darragh Metzger, Christine Morgan and Maggie Bonham

I knew that a lot of writers considered heroes passe', but I had a different pov.  I'm married to a hero with more virtues than you can shake a stick at.  So when I arrived, I knew pretty well how I'd start out.  As expected, the other panelists scoffed a bit at 'perfect' heroes and how unbelievable they are and boring, etc.  Then I brought up how real heroes feel real pain, fail, struggle, and how their morality and ideals cost them (sometimes dearly.)  The tone of the panel changed a bit, especially since I had Alma Alexander on my side (to an extent) because she knows my DH and realized what I was talking about.  We began defining which led to a discussion of the difference between a good guy and an untouchable perfect darling, and I began learning, which is one of the fun parts of being a panelist.  Panels can be about the brainstorming, and this is definitely one of those.

There's a difference between a 'perfect' hero and a guy who does the right things, fights hard, loves hard, and doesn't have a dark past or skeletons in his closet.  The darling hero defeats every villain, crashes through every obstacle, and does it without breaking a sweat or a hair out of place.  Often the obstacles s/he faces aren't on his (or her) level; they're no match for the might of the darling hero.  *That's* what's boring.  

Now, some authors deal with an otherwise unstoppable hero by developing an equal or even more powerful villain or insurmountable problem. This is the superhero route, though they aren't always called superhero stories.  In a way, Gandalf vs. Saruman is a superhero/supervillain story.  Gandalf can otherwise plow through just about any obstacle.  Tolkien had to put a balrog, a fellow wizard, and the Witch King in Gandalf's way before Gandalf broke a sweat.  It's different than a darling hero, and it can be a fascinating read.  I loved The Dark Knight movie.  That worked for me.

Personally, I prefer a morally principled hero who will not cross certain lines, who won't cheat on his spouse, and who won't call in sick to work unless he's actually sick.  Boring?  Well, when it seems like he's the only one who cares, the only one willing to put his ass on the line to speak out against bureaucratic bs, and the only one who doesn't want to go to the strip club because the drinks are overpriced and he prefers to watch his wife dance, thank you, it can get pretty lonely.  In fact, it can get dangerous.  Remember the 'okay, on three, everyone charge' type stuff going into a fight?  What if your character is the only one who goes on three? 

 

Being good, even great, even the best in combat, or science, or whatever doesn't always save the day.  In the real world there are insurmountable problems.  Try kicking cancer's ass sometime.  How about stopping a line of tanks from plowing into a village by yourself?  How about dealing with bad intelligence, or someone outright lying to you about something being one way when it's another?  Real heroes fail, and they get hurt, often badly, not just by the thing they're fighting but the consequences of their failure, and also the consequences of success.  Sometimes, no matter what you do, there are widows and orphans, and a real hero feels that pain.  

Everyone who looks at a too-good-to-be heroine might think no one is that smart, that beautiful, that accomplished.  Having a beautiful, smart and physically powerful character can absolutely be annoying in fiction, but only if that character is protected, only if that character doesn't suffer from the sense that she's resented, or always the one asked to do one more thing, the one everyone borrows money from.  It can not only be lonely, but frustrating.  If the heroine walks on stage and everyone gazes at her with worship, lust and awe, the reader is going to roll their eyes.  But think about what really happens, not on those 'grand entrances' but day to day.  Sleezebags at the bar trying to pick her up with cheesy lines and offers to buy a drink.  The boss that keeps coming up with reasons not to promote her.  Seen through her own eyes, she may not consider herself beautiful at all.  She may wake up in the morning, stare at the mirror and wonder how she can face another day on the battlefield when what she really wants to do is try to negotiate a surrender before every blessed soul in her army is killed over a land grab. 

Writing about teams of these people can be fun as well.  Being the go-to team can lead to more than their share of adventure, but believe me, not only can it get tiring, but they can suffer from bad press, back-stabbing from all quarters, undermining, and a desire to take a long vacation but feel like they can't or the world will fall apart without them.  Think rock stars have it tough with the lack of privacy, and the hero worship?  Try fame, unrealistic expectations and worship on when lives are at stake.  Top that with their bosses micromanaging them, telling them 'how' to do something, when they all know that will only get them all killed.  And if they succeed their way, they're in trouble, again, as always, and come out looking like the bad guys.

The short of it is: provide conflict, make it hurt, have failures, and use that goodness against the hero.  Force your hero to make hard choices, and give him that same sense of isolation that our real world heroes--the dedicated cops, caring firemen, tireless doctors, etc.--often face as they stand alone in a sea of apathy, bureaucracy, greed, selfishness, envy and Monday morning quarterbacking.  (That last one is especially frustrating.)  Just don't forget to give them an occasional bright spot, like the gratitude of a child, the help of a good samaritan in a time of need, or a moment of peace under a starlit sky, or they'll break like so many of our real heroes break and end up alcoholics, hermits or suicides.  Somehow I doubt the readers will complain that your hero is too perfect if you write it like that.  

I'll leave you with Cyrano de Bergerac (paraphrased):  

Now, who are these--a thousand thronged about me?  I know you well--you are all ancient foes; Falsehood!  Compromise!  Cowardice!  Shall I make terms?  No, never!  There is Folly too!  I knew that in the end you'd lay me low.  No matter.  Let me fight! and fight! and fight!  You snatch them all away--laurel and rose!  Snatch on!  One thing is left in spite of you, Which I take with me: and this very night, when I shall cross the threshold of God's house, and enter, bowing low, this I shall take, despite you, without wrinkle, without spot--and that is--my stainless soldier's crest. [Also has been translated brilliantly to 'my panache' by Anthony Burgess] (translation by Howard Thayer Kingsbury)

Educational side note--panache originally described a white plume or sash carried by nobles, and the pride with which they wore it turned it into a symbol of the qualities we now call panache.

Radcon, Pt. the 1st

We arrived on Thursday and had Chinese with long lost pals and new acquaintances.  The thing about small, isolated towns (as opposed to small towns near major cities like my small town) is that lack of competition drags down expectations to the point where service industries don't have to deliver.  The food was really lackluster, but it turned out that it would be one of the better meals I had all weekend.  The company made up for the mediocrity of the cuisine in spades.  David Levine, C.S. Cole, Sara Mueller, Camille Alexa (or was that the night she decided to stay in the room and make sweet love to her computer?) and the wonderful young lady who studied paleontology [edit--Felicity Shoulders! thx Camille] and whose name is escaping me so I'm all aggravated at myself for being crummy with names and at least one other person.  Help meeeeeee .....

If any of you are reading this and concerned about being seen with me in public, let me know and I'll ahem ahem your name on this list.  Ditto with links or lack of links.

Also, bear in mind I'm forgetful, not ungrateful and uncaring so if I miss anyone it's because my brain is more like a food processor than a sponge--though I find the output edible, I'm aware that it doesn't always have much to do with what went into it.

I touched base with Rick Lindsley about some things Reno 2011 bid party and then set about (Thursday is blending into Friday, in case you didn't notice) prepping for my weekend as a panelist.  I had a bowl of oatmeal for breakfast (all by my lonely,) which wasn't as hot as I like (this would be an ongoing theme) but was better than the (shudder) breakfast buffet I tried and failed on Sunday.  

Then it was off to the radiation tour with Jay Ake (this was a typo on the Radcon guest list that we carried forward much of the weekend,) scalettina, casacorona, David Levine and a whole bunch of other really excellent people.  We stopped by the Atomic pub, where I had a huge bowl of atomic potato soup and a nice, fresh salad with atomic dressing.  Although the service was slow, this was the best food I had all weekend.  (Jay and I aren't in the photo.  Notice Radcon Bob just inside the door about to leap through the glass onto Janna and Jen.)

The rooms where they measure radiation in the human body are amazing.  I won't go into too much detail, because that would be a long post, but essentially they have to filter out as much background radiation as possible in order to pick up the most minute amount of radiation inside the body.  They do this through a series of shields that include copper and sections of armored hull from the battleship Indiana, which was put together prior to nuclear testing and therefore had very little radioactivity of its own.  Radiation, once absorbed by the body, doesn't emit much measurable energy, so the equipment they have to use requires amazing sensitivity.  They employ crystals cooled by liquid nitrogen and vacuum sealed with a boron lens over the sensor opening.  If I remember right.  Ahem.  Scans take anywhere from twenty minutes to an hour or more.  We looked at a whole body scan bed, and a more sensitive detector that employed a chair and focused on the chest/lungs area.  Most radiation that is harmful to a person doesn't go through the skin--if it can do that, it just pops out the other side.  Harmful radiation is usually swallowed or breathed, so the lungs are a natural focus.  They also test feces and urine, though it's not expected that much would show up unless it was right after an incident or after a meal of elk/deer/reindeer that have eaten radioactive lichens (which are still radioactive even though there hasn't been testing in the area for many, many years thanks to how they interact with exposed rocks.)

This very sensitive equipment requires careful calibration.  To that end, people have donated their bodies to science.  (Thank you, and thanks to their families from a grateful recipient of modern medicine and other science.)  Half of the bodies must be destructively tested to determine the exact amount of radiation, usually just in the bone part. 

 The amount of radiation they release (and therefore reduce in overall emissions) is tiny over hundreds of years, so they won't need a constant influx of 'fresh' cadavers that have been exposed to radiation during life.  As a side note, it's very difficult to ship radioactive human remains, but since they're so hard to come by and it requires so much time and careful energy by very skilled people to measure and define what they have, it's worth the six or more weeks it takes to get permission to transport them to other facilities all over the world that also have equipment that needs calibration.  This particular piece is half of a gentleman's head (the other half was destructively tested, remember) that is covered by specially developed and also extensively tested plastic that exactly duplicates the rest of a person's head--the other half of the skull, all the brains, muscle, tendons, etc.  The amount of art and science that goes into one of these is remarkable, and sobering.  It's also incredibly valuable, priceless in fact.  I came away from the tour with immense respect for this facility and its workers. 

My one and only panel on Friday was at 6pm, Healing Beyond Medicine with Laurel Anne Hill and Manny Frishburg.  I've paneled with Laurel before and we always have a great time.  I thought it would be this debate with me and Laurel vs. the woo woo but it turned out that Manny had a serious background in medicine and was therefore also a skeptic balanced well with an understanding that there are, as he put it, "more things in heaven and earth, Horatio ..." and science has its limitations.  FYI, I may have spelled Manny's name wrong.  It may be Manny Frishberg.  I perpetuate errors I see in print elsewhere.  Sorry!

Anyway, I added that science can be treated as a religion and that this has its drawbacks.  It also has an ongoing problem with the politics of what gets published and what doesn't.  Believe me, the medical and pharmaceutical industries and associations are not groups of altruistic angels.  I don't think they're entirely untrustworthy, but I firmly believe they shouldn't be in charge of everything that has to do with healing.

I got to hear a whole bunch of research I didn't know about.  The one that fascinated me involved mice who were given malaria.  I haven't looked at the study, or other studies involving prayer, energy healing and such, but I find it fascinating that there's now a physician's handbook that references such studies as well as alternative medicines that is in common circulation and can be found in doctor's offices all over the USA.  I find this heartening.  As much as I love modern medicine, there's a lot more work to be done and a person with a grim diagnosis, be it terminal or chronic, ought to have as many options open to them as possible.  Not only that, but that person ought to be aware that science doesn't have all the answers, that doctors aren't perfect, that medicine isn't perfect, and that the patient has to not only self-advocate but do things to help themselves beyond the doctor's office and keep their doctor informed because some things like herbal remedies do have drug interactions or other effects on the human body that may end up being fatal.  Sometimes you have to choose, and I'll be the first to tell you that 'natural' remedies are complicated substances (pharmaceuticals are controlled and purified or combined purified substances) that may have serious side effects just like pharmaceuticals do.

So we had a consensus/informational panel rather than a debate panel.  I have a bunch of studies to google and a fun book to hunt down, as soon as I remember the title.  (sigh)  

I ran around with C.S., Lizzy Shannon (she is such a kick, I love her!) and John Dalmas much of the night.  John Dalmas partied C.S. and I into the ground.  People kept asking him how he managed to have all kinds of beautiful women escorting him everywhere.  I think it's just what he does.  Though we were exhausted by the time we begged him to turn in, C.S. and I decided to stop by the dance/rave.  I don't know how long I danced, but it was several long songs until they shut the dance down.  It was wonderful to get sweaty and winded, and though my cold was in full swing I felt better for a while.  It was the only dancing I got to do the whole weekend, so I'm glad we made it there.  Laser lights, artificial smoke, good techno (could have been better) and a tireless crowd filled me up with all kinds of energy and joy.  Yay dancing!

I'll blog about Saturday, maybe in pieces because Saturday was a really big day, next time here on Jestablog.

Uuuuuhhhhnnnnn

I'm not sure if I'm a zombie or a zombie ate my brains.  

Anyway, thanks to C.S. I've made it back from Radcon safe and mostly sound.  I've got a cold, so although I normally don't fear starting a long illustrated blog post and regress report at 11pm, today I think that resting is the better part of valor.  Besides, I've only had cold water to clean up with the whole weekend.  

Actually, it was lukewarm.  But when you're sick, lukewarm doesn't cut it.  I danced around in the limp drizzle (not enough pressure for an actual spray in the system!) briefly on the first morning, making little protesty noises.  The second morning I couldn't face doing that again (and the water felt even colder!) so I gave myself a lukewarm sponge bath.  Not sexy.

Yes, things were perky due to the cold, but seriously not sexy.  At all. 

Shut up!  I had a runny nose.  It was gross.

Anyway, the horrors of this year's facility woes were many, but the actual convention was very fun and I have nothing but words of gratitude for our hosts, and in particular the indefatigable Radcon Bob.  Bob, you're my hero.

Kewl pics from nucular (aka nuclear, but actually radiation--I just wanted to say nucular because it drives certain people crazy) testing facilities are forthcoming, as are reports of what panels I remember.  I'm pretty sure I was on panels, and I remember listening to some too.  Or maybe that was a fever dream.  There were penguins at Radcon, right?

Willgone

I'll be away from the blog for a few days.  Probably.  You know what a hopeless addict I am, especially when it comes to report good times.

Last year C.S. got a phone call letting her know that she got honorable mention for a story she submitted to the Writers and Illustrators of the Future contest.  We both squealed like crazy sorceresses broken out of Azkaban and had celebratory coconut rum.  I also got to be a panelist for my very first time ever, not just on one but many panels.  Ever since then I've thought of Radcon as a kind of lucky convention for INK.  I'm looking forward to this one a lot.

And yet, I'll miss the boy and the girl, morning chats with my DH, the dogs, the cats, the way the goats come out of the barn when I go out for a walk and meheheh insistently (this is especially wonderful after losing two so close together) and having such a big part of the day to write.  I'll miss my baths, and reading in the evening, and silly minor stuff like my yoga mat (no, I'm not taking it with me.)  And I'll worry.  The kids have plenty of food and people to call if they need something, but ... I'm a mom.

I'll be back right quick, and happily settle back into my routine.  In the meantime I'll appreciate my working vacation, meet and greet, shake hands, kiss babies, and maybe we'll hear some good news at our lucky con!  If I can keep it all in my head, I'll post my usual reports on the panels when I can.