Three recent articles on diverse topics that you might find interesting:

Shared Responsibility
In “The Citizen-Soldier: Moral Risk and the Modern Military” Phil Klay looks at the history of American soldiery, the perception of our soldiers today, the relationship between soldiers and civilians, and our collective responsibilities. Klay says, “A decade after I joined the Marines, I’m left wondering what obligations I incurred as a result of that choice, and what obligations I share with the rest of my country toward our wars and to the men and women who fight them.”
Read it here.

Micropayments
In my 2001 novel, Limit of Vision, the income of a freelance journalist is in part dependent on micropayments. Looking back, it’s startling to realize that despite all the advances in our wired world, micropayments are still mostly theoretical. In a two-part series, David Brin takes a look at micropayments and how they may eventually save us from the horror of an ad-based Internet.
Read part 1 here. (I’ve only read part 1 so far)
Read part 2 here.

Purposeful Practice
In their article “Not All Practice Makes Perfect” Anders Ericsson and Robert Pool make a case that “practice” and “purposeful practice” are not the same things. The article is overlong with historical examples before the authors really get into the meat of their point, but the idea is that, over the past century, people have gotten much better at doing various things. Examples include top-flight pianists, gymnasts, divers, etc, who have gone far beyond the achievements of their predecessors. The article focuses on an experiment in which a subject was trained to memorize random strings of digits. He felt he couldn’t get beyond a string eight or nine digits long–until his method of practice changed. Eventually he was able to memorize, and then repeat back, a string of 82 digits. “Purposeful practice” is an idea that generalizes across mental and physical activities.
Read the article here.

An amazing novel — likely the best I’ll read this year.

The title is a little awkward and the cover makes it look like generic space fantasy, but there is nothing generic about Ada Palmer’s Too Like The Lightning.

I first looked at this novel out of duty. It’s a science fiction novel by a woman, and that’s something I want to support. So I read the first few pages, posted at Tor.com — and I was hooked. I needed a new audiobook, so I downloaded it in that format. I wasn’t far into it when I began mentally comparing it to Dan Simmons Hyperion. Like that novel, Too Like The Lightning is complex, fascinating, with unique characters drawn in exquisite detail, it’s deeply concerned with political structures, and in many ways it grasps aspects of the genre and reworks them, raising them to a new level.

When I recommend a book here on my blog, I usually say little or nothing about the plot, and I’m going to hold to that this time as well, because working out the plot is part of the intrigue of this book. Suffice to say that it takes place on Earth, a few hundred years in the future, in a diverse and intricately worked-out culture. It focuses on the workings of an aristocracy, treats gender in interesting ways, and offers abundant asides exploring history and philosophy. It is the most erudite work I can remember reading in the science fiction genre. It is very obviously science fiction, and yet it’s one of those novels that could have been published outside the genre — and maybe it should have been. It deserves a large audience.

I listened to Too Like The Lightning as an audiobook. The narrator, Jefferson Mays, is excellent. But as a measure of how much I admired the story, I ordered the hardcover for my shelf when I was only halfway through. The second book in the series is scheduled for a December 2016 release. The publisher is Tor Books.

My schedule got a bit turned around today. Usually I do a writing stint in the morning, but today I needed to be in town in the morning, so I went to the gym while I was there … and I’ve been trying to get back into the writing mood ever since. Maybe posting a progress report will give me the incentive I need!

So here’s where things stand:
In mid-March I finished a “partial draft” of the novel-in-progress, meaning that most of the structure was there, but a lot was left to do. That draft was 72,000 words long — a short novel. I’ve been revising and expanding since then, and have added 30,000 words, which is a decent length for a novel, but still shorter than, for example, The Red. I suspect I’ll be adding another 20,000 words or so, which would make this novel roughly the length of The Trials.

Why this discussion of word count? Well, it’s one way to measure progress, and I need the encouragement. No excuse for being so slow about this sort of thing, but that’s the way it is. The next section that I have to tackle in this revision is going to be especially challenging, because I never actually wrote it, in the original draft. I just typed some notes into the manuscript, IN BIG CAPITAL LETTERS DESCRIBING WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN AND WHY BECAUSE WHEN I REACHED THIS POINT IN THE FIRST DRAFT I JUST REALLY REALLY WANTED TO MOVE ON TO THE FINAL SECTION. This isn’t the first time I’ve skipped forward to the end, but when I’ve done it before, I’ve been much closer to end. Oh well. Whatever works. This book will be done eventually. I’m looking forward to handing a solid draft off to beta readers, because after that, I get to work on short fiction!

In the meantime, here’s an interesting article on near-future science fiction (sadly, no mention of the Red Trilogy): The Future is Almost Now. I have more thoughts related to this topic, but will save that for another post.

Back on April 21 I wrote a blog post about my intention to spend a lot less time and worry on social media, and focus instead on writing. Pretty radical agenda, huh? The tactic I used was to avoid Twitter, Facebook, SFWA forum, Book View Cafe forum, etc., as well as answering most emails, until after noon my time (6pm on the east coast). Mornings were devoted to writing. I get up pretty early, so this gave me a lot of time. I also managed some work most afternoons, and several evenings. In short, this strategy proved amazingly successful and I’ve made a lot of progress.

But I’ve begun to slip. I’m overly involved in Twitter again, in part because of the io9.com book club gig…and involvement with Twitter has led to squandering too much time online. Being immersed in a writing project does not mix well with promotional activities, at least for me! Which is fairly awkward when you’re trying to make a living as a writer.

Anyway, the writing really slowed down this week, and then yesterday I took the entire day off to hike in Haleakala Crater. The hike had the positive effect of getting me away from social media, though that wasn’t the reason we went. Ron is leading a volunteer group into the crater in a couple of days, and we were dropping supplies off at the cabin where they’ll be staying. So we enjoyed a twelve-mile roundtrip hike, with a 2600′ elevation change. The day was misty when we started. The mist was soon joined by a light rain that fell for most of the day, creating spectacular scenes on the crater floor. Here’s a shot Ron took of the ground steaming even as a light rain is falling. Click the image to see a stitched panorama:
(The panorama’s not great, but it’s the best I could manage…)

When we climbed out of the crater, we were surprised to find the summit gloriously clear:
(click the image to see a larger version)

Anyway, I’m resolved to get back to my write-until-noon schedule and get this book done. Onward!

Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms out there!

I’m continuing to revise the new novel, and the word count is growing steadily. My target, when I start a novel, is 100,000 words. Epic fantasy writers would laugh at that as being so short, but to my mind it’s a good, solid length. Of course, I almost always overshoot that goal, and I’m sure it’s going to happen again with the new book. Right now I’m at 95,000 words, and I have no doubt at all that I’ll be well past the 100K mark before I’m done.

In other news, io9.com has decided to reboot the io9 Book Club. I was thrilled when I found out yesterday that the first book to read and discuss is The Red. The idea is to encourage people to read the book over the next month, and then to talk about it online. In early June I’ll stop by at io9.com to answer reader questions. More information here. I’m hoping for some interesting discussion.

Mondadori is the publisher of the new, Italian edition of The Red, just released yesterday.

I’m excited, because this is the first novel of mine to be translated into Italian, and while I haven’t seen the printed book yet, the cover is a lovely variation of Larry Rostant’s terrific artwork. Here’s a small version, sized to fit on my blog, but you can click through to see the cover, with the front and back flaps.

Here’s the back cover description:

Ci deve sempre essere una guerra in corso, da qualche parte…
Cinico, cerebrale, spiazzante: il thriller politico militare al tempo dei reality e dei droni. Un romanzo che unisce l’azione bellica adrenalinica di Zero Dark Thirty, la fantascienza apocalittica della Guerra Eterna e la visione profetica del Truman Show.

And here’s Google Translate’s version with a couple of edits by me:

There should always be a war going on , somewhere …
Cynical, brain cerebral(?) , unsettling :
military political thriller
at the time of reality shows and drones .
A novel that combines military action adrenaline of Zero Dark Thirty , the apocalyptic fiction of the Eternal War and the prophetic vision of the Truman Show.

If you’re an Italian reader, you can find Red here at Mondadori’s website.

When I look back over the past year, I’m a little perplexed at what I’ve done with the time. I feel like I’ve been frantically busy, but I don’t have a lot of new material to show for it. Since turning in Going Dark, I’ve managed to finish only one short story, and a really rough draft of a new novel.

Part of the issue, of course, was that all three novels in The Red trilogy were released last year, and that meant a lot of time spent on publicity (and anxiety… I’m good at anxiety). I also had a really hard time letting go emotionally of the trilogy and moving on to the new novel. It’s a situation I’ve faced before. After finishing my novel Vast, it took a long time for me to really get into writing Limit of Vision. But I got there eventually, and I feel like I’ve finally hit my stride with the new novel.

What turned things around for me was getting an outside opinion. I don’t think I’ve ever before shown a partial manuscript to anyone, on the grounds that I don’t want to be so discouraged by a negative response that I abandon the project. But I’m older now, more experienced, thicker skinned — and besides, I’d reached the point where I was spinning my wheels. So in early March I sent the manuscript off to Judith Tarr, who edited all three volumes of The Red trilogy. She evaluated what I had, made some nice comments, and pointed out where she thought the story was most lacking — and the feedback has really helped. I’ve been writing steadily since then. I went back to the beginning, and started filling out the lean parts, and dealing with all the figure-this-out-later notes, and progress is being made.

Some of this involves new scenes, but some is just detail work. A few days ago I was dealing with the question of what size helicopter was needed, how many seats were available, and who was sitting where. Today I’ve been racking my brain to get the timeline right. Since I’ve got characters operating on opposite sides of the planet, I need to know the day/night cycles, and how long it takes to get from point A to point B. I’m not sure how concerned readers are with this sort of thing, but it matters to me. 🙂

Anyway, I’ve been making changes in my writing routine in the hope of writing more, and writing faster. One of those changes is to try to do frequent Work-In-Progress Reports like this one. Maybe that will keep me accountable to myself!

Edit: Speaking of Judith Tarr…I just found out she’s holding a sale on editorial services, among other things. Find the details here.

I thought I’d post a few “travelers tips” in no particular order – just some thoughts and perspectives gleaned from the short time I’ve spent in Japan.

* Getting there and getting back
From Honolulu, the flight to Japan—on this most recent trip, our destination was Osaka—is around nine hours. The flight back is significantly shorter, maybe seven hours, a difference I blithely attribute to tailwinds and the direction of the Earth’s rotation.

* No one speaks English
Yes, that’s an exaggeration, but even at major hotels or at information desks that advertise English-speaking personnel, the amount of English-language help you can get is minimal. I find this very interesting because here in Hawaii, where we get many tourists from Japan, there are many guides and hotel staff who speak fluent Japanese.

Ron and I are lucky. While neither of us speaks Japanese, we always take along our daughter Dallas, who speaks a little and can read a lot more. We’d be lost without her.

* Some signs are in English
And that English is often very creative! The rail stations and trains post destinations in both kanji and in Roman characters, which is extremely helpful, and the Shinkansen has English-language announcements about upcoming destinations. Many restaurants have an English-language menu. If you’re not offered one, ask. People everywhere are very friendly and patient, and no one gets offended if you need to point and use gestures to get your meaning across.

* The JR Rail Pass
Foreigners can purchase a pass that will let them ride the Japan Rail trains without the hassle of purchasing tickets for every ride. We bought seven-day passes that allowed us to ride any train in a large area around Osaka, including certain routes of the Shinkansen. Take only one smallish suitcase and pack light so you can easily lift your suitcase onto the luggage rack. Read the rest of this entry »

Japan is an amazing, fascinating place to visit. My husband has been reconnecting with his relatives there, which has led to several visits over the past three years. Usually we go to Kumamoto, where his family lives. On this most recent trip we didn’t — and that turned out to be a very good thing as Kumamoto was struck by two serious earthquakes on the second and third nights that we were in the country.

Fortunately for us, we were far north and didn’t even feel the quakes. There was, of course, extensive coverage of the damage on the evening news—and we were very relieved when Ron’s family checked in on Facebook, reporting that they were well.

Many others, of course, lost homes and loved ones. There is little that is helpful to say in the face of such a tragedy, beyond that our best wishes go out to all those affected. May the recovery be swift.

Edit: WordPress pushed through an update today — April 26, 2016 — that fixed the issue described below.

I’m posting this in case it’s helpful to anyone out there who runs into the same problem I did.

My online bookstore is based on the WordPress theme “Twenty Eleven,” modified with a custom child theme. After updating to theme version 2.4, the child stylesheet was loading only on the front page. None of the styles from the child theme were being parsed on single posts or on pages. Also, the styles directly included in the header were not being parsed.

After much poking around, I finally narrowed down the issue. The child stylesheet was failing to load when the body tag included the class “singular”. I looked at the parent stylesheet, but could not find any obvious error that would cause this to happen. In the end, I simply eliminated the class from the body tag. So far I have not noticed any negative effect on the website–YMMV.

To eliminate the class, I included the code shown below in the custom function file in the child theme. The function is from the WordPress Codex. This is a hack, and it’s meant only for a very specific situation. Use at your own risk:


// Removes a class from the body_class array
add_filter( 'body_class', 'remove_class' );
function remove_class( $classes ) {
// search the array for the class to remove
$unset_key = array_search('singular', $classes);
if ( false !== $unset_key ) {
// unsets the class if the key exists
unset( $classes[$unset_key] );
}

// return the $classes array
return $classes;
}