The first time my husband and I set foot outside the United States was last summer, when we spent one night in Vancouver. This fact is a bit embarrassing to admit, but be assured it was not a lack of desire that kept us home, but rather a lack of funds. Raising two kids and paying a mortgage on the island of Maui can be a bit of a challenge, especially when one of you earns the paltry and erratic income of an eternally “up and coming” writer… but I have a real job now. So this year we decided to take advantage of a two-week long spring break, and with our 17-year old son in tow, we set off on our first true international adventure, heading south to Australia.

We reached Sydney at dusk – it was a thrill to see the Opera House from the plane’s window – but upon landing we were immediately introduced to the unpleasant spectacle of the flight attendants walking the aisles, spraying insecticide over our heads before anyone was allowed to leave their seats. I understand the reasons for this – Hawaii has suffered excessively from unintended introductions of exotic species and it would be nice if our state would take more precautions – but as someone who assiduously avoids pesticides, it was a bit shocking. Fortunately, everything improved from there.

Sydney is a wonderful city. We explored from Kings Cross to Darling Harbor, walking through diverse streets and neighborhoods, and never once did I feel uncomfortable or uneasy. The architecture is a wide mix of modern and historical, and always interesting. The parks are lovely – we were fascinated by the flying foxes that inhabit the botanical gardens. It was very exotic to leave a little restaurant on Stanley Street at dusk, and see skeins of huge bats flying out of the gardens and across the purple sky.

After Sydney, we took a train to Melbourne and spent some days on the southern coast, in the company of a friend. We had already seen most of the iconic Australian animals in a zoo, but after several short hikes and lots of driving, we were able to score sightings of many koalas, a couple of wallabies, a small mob of kangaroos, flocks of cockatoos and several different kinds of parrots. Strangely enough, we also discovered an impressive grove of sequoias at a picnic stop in the mountains of Great Otway National Park.

So why the “The Land of Oz”? It wasn’t immediately obvious to me why this was a nickname for Australia, until I realized what is “Aussie” in the US sounds like “Ozzie” down under.

We had the fun of arriving home before we left, since Australia and Hawaii are separated by the dateline. It was very handy to be able to do Friday twice! The trip was a fantastic experience, and we are already talking about going back. Queensland, next time! And someday, on to New Zealand.

I won’t be coy. I loved this movie. Yes, I know all the reasons I’m not supposed to like it. It’s violent. It’s callous. It glorifies a warrior culture. It overlooks historical inconveniences. The racial casting has to be controversial.

Doesn’t matter. 300 is myth, and myth is what I love. It’s what I strive to write, albeit a bit removed, from a softer perspective. Myth is imbued with elemental meaning. It’s filled with absolutes. It’s beautiful and hideous at once, with very little in-between. 300 has all of this. It knows its purpose.

So I’ve spent the last day ruminating over why elemental movies like this appeal to me — The Lord of the Rings, Gladiator, The Last Samurai, Braveheart — to name a few. There are probably many reasons, but the one I want to pick out is the one of character – all these stories deal with characters who possess, or learn to possess, a profound discipline, and a personal strength to contend with pain and fear, even unto the fear of death, all in the defense of an ideal.

This is so much more interesting to me than the petty trivialities of the tabloids, and the endless novels that seem written to support them.

Why do mythic stories mean so much – whether they take the form of historical tales, science fiction, or fantasy? What do we gain from them? “Adolescent wish fulfillment” is often the academic explanation – but it’s a silly and insulting answer. Obviously none of us here are ever going to have to stand in a narrow ravine and face an overwhelming enemy, or be asked to strap on a sword and ride forth into the wilderness in defense of home and freedom. Yet that we understand why someone would do such a thing gives depth to our lives, even if the biggest threat we face is the idiot on the highway during the morning commute. If we understand honor in mythic stories, we also understand honor in our own lives – or loyalty, truth, freedom, strength, respect, responsibility – the classic virtues. If our emotional center exists in that other world, surely it will be reflected in this one?

Certainly, we could use a bit more of the classic virtues in our daily lives. In 300 there is a very profound and deliberate contrast between the clean, strong lives of the Spartans, idealized in the relationship between King Leonidas and his wife, and the self-indulgent, drug-addicted, overly-decorated debauchery of the enemy Persians. Guess which society more closely resembles the “ideals” of modern American existence? (Hint: “Spartan” is not a powerful advertising term.)

So let the critics frown upon 300. The rest of us can grasp the difference between myth and reality, and take the best of each.

Indulging once more in a musical theme… on rare occasions I will hear a song on the radio that will instantly seize my interest and demand that I learn more. That was the case with Audioslave’s Like a Stone. Chris Cornell is an astonishingly talented singer, and by the time he reached the lyrics

On my death bed, I will pray to the gods and the angels,
like a pagan, to anyone who will take me to Heaven…

I was utterly won over.

Like a Stone was a fairly unique song on this first CD, but there were many other excellent offerings, on this, and the next two albums. The latest CD, “Revelations” came out last September, at just the right time for me. Very often in the course of my writing, certain songs will serve as “theme music” to the stories I am trying to tell — sometimes for the lyrics, but more often for the mood or the feel of the song. Somehow “Revelations” became the music that let me write the final chapters of the fantasy novel with a speed and confidence that had been lacking during the tumultuous years when this story first began to develop.

So it was with regret that I heard the news that Audioslave is no more. Chris Cornell has left the band for a solo career. Artists must find their own paths, and my admiration goes to those who are willing to try new ways. So here is a toast to the past, while looking forward to the future.

I have rarely made it to the movies these past many months, but my husband wanted to see Letters from Iwo Jima, so we went today. “How did you like it?” he asked afterward. Trying to keep my voice steady, I answered, “I thought it was excellent… but it’s one of those movies I’ll watch only once.” It was that emotionally wrenching.

The movie depicts the Battle of Iwo Jima from the perspective of a private in the Japanese army. I don’t think it’s a spoiler if I say that the movie conveys both the horror of war, and the horror of being trapped in a situation you never thought possible, with no way out.

The acting was very well done. We are all Ken Watanabe fans here, but Kazunari Ninomiya did a superb job portraying the private Shigo.

In all… highly recommended, at least once.

We aren’t used to major forest fires on Maui — after all, there just isn’t that much land, and most of the forests are rain forests — but there are also large areas in the mountains that are dense with imported eucalyptus trees, black wattle, and even redwoods. That’s what’s burning now. The fire started a few days ago, and seems to have gotten quickly out of hand. The photo at right shows only the northern end. 600 acres had been burned as of yesterday; a lot more has burned since then.

I’ll admit feeling a little nervous today when I looked from my deck to a distant ridge to see great pillars of flame at the edge of massive clouds of smoke. Everything seems calmer now. Several helicopter runs might have slowed the advance on the northern side, while at higher altitudes, it looks like the fire might have reached the edge of the forest, slowing down in the scrublands and volcanic barrens above 8000′. (It’s hard to see past the smoke and afternoon cloud cover.) The predicted weather calls for rain tomorrow afternoon. Let’s hope so.

Good news from my agent, Howard Morhaim. LIMIT OF VISION has just been purchased for translation by the French publisher Bragelonne — which makes it my first sale in France. There is also a German version of this book which has been available for a few years, with an interesting title, as you can see from the cover…

I’ve lived on Maui a long time. I’m used to it. The resident population here is perhaps 140,000. It’s a small town compared to the 900,000-plus resident population of Honolulu — which in turn is small compared to the great assemblage that is Los Angeles — almost 10 million people in Los Angeles County according to the US Census Bureau.

This meditation on relative scale was inspired by a recent trip to Palm Springs via the Los Angeles airport. We hit the freeways in the late afternoon on a Friday — need I say more? There must have been more people in their cars, trying to get elsewhere, than exist on the entire island of Maui. (Did I used to call that little slow-down on the way into town “bad traffic”?)

My day job involves work on a tourist-oriented website, so the first thing that occurred to me was what a tiny percentage of Los Angeles-alone we would have to attract to be a raging success.

My next thought was what a tiny percentage of Los Angeles-alone an author, or even a genre, would have to attract to be a raging success. Anyone trying to sell anything must entertain the same thought. It’s the million dollar marketing question.

For the past three years I’ve been writing a heroic fantasy novel. I have not delved into science fiction in that time. In fact, I was quite ready to leave it behind – but the world has a way of catching up with you.

On December 22, Annalee Newitz posted a favorable review of my 1995 novel Tech-Heaven in the Wired blog “Table of Malcontents.”

Annalee has a very active readership – the traffic to my website jumped and a lot of people took a chance and purchased the set of nanotechnology novels, of which Tech-Heaven is one. In fact, I discovered to my surprise that I was basically sold out of the last in the set, Vast. At any rate, all this activity inspired me to go back and re-read three of the books (do other authors re-read their old work?).

At nearly the same time, I received an email from the Lifeboat Foundation, whose concern is seeking ways to inoculate the world against the dangers of advancing technology. It’s a fascinating website, with a critical goal – nanotech and genetic engineering, etc., are not just subjects for fiction.

Finally, I will soon be off to California, for a preliminary meeting on a project with a nanotechnology theme.

The technological world has caught up with me – but I’m not ready to leave Hahví behind. The challenge now is to live in two worlds at the same time.

Done.

After three years (three years! I thought it was only two!) of intermittent writing, The Fantasy Novel — title to be determined – went off to my agent Howard Morhaim in November. I enjoyed the writing of this novel more than any other I have done – especially the last half of it, most of which was written in the past six months. Whether this pleasure in the creative process reflects on the quality of the book I won’t venture to say, but writing has rarely been a pleasant process for me, so it’s worth a mention.

I felt I came to a new understanding of the book during the final weeks of writing it. By the time I sent it off, I was immensely pleased with it, and already flirting with ideas for a sequel.

Many weeks have passed since then, and now the whole experience has become distant. All the many intervening events – both fun and tedious – have driven away the sweet intensity – the delicious obsession. I want to start writing again – either a sequel or something new – but it’s going to take time to find a new direction.

Anyone familiar with my previous blog will naturally have doubts about the wisdom of my starting another. That first failed experiment took place at my science fiction website, mythicisland.com. My goal then was to record the process of writing a novel. Life and a lack of resolve (not to mention time) got in the way — but being a writer I laugh off failure (or pretend to, anyway). So here I am, ready to try blogging again.

My goal this time is more nebulous. I want to write about things that interest me, from the serious to the simply fun – and on the way, I would like to learn to write short and fast. My natural skills have always flowed in the other direction, which neatly explains why I am a novelist – but on to something new.

Why Hahví.net? It’s a place-name from the fantasy novel. I’ll write more on that subject in a later post, but for now, let it suffice to say that Hahví is an idyllic land that vanished over the horizon long ago.