Communication

A thought on communication;

Assume that silence will be taken as negative. It almost always is taken so, even if it's rarely intended so.

Whoa

This weekend I set a new high for endorphin rushes due to compliments on my writing.

For those of you who are keeping score, the first compliment that really set my feet on the path to becoming a writer was back in 07. One of the Barflies on the Baen forums posted that he put down the latest Weber release to read my most recent snippet.

The second shot of squee was roughly two years after that, when the chief slush reader at Baen took the time to send me a critique and tell me they'd like to see it again. The third shot was last fall, when an agent sent me an email saying she'd agonized for nearly a year over my first book.

The second and third shots were based on the fact that professionals in the industry thought I had something good. Maybe not good enough, but very, very close. I still remember that first time though, when a complete random told me 'hey, this is good!'. I got another shot close to that this weekend. The person wasn't a complete random, but the circumstance scoured away any thoughts of 'he's just saying it because I'm a friend'.

I have a friend who, despite being well read, doesn't read science fiction. When he heard I wrote a book, he asked for a copy. He told me science fiction wasn't his thing, but he'd give it a shot.

Didn't. The operative word for whether he reads Sci Fi or not is 'didn't'. He does now, because of my novel.

Some things just make you wanna go 'whoa' like a stunned Keanu Reeves.

Despair; Toxicity and Tolerance

I had an interesting thought, one that I've been mulling over for a few weeks consciously, and have probably had echoing around in my skull for a few years (or more) now subconsciously.

Despair is a toxic substance. Like any other toxic substance, it generally doesn't kill by massive trauma, but by slow degradation. Like any other toxic substance, removing the source can prevent further accumulation. Even without further accumulation, unless the individual has a way to metabolize and expel the toxin the damage will continue. Finally, even once the toxin is removed from the individual, the damage may be permanent.

Now, those gloomy thoughts aren't all that I've been thinking about. There are quite a few toxic substances that can be tolerated. This doesn't mean that an individual can consume them without harm. It means an individual can continue functioning and even learn to thrive even while imparied by the substance. It's even possible for individuals to learn to tolerate toxicity levels that would kill unacclimated individuals outright. Despair, I've found, really is one of those.

There are desperate situations where observers are convinced that no one can survive. However, for individuals acclimated to immersion in despair, those situations are survivable simply because the pain of despair has become a background noise. Once that happens, it loses a great deal of its power. At that point, and likely only at that point, progress can be made toward removing the causes of despair.

I suppose this has all just been a longwinded way of saying that there is nothing more powerful than someone with nothing left to lose. Of course, in thinking about it, what might be even more powerful is someone who has become inured to loss itself. Someone with nothing left to lose can still be stymied by being given something to lose. Someone who has accepted that loss happens and moved past that realization is even more powerful; when they're given something, instead of fearing having it taken away, they enjoy it or use it to the fullest.

No real conclusion here, just thinking about situations I've experienced and seen.

I need an editor

Right now, I've gotten more 'This has promise' / 'This is really good except for' / and 'I almost, but no...' on my MS than I can quickly count. Almost all of them were non-form letters from people who normally use form letters.

At the same time, every non-editor / non-publisher / non-agent / non-purchaser who reads it has a list of 'change this! and it will be saleable!' items. Trouble is, very few times have the items been the same.

Very frustrating; if I change too much, I am more likely to fall out of publishing contention than to succeed. If I change nothing, I'm likely to stay in the unpublished valley. I need to change some small part, but without an editor I'm really struggling to figure out which part.

OK, back to class.

I write this, even knowing there's a slight chance he'll read it...

OK, for those of you who are unaware of why November's posting has been more anemic than usual, it's because November is NaNoWriMo. Almost all of my wordingyness is dedicated to that; I go elsewhere only when my hands hurt, or I'm so tired my brain won't fire right to type. Since essaying takes more than knee jerk reactions, I can't really do any in November. Well, unless someone asks really, really nicely.

However, as noted with my last post, sometimes something just HAS to come out.

Now, on top of NaNo, which makes sure I put out at least 50,000 new words once a year (inertia usually gets me another 50K before I slow down and start editing) I'm at Philcon due to the kindness of a friend. It's a very good opportunity to meet people in the publishing industry, which is a Good Thing for a variety of reasons I'll not go into here. Because a geek button got pushed. Which is odd, because I don't HAVE many, y'see.

So, I go to a panel for sci-fi newbies, because there are huge swaths of 'classic, everyone must read this' sci fi and fantasy that I've never read. My entry point into sci fi, y'see, was not magazines with stories, nor novels, nor even the considered-slightly-different TV shows of Star Trek and Doctor Who. Most authors who are my age write one of those as their entry point. My entry point into Sci Fi, y'see, was slightly different. It had Russian music and Japanese Animation and a really bad English script. Yes, I'm talking about Star Blazers. I watched it while reading Tolkien, back when my sister was still a baby and Carter was still president.

So it's not real surprising that my writing reminds some of Kurosawa does Anime. However, this is all a massive digression, because my geek out is embarrassing me. Ok, last person on the panel is Michael Swanwick. Now, I link to that list for an important reason, which I shall get to when my geeking out level drops a bit. Mr. Swanwick mentioned one of his books during the panel, but I'd not read the one mentioned. When I saw him, I remembered him from the "Where I Write" project.

Well, I talked with him a bit after the panel, mostly about being from an odd sci-fi entry point. He thought that was kind of neat, and a bit later during a "meet the pros" mixer I met Kyle Cassidy, who is the guy doing Where I Write, which is cool. Mr. Swanwick was there again, and had some very encouraging things to say about the feedback I've gotten from publishers and agents, as well as giving me some satori-moment-inducing advice on writing and pruning.

OK, I'm stalling again. In my defense, and since he said he has the same problem, perhaps he'll understand. I don't remember names. I took a notebook to Philcon with me specifically to write down names in, because I don't rememeber them.

The whole point here - I recall exactly ONE book I've read cover to cover twice in a row. I'll get to that in a bit. I know, I'm stalling. I'm Syndrome at the moment, ok?

Anyhow, I get home, sit down to write a little, and decide "y'know, I ought go look him up; perhaps I've read something of his and don't remember. He sounded very cool, perhaps I ought try out his writing; I'll certainly be trying the books he recommended." I go to his website. I go to his bibliography. Bones of the Earth, new one he mentioned during the panel, haven't read. Griffin's Egg, I've heard of, but don't think I read. In The Drift, don't remember the title, and book titles I remember (go figure, I forget my own name at times, but I can remember titles).

Iron Dragon's Daughter.

HOLY . There are authors I would like to and think I can someday match style-and-quality wise. Adams, Ringo, Jordan. There are authors I've been compared to, who I like, so I don't mind if I wind up more like them when I hone my skill to publishable levels (Cherryh). But Iron Dragon's Daughter is just way beyond anything I could write. I can't write that well. I just... I don't think I can. I mean, in part it's the prose, which is beautiful while still flowing quickly, but in part it's the story. When I try to do '10 words or less' on Iron Dragon's Daughter my brain just kinda short circuits. Um... OK, I just tried, and I can't name all the major components of the story in 10 words, and it's ALL 'surprising yet inevitable'.

And I got advice from him. And he gave me encouragement.

Definite Syndrome moment. "I'm still geekin' out about it!"

I'm sorry, it won't stay in my head...

If Christ is the Lamb of God, wouldn't that mean you're supposed to serve communion with Holy Mint Jelly?

Axes, Leaks, and Loops.

It's been a bit since I promised those posts. I've recently started teaching, and got the job and the cirriculum at the last minute. Coming up with my lesson plans, getting them posted to the district website, marking papers, all of these have been a little time consuming. But the operative part of all that is I've got a job now. One that might even let me write on occasion. Going forward I'm going to try for something modest - one a month, essay wise. I'll probably post a bit more often just griping, but I can't be sure how often I need to gripe, so...

At any rate, I recently had a chance to reread three essays which influenced my thinking. Individually, they're influential. Read together, they interact in interesting ways.

The first one, and one that I only recently found for the first time, is Polsky's essay on Leaky Abstractions. It's worth a read, but if you're short on time, I'll sum up the pertinent points. Any model we make of reality is going to be imperfect. Mental models used to ease interaction with reality, abstractions, are no exception to this general rule. When abstractions are different to the subjects they're modeling, they 'leak' at the points of difference. A common maxim about this idea is that you mustn't push an analogy too far.

The next essay that I've reread recently is about an abstraction which is more leak than not. Pournelle's Political Axes describes the failures of the false Right / Left political dichotomy fairly well. It also points out a better way of examining political positions, by plotting each person or group based on a pair of unrelated but demonstratable values. Effectively, to refer back to leaky abstractions, he points out the leaks in the Left / Right dichotomy, then suggests a far less leaky alternative.

The final essay... Actually, I'm lying. It's not an essay, it's a series of nigh incomprehensible PowerPoint presentations, which have some supporting documentation. At any rate, the final thing that I reread recently was a synopsis of Boyd's OODA Loop. Now, the Wiki isn't the synopsis I read, but it's a fair synopsis itself, and I can't find the one I read. The OODA loop describes all human cognition. We take in informatin (Observe), we assign meaning to the facts we have gathered (Orient), we ascertain the correct action (Decide) and then we Act. One way in which human beings can 'short circuit' is to 'get inside their own OODA loop'.

That last is described in the Wiki, but I'll summarize. When you can cycle through that whole process fast enough that your opponent is still Orienting, he has to re-Observe to account for your new Action, then re-Orient. Meanwhile, you're cycling again. This often creates a state of confusion and demoralization in an opponent. That is known as 'getting inside an opponent's OODA loop'.

Now, the longest part of the loop is the Orientation phase. What the training of certain military organizations (including the USMC) tries to do is to shorten that Orientation phase to near nil for combat operations. Soldiers and Marines are trained in the appropriate response to any given situation, until recognizing the situation (Orientation) happens on a split-second, subconscious basis, and the Action occurs primarily from 'muscle memory'. Against any opponent who is not trained in the same fashion, this will do exactly what you'd expect. The opponent is caught in a continual state of Orientation, at least until the Soldier or Marine has a chance to Do Unto Them.

The related concept of 'getting inside your own OODA loop' is a Bad Thing. In short, it involves extending your Orientation phase until the likelihood of completing Orientation before the environment changes of its own accord. Once Orientation is that long, reaction is the only option, and even those reactions will typically be slow in coming. One major cause of slow Orientation times has been identified; if a person's worldview is skewed from reality, that persons Orientation phase will be extended when dealing with the periphery of the skew. The nexus of the skew is frequently exempt; the center of the skew is usually a dearly held religious, political, or personal belief. At any rate, the Orientation phase can be extended long enough for a person or organization to 'get inside it's own OODA loop'. When that happens, stagnation or fragmentation is often the result.

Now, put those all together. As Polsky explains, a perniciously leaky abstraction is never going to be a realistic model of the world. As Pournelle points out, the Left / Right dichotomy is more leak than model. Finally, Boyd informs us that a worldview skew from reality will eventually cause a person to become incapable of effective decision making and hence effective action.

With that in mind, is it any wonder our government is so unable to get anything done?