Living with the curse...

First, let me thank author Kate Bitters for her guest blog post about the importance of space. Space in the Feng Shui sense, not the outer space/stars and planets/alien invasion sense. Like any job one attempts, it helps to have the right work environment, and artists in general are likely the pickiest when it comes to work space. I know I am; I procrastinate in my writing until I feel comfortable in the space around me.

And speaking of space around me....

I got up this morning full of the nothingness of a dream that evaporated in sync with my eyelids creaking open and tried to run down the list of things I had to do or should probably do today, a Saturday. 

Nothing. A blank to-do list. Oh, I could go get some groceries. After all, I like to eat sometimes. I could catch a movie - but that takes two hours of my day. I could write! On what? I'm between projects, at least of new writing. I've been dabbling with two previously written novels, punching them up to meet today's higher standards - my higher standards, now that I have some experience. But nothing already on the list.

Then it hit me, one nanosecond before I swung my head upward and my feet downward to mark the first movement of the day: Benjamin needs to tell Addy something important about a childhood trauma. She needs to know in order to feel sympathy for him, especially when she is giving him hell for what he did just before they met. Her reaction is crucial.

Who is Benjamin? He was a friend of mine, someone I worry about, a buddy whose side I would always take in a dispute. That's why I thought to offer advice. The problem? Benjamin is entirely made-up. A fictional character. And I was worrying about him as though he were a real person living a few miles away. And his wife, Addy, is also fictional but, given the plot line and dramatic arc involved, I have to care a little less about her than Ben.

After a while, I did get up and begin the day. As I perused email to see what had transpired during the night, I continued to agonize over the problem Ben and Addy were negotiating their way through. I couldn't shake it; I was involved whether I wanted to be or not. And this - THIS! - is what made an impression on me. I knew then that, without any doubt, I had about the dullest life possible for any human who is not faced with imminent chaos. My cadre of invented personas have much richer lives than I do.

Apparently, connecting with a fictional character - what some deem a 'character crush' - is a real problem. Studies have been done in this issue. (I can admit to a few crushes on a few movie characters, but not on the actresses who play them. But in books? Why not?)

That certainly made me feel sad. Sure, I can go out and get groceries, or run other errands that connect me with the real world. But I cannot change that real world into something a bit more palatable adventure-wise. I have not made, and am not likely to make, the evening news. Yet stop for a few minutes to ponder the lives of phantoms, protagonists and antagonists, of mere characters in a paper-flat world of vividness and I and my life pale by comparison. And Ben and Addy are only dealing with a domestic issue.

What about my good friend Sebastian Talbot in THE DREAM LAND* trilogy, who seeks the love of his life, Gina Parton, somewhere through a doorway to another world? Now there's some adventure going on! Far above what I muddle through in any given week. I'd expect such a fantastic (although quite plausible!) scenario to overwhelm anything I might schedule in my real life here on Earth. (On Earth: How quaint the phrase, that excites a wretch like me....)

The best I can do is get on with the day job (e.g., inciting youthful imagination and a will to create) or some facsimile of it, and in whatever odd hours may cleave between mundane mobility and gainful employment  make merry in the meadows of the Muses.** That's always been the way. When I am bored in this dimension, I often escape to the next or some other dimension and there make sport. It is so even when the next dimension is not another world but merely a variation on our existing world. Ben and Addy and their problem exist in Seattle, Hawaii, and Japan in the late 1980s and early 1990s - as all good stories do!

And sometimes, late at night, when I think I am occupied by something truly important, a random thought will pop into my head that I'm certain must be shared with Iris, the protagonist of A BEAUTIFUL CHILL (coming February 2014; more on this novel next time), something that may help her explain herself to her opposite number, Eric. Then, just as instantly, a ghostly tap on the shoulder reminds me they do not exist. Not really. And I laugh. Just a bit. Any more than that would be awkward; it's hard enough explaining myself to a non-fiction world.


*The Dream Land III recently underwent a slight revision to correct a typo on the back cover and about a dozen minor errors of punctuation and spelling in the interior. I apologize for any inconvenience or lack of enjoyment in the reading.

**Those who follow this blog will understand that whenever I slip blithely into alliteration, I have reached a desperate degree of boredom. All are thus warned to read on with care.

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(C) Copyright 2010-2014 by Stephen M. Swartz. All Rights Reserved. No part of this blog, whether text or image, may be used without me giving you written permission, except for brief excerpts that are accompanied by a link to this entire blog. Violators shall be written into novels as characters who are killed off. Serious violators shall be identified and dealt with according to the laws of the United States of America.

The Importance of Space

To start off this new year, I welcome my first ever guest blogger, fellow author Kate Bitters. I've been reading her debut novel Elmer Left. and thoroughly enjoying it. Being something of an old man myself, I could relate....

Here is some advice from Kate about a problem many writers face: space. 

The beginning of last month was chaos.  Boxes everywhere, an overly big (and accident prone) moving truck, piles of clothes and shoes on the floor, a huge gap in my room where a bed should have been...

Moving is tough.  Any kind of environmental change is tough.  When we are surrounded by disorder and newness, it is easy to lose ourselves in the offending space.  It is easy to become discouraged.  Earlier this month, I remember sitting next to a mound of clothing, sorting through it sock-by-sock, and thinking, "Good grief, when did I accumulate so many tank tops?"

But these steps are necessary--the sorting, the putting away, the ordering of toiletries, the creation of a system.  Without these steps, things get shoved aside for later and continue to linger in the backs of our minds.

The very root of Feng Shui (and if you don't buy into any other part of the concept, buy into this...) is the creation of order and the removal of clutter.  The idea is that human beings function best in a clean, ordered, and uncomplicated environment.  Our bodies relax; our minds are put at ease; we are free to concentrate on things outside of our space--higher purposes.  Like writing.

Unfortunately, my writing took a blow this past November (ironic, since it is national novel-writing month).  I had trouble focusing in my new space.  I struggled to carve out an area in which I could write and work and concentrate.  But eventually, it did happen.  I built a desk; I bought a chair; I found homes for all my dishes, sweaters, hair products.  The beast with walls and floors and ceiling began to feel less like a container and more like a home.

My Office

I found my mind relaxing, and then it went beyond relaxation: it started to think creatively again.  I started to see the world in colors and textures, instead of in a Sin City-type black and white (slightly evil, extremely jarring).  My mind was back; my motivation was back.  Words began to flow.  And I learned a valuable lesson about the importance of space.  It might seem like an insignificant factor in our daily productivity and creativity, but our surroundings can have an eerie kind of power over us.  Don't let it take the reins.  It is up to you to tame your space, make it your own, and make it work for you.

Happy organizing ;)

Kate Bitters is a novelist, editor, and ghost writer.  She is putting the finishing touches on her second novel, Ten Thousand Lines, and working on a third.  She resides in the magical and frosty city of Minneapolis, MN.

Website: www.katebitters.com

Blog: http://fightforthewrite.blogspot.com/ 

Twitter: @katebitters

Meanwhile, in a blog far, far away, Kate will be hosting my piece about the names we give story characters: fightforthewrite.blogspot.com. I shall return here forthwith.


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(C) Copyright 2010-2014 by Stephen M. Swartz. All Rights Reserved. No part of this blog, whether text or image, may be used without me giving you written permission, except for brief excerpts that are accompanied by a link to this entire blog. Violators shall be written into novels as characters who are killed off. Serious violators shall be identified and dealt with according to the laws of the United States of America.

Are you ready for [ahem] evacuation?

April 22 is Earth Day, a day for...well, at least being aware of the fragile beauty of our world and perhaps, for the more ambitious among us, doing something tangible to maintain or improve the world around us, like planting a tree, starting a garden, mowing the lawn, going vegan, whatever strikes your fancy and doesn't hurt anyone. (I know that's a long sentence, but it is grammatically correct and syntactically plausible, so I'll let it stand.)

On the theme of Earth Day, what could be more closely related to the Earth than earth itself? More specifically soil. Yet more specifically, night soil. And what we do with it. Still more specifically, what we do with it when we have left the Earth for the void. That's a clever segue to a discussion of space toilets. And THAT is a clever segue to an excerpt from THE DREAM LAND Book III.

The final act of the novel involves the preparations for a planet-wide evacuation and thus the construction of interstellar space vessels. Our heroine Gina (a.k.a. Jinetta-d'Elous), having studied rocket science back on Earth before she found the interdimensional doorway that has led to her lifelong adventures on the planet Ghoupallesz, was appointed to oversee the evacuation program. At that time there were only 31 years remaining until a comet would strike the planet. Not everyone is in agreement on what to do but most are going along with the evacuation plans.

Needless to say, having no direct experience or knowledge of space toilets, research was required to be able to present a plausible case for one particular design I'm now offering to NASA free of charge. (Some, though not all, of the follow excerpt benefited from my reading of Mary Roach's book Packing for Mars, which quite adequately [or more than adequately, depending on how squeamish a reader might be] covered the problems of defecation in zero-gravity, as well as other things nobody with a standard plumbing system ever ponders.

Excerpt from THE DREAM LAND Book III "Diaspora":

In Sanduu the toilets were coming along very well. That was something to be pleased about, at least.

Gina was walked through the plant for the inspection, even got to test one of them—without an actual deposit.

“So I just squat on top of this pipe?” she asked, removing her green and blue kaftan. One of her assistants held up the opened kaftan as a kind of curtain.

The space toilet consisted of a long tube rising like an elephant’s trunk from the floor of a closet-sized capsule barely large enough for a normal-sized adult to stand upright within. The upper end was open and featured a slightly wider lip coated in ceramic. The person using the device lowered his or her back end directly down upon the ceramic ring. The oblong opening in the center of the ring, being less than the width of a human hand, made precise placement crucial. A tight seal needed to be maintained because of the suction involved. As the exiting material was released from the body, the suction within the tube would remove it completely from the person’s orifice and the tube. Jets of disinfectant would follow down the tube from the underside of the ceramic ring. For urination, the reverse position was to be used. However, that presented problems when the same device was switched on. Suction! Gentlemen needed to be cognizant of the g-forces applied to their family orbs. Ladies needed to be aware of the possible stretching effects of the suction upon their fleshy nether regions, as well.

“Can it be adjusted according to a person’s tolerance?” Gina asked quite seriously once she had hooked up her kaftan again.

“There is only one setting,” said First Director of Aerospace Toiletry Services Rogar-Tolourus. “We expect to give lessons on the proper way to sit on the device. As you can see, in the forward-facing position, a male would not have the capacity there for the orbs to slip into the tube. Not even width for accidental slippage. Females would be more at risk since...because of their...parts.”

“Could a supplemental panel be added to the ceramic ring or held in place by the user so as to restrict the area that is submitted to suction?”

“Most definitely,” said Tolourus. “Nobody wants bodily materials floating about the cabin area willy-nilly.”

Gina had to smile. She instantly translated in her head his phrase as ‘willy-nilly’ and was amused at her choice of words. Sauresk meant ‘haphazardly’ in Ghoupallêan, which was the word he had spoken, yet somehow discussing bodily fluids was better served using ‘willy-nilly.’ Poor willy. All the poor willies subjected to that suction, she thought. And the poor nillies of each female crew member!

“So each crew member must place his or her fleshy parts directly against the ceramic ring to maintain the suction area?”

“Yes, that’s it.”

“Is there any provision for disinfecting the ceramic ring between users?”

“Oh, yes. We thought of that.” Tolourus grinned like he did when she first removed her kaftan to test the toilet. “After the user has exited the cubicle and confirmed the closure of the hatch, there is a switch he or she presses which starts a process of irradiation. That kills all life forms within the cubicle.”

“I understand.”

“The irradiation takes about a pon so no one may use the toilet until the irradiation process is finished.”

Tolourus seemed quite proud of their product. It did the job, took minimal space, was self-cleaning, and could be fitted into any model of vessel.

“And where does it all go?” she asked, returning to a straight face.

“The suction prevents the material from escaping into the cabin environment, of course.”

He waved his hand in front of his face as though trying to expel a bad smell. She was momentarily offended. Never mind that she had boldly squatted before them to test the device.

“The materials are pulled down the tube and remain in a holding tank. From there, they are treated with appropriate chemicals and can then be used as fertilizer in the on-board garden units.”

It was beginning to make sense to her why the Sanduu facility was charged with constructing both spaceship toilets and food production units.

“If the holding tank should become full,” Tolourus explained, a little giddy, “the excess can be jettisoned into space.”

“Such a welcoming card,” she muttered with a smirk. She regarded the others in the inspection team. None were amused. “However, it is necessary. Better the feces and urine burn up being bombarded by gamma rays than staying aboard to freshen the air.”

They chuckled.

“Speaking of gamma rays,” Tolourus spoke, “I read your report. It was news to me—indeed, to many of us in the toiletry science community—yet we know the seriousness of preventing...that kind of radiation. So...given our work with various kinds of fecal matter, I believe we may have a solution.”

Gamma radiation, with its highly charged photons, could easily penetrate the walls of a spacecraft and over time do great harm to the humans inside. Building stronger vessel outer skin did not seem to be the answer. She had always considered a layer of lead in her vessel designs. Nor could she imagine a crew living inside lead-shielded flight suits for many years. The best that could be done was to reduce the effect of gamma radiation by half. Granite or concrete seemed to work well, but she could not believe a granite spacecraft would get off the ground. Right now, her job was less about how many people survived to reach their destination than getting them off this planet in time.

“There is an empty interval between the outer and inner walls of the vessel, right?”

She nodded.

“We can pack it with ordinary soil. In fact, we have a unique clay here in Sanduu that would be perfect for that purpose. And when it shifts or a gap becomes detected, it can be filled with run-off from the toilet holding tanks.”

“You want to fill the walls of our space vessels with shit?”

“According to your calculations—most impressive, by the way, for someone who is not an expert in the field of fecal properties—such organic materials should absorb the radiation, thereby reducing it. When the material should be deemed saturated, it could be flushed out into space and restocked with fresh...”

“Fresh shit.”

“Exactly.”

“So we will be out there cruising in our spaceshit?”

It wasn’t complicated. She took the word for ‘shit’ (ush) and added it to the word invented for ‘spacecraft’ (xænafi) to form the word xænush.

“Yes, ma’am,” said Tolourus and everyone laughed.

Then someone broke wind.

“Don’t worry,” said Tolourus, “there will be adequate ventilation on board the vessels.”

A quick search of "space toilet" yields more than enough pictures of, for example, the Space Shuttle apparatus (above). Note the two grips for the constipated astronaut to keep his or her balance in zero-gravity. Note the plethora of hoses and tubing for complete transportation of the evacuated materials. There is plenty of ceramic surface for minimal buttock comfort, too, far more than the Sanduu Toiletworks is producing.

Not too sure what this device would leave behind, however, one wonders just how one could resist giving up anything and everything once fixed into the position. Oh, the imagination of sci-fi artists!

For short trips of the up to orbit and back variety, astronauts need only a reliable pair of diaper pants. Very similar to the smaller sized "big boy" pants marketed by diaper companies. They are undetectable beneath spacesuits, to prevent embarrassment, of course.

Watch what you eat!


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(C) Copyright 2010-2013 by Stephen M. Swartz. All Rights Reserved. No part of this blog, whether text or image, may be used without me giving you written permission, except for brief excerpts that are accompanied by a link to this entire blog. Violators shall be written into novels as characters who are killed off. Serious violators shall be identified and dealt with according to the laws of the United States of America.

The Social Side of Annihilation...

Most science-fiction writers I've read deal with the hardware. You know, the spaceships, the propulsion systems, environmental issues, hydroponic gardens, and so forth. Or they deal with the possibilities of finding and settling inhabitable planets, with or without native inhabitants to deal with. Few, it seems to me, deal with the social issues. In this day and age of social networking, especially, it seems natural to try to understand how people might react when the news hits the fan that Mr. Comet is coming soon and he is not happy.

Excerpt from THE DREAM LAND Book III:

Our heroine, Gina, has been appointed to oversee the international project to construct interplanetary vessels, yet not everyone is in agreement with the plan....

 “I’m surprised,” said Gina, brushing her hair out of her face, “you can be so easily bought with a few hours of such a natural activity as standard intercourse.”

“I would vote for your plan no matter how we spent the night,” said Vazak--Buffalo Bob, the ambassador from Erit who wore the big furry hat.

She had called him ‘Buffalo Bob’ a couple times during the night, when in her ecstasy she could no longer hold back speaking English. He had questioned her about the name, thinking she called him a kind of drug, something called bôb. Then he had offered her a mauve-bôb for her amusement, a rare treat that left her unusually energetic on the qala. Vazak, on the other hand, being broad-shouldered and hairy, made the qala swing dangerously from one wall to the opposite wall. In the morning, when he sat on the edge of the qala, the hammock-style bed tipped down to the floor. Gina had rolled down against him and they had laughed together.

“So it’s not a matter of tricking laborers,” she told him as she lay stroking his curly brown back hair, “it’s a matter of persuasion. We are asking them to deny themselves, to give up their own reward, to give away their individuality not out of hatred or bias or a lack of value, but to accept the full knowledge of what their choice, their sacrifice, means for the entire species.”

“You make sex talk enlightening,” said Vazak with a bass rumble. “I agree with you, Kalmonê.”

“No more Kalmonê, I said.”

He grunted, feeling the pain in his head of a night with no sleep, considerations of regret dragging on his heart.

“It is not about you or me, or any one person, or any one country, as you say. I understand it is about saving something of our species to live on somewhere else.”

“Exactly, Vazak. If we can get everyone to understand they are not sacrificing themselves for nothing, they have nothing to lose, then we have a chance to convince laborers to work for the common good. And the common good is not an ark of salvation for kings and queens and their families, nor even the leaders of industry.”

“Yet we must reward those who lead us and those who put forth the money and resources to realize the creation of these ‘arks of salvation’ as you call them. Some of the other people should be selected for their knowledge and skills, whatever is needed for the flight and for the settlement beyond.”

She smiled at him, finding handsomeness in his rough features, thinking of Beauty and the Beast.

“It’s the ultimate job application,” she said, pulling herself back on topic. “It’s like ‘I am valuable enough, useful enough, that I should get a seat on the spacecraft, yet I know even though I am useful, members of my family must stay behind.’ Right? Complete objectivity. Qualifications only. ‘My family cannot join me simply because it pleases me; no, they will need to stay behind.’ That’s how it must be. Everything we do must be only for preservation of our species.”

“And the fertile females?” There was a twinkle in his eye that made her grin. “We must select the fertile ones, surely: the healthiest of both male and female if we hope to extend our species into other generations.”

“Skills, knowledge, healthy enough for a long journey, and fertile enough to prolong our species.”

“A lottery?”

“No, we cannot choose at random. We should let them apply. Let them tell us their skills and knowledge. If they pass that level, they will be tested for health and fertility.”

“Should be young, too, yet not so young they do not know anything and have no life skills however. And old people should not go, even if they are wise. That leaves me off the list.”

“And room for archives of all knowledge gathered from around the world, too.”

“Will these delegates accept such a plan?”

“If we present it this way, they will realize that most of them would not get a seat aboard the vessels and they would vote against the plan.”

“Then you must convince them of the greater good, as you said, Kalmonê. Their action, their choice, their vote is for the future of our species. Nothing less than that will survive. For what is a single person but a bag of cells and a will to keep reproducing itself? It is not our minds or our unique lives that has meaning in the calendar of the universe but the special blob of juice which is the pattern for making us anew. Or returning us to the furnace of creation.”

“You, Vazak, should give the speech. You have the words I cannot pull from my head.”

And so Vazak-Mixerran, ambassador from Nouvê, resident of Erit, half Jêpolissan, one-quarter Zetin, one-quarter Ghoupalle, beefy in a rugged, handsome way, stood on the stage and with thick arms gesturing, gave the speech of his life as Jinetta-d’Elous stood in the front row cheering him on. To the greater good of all humanity, he insisted, though he did not use the word ‘humanity’—ghoumæ was the Ghoupalle word referring to all peoples of a planet. That tactfully smoothed over endless conflicts between the major races and ethnic groups: Ghoupalle, Rouê, Zetin, Danid, Sogoê, Tigu, Jêpolissa, Kobareli, Lapugê, and the Dikondran and Bæro people on the continent of Bæronak. Instead of addressing the congregation as ‘fellow-Ghoupalles’ his word choice had the effect of calling to ‘fellow humans’ and won their attention. He outlined the plan in eloquent words Gina could only imagine being able to speak.

Sebastian could’ve done it, she mused, but he was nowhere in this time zone far into the future from the days of glory and savagery and romantic love and children who grew into heroes and goddesses—no, he was left long ago and far behind. She was on her own and could not leave. Even if she had found the right tangent to escape Kobarêl safely with her children, now there was Vazak, her buffalo-man, her lover.

The vote went as she expected, yet she never considered that she would be elected to oversee the preparations, a kind of Queen of Aerospace Industry, as it were. She would macro-manage and coordinate the various spaceports to be sure maximum efficiency was maintained through conformity to the models approved by the science council. In short, one model for all construction efforts. So everyone agreed—or enough of them to form a solid majority—that the construction of spacecraft was paramount and the resources of the planet would be put forth toward that goal: to have as many vessels ready as possible in the 31 years remaining.

Of course, not all agreed. The main refutations came from the religious legions and the optimistic hordes. The religious believed they should welcome the comet as their punishment; to attempt to avoid it would be an affront to the seven gods and nine goddesses. The F’eng followers were the worst, choosing a masochistic lifestyle full of self-inflicted pain. The most extreme of them would cut their faces to the bone in sympathy with the prophet F’eng who had no face. Their horrible blood was found everywhere they congregated, spotting park benches, street corners, door handles, and trees. They were forbidden on public transportation. All Gina knew was that their leader, a mystic named F’eng, had supposedly gained enlightenment from surviving a severe disease which left him disfigured and in perpetual pain. She thought he might be glad to end the pain as soon as a comet strike could be arranged, but he lingered on. Now his disciples carried forth his message.

The optimistic denizens of the planet believed the comet would miss them, fly right past without so much as a wink. Or, barring that, a few well-aimed rockets with explosives could be launched at the comet to break it up and send the smaller chunks harmless away. Some at the conference had proposed the idea. The scientist who stood and answered their concerns had posed the question What if we miss? If that were the case, they would have no time left to build the fleet of spacecraft in order to evacuate. Go ahead and build them, he said, so we have them if we need them; and if we do not need them then we have them available for interplanetary exploration at leisure.

The degree of error in calculating the comet’s trajectory had been accounted for, leaving the target on track, as feared. A shallow  trajectory could sweep a continent off the globe, one scientist warned. A more straight-on arrival might set in motion destructive forces which would split the planet apart. The odds were not good for buying property thirty-two years in the future.

Gina gazed at the schematics of the proposed vessel, the R-10 Transport Frame and the V-7 Residential Capsule, on easels positioned to the side of the stage. She thought of Buck Rogers, decided the gold surface would be pretty, and the tune “Ticket to Ride” came into her head, causing her to smile. Better safe than sorry. Better a tangent to escape through than a rocket. Or a blue police box.

Therefore, let us say we need 50,000 workers to build 1 spacecraft that would carry 1000 of us to a new world. None of the 50,000 workers have a seat on the spacecraft--although a few may get on it by lottery or an application stating their usefulness to the journey.

How to persuade them to work, yet give up their lives? How many administrators does such a project need? Would you work for the common good, the survival of your species? Will you get a ticket to ride?


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 (C) Copyright 2010-2013 by Stephen M. Swartz. All Rights Reserved. No part of this blog, whether text or image, may be used without me giving you written permission, except for brief excerpts that are accompanied by a link to this entire blog. Violators shall be written into novels as characters who are killed off. Serious violators shall be identified and dealt with according to the laws of the United States of America.