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I caught up on the deficit from yesterday’s word count and met my target for today, bringing the manuscript total to 4000 words. If you add the word count yield prior to 1 November, I have a manuscript that is 10K words long.
It has been rough going due to everything else which is taking place in my life. I have exams to grade, a Spanish class to stay current in an the usual sundry distractions which everyone struggles with. Chuck in fatigue and the fact that I can never find a quiet place to write and it is a small wonder I have anything to report at all.
Still, I’m pushing forward.
Tomorrow I’ll try for 2500 words. Friday’s goal is 3000 words. By next week, I hope that my daily yield is in the 4K to 5K range.
So it goes.
Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri
The Writing Front
At midnight, I punched in the first three hundred words for National Novel Writing Month, also known as NaNoWriMo. It seemed like a good idea to get a symbolic word count onto the scoreboard before I went to bed last night. This morning, the Woman I Love has been supportive enough to shut off the television in order to let me get some more writing in before I head to campus today.
Thus the present word count for Day One as of 0640 hours is 1100 words. The goal for the day is to reach a modest 2000 words. Hopefully I can push to a larger 5000 words if I play my cards right.
These words are for Coming to Terms, a Tearing Down Tuesday sequel set twenty years later. I’ve already got 6000 words down prior to this morning for the project. So I’ll be keeping two word count tallies over the next thirty days.
The first will be an actual project word count signifying overall work. The second will be the NaNoWriMo word count. In my mind, it seems patently dishonest to count the first six thousand words written prior to this morning.
So it goes. Now it is time for a nap.
Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri
The Review Front: Mass Effect 2
I’m relatively new to console video games. When I finally got old enough to purchase such devices back in the early 1990s it seemed to me that the better bang for my buck was to buy games for my Dell 386 computer. So I invested in the Wing Commander Series and the very first edition of Civilization by Sid Meier.
For the most part, I am a PC gamer.
That changed this summer when the Woman I Love purchased an XBox 360 for my birthday.
Now I’m hooked.
So that is how I got here. Let’s talk about the game.
Mass Effect 2 is the second installment in what was originally planned as a trilogy. The protagonist, Commander Shepard, rises from the dead courtesy of a pro-Human organization known as Cerberus. The leader of the organization, known only as The Illusive Man, has a job for Shepard.
Find out why entire human colonies are disappearing.
The main character can be customized by the player. Not only can you customize general physical characteristics, you can also decide the gender of the character. The gender you select does provide opportunities for different types of interactions with various crew members.
The visual effects are stunning, going for that sense of wonder which drew so many to cinematic science fiction films. From time to time the cut scenes showing the storyline and the action are a bit jerky, but not to the point of distraction. It does remind me a little too much of arcade laserdisc games like Space Ace and Dragon’s Lair. However, if you look past the jerky moments, you are rewarded with a stunning vistas of interstellar space as your starship, the Normandy carries your team through the storyline.
One task is to assemble a team of specialists, soldiers and technicians to assist you on your mission. Your choices throughout the course of the game are made in the form of dialog selections which prompt other characters to respond. Sometimes, if you put some thought into it, the characters respond favorably. Other times it can lead to conflict among the various team members, not all of whom see eye to eye.
The dialog choices can be difficult to discern on a standard television set as the text is so small. When I played the game for the first time this lead to my character taking the wrong side in an argument between team members. It was an irritating quirk which had ramifications on the resolution of the plot.
An additional option is the opportunity to make good or bad decisions which are indicated by flashing paragon and renegade symbols on the screen. These choices might include whether or not to use an intoxicated alien as cannon fodder or save a specialist from babbling on too long about the scientific details of the mission. They have an effect on the overall plot of the story, dictating who will survive the final sequences of the story.
This paragon-renegade system is a variation of a similar system which was featured in Wing Commander 4 The Price of Freedom. If you made an “evil choice” then it would shape the ending of the narrative. The same is the case with a good choice. Perhaps my only objection about this is that good and evil are slippery, difficult concepts to define which keep philosophy students busy throughout the course of their careers. However, the value choice are pretty clear unless you happen to be a sociopath.
The combat system places the player behind the main character. It is possible to swivel around the character but I found this to be distracting. Perhaps this is designed as a way of compensating for the lack of true peripheral vision, a flaw of all shooter games. I usually found it easier to swivel the character as opposed to swiveling the camera view. This has the benefit of focusing the muzzle of your weapon on any targets you happen to find.
From time to time, especially under heavy fire, the character was less than responsive. I know to take cover when I am under fire but the commands often confused the character, prompting him to stand up in the middle of a firefight. In reality this sort of thing probably happens as well, the difference is that in the game it is merely irritating.
As for actually shooting a target, in this, I was most frustrated at first. I was spoiled by the combat system in Battlefield Bad Company and Bad Company 2. In those games, it is possible to bring the sights of the weapon up to the character’s eyeball, which is the most realistic application of the shooting process. While there is a similar option in Mass Effect 2, it still feels entirely too much like shooting from the hip. Even using the sniper weapons proved to be frustrating.
Thus Mass Effect 2 is very much a volume of fire game and I would advise players to take advantage of the adrenaline function of their character to slow down time and insure that your fire is used to maximum effect.
The adrenaline function, along with a number of other options, can be selected using the right upper button on your controller. This brings up a visual display that allows you to select ammunition options, medical options, and special abilities.
It can also be used to employ the options of your team members. On any given mission you will be allowed to chose two members for your own team.
The left button allows you to select weapons for yourself and your team members while in combat. Since I went with the soldier class (no surprise there) I had the greatest option for weapons. There are a number of different classes, each of which provides your character with special abilities and skills. I went with what I knew.
Overall, the game play grows on you. At first I wasn’t certain if I was going to like the game or not. However, the story and the graphics eventually won me over. There is a strong sense of character development which takes place among your team members, especially if you take the opportunity to help them with their various personal problems which form the core of their backstories.
In conclusion, as a science fiction writer and a veteran of the United States Army, I found myself wondering why I do not see more of what I saw in Mass Effect 2 in current books and short stories. Everything that drew me to science fiction is here. We have an impossible quest, a starship, robots, mechs, strange aliens, artificial intelligence, stunning visuals and the realization that space will probably kill you if it can.
I have my nits with the mechanics of the game, but I came for the story.
Thus Mass Effect 2 has my recommendation. I’m looking forward to getting my hands on Mass Effect 3.
Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri
Tearing Down Tuesday is now available as an ebook at Amazon.com for three dollars American. The story should be accessible on any e-reader out there.
Right now I’m just experimenting to see how things work. I figure Tearing Down Tuesday was the perfect test subject given that it has been published twice and that I do not have any remaining obligations to the previous publishers. Bangar from Down Under was asking if there should be a dedicated day to generate a sales spike and I advised holding off.
In other words, here is what I’m thinking.
If you missed a chance to read Tearing Down Tuesday at Interzone or Apex and you want to read it badly enough, here is your shot.
On the other hand, if you have read Tearing Down Tuesday then I’d advise waiting a bit. I want to offer readers and supporters something more than just the same old story. I want to bundle TDT with my unpublished story Maternal Soldier along with some additional content. I’m still thinking on what that content might be but I don’t think I’ll be able to get to it until after the semester ends.
That bundle, by the way, will be called A Murphy Double Tap and I believe I’ll be selling that for five bucks American.
I have readers. I have fans. I have supporters. Perhaps not many, but enough that they have made their voices heard during the two initial publications.
I figure this is a way to see if we really don’t need editors and publishers anymore. Maybe we still need gatekeepers.
And maybe we don’t.
If we don’t, then I think I just might bypass them.
So it goes.
Other Fronts
Today was testing for the Third Quarter in all classes. Here in a bit I’ll run my 120s through the scantron to see what I get. Tomorrow, Veteran’s Day, will be nothing but grading, grading, grading.
Then it will be time to prep for evals, which are next week. The suit is at the cleaners for the event and I’ve got funds set aside for a fresh haircut.
We’ll see how it goes.
Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of Tearing Down Tuesday and The Limb Knitter
North Kansas City, Missouri
Sometimes when I read my student’s essay responses to the exam, I wonder what they are thinking. Or worse, what they are being taught outside of my classroom.
One frequent essay question which appears in my American History 121 classes is the issue of dropping the atomic bombs on Japan at the end of World War II. It is one of the most controversial issues in American History today and is often grist for the revisionist’s mill in politics, history and even science fiction.
I give a pretty extensive lecture on the Rise of Japan stemming back to the 1840s and 1850s with the efforts of Commodore Biddle and later Commodore Perry to open Japan to trade with the United States. The lecture is perhaps more broad and than deep but in my defense, it is a survey course and I feel that it does provide some aspect of multiculturalism for the students. It is also a classic clash of two different cultures. I also give an extensive lecture on the causes of the war between the Empire of Japan and the United States, the nature of that war and the views of the Japanese Government up to the use of the atomic bomb.
Students are asked to analyze the options facing US leaders in 1945, consider the alternatives and then provide an opinion. In order to get most of their essay points, the student must demonstrate that they have a grasp of the events, particularly the causes, motivations and perceptions on both sides of the fence.
As a rule, when I give this lecture, I do not give my personal opinion on the matter. There are a number of reasons for this. First, I do not want my students regurgitating my own words back to me. Second, I am not trying to create intellectual clones/drones, I want them to learn to think for themselves. Third, I do want them to struggle with the material and give a solid, well argued opinion.
On the better essays, I get the usual arguments pro and con which have been exhaustively debated elsewhere. The pro-bombing argument is that it shortened the war, saved lives and was the only thing that would break the Japanese. The anti-bombing argument is that it was immoral, a war crime, and used primarily to dissuade the Soviets from invading the Japanese mainland as well as to show them who is boss in the post War world.
Sometimes I see arguments which make me wonder what is going on in their heads. For instance, one option was to continue General Curtis LeMay’s firebombing campaign. I take great pains to point out, for a lot of reasons, that the firebombing killed far more Japanese civilians than both nuclear weapons combined.
To my horror, I have seen students argue that firebombing is better than the atomic bomb. Which leads me to wonder about their thinking. It is okay to firebomb but not okay to nuke? How is one any better than the other? They will argue that using the atomic bomb is unethical under any circumstances. Once they’ve made the statement, they do not elaborate on why the atomic bomb is unethical and how that compares to firebombing.
I will say that the anti-bombing side has never argued for a ground invasion, nor have they argued for a naval blockade to starve the Japanese into submission. No, what I have seen, on very rare instances, is something that bothers me.
Students on the anti-bombing side will argue that the cause of the problem stems back to Biddle and Perry’s efforts to open Japan. That, on the face, is a pretty sophisticated argument and one worth conceding. It does ignore the reality that a European power was likely going to open Japan up to trade anyway but since I do not lecture on that and the textbook doesn’t even cover that topic I give them a pass on that score.
What follows is what troubles me. Basically it can be summed up as follows.
If only Perry and Biddle, as well as the United States, had been respectful of the culture of Japan, perhaps the hundred years of diplomatic strife which lead to World War II could have been avoided.
Read that line for a minute and tell me if something bothers you about it. It seems pretty solid, doesn’t it? It shows that the student in question (multiple students have used this argument, I might add so I am not singling any one particular student out). Even with my qualification, I have to admit that I’ve been reluctant to blog about this. My concern is that students will troll the internet looking for material to use in their essays or papers at other campuses. I have additional concerns but I will keep those to myself as they do not quite pertain to the matter at hand.
The problem with the statement in italics is that it is a fallacy. It makes the assumption, a false one, that Perry, or any other American dealing with Japan up to 1856, didn’t respect Japanese culture. In fact I’d argue that Perry had a great deal of respect for it in that he studied what he could of their culture in order to figure out how to accomplish his mission, which was to open Japan up to US Trade.
What he learned, from Biddle’s failure and his studies, is that the Japanese respected belligerency and strength.
Perhaps what the student meant by respect is that the United States respect Japan’s desire for isolation and not resort to belligerency in order to open the Empire up. Thing is that Commodore Biddle tried the diplomatic, tactful approach during his mission in the 1840s and was pretty much blown off. Worse, he left the Japanese with the impression that America was incredibly weak and not deserving of respect.
The problem I’m describing, and I relate this in lecture, is a clash of differing cultural values on what constitutes respect between the Japanese and the Americans of the time.
What is probably most likely is that the students in question feel that if Perry and Biddle had a respect for Japanese culture in a 21st Century American sense, then perhaps the war could have been avoided.
And herein lies the core problem, the fallacy of presentism. Presentism is when a student of history takes their present day values system and makes a historical interpretation through that filter or bias.
If only Commodore Perry had been through a sensitivity session. If only he had our 21st Century values.
Well, you can and probably should make a moral judgement on those grounds, but does it get at the historical truth of the matter? Do we gain a clear perspective of what Perry was thinking in the 1850s?
Or perhaps I should put it this way.
To expect Commodore Perry to behave as a 21st Century US Naval Officer would is no different than expecting Socrates to hold forth on the Petrine Theory of Papal Supremacy. It’d be pretty difficult for Socrates, Plato or Aristotle to do any such thing as the Catholic Church didn’t exist yet. Or perhaps just as unlikely would be to expect Marcus Tullius Cicero to write extensive essays on the Enlightenment or Marxism.
Out of what time warp is Perry supposed to get these values? He isn’t a product of 21st Century America, he is a product of early 19th Century America. He simply wouldn’t see the problem of contact with Japan in the same manner as we do.
He wouldn’t have foresight of coming historical events either. I suspect if the Americans did have a crystal ball showing them what was down the pike that they probably would have behaved far more aggressively than they did.
How does this apply to American Science Fiction?
Well, a classic example is The Lucky Strike by Kim Stanley Robinson. Ostensibly an alternate history concerning the use of the atomic bomb on Japan in 1945, Robinson uses a protagonist who is somehow inculcated in the values of late 20th Century Liberal America. The protag, Captain January, is disgusted by the bomb and believes that he best alternative is to drop the bomb into the ocean near the coastline. When he does so, the Japanese see the effect of the bomb and surrender.
The moral of the story? If only we had tried something else then things could have ended better than they did.
Aside from presentism, the story is also flawed due to a poor understanding of what was going on in the halls of Japan’s government in 1945. Their reaction to the bombing of Hiroshima was simply to state, and I paraphrase, “We lose more in firebombings than we did with this one atomic bomb. We may as well continue to fight.”
Dropping the bomb into Tokyo Bay would not have impressed them anymore than the actual bombing of Hiroshima did.
I have also seen this in the Fantasy and Steampunk movements. There has been an effort over the last few years to modify the traditional medieval style Fantasy away from the original European roots into something that is more reflective of our 21st Century progressive values. The same can be said for the Steampunk movement with calls issued to move away from depictions of racism, colonialism, imperialism, and sexism.
As a fiction writer, I’m supportive of the idea that you ought to be able to write whatever it is you want to write. As a reader and a historian however, I have to admit that I find these politically correct fictionalizations of the past to be something of a disservice. Part of why the Fantasy genre doesn’t interest me in the first place is that it seems to focus to the exclusion of all else on the nobility. Everything is too clean, too neat, with most problems whisked away with a sword or magic. I suspect before long it will be this way with Steampunk as well, a distorted, sanitized view of what Victorian culture was like.
The past as it should be, not how it was.
Such things I am pondering today.
Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri
Ponderings on Writing
I may have related this story here at the Pondering Tree or perhaps it was as the first version over at Journalspace. If I did it at Journalspace it is most likely lost forever, in which case I should probably tell the story again.
You probably should not openly state that the quality of a certain publication would be greatly improved if its’ editor stepped out in front of a speeding bus. Especially if this editor rejected your story.
Rejections are strange things. On the surface they are easy enough to understand. “We don’t want your story.” But they can be so much more, to the point where reading them and comparing stories is akin to reading the tea leaves. In Terri Lowry’s Creative Writing course we actually spend time talking about rejection letters and their stages of evolution. I should probably talk about that first.
When you send your first stories off you will most likely receive either no response back or a form letter. The form letter will be pretty clear. Depending on the publisher, the form letter may contain guidelines, frequent errors and the like. This is what I received in 2001 when I sent my first stories off to John Joseph Adams, the Editorial Assistant at The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.
Over time, and with some luck, you will evolve as a writer. Editors will begin to leave little comments or notes on your rejections. Gardner Dozois at Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine was known for doing this. What gave me hope is that I received these handwritten slips in very short order, by 2003.
This is a sign that the editor is paying attention and sees some potential. It is also meant to encourage you. It does not mean resubmit that story. I’ll get to resubmissions here in a bit.
If you are persistent, you will eventually receive a full letter in response to your submission. This letter will most likely be typed or these days e-mailed to you. It will contain a critique of your story, what the editor liked, what worked, what the editor did not like and why the editor isn’t going to buy this story. Again, this is a sign of progress. You are getting closer. The editor is taking valuable time to advise you and mentor you. Gardner Dozois sent me such a letter in response to my story Tranquility Lost, which can be found and read for free at Bewildering Stories.
At this point of the game, two things can happen. The Editor in question considers you to be pro-material. You are on the brink of breaking through, right on the edge. It can go either way with your next submission.
The best case scenario is a straight acceptance. I received my first one in 2007 from Andy Cox and his Fiction Committee at Interzone Magazine. This acceptance will talk about why they like the story and what they are prepared to do in order to acquire the story for their publication.
The next best case scenario can be (but isn’t always, I’ll get to that) the rewrite request.
The rewrite request looks like the personal rejection letter. It contains positives and negatives. It also contains advice and suggestions on how to fix the story. Finally, last but not least, this letter will contain an invitation to resubmit your story after you have made the revisions.
Depending on the editor and the quality of advice, you have two choices at this point.
1. Follow the advice and hope for the best.
2. Disregard and send the story to the next market on the list.
I say it depends on the editor because editors, just like writers, have reputations. Some editors have reputations for being supportive, straight up, honest and fair. Other editors have a reputation for being fickle, unclear, or in some cases they have other agendas driving their mission which have nothing whatsoever to do with your career or your story.
In most cases, I would advise this. If you agree AND TRUST the editor in question, as I trusted (and still trust) Gardner Dozois, then rewrite the story and resubmit it.
On the other hand, if you disagree and DO NOT TRUST the editor in question, then you really need to ask yourself if this trip is necessary. Again, there are no guarantees.
Case in point. Most regular readers know this but Gardner Dozois retired (sometimes I’m inclined to think he was forced out by a controversy that brewed up over a particular story but I have absolutely no proof of this) as Editor of Asimov’s. This affected me personally because I rewrote a story for his consideration and it missed his retirement date by one week or so. In fact, fellow writer Lou Antonelli was the last writer purchased by Gardner, he made it by that one week margin.
The new editor, who I won’t name here for a lot of reasons, took over. They took their sweet time getting back to me while I waited on pins and needles for a response, any response, on my story.
The new editor sent another rewrite request. Unlike Gardner’s, it was muddled, unclear and in my mind, contrary to what I was trying to achieve with the story. In fact, at the time, it read very much like a veiled rejection letter. However, I was prodded, both by people in the community and people here in my personal life, to rewrite my story and resubmit it.
I tried to get clarification on the required changes. I received nothing. I had nothing to go on with this new editor, no track record or anything else. All I had was word of mouth from various people who had met her personally. I wasn’t reassured by what I heard but when a goal seems to be SO CLOSE, you decide to push forward.
I rewrote (actually, I butchered) my story.
And I sent it off.
And then it was rejected. If it says anything at all about this new editor, the rejection was partially written by her predecessor and it was a half hearted one at that.
As I said, rejections are funny things. I’ve received maybe fifty to sixty rejections over my career to date. Given that many writers receive hundreds of rejections before they achieve their first professional sales, I have done pretty well. None of those other rejections make me angry. They are part of the business, part of the deal. You just roll with them. You weren’t the flavor of the month.
And most of the rejections since my first sales have been personal ones which indicate, “So close, Murphy but not quite.”
Now here is what you should not do as a writer.
For nearly two years I kept my anger bottled up, something I am not very good at. My friends and family will tell you that the longer I try to suppress my anger, the stronger, the more virulent, the more powerful it will become. However, I kept it pretty well in check for awhile.
Until my first sale in 2007. The reviews came in and contrary to what I expected, they were all positive.
The common belief, one that I held until those reviews started coming in, is that my success at Interzone with Tearing Down Tuesday should have negated the anger, the growing ball of something that transcends anger to a point where the emotion I experience doesn’t even have a proper name.
Instead, success served to reinforce and fuel that anger. My feeling today is that Maternal Soldier is every bit as good as Tearing Down Tuesday and The Limb Knitter. Yet I can’t sell it to save my life.
With the second sale in 2008, more positive reviews plus lots of reader comments at Apex and again, my anger grew.
At the same time that Interzone purchased Tuesday, Asimov’s rejected a story set in the same universe, featuring similar themes. For the record, they aren’t the same story but they do feature a post singularity world.
The current editor at Asimov’s rejected it. Readers aren’t familiar enough with the singularity to know what I was talking about.
Which was really the final straw, I thought. The same magazine that published Charles Stross and his singularity stories wasn’t going to publish this? Especially when Interzone was willing go do down that road?
I remember reading that reject in my dock office at 1000 Walnut on a very cold, snowy day with a mug of tea in hand thinking, “Are you fucking kidding me?”
The message of that reject was pretty clear to me. Gardner’s replacement wasn’t going to buy anything I wrote, no matter what it was.
Eventually, sooner or later, my anger will vent. If you are an aspiring writer or even a small writers, you’ve got to learn how to manage this. Anger scares the living daylights out of folks who do not live in the Blue Collar World.
My anger vented in a series of postings at the magazine’s forum. I basically stated, in many different forms, that I thought the magazine would be greatly improved if the current editor was hit by a speeding bus.
I didn’t threaten this person directly. That is against the law. However, it is not against the law to openly wish for bad things to happen to people. It is just bad manners and perhaps more importantly, bad for your writing career.
Why?
Well, the editorial community is pretty small and they do talk to each other. More to the point they read the forum comments left by readers and writers. What happened is probably common knowledge.
Now, to date, I have no evidence at hand that indicates that my behavior has resulted in the rejection of my stories. No evidence at all. It is possible that it is a factor, in fact it is probable in some cases that it is a factor. Editors don’t want to be associated with nutters and the like.
However, I’m realistic enough to believe that the rejections I have received pertain more to the same things which caused many of my stories to get rejected. The story doesn’t match the editor’s tastes, or the anthology, they have some quirk or flaw that isn’t worth fixing, that sort of thing. It is, again, part of the game.
I should probably make one additional point.
Folks would probably forget what I did eventually, especially if I didn’t remind anyone about it like I am doing right now. But the thing they won’t forget is this.
I am unrepentant. I do still hope for the eventual replacement of the current editor at Asimov’s. By speeding bus, by retirement, by medical emergency or through getting forced out, it matters not to me. I harbor no good will toward this person who I feel is cowardly, dishonest, unclear and incredibly fickle.
My lack of repentance probably doesn’t help my case.
There are things I could be doing with my career. I’ve been advised more than once to give up on short stories and move off into novels. I’ve got some options I am looking at and I will probably see about that. I’ve been advised to give up on science fiction and try my hand at mainstream literature. I’ve been advised to give up on writing fiction and concentrate on my career as a college history instructor. Given that within a year I will have finally realized a full return on my investment as a historian, I can see that point.
For now, however, I will endeavor to keep writing fiction. I’ll write what I want to write.
And we’ll see how it goes.
So it goes.
Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri
Aboard the Battlestar Steven Francis Murphy, BSG-71
Location: Combat Information Center
Mission: Prepping for the Semester’s First Engagement
The Teaching Front
Today we covered more of the Pre-Revolutionary Era which runs from 1763 to 1775. It is, to be certain, a hash of mythology, entangled narratives and a lot of confusing policy wonk stuff.
On the upside, most students have had these lines hammered into their heads.
“No Taxation without Representation.” That is good. But ask them what that means?
“I don’t know.”
So you have to explain the British Parliamentary System. You also, while you are at it, probably better get into the English Civil War (briefly, a little dab will do ya). You might want to mention that the mantra, “No taxation without representation” was not an original notion. Parliamentarians argued about that back in the 1600s.
Then after you line all of that out, you have to explain to them that the Colonials do not have representatives in Parliament. If you want to confuse them, tell them it wouldn’t have done any good to have them there anyway due to the Tyranny of Distance and the time lag in communications.
Next, you have to hammer home the taxes. You should have spent some time explaining the fact that the colonies were allowed to run their own affairs, more or less, up to the 1750s. They are not happy with meddlers and micromanagers. They definitely are not happy with getting the bill for the French-Indian War or making installment payments for the greatly expanded British Empire.
From there you go from taxes and representation to enforcement. That leads to the Vice Admiralty Courts and British efforts to pull away two basic liberties provided for by the common law.
Right to a jury trial and that one is innocent until proven guilty.
So it goes.
Ideally what should happen, if they have been paying attention (and I’m getting better responsiveness out of some classes, probably because they saw the rant in the previous entry) is that they could use the Declaration of Independence as a study guide.
Right now it feels mushy. Sometimes I think what I should do is throw out the current lecture and build a new one based entirely on the Declaration of Independence. Then I can simply go down the list that Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin and John Adams hammered out to make their case in 1775. Here is the various tax acts. There is the effort to block the right to assembly. Over here is that bit about the King’s agents and so on.
In fact, the longer I think on it, the more I like that idea. Hell, it can’t hurt.
Sadly, I won’t be able to truly test it out until the next semester.
We are about to hit the start of the Revolutionary War. They’ll test next Thursday and then we’ll see what we get.
The Fitness Front
Made it to the gym twice this week. If I can get a session in tomorrow and Saturday after class then that will make four.
The Writing Front
I posted elements of my three short story challenge projects at Terri Lowry’s Creative Writing class. They are up a bit early and I suspect it will be a bit before they receive any crits. Of course part of the problem is that sometimes you get a crit that isn’t very helpful. The other part is that I need to crit the work of other students in order to get some likewise response.
Still, they are up and I am ahead.
The more I think on it, the more I think that the key to greater productivity in yours truly is to write the beginning and the end first. Then figure out how we get to the end of the story. The Middle is where I usually have trouble, get lost, lose interest.
Reading
I’m continuing to read Ronald Takaki’s book A Different Mirror. Today I started the chapter covering slavery in American History. Some of this is material I know already. I have to know it if I am going to teach American History 120 effectively since it will lead to the American Civil War. I am not learning anything new per se but I am getting neat little tidbits and details that I greatly enjoy hearing about.
Why wasn’t I exposed to this book? Readers know that I am no fan of political correctness run amok (and there has been plenty of that, especially here lately in the SF field). On the other hand, I can’t see deleting known history out of the narrative. If nothing else, I want to provide a complete survey, or at least as close as possible in the sixteen weeks I have. My students, all of them, regardless of their ethnicity, gender or orientation, deserve no less.
Instead of this book I was exposed to a lot of bloviation and preaching by my instructors at Park College. Instead of this book I encountered a revisionist book called Arming America, which tried to argue that gun ownership prior to the Civil War was a myth. It was the worst sort of book, pseudohistory with falsified, fictional research serving a political agenda (gun control). It won the Bancroft Award and for a long time was held up as the standard by which other historians should orient their efforts.
Turns out the book is pure bunk. Yet you can still purchase it even though most of the book’s assertions have been shown to be false.
Then there is Joseph Ellis and his work. I have trouble taking the man seriously because he lied about his military service. If he lied about that then how I can take his scholarship seriously? He especially caters to the Jefferson/Hemmings narrative which many simply accept at face value.
Myself? I’m skeptical but mainly because there seems to be some room for debate on the matter. I am not skeptical because I’m deeply wedded to the notion of protecting Thomas Jefferson. To me he is just a human being, a smart one, conflicted, and not someone who is above scrutiny.
I wonder, frankly, if I wouldn’t have turned out differently in terms of intellectual and historical development if I had encountered this book sooner.
Full report when I get done with it.
Other Fronts
Completed my Federal Aid Form today. It seems to think that my parents will contribute $80K a year to my education. I nearly fell out of the chair laughing about that. Yes, my parents help a great deal, but they do not have that kind of money. Not even now.
So I suspect I should have filled out that section on the parents after all. I’ll get a chance to change it later.
The objective, right now, is to reenter grad school this Fall. Originally I was thinking about a PhD but it turns out that the C I got fucked with in my last semester at UMKC dropped my GPA just low enough to disqualify my entry into the program.
The gift that keeps on giving. If readers think I am angry at the current editor of Asimov’s, then you have no idea how angry I am at the instructor who fucked me with the C (subjective grading standards, no rubric, and I should have appealed and sued). My anger with the editor at Asimov’s is a mere spark compared to the nuclear inferno I feel about this C.
Which is fine. I know why I was given the C and this sort of bullshit happens in academia. I was given the C to impair my efforts at getting additional graduate hours or a higher degree. There are ways to outflank that and I’ll be making use of it.
Needless to say, at some point, before I depart the planet, I will be getting some measure of revenge (legal revenge).
So it goes.
Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri
The Writing Front: The Tinkerin’ Woman
Word Count: 1200 First Draft
Well, we’ll see how this goes. I have to turn something in for Terri’s class so that may well prompt me to finish something this year. We’ll see. This story, for those that read Tearing Down Tuesday is a prequel. I have one other prequel, Fishin’ Fer Tuesday which is almost finished yet something seems wrong with it. In any case, I think a number of stories are floating around there in that universe.
The writing methodology is a bit different this time. I wrote this stuff out longhand on Monday and Wednesday mornings at a hiding place on campus (no, I won’t say where). This afternoon I got a bit of time to get some work done from Trinity. Since my copy of The Landmark Thucydides is back on campus that meant there’d be no lecture prep. I decided to break open the longhand stuff and do what I swore I’d never do.
Transcribe while the project is in progress. The last time I did this, it took me forever to finish Maternal Soldier. So I’ve always held off repeating that experience. These days time is short and I never seem to have enough of it which is why I figured I may as well transcribe what I have.
I never made a habit of writing with music going but that is what I did today. I opened up YouTube and ran through my instrumental playlist, which is usually reserved for editing functions. Believe it or not, I got a fair amount of work done.
A sign that my writing process is evolving? I don’t know. Ask me when I get the project finished.
As for where I’ll send this story, I suppose Apex and Interzone are the best markets. Interzone mainly because they printed TDT. They might be interested in a prequel. I suspect this story is going to run over the 5K word limit at Apex but they might be interested as well.
Who knows?
Back to work.
Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri
Yeah, I move like a pregnant yak, still. And apparently my fencing stance is crosswired with the new karate stances. I have no sense of balance so my kicks are atrocious and worse, we practice in the aerobics room, which is outfitted with mirrors.
Problem? Well, yeah. I’m distracted by my horrible performance. I’m distracted by the foot and hand movements to my rear, which really tickle the lizard brain into trying to respond so I have to override that.
We did some limited sparing today wherein I learned exactly what the Sensei told us about certain blocks. If you are too slow, all you do is focus the attack straight into your face. On the other hand, we learned a couple of self defense tricks that are so simple that I wondered why no one had taught them to me before. Mainly tricks for dealing with someone trying to choke you.
It was good to know because one of my first tactics was to use chokes against my opponents. I’ve evolved away from that (for a lot of reasons) but it is still in the arsenal as a weapon of last resort. It is nice to see how the chokes can go pear shaped in a hurry. I’ll be a great deal more cautious about them in the future.
So, much to learn in karate. It was another good workout in terms of activity but I was not happy with my performance.
The Teaching Front
We’ve completed Week Three or Days Six and Seven in terms of class meetings. We are on track towards our objective in American History, proceeding on schedule toward 1775 and the first exam. I think we might get there a bit early. On the other hand I may have scheduled the Western Civ exam too early. We still have the Persian War, the Peloponnesian War, Pericles and the Philosophers to cover. I could save the Philosphers for the Second Quarter. Still, I think I may have to move their test back.
I’m always late on getting exams deployed during the first cycle of a new course anyway so I guess that won’t kill anyone. I may move it back a week. We’ll see.
Courses are going well enough. I’ve got sharp students in both mixed in with some who are deep in the throes of apathy. In my Western Civ I think what I have instead of apathy is a sense that I am teaching below their capability which is breeding a sense of contempt. The test may blast some of that out of the brainpans. We’ll see.
The Writing Front
I got in six pages of worth this week on a Tearing Down Tuesday prequel that is tentatively called The Tinkerin’ Woman. The protag will be Audrey Young from the original story, a character who, as time as passed, fascinated me more and more.
It seems that I’ve got a number of titles laying around looking for names. The Pondering Tree could be either a TDT or TLK story, though at this time, I see Kyle Hackshaw sitting under that tree. There aren’t many trees on the Southern Front.
No word yet on Entangled which is still out at an anthology market. My personal feeling is that the story isn’t quite ready, yet I sent it out anyway to keep something in the market. That said, I’ve been told writers are the worst judges of their own work so who knows?
Final decisions for that anthology are upcoming and since I have not received a reject yet, that is usually a sign that I made it pretty near to the top of the stack. We’ll have to see.
The Cancer Front
My Dad is in the hospital still as of today. He has two urinary tract infections, heart trouble, swollen feet, etc. The good news is that his prostate and multiple myeloma cancers are still in remission, which leaves just the lung cancer. The bad news is that if either of those two cancers get rolling, he’s probably had it.
Here is where I shrug and wonder what else to do.
Other Fronts
Not much else to report. I’m slated to participate in a local literary festival at the start of October. More on that as I learn about it.
Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri
The Writing Project: Trying on Steampunk
I threw the book out this morning, found a quiet spot on campus where I would not be bothered and actually managed to get three pages written for a Steampunk short story. I try to keep the ball rolling daily.
Right now I’m writing what I’d want to read which means I threw out all of the crap I had to put into my first two story sales to make them work. It is working a lot better that way.
We’ll see how it goes.
The Fitness Front
I’ve been eating too much crap. I can’t keep eating endless gobs of fried food, fatty crap and mountains of meat. Days pass without a decent salad and I sometimes wonder what it will take to get the venerable salad back into my diet. I’ve got from 195 to 200 and a waistline of 37 inches (probably closer to 38 inches).
I’ve got to get this under control.
The good news is that we started our workouts in Body Building today (yes, I signed up for a class). The first thing I learned is that one probably needs twelve exercises for their program. They need to work their legs first, then upper body, then arms. One is probably looking at three sets per exercise but I am thinking five for dropsets is what I am going to do. I didn’t get through the entire workout (I had to go pick Trinity up from UMKC as we still have only one car) but I got through enough of it to see that it will probably work for me.
The plan, starting tomorrow, is to get in an hour on the strength training and body building. Then I’ll follow it up with an hour of cardio. I have to work out an hour for each of my classes (the other is Physical Fitness) until I reach 30 hours (which is an A). If that doesn’t start to strip the fat off of my body, then I don’t know what I’ll do.
The Teaching Front
I’ve got the last of the Quakers for American History tomorrow. I think I may chat with them about primary and secondary sources first. They’ll hate that. In Western Civ I’m moving into the Egyptians. We’ll have the same chat about primary and secondary sources. Some might actually like that discussion.
On Wednesday I am going to have to hack out some time to work on Thursday notes. I’ve not written a single word for my notes since Thursday. And I’m behind on study guides. They should have gone out already.
Trinity’s Big Day
Trinity started pre-law today, working toward her BA in Sociology. She was nervous about it and I tried to reassure her that she’d do fine. She did as much for me back in August 2007 when, terrified out of my mind, I started my first day of teaching.
Problem is, Trinity doesn’t always listen to me. In fact, a lot of people do not listen to me even though I am bound to be right. This seems to be a recurring theme in my life, so much so that I think my nickname should be Cassandra.
In any event, she had a great first day. And she has homework.
Now I’ve got to try and get some work done.
Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri
Those that done said stuff