Fiction by William R. Vaughn

It's an awful power--the power of life and death. I just realized that the life of a sweet young female is hanging in the balance. Should she die or live to love and make someone else happy? And no, this is not the life of a girl tied up here in my office, but that of one the principal characters in my book Guardians of the Sacred Seven. The book is nearing the end and I really like the new character Herangelica. She's in love with Weiger and he's in love with her. They have both endured violence, pain and unspeakable torture but now she's in mortal danger--from me. But she's not a typical helpless female. Do those really exist anymore? Forced to take the life of six sems (male elves), Herangelica carries their souls and images of their dying faces like Jacob Marley's chains. Does she need to die at the hands of Jazon, a brutally evil fundamentalist to atone for her sins? Should she live and bear the guilt of those (albeit evil) sems she has slain?

So as an author I have to decide. I have to decide whether she lives or dies and how she meets her fate. I want to tell her true story, but she hasn't told me what it is. It's an awesome responsibility.

After wading through my snail-mail, email and tweets today, I got an uncomfortable feeling. It's not like I have buzzards circling above the house, but more like the panic I felt when stepping off a bus in downtown Bangkok for the first time. Before your American shoe hits the street, you're surrounded by a horde of vendors of all ilk's trying to sell you snacks, a taxi or their virgin sister. Having lived in Bangkok for my high school years, I quickly learned how to fend these folks off without offending them. It takes pretty good Thai, but a firm "my ow" usually does the trick.

But what about the folks trying to market to us just-off-the bus authors? We're offered services of all kinds, how-to-books, quick-path-to-riches courses, contests, seminars and conferences? How do we novitiates know the difference between those just pumping out material for any schmuck with a typewriter and those that can provide genuinely good content for hardworking authors. How do we know which will help those of us trying to make the best use of their limited budget of time and their spouse's money?

Just asking.

Bill

• The TV remote decides in your best interest that you really shouldn't watch Fox (anything)
• The furnace computer decides your house really should be 45 degrees year-round
• Your new smartphone starts sending videos non-stop to some garage in China where teenagers giggle at your antics
• Your car decides that each destination you program into the navigation system should include a trip through the Cleveland ghettos.

Cheery? Consider that the Windows Home edition is several orders of magnitude more complex than the software used to launch the Apollo missions. Consider that Windows users blindly (or automatically) post updates to their systems from some unseen site somewhere in the cloud. What happens if somehow some Dr. No takes over these servers and "updates" everyone's systems?

Welcome to the 21st century.

Bill Vaughn

Our regular Tuesday movie night was re-enabled as my UW class is taking a break. Getting discount popcorn is also an incentive. Last night we saw Steven Spielberg's War Horse. I can see why the critics acclaim it even though I don't always agree with them. While the cinematography was great (especially the final scene), the story drew me in right away. I also got to like the characters and horse actors despite the son's somewhat sappy behavior (at times). The acting was special as well. The theme? In a word: Devotion. Devotion to family, a horse, countries, friends and comrades in arms. Moving. I give it 5 stars.

However, what struck me as very special was the lack of gore. The story is set in World War I--one of the most brutal human conflicts in history where seventeen million lives were lost and countless more were wounded or were never the same again. It was a time when generals had the impression that gallantry and valor could win over machine guns. We saw a courageous (and insane) horseback charge that ended... well, not well. What we didn't see was the gore. We got the point none-the-less. Over and over again we saw innocents struck down but without actually seeing their blood and entrails blown all over the screen.

Mr. Spielberg, thank you. I have plenty of first-hand images of the horror of war to know that it's not a solution to anything. Like today, it was the politicians that sent other people's sons (and daughters) into harm's way. And we still have not learned this lesson--and we never will. Memories of war seem so horrible at the time but fade into golden glorious fantasies as those who actually did the fighting pass away.

Bill Vaughn

I just finished book one of The Hunger Games series last night. I will say that it kept me up well past midnight two nights ago and I actually turned off the TV to finish it last night. Ms. Collins does a great job of character development, but I’ll admit to being a bit confused as to the gender of the heroine Katniss in the early pages. But that’s good—it does not follow a stereotypical female role which is appealing. Reading critically to help improve my own YA work, I found the character development to be enlightening and the pacing snappy. I learned quite a bit about folding in backstory that I hope to leverage in my next book.

That said, I think the story lays an onerous burden on today’s kids. Of course, too many American kids are totally unprepared to survive in the wild or  fend for themselves away from fast-food burger places and vending machines. Sure, Boy Scouts (but not most Girl Scouts) learn and practice critical survival skills, but ask an average American kid (or adult under 40) to make a shelter or build a fire and you would probably end up standing in the rain freezing to death. I hope that they never need the skills that Katniss had to learn—but they might.

My concern is not just about atrophied survival skills. Many of our kids today are also ill-prepared to deal with the serious family issues of grief, poverty and injustice that Katniss tackles alone and full-stride almost entirely without adult help. But should they? Should we imply that kids should try to take on these burdens alone? To make her point, Ms. Collins portrays many of the adults as drunken sots, conniving villains, overbearing tyrants and emotional basket-cases. Yes, some eventually show compassion for Katniss, but where are the loving, caring parents that kids should learn to lean on when they need help? Parents that would lay down their lives for their children. Even in a dystopian state, there will still be good, dependable, loving, nurturing parents—but I guess that does not make as interesting a story. I hope this trend does not continue in the next couple of books in the series.

Don’t get me wrong, I can see how The Hunger Games became popular. I’m off to buy Catching Fire and Mockingjay. I wish Ms. Collins all the success in the world but I look forward to reading books where kids depend on parents and other caring adults instead of trying to take up the world’s problems on their own shoulders.

Bill Vaughn

Fred, (my daughter, the English major) encouraged me to read more (does that mean she wants me to write less?). To that end, I’ve been trolling for YA books that I can read on my Kindle Fire. Speaking of trolling, I was listening to KUOW here in Seattle on my way home from class and Neil Gaiman read his short story Troll-Bridge just as I was crossing the 520 toll bridge—ironic. I was captivated by the story and his voice—he’s fun to listen to on a dark night. I drove a bit faster under the bridges so unfortunately, I arrived home far too soon, and I didn’t get to hear the end of the story. The hero was about to give his girlfriend to the troll. This morning I did a bit of research and discovered the story is available on Kindle in a compendium Smoke and Mirrors (and in a number of other books). It’s a bit pricey at $9.99, so I’ll look for it at the 1/2 price bookstore here in Redmond.

I also got a helpful tweet from the writing couple M.A. Leslie, so I took a look at the preview of their book The Missing and five minutes later I was hooked. This one I bought ($.99). It’s a captivating story of a boy and “the children” that live (?) across the abyss in his basement.I can’t wait to read it. I’ll post a review once I finish it. There’s something to be said for a low Kindle price…

Bill Vaughn

The Owl Wrangler, still only $1.95 on Kindle

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For those of you that care (probably a null set), I've just upgraded my blog to MovableType 4.37.

For those of you that don't care, the blog should work better now and make it easier for folks to comment and for me to find out about when you do.

Please report any issues to me directly.

Thanks

Bill Vaughn

I’m tuning my blog software and it seems to be accepting comments in the current configuration. BUT if you get an error message that does not make sense, please feel free to tweet or send me some email. My email address is: 

Thanks for your indulgence.

Our last Popular Fiction II class for the semester was held last night over on the University of Washington campus. I arrived well after dark, which is about 4:30 here in the Northwest. Walking in from the parking lot was like a scene from a horror movie--all I needed was the scary music to get me to break into a run. The only people I saw scurrying for the safety of cars and light were just as trepidatious, not wanting to make eye contact with a six-foot geezer they didn't recognize. I was glad to find that the classroom was well lit and not populated with zombies.

Pam Binder (New York Times bestselling author) was our course mentor, professor and chocolate-enabler. Last night she included a lively discussion about electronic publishing as we contrasted the "traditional" publishing houses with the new print-on-demand, Kindle and other small-press and eBook publishers. I thought I would share part of the discussion here.

Over the last few months, I’ve been visiting Junior High and Elementary schools in an attempt to get young people interested in writing—and reading. My short presentation “Reading, Writing and Arithmetic” helps students see and talk to a real writer, understand what we do, and learn how important writing is no matter what they ultimately want to do in life. Sure, I get the kid down front that says he does not need to know how to read or write ‘cause he’s “… gonna be a baseball star.” I suggest he might have a better chance of winning the lottery but also remind him that he can only play until he’s about 35 or when his knees give out.

“I’ll be rich by then,” he says.

“Okay, but how will you learn about your sport if you can’t read the newspaper or sports magazines? How will you be able to understand your contracts if you can’t read?” I ask.

“I’ll watch it on Fox Sports” he says.

By then, I’m feeling that I’ve lost my case but perhaps a seed of doubt has been sown—but I’m not hopeful. His teacher shrugs her shoulders.