I’m Plotting… (Splintegrate & other updates)
I’ve been incommunicado for an extended period here and at my political blog. I’ve been regrouping regarding my work and writing life and have mostly been offline since the fall. This was not in keeping with my plan for regular posting (bad Teramis, no award for prolific blogging), but was a necessary hiatus vis-a-vis Life & Everything.
Now that I am in hour 18 of a low level scan-and-repair process for my ailing hard drive on my main ‘puter, I thought I’d turn to my laptop to spend a little catch-up time with readers here at the Lizard Lair. This will prevent me from staring at the slowly remapping sectors on my other monitor (watched pots refusing to boil and all that), and will also let me share some info regarding my book Splintegrate, and a few other things.
Splintegrate
Splintegrate has been a perverse fascination of mine for over a decade now. It was conceived of a few years after Mainline saw print. My work with it has gone through cycles where I have been on fire with the storytelling of it, and other phases where the well has been completely dry, such as during the multi-year decline and then death of my mother from congestive heart failure. A series of life episodes of that “major life change” nature derailed my creative process for longer than I care to think about; there was a period between 2000 and 2005, for instance, when I read not so much as a single fiction book. I could write it (fitfully) but I couldn’t absorb it.
The point of this is to say, writing Splintegrate has been a challenge on more levels than simply the craft-related ones of telling a good story.
The craft challenges, however, are also there as in any novel-length work. After being 95% finished with this book last year, I realized I was not telling the best story possible. I was in a bind between the story I had originally envisioned, where the characters where actually taking it, and some breakdowns in plot/motivation that this disconnect had created along the way. Something fundamental was not clicking with the story. After bashing my head against walls and keyboards numerous times while analyzing plot issues, I finally had to put the work aside for a time and approach it later with a fresh eye.
“Later” has come around during the last month or so. In particular, I am taking some new approaches to reworking the plot that seem to (finally) be bearing some fruit. One of the most helpful insights came from revisiting character motivations and conflicts, and identifying specific plot points where motivations were not clearly enough defined for subsequent actions to be as riveting as they should be. Right now I’m wrapping up this plot analysis and next will be rewriting earlier scenes to better explore those motivational issues that drive later events. Then following some of those motivations down new storylines to a different set of consequences than are presently written.
This is a normal rewrite process for any book, but in this case I have been unable to see the trees for the forest. My plotting breakthoughs come on the heels of two specific things, which I want to mention here in case they are helpful to other writers.
Video Lizard, With Meeple
My more substantive blogging is a little delayed at the moment. Here in the Lizard Lair I’m putting the pieces in place to podcast (say that three times fast), and also to do some streaming video, which could happen live, but will probably happen more in vlogging style or maybe cut nicely for YouTube consumption. Depends how much of a learning curve I want to climb, or how obsessive I become with new (to me) tech toys.
This week I’ve been accruing the geek widgets necessary for this next step in the evolution of dinosaurian communications. I have been spurred on by the fact that I have four pet mice (the Mouse People, or, Meeple, in my lexicon) who sort of surround me in their various cages where I work in my writer’s cave. They are rather compelling of my attention and I confess I am far more amused at their antics and behaviors than I ever imagined I would be.
I used to think, “Mice? Meh.”
Then I saved one from being dinner in the snake cage. This small white feeder mouse of course became Minnie Mouse. Then I had to get her a female companion, a large exotic who was Maxi Mouse, short for Maxine. Then it turned out Maxine was a Max (ahem), and suddenly there were mouse babies.
For a while there I felt like I was having tribbles. From one good deed to hordes of meeple in 4 weeks flat…
Several died early deaths, two for lack of nursing, I think, one killed by her own curiosity (Magellan Mouse, too intrepid an explorer who snuck outside the cage), and one of heat stroke, through a tragic transportation accident to and from the vet’s. Sigh. No wonder they have hordes of babies in their litters. Life is cheap when you’re a mouse. But 2 survived: the gray girl mouse, who became G.G., now Geegers, or Gigimus if we’re being formally latinate. And Mini-Me, the runt of the litter, a little boy who looked and acted just like his mother, and who was inseparable from her side until he had to be moved out when he hit adolescence (No more tribbles!)
So. I have Max, the large hefty boy who walks hanging from the roof of his tank, to whom I sing the Spider Mouse song (think Homer’s Spider Pig, only about a mouse). There is gentle little Minnie Mouse who runs laps every night, and Mini-Me, now grown into Micro-Mouse (Mike for short), who chuckles and chirps while he plays games in his cage wheel. And Gigimus, who fiercely defends the girls’ cage from intrusion by The Food Giant. (That would be me.)
This isn’t Geegers, exactly, but it could be if we had teeny little mouse protective gear to put on her. It certainly captures her guard-mouse attitude.
I’ve decided I should film some meeple footage, maybe start a Mouse Channel on YouTube. If I can catch the cute parts of their behavior on vid, and edit it right, it could be quite amusing to watch. Don’t know how much time I’ll have for this, but I figure this would be a fun project by which I could learn some technical how-to’s regarding desktop video and sound editing. Then I’ll be set for more serious non-meeple related Real Lizard content. I actually have quite a few things I want to record and release to the public, some of which have to do with my science fiction/fantasy writing, so a good learning project or two will serve me in good stead.
Besides, if I have to suffer periodically from Kw00tons over here, you should too. Share the joy and all that, you know?
I have a web cam on the way with a gooseneck on it that is perfect for setting up an in-cage view of meeple. When that’s here, along with my new (1 terabyte!!!! can we say Geek Heaven?) hard drive, then I’ll be ready to start putting the pieces together. Then there’s the re-doing the office, rearranging hardware, organizing and connecting multimedia components (audio recording gear, mixer, etc)…
A bit of a project, but it will rebuild my work platform and workspace, and take my project capability to a whole new level.
Meanwhile, our regularly scheduled book writing and blogging will continue apace. Stay tuned for more.
I leave you with this interesting photo of Super Mouse, a little fellow photographed as he leapt clear of a trap, a trick he and his fellows were apparently quite good at, according to the photographer and other pix in this spread. This appeared in the July 16, 1956 issue of Life magazine[1], the week I was born.
________
1. The mouse photo spread starts on page 10. Interestingly, on page 92 of this same issue is an article summarized in the table of contents this way:
The Nixon Controversy. Would Richard M. Nixon make a good president? The most controversial figure in U.S. politics in pro and con debate.
Canada, FTW!
“Canadian, Please…” From a duo called Gunnarolla: song written the night before, video filmed the next day, and the consummate skinny on why we all want to be Canadian, please. Support these talented musicians by buying this tune at iTunes, if you like it.
The lizard in the lair gives this two claws up. They rock!
And the ‘behind the scenes’ reel is also entertaining.
Future Science: the Lazy Man’s Snow Shovel
I’m starting a new occasional feature here, which I think of as my “Back to the Future” columns. It is a look at futuristic devices and predictions for the future, coming from various times and places in the past. Have we met or surpassed those visions of a golden tomorrow? Let’s find out.
Without further ado, then, I bring you….
Today’s offering of future science comes to us from the February 16, 1953 issue of LIFE magazine. Here we are introduced to an amazing labor saver just in time for winter snow: that wonder of modern technology, the remote-controlled snow shovel! Let’s take a look, shall we?
Remote-Controlled Snow Shovel from Reo Motors, 1953
If the machine looks suspiciously like a lawn-mower, well, there’s a reason for that. Here’s what Life had to report:
Lazy Man’s Snow Shovel
Converted lawn mower that clears winter walks is guided by radio signals
Lazy men got some authoritative support recently when two physiology professors concluded that shoveling snow for 10 minutes is harder on the heart than running up 61 flights of stairs. They may get a good deal more comfort out of a new automatic shoveler that picks up snow from the sidewalk, tosses it 15 feet away while the operator sits snug inside his living room pushing three small buttons (above).
The shoveling machine is a Reo Motors’ version of its remote-control grass-cutter (”Lazy Man’s Mower,” LIFE, June 26, 1950). Like the mower, it has a 1 3/4 hp motor and is steered by radio. When the switches are pressed in the living room, radio signals are beamed to the machine, picked up by its cone-shaped antenna and fed to electric relays which start, stop, or turn the plow. But while the plow looks like man’s best foul-weather friend, it may never go on the market. Reason: it would have to sell for $1,000.
Well, no wonder that didn’t catch on. That’s equivalent to $8048.71 in 2008 dollars! Still, aside from problems with snow deeper than 3″, and wheel-spinning on icy patches, it seemed to work just fine.
Where are these today, now that our tech has made some improvement?
______
About the Future Science graphic:
The nifty logo-ish graphic on this page is the cover of a Buck Rogers book from 1933, slightly edited by moi. I may be adding other graphic themes after a while but generally I’ll have a smaller version of Buck or someone like him as a handy visual tag so you can spot Future Science columns at a glance.
As soon as I have some time for a little housekeeping around here, I’ll also open a gallery where older FS posts and artwork can hang out in one central location for easy browsing and bookmarking.
Strange Maps
The Afro-Latinosaurus
I’m looking for some Flash Gordon info and came across a map of the planet Mongo at this most click-worthy site, Strange Maps.
The home page features a flow chart of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and some cartozoological animals (”the discovery and study of animals outlined paradigmatically by street layouts as they appear on maps“). And since this is the Lizard Lair, I would be remiss if I did not also point you to the tyrannasaurus rex that lurks in the continental profiles of South America and Africa.
Here’s a joyous dinosaur roar out to the twisty mind that conceives all of this, for whom I can find no obvious ‘about’ info at the site, but is revealed by the book he’s produced (Strange Maps: An Atlas of Cartographic Curiosities) based on this site’s contents. His name is Frank Jacobs, and apparently he’s been banging away at this inspired cartographical conceit since 2006. Huzzah!
I am a rabid map afficiando, and spend quite a lot of time making them as accompaniment to my role-play gaming and to create/illustrate the landscapes relevant to my books. (I’ll be posting more about that this next month.) So I’m in hog heaven with this new discovery. I may actually have to start reading and posting over there now and then.
Warning: there is a lot there that will suck you in and squander your work hours. But go ahead and check it out.
You know you want to.
>>Click Here<<
Gene Therapy Part I: HIV, the New Silver Bullet
HIV virions budding from cultured lymphocyte cell
What is an HIV virus that doesn’t cause HIV?
It might be the key to medical cures based on genetics.
Since we’ve decoded the human genome, a tantalizing prospect has loomed before researchers and the medical community: gene therapy. If we can understand what genes cause an illness or defect, and if we can repair or replace them with a more desirable alternative, then we can correct problems at a cellular level. Gene therapy is non-invasive. The body fundamentally reforms itself, and new cells that grow after treatment follow the new, improved blueprint in the altered DNA.
We grow new cells all the time, not only when we’re healing from an injury. For instance, our constantly regenerating skin gives us entirely new palms every 24 to 48 hours. In fact, our entire bodies rebuild themselves about every 7 years. Why not take advantage of this constant growth and replacement cycle to literally build “a new you”, free of whatever was ailing you?
Scientists have been thinking about this for quite a while.
Two Gene Therapy Obstacles
This approach to medicine and genetics faces two major challenges. One is our as-yet limited knowledge about which particular genes are responsible for a given set of traits, symptoms and syndromes we have identified. Simply mapping the human genome is not enough: this gives us a map, yes, but as they say, the map is not the terrain. Does this bit of genetic code here affect your reaction to stress, or does it control your affinity for alcohol? Deciphering these linkages is an ongoing process. We’re making progress, but so far have only scratched the surface.
The other major hurdle is how to alter genes once we know what section of code is relevant to a problem. DNA can be segmented – removing a related chunk of code, like pulling a clause out of a sentence – and a new segment spliced in its place. This process involves specialized enzymes and careful gene mapping to identify the segments being tweaked, and lends itself best to laboratory manipulation.
Yet DNA can be changed in another way, as well: it can be rewritten in place in a human body, physically altered in situ. If we can rewrite the genetic code in place, nothing needs to be removed and reinserted. Ideally, once initiated, DNA alteration would continue automatically within the subject’s own body. But this neat solution is significantly more challenging. How do we work on the submicronic level to rewrite a body’s genetic code?
HIV to the Rescue
The answer, surprisingly, may be HIV. Viruses survive by attaching themselves to host cells and rewriting segments of DNA to replicate themselves. HIV is so pernicious in part because it infiltrates the body so thoroughly and does such an aggressive job of reprogramming the host’s genetic code and replicating itself. Unlike most viruses it can even penetrate stem cells, to reformulate the code of the basic building blocks of the human body.
Now, in a ground-breaking therapy, a team if French scientists have stripped the HIV virus of its deadly components and used it as the vehicle to carry tailored genetic code into two host bodies.
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Welcome to Open Salon Readers!
For those who may not know, I’m happy to say that the post in my New York Under Water series just got selected as an Editor’s Pick at Open Salon. There’s been a bump in readership here in consequence, so this is me rolling out the welcome mat for new readers visiting here for the first time.
You might like to check out some of the Recommended posts in the bottom right sidebar: they’ve been popular with readers over time. This site is dedicated to my fiction work and speculation about the social impact of change and the “what if” of science. If you have current events or political interests, you might also like to see my rather left-brained social and political commentary blog, Cogitations. Everything else here is pretty self explanatory. Walk around, kick the tires. Watch out for the space aliens.
Welcome to the Lizard Lair, and I hope you enjoy this writer’s cave. 
UK government’s global warming map
Just came across an interesting bit at Jean Marc Rommes’ insightful Long View blog. He’s spotted an interactive global warming map put out by the UK government and posts a troubling screen shot of expected global consequences with a 4 degree temperature rise and a summary of what the map program does.
In my recent New York Under Water series about the now-unstoppable 2-meter sea rise we can expect to see, that estimate is based on a conservative 2 degree temp rise. Things get a lot uglier the hotter the globe gets. See the Rommes links above for a quick look, and pointer to the UK site. Don’t know about you but I love interactive maps, even if they play with scenarios of global disaster. Maybe especially then.
New York Under Water, pt 3: Global Warming in Science Fiction
This is part 3 of a 3-part series on the sea level changes we will likely need to deal with in the future, and what science fiction has to say about the matter. Earlier posts are here: Part 1, Part 2.
“May You Live in Interesting Times”
What will people do when the sea rises as much as 6″ a year, and in a few years washes away their beachfront homes, and floods the streets of their coastal towns and cities? What will businesses do, when in a relative handful of years, the properties they own and have developed become worthless structures below sea level on a new flood plain? It’s certain they won’t have buyers for those properties, and they can forget flood insurance, once the inevitability of the sea’s encroachment becomes evident to all.
How will society and government respond when the public discourse switches from, “it’s not going to happen anytime soon, if it happens at all,” to, “Oh my God, we’re losing our homes, businesses, and the urban area where our friends, family, and resources are.” It is a scenario that reminds one of Katrina, on a global scale: not as abrupt, but every bit as long-term devastating as the waters that swallowed vital parts of New Orleans.
Maybe the Katrina experience holds some vital lessons for us, some clues about what not to do, and how best to navigate a future where the earth has changed around us. We will certainly need some role models and inspiring visions for the eventuality of dealing with significant sea level changes. Right now real-life examples are few, and it is here, perhaps, that science fiction can be helpful. Stories let us test drive scenarios, explore responses in an imaginary realm before we need to work them out in the material world we live in. What does science fiction have to say about sea level changes?
I think it’s precisely the job of science fiction to ask these “what if” questions, and to help us look at uncomfortable scenarios of this sort from the safe remove of a fictional distance. While some state and urban agencies are already doing contingency planning for a climate-changed future, these issues have barely begun to surface in the public consciousness. Science fiction allows us to think them through in advance, see how they might play out, and gives us a role-playing jumpstart on possible reactions and responses to disaster.
So far there is not a large quantity of climate-change related sf on the market. I predict there will be a significant jump in this genre of science fiction over the coming decade, as we see more earth changes that cannot be ignored. Right now, there is what I think of as the “pebbles before the avalanche” of this kind of future exploration. They seem to fall into two camps: one is directly climate change related, the other is catastrophic climate change on the heels of an unimaginable and sudden earth-scale disaster. Some things in this vein that have left an impression on me:
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New York Under Water, pt 2: What Does a 2-Meter Sea Rise Look Like?
This is part 2 of a series of posts about climate change, rising sea levels, and science fiction. See part 1 here and part 3 here. Incidentally, if you are a climate change denier, my footnote at the end of this post is for you.
If you find stark sea level change and “submerged city” hard to envision, you can see what a 6-foot sea level rise (or more) looks like at this delightful (for some value of “delight”) Google Earth-based flood map.
2 meter sea rise in New York (Click to see full size at the Google Map site)
In this map, south Manhattan Island (northeast corner of map) protrudes into the upper Hudson Bay. Liberty Island (bottom left corner of map) is submerged, although most of the statue still stands above water. Ellis Island is encroached upon, and will eventually sink beneath the waves.
The Colgate Center on the Jersey shore, and the Hudson River Park, just north of the map picture, are now in the river, not flanking it. On this bit of Manhattan, from the Police Museum in the southeast, to the financial district south and west of the World Trade Center memorial, the business heart of New York is under 6 feet or so of water. The south end of Broadway is lapped by waves.
Changes on this scale are radical by any measure, and potentially catastrophic. They will not be limited to New York, but will affect any coastal location of low-enough elevation to be flooded with a 2-meter rise in sea water. It is a virtual certainty that we will see a 1-meter increase by 2100, and highly likely that it will be 2 meters.
Depending on the rate of global warming and ice melt in the coming decades, there is a strong possibility it could exceed even that measure. For instance, if the Antarctic Ice Sheet should melt and detach from the continent, the ocean will rise disproportionately in other regions of the globe, and North America can expect to see a sea rise of 20 feet or more. (Try the 7 meter flood level on the map, and see what that looks like in contrast to 2.) It is not unimaginable that we will see significant sea level change by mid-century. 2050 is only forty years from now: well within most of our lifetimes.
Change
Sea change of this magnitude will have concrete, expensive, and disruptive impact on human life. A large portion of the world’s population lives in coastal areas. Even a 1-meter rise will affect 100 million people worldwide; higher sea level rises will affect even more. A 2- meter rise in seas (much less the higher levels that are, in fact, a strong possibility over the next century and beyond) is enough to submerge huge expanses of commercial and residential real estate, dispossessing people, forcing migrations away from coastal areas, and putting an end to the productive use of developed land along coast lines and flood-susceptible waterways.
Such change is the stuff of science fiction. It is not surprising that ordinary people are not thinking about or discussing what changes on this scale are likely to look like, and what impact they are likely to have. As the scientists at Real Climate observe, “The problem is not that people think that we will get 6 meters of sea level rise this century, it’s that they don’t think there’ll be anything to speak of.”
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