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Archive for September, 2011

A Writer’s Crash Guide to Recent Social Media Changes: Google+

Posted in Social Media, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , on September 29, 2011| 14 Comments »

Earlier this week we covered Facebook’s new direction, including both the potential large upside for writers and the accompanying privacy concerns. But what about Google+? Where does it fit into this picture? (Disclaimer: my husband, you may remember, works on Google+, so I’m not an uninterested party here. Apparently I also need to tell you explicitly that these are my opinions and not his. So yes, all mine. Especially the brilliant parts.)

Google+ has only been public for a little more than a week, and has only been live at all for the past three months. So we’re still in the very early days, which means there is still a lot of room for conjecture. First, let’s talk about a few differences between Facebook and Google+ (although with all of FB’s recent changes, there are less of them than there were). I was happy to have independent verification that Google+ is not doing the creepy cookie thing that makes me so concerned about Facebook and its privacy. There’s also less chance of accidentally posting information you don’t want posted, which is always nice. With its recent integration of Hangouts (group video chat) with new tools, especially Google Docs and screen views, Google+ lends itself well to collaboration in creative, business, and educational fields (and even recreational). The Google+ stream is not filtered the way Facebook is; you see all the posts being shared with you, although not in straight reverse chronological order as sometimes new comments will make an old post jump back higher in your stream. Google+ has garnered a reputation for hosting more in-depth discussions and conversations and for being a great platform for meeting new people.

I’m reluctant to talk about Google+’s real names policy because I know that many people feel passionately about it and I don’t want this conversation to center only on that. Regarding writers, I will say that I don’t think it’s Google’s aim to penalize those of us who write under pseudonyms. I personally expect that once Google+ has matured a bit more, this policy will lose its relevance, if for no other reason than that Google will find it impossible to enforce such a policy. For writers in particular, as long as your pseudonym looks like a standard American name (ie first and last), the odds are that you won’t have problems. But it is a concern that Google needs to address in some way so that users feel completely comfortable investing in the site.

A baby hedgehog with a lot of potential… (Okay, you’ve got me, I just wanted to include a hedgehog photo.)

Why might writers consider being on Google+ right now?

1. Hatred of Facebook. It happens, and now there’s an alternative for having an online presence that is more conducive for conversation with fans and communities. Twitter can also do this, but it feels more ephemeral in time and is difficult for communicating more complicated ideas or sharing links (since they are truncated and therefore very mysterious). So this may partly depend on your style of communication, and of course, carries the downside of not having the sheer number of users as Facebook.

2. Early adopter status. One of the main benefits of this is getting a head start. Users who are early adopters tend to have large follower counts, both because they’ve been doing it longer and because they are present at the beginning when more people are looking for interesting content for their streams. For example, I have well over 1000 people following me on Google+ after three months, whereas I have friends in the three hundreds on both Facebook and Twitter.

3. If you are an sf/f writer, being active on Google+ right now is a no brainer, because guess what? Your fans make up a large portion of the current user base. Google+ is known to be particularly popular with the high-tech crowd, many of whom enjoy science fiction and fantasy. So the potential for building your fan base is very good. Not to mention that the artist communities (comic book artists, photographers, and writers in particular) are well represented as well–hence why Google+ is great for collaboration and networking.

4. Positioning. Writers want to be in the best place to take advantage of whatever changes may benefit them. Keeping up to date with what’s going on with these social platforms and understanding the basics of how they work means greater speed in adapting and leveraging them to work for you.

What I am most excited about, though, is the huge future potential of Google+. Remember how I said that it is becoming known as a great place to meet new people? Well, guess what the point of having a social media strategy is in the first place. Yes, that’s right: meeting new people in order to build a fan base. On Facebook, the vast majority of my friends are people I’ve met in real life. On Twitter, the vast majority of my followers are newer writers like myself, indie writers, and social media professionals who use words like SEO in their personal descriptions. I certainly have a fair number of writers following me on Google+ as well, but I’m also being followed by lots of..wait for it… normal people! I know, right? Who knew that could happen? And these people are all potential readers who might like my work. Plus, for an added bonus, they’re really interesting to talk to. So while I stand by my assertion that Facebook is great for more established writers due to its larger reach, Google+ is great for writers actively trying to build a fan base before they even have a publishing track record. If you read a lot about social media and writers, you have doubtless read how we’re all supposed to start building a “platform” a few years before our first novel hits the presses. Google+ seems positioned to be a powerful tool to do just that.

With its new search feature that came out last week, Google+ became a tool for discovery. I can now search for posts about subjects I care about on Google+, which is a great way to meet people. With its release of shared circles, in which users can take a screenshot of a current circle and share it with their followers, we’ve been given the means to share groups of people who we know are interested in photography, or current events, or reading, or whatever topic we want, which will also facilitate discovery. My hope is that Google will continue to pursue this line of development and begin to offer more advanced and refined methods of finding other users with similar interests.

Next week I’m planning to discuss ways for writers (or anyone else) to be interesting and discoverable on social media. And then maybe I’ll be able to tear myself away from this topic for long enough to talk about something else.

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A Writer’s Crash Guide to Recent Social Media Changes: Facebook

Posted in Social Media, Writing, tagged , , , , on September 26, 2011| 6 Comments »

There have been a lot of shifts in social media in the last few months. Google+ has entered the field and become known for its Hangouts (which can now even be broadcasted), its conversations, and its potential for collaboration. Facebook launches the rest of its redesign on or around September 30, including Timeline (the scrapbooking and record-keeping replacement of the profile and wall) and deep integration with applications, most notably media applications (music, movies, TV, news and articles, etc.).

First, a few more details about Facebook’s newest features. Its application integration will make it easy to automatically share information on the internet, from what article you’re reading to what recipe you’re cooking to what song you’re listening to. Once you give a certain app–whether that be Spotify, the Washington Post, or Hulu–permission to share your activities (you only need to give this permission one time ever per app), it will stream all your behavior directly to Facebook without you having to make additional clicks for each item you’re sharing. The idea is that this will make it easier for people to serendipitously discover media based on what their friends are doing, and there are already discussions about how this could be revolutionary for the music industry in particular (not to mention a possible savior of the faltering print news organizations). All of these application updates will be shown in the scrolling ticker box on the righthand side of your screen, as well as being recorded on your Timeline. (I’ve also already seen some of them creeping into the News Feed.) And speaking of the Timeline, you (and your friends) will be able to see anything and everything you’ve ever put up on Facebook.

What I’m interested in is how these changes will affect possible social media strategies for writers (although much of what I’m thinking may affect other creatives as well). First, Facebook. Honestly, it is difficult (although not impossible) to avoid strategies that don’t incorporate Facebook in some way, either through a personal account or through Facebook Pages, at least not for writers who have at least one novel published. Once you have fans, Facebook becomes logical since it has the largest user base, therefore making it much more convenient as a way for people to find you. The less of a niche market you’re targeting, the more important Facebook becomes. Having an author website and/or blog is great, but following a blog, whether through RSS, bookmarks, or email subscription, takes a greater level of engagement and commitment than simply liking an author page, and therefore Facebook gives writers a greater reach, allowing them to keep a larger fan base updated as to their activities and upcoming releases.

Once the changes to the Open Graph (aka the applications) roll out, Facebook offers even more advantages to the established writer. While I didn’t see Amazon, B&N, or Goodreads on Facebook’s truncated graphic of partners, that graphic by no means represents their complete list of media partners. Rest assured that one way or another, you’ll be able to share the books you’re reading through this system sometime in the not-so-distant future. Factor in the burgeoning e-book market, and it doesn’t take a social media expert to figure out that Facebook will play an even larger role in book marketing. The ticker feed, through which uses will share without even having to remember to do so beyond granting the initial permissions, has huge potential for increasing word-of-mouth on books people are reading, and word-of-mouth is among the very best of marketing that a book or business can receive. This is a big deal, dear writers, not just for the music and newspaper industries but also for the publishing industry. And hopefully you are beginning to see why I think refusing to be on Facebook as a writer carries a hefty cost. Granted, you’ll receive the ticker word-of-mouth regardless of whether you have an account, but how much better if a user finds you via Facebook and is then able to Like your page?

However, I do have serious concerns about the privacy implications of these new features, which seem to me to be ultimately much more about what’s good for Facebook and advertisers than what’s good for the users. Of course, this is all very new and not even rolled out for most users, but I’ve already had a friend who accidentally shared that he had read an article on a controversial subject. Not a great sign, and obviously Facebook users will have to stay really on top of their sharing. Plus there have recently been allegations that Facebook monitors everywhere you visit through your browser, even if you are logged out (through cookies, for those of you technically cognizant people), which means you could be sharing an awful lot of information with them (often without even realizing it). If this is true (it is certainly technically possible), there are measures that can be taken to minimize this while still using Facebook, like denying all apps access to your account, using an incognito window of the Chrome browser for Facebook and not opening any other tabs in that window, or using a dedicated browser for just Facebook (ex. if you use Firefox for your normal internet usage, you can download Chrome and use it for only Facebook). But I worry that these potential security problems and accompanying measures might be too confusing for many writers to understand and implement.

My other concern has to do with noise. If everyone on Facebook is sharing all their daily activities with everyone else, literally every movie, song, TV show, hike, meal, book, article, run, sleep cycle, etc., how effective will this be as a marketing strategy? Will significant numbers of people actually discover new authors and books through their tickers, or will any such discovery be drowned out by the sheer overwhelming volume of information? We will have to wait and see how sophisticated Facebook’s ranking abilities are–will they be able to skillfully filter and show users information that is actually of interest? Will they be able to choose your friends who have a similar taste in books to you? Possibly, but right now it’s anybody’s guess.

At the present moment, Facebook is a powerful tool enabling writers to reach their readers. I plan to continue to use it, while staying very aware of what’s going on with my privacy and taking measures to alleviate Facebook’s intrusion into my life. As skeptical as I am that I will find enjoyment hearing every detail about what my many Facebook friends are liking/reading/watching/eating/listening to, I am sure I can survive at least five to ten minutes per week to keep up a minimal presence on the site. However, I can’t find fault with those writers who are concerned enough about their privacy to opt out of using Facebook.

So where does that leave Google+? Tune in on Thursday and I’ll tell you what I’m thinking.

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Jealousy As Career Booster

Posted in Life, Writing, tagged , , , , , on September 22, 2011| 20 Comments »

I read a lot of blogs. Some I read regularly, some I occasionally swoop down upon and catch up in a big glut of reading, some I read only once. Many of these blogs are writer blogs, and I’ve seen more than one post about Writer Envy.

What is Writer Envy? It’s that niggling feeling in the pit of your stomach when you hear that Jay Lake averages 2,500 words per hour. It’s the pang you feel when you hear someone’s broken into a market that you’ve been dying to get into. It’s the discouragement of feeling that maybe you’re being left behind as one by one, all your writer friends get agents and publishing deals and more and better sales than you think you are getting.

Does anyone know why we call it green with envy?

Well, guess what? I’m giving you permission to be jealous, whether with Writer Envy or because of your friend’s superior cooking or for any other reason. To envy is to be human. And, it turns out, it can even be good for you. Psychology Today recently ran an article citing a recent study about envy. The results are fascinating: it turns out that feeling the emotion of envy both causes us to focus more on the object of our jealousy and boosts our memories. Basically, jealousy allows us to more efficiently learn and remember how to achieve what we’re jealous of.

Therefore, instead of beating ourselves up when we feel it, we can begin to think of envy as a tool. We can use it to make ourselves better writers (or cooks, or car washers, or underwater basket weavers). We can harness that energy to motivate ourselves instead of to discourage.

Example: Let’s say my friend Beth makes a sale to Greatest Ever Magazine, which is the market that I most want to break into. I can wallow and feel terrible about myself because Greatest Ever Magazine still sends me form rejections. Or, I can use my desires and feeling of jealousy to motivate me. I can read Beth’s story and analyze why I think Greatest Ever Magazine liked it. Perhaps the subject matter is perfect for the market, or perhaps the market prefers upbeat endings like Beth’s. I can figure out the strengths of the story, and then compare it to my own recent work. Perhaps Beth’s story shows excellent use of setting, whereas I have too many under-described, white rooms in my recent work. Or perhaps Beth’s story has a twisty and exciting plot that drives it, while my recent stories have all been character-driven. I can learn from my friend Beth’s success where the weaknesses in my own work are and how I might get started on improving them. Beth might even be willing to share her own insights on Greatest Ever Magazine. Meanwhile, because I am jealous, I’ll be more likely to focus and remember what I’ve figured out.

(This can also work, by the way, with embarrassment. I was so embarrassed that I forgot the names of the two rivers of Mesopotamia in seventh grade social studies that I will probably remember that they are the Tigris and Euphrates for the rest of time.)

Of course, experiencing jealousy doesn’t mean we can’t also feel happy and pleased for a person who has succeeded. And it certainly doesn’t excuse any bad behavior on our parts. However, knowing that our brains are designed to feel jealousy on purpose to give us a better chance of survival can change our outlook. Instead of seeing jealousy as an embarrassing weakness, we can see it as another way to move forward towards our goals.

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The Thailand Test

Posted in Life, tagged , , , on September 20, 2011| 11 Comments »

I doubt it will come as much of a surprise that back in my dating days, I was always very interested in how my boyfriends responded to travel. Were they excited about the idea or were they neutral? Where had they already been? When I suggested a trip, what would they say? So my first trip with my now-husband was a pretty big deal. (Why yes, it’s personal anecdote time.)

After much discussion and way more procrastination than I was comfortable with, we finally settled on taking a trip to Thailand. I had never been to Asia and I really wanted to go (thus getting one step further to my six continents by age 30 goal), and Thailand sounded like a truly magical place: Buddhist temples, cheap massage, great food, and elephants. It wasn’t easy, but eventually I coaxed Yony into going.

We arrived safely in Bangkok, where we got lost in a poor part of town and managed to avoid a scam artist while still being totally confused. The rancid smell alone was enough to make us grateful to head out into the countryside. It was perhaps our third day in Thailand when we took a guided adventure tour that was to include a waterfall hike, an elephant ride, and some kind of boat (maybe rafting?) trip.

Me in the middle of the hike. Don't I look insouciant?

The trip began with the waterfall hike, which was a steep uphill climb through the mud on a hot, sticky day. The wise tourists stopped partway up at some pools where you could go swimming, but Yony and I were determined to reach the top, and I was trying with all my might and main to keep up with his faster pace. I was tired and uncertain of my footing, so I didn’t follow Yony to one of the viewing areas that looked difficult to reach. Because, you see, I was being careful. We eventually made it to the top and took some photos.

Beautiful view from the top

Soon after we started the climb down, I rounded a corner, slipped (whether on mud or slick rock, we will never know), and took a very bad fall down the slope. Yony was behind me, and from his perspective, I might as well have fallen off a cliff–I had fallen out of view and he had no idea how far I might have tumbled.

Luckily for me, I stopped at the bottom of that particular slope where the path veered to the right and didn’t continue on past the trail. Otherwise, I might not be writing this today. I was okay except for an extremely muddy backside…and a very injured ankle. And remember, we were still at the very top of trail, in Thailand where, as far as we knew, there was little chance of outside aid.

Some of the mud we had to hike down through.

We walked down that mountain together, Yony and I. He encouraged me onwards, he helped me past the narrow and slippery bits, I leaned on his shoulder as I limped downwards, every step sending pain shooting up my leg. I held it together for him, and he held it together for me, and after an endless walk, we reached the bottom.

When you travel with someone, you get to know them. Yony and I got to know each other better that day. He saw my levelheadedness in a crisis (one of the first things I did was to ask for the ibuprofen in our backpack), my determination, and my courage. I saw his devotion, his strength, and his patience. He realized how he’d feel if he lost me, and I learned how to trust him more than I had before. That day we became a team.

The Amy-Yony team

Of course, it’s not only through travel that we get to know people. We learn more about people by facing adversity together. Through grief and disappointment, hardship and disagreement, conflict and fear, we get to see deeper inside. We get to share the parts of a person that are weak, fearful, that make mistakes and have regrets. I said last week that travel can make or break a friendship, but in the bigger picture, it is those hard times and the hurt places within us that will test a relationship. And upon being tested, that relationship may fracture, fail, or grow stronger than ever before.

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Want to know somebody better? Travel with them.

Posted in Life, tagged , , , , on September 15, 2011| 10 Comments »

If you want to get to know someone, take a trip with them. If you really want to get to know them, don’t bring anyone else along, don’t take an all-inclusive guided tour, and either go somewhere that neither of you have been before or somewhere the other person truly loves.

 

Even deciding where to go together can be instructive. Do they want to go camping? On a cruise? On a beach vacation or to a theme park? Are they attracted to big cities or locations off the beaten track? Close by or international? Low key tourism or adventure travel? Or do they want to do all of the above? (This would be me, although it changes over time.) Are they willing to save up for a more expensive trip? Do they talk about how they’ve always wanted to travel but haven’t? Are they completely uninterested in leaving their region/state/country? Do they have a dream of someplace they’ve always wanted to go but haven’t visited yet?

Egypt, outside of Cairo

The obvious reason that traveling with another person causes you to get to know them is the vast amount of time you’ll end up spending together. This is doubly true if the trip involves lots of travel time (by car, train, plane, bus) during which there aren’t many distractions and you don’t have much to do besides be together. You’ll probably end up talking a fair amount. You’ll see this person at all times of day and in many different moods (excited, tired, cranky, hungry, interested, relaxed, etc.). It’s harder to hold onto a public persona under these circumstances; the mask tends to slip.

You’ll discover, if you don’t know already, how they interact with the world around them. How do they respond to trying something new? What about something new that they’re trying just because you want to? What activities do they end up actually advocating for or spending time on? Which ones can they obviously not stand? How much downtime or quiet time do they need? How do they react to crowds? Discomfort? Fatigue? How engaged are they in what they’re doing?

Traveling also requires many decisions, and watching what someone decides, how they decide it, and how they try to communicate with you can also be very revealing. When and what are you going to eat? How are you going to find a restaurant? On what activities will you spend your time? What souvenirs do you buy? Even the timing of when you go to bed and when you get up in the morning can be a point of contention.

Iguazu Falls, Brazil

And then there’s that inevitable moment when things go wrong. And make no mistake about it, things almost always go wrong at least once during a trip. Often a lot more. These moments are among the most revealing of character and personality: how he deals with stress, what kind of fiber she’s made of, how resilient he may or may not be, how creative she is when thinking of solutions. And these are also the moments that can make or break a relationship, either throwing the two of you into conflict or bringing you closer together.

Of course, even if we can’t travel with a certain person, we can learn a bit just by spending some time asking them about their trip. What do they tend to talk about: the logistics? the food? the physical activities they did? the beautiful painting they saw? the people they met? Do they turn their trip into some kind of narrative through which they find insight or meaning? Do they dwell on what went wrong (the weather, bad food, lost luggage, etc.) or what went right (or maybe a bit of both)?

Traveling with someone is challenging, so don’t do it to keep the peace and maintain the status quo. I’ve heard stories of friendships ending during trips because they aren’t strong enough to bear up under the additional stress. But if the end goal is not to keep a friendship going at all costs but rather to know a person more deeply, then travel might give the insight we seek. We might not like everything we discover, but sometimes we’ll also find that we love that person anyway.

Your turn: Where would you like to visit? What aspects of a trip do you tend to talk about once it’s over?

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Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Disneyland’s New Star Tours

Posted in Life, tagged , , , , on September 13, 2011| 6 Comments »

I just got back from my more-or-less annual visit to Disneyland. This year one of my stated purposes was to check out the redone Star Tours ride. I heard the new ride featured some large number of possible combinations (I heard the number fifty-four being bandied around), but the details I garnered were somewhat fuzzy. Obviously the thing to do was to go check it out in person and see for myself.

With much glee my friends and I proceeded to ride Star Tours many times (I think my personal total was around seven) and break down its intricacies. Following is a detailed report on the new ride, so if you want to be surprised, read no further.

Star Tours has always been a movie experience attached to a “theater” styled as a space vehicle that moves in conjunction with the movie. The newest iteration adds 3D to the mix. I have to say, I’m not a huge fan of 3D in general, and noticed the 3D effects in the new ride only rarely. Unfortunately, the addition was enough to make my husband ill, though, so if you have troubles with 3D movies or 3D video games, be warned that you’ll probably have trouble on this ride as well.

The other big change to the ride is its variability. Before, the ride consisted of a single adventure that was always exactly the same every time you rode. Personally I didn’t mind this because the adventure included a Death Star trench run, so you know, I kind of wanted it to be the same every time because for me, trench run equals awesome sauce. But I can see that other visitors might have found the same old, same old to be ho-hum.

The new ride’s experience is divided into four distinct sections:

SECTION 1: Beginning
A. The ship begins in a dockyard area that includes many stormtroopers. In the background, Hans Solo is visible in front of the Millennium Falcon, arguing with more stormtroopers. A robot attaches to the front windshield of the ship and determines that a rebel spy is aboard (a photo of one of the audience members is shown at this time). Both your ship and the Millennium Falcon shoot their way out and make the jump to light speed.
B. The ship begins in a dockyard area and is then approached by Darth Vader. He makes demands for the rebel spy on the ship to be delivered to him (again, a photo shown of one audience member). He uses the force to control the ship, but then the ship shoots at him and escapes. BONUS: Darth Vader uses his light saber to deflect the ship’s shots.

SECTION 2: First location
A. Hoth: Your ship visits the ice planet of Hoth. It gets involved in a battle not unlike the Hoth battle at the beginning of The Empire Strikes Back.
B. Kashyyyk: Your ships visits the forest Wookie planet of Kashyyyk. It gets mixed up with some speeders not unlike those from the Endor parts of Return of the Jedi.
C. Tatooine: Your ship visits the desert planet of Tatooine and participates in a pod race not unlike the pod race in that new Star Wars movie whose name I have blocked from my mind.

SECTION 3: Holographic transmission
All three of these are essentially the same message, saying that the ship must deliver the rebel spy safely to coordinates that are being transmitted to R2-D2. The Princess Leia message has the additional bonus of quoting passages from her famous message from A New Hope.
A. Yoda
B. Princess Leia
C. Admiral Ackbar

SECTION 4: Second location
A. The bounty hunter sequence: Bobo Fett is trying to blow up your ship. There might be some asteroids involved. There is definitely a Death Star involved, I think probably Return of the Jedi era.
B. Coruscant: The ship emerges from light speed into a gigantic space battle and eventually plummets down into Coruscant below, where it must contend with crazy big city traffic, in a scene reminiscent of one of those pesky movies whose names I do not know and they all blur together anyway.
C. Naboo: The ship is escorted from space down into Naboo and ends up plummeting underwater to see the underwater city, followed by a journey to the core of the planet. Jar-Jar Binks makes a cameo here.

I have mixed feelings about this remake of the ride, honestly. I love that the ride has so much variety, and I really like getting to visit different areas of the Star Wars universe. However, the transitions between the sections are often a bit shaky at best. And, perhaps more importantly, there is no trench run. Other fans will share the understanding of how tragic that statement truly is.

However, I was selected during one ride to be the rebel spy, and Darth Vader himself demanded that I be handed over immediately. Was this moment of equal coolness to the trench run? No, probably not, but it was pretty good all the same.

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The Sea of Wishful Thinking

Posted in Life, tagged , , , on September 8, 2011| 4 Comments »

Ever since I read an article in Psychology Today entitled The Double-Edged Sword of Hope, I’ve been thinking about the nature of hope.

I’m a natural optimist, and possibly as a result, I carry a lot of hope around with me. It’s not that I don’t see anything wrong in the world or in my life, but I tend to try to find the hope in a situation. Sometimes that means thinking of the best case scenario as well as the worst case one. Sometimes it means brainstorming what I might be able to control myself in order to turn things around. Other times it’s more of a blind hope–things might suck now, but things do change. (Tuesday’s blog post is a great example: We might not have a strong space program now, but that doesn’t mean there will never be one in the future.)The problem with hope is that it sometimes persists past the point of reasonable returns. We have such an ethos in our culture of not being a quitter, of persistence as a virtue, of not giving up. Many times these are beliefs that hold us in good stead and keep us going when things become difficult. But there is a line that we don’t want to cross, beyond which is the Sea of Wishful Thinking.

The Sea of Wishful Thinking, for all that it has a poetical name, is a painful place in which to reside. It is from this place that we continue to try, even though in our heart of hearts, we understand (or at least suspect) that things aren’t going to work out the way we want. We continue to hope even in the face of odds that are truly insurmountable. Perhaps there is still hope in the bigger picture (or perhaps not), but we continue to obsess over the battle that we are consistently losing.

The difficulty, then, is determining whether we are indeed in the Sea of Wishful Thinking, or whether we’re still dwelling in the Realm of the Possible and have merely fallen victim to a passing Dark Despair Cloud. If the latter, then by holding fast, we can wait out the cloud and still have the potential of a positive outcome. And indeed, in most ambitious endeavors, there will be times when we have to hang on even though things seem bleak. If the former, then at some point we will need to cut hope loose and move on to some more promising possibilities.

Hope can be a beautiful sentiment, but ultimately it is a tool we can use for both the good and the not so good. It can trick people into thinking they don’t need a practical plan, or it can keep someone going until they reach the next stage of mastery. It can bring the strength needed to survive, or it can offer someone an excuse not to take responsibility for themselves. I think as soon as we become aware that hope can both help and hinder us, we are better able to recognize how we’re using it. But sometimes its promise will burn too brightly for us to see clearly, and sometimes it will gutter and die too soon. Perhaps that is part of what it is to be human.

Hope springs eternal, the saying goes. But it is up to us to decide how we are going to use it.

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To Infinity and Beyond

Posted in Science fiction and fantasy, tagged , , , , , , on September 6, 2011| 13 Comments »

Sometime in the last few months, I read someone’s Tweet about space travel. I don’t remember who it was, but they said something to the effect of how science fiction set in space felt irrelevant or dated to them. Like it was nostalgia and nothing more. Of course, this was right around NASA’s final space shuttle launch, so depression about the space program and the likelihood of humans doing much in space is understandable. But more than the final space shuttle launch itself, that comment depressed me, and I’ve been thinking about it off and on ever since.Has space really become so passé that stories involving it are outdated? I began thinking of my own (admittedly small) body of work, almost none of which takes place in space. I have a few subtle nods to the idea that there are humans in space, even though the stories in question take place completely on Earth, and I believe I have one scene of a trunked story that takes place on the Moon. And that’s it. But I’ve written a lot more fantasy and contemporary fiction, so I don’t see myself as indicative. I actually see my lack of space settings as more of an oversight than anything else.

I love space. I love learning about space, and I love reading stories set in space. Many of my all-time favorite novels and series are set in space, and some of the most formative of my reading experiences came from space operas (the Hyperion books and Dune come to mind). As sad as I am that the space shuttle has been discontinued, I would be a whole lot sadder if science fiction that explored the possibilities of space was no longer being written.

Here’s the thing. Economics and politics are always changing. Technology is constantly being developed, and scientists are gaining new knowledge about the world and the universe around us. Our world isn’t a constant–it’s always in a state of flux.

So there aren’t any huge, aggressive space programs right now. Given the present geopolitical and economic climate, this isn’t a huge shocker. But does that mean there never will be a great space program in any country in the world? I don’t think so. The confluence of events, powers, and technologies during and after World War II led to the Cold War and provided the perfect pressure cooker in which the space race could occur. Such a perfect storm could happen again, this time with different political pressures and different emerging technologies.

In the meantime, it is science fiction that keeps the dream of space alive, whether that be in literature, film and TV, or video games. It reminds us of what is possible. Beyond that, space provides an evocative backdrop for storytelling, in which we can enjoy stories of truly epic scope, explore the other (often in the form of an alien race), celebrate innovation and a spirit of adventure, and encounter different cultures and ways of being human.

Just in the past few days, I saw another Tweet from someone who said they were watching Firefly just to see the spaceships. And i09 had an article about how we need more space adventures. It’s nice to know that I’m not alone in my love for and appreciation of fiction set in space. Yes, I’m an optimist in a gloomy time, but I hope I can find space in science fiction for a long time to come.

ETA: Just found another great article on the importance of science fiction that seems relevant to this conversation: China has decided that science fiction is the key to its future success in invention and design of new products.

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The Jellyfish Friend

Posted in Life, tagged , , , on September 1, 2011| 14 Comments »

Ah, the jellyfish. A brainless, spineless sea creature that drifts along feeding and spawning incessantly. And yet it is strangely hypnotizing and beautiful. Not completely unlike its human relative, the Jellyfish Friend, or for those who don’t like to be friends with mean people, simply the Jellyfisher.
Bridget Jones’s Diary and its sequel (written by Helen Fielding) introduced us to this species of people: “Humph. Rebecca is not “great”; she is a Jellyfisher. Talking to her is like swimming in a lovely warm sea, then suddenly something stings you and next thing everything is back to normal except a bit of you really hurts.” The Jellyfisher is defined as being a person who makes small cutting comments and put-downs, all the while pretending to be perfectly friendly and ordinary.

For awhile I thought the Jellyfisher was mainly a fictional creature. Perhaps I could live in this state of blissful denial through the combination of having many male friends (for whatever reason, the Jellyfisher tends to lean female, at least in the media), making the effort to be tactful as much as possible, and blaming myself over others in a pinch. However, I’ve recently had the interesting though dubious distinction of being able to watch one of these bloodthirsty creatures in the wild so I can vouch for their existence.

As far as I can tell, Jellyfishers live to make us feel badly about ourselves. No matter how solid we think our armor is, Jellyfishers will, with consummate skill, locate the few little chinks and stick their stingers right in there. Sometimes they’ll even discover (or create?) a chink we never knew we had. They dress up their phrases with such judgmental gems as “well, if you’re comfortable with that” and “oh, isn’t it nice that you finally [have a boyfriend/sold a story/got a raise/pretty much anything else you can think of]”, with occasional snide remarks about how your clothes/hair/belongings aren’t very nice or you’re obviously an unkind/immodest/unintelligent bitch (except said in a very subtle way or as if joking, sometimes so skillfully that other people involved in the conversation won’t even notice).

No, I am not using this essay as a mere excuse to show you pretty photos of jellyfish. Really…

So what to do about your friendly neighborhood Jellyfish?

1. Identify these people as quickly as possible; this way you deprive them of the element of surprise and limit their potential ammunition. When we feel badly after interacting with a particular person on a regular basis, this may be a sign that we are dealing with a closet Jellyfisher.

2. Ignore the stinging comments. Refuse to rise to the bait and become defensive. Instead, smile and make a dismissive comment, or simply change the subject. Then think or talk it through later to avoid internalizing the negative messages this person is giving you about yourself.

3. Avoid this person when possible. Obviously there’s only so much we can do to avoid some people who play a role in our daily lives, but we certainly don’t need to seek them out.

4. Stand up for yourself. Ferrett is trying to teach me that it is not necessary to be polite to people who are behaving rudely. I’m still thinking about that, but even if you’re like me and being rude feels like drowning kittens, it is still possible to stand up for yourself while being polite and firm (often with a dose of deadpan humor). Examples: Jellyfisher: “Well, as long as you’re comfortable with that.” Me: “Why, yes, I am comfortable with that. Thank you for being so supportive.” Jellyfisher: “Do you really think that red is your color?” Me: “Why, yes, I do. I simply adore red. I’m glad you agree.” Jellyfisher: “You think you’re pretty smart, don’t you?” Me: “Why, yes, I actually do have a high IQ. Thanks for noticing.”

Of course, with a close enough friend, bluntness may be called for if you have any interest in saving the friendship from dramatic implosion and/or causing you prolonged misery.

What do you think? How do you deal with the Jellyfishers in your life?

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