Family Film Reminders

I recently spent two full days dubbing five years of microcassettes onto DVD for my Dad's Christmas gift. Watching my children again reminded me of many things I had forgotten.

1. Young children are incredibly enthusiastic. When my son opened his third birthday presents, everything was the best, and he was so grateful. That excitement didn't begin to diminish until his first school bus ride at age five.
2. Bath time was play time. They seemed to have more toys in the tub than the rest of the house. I was particularly fond of the rubber ducky cover for the spigot.
3. My daughter loved to dance, even as a baby. She would bop to the rhythm of a basketball or 80s music. Dancing with the Stars awed her.
4. Firsts are fantastic: walking up a staircase, playing in snow, building a block tower taller than yourself, or climbing a ladder to your fort with your loyal puppy.
5. Jumping is fun: leaves, sofas, trampolines, or your new big-boy/girl bed.
6. Newborns have a different cry for each thing they need and train parents to tell them apart. One of them is "I dropped my binkie". We often referred to Mean Mr. Gravity, a young child's nemesis.
7. Spontaneous laughter is contagious. Giggles that well up from a child spread to everyone. Anything can start it, from a feather duster sword fight to a belly zerbert. My daughter had several laughs as well. My favorite was on we called the pirate laugh.
8. Children are kind and believe easily. I played with my kids with a cat puppet and a doctor kit. They talked to the puppet as if it were real, calming its fears and making sure it was healthy. Imagination is contagious as well.
9. School holiday presentation are an hour of sitting for five minutes of your child. Everyone has a moment, but you have to be present to win. Meanwhile, cheer for everyone else's moment. My son was so proud of winning best costume as a penguin that he wore the same outfit for the next five Halloweens. Tammy eventually had to make him a bigger one.
10. My wife, when I managed to catch her on camera, was really cute. I could see her glow whenever the kids ran up to her for a hug or she handed out a Christmas present. I'm really lucky.

Book 4 of Jezebel Released: Approaching Oblivion

I'm really excited by the release of the latest in the Jezebel's Ladder series. Last one, Sanctuary, hit a top hundred Amazon sci-fi list after the first week. Approaching Oblivion hit three lists on day three. Thanks so much to people who continue to read. I tried to pack Oblivion with drama, humor, science, and action. Enjoy.

Book five should be the finale in the series. I'll probably open with a couple childhood scenes on the spaceship. Then the astronauts go back to a strange and potentially hostile Earth. There will be a lot of discussion about companies copyrighting human genetic enhancements. I'll also have fun with media as a tool for social change. I may even have male on the cover for the first time. (Someone wanted me to put Herk in a Hawaiian shirt on this cover)

The main character so far is Stu. He will feel like a demigod in the starship, but be a fish out of water on Earth. After having a long crush on Mira, he's going to fall head over heels for the aura of his primary opponent for control over the incredibly powerful Fortune Enterprises--Mira's biological daughter. She starts out mildly evil, but there will be enough hit squads and double-crosses that she'll figure out old-fashioned Stu is the only one she can trust. I'll have fun with parents being almost the same ages as their children due to space travel.

Right now, two stories are wrestling in my head. While I'm brainstorming Jez 5, I am also writing section 1 of the YA fantasy "Behind the Walls of Sleep"--Winter. It's flowing well, and I've had the idea lodged in my brain for over 30 years. Maybe getting the first 17K words to a content editor in the next week or so will help me decide which novel to focus on for my St. Patrick's Day cover and line edit slots.

New Short Story Collection--Epic Fails

I had a lot of fun writing these between books.


Eight epic fantasy stories that have a common theme—failure. Sometimes dark but often funny, these tales paint other worlds where things didn’t work out the way the main character planned.

• A Lesson in Summoning—an apprentice learns how summon Shrong demons.
• A Boy with No Name on a Horse Called Spot—a young man must earn his adult name.
• Cheating Death—an untrustworthy Greek wizard finds a way to live forever.
• The Loneliness Drug—a new drug hits the market with side effects.
• Of Mycenaean Men: an ancient foible—a Monty Pythonesque spoof of the Odyssey.
• Native Intelligence—a teenaged Indian learns magic from his grandfather.
• Agents of Fortune—an Appalachian witch helps people by listening to the right voice.
• Zaboath Must Die—a post-apocalypse where one person’s heaven is another’s hell.

http://www.amazon.com/Epic-Fails-Scott-Rhine-ebook/dp/B00GW4HV9G

Random Sequencing

I just finished two books and am still in the edit process for one. Now is the time in the cycle to start something new. Have you ever wanted to see inside the head of a writer as he develops a story idea from scratch? It’s a process I refer to a random sequencing. The only comparisons I can use are outlining an invisible person using a ping pong ball in a tornado or panning for gold in a canoe. In days of listening to music and musing, I get maybe one nugget. It takes at least three compatible puzzle pieces to make a novel. Directing the process is worse than herding cats. I want my muse to develop my budding story “Behind the Walls of Sleep.” Before I can write past the fifth chapter, I need to finish building the world. From experience, this can take six to eight weeks, with no guarantee of outcome. The last time I tried to finish this story, the idea for “Jezebel’s Ladder” intruded.

Day 1

I try to develop the mechanics of the dream world. I get two single-spaced pages about rules for goblins. Wizards treat them like trash but they’re really important lesser faerie. To keep them from tunneling into your stronghold, there are four methods: stone slabs, renewing magic wards daily, pockets of nightmare in your basement, or hiring a dim goblin to be your janitor—he’ll keep the others out with goblin hospitality rules.

Day 2

Flesh in the dream world is the same as spirit here. I talk with a zen master character about what the dirt in Astra is made of. He says the same thing as here: crushed mountains, dead things, manure, insects, worms, and microorganisms you can’t see. These all have analogues in the dream world. What’s the bottom layer? Adam or a giant turtle. I Google fairy rings as gates and boundaries. Today is only one page of notes. This is frustrating so I concentrate on the details about the goblins. I decide they could be Japanese bakemono.

Day 3

I look into bakemono and feel a resonance for the part where they are yokai who can transform. In this case, the one in the tavern in town is a giant rat. Oni with an iron club is also an interesting concept I’d like to use--similar to double Varja. I research Shintoism next. The barriers between the mundane and sacred space are the most interesting.

Day 4

I decide that my fantasy stories don’t sell nearly as well as my science fiction. I have NO idea whether I can pull of YA literature and have been advised to stick to my strengths by colleagues. Okay. Let’s try to direct the muse to a well-constructed science fiction world where I can establish a series. My first two ideas only cover half a page and they are superhero driven. Those don’t sell well, and they are more fantasy. The third starts interestingly enough with the recent destructive “asteroid” in Russia being an emissary from another world—one of their royals. Common enough, but in this story, we kill him pretty quickly. Scientists gleefully examining his craft and body for new technology discover a signal being transmitted. A fugitive from the galactic empire on Earth tells us that this is the destruct button. We just declared war on the empire. Our only hope is to send out two missions: one to hide the seeds of our race in the galaxy hub, and the other to a prison world on the edge of the blight. If we can convince the royal imprisoned there to help us before the fleet crosses the blight, we have a slim chance. Either way, it will be a war against species extermination. Only a small minority of humans have the mutation that can survive the imperfect jump drive we cobble together on hollowed asteroids of our own. Some volunteer, but mutations with ANY criminal record are drafted by the UN to fight for us. Lots of exploration and meeting odd aliens. This space opera also verges on comic book. I did similar things for role playing campaigns—not mainstream enough.

Day 5

I run with the genetic idea. I also like the idea of one-word titles to sum up the concept. The core McGuffin in the series will be a technique, available to any billion-dollar mega-corporation or government, to splice specific minor progressive DNA changes onto an embryo. They have very little idea what we’re doing, but it works through trial and error. The company that discovers a key sequence gets to copyright it for 50 years. Monsanto does this with plants now, and there are companies trying to do it with adult DNA of people they’ve tested. There have been a number of stories about trying to make the smartest/strongest person, but this will be about the wild west era before it is mainstream. Think of the race for the gene sequences to make newborns immune to AIDs or cancer. The effects can only be realized in the next generation. Since children have no rights, the parents have to sign the agreements. In exchange, the children are cared for in communal daycares (crèches). The desirable ones are educated for free and given limited use of their own DNA in exchange for corporate loyalty. Think of people like iphones—locked into one carrier, useless for any other vendor or if you fail to make regular payments. Governments like this arrangement because it lowers crime rates and population growth while raising taxes. It will need to be set somewhere with lax human rights and big problems. 3D printers should also feature prominently in this world.

Let’s explore what we can do with this groundwork and one interesting word.

Broken

This story is about a boy who was part of a batch of 100 trying to achieve a specific mix. The indicator of splicing success (glowing skin patch, eye color, etc) didn’t manifest, and he’s literally stamped as a reject. He’s raised in a crèche with 20 other rejects, many of whom don’t live long because the trait they are hunting is on a very narrow isthmus. His own mother refuses to visit him when she finds out he’s a reject. Instead, he bonds to one of the nannies and is the only one of his class to reach eighteen alive. He can solve genius level problems but takes longer than genius time. He’s a further disappointment and washes out of the scholarship program. From there, he signs an extension of his “mineral rights” to the company in exchange for college. At age 30, he still looks 20 and wants to date. To have access to his own reproductive organs, he has to get the device implanted in him “unlocked”. The corporate rights expired but they still refuse to release him. He has to find a lawyer to take his case for free/cheap. A woman with a maternal streak and bio-rights issues of her own takes the case. Perhaps he reminds her of a politician or philosopher long dead. Once she unlocks him, they have a brief affair, and as payment she collects her offspring with desired traits. Back at the corporate labs they discover he not only lived longer than all the rejects, but he lived longer than all the members of the near success group. Since he was never completely sequenced and his samples were discarded with forfeit of rights, the company is now hunting him. In the end, the lawyer claims first rights to his DNA sequence. Consider right of first refusal in contract. 

Senescence

This is a beautiful word referring to the propensity for the next generation cell copy to degrade just a little. It causes aging and eventually mutation and death. This is our built-in self-destruct mechanism as a species. What if someone constructed a DNA sequence that copied true—it would be the next best thing to immortality.

Selfie

The ultimate in self-gratification—a photo of yourself taken by you. Cloning is illegal, but if you find someone close enough, you can print-slice a very close image. This is ideal for organ transplants and more often: young blood. Getting regular infusions of blood and marrow from your younger self can help a person live twenty to forty years longer. Of course, they younger you might have something to say about his process...especially if there are coldblooded as you are.

Chimera

In a rare genetic condition, non-identical twins in the womb fuse into one person—a chimera. These two sets of DNA can compliment each other or fight. The dynamic system is fluid and ever changing.

Automata

Conway’s Game of Life evolves as DNA computers become a reality. Viruses and bacteria join the model in our systems. The human body solves colds and infections every year. Complex problems can be cracked by setting up a person to live the problem to its conclusion. Not all problems are solvable in 70 years and sometimes the experiment is disrupted by external factors. Touching other humans changes the equations and microorganisms are exchanged. What happens when someone “solves” a big problem? We have to bring the answer back to the lab.

Next Step

Ideas won’t stop gushing. Now I need to do the hard work and build this world a layer at a time. Instead, last night, I get a dream about a whole new fantasy magic system where sound is the source of creation. Tuning forks, fairies, and angels feature. One character explains to me that angels were formed when God said “Let there be light”—resonance effects and wave interference patterns, standing waves and superstrings. Wait... change the channel back one!

Cover Reveal: Approaching Oblivion

Whenever Renee sends me a new cover, it's like Christmas. Here is book four in the Jezebel series--Approaching Oblivion. Target release is mid November. With eight chapters to write, I haven't crafted the pitch yet, but here's a teaser:

The aliens who gave Earth so many gifts are termed "the Magi". Approaching Oblivion starts where Sanctuary left off, planning the trip to their final test. Such journeys take months or years, not minutes. Locating and finding how to aid the aborigines will take even longer. Their target is Oblivion B4, the fourth moon of the a gas giant similar to Jupiter. The moon has a maze of cracks on the surface where life flourishes, earning it the name Labyrinth. In addition to the technical preparation required for first contact, we follow Yuki as she replaces an arm, Yvette through a rape court martial, and Mercy through her high-risk pregnancy. Together the women come to the conclusion that the Magi are not as benevolent as they seem. Magi interference seems to repeatedly sabotage their efforts, and more Magi tech must be mastered before they can land. More than one maze needs to be threaded if they're going to succeed in their mission and return to Earth.

Next Project

I'm at the phase where I'm planning the cover for "Approaching Oblivion" (Jezebel 4) and estimate a month till this project reaches completion. What's next? My next book will not be “River of Sorrows/ Ryoku 3” or book 5 of Jezebel. I need to start something new, with potential. Here are a number of possible books I’ve already started.

1: “Beyond the walls of sleep”, my YA fantasy about the magic possible in dreams. Daniel learns to teleport. The adventure bleeds over into real life when Daniel crosses the Circle of Deception and gets drawn into a gang war.

2: novelization of my short story “A Lesson in Summoning”, which traces Burl from apprenticeship through master wizard. Lots of demonology and humor.

3: a short story collection called “Epic Fails” – all epic fantasy stories where someone screws up royally. This one probably won’t sell much but would be a way to share my shorter fiction.

4: “Starfish Chronicles” A D&D story about a group of teens from an orphanage, refugees from a city destroyed by black magic. Working for a powerful wizard, they go back to recover personal mementos, treasure, and clues as to how it happened. Together, they raid giants’ cloud cities and dungeons. The wizard gives each of them a gift. Over time, some become rulers in the new land and others fall apart. The ageless jester is the only survivor. Eventually, he passes the torch to the new generation.

5: “Meta Games” YA fantasy. A young man enters a magical tournament held every seven years in order to find his missing father. Very similar to Talisman game where each player has a role with advantages and disadvantages. The winning team gets a wish.

6: “Zaboath Must Die” A post apocalypse Sci Fi story where a cult survives in an undersea UN Haven. What happens when zealots inherit the Earth? Even then, someone has to be a scapegoat.

7: or I could take a month and brainstorm something new.

The problem is, my fantasy doesn’t seem to sell or rank as well as my sci fi, and my muse has been leaning that way. So much of the epic fantasy on Amazon feels low quality and redundant to me. The contemporary fantasy feels better depending on the author. Why would I write it if I wouldn't read it? 

So far, two friends independently placed their vote for Zaboath. The story is about closing down a cult society that abuses its members. Anger smolders in the main character, Neelam, until the final confrontation. I have fun building the subculture. The slang for money, for example, it tox--both for money talks and toxic, root of all evil. People cast out are lost spirits and the chosen can't talk to them. The leader controls the society through taboo and access to purified water. All in all, a very dark place.

Readability Level

My son recently did a school project for the Lexile reading level for his summer reading list. Scholastic and Barnes & Noble have search engines to help your children find books by grade level. My 11 year old son is reading 10th-11th grade books by this measure, but popular books are more like 7 to 8. Breaking Dawn was 6th grade, Percy Jackson was 7th grade, and Hunger Games/Harry Potter is 8th.

The grade level was pretty simple, I remember hand-computing the Gunning reading level for English class. Basically, the more big words you use, the higher the grade level. My teacher told me that for adult fiction, I should aim for the eighth grade. As I don't want to churn my own butter, I found several websites to compute these values for me. Most only work for 10 or 50 thousand characters and aren't very accurate or fast. The one I liked best was the Flesch-Kincaid level at  http://www.standards-schmandards.com/exhibits/rix/
I ran all my stories through and hit my goal. Reading ease is a score between 0 and 100 which gets higher the easier it is to read. You loose points for too many syllables per word or too many words per sentence. The target for "standard" is about 60-70 for a thirteen to fifteen year old. At 90, an eleven year old could read it in a comic. Below 30, only grad students and lawyers should brave it. My fiction over the years has shifted only slightly from 58 a decade ago to 62 from this year. Approaching Oblivion is still a raw draft without excess adverbs clipped, and such.

Flesch-Kincaid	grade level	reading ease
Approaching Oblivion	8	59
Clean and Floss	7	62
Contagion of the Gods	8	60
Doors to Eternity	8	58
Dreams of the Fallen	7	60
Empress of Dreams	7	60
Foundation for the Lost	7	61
Jezebel's Ladder	7	60
Redemption of Mata Hari	7	62
Sanctuary	8	58
Scarab	8	58
Sirius Academy	7	61