Wednesday 25 June 2014

You Never Know




I’m now approaching the time of life when a man (or woman) begins to wonder things like: ‘Was it all worth it?’ ‘Did I make a difference in any way?’ And, of course, ‘How will I be remembered – if at all?’

As a writer, I hope to be remembered by my works and words. This leads me to wonder if any will read or remember them next year, if at all. It also makes me desire to make the most of those I do write – to give meaning to my existence. And, naturally, I wonder if I’m up to the task.

Years ago, I worked on the Distant Early Warning Line of radar stations in northern Canada. There, I watched the radar screens, waiting to give warning of the approach of Russian bombers either by dint of a report, or by the silence which would mean we had been destroyed.

As you all know, the bombers never came. And that left a lot of free time on my hands, with little to occupy it. Now, each site had a small library, and I read voraciously. Soon I finished all the – in my opinion – top tier books we had on hand. Then the second tier books. And, still being up there, that started me on books I’d otherwise not give a second glance.

I recall reading one – in my opinion – trashy novel. I no longer recall it, or its author. Nor do I even recall the genre. But I do recall that I wouldn’t want to be known by that book. That doesn’t sound good, does it, one author trashing another’s work? And, why would I do this here, on my blog, when I wouldn’t want another to do this to me? Good question, that. And I have an answer.

In the middle of that ‘trashy book’, I came upon a sentence – a single sentence – which said exactly what I needed to hear at that moment. I fear that I cannot recall the sentence, nor of what it spoke to in me. I only remember a sudden feeling of peace, of enlightenment. This unknown author will never know what he (or she) did for me in that time of my need. He, or she, will never know that words composed by him (or her) helped a fellow being.

Perhaps that book earned out its advance; perhaps that author made a decent living. Perhaps not. Perhaps that author had only that one book published, and his or her dreams of a writing career were dashed by a lack of sales and a lack of a publishing company willing to risk again. And, perhaps, that author one day wondered if the effort put out had been worth it, never to know that I would reply, “Yes, absolutely.”

A dozen years ago my mother passed on. As executor of her estate, one of my duties entailed closing her bank account at the local Credit Union. The woman with whom I dealt made things easy for me. I really appreciated it. No doubt, she thought she was just doing her job as best she could. For years after that, every time I saw her in the bank, I recalled the kindness of a stranger, and I mentally thanked her.

Near the tenth anniversary of my mother’s death, I found myself again in the Credit Union, and the woman was my teller. I decided that the time had come to thank her personally, and not just mentally. It took less than a minute to explain that I had never forgotten and how I had appreciated her actions. She looked at me and said, “You know, I really needed to hear that today.” She retired shortly after that. Had I waited, I would have lost my chance.

So, what am I saying here? You should thank people while you are able? Well, you probably should; it might make the world a better place. But, no, such is not the purpose of this post. No, the thing that comes to me is that we never know what will ‘make a difference’ to another. It might be just doing our job, it might be a smile to a stranger, or it might be a word of encouragement made in passing. It could be something so simple that we never give it a second thought, but to the recipients, in whatever place they find themselves, that action, that word, the doing of our job, might make all the difference in the world. And you and I will likely never know.

So, when I again ask myself if I made a difference, I’ll have to say I likely did – sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. Was it all worth it? Probably. Will I be remembered? Does it really matter? As long as I continue to live, to write, to interact with those around me, I rest assured that something of what I do will carry on. And I guess that will have to be enough for me.

D.A. Boulter

PS: Don't forget to check out my progress from time to time (found on the "News" page), and, if you wish, read an excerpt from a forthcoming book, "Not With A Whimper".

Thursday 19 June 2014

Woo-Hoo


Woo-Hoo!

There’s a certain feeling a writer gets when he or she finishes a book. Yes, it’s the old “Thank [insert deity] that that’s over with.” I just finished my read-through (out loud) of my novel “A Throne At Stake” (yes, I actually figured out a title for it). Which means I’ve read it four times in the past several weeks. I’m heartily sick of it. But, today, I sent it off to my proofer. Woo-hoo!

Actually, I’m quite happy with it. Why the ‘out loud’ read-through? It’s amazing the number of errors that you can catch that way. When simply reading, you tend to read groups of words together. If you read out loud, it doesn’t work that way. I found a ‘fer’ instead of ‘for’, and a ‘Lady Godiva’ instead of ‘Lady Galinia’. Why would I type ‘Lady Godiva’? And how did I miss it in my previous three reads?

Something else occurs when you read aloud. You find groups of words that are almost impossible to say. Reading them silently works okay, but saying them ties one’s tongue in knots. Should you leave that as is, or change it? After all, the work is made to be read – but not necessarily aloud. However, if you have a character saying a tongue-twister, it may behoove you to change it.

A Throne At Stake” takes place in the “Steadfasting” universe – a medieval sort of place – and I use some archaic words and syntax. Strangely enough, I find that writing in this manner appeals to my poetic beginnings. Yes, I started ‘writing’ as a poet. And, (in my opinion, though perhaps not in those of my listeners) I became reasonably good at rhyme and metre. Reading “A Throne At Stake” aloud made me realize that I’d drifted back to those days to a certain extent. The words seem to flow more gracefully than they do in my Science Fiction, for example. And then I began to edit for that, sometimes changing a word to add a syllable to keep the rhythm, sometimes changing word order, and sometimes replacing one word with another of the same number of syllables where the stress falls on a different syllable.

I’m not sure whether anyone will notice this, (and some may find it annoying, who knows?) but I enjoyed that final read-through. Now, I just have to wait for my proofer to look it over, correct the errors that I failed to find, work up a cover, and publish it.

Yes, all that, and keep writing.

Still, that can wait for the morrow. Today I celebrate a moment of joy. ’Tis done – at least for the nonce. Woo-hoo!


Thursday 12 June 2014

The Speculative Fiction World


SF – Speculative Fiction has great power. It allows us to speculate in ways that other genres don’t. Do you want to want a world with a matriarchal society? No problem. It’s only as far away as your imagination – and your readers will suspend their disbelief as they read your book. (Or you will suspend your disbelief as you read of just such a world in someone else’s book.) However, place that speculation in our world, in modern day Chicago or Toronto or Tokyo, and every page, someone will say or think, “But that’s not how it is.” A very good writer will find a way to convince her readers, but it won’t be easy. Place that society on the mythical world of Xrth, and such problems disappear.

Yes, you can bend the rules slightly for stories taking place in the present day – such as an advanced technology which gives us Jules Verne’s submarine in “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea”, but a wholesale change in societal mores in our world becomes quite a different story.

So, I like SF for the opportunity it gives me to explore questions, creating worlds around them that I can use as foundations. How would humans have to adjust to operating in a very polite society? Elizabeth Moon has such a place in her “Vatta” series, where excessive rudeness incurs the death penalty. What are the strengths and weaknesses of a highly formal society, with rules for practically everything dealing with societal interaction? Simply travel to Miller & Lee’s “Liaden Universe” to get one perspective on such a world.

For me, these form backgrounds in which I can explore how a character reacts to various stimuli. But it all starts with the character and his or her problem.

What is the difference between sacrifice and suicide? If a man in the trenches of WWI throws himself on a grenade to save the lives of his comrades, does he do so out of love for his fellow men (sacrifice) or does he see this as an honourable way out of a horror so immense that it seems to be eating him whole (suicide)? Is this an act of bravery or of cowardice? In the end, does it matter?

I found that particular question plaguing me (the difference between sacrifice and suicide), together with its ancillary questions of cowardice and bravery, honour and dishonour. To more fully explore it, I found a character or two in which to embed the questions. One, Rel Panace, an injured young man running from a gang, which wished to beat him, begins to consider himself a coward for running. An older man, Coll, who has the brand of a coward upon his face – for cowardice on the battlefield – saves him.

I could have set the story in today’s world, but we don’t brand (physically) our ‘cowards’, and I wanted to explore how such a brand might affect the wearer of it. Thus, I set the scene in a medieval world where one could not escape the consequences of such a mark. All recognize it for what it is and what it means. Those who wear it find themselves reviled by society – they can’t simply disappear into the masses, move away, like someone so named could do today.

The medieval world setting gave me added bonuses: difficulty of travel, social hierarchy, face-to-face communication, man-to-man combat, horses. “Horses?” you ask. With horses come stables. With stables comes manure. With manure comes people who must muck the stables and cart the manure out of the city. And that is the only sort of job people like Coll can get. He can’t hide away in a room and do a job via computer modem like one could today, meeting no one, yet earning a good wage. He must constantly face those who will see his brand; he must accept the most menial of labour for the most menial of wages.

Rel, the son of a noble, also cannot hide. But, mostly, he can’t hide from himself. He can’t revenge himself on the gang with a gun, thus he must undertake training in order to become able to defend himself in any similar situation that might occur in the future.

Thus, my world aids me in placing my characters and their question in a crucible from which they cannot escape. And thus, hopefully, my readers will suspend their disbelief long enough to get entranced by my story of Rel (coming of age) and Coll (redemption).

In the middle of writing “In the Company of Cowards”, someone I knew did commit suicide, which threw me off writing the story for over a year. I had immersed myself in this fictional question of ‘sacrifice or suicide’, and life intruded with reality. There, I could observe some of the effects of this man’s actions – both on myself, who just barely knew him, and on another who had closer ties to both of us. It made continuing – and finally finishing – the novel somewhat uncomfortable.

But I digress. The world – universe – I create allows me to more readily tell the story I wish to tell. It provides a foundation and appropriate level of technology to best suit my characters and their adversities. Thus, I give my thanks to the SF genre for this boon.



Wednesday 4 June 2014

3 a.m.


Three o’clock in the morning is the best time of the day. I’ve worked rotating shifts (each week moving back another 6 hours) and I state this a plain matter of fact. No, I’m sorry, your opinion doesn’t count. [Of course it counts, but not here in my blog post. If you wish to comment, you have the opportunity to argue for your favourite time in the comments section.]

As a Science Fiction fan, the most appropriate time of the day occurs when I can see the stars. The stars are almost an SF trademark. Who does not, upon a starry night, look up into the wondrous infinite and imagine what might go on ‘out there’? And, at three of the clock in the morning – given a lack of overcast – one can see the stars. [Note: this does not apply to the Arctic/Antarctic regions in the summer, where 24hr daylight abounds.]

The early morning hours mute the sounds of the city. Traffic has slipped to its nadir, and the greater portion of the population sleeps. Streets become avenues of the imagination, and trees ghostly sentinels against the night sky. In summer, the heat of the day has dissipated, and that of the next day has not yet had a chance to build. Darkness abounds, and darkness, too, feeds the imagination. And, finally, one sees cats on the prowl, denizens of the night. Being awake, one becomes a denizen of the night as well. There are worse things than claiming a kinship with cats.

Pinpricks of light from thousands of stars decorate the celestial dome. One looks up in awe. Ah, to be out there, looking down! One feels about as alone as one can in a city, town, or even village. With all others asleep, one stands in the world – alone. Alone,  the need to be anything for anyone disappears. And, alone, one brings for company one’s imagination; one brings one’s dreams. 

Darkness opens up the mind. The defences against the brightness of the day, against the closeness of people you see, come down. Clarity comes in the dim light that masks the ugliness of the world, the too-sharp images, the cut-and-dried. At three o’clock in the morning, I fly.

The hours between midnight and dawn, I find the most productive. In the aloneness (though not necessarily loneliness) of the dark hours, my mind creates worlds and populates them with characters I would like to get to know. And, having done so, plants the seeds for future stories. How much easier to deal with these characters, with these ideas, in the calmness of the night, where one thousand and three other visions do not compete for my attention. How much easier to dream.

As an author, I find the night hours around the magical time of 3:00am the perfect haven in which to commit my ideas to ‘paper’. As a reader, I find the uninterrupted-by-the-flotsam-of-the-day time a safe harbour in which to imagine the worlds that others have created.

I live for 3:00am.



D.A. Boulter

For an update on my progress, check the ‘news’ section of this blog.