Thoughts and Reflections – Page 27 – One Thousand And One Parsecs

Juggling projects isn’t a good antidote to procrastination

Yeah, the title basically says it all. I’m working on Genesis Earth 5.0 and Into the Nebulous Deep 1.0, and while I’m doing really well in the one, I’m not keeping up so much in the other.

First, Genesis Earth. Since I finished the previous draft more than a year ago, I thought I’d find a lot of problems, especially with my prose. Instead, while a lot of the sentence/paragraph level stuff needs tightening, I’m finding to my surprise that the writing isn’t all that bad.

Today, I breezed through over 8k words, and that between running, donating plasma, FHE, and a bunch of other distractions. If I put even a moderate amount of effort into this, I can have it finished before next week. That’s good, because I had an agent at World Fantasy request to see it; if I can put it on her desk before Thanksgiving, that can only be a good thing.

But as for my other project, ITND 1.0…yeah, it’s not coming along as well as I’d hoped. The reasons are stupid, too–mostly just lost momentum and writer’s avoidance.

Right now, I’m stuck in a scene where I’m trying to build romantic tension between two characters. I feel like I have a decent handle on who they are…but for some reason, it feels a little too shallow. Maybe that’s because I’m still discovering who these characters are, maybe it’s because I tend to go deeper than most–or maybe it’s just because it’s the kind of scene that’s hard to get into, but once you’re in, it really flows. I just haven’t forced myself to write it–maybe once I do, these problems will go away.

I do feel like I’m doing a pretty good job setting up the story. Last week, I ran the first chapter through my online writing group, and while it definitely had issues, everyone said that they would keep reading if this was a book they’d picked up off the shelf. That tells me that at least I’m starting in the right place.

The characters, though, and the conflict…I worry that it’s not as deep or as hard-hitting as the first book, Mercenary Savior. I skimmed over that book just a couple days ago before sending it out to a friend from World Fantasy, and…wow. I don’t want to brag, but I think I did a good job with that one. A damn good job.

So can I pull off that kind of depth and impact in the second book? That’s the fear, that it won’t live up to the first one. And certainly, the rough draft won’t be as good–not by a long shot. But the subsequent drafts? I don’t know.

Maybe I should just write and worry about it later, though. When I was in the middle of Worlds Away from Home, I constantly thought to myself how crappy the draft was. When I got to the end, though, and looked back on how far the story had come, I realized that it had potential to be at least as powerful as Mercenary Savior–perhaps even more. And to be honest, that came as quite a surprise.

I don’t know. I hope I’m not just deceiving myself–it can be hard, when you’re toiling in obscurity, to separate the truth from your own self-deception. But for now, things are going well–I’m making good progress in Genesis Earth, and while Into the Nebulous Deep has lost a lot of momentum, all it really needs is a good solid block of undistracted writing to get it going again. Life is good.

Sexism in reverse

One of the blogs I like to follow is postsecret. It’s basically this project where people anonymously send in their secrets on postcards, and this guy posts them online. At times, it can be raunchy and gross, but it’s always very honest and I like that. Plus, it’s a great place to go for story ideas.

This week, there was a particularly disturbing one–and the most disturbing thing wasn’t necessarily the secret on the card, but my reaction (or lack thereof) to it. Here’s what it said:

I wish there was a place for me to go on a regular basis to find great looking men to pick up and safely bring home and have sex with me. I am in my 40s and have needs.

I am a professional woman working for a well known company.

The image on the postcard was of a bunch of ten to fourteen year old boys on a beach smiling for the camera and flexing their scrawny muscles.

Initially, I didn’t have too much of a reaction to this. As I glanced over it, my first thought was: “oh dear, another raunchy secret.” My second thought was: “Huh, I guess women have needs too.”

My third thought didn’t come until ten hours later, when I was driving home from my brother in laws. For some reason, the postcard came into my mind, and I started to wonder: what kind of a person would write such a thing?

The comment about being a professional made me think that the woman might be some kind of CEO. If she’s a CEO, she’s probably used to being in charge and controlling people.

Instantly, the secret began to feel a little bit sinister.

I then started wondering about the kind of “young men” she wants to pick up. Does she want someone she can dominate? Someone young, like in the picture? That’s when I started to feel disturbed.

But then, as I reflected a bit more on it, I started to wonder why it didn’t disturb me as much at first. Does it have something to do with the way our society sees men and women? That women and girls are sexually vulnerable, but men and boys aren’t?

Here’s a question–what if the postcard had said this:

I wish there was a place for me to go on a regular basis to find great looking girls to pick up and safely bring home and have sex with me. I am in my 40s and have needs.

I am a professional man working for a well known company.

Superimposed, of course, on an image of fourteen year old girls in bikinis.

It’s a lot more disturbing than the first one, isn’t it? But why should that be so? Is there really any difference between a middle aged man seeking young girls and a middle aged woman seeking young boys? How screwed up is it that we think there is?

That’s when I started to get really disturbed–when I realized how much I’d unconsciously bought into the screwed up worldview of our modern society.

Anyhow, I just thought I’d point it out, because sexism is not a one way thing. Sometimes, it can be really frustrating when people forget that.

World Fantasy Day 3

Saturday at the World Fantasy convention was awesome. Tons of amazing panels, with excellent advice and some very interesting insights.

First, I attended “The Story Cycle vs. The Novel,” which was moderated by L.E. Modesitt. The panelists talked about the evolution of a series and the difference between a cycle of novels vs. a continuation. In a story cycle, there may be many books, but one ending, whereas in a more loose series, every novel is a standalone with an ending. In another panels someone used the analogy of an avalanche vs. skipping stones, which I found quite useful.

Next, I attended “The Continued Viability of Epic Fantasy.” The panel started out by defining epic fantasy (as opposed to heroic / sword & sorcery), which they more or less agreed has the following characteristics:

Takes place in an alternate world
Is large in scope, rather than personal
Involves characters who are trying to save the world
Has a multi-strand plot with many viewpoints
Has an extended story arc

David Drake then blew the premise of the panel out of the water by arguing that epic fantasy is still selling well–in fact, that the market has been expanding over the past ten years.

Drake also pointed out, however, that when you’re successful, the normal commercial rules don’t apply; first, you have to prove your chops, realizing that the publishers will lose money on your first couple of books. That’s just a fact, and anyone who denies it is arrogant and stupid.

The next panel was “Slaughtering the Evil Hordes,” about the barbaric hordes trope in fantasy and whether it’s disturbing or a good thing. I asked the question: “how can you have the hordes win and still make it work?” and Tom Doherty pointed to Modesitt’s Magic of Recluse as a good example of this. Basically, you have to show the good in each side, sometimes by a shift that makes the reader suddenly and unexpectedly see the hordes in a new light.

Next, I attended “The Moral Distance Between the Author and the Work.” This panel was quite fascinating. One of the interesting questions that was raised was whether you can deduce an author’s morals from reading their work. At first, the panelists said that in good art, you can’t, but then Scott Edelman and Eric Flint pointed out that if you read an artist’s whole corpus, usually you can. Nancy Kress compared artists to dandelions; over time, you grow and mature, but when you send out work, where it goes and what happens to it has nothing to do with you as the artist.

One of the best panels, however was “Authors and Ideas,” which happened the next hour. The panelists started by agreeing that as an author, your most deeply held personal beliefs will always show up in your work, whether or not you know you believe it. The stuff we believe most firmly, we never even think to question because it is invisible to us. Most aliens in sci fi are less alien than the Japanese, and our own great great grandparents are more alien to us than anything else.

The panel then got on to how writing is a collaboration between the author and the reader, where the writer has no control over what the reader will take from it. Even though your art will contain your beliefs, in order to be great it must also convey what you don’t believe–the “opposition in all things” element. Done well, the author “shakes hands with the reader over the character’s head.”

After the panels, I had dinner at the con suite–and let me just say, the convention organizers went WAAAAY out of their way to make the con suite awesome. They literally provided every meal, and enough of it to feed everyone who came in, which really surprised me. A huge thanks to everyone who volunteered with organizing and running the con.

Anyway, I got into a HUGE discussion at dinner with an amazing couple who runs a used book business out of Massachusetts. We talked about artificial intelligence, the physical limits of computer circuits, and whether it’s possible for us to one day emulate the human brain on a computer system. Gained some very interesting insights for my novel Genesis Earth, as well as just a general fun time. Conversations like this are one of the things I treasure about these events.

And then I bounced around the parties for the rest of the night. Had fun, talked with Tom Doherty and a handful of authors (though not as many as last year), but probably most importantly made a bunch of awesome writer friends, with whom I will be keeping in touch after the convention.

I might not have met a bazillion agents and editors this year, but I did make a ton of friends among the aspiring writers and editors, and that definitely counts for something. I look forward to staying in touch and supporting everyone as we break in and make our mark; we’re the next generation of an awesome literary tradition, and we’re definitely going to keep it going!

World Fantasy 2010: Day 2

Wow, what a tiring day. I feel drained, mentally and physically, and I didn’t even spend all that much time at the parties tonight.

I got started a bit early, prowling around the book-swap table, where I was rewarded with some books that look really good. If you know what you’re doing, you can totally get the price of your admission ticket in free books (and then some). I packed super light for that exact reason.

The convention started out with an awesome panel titled “Fantasy Gun Control,” where the panelists discussed why fantasy tends to favor swords over guns, even though guns have existed since the 1300s. Funniest quote from the panel: Walter Jon Williams asked what if Samuel L. Jackson was one of the Defense Against the Dark Arts teachers from Harry Potter, and Charles Gannon quipped “do I have to get magical on your ass?”

The other panel I attended was “The Tension Between Art & Commerce,” an excellent panel which very quickly evolved into a cage fight between Nancy Kress and her publisher, Tom Doherty. It basically went something like this:

Tom: I don’t think there is any tension; the best art always sells the best.

Nancy: No way! Just look at Danielle Steele: her writing is CRAP, yet she sells like crazy–and that’s the norm!

Tom: But true art endures beyond its time and sells much better over the long run. After all, just look at Homer and the Iliad.

Nancy: Homer? Are you serious? He’s been dead, what–2,000 years?

Tom: Yeah…but my point is, if you’re a writer, you need to write what’s in your heart and not chase the market. If you do try to chase the market, your writing will be crap, AND it won’t sell.

Nancy: True, but what about my apocalyptic novel about a plague that turns domestic dogs feral? I got four rejections that all said: “this book is great, but it would offend dog lovers so much that we can’t publish it.”

Tom: Well, those were just stupid editors.

Nancy: Uh, Tom…one of those was from your publishing house!

Of course, those aren’t exact quotes, and Nancy was very quick to make it known that she loves Tom and appreciates him for publishing so much of her work, but that was more or less how it went. It was hilarious.

At the same time, the panel was quite useful as well. Everyone mentioned how a writer’s willingness and ability to learn the craft and accept criticism is key–especially after getting an editor. Without this capacity to learn, aspiring writers will almost never succeed, whereas those who have it have a chance.

The rest of the time I spent hanging out and shmoozing with various people. I interviewed both Dan Wells and Peter Ahlstrom for the Mormon Artist article on BYU’s “class that wouldn’t die,” and those interviews went very well. Those two guys are seriously awesome–way down to earth and easy to talk with.

I also pitched to a couple agents, and I think it went very well. For one of them, I thought I saw her eyes light up as I described the characters in my novel from last year, Genesis Earth. It might just be wishful thinking, but her response was enough to convince me that I need to give that story a thorough revision and send it out to her before the end of next month.

I worry, though, that there’s not as much demand for the kind of fiction I write. My writing falls very solidly into science fiction (space opera, to be more specific), but everything I see here at the con is fantasy–epic fantasy, urban fantasy, paranormal, steampunk. No science fiction, except from a couple small presses. Just fantasy.

In the art vs. commerce panel, Ginger Buchanan claimed that science fiction was never a popular genre–that the popularity was all due to a handful of specific writers and a handful of specific works. I’m not sure I agree with that, but it is a bit discouraging. Speculative fiction is a fairly niche corner of the publishing world to begin it, and to see and hear people within that niche treating science fiction as ANOTHER niche…it doesn’t bode well for someone who wants to make a full time living writing it.

But then again, maybe my stuff is good enough that it’ll find a home anyways–and not just a home in a small press, but with a big enough publisher that I can actually be a full time writer. I don’t hold any illusions about my books making me fabulously rich and famous or somehow spawning a new sub-genre unto itself, but I do think my writing is good enough that I can shoot big and hope to get somewhere–perhaps even expect it. I don’t know, but I feel that the hope is justified, at least.

Anyhow, that’s probably more angst than you cared to read. World Fantasy is going great, and I’m exhausted, so I’m going to hit the sack. Good night.

World Fantasy 2010: Day 1

So today was the first day of World Fantasy, the major professional convention for science fiction and fantasy literature. I’ve only been here for a few hours, but I can already tell it’s going to be awesome.

While making a stop in Chicago, I ran into two other writers on the same flight (one by the name of Theodora Goss who was on a panel later that evening) and ended up sharing a taxi with them. We had some great conversations on the way down, about non-conciliatory fantasy, Dave Wolverton’s workshops, writing short stories vs novels, etc. It was great.

So I arrived at the hotel, checked in, got situated, and immediately started running into other Utah/Mormon writers. I was a bit surprised, because I was expecting us to have a much smaller contingent this year, but I started running into familiar faces right off the bat.

And then, as a tribute to how universal science fiction and fantasy fandom really is, a group of us cleanshaven Mormons ran into an atheist and agnostic from Seattle in the hallway and spent a delightful evening together talking about religion, why there are so many Mormon sf&f writers, more religion, dating/relationships in Utah, still more religion…and it was awesome. They said we were some of the coolest Mormons they’ve come across, and I have to say, I very much enjoyed meeting them as well.

So anyways, I just went to one panel this evening: “Fantasy as a Rejection of the Present.” Basically, it was all about how fantasy tends to hearken back to the forgotten values of the past, and how steampunk and contemporary urban fantasy is largely a reaction against our modern consumer culture. There was a lot more to it as well, including a discussion of Tolkien, Lewis, and William Morris, but that was the most interesting tidbit I took from it.

It got me thinking that perhaps I should try my hand at urban fantasy. I haven’t yet tried it because I get bored just thinking about stories set in the “real world”–but lately I’ve been thinking a lot about how screwed up this “real world” really is…perhaps some of those thoughts would translate surprisingly well into urban fantasy.

I don’t know. Anyhow, that’s my <500 word report on tonight’s activities. I’ll try to make another one sometime tomorrow, but I make no promises–hanging out with these people is just too much fun. Good night.

What have you learned from reading science fiction?

While trolling around the new Facebook questions app, I came across this interesting question. Unable to resist, I spent the next hour crafting my answer.

This is what I wrote:

Gosh, what HAVEN’T I learned from science fiction?

Because of science fiction, I do not fear the alien. I do not feel threatened by people of different places or cultures, but take great interest in learning from them. I look at them and love them, because I can see myself in them.

Because of science fiction, I can look out at the vast expanse of the universe and not despair because of my insignificance. I know my place within it, and can appreciate the wonders and endless possibilities all around me.

Because of science fiction, I can look at the world and know which questions to ask. I can see through the lies that society constantly feeds me, and know how to fight against them.

Because of science fiction, I can look to the future with hope. Having seen the best and the worst of all possible worlds, I know which paths to avoid and which paths to follow. With this knowledge I can inspire my fellow men, because I know that nothing is inevitable.

Because of science fiction, I have a deep and endearing love for the world in which I live. I know better what it means to be human, and knowing this helps me to take no human life for granted. I have a greater capacity to love those around me, and that is the most important thing of all.

Science fiction has enriched my life beyond measure. By constantly stretching the bounds of my imagination, science fiction has led me to more truth than any other literary genre–and not only led me to that truth, but helped me to incorporate it into all that I do. So long as I live, I will always be a reader and a writer of science fiction.

Answering this question reminded me of my interview with Shayne Bell a couple weeks ago. In it, he talked about how rich and vibrant science fiction is as a literary genre, and how it deeply impacted his own life. Listening to him speak, I couldn’t help but feel that I was in the presence of a great man.

I don’t think he’d be comfortable with me posting the full audio of that interview, but many of his comments will appear in the article I’m putting together for the December issue of Mormon Artist. Between working full time and trying to finish the fourth draft of Mercenary Savior in time for World Fantasy, I haven’t had much time to work on it, but it’s going to be awesome.

What have YOU learned from science fiction? How has it enriched your life?

Crunch time

Sixty six percent! I’ve officially passed the two thirds mark in the fourth revision for Mercenary Savior–and not a moment too soon. With only a week and a half until World Fantasy 2010, it’s crunch time. I’ll probably quit my temp job a week early in order to devote the last few days of the month to finishing it.

As I’ve been working on Mercenary Savior, though, a fascinating idea for a sequel has been stewing in my head. It was sparked by an online conversation with one of my first readers:

Reader: I was never fully convinced that James felt he had closure
Me: I see
Reader: but I was satisfied with the thought that he would get it sometime after the story ends
he’s still young, so he’s still maturing
even at the close of the novel
Me: yeah
hmm
interesting

It’s true; James does have a lot of room to grow and mature after the events of Mercenary Savior. In that book, his character growth arc (without giving away spoilers) is about him learning to accept change and stop running from adulthood.

Nothing in that arc has much to do with the kind of person James grows up to be, however, or the significant other with whom he comes to share his life. In other words, there’s a whole lot of untapped potential for building James’s character and giving him a romantic interest.

The question that immediately rose to my mind was: what’s the story?

Now when it comes to sequels, I think the best ones take a long, hard look at the first installment and answer the question: therefore, what? Thus, in Star Wars IV, V, and VI (which I believe to be one of the best examples of a trilogy in any medium), the Rebels defeat the first Death Star in episode IV, but find themselves on the run in episode V because the Empire knows the location of their base. Luke uses the force to pull off a last-minute victory in episode IV, but finds in episode V that becoming a true Jedi takes a lot more discipline and self-mastery than he thought.

So I applied that principle to my own work and came up with the following overarching conflict: the Hameji occupation of Karduna is devastating the people of the Colony to the point where they collectively decide to depart en masse and establish a new community somewhere else. It’s a logical conclusion taken from the ending of Mercenary Savior; the people are well enough off to survive, but too poor and oppressed to do much of anything else.

You may not know this, but the first story I wanted to set in this fictional universe was about a group of starfaring pioneers traveling into the heart of a nebula to escape religious persecution and establish a thriving community on the fringes of settled space. That’s right–I basically wanted to set the Mormon pioneer exodus in space.

For various unrelated reasons, that never worked out, but the desire has always been there in the back of my mind. What can I say–I think that pioneers are cool, and stories about colonizing unsettled new lands just fascinate me. I’ll probably write a massive Utah pioneer epic someday.

But anyways, I started playing around with this old idea to see whether I could recycle it. Right now, I think that I can. The idea is that James becomes the leader for one of these emigrant groups, and has to see them safely through to a young planet in the heart of this nebula. They decide to fly into the nebula in order to isolate themselves from the Hameji, since the FTL tech in my universe doesn’t work within a Nebula.

And then something really crazy happened. This scene popped into my head, stronger than any other idea I’d had so far. I imagined that a group of pirates had captured the expedition and refused to let them go unless they gave the pirates three young women to keep as slaves.

Pretty standard conflict, right? But then, I thought: what if three young women of their own free will stepped forward and offered to sacrifice themselves to save the others? What would James do then?

Well, it wasn’t hard to figure that out at all. James would never let them go. He’d fight the pirates, even if it meant risking all the lives of those he’s trying to protect.

This raises some interesting questions of morality. Is it right to risk the lives of everyone in the community when three individuals have already offered to sacrifice themselves for the good of the whole? Is it right to deny someone the opportunity to give their own life to save others? Or is James just being stubborn and reckless?

At a first glance, that’s the way it looks. But then I imagined what James would say to justify himself. After what he learns from the events of Mercenary Savior, James would argue that the community needs to stick together–that in order for the whole to survive, everyone has to know with absolute certainty that no-one will be left behind. Once the leader shows that he’s willing to sign his followers over, how can any of them trust him with their lives? Under such conditions, trust breaks down and the community falls apart.

From that, a whole host of other ideas started gradually coming to mind. How does this event tie into James’s romantic interest? Does it tie in at all? What would the people’s reaction be to this decision? Coming from the background of the Colony, would they want to put the issue to a vote instead? Is it ever right to suspend democracy when facing a crisis, and if so, under what conditions?

So anyway, I won’t tell you what I have in mind, but I have a lot of really interesting ideas. It’s gotten to the point, in fact, that I may just write the sequel after I get back from World Fantasy.

In closing, let me leave with this excellent track from one of ocremix’s latest albums, a rearrangement of Donkey Kong Country 2. Believe it or not, this song could be the main theme of this novel. Listen to it and I think you’ll see why.

Good night!

Dog dead workdays and killing your characters

This post is going to be super quick because I’m dead tired.

Due to power surges and computer glitches, I had to work overtime today and yesterday at the warehouse, so I really haven’t had time for anything except writing and a little socializing at Leading Edge. However, things are going well. I’ll get the extra hours off on Friday, which means a big chunk of free time to do whatever I want.

I broke 3k words today in Mercenary Savior. It was awesome. I love revision–taking something good and making it really shine. Just hit some major climaxes and killed off a side character, which is always exhilarating if you do it right.

As a footnote to that, I’m reading George R. R. Martin’s Game of Thrones, and I just reached the part where he kills off the first major character. What’s more, he was my favorite character in the book so far!!! AAUGGH! Why, Mr. Martin? Why??? Yet I must confess, killing him was necessary to take the story to the next level of awesomeness <grumble>.

I’ve been thinking a lot about killing characters recently, and I figure the best way to do it is to recognize that everyone has to go sometime (in real life if not always in fantasy), and to write accordingly. We tend to ignore our own mortality, when really, there can be so much meaning to it. After all, to die for something is to make the ultimate sacrifice. If you make sure your characters die for a reason–either heroic or tragic (or both)–then I think that’s the key to make it work.

The Book Academy Conference at UVU was great; I’ll do a writeup on that soon, probably over the weekend. I probably won’t post the audio files, but if you want them, just email me and I’ll send you the link.

I’ve been waking up early each day this week, and it’s been great. I’m so much more productive in the morning, writing wise. It’s like a computer: when you first boot up, your desktop is so clean. With only the startup programs running in the background, everything feels uncluttered.

At the end of the day, though, it’s the exact opposite. You’ve got maybe a dozen applications running, and it’s all too easy to get distracted by switching from one to the other. What’s more, you just don’t have the energy to get things done.

The downside (if you can call it that) is that it’s only midnight and already I’m about to collapse. Oh well–guess I’ll just have to go to bed earlier.

In closing, let me leave you with this really weird, slightly disturbing anime clip I found on youtube of a vegetable committing seppuko. I guess it has something to do with the rest of the post, seeing as I went on a tangent about killing characters. Anyhow, this is the friendship among vegetables…

Gliese 581g: The first New Earth?

My friends, the revolution has begun.

Scientists from UC Santa Cruz announced today the discovery of Gliese 581g, the first planet discovered in the habitable zone of its star. Let me repeat: the first planet discovered in the habitable zone of its star.

In this habitable zone, temperatures are just right to support life as we know it here on Earth–that’s why it’s known as the “habitable zone.” Of course, there are several other conditions that need to be met before we can know whether the planet is truly habitable, but one of the most important criteria has already been met.

According to the report, this planet sounds like one of the rainbow worlds from Isaac Asimov’s Foundation trilogy. It’s tidally locked to its star, which means that one side of the planet is always in day, while the other side is always in night. If life as we know it exists on this world, it’s probably limited to the narrow band of twilight between the extremely hot day zone and extremely cold night zone.

The scientists calculate that the planet is about three times as massive as Earth, which means that if it’s a rocky world (as opposed to an ocean world), gravity on the surface would be about 1.2 times that of Earth. The host star, Gliese 581, is only twenty lightyears from Earth–the 86th closest star to our solar system.

But the best part is that the scientists feel that there are many, many more worlds like this out there. They detected Gliese 581g using the radial velocity method, which uses the star’s wobble to detect the planets tugging on it. Typically, this method is only good for discovering “hot jupiters”–very massive gas giants in extremely tight orbits (sometimes with a period of only a few Earth days). However, by the fact that scientists were able to find a planet in the habitable zone using this method, they predict that similar Earth-like planets are extremely common.

That is so cool, I don’t know what to say other than “the revolution has begun.” And truly, it’s a revolution. When we start discovering hundreds of Earth-like planets, and find that several of them have conditions perfect for supporting life (or better yet, actual evidence of life present), it’s going to change everything about how we think of our place in the universe.

This is an incredibly exciting time to be alive! Now if only I could live long enough to join the first colonization mission to one of these worlds…

Leading Edge proposal FTW

I witnessed a friend of mine propose to his girlfriend today…at one of the weekly meetings of The leading Edge. It was awesome.

We have this quirky tradition among Leading Edge slushpile readers (well, several actually). On the whiteboard, someone will write “Today is _____ day,” and then that person or someone else will fill in the blank with a different colored marker.

Well, when I showed up around 7:45, the message on the board was “Today is Multiple days,” with an asterisk that said “will be explained later.” Like most of the people there, I shrugged and didn’t think too much of it.

Well, around 8:15, Neal got up and said “I think it’s time to explain what I mean by ‘Multiple days.'” He then went up and started explaining how it’s harvest day, some other day, something else…

To be honest, we all kind of lost interest. Then he wrote down “the twist that no one saw coming,” and I think we cracked some kind of joke at it, but most of us still weren’t paying attention.

Then he wrote “Nyssa will you marry me?” and got down on his knees with a ring.

It was fantastically awesome. She screamed and went crazy, one of the girls got up with Neal’s phone and started taking pictures, and everyone clapped. Some of the editors came over to see what was going on, and when they saw it, their eyes just went wide. It was awesome.

Man, this science fiction and fantasy stuff at BYU leads to so many marriages. I can count at least half a dozen from Quark, and I’m sure there are a ton of others that were before my time. I think the main reason for it is that these sf&f clubs and events bring us together in a low-pressure environment where we can all just be ourselves and have fun. Friendships naturally lead to more-than-friendships when you don’t feel forced to date someone from the group every week (which is why Quark has just as many marriages, if not more, than most BYU singles wards).

Anyhow, congratulations Neal and Nyssa! I wish you both the best of luck! May all your children grow up to be just as geeky as you both!