Is Your Blog Lonely? Here are 8 Cures for an Under-visited Blog

 Sometimes in my internet wanderings I find a lonely blog. No comment on post after post, only two or three followers--- if they even have a 'follow' widget on the blog at all. When the blog belongs to a writer, that can be especially frustrating. They likely blog to build a platform--- but how can a blog help with that if no one reads it?

I had that problem myself at first, but I learned some things that I could do to fix my blogs loneliness. In no particular order, here they are.

1. Put up at least one 'follow this blog' widget on your blog. There is one for Blogger blogs, and one from Networked Blogs, and one from Linky. I have all three in my sidebar somewhere. This gives people who find your blog and like it a way to find and read your blog posts.

2. Make a point of reading other people's blogs and commenting. I've read that author Alex J. Cavenaugh spends a few hours a day reading blogs. And as a result he's well known in the world of author blogs. Be sure to read the blogs of your own followers and comment on a few, and also reach out to bloggers you haven't met before. Set a goal of commenting on 3 or 5 or 10 followers' blogs and 3 or 5 or 10 new blogs every day, or every day you are working on your blog, anyway.

3. Make your blog about more than just you and your book. You may be eager to find new customers who will buy your book, but the hard-sell approach doesn't win you any new blog readers. So blog about your genre and issues related to it, or another genre you also read, or current affairs, particularly those of interest to readers in your genre. Post a recipe or a picture of your kitten getting a bath. Anything to make your blog more than just another author's buy-my-book blog.

4. Participate in blog events such as blog hops. When I started out blogging I discovered the Christian Science Fiction & Fantasy blog tour. This is a monthly event where a group of authors reviews a work of Christian Science Fiction or Fantasy, and shares a list of the URLs of other tour participants. I got my first blog followers by doing the blog tour. Currently I participate in 2 monthly blog hops--- the Insecure Writer's Support Group and Indie Life. Links to these three blog events are in my sidebar, and you may find plenty more by looking through author blogs. By the way, if you are looking for new blogs to comment on, find the link list from a blog hop and check out some of the blogs on it, even if the blog hop is long over.

5. Join Facebook, and use the app 'Networked Blogs' so that you can make your blog posts appear in your feed. If you put up a Facebook author page as well, you can have your blog posts appear there--- or on both your personal page and your author page. Twitter and Google+ are other places to share your blog posts. I should point out that if you want to use these social media outlets to build up a platform rather than destroy one, use them like a grown-up. Don't send rude or hateful comments to random people who disagree with your political or (ir)religious views. Don't post pictures displaying some one's private parts and then scream 'censorship' when a grandmother asks you to take it down since her little grandkids are roaming around Facebook. Don't pitch a fit at ANYONE. And don't use curse words even if your Facebook friends do.

6. Blog regularly. When I was actively participating in the Christian Science Fiction & Fantasy blog tour, there were a couple of lonely blogs I visited that had no posts except that month's blog tour post, and the previous month's blog tour post, and the month before that.... I can understand how that can happen, on a lonely blog. You get discourage when you post and post and no one seems to be reading it, except perhaps on blog tour day. But if you don't post regularly, your blog doesn't look active enough for anyone to want to follow it.

7. Do a mitzvah (good deed) for other bloggers regularly. Make it your mission. You can share a good blog post from another blog--- particularly a lonely blog. If a blogger speaks of technical difficulties they are having on their blog, tell them how to fix it. Give them a good review of a book they've authored if you can do so honestly. There are many ways that you can show that an important part of your identity as a blogger involves helping others--- not just asking others to help you by following your blog, buying your book, and the like.

8. Review your blogging stats regularly. Note which of your posts were most popular, so you can do more like them. Notice what search terms were used to find your blog. That may not help--- my top search terms are 'David Tennant naked', which, alas, is not something I provide here at The Lina Lamont Fan Club. But I do see a lot of searches which include 'asperger' or 'autism' and so I make a point to blog about the autism spectrum side of my life from time to time. And, finally, note new links to your blog posts. This will help you find out if someone has linked to one of your blog posts recently, so you can go visit their blog in return.

I hope some of these ideas can help you make your blog a little less lonely. Do you have any great ideas yourself for increasing blog traffic? Post them in a comment!


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The Steam Cranes/Why Novelists Read Poetry

 












the steam cranes

a sijo

a team of steam cranes, hydraulically
lifting brownish-gray metaphors
quarreling over work methods
and over who has a bigger engine shaft

but what good are industrial efforts
in the days of nuclear rains?

(c) Nissa Annakindt 2012

Shared on Poetry Pantry #168

This is a sijo--- a Korean poetry form. The topic was chosen by opening one of my encyclopedias at random. This poem is NOT included in my poetry book, Where the Opium Cactus Grows, which is available on Amazon.com.

Why Novelists Read Poetry

Some time I read about the working habits of well-known writers. One writer, whose name I do not remember, started each writing session by reading poetry. It helped him use sharper and more meaningful language in his novels.

Poetry is not much appreciated these days, and 'therapeutic' poetry which consists in someone's prose whines arranged as if it were free verse is considered of equal worth with the greatest poems ever written.

I don't claim to be expert in knowing the literary value of a poem, like the experts who think Nikki Giovanni's poem about 'n-gg-r can you kill a honkey' is the work of one of the greatest poets of our age. But I do feel I have a grasp on what poems are 'strong' and thus useful for the novelist reading to improve his prose. It's the language--- vivid images, strong and meaningful words, combinations of ideas which are unexpected, and strong attention to the sound of the words--- and, yes, that can include rhyme and alliteration even in modern times.

A novelist's reading list of poetry will include the great poets of the past like Robert Burns and Friedrich Schiller, and it will include something modern. In the case of modern poets it is perfectly acceptable to reject vast numbers of poets and schools of poets that don't speak to the reader. The verdict of literary history has not yet been passed on these works.

I would also include poems in translation. In college I read poems translated from Russian and Chinese and quite enjoyed them--- even though my experience in reading German poems in the original and then in translation made me aware that poems, like everything else, cannot really be translating without losing something.

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Writing in the Crosshairs blogs about Discouragement

It was a discouraging day for me, what with discovering that my eating money for the month has been reduced by more than 1/2, and that the food bank I'd been urged to go to turned out to be too challenging and uncaring for an autistic bum like me to navigate.  And then I got home to check on my blog and saw this in the blogroll:

Writing In The Crosshairs: ARE YOU DISCOURAGED?

Yes, Writing in the Crosshairs, I am discouraged. There's this nasty voice in my head that keeps telling me if I can't even handle the little things in life that even people with Down Syndrome or schizophrenia seem to manage,  how can I possibly manage finishing a novel (or novella) and self-publishing it?

But the article on Writing in the Crosshairs was very encouraging to me. Particularly the references to Lord of the Rings and Vincent van Gogh. (I really like Vincent van Gogh since he may have had an autism spectrum disorder, and, according to Doctor Who, he's a friend of the Doctor.)

One of the best things in the blog post was the advice not to compare yourself to others. I guess that's good, to compare myself not to famous writers like Orson Scott Card or Karina Fabian but to last-week-me and last-year-me. (I don't want to think about two-decades-ago me who was younger, prettier, and could write without all the conflict, indecision and angst that I currently bring to the task.)

Anyway, I'd like to know, are you discouraged? Have you found good ways to cope with it? Do you think the Writing in the Crosshairs blog post is a help to discouraged writers and bloggers?

The kitty in the picture above is kitten Therese my dwarf kitten. I posted it here to remind me to wash the cat.

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Bestseller Labs blogs on Hugh Howey's Clever Book Promotion

During my morning check of the blogs I read I came across this at Bestseller Labs.
Hugh Howey's 'DUST': The Cleverest Book Promotion I've Seen In Years | Bestseller Labs

Hugh Howey, one of the most successful of the self-published fiction authors, has done some clever things to promote Dust, the final book in the Wool series.

Clever is good. Too many self-published authors are floundering around trying to figure out how to promote their books. Some, modest, do next to nothing to promote. Others, perhaps following bad book promotion advice, alienate potential readers by book-spamming all over social media--- not because they are egotistical, but because they have been made to believe that 'buy-my-book' spam is the right way to promote books.

The Wool series takes place in a post-apocalyptic world in which the survivors, fearing radiation, must live in massive shelters, forbidden to go outside. The radiation warning symbol--- the black-and-yellow symbol in the photo above--- is thus a powerful symbol of the series.

Howey created an item to give to those who would spread the word and create book-buzz for him--- a thumb drive with the radiation warning sign, which contained ebook versions of all three of the books in the Wool series. This thumb drive is still available on Howey's web site.

He also has incorporated a version of the three-triangles symbol in his signature. This is an example of 'book branding'--- a concept I admittedly don't fully understand.

I thought the Bestseller Labs article was very helpful, since I am already beginning to think about how I'm going to promote my novel-in-progress when things get so far. I couldn't afford expensive gestures like having a special thumb-drive created, but I could perhaps come up with something symbolic that I could use for 'book branding'.

I encourage you to follow the link above and read the article. What do you think of it? Would the methods Howey uses be effective in awaking your interest in his books? If you are an author, are you considering using ideas inspired by Howey's book promotion for your own work?

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Writing and the Mindfulness Fad

Recently my shrink suggested that I google 'mindfulness' and begin mindful meditation to deal with some of my issues. Before this I had been unaware of the mindfulness fad. But my shrink said that there had been scientific studies done on mindfulness meditation techniques which showed they were objectively helpful.

In looking at the mindfulness resources online--- as well as mindfulness books I shall never be able to afford--- there seems to be a wide variety of material. Some of it is practical stuff that could help anybody no matter how they feel about the mindfulness thing.

Others, however, use 'mindfulness' as a way to push the superiority of their Buddhist/'Zen' faith on others, while still being able to look down their nose at Christians who evangelize. The problem with that is that Buddhism isn't true. (You may now freak out, screaming 'you are not allowed to say that!' even if you would have just smiled and nodded if someone had said Christianity wasn't true.)

I refuse to give up the truth for something less-true just in order to improve my moods, cope with my Asperger Syndrome, and/or improve my writing. If I believed that mindfulness=Buddhism I wouldn't touch it. But the shrink who recommended mindfulness to me is not only a Christian, he's a Christian pastor. So he's not out to make me into a Buddhist.

I found an article on Mindfulness tips for writers over at Write to Done blog: 7 Mindfulness Tips to Energize Your Writing | Write to Done   I've read it over and thought that the tips were pretty useful for writers generally. Though 'Zen' was mentioned, I think the tips can be used by writers of other faiths or no faith without compromising their religion. But I'd like to hear the opinion of my blog readers on this. Do you think 'mindfulness' techniques can be of use to the non-Buddhist writer?

And now, I'm off to do my morning mindfulness meditation.....

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Will Blogging be Replaced by Facebook and Twitter?

 

Used to be when I posted stuff on my blog, things got pretty lively around here. Sometimes too lively as when a former blog follower got very angry because I, a gay woman, gave my opinion on gay 'marriage' and it didn't coincide with hers.

But as Facebook and Twitter have grown, the blog world, at least around here, has shrunk. I don't know, of course, if that is true for all bloggers, and I suspect the big blogs are doing better than ever.

I have given some thought myself to replacing my blog efforts with work on my Facebook author page (link below). It's a bit livelier even though my follower base is still small. But I think it would be sad if thoughtful blog posts get entirely replaced by tweets and Facebook status updates. It makes for a world that is ever more  trivial and ignorant.

Also, the world of Facebook is dominated by some pretty vicious trolls. When I got opposition here on my blog, I was simply informed that I could not express that opinion since it offended the person complaining. When someone disagreed with essentially the same opinion expressed on Facebook, I was told I was a liar, a fraud, a hater, a moron, retarded and crazy--- pretty much in one sentence.

I am very inactive on Twitter though I have an account, but I got a taste of that kind of opposition there as well.

The blog world seems to me to have the potential of being more thoughtful and more kind than Facebook or Twitter. As a result I think I must spend more time on this blog and on visiting the blogs of others.

What do you think? How does the blog world compare with social media?

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Букварь: The Story of a Book I Love

 This story began over 20 years ago. I was living in Bloomfield Hills, a suburb of Detroit, and one of my more intense special interests was learning the Русский язык (Russian language Russkii Yazik). It was hard to get books in Russian, especially on a budget, though I did score some free books of Russian lessons from the Soviet Union's Radio Moscow service.

They had this really big used book sale in our area and as a family of book lovers we all went. And in the section with assorted foreign language books, I first saw Букварь (pictured above) and for me it was love at first sight. 

Букварь (bukvar) is the Russian word for primer or first reading book. This particular Букварь was a school book published in 1973 and printed in the German Democratic Republic (Communist Germany). 

It was a charming, beautifully illustrated little book, though with a few scary pictures of Vladimir Ilich Lenin who was being touted as a friend of children in spite of being the guy who ordered the murder of the Tsar's five children and many others.

As a learning tool it is a delight since it introduced those strange Russian letters one at a time, and used primarily short words (though it was troublesome looking up each one in a Russian-English dictionary).

Last night I spent a good deal of time on eBay looking at their selection of Russian children's books. I found many different examples of Букварь, with the most interesting and charming being the most expensive. Finally I came across an example of my own beloved Букварь, though a much written-in example. 

I decided to curb my coveting of all those other Букварь and to appreciate my own more. Besides resolving to study through the whole Букварь in the next couple of months, I decided to make a photographic record of my Букварь for those not lucky enough to possess one of their own.

It is available on Facebook at this link: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.195913197246744.1073741841.149187465252651&type=1&l=b9a97761e6

Question: Do you have any unusual books you particularly love? If you are an Aspie, do you have any special interests which drive you to want to purchase hard-to-find books? Is it hard to control your spending on such books?

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A page from Букварь

 

Indie Life: Using Asperger Special Interests in Fiction Writing

 

This post is a part of the Indie Life blog hop, in which we blog about life as an indie writer.  We are also remembering on this day the events of the Sept. 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks.

Welcome to my blog! For those who don't know me, I am not only an indie writer, I am a writer with Asperger Syndrome, a form of autism. One of the symptoms of Asperger Syndrome is special interests.

A special interest is a somewhat obsessive interest in certain things that brings a certain degree of happiness to those with Asperger Syndrome. They can be something useful, like an obsession with computers like Bill Gates has, something relatively normal like being an obsessive Star Trek fan, or something a bit odd like an obsession with railroad schedules or collecting doorknobs.

When it comes to writing, incorporating some of your special interests into the fictional work can have certain benefits. First, it helps keep up the writer's interest in the work of fiction in question--- an important issue for a writer who often begins and then abandons fictional projects. Also it can create reader interest when the special interest used is one many people have some degree of interest in.

Bringing the passion that the typical aspie has toward a special interest into a fictional work may pay off in the fact that a novel written out of a great passion is usually more compelling than same-old, same-old fiction. And, finally, the special interests you use in your fiction can help define the themes and topics which make your writing unique. Think of the Valdemar novels of Mercedes Lackey (who as far as I know does not have Asperger Syndrome). She often writes about child abuse, misunderstood children, horses, falcons/falconry, and, in a disguised manner, cops (the Heralds of Valdemar).

In my own WIP Starship Destine, I have used a number of my special interests. One of my earlier special interests is an obsession with the Star Trek series, particularly the original one. Starship Destine, like Star Trek, is starship-based science fiction. Some of the characters in Starship Destine are the extra characters I made up for Star Trek stories.

Another special interests I have is languages, and in particular created languages and international auxiliary languages like Esperanto  (learn Esperanto here).  I speak Esperanto pretty well, and I know some of a couple of other similar international auxiliary languages that never got the speaker base that Esperanto has these days. I could have incorporated this interest into my story by simply creating an idealized future society where all Earth people have agreed to speak Esperanto as a second language and thus done away with language problems--- at least until they meet their first aliens. But that kind of story isn't me. In Starship Destine there are no less than 3 international auxiliary languages in use--- the two major political factions each have their preferred IAL, and the Fleet uses a third to show its attempted neutrality.

I also have an interest in politics, as well as a dismay at the anger and hatred over political divisions today. Because I don't want to project contemporary politics into the future, I have replaced today's conservative/liberal dichotomy with a different one: we have the Omaynists, which include ALL of today's conservative/liberal/socialist/'reactionary' factions, who are characterized by the fact that they actually believe in things, and usually share the idea that at least sometimes it is good to tell the truth, and the Alliterists, who openly boast of telling lies and who admire the evil dictators of the past such as Caligula, Stalin, Hitler and Kim Jong-il.

Now, as beneficial as special interests can be to your fiction, there is a downside. Aspies can run on and on about their special interests to the point that they bore people. Think of all the details about whaling in Moby Dick, written by probable aspie Herman Melville. By modern standards at least he should have cut some of that out. And if he was a typical aspie, he might easily have added two or three times as much of those whaling-details. It's kind of like the social skills we aspies have to learn, that we have to limit the amount of stuff we say about our special interests to others, just give them very brief highlights to avoid boring them.

Another trap is letting your special interests eat your writing time, if not your life. That's a constant temptation for me in this project. One of the languages I use in the story, Universalglot, is a very obscure one, and a language I don't know very well yet. I'm very tempted to spend my writing time studying Universalglot or working on my Universalglot Facebook page. The essential thing is to set a fixed rule--- your writing time is for your writing. Your special interests you work with at some other time--- usually after the day's writing work is over.

After all this, I bet some of the neurotypical writers out there are beginning to wish that they were lucky enough to have Asperger Syndrome and the attendant flock of special interests. Don't despair, your more ordinary interests can take the same role in your writing. And though you may not have the same level of passion for them that the aspie has with special interests, they are also less likely to take up too much of your time.

Question: what interests of yours, special or otherwise, have you incorporated into your current writing? Is it working out?
 
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Religious Orientation of Sci-Fi and Fantasy Authors

A few years back I was searching the internet at random and found a list which claimed to give the religions of science fiction and fantasy writers. I eagerly started to read--- and was disappointed to find out that instead of giving the author's current religious orientation, it simply listed their childhood faiths. As if that mattered in the least.

The nominal or former faith of a writer makes little difference to his current writing. Particularly if they came from families which rarely if ever attended religious services and didn't send their children to religious education classes. It's what they are currently that makes a difference, and is therefore of interest.

I suppose the list makers simply presumed that if you wrote science fiction and fantasy, your current religious orientation was some sort of secularism, perhaps atheism or agnosticism, or perhaps something even less defined than that.

Since I was a Norse Pagan at the time and was looking for writers that were some sort of Pagan, I was disappointed. Some of the writers that were rumored to be Pagan, in Pagan circles at least, were listed as Methodists and such based on what their parents were, at least in a nominal way. And at least one of the listed Pagans was buried as an Episcopalian.

Of course at that time, most Pagans who wrote didn't share that fact with the public. It was a time where the national media would refer to a Wiccan as a 'self-proclaimed witch' and presume that such a person was too loony and psychotic to be a juror or to have any other responsibility in society.

Even at the current time, there are writers one might suspect of hiding their religion, though these days Christianity is something likely to be hidden by writers who write for secular publishers. Just look at the outpouring of hate toward writer Orson Scott Card because of his continued loyalty to his Mormon faith, and you can see why some people feel the need to keep quiet.

But one's religious orientation profoundly affects the content of writing, most especially in science fiction and some fantasy. Because, let's face it, what 'religion' really amounts to is a shared opinion on the really important things, the cosmically important things. If any. And particularly in science fiction which often touches on the cosmically big things.

Let's take an example of a typical secular writer. All of his well-educated and knowledgeable characters are likely to have secular point-of-view, and any characters who are people of faith may be either insincere and villains, or they are uneducated people who don't matter to the story much. But that's not all. In a sweeping science fiction saga by such a writer, the turning point of the story might be something beloved of the secular-minded--- the evils of religions and their blind cult-like followers, or the adventure of pure-chance evolutionary changes (which often, in sci-fi, don't seem to help in the whole 'survival of the fittest' thing) or an alternate history in which Jesus Christ was a famous serial killer or a woman or where the early Christians believed in human sacrifice and cannibalism.

On the other hand, there are writers of the Christian faith. Contrary to popular belief, they don't reject 'science', or even, necessarily evolutionary theories. What is different is that the Christian believes that the universe as we know it is directed by an intelligent, purposeful power--- God. Though our understanding isn't always advanced enough to see that. There is also the firm belief is that God has powerful enemies--- the fallen angels, AKA demons--- and that these enemies are highly powerful in the human world while the friends of God are little respected. And a particularly important belief--- every human life--- and the life of a non-human intelligent alien--- has a high value, and so there are no casually expendable or unworthy grades of people whose lives don't matter.

These two viewpoints lead to different types of stories, and both kinds can be of interest to the reader, as can the many OTHER viewpoints that a writer might hold. And THAT is why I believe a list of the current religious orientation or belief systems of science fiction and fantasy authors would be of great interest. If only someone had the desire, and the access to information, to create it.

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IWSG: Fear of Detection

This is a post for the Insecure Writers Support Group . 

All of my story-creating/writing life, I have suffered from a fear of detection. It works like this: if other people detect that I am making up stories in my head, they will become hostile and harshly critical to me because of it. I am living in a fantasy world, they will say. Proof that I have serious mental problems, they will say. As a child I once even went to a therapist who promised to cure me of my pathological fantasy life.

Perhaps it's because I have Asperger Syndrome--- undiagnosed until much later in life--- that my childhood self learned to see other people as only a source of pain. While the other children divided the kids around them into groups 'my friends' and 'not my friends', I divided it into 'people who throw rocks at me' and 'people who only call me names'.

Instead of friends, I had fictional characters. I made up stories about the characters in favorite TV shows: Star Trek, Dark Shadows, Hogan's Heroes, Batman, Wild, Wild West.... I started making up original characters for these head-stories, and that was probably the reason I began thinking of myself as a future writer. That and the example of Jo from Little Women.

But I never dared share any detail of my head-stories with another living soul. That would just add more ammunition to the outer world's campaign to reject me as too weird and substandard to be anything but an outcast.

Even when I grew to maturity and began writing things down, my fear of detection continued. Most of what I wrote was never seen by another living soul. The one science fiction story I wrote got a personal rejection letter when I sent it to a sci-fi magazine, but even though I knew that was a good thing, I never sent it out again.

For a brief time I wrote a humor column for a local newspaper that specialized in humorous things, but that wasn't a form of writing that touched my heart. It didn't matter if people liked that or not, so it felt safe to share that with others.

Now, having arrived at an age that most young people think is too old to be of interest, I am finally beginning to be ready to deal with my fear of detection. The other day, I experimentally posted a scene from a novel on this blog. I directed the attention of a few of my write-y friends to it, and I also gave a printed-out copy to my therapist (who's a Protestant pastor and a Kung-fu Master on the side).

Doing this gave me loads of destructive, self-hating and fearful thoughts that made yesterday an interesting day. And now, I'm fighting my fears even more: I'm participating in the Insecure Writers Support Group, talking about it, and sharing a link to my story-scene here: http://linalamont.blogspot.com/2013/09/flight.html

This means that I will not only be detected, I may be detected by complete strangers who have no reason not to vent negativity at my efforts if that is what makes them feel good about themselves. That's even more scary. And I wonder if doing this sharing will have a negative effect on my level of commitment to the story. Since no matter what reaction I get--- critiques, silence or praise--- I will still be convinced in my heart that every other person alive, looking at my work, will declare it substandard and stupid--- even if it is objectively well written. Since, after all, it comes from the brain of an outcast.

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Flight

*** This is a temporary blog post ***

This is a  scene (VERY rough draft) from my WIP, Starship Destine: Wynter. I'm not posting it to seek out critique or praise. What I'm interested is this:

1. Reactions: are there bits of it you thought were interesting? Which bits?
2.  The cast of characters is multinational and includes Asian and Hungarian characters who write their names surname-first and other European cultures that go surname-last, and I want to write them the culturally appropriate way. For the major characters I want to introduce the names with the surname in all-caps--- usually read from an ID--- so that you get which bit is the surname without me having to explain it each time. I got the idea from the international convention of writing names with surnames in all-caps which is-or-was used on Esperanto-language correspondence lists. (Jes, mi parolas esperante.)

Scene begins on the planet Oldearth during the time of the Psion Riots. Fleet officer Jang has rescued a psionic Fleet cadet, Oblonsky, from the rioters and must flee both from the riots and from a cadre of Fleet officers who agree with them.

The place looked like a desert. More earth was bare than was covered with the spare, sickly-looking grass. The few trees were small, shrubby and twisted. But as the two figures on horseback rode through the valley, there were signs that this place was once not a deserted wasteland, that it was, in fact, once a lush agricultural valley that fed a large part of a nation, the America-that-was. 

There were bits of abandoned irrigation equipent, fragments of houses, places where the trail turned in to paved road for a pace or two. And, here, a piece of the modern world stuck out in this bleak place. A building—- a shack—- filled with modern equipment.

The lead rider, a young man with Asian features, directed his horse to the shack. He glanced slightly at his even-younger companion to ensure he had followed. "Boy!" he addressed him. "We're stopping here for a while. Dismount." And following his own advice, he dismounted and walked to the door of the shack. Pulling out his ID, which bore the words 'Lieutenant FIRST rank JANG Taemin' embossed into it, he waved it at the door sensor. Twice. Nothing happened. 

The boy walked up and pulled out his own ID awkwardly with his right hand. 'Cadet FIRST rank Maximin Raoul OBLONSKY' was what it said. He placed it carefully in his left hand, and pulled up his sleeve to reveal angry green letters fused into the flesh of his arm: PSION. He waved both the ID and his defaced forearm at the sensor. The door clicked open. 

Jang was surprised. "Why wouldn't mine…."

"Because this is my place—- my people's. Not a Fleet thing at all." He took Jang's ID and waved it around in front of the sensor. "There. Now it knows you are with me."

Jang took his ID back, entered the shack, and sat down before a standard communications array. Waving his card over the thing gave him access, but he paused. "Maximin—- I may call you Maximin?"

"No."

"Alright, Cadet…."

The boy wrinkled up his nose. "You don't have to call me that. Not after…. It's just that Maximin Oblonsky is my grandfather's name. Maximin Vladimir Oblonsky. All of the sons and grandsons also have Maximin as the first given name but none of them use it. I am called Raoul."

"OK," Jang turned back to the communication array. "I was just wondering—- what with the Anti-Psion Riots and all—- if it's even safe to contact normal Fleet channels. We need pickup, but if we contact someone who's been corrupted…."

The boy leaned over the array. "This can't contact the Fleet channels anyway—- not directly. We have to route it through my Family's system." He took a small keyboard from his pocket and slaved it to the array, and began to type, first a long code, and then words which appeared on the screen in front of Jang: 'House OBLONSKY, Colonel FIRST rank Nataliya Melody Victoire Alexandra Myeongwol OBLONSKAYA, Special Services'.

"Colonel Oblonskaya?" Jang asked.

"My mother," Raoul said. "Or at least, her comm system. I can crack her security—- at least enough to get the list of her Fleet contacts, to find someone trustworthy. Ideally, one who owes my mother a favor."

It seemed to take a great deal of time and several rather lengthy challenges and code responses before the boy got in. But from Colonel Oblonskaya's system it took a minimum number of keystrokes before the boy looked up at Jang. "OK, it's arranged," he said. "Pickup by a secure shuttle—- my family's, but with a Fleet crew—- and we'll be taken to an orbital station." He smiled, very slightly—- the first time Jang had seen the boy smile since the Riots began. "And we get to keep the horses."

The boy moved as if to leave immediately. "Wait," Jang said. "Your family—- don't you want to get word, to see if they are all safe? Your sister?"

"They are all safe, behind Family security," Raoul said. "Except my sister who was at the Fleet station in San Jose with me."

"Don't we need to find her?"

"She is fine," the boy said. "I'd know if she wasn't. Besides, she's not like me. She doesn't mind hurting people."

Jang pulled the co-ords for the rendezvous point—- a two-hour ride, could be much worse. He waved his ID over the array in a routine shut-down move—- wouldn't do to leave it unlocked—- and stopped, transfixed by what it now said.

The boy noticed. "I forgot to say. You got promoted. Commander Third rank."

"And you?"

"Lieutenant Third rank."

Jang grinned. "A damned kid officer." He mounted his horse and spurred it toward the rendezvous point, and the boy followed.

(c) Nissa Annakindt 2013, all rights reserved.

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What if Starfleet Outlived the Federation?

In the Star Trek series, the governmental body that Starfleet had to answer to was the United Federation of Planets. One presumes it was the Federation that created Starfleet.

Since the Federation is made up of many different planets with utterly different customs, and different ideas about right and wrong, it would not be at all surprising if there was a lot of interplanetary strife. And I don't really see Starfleet being sent to attack a planet that decided to drop out of the Federation.

But what if the Federation fell apart? What if issues arose to the point that nearly every planet in the Federation decided to drop out and go it alone?

Now, the most likely fate of Starfleet if the Federation fell apart is that the individual planets would demand pieces of Starfleet--- ships, starbases and the like.

But with the central authority having fallen apart, Starfleet might not be much inclined to meet those demands, especially as each world would have different ideas as to how much of Starfleet they were entitled to. Starfleet might choose to hang together just long enough for these things to be worked out in some authoritative way, and in time realize there is no authoritative body able to make that happen.

With the fall of the Federation, the biggest challenge faced by Starfleet would be how to deal with the loss of tax revenues. But if you are enough of a Star Trek geek, you may have noticed a certain lack of commercial space transport. There are not many private space liners or space freighters out there, perhaps because of the dangers of encountering hostile forces in an unarmed ship.

Starfleet, therefore, could continue by offering space transportation for a fee, and also providing defense of any private space transport for a fee. Planets who found themselves without adequate space transport after the Federation ended would be eager to avail themselves of the service.

There is also the possibility of selling defensive services. This would make Starfleet into a fleet of mercenaries. It could even degenerate into a protection racket if Starfleet people weren't such Big Damn Heroes. Various worlds might pay Starfleet ships to patrol near their star systems, catching any hostile vessels that might be coming their way.

The big culture shock for Starfleet people, the pampered children of the Federation taxpayer, would come as they had to start looking at the bottom line for the first time ever. Exploring strange new worlds would have to take a back seat to transporting passengers and cargo and doing routine patrols. I believe that in time they would have to wise up and add a Merchant Officer to their command crew, just as they have a Science Officer.

I think in time Starfleet would adapt, would perhaps even see the new order of things as beneficial to them. What do you think?

In a writing project of my own, Starship Destine, I've created a world in which something like the fall of the Federation has occurred in the past, and the Fleet has learned long ago to cope with that situation.



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Have You Tagged Your Characters Lately?

Character tags are the little things that make your characters more distinct. Harry Potter's scar is a character tag. So is Scarlett O'Hara's practice of deciding to think about some troubling matter 'tomorrow.'

A character tag can be something visual, or something the character says, or a mannerism or behavior, or even the reaction of others to that character when he walks into a room--- if everyone says a certain character 'looks creepy', for example.

The best character tags are ones that tell you a little more about the character. Harry Potter's scar tells about his tragic past, and his current unwilling connection to Lord Voldemort. Scarlett O'Hara's thinking about things 'tomorrow' shows something about her personality.

Other character tags are less revealing, but they help the reader to tell one character from another, which in turn makes it possible for the reader to build up a mental picture of the character.

Main characters have many things about them that serve as character tags. Since the main character is onstage all the time or nearly so in much fiction, there may be less need of the character tag for the purpose of telling that character apart from others. But to mention each character tag a couple of times helps build the reader's understanding of the character.

Secondary characters may be harder for the reader to tell apart from one another. They should have a few strong character tags that you use for them. If the character is onstage most of the time--- as in the main character's sidekick--- your use of character tags may be similar to the way you do it for main characters. If the secondary character is only intermittently present, you might need to use a character tag on each reintroduction. At least during the first half of the book.

Minor characters--- as in, characters even less prominent than the secondary ones--- are not deeply developed. They may be nothing more than a name, a function in the story, and a character tag or two.

Using a character tag can seem a bit repetitious. But as the character tag is a learning tool to help your reader learn the things he must know to enjoy the story, a little repetition is a good thing and can seem invisible to the reader if not overdone. And you can use your writer's creativity to find ways to use the same character tag in different ways when needed.

Race and Physical Characteristics in Tagging

Race and other physical characteristics can be used as a character tag, and they must be to ensure that your reader is aware of these things. Many readers skim-read and may not notice a first mention of such things. I did that with a book once only to find in the last 1/4 of the book the character I had been following throughout the book was a Black man and that this fact, at that point, was causing him a problem.

In the English-speaking world, the reader will tend to assume that a character is of the Caucasian race, of normal height rather than being a dwarf or a giant, not missing limbs or wheelchair-bound and without massive scarring, mutilations or deformities unless you, as a writer, mention that difference.

In the case of Black characters, race is such an explosive issue that many non-Black authors fear to mention the race of their Black characters at all, or mention it briefly, once, with a shudder, and then go on to write safer things. Worse, they may try to be subtle and say the Black character likes jazz, reads a book by Alice Walker, or have him use slang expressions derived from hip-hop culture, and assume he's told the reader the race of that character. This 'subtlety' limits your ability to develop Black characters beyond the stereotype, and it doesn't reveal the information you want revealed. That hip-hop slang can also be used by a 65-year-old Japanese-American news stand owner, and the Russian mafia boss is likely to be a jazz fan as well.

In older books people were franker about Black characters. They would say 'black' right in front of God and everybody, more than once. If Professor Jasper was a Black man, you might see something like this:

"Professor Jasper?"
The black man turned. "What do you want?"
"Could you explain the bit about the theory of relativity again?"
"What part don't you get?"
"All of it."

The main point is, we as writers, if we want to present a diverse world full of Black people and Asians and little people and men with artificial legs need to man up, eschew political correctness, and say what we mean to help our readers make an accurate picture of our characters.

 Twitchy tagging

Some writers, in their character tagging, tend to use nervous tics, hand-wringing, hair-twisting, and the like as tags all too frequently.  They think these devices make their characters more memorable.

But the problem is that tags not only help the reader tell characters apart, they also reveal things about characters. If you have a hand-wringing character and a hair-twisting character and a few more with nervous tics of different sorts, you end up with a twitchy group of characters, to the extent that your character group seems highly unrealistic. And in a major character, twitchy tags can be off-putting.

It's best, then, to avoid these types of tags unless you have a character whose personality is really expressed by them. Also to be avoided are excessively bizarre tags such as a character that starts taking off her clothes every time someone says the word 'and'. Stick with the more conventional tags nearly all of the time to best connect with your readers.

Posts about character tagging

Building Fictional Characters
Tags for Secondary Characters
Character Tags in Fiction
Character Tags: Michael Scott and Mustache Jeff


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