July's Newsletter and what lies ahead

 Here's my newsletter for July, which my subscribers got to read last month. If this content appeals to you, please subscribe here. Or here: https://tinyurl.com/yydem5yw

Alas, the harmonicas have gone to a good home. Don't you wish you'd subscribed <g>?

Ah, summer... This spring has been exceptionally hectic for me personally, but that seems to be drawing to a close. I'm settling into a summer of Clearing Things Up and digging into revisions of the next Darkover novel, Arilinn. I'm feeling bemused by my process. I receive editorial notes (this book and the last, The Laran Gambit, were edited by the amazing Judith Tarr), I look them over...and have the literary equivalent of a panic attack. Ack, I can't possibly fix all this! What was I thinking? Aliens must have eaten my brains! It's hopeless... And then, armed with my trusty notebook, I get to work. And, as if by magic, ideas pop into my brain. They not only pop, they explode...they procreate with abandon. I look back and think, I've written how many novels now and this still happens...and I still love the way things come together in revision every single time. You'd think I'd remember that, right?

What's in this newsletter?   Harmonicas free to a good home! A musical gift Writing craft: Who needs dialog? Audiobook links for my books Cute cat pic In cleaning out a drawer (or five), I came across these cute little Hohner mini-harmonicas. They're about an inch long, with a silvery finish and a loop for a carrying cord. I have no recollection of where they came from, but they're too sweet to not enjoy. I've seen them on Etsy for up to $40 but would rather give them away. If you'd like one, email me at deborahjross at gmail dot com. I'll pay domestic postage.   A Musical Gift Speaking of music, my friend and neighbor, musician Karie Hillery, has a new album out, "Meanderings" contains instrumentals with keyboards and guitar. She describes it as "a musical conversation between hearts - songs that flow through every emotion, carrying the listener on a beautiful journey inward." Her musical partner and BFF Chris Pinnick is a world-class musician who has played with the band Chicago, on Herb Alpert’s ‘Rise,” and with The Spencer Davis Group, to name just a few.  Info and samples on her website. And you can listen to a free song here. I encourage you to take a listen. I find her music calming and uplifting, a welcome antidote to stressful days. Who Needs Dialog?     I love to “talk shop” with other writers. I learn so much about my own process and my weaknesses because it’s always easier to see the flaws – and the strengths! – in someone else’s work. Recently, I had the mirrored experience of serving as a beta reader for another writer’s novel and receiving similar feedback on one of my own. The thematic similarities and differences between the two very early versions of the stories are irrelevant. What fascinated me was that we used dialog in diametrically opposed ways in our story construction: my friend’s rough draft read like a screenplay, and mine had comparatively little conversation. We’ll both end up with balanced manuscripts, but we’ve started from opposite places.    Dialog, which is the transcription of what each character says, rather than a summary in narrative, is one of a writer’s most powerful tools. It’s also one that’s easy to abuse, either by using it too much or too little, or asking it to perform functions in the story that it’s not well-suited for. Certainly, it’s possible to tell a story entirely in dialog form, just as it’s possible to write a story entirely in narrative with zero dialog. Most stories fall in the comfortable middle zone, especially if they involve more than one character capable of speech.   When we write prose stories, we can choose to show action in a variety of ways, narrative being one, dialog another. Dialog isn’t very good for showing events at a distance; characters can be discussing those events or relaying them, but both are “off the scene” and hence have less immediacy. On the other hand, if the emphasis is on the reaction of the characters to those events, dialog can be of immense help. One of the strengths of dialog is that if skillfully handled, it can give us a window into a character’s inner state without being in that character’s head. Screenplay writers know this and use dialog to reveal character, to heighten and resolve tension, to create conflict, and to further the plot.   Which brings me to one of the things I saw in my friend’s manuscript. She came to her story with “screenwriter’s mind.” She used dialog not only to convey the content of conversations (relationship building, changing, exchange of information between characters, etc.) but to sketch out the action that she would later fill in with narrative. I’m a bit in awe of this since what little I know of screenplay writing has thoroughly impressed me with what a high-wire act it is to use only dialog and highly abbreviated descriptions of scene and action to tell a story.   I, on the other hand, used bits of narrative as shorthand for the conversations that will be developed in revision. If anything, my rough draft was too focused on the inside on my protagonist’s head, not what she was doing or saying. One of the consequences was that other characters are suggested rather than developed, whereas in my friend’s draft, her extensive use of dialog has done much of this important work.   There isn’t any one right way to weave dialog into a story, any more than there is one single right way to write. The more options we have, the more tools we have in that magic box of tricks, the better we will be at telling a range of stories. So here’s a challenge for your next story project. If you’re like my friend, a writer who uses dialog heavily to set the major blocks of her story, challenge yourself to write that first draft with as little dialog as you can. Can you do it with none? What are the circumstances under which you absolutely have to put it in?   If you’re like me, a writer who puts in just a bit here and there, challenge yourself to use dialog to create the backbone of the plot, to introduce and reveal character, to heighten and resolve tension, without using your normal narrative techniques.   My guess is that either way, the process will be both uncomfortable and revealing. Have you been relying on dialog as a preferred and therefore easy way of transcribing the movie between your ears? Or have you regarded it as a frill, lightweight chit-chat instead of an essential foundation of the story?   The good news is that no matter where we start, whatever our natural propensities and habit, it really doesn’t matter what order we weave in and shift around the elements of narrative and dialog. What matters is that final draft when everything has come into balance and the story shines!   Audiobook Links I love listening to stories read aloud! At bedtime, I fall asleep during all but the most dramatic scenes. In fact, it's a family tradition! But I also enjoy audiobooks while I am cooking or cleaning (or on the exercise bike, or walking alone). I also love sharing my own stories, whether read aloud for your pleasure by me or a professional narrator. All my Darkover collaborations are available through Recorded Books, so they're listed on many venues. Some of my original novels were put out through Audible and here are the links. I have a few coupons for free downloads of my original books. Let me know if you'd like one. They're also free to Audible members. Jaydium Northlight The Price of Silence Azkhantian Tales After a long, cold, wet winter, summer has arrived with a vengeance! Sonja impersonates a Melted Cat, draped fetchingly across two cat baskets.

SFWA's Emergency Medical Fund signal boost

From SFWA: Emergency Medical Fund

In light of the recent fire disaster in Maui, we want to encourage members to share news of our Emergency Medical Fund (EMF) with other speculative fiction writers. The fund is intended to provide short-term assistance to writers who may be having difficulty paying for their medical expenses due to emergencies interfering with their ability to write, which is unfortunately a circumstance that many Maui-based writers are currently dealing with.

Genre writers do not need to be SFWA members to apply for relief from the EMF, but the money can only be used for medical expenses not covered by insurance. Co-pays are eligible for EMF funds. Questions about and requests for assistance can be directed to emf@sfwa.org.

https://www.sfwa.org/about/benevolent-funds/emergency-medical-fund/

 

Repost: Maternal Mortality Rates Rising, Especially for Women of Color

This article first appeared in The Conversation and is reprinted here, with permission (see below). It's such an important issue. Following four miscarriages, I had a difficult pregnancy and preterm labor. With skilled obstetrical care, I had a healthy, full-term baby (who is now a medical doctor delivering babies herself). But...

I am white and I had excellent health insurance. I want to cry and scream and march in the streets at the blight of Black, Hispanic, and Native women who love their unborn babies just as much as I loved mine. This discrepancy is injustice. This is racism.

And now I hear that OBs are fleeing states with horrendous reproductive rights restrictions, terrified that if they treat problem pregnancies that do not end well (see aforementioned miscarriages), they will face criminal charges and loss of their medical licenses. That means rich white women will get the same good medical care...and poor women, largely women of color, will die.

Will die.

Let that sink in. Now read the article. Each one of those statistics is a woman who loves and is loved. A family. A community.

Risk of death related to pregnancy and childbirth more than doubled between 1999 and 2019 in the US, new study finds

Maternal death rates are higher in the U.S. than in other high-income countries. Tetra Images/Getty Images

Laura Fleszar, University of Washington; Allison Bryant Mantha, Harvard University; Catherine O. Johnson, University of Washington, and Greg Roth, University of Washington

Black women were more likely to die during pregnancy or soon after in every year from 1999 through 2019, compared with Hispanic, American Indian and Alaska Native, Asian, Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander, and white women. That is a key finding of our recent study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The risk of maternal death increased the most for American Indian and Alaska Native women during that time frame.

Maternal deaths refers to death from any cause except for accidents, homicides and suicides, during or within one year after pregnancy.

Notably, maternal mortality rates more than doubled for every racial and ethnic group from 1999 through 2019. Most maternal deaths are considered preventable because, in the U.S., maternal deaths are most often caused by problems that have very effective treatments, including bleeding after delivery, heart disease, high blood pressure, blood clots and infections.

Book Reviews: Silver Under Nightfall, by Rin Chupeco

 Silver Under Nightfall, by Rin Chupeco (Saga)

I grabbed this book on the strength of Chupeco’s previous novel, The Bone Witch, which I enjoyed. The opening engaged me immediately, with its world of constant friction between humans and vampires, with their own internal divisions. The central character is Remy Pendergast, elite bounty hunter of rogue vampires and social outcast, forced by his powerful noble father to provide sexual favors to courtly ladies in exchange for secret information. There’s so much potential there, with action, political tension, and a wounded hero. But that’s not all, for a new breed of vampires arrives on stage, infected with a toxic Rot that renders them impossible to kill, transforming instead into unstoppable, immortal monstrosities.

I was right with Remy in the opening chapters. My heart went out to him for his loveless life, his fighting prowess in the service of those who neither know nor care for him, and his longing for approval. Then he’s off on a quest to find the source of the Rot and a way to counter it, accompanying a vampire princess and her fiancé. It’s soon evident there’s a great deal of sexual tension all around, which leads to the inevitable intimacies. Many readers will just love the intricacies of the characters, a polyamorous love triad, vampires and more vampires, and a very cool medical mystery.

Alas, I wasn’t one of them. The author could have played on the trope of vampirism as a metaphor for eroticism or explored how acceptance and validation can aid in recovery from sexual abuse, or formed the basis for an extraordinary, cooperative fighting unit. But for me, the book did none of these things beyond token mention of Remy’s enduring PTSD and lots of bed action once he gives in to his lovers. I felt as if I were reading two quite different books, maybe more. The focus jumped around rather than finding a resonance with each genre enhancing and mirroring the other. Still, I was willing to keep reading, carried along by the strength of the opening and concept.

About three-quarters through the book, when each event ought to have jacked up the tension even more, the book ran out of steam. It felt to me as if everything stopped. The three have escaped from the clutches of the evil vampire and for the moment, all other threats recede while research goes on. Then the city where they’ve taken refuge is about to be swarmed by yet more mobs of Rot-infected vampires, Remy leaves, then changes his mind and comes back. And so forth. All the elements were set up well before in terms of mention but not in terms of emotional immediacy and growing-ever-closer, escalating danger.

I was left puzzled as to the disconnect between the dynamic, engaging beginning, and the piecemeal experience of the latter part of the book. This was complicated by a serious challenge to my suspension of disbelief regarding the ecology of vampires in this world. Various writers have tackled the question of the minimum sustainable ratios of vampires to humans. While their solutions vary, they all agree that there need to be quite a few more humans than vampires, anywhere from 1 vampire per 15,000 to 1 per 100,000, depending on how frequently vampires feed (and a bunch of other factors). I had trouble wrapping my mind around the siege where hundreds or thousands of vampires, original, newly turned, and Rot-infected, form a ravening horde. I wonder if this is a case in which the author had already strained my credulity, whereas if I had not had occasion to question the world-building, I might not have had a problem with it.

As I said before, other readers may not have these issues, but may instead love the complex world, polyamorous bisexual romance, and action, not to mention vampires and a very nifty weapon called Breaker. If these appeal to you, give the book a try.

Trojan Planets, Diamond Stars, and Other Astronomical Wonders

1st known 'Trojan' planets discovered locked in the exact same orbit around a star

Astronomers have discovered the first evidence of ultra-rare 'Trojan' planets: two sibling planets bound on the same orbit around the same star.

The potential co-orbiting planets, dancing around the young star PDS 70 roughly 370 light-years away, consist of a Jupiter-size planet and a cloud of debris — possibly the shattered remains of a dead planet, or the gathering building blocks of one yet to be born.

 
Trojan planets get their unusual name from the two asteroid clusters seen around Jupiter, which, upon their discovery, were split into Greeks and Trojans (the opposing sides of the mythical Trojan War in Homer's Iliad) based on their proximity to the gas giant's gravitationally stable Lagrange points.

Lagrange points are places in a solar system where the gravitational pulls of a star and an orbiting planet balance out the motion of an object's orbit, trapping the object so that it moves in lock-step with the planet.

A White Dwarf is Starting to Crystallize into Diamond

White dwarfs are truly strange objects. After a lifetime of billions of years of fusion, they transform themselves into something else completely different. They transition from blazing balls of plasma to degenerate lumps of carbon that eventually crystallize into diamonds that last for unimaginably long time periods.

It takes a quadrillion years for a white dwarf to crystallize, and since the Universe is not even 14 billion years old, astronomers will never spot a fully crystallized one. But this research removes some of the mystery by finding one that’s just starting to become a cosmic diamond. Curious astronomers will study more of these bizarre stellar remnants, and one day, we may know exactly how and when something so strange can happen.

A skyscraper-size asteroid flew closer to Earth than the moon — and scientists didn't notice until 2 days later

Now dubbed 2023 NT1, the roughly 200-foot-wide (60 meters) space rock sailed past our planet on July 13, traveling at an estimated 53,000 mph (86,000 km/h), according to NASA. However, because the rock flew toward Earth from the direction of the sun, our star's glare blinded telescopes to the asteroid's approach until long after it had passed.

Astronomers didn't catch wind of the building-size rock until July 15, when a telescope in South Africa — part of the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS), an array of telescopes designed to spot asteroids several days to weeks before any potential impact — caught the rock making its exit from our neighborhood. More than a dozen other telescopes also spotted the rock shortly afterward, according to the International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center.

Hundreds of 'ghost stars' haunt the Milky Way's center. Scientists may finally know why

"Planetary nebulas offer us a window into the heart of our galaxy and this insight deepens our understanding of the dynamics and evolution of the Milky Way's bulge region," University of Manchester astrophysicist Albert Zijlstra said in a statement.

Studying 136 planetary nebulas in the thickest part of the Milky Way, the galactic bulge, with the Very Large Telescope (VLT), the team discovered that each is unrelated and comes from different stars, which died at different times and spent their lives in different locations.

The researchers also found that the shapes of these planetary nebulas line up in the sky in the same way. Not only this, but they are also aligned almost parallel to the plane of the Milky Way.

Book Reviews: Gone Girl, a Psychological Thriller

Gone Girl, by Gillian Flynn

I picked up this book, variously described as a crime thriller or a psychological thriller (which I think is more accurate), not knowing much about its content. I’d attended a webinar in which the teacher mentioned it as a brilliant example of how plot twists generate that page-turning, can’t-put-it-down addiction. On the strength of the recommendation, I decided to check it out without reading the book description.

To the outside world, Nick and Amy Dunne appear to be a perfect married couple, crazy in love with each other, generous, and understanding. When Amy goes missing on their fifth wedding anniversary, Nick is understandably distraught. The police are sympathetic, as are Nick’s sister and Amy’s bestselling-novelist parents. That is, until the clues don’t add up and Nick becomes the prime suspect in the emerging murder investigation.

I borrowed the audiobook edition from my public library and listened to it as I went about daily chores—not vacuuming, that’s too loud! This version alternated narrators, a man reading the part of Nick Dunne and a woman portraying Amy Elliott-Dunne. The sections are fairly short, and switch times (past/present) as well as points of view. As if the mystery of Amy’s disappearance wasn’t enough to generate mystery and tension, the gradually evolving portrait of these two people nailed it. Nothing was as it first appeared, not the disappearance and the clues discovered by the police, not the history of this couple…and not the characters themselves.

Unreliable narrators are tricky to write because they work best when the author plays fair with the reader, misleading but never outright deceiving. All the clues as to what is really going must be there, even if the narrator character puts them together in the wrong way. It’s especially challenging if the story is told in first person (in the case of Gone Girl, alternating two first-person viewpoints) because the reader needs to know things the character doesn’t. Daphne Du Maurier’s novel, Rebecca, is a great example, in which the self-effacing, nameless second wife entirely misunderstands the nature of her husband’s relationship with his first wife, the eponymous Rebecca. In fact, she fabricates what Rebecca was really like from her own insecurities. In Gone Girl, both Nick and Amy see the other through the lens of their own psychological pathologies.

The plot and its gradually unveiling of the dark truths beneath the “perfect couple” is fueled by Amy’s implacable anger and hunger for revenge. While not unknown, that’s not a common central motivating drive for a novel. I was struck by this quote from the author, Gillian Flynn:

“I certainly think that the acknowledgment of female anger as a viable emotion, as something that should be dealt with and acknowledged and appreciated and women feeling that way was one of the reasons that so many people connected to Gone Girl.”

The book was a best-seller, as it richly deserves to be. It’s a great case study in how to keep reader engagement through skyrocketing tension and unexpected plot turns.

Listen to a moment of musical serenity

Need a moment of musical serenity? My friend and neighbor, musician Karie Hillery, has a fabulous new album out, a "musical conversation between hearts." "Meanderings" contains instrumentals with keyboards and guitar. She describes it as "a musical conversation between hearts - songs that flow through every emotion, carrying the listener on a beautiful journey inward." Her musical partner and BFF Chris Pinnick is a world-class musician who has played with the band Chicago, on Herb Alpert’s ‘Rise,” and with The Spencer Davis Group, to name just a few.

Listen to a free song at https://karie.com/secret-song
Buy links at https://karie.com/cds

I encourage you to take a listen. I find her music calming and uplifting, a welcome antidote to stressful days.