In the Raised By Wolves series, I have attempted to tackle topical issues concerning gay rights and the problems GBLT men and women have had to contend with for most of human history. (Some of my readers have apparently not gotten that - or simply don't give a shit... but that's another post)
In doing my morning news reading, I was amused to note that GBLT issues are not the only thing that hasn't changed in over 300 years.
Piracy is still political and lucrative - though it is now complicated by media involvement... http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26901780/
The sheep are still stupid and the wolves are still wolves. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26948627/
Someone - a person I cannot remember the name of right now - once said that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
Black Sabbath once accurately captured a thing well known by the Roman Senate with the lyric, "If you listen to fools, the mob rules."
Now, I streamlined our FHA ARM into an FHA fixed two years ago, and took advantage of the last drop in mortage rates to streamline it to an even lower fixed rate again last year. All my home equity is tied up in a fixed second - but so is all our old debt that might have become volatile in the current situation. And I don't think my equity situation will change unless I pay my second off, because I do not believe my 25-year-old house will be worth more than I bought it for 6 years ago within the next ten years - barring a miracle. And I'm ok with that, because we picked a big solid house that we can repair and upgrade as needed. I don't want to spend the rest of my life here - I have more grandiose plans (or at least more rural and less suburban ones) - but if I do get stuck here, I can live with that.
I do not drive an SUV. I feel extravagant driving a 4-cylinder turbo that requires premium. But that car is large enough to haul 4 people and luggage around - or two people and two large dogs and luggage. And, it's paid off... and so is my husband's 4-cylinder sports model. And yeah, it costs $60 to fill my tank now, but I drive less and unless the roads are really bad in the winter, the car that gets 35 mpg and only costs $35 per tank is the one that does any commuting in this house. Oh yeah, and we used our "stimulus" money to do long-term maintenance on both vehicles.
We have excellent credit - and nothing coming up in our life in the next few years - barring a medical disaster - should cause us to need to obtain more. We do almost everything cash - and have since I left my corporate job. This means we don't buy big new expensive things, or eat out much, or go to movies... But this living within one's means thing - it frees you to follow your dreams. I don't have to kiss corporate ass anymore...
We have medical insurance, and life insurance, and appropriate car insurance, and disability insurance, and home owner's insurance, and we have out asses pretty-well covered. Of course those companies could go under or default on their responsibilities.
We don't have a lot of money invested - nowhere what we should have for people our age - but right now, well, that's not exactly the liability it could be, and it's saved me the problem of having to do emergency re-positioning, and thus add in a miniscule way to the market chaos. (But anyone acting adds to the butterfly effect going on right now.)
And we have a plan in case everything goes to shit - because despite all the planning, it still might.
So... Due to finally learning fiscal responsibility and making making wise choices late in life - due to my deciding to step out of the mainstream and follow my dream.... yeah, I'm able to sit here and watch this economic disaster unfold without having heart palpitations. It's not going to hit me like it will many many people in this country. But... It is akin to living up on the side of mountain and watching a flash flood take out the valley below. I'm going to be fine, but eventually I might need that road that got wiped out, or the phone, or... You get the idea. And there is always the possibility that the company my husband works for will fold - though that too is unlikely since it's an alternative energy developer... But... on that front... people are pretty fucking stupid - so it could happen.
And as for my income stream... Well, right now I can afford to keep publishing my books. I had planned to pursue actually being published by a big corporate house with the next book I write after I finish Wolves and the Reilly series. But who knows how the landscape of American publishing will change in the next two years? I have not studied the financials of the companies I do business with now - and quite frankly, I would have a hard time understanding them, because reading corporate financials is not my thing. So for all I know, the 800 pound gorillas I deal with now are all leveraged to the hilt and this credit crunch is going to kill them - or at least allow young new rivals to depose the silver backs.
My biggest concern will be if people can no longer afford books - of course if that happens, I'll just find less expensive ways to deliver the stories - say e-books. I don't think people will stop wanting to read, though; because if we learned anything from the Great Depression, it's that people need and want art and entertainment when their lives are going to hell in a handbasket.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Full Throttle Space Tales - Space Pirates
One of the things I should have been blogging about this summer....
Another small press, Flying Pen Press, is doing a series of short story anthologies entitled Full Throttle Space Tales. The first one, Space Pirates, edited by David Lee Summers, is currently available and contains my short story "Earth-Saturn Transit".
Space Pirates is full of fun, space-operesque stories (scifi pulp for those of you unfamiliar with the term "space opera" - but that leaves me having to define scifi pulp... sigh...) about, well, pirates--science fiction pirates: ghost pirates, data pirates, ratings pirates, board-the-ship-with-swords pirates, etc... They run a wide gamut; from stories based on known science that take place inside this solar system, to tales in more Star Trek-type universes: and from drama to humor to horror, and sometimes all three.
I participated in a great brainstorming panel with some of the other writers at Mile Hi Con last year about space piracy. It isn't as easy to world build for space piracy as it sounds. Piracy requires certain political and economic conditions -- as well as interstellar commerce conditions -- to be feasable. Over the course of history, most piracy has occurred between opposing nations. Periods of lone pirate vessels preying at will on shipping -- as romantic as it sounds -- have been very brief. Pirates have to have a place to sell their goods and provision: they have to have safe ports. All ports come with a political affiliation. Safe pirate ports are either owned by nations that don't care about their relationship with the nations of the ships being preyed upon, or are actively seeking to harry or destory the shipping of another nation -- that's when you get privateering. There have always been pirates, and there still are pirates. The Athenians were worried about the Cretans... (two often-warring nations) National Geographic ran a great article about modern pirates in Indonesia (they don't steal the entire ship). The piracy watch page is a regular feature in Latitudes and Attitudes (a great magazing for cruisers -- free souls of the seas.)
Most people think of pirates from the "Golden Age" -- which occurred after the buccaneer period -- which is, of course, the period Raised By Wolves is set in. Warfare between the European powers allowed piracy to run rampant starting in the buccaneer period: when the English, French and Dutch ganged up on Spanish shipping and actively promoted privateering. This was followed by the "Golden Age of Piracy" (1680-1710 or so) when a surprisingly small number of disenfranchised former privateers turned rogue and began preying on everybody, including ships from their own nation. By the late 1600s, world trade with the American colonies had become vital to all the European nations, and relative peace in Europe lead to ambassadors delivering angry messages from one monarch to another whenever a ship was lost and the pirates involved were known to be the citizens of another nation or were allowed to dock in another nation's ports with impunity, etc... So... All the nations of Europe decided to band together and stomp out piracy. And they did, in less than ten years: they sank, imprisoned, or hung them all -- or at least enough of them that anyone else quit or hid.
In space, where no one can hear you scream... If the author of a pirate yarn is playing in the realm of known science, piracy is pretty darn hard to pull off in that traditional sense. You can't raise solar sail on quarry and just suddenly chase it down. Your prey sees you coming on the other side of the blinking solar system if you're not careful, and radios in to their homebase, and... well, then it takes you three months or three years to catch them, and both of you can see where you're going to go next and so on for days in advance. And then, of course, the powers that be can track you to wherever you decide to go. If you're doing the Star Trek/Star Wars universe thing -- and playing loose and fast with science and physics -- yeah, you can have the secret pirate base in a "fold in space" or a cloud of dark matter or... whatever...
I was fascinated by the challenge of figuring out how to do piracy in the "real" world in space in the not so distant future -- say a couple hundred years out. So for the Space Pirates anthology, I created a solar system filled with antagonistic colonies that allowed privateering "beyond the Belt" against the Martians, who had laid claim to everything. "Earth-Saturn Transit" is the story of a contract Earther (read as bondsman), named Rowan, in the crew of a ship that learns they no longer have a privateer's license due to changes in the inner system political situation. The crew has to decide whether or not to "go on account", and Rowan has to decide who he trusts: especially Faun, the Lunite second officer who Rowan knows is attracted to him. (No, this story doesn't contain any sex... ;))
Space Pirates was released August 1st and is available through Flying Pen Press' site, Amazon, Barnes & Noble online, or by special order at your favorite bookstore. In honor of International Speak Like A Pirate Day on Friday, September 19th, 2008, FPP is doing a special promotion price of 35% off. The plan was that you enter the promotion code ARRRH during check out. Unfortunately their web site is having problems - so we'll see what they manage by this Friday, or if they have other instructions
I have another story, "Real Hero" in the next Flying Pen Press anthology, Space Sirens. "Real Hero" is about a celebutante. (no groaning) I'm not sure when it's due out -- I should know, someone probably told me. Anyway, I'll have more info on that soon. I also just finished a story entitled "Legion of Demons" for their Space Grunts anthology, but final story selection hasn't been made for that one, yet. I think they have Space Knights, Space Cowboys, and Space Vampires in the works.
Another small press, Flying Pen Press, is doing a series of short story anthologies entitled Full Throttle Space Tales. The first one, Space Pirates, edited by David Lee Summers, is currently available and contains my short story "Earth-Saturn Transit".
Space Pirates is full of fun, space-operesque stories (scifi pulp for those of you unfamiliar with the term "space opera" - but that leaves me having to define scifi pulp... sigh...) about, well, pirates--science fiction pirates: ghost pirates, data pirates, ratings pirates, board-the-ship-with-swords pirates, etc... They run a wide gamut; from stories based on known science that take place inside this solar system, to tales in more Star Trek-type universes: and from drama to humor to horror, and sometimes all three.
I participated in a great brainstorming panel with some of the other writers at Mile Hi Con last year about space piracy. It isn't as easy to world build for space piracy as it sounds. Piracy requires certain political and economic conditions -- as well as interstellar commerce conditions -- to be feasable. Over the course of history, most piracy has occurred between opposing nations. Periods of lone pirate vessels preying at will on shipping -- as romantic as it sounds -- have been very brief. Pirates have to have a place to sell their goods and provision: they have to have safe ports. All ports come with a political affiliation. Safe pirate ports are either owned by nations that don't care about their relationship with the nations of the ships being preyed upon, or are actively seeking to harry or destory the shipping of another nation -- that's when you get privateering. There have always been pirates, and there still are pirates. The Athenians were worried about the Cretans... (two often-warring nations) National Geographic ran a great article about modern pirates in Indonesia (they don't steal the entire ship). The piracy watch page is a regular feature in Latitudes and Attitudes (a great magazing for cruisers -- free souls of the seas.)
Most people think of pirates from the "Golden Age" -- which occurred after the buccaneer period -- which is, of course, the period Raised By Wolves is set in. Warfare between the European powers allowed piracy to run rampant starting in the buccaneer period: when the English, French and Dutch ganged up on Spanish shipping and actively promoted privateering. This was followed by the "Golden Age of Piracy" (1680-1710 or so) when a surprisingly small number of disenfranchised former privateers turned rogue and began preying on everybody, including ships from their own nation. By the late 1600s, world trade with the American colonies had become vital to all the European nations, and relative peace in Europe lead to ambassadors delivering angry messages from one monarch to another whenever a ship was lost and the pirates involved were known to be the citizens of another nation or were allowed to dock in another nation's ports with impunity, etc... So... All the nations of Europe decided to band together and stomp out piracy. And they did, in less than ten years: they sank, imprisoned, or hung them all -- or at least enough of them that anyone else quit or hid.
In space, where no one can hear you scream... If the author of a pirate yarn is playing in the realm of known science, piracy is pretty darn hard to pull off in that traditional sense. You can't raise solar sail on quarry and just suddenly chase it down. Your prey sees you coming on the other side of the blinking solar system if you're not careful, and radios in to their homebase, and... well, then it takes you three months or three years to catch them, and both of you can see where you're going to go next and so on for days in advance. And then, of course, the powers that be can track you to wherever you decide to go. If you're doing the Star Trek/Star Wars universe thing -- and playing loose and fast with science and physics -- yeah, you can have the secret pirate base in a "fold in space" or a cloud of dark matter or... whatever...
I was fascinated by the challenge of figuring out how to do piracy in the "real" world in space in the not so distant future -- say a couple hundred years out. So for the Space Pirates anthology, I created a solar system filled with antagonistic colonies that allowed privateering "beyond the Belt" against the Martians, who had laid claim to everything. "Earth-Saturn Transit" is the story of a contract Earther (read as bondsman), named Rowan, in the crew of a ship that learns they no longer have a privateer's license due to changes in the inner system political situation. The crew has to decide whether or not to "go on account", and Rowan has to decide who he trusts: especially Faun, the Lunite second officer who Rowan knows is attracted to him. (No, this story doesn't contain any sex... ;))
Space Pirates was released August 1st and is available through Flying Pen Press' site, Amazon, Barnes & Noble online, or by special order at your favorite bookstore. In honor of International Speak Like A Pirate Day on Friday, September 19th, 2008, FPP is doing a special promotion price of 35% off. The plan was that you enter the promotion code ARRRH during check out. Unfortunately their web site is having problems - so we'll see what they manage by this Friday, or if they have other instructions
I have another story, "Real Hero" in the next Flying Pen Press anthology, Space Sirens. "Real Hero" is about a celebutante. (no groaning) I'm not sure when it's due out -- I should know, someone probably told me. Anyway, I'll have more info on that soon. I also just finished a story entitled "Legion of Demons" for their Space Grunts anthology, but final story selection hasn't been made for that one, yet. I think they have Space Knights, Space Cowboys, and Space Vampires in the works.
Monday, September 15, 2008
I'm Back... No, Really.
Pete now has a MySpace page. More to come as I update other sites and catch up on crap.
Pete's page http://www.myspace.com/whatwouldpetedo
We originally tried to set up four different MySpace pages for various characters from the series - but it finally occurred to me that I can only do so much. So, somehow... The Wynette brain came up with the idea of commenting on politics - a thing I am always prone to want to do - via Pete. The idea made me laugh so damn hard... So for now, there is a Will page I need to do something with, but I am going to concentrate on trying to make occasional comments on the Pete page as the mood strikes me. (Which should be often since I watch Hardball everyday and politics is a constant subject of discussion around here.)
Pete's page http://www.myspace.com/whatwouldpetedo
We originally tried to set up four different MySpace pages for various characters from the series - but it finally occurred to me that I can only do so much. So, somehow... The Wynette brain came up with the idea of commenting on politics - a thing I am always prone to want to do - via Pete. The idea made me laugh so damn hard... So for now, there is a Will page I need to do something with, but I am going to concentrate on trying to make occasional comments on the Pete page as the mood strikes me. (Which should be often since I watch Hardball everyday and politics is a constant subject of discussion around here.)
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