Contest of Champions!

THE BROTHERS JETSTREAM: LEVIATHAN is like the one that you want, the droids you were looking for, and Lionel Ritchie singing "Hello" to speed metal. So it makes sense to give some of that back. Head over to the writing homestead (clicky HERE) and get ready to flex your own writing muscles!

Briefly Put

The internet is full of cats, and I don’t mean memes. I mean mofos who want to act aloof and call folks names and bury them with doofy shit and scratch if folks try to clean them a bit. Thing is, folks are not about that brand of noise anymore. Folks are about love and light and beauty, all the good shit that makes a person worth someone’s time. If cats want to lick and lick and cough up their own ass hairs, that’s on them. But let such a mofo whine about why he’s not getting kissed and, hand to Gawd, let the smacking of the taste out of a mofo’s mouth begin.

 Do you know such a cat? Talk to that cat about love with humor, respect, and genuine hope for their well-being. Some will listen, others won’t. Doesn’t matter that you don’t get 100% conversion. Just keep talking.

Peace.

10 Brief & Polite Directives for Most Writers

Not everyone will "get" your work. Move the hell on.

Not everyone will like your work. Move the hell on.

Some will love your work. Move the hell on.

Most will not care about your work, as most will never see your work. Move the hell on.

Eighteen million other people are having the same idea you are having right now. Write the damn thing and move the hell on.

Readers don't give the least interested damn whether you were inspired to write or not. Put the pinafore and petticoat down and move the hell on.

If given the chance to write or have sex, write. This will give the appearance of aloofness, leading to even better reclamation sex. We're kidding. Take your clothes off and stop burning daylight.

If a thousand copies of your book sell in a day, praise all the gods most high. If a single copy of your book sells in a day, praise all the gods most high.

Vacuums are for floors. A book is not a message in a bottle floating aimlessly. A book is a rock loaded in a slingshot; get your target practice in.

Respect words. They have power. If you are not going to respect words, move the hell on.

Energy = Mic-dropped Squared

Knowledge Lateef... 

is watching the watchers.

The City. Alive. Teeming. Whirling through the unknown cosmos carrying the descendants of heroes, villains, poets, and revolutionaries. Carrying us. A diaspora spread across species, tech forms, and a living, sentient world. This is a special project on many levels. It’s the largest MMO “game” black speculative fiction has seen yet, taking 18 visions and making it one world. Fiction, artwork, music, energy, blended as surely as Parliament merged universal fabrics into funk. 

Welcome to the Future. CyberFunk.

This is a project I was proud to join. This isn’t bubblegum dystopia, these stories are riffs on Earth’s current major chords. Overpopulation. Love. Systemic corruption. Exploration. Hope. Resilience and truth. Identity when the gene pool is a constant swirl of wonder. The City represents stories that actually want to say something to the world in the way that good science fiction should demand it be said: with an eye toward a better life under truthful skies.

But if your first thought is “Blacks as a major presence in space?” – maybe this isn’t the bus you’re looking for. This is The City, not The Burb. Still here? Cool. There’s work to be done. Livin’ just enough for The City won’t do. Knowledge Lateef can’t do it all.

You've got 18 warriors spitting words at you. My contribution is entitled Move, for as we know, funk not only moves it can remove.

Energy equals mic-dropped, squared. 

***

The City anthology will be available as an e-book via Amazon, Barnes and Noble (Nook) and Kobo on September 25th and as a paperback at MVmedia and wherever books are sold by October 15th.  

Ready to wander the streets of The City? Lose your Tell at https://www.facebook.com/groups/cyberfunk/

Reading Rainbows

Not to sound as if this is a bluster, but for me this is a very big deal. I don’t read as much as I used to, which was damn near incessantly. I give a writer the first few sentences and if I can see where said writer is going and exactly how said writer plans to get there, I don’t bother. I’m already a writer; I don’t wanna write somebody else’s book for them, particularly not when I’m trying to sell my own damn stuff. Being this selective, there are very few writers whose name alone guarantees me separating from coin. Let me talk about some folks who are widening that list. I hope to intrigue you. Click every link here and buy something.

Marguerite Reed. Ms. Reed doesn’t write for our better angels. She writes to tell the demons to get their shit together and make sure life, for each one, is worth living. Her debut novel, released this year, is humanist science fiction minus any glittery trappings. If you read sci fi to glean something about us in the here and now—and salud to you if that’s the case—ARCHANGEL is necessary. Not only is it beautifully constructed, intelligently written, and researched to authentication perfection, but it’s emotionally moving as all hell too. It takes themes of pain and healing and transforms them into a grand take on colonialism, militarization of the spirit, ecology (both emotional and environmental), and what it truly means as a human being to be a steward of the wonders we wander. I fell in love with the honesty of this book.

When it comes to the brass tacks of prose itself, all you need to assess is this, then I’ll move on to the next writer, Ms. Patty Templeton.

How to describe one’s first experience of open air, of limitless light? If I say that everything appeared gray, the shuttle, our skin, our clothes, that gives no true impression. This was not the gray of weariness, of defeat. This was the dreaming gray of dawn, the color of the silence before the beloved speaks, the color of the water-filled glass offered to parch long thirst...

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There Is No Lovely End. Isn’t that life? Isn’t that what we run from day after day, that one truth, that one refutation of all our fairy tales? There are times a body needs to cuss. Uttering “Holy fuck” during communion at certain beauties shouldn’t raise an eyebrow. I ran into Ms.Templeton of THERE IS NO LOVELY END by chance. We were on the same panel at a con. I wanted to buy her book because that’s what I do: I support writers who come out from behind their thoughts to say hi. I can’t financially support everybody but when I feel that spark I act on it. Ms. Templeton had that gleeful cool spark. Bio. Read this bio.

Patty Templeton is roughly 25 apples tall and 11,000 cups of coffee into her life. She wears red sequins and stomping boots while writing, then hits up back-alley dance bars and honky tonks. Her stories are full of ghosts, freaks, fools, underdogs, blue collar heroes, and never giving up, even when life is giving you shit. She won the first-ever Naked Girls Reading Literary Honors Award and has been a runner –up for the Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Award. There Is No Lovely End is her first novel.

This is where I cuss.  Sweet fuck in the rock. This book is sharp. It is smart. It is macabre, and damned if it ain’t wise. Not a character in the book walks a straight path, and not a situation or word is misplaced or wasted. I didn’t know hide nor hair of Patty Templeton before that con. Now, anything she writes, I’m there. She respects the word. She knows the word is a tool not a brick. And by damn you can tell she enjoys what she’s doing. That’s so key. Every artist in the world who puts their joy in what they’re gifting us shines with a particular light.

I will not gush overmuch on her but will instead share with you this snippet of her book whilst highly, highly, recommending you get some.

After a lengthy time, wherein the sun abandoned the sky and the moon strolled out, Graham decided to kill himself in front of Hester Garlan. He was not guaranteed to haunt her, but from what the Uncommon History said, he had a generous chance, so long as his last moments were of fervid yearning arrowed at existing by her side.

On the sixth day, Graham Johnson knocked on Hester’s door.

Hester had decided to kill Graham Johnson when next she saw him...

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Mr. DaVaun Sanders. It’s hard to talk about Mr. Sanders’ work without giving away spoilers. The stories are intricate, full of characters who cross and re-cross paths, and ever expansive. I’ll have to be brief, but in no way diminishing. There’s joy (of which he has) and then there’s fun, and my gods does this man like to have fun. A good adventure has to take place in an interesting world. It needs sympathetic characters. It needs heart. And it needs to be daring enough to take chances. THE SEEDBEARING PRINCE (parts one through three) world-builds like you wouldn’t believe, and the surety of voice grows with each book. These adventures flip race, flip gender, and upend expectations, especially for younger readers. I’m saving my copies for my Wee Nephew for when he’s older because the way this world is going he’ll need some coolness. This book is full of monsters, escapes, and enough jumping to make Spider-Man tired. Sanders presents his world-building without showing you the bricks; lays out the hero’s journey without retreading thousands of previous steps; imparts enough of a sense of community that the sense of danger seems all the more real.

To wit:

“Hello, Brother Blayle. I won’t be surprised when ridgecats sneak into Evensong, as good as it smells here.” Dayn’s mouth watered so freely he thought his cheeks might start to sweat. The butcher took a good look at him, then sliced a liberal chunk from a roasting goat and skewered it. He slathered it with his family’s sauce, known throughout the district, and offered the morsel to Dayn.

“Oh, the ridgecats are here,” Blayle said. “They just put dresses on over their fur. Good Evensong to you, lad.”

I like that his books aren’t trying to re-invent the wheel. I love that his books, with their brown-skinned protagonists and thorough knowledge of sci fi fantasy conventions, are spinning the wheel on a new axis.

~~~

Three authors you may or may not be familiar with; three, if not, you might want to show some love. The brain needs. Reading feeds.

As to neurons, stay lit, my friends.

Contest Joy

I'm digging the fun and ingenuity of the Chronicles line (and the fact that I have a story in the Alternate History Chronicles: Alt History 101 is pudding for my pop).

So while you're on Amazon ordering your copy of
THE BROTHERS JETSTREAM: LEVIATHAN (*coughWHICHI'MSUREYOUR'REDOINGcough*)
check out this contest. Good stuff abounding!

Gotta read 'em all!

THE FUTURE CHRONICLES

~Fresh voices and award-winning authors

~Original speculative fiction short stories     ~#1 anthology on Amazon with every release

Like the storied SF collections of the past, The Future Chronicles brings you themed anthologies on the topics you love: Robots, Telepaths, Aliens, Artificial Intelligence, Dragons, Zombies... and more on the way. Each collection combines fresh new voices in spec fic with established, best-selling authors. Award-winning curator Samuel Peralta's vision has created a series like no other.

CLICK HERE TO ENTER TO WIN (via Rafflecopter)

Pod People

You will find me, Milo Jetstream, and the crew of the Semper Fi deep in your ears HERE. Podcast goodness. Roundtable Podcast goodness.

Get you some.

(NOTE: There might be entreaties to buy this book. That is not a bad thing.)

Mind the Burbles

I know this is splitting semantics but if you identify as somebody’s ally…what are you actually doing? Because that’s an odd thing to come out of an adult mouth. And it’s usually positioned as “I’m an ally,” not “I’m your ally.” Or there’s even “I want to be a good ally.” Kind of implicit, innit? Phrasing matters. Tweaks work. But even “I’m your ally” burbles my gut because, no matter what, it feels like it brings variations on a theme:

Ally is another way of othering.

Ally is a way to compartmentalize a “them.”

Ally is balming to the user.

Ally is way over-used.

I am no one’s ally. I am their friend, brother, human. They fight no wars when they are with me. This doesn’t mean there are no wars to fight. That’s called waking up every morning for the majority of us. That doesn’t mean folks don’t need help. Folks do. Folks need it and appreciate it. But “ally” feels too much like being in the “missionary” position. Folks have been screwed by that quite enough. It’s not that ally-ship’s intention is not a good one, just that its footing comes from soft ground. For me it’s like saying, “I’m an MRA,” or “Those guys are SJWs.” Idiotic on both counts. Certain things shouldn’t come from a grown person’s mouth. If you’re going to stand with me, YOU stand with ME. No special badge required. I will stand with YOU. That’s how it works. Somehow, though, we landed in a time of infantile regression. All things are triggers. There are PoCs everywhere (not people, just those letters strewn everywhere; weird). And if anyone ever uses “PC” around me to cover their own dismissive idiocy I will slap a nut.

Maybe this is the half-formed rant of a guy who doesn’t “get” the current zeitgeist. I like getting deep in certain things; the zeitgeist isn’t one. Don’t want to fight Twitter wars. Have no interest in internet suffer porn. I don’t want to “other” anyone outside of speaking truth. I don’t even see the Klan as other. I see them stupid as fuck, but not “other.”

“Other” is where troublesome shit comes into play. It’s where all the troublesome shit comes from. We know we have a different mental loop when we think of someone as the other and not simply diverse or unique. We know this. Ally automatically elevates you because only someone weaker needs an ally. All our centuries of war have us thinking like that. I love differences when they’re wonderful and non-toxic. But when I start to think of “me” diametric to “them” I get uneasy. The burbles, man. Spider-sense of the soul.

Mind the burbles.

The naming of things is important. Be helpful. Do helpful things. But for everyone’s sake, don’t strap on the Flightsuit Of Ally and be George W. Bush. We already had George Bush.

Once was damn enough.

Just be you, broheems and sistreens. You are wonderful in what you do. You know that when “We Are the Champions” plays there ain’t a person of good heart within a hundred feet of you won’t stand and march the progressive march. Don’t concern yourself thinking any of my words posit damned if you do, damned if you don’t. They don’t. And fuck me if they do. I am not one you need to feel you need to justify yourself to. I end sentences with prepositions! Fuck me sideways and take me to a fancy dinner. Maybe I’ll finally learn which forks are supposed to be mine, right or left?

However, the more I see this word bandied about, the more I feel I should stock up on Pepto Bismol.

And that shit is foul.

In The Guest Room

I'm on my best behavior over at Dave Robison's house. Check out my essay on science fiction literature's past by way of its problematic present and highly promising future. The place? The Vex Mosaic~!

Don't Be Carl. Joy Whizzes. While Carl Waits.

I don't know who made that pic, but it's the internet so somebody out there has pics with what I'm sure is a hilarious caption of me in a thong selling hotdogs. It all balances out.

So I was talking to my wife about art and creativity, and how that whole thing of the tortured artist (be it writer, painter, singer, musician, dancer, etc) just won’t go the unwashed hell away. And she brought up an excellent point. “People get too wrapped up in it, in themselves; they forget about it supposedly being a joy to create. I often wonder if it’s a defense mechanism. ‘I can only be good at this if I make it more complicated and uncomfortable to deal with. If it’s easy I can’t be that good, can I?’”

 And that’s when that that thunderclap boomed. That was the Charlie Brown “THAT’S IT!” moment. I have always maintained that the choice between holding hands while walking beneath trees or holding a pen while scribbling out a story was no choice at all. Dappled sunlight, broheems, for the win.

There’s no need to wrestle God in the desert. God is like, bro, chill, I brought Funyuns. Have fun with whatever you feel like creating. Enjoy the act even when the act bogs down and gets difficult. Enjoyment doesn’t mean you become a shining Brony 24/7. Enjoy it and know that it is not you. It’s what you do. “You” are the soul packed in a meatbag that’s about to smile in the eyes of someone under the setting sun.  

Wife ended with this: “I always strive to simplify and streamline my life. Nothing should ever be that hard. I can’t understand people who dramatize and complicate everything. Just accept and be grateful, that’s when you have peace and joy.”

You get to write, paint, sing, compose, move. And if you’re lucky you get to kiss. Wrap that up and score it as a win, Bubbles.

Six Short Graybles

Anybody who's watched Adventure Time knows that a grayble is a little story meant to heighten introspection and clarity. Thus:

As the GOP gets into full batshit mode for the presidential campaign, here are 6 Short Graybles to Reassure Politicians and Their Support Base That Gays Are Not the Issue:

1) Worried that they’ll locust all the available mates away from you? Overpopulation took care of that.

2) Worried they might try to seduce you? You’re not that attractive.

3) Sanctity of your marriage? Chill. “The homosexuals” make just as bad decisions as you. Divorce lawyers will not want for work.

4) You secretly want them to find you attractive but, so far, none have? It’s because you’re an asshole. A big one. And for you that counts as irony.

5) They’ll turn your kids gay? In the same fashion that you were turned heterosexual watching Bugs Bunny in a dress and later you fapped furiously to that memory, so too is the implicit gay agenda as effective at influencing the sexuality of unwary children everywhere.

6) Public displays of affection are between a person and their dog and that’s it! Now that, my friend, is something therapy might be able to help you with.

I Have Good Feelings About Me

...how often does that roll through your head? Not bloody often enough. Change that. Change it now. Unless you're a cold, mean, psychopath who enjoys the suffering of others. Do not feel good about that.

That is all.

The Checklist O’ Diversity

Because it’s not so much fight the power as it is fight the weakness (since the inability to see others as people is not a strength) here is the Fuck-That checklist for creators, beginning thusly:

If the only time you describe a skin color is for the ‘ethnic’ types, fuck that.

If the Black dude dies, fuck that.

If the woman is put in sexual peril because, you know, wimmin, fuck that.

If there’s even a tiny fart’s whiff of “Diversity is so haaaaaaaard, ermagherd!” Everybody: we will, we will... fuck that.

If you use the words “almond eyes” or chocolate anything we will slap the fuck-that into you and out the other side.

If the only time dialect is used is for those colorful, saucy types, Webster fuck-that.

If everybody but the hero/heroine is PoC-marked, you are the dude trying to perform Hindi alphabet cunnilingus. You are trying too hard. Fuck that.

I swear to Gawd that if your Destined White Child gets counseled by Morgan Freeman on something even so tiny as what color shirt to put on, not only should that be fucked with all due haste, it should be followed by Piss Off, Wank of Doom, and Really Bruh.

If for any reason your White character lands in a region where she’s never ever seen a lava Wyrm but after she puts on a pair of the local jeans she’s the best Wyrm rider ever lived in that realm, even if this is clearly G-rated, YA fuck-that.

If your gay male character is there only as comic relief, fuck that.

If your wheelchair-bound character is there only to show how brave she/he is for having the courage not to roll themselves off a cliff, fuck that.

Addendum to the homosexual agenda: If your gay/bi/tri/abacus male characters don’t have sex with dudes but your gay/bi/tri/abacus female characters get to hear that boom-chikka-wow-wow music drowning out their girl conversation, please do fuck that.

May I remind you that if the Black dude dies, fuck not only that but you.

(see answer code below) Is your trans character only there to be:
(a) crazy; (b) edgy; (c) dangerous?

-a- Fuck that. –b- Fuck that. –c- Fuck that.

If your book starts with the White teen having the Luke Skywalker Stare Into The Sunlit Horizon O’ Destiny scene, fuck that plus the droids you’re looking for. We know what’s coming and, as former owners of the Millennium Falcon, we are not amused.

Unless your princess is a guy who has made it very clear that is how he wishes to be addressed, do fuck that as the focus character of all future stories.

If you are “not sure” how to write "People of Color" (yes, I fluggin’ hate that. Message for the world: EVERYBODY HAS A COLOR. White people don’t come born with Romulan cloaking tech lodged up their kumquats rendering them clear and invisible), I will Bernie Mac-slap the Fuck-That into you so you can see how fookin’ ridiculous you sound. Turning someone you see every Thursday in the checkout line at the local Monsanto Mart into “The Other” is just as bad as calling out a racial slur. What do we say to the God of Turning People into “Others”? Fuck that.

Does your PoC-mark die so that Biff Muscles (others too but mainly Biff) can live? And then Biff gets so dude-fired he Does The Thing with 40 ninjas hanging off him with his mighty dick a swingline for Sue to get to safety and Sue’s like, “No! We are not closing the door! He’ll be here!” and Biff gets there but Sue sees in his half-formed dude tear that Bubba (his best good friend) didn’t make it—OK, we’re gonna fuck ALL that and start fresh in the morning.

Seriously. Seriously. If “diversity” means showing how those simpler folks have so much to teach the gods, finger fuck that till it gets frustrated enough to walk away.

If your manuscript is the Irony-board of Diversity whereby, get this, the White guy thinks he’s the hero but it’s actually the ethnic dude, scrap that. Fuck that. “Big Trouble in Little China” already did it better.

And if you EVAH use “The Help” as the title of your book – What’s that you say? Been done? Oh, fook that. *drops mic, throws Godzilla-hornet middle finger, slides into the water to chill*

(If there are any missed tired tropes it’s only because my pressure was starting to go up. Godzilla-hornet.)

Writerss: Do you know how to write characters? OK. All those people you need 12 variations on the word “caramel” for? DO THAT!

Where To Find Yes In Today's World

Do this without thinking about it. Say “yes.” Say it out loud. Breathe it, make love to it. It will make love to you. Tell your body you love it out loud. It’s not a dictatorship, you in that shell, it’s a symbiosis. Your body has needs and wants you to acknowledge them. Say yes like the last prayer before the final burst of your solar system’s star, its light spreading so wide and bright you’ve no fear of any type of burn. Say yes to your life more often than you do because, Gods bless it, the corollary of “no” is a silent and adept lover capable of making you groan even when there’s not a single sound. Say it as though there are dreams to be picked up from the cleaners; no one but yourself wants to marry you and that’s cool as hell; you thought you were wrong but found out you had been right all along. You just have to say it out loud and mean it from that place in your spirit that knows you better than you think it does. Once or twice or maybe a hundred times a day. I like to do it in the morning or when I’ve forgotten that all things are beautiful when made beautiful. Say it not as vocabulary but as invocation. Don’t bother adding anything behind it. Additional words just get in the way. This just needs to be you in your voice saying one thing:

Yes.