What Is It Like to Go Blind?

I apologize for being away from this blog for so long. As you may already know, I was born with a vision impairment. After many years and many eye surgeries, the worst of it finally caught up with me.

At the end of June 2020, I underwent an eye operation to have a plastic cornea installed. The human eye is very delicate. It can only take just so much poking and prodding. The end result of that surgery was a detached retina.

A surgeon was eventually able to reattach my retina. I have been recovering from that process of reattachment for what amounts to 22 months.

The short version of my present situation is that I have very little vision. It's probably not much more than three to five percent of what I used to have. I don't blame anybody for what has happened. I'm not angry about this. It was always a possibility. Ask any gambler and they will tell you that, no matter who you are, you can only beat the odds for just so long.This could have happened to me ten years ago or ten years in the future from today. I accept it for what it is and I am trying to move on.

The simple truth is that it took me about a year and a half to recover my sanity. Take what you see in the movies with a grain of salt. The human mind is tremendously shocked when you actually do experience catastrophic loss of sight. As much as you might expect it, no amount of preparation can ever make you ready for the real thing. 

After some thought, I decided that it was a good idea to say something about what happened to me here in this blog. I am dictating the words you are now reading. My wife is typing this post. That's where I am in the process. Over the next few years, I hope to retrain with assistive technologies so that I can get back to full-time writing.

Nobody knows for sure if they can handle something like this until it happens to them. As sympathetic as you might be to family and friends, please understand that your kind words may not be as helpful as you would like them to be. 

If you do know somebody who has recently gone blind, please be prepared to give them some space. They're going to need a large amount of time to experience the shock and get over it. 

From my own point of view, it's been a lot like falling off a cliff without ever hitting bottom while, at the same time, going insane. Eventually, the severity of what I felt started to lessen. Eventually, my anxiety was mild enough that I could control it. 

This process is definitely not over for me. There is a form of grief involved in all of this that has to be dealt with on an individual basis. You've got to work your way through it in your own time and in your own way.

Blindness is not the end of the world, though it will force you to start a new chapter in your life that is very different from anything you have ever done before. I hope that observation is useful.

Post-Apocalyptic Alaska

Post-apocalyptic Alaska is...one of my favorite themes.  I've used it in many projects over the years.  Crisis at the Kodiak Starport was the vehicle I used to demonstrate how the 49th State could be ravaged by apocalyptic forces (i.e., war).  Bibix was my big budget Sci Fi envisioning of a living Hell after an alien invasion wrecks...everything.  I now have a short story collection in the works that will allow me to explore this concept from many different angles.  For those of you who want to experience post-apocalyptic Alaska in your way, I recommend A.C.: After Collapse.

America Returns to Space

Today, at approximately 3:22 PM Eastern Standard Time, a public-private partnership between NASA and SpaceX successfully launched "Demo 2," which sent two U.S. astronauts to the International Space Station.

In the years to come, the astronauts who flew this mission will become international celebrities.  Many of my fellow Americans will remember this event as a defining moment in their lives.  This event brings many things in my own life "full circle."  My fondest childhood memory is watching the Apollo 11 moon landing on a black-and-white television (as a little boy).  Today, I watched this launch with my wife of 25 years.  In a word, it was "good."

The Apollo missions, Skylab, the Space Shuttle and the International Space Station have all inspired me to write Science Fiction.  I am hopeful about the future and all it will mean for younger generations.  There is really not much more I can say.  Humanity has gone from volatile rockets that had to be flown by brave people, to automated systems like Crew Dragon and Falcon 9...that fly themselves.  As difficult as life me be here on Earth, I continue to believe that our future is out there among the stars.

Keep Going, Milestones Matter

In recent busy days, we have celebrated the one year anniversary of launching A.C.: After Collapse.  For more than twenty five years, this abstract thing was just an idea.  There were days when I would leaf through a pile of dirty waterlogged notebooks and ask myself, "what in the Hell am I doing?"  Even after we got most of the accumulated data transferred to electronic format, I still had doubts.  I'm pleased to tell you that some of my misgivings no longer exist.

Two or three anxious days ago, we activated a web site just for the game, which you can find here.  It's a starting point that includes more than a dozen free downloads for your role playing pleasure. 
I wanted to make some mention of it here, it's easy for this kind of thing to get lost in the shuffle.  Especially when there is still so much more to do.  From my point of view, the fact that we are here now is just a little more proof that I am not wasting my time, or yours.

Your Favorite Kind of Hell

I'm not a historian, though I am aware that post-apocalyptic themes have been popular for more time than I have been alive.  I've always been inspired by the capacity of most humans to survive the worst that life can throw at us.  Even when we are responsible for the source of own undoing, we somehow manage to muddle through.  Call it guts, bravery, courage, or just the willpower to live one more day, I can't stop thinking about that amazing capability.

I can't give you any sources but I do remember reading somewhere during the 1990's that all of the "good" post-apocalyptic themes had already been written about and beaten to death.  I didn't believe that then and I don't believe it now.  As technology changes, we will always be presented with new ways to bring about our own end.  Civilization can fall apart for many different reasons in many different ways.  Curruption is timeless, we can always rot from within and fall apart that way.

Having said all that, I want to come back around to my favorite point.  As a storyteller, I will never run out of plots and twists to describe how our future could end.  The real challenge for me is to see how men, women, and children could overcome such lurid horrors to somehow create a better future.  Life in general has taught me that there is always some lesson to be learned from everything we do, even if that lesson comes at the expense of civilization.

53rd Anniversary of Star Trek

I just wanted to take a quick moment to briefly acknowledge the occasion of this historic observance.  53 years ago today, the original Star Trek television series was broadcast to American audiences who saw it on small cathode ray picture tubes.  Many of them saw it in black-and-white, because they did not yet have a color television set.

I was too young to know this existed in 1967--when it first aired.  I saw it in re-runs later, when my parents made a habit of watching it.  There has never been a decade in my living memory when I was without this Science Fiction TV show.  No matter where I have lived, I've always been able to find it on the TV schedule at least one day a week.  I owe some of what I am today to the performances of those actors, and the imagination of the show's creator.

50th Anniversary Apollo 11 Lunar Landing

I have been waiting for my entire adult life for the moment when I would write something like this.  50 years ago today, astronauts Neil Armstrong and "Buzz" Aldrin landed the Apollo 11 mission on surface of the moon.  Astronaut Michael Collins remained aboard the command module "Columbia," in orbit around the moon--while Armstrong and Aldrin made history.  I have no memory of Apollo's launch, the landing is etched in my memory because my parents made such a very big deal about it. 

My version of that memory is affected by time, it's a little fuzzy now.  In those days, my eyesight was very bad.  I had to stand right next to our black-and-white television set to see events as they happen.  It was late at night, nearly midnight where we lived.  Both of my parents were there, my father sat on the floor near me.  In my mind's eye, I can still him in the glow of that picture tube.  None of us knew what we were looking at.  My father said something at the time, he wanted me to understand that this endeavor was not "a done deal" until they landed.

As I write this in July of 2019, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins are still with us.  Niel Armstrong passed away in 2012.  Everything I am known for today originated during that one moment in 1969, when I saw this historic event unfold.  Tales from the Kodiak Starport is my homage to these men and their lifetime of achievements.  There's a lot more I could say, things I want to say, none of it would survive the sands of time.  In my own way, I observe the moon landing every year, with family and frieds as they are available.  Sometimes, when the media is less interested, I'll go outside and look up the night sky.  I've never been able to see the stars.  Even so, it is a small comfort to me that humans went there.  We could do it again, if we wanted to.

The Written Apocalypse

Recently, I had the opportunity to make the acquaintance of dystopian author Dee Cooper, host of The Written Apocalypse podcast.  She interviewed me for an hour me about the RPG I created, A.C.: After Collapse.  In some ways, it was the manifest proof that so much of what I've been doing for the last 4-5 years has not been a waste of time.  That seems like a grand statement, but it is true.  Ask anyone who has devoted themselves to something hard for that much time and they'll tell you.  It's one thing to chase your dream, something else to catch it.

We spent some time talking about the game's first novel, Haven's Legacy.  My decision to write it as a Young Adult introduction to the world of post-apocalyptic fiction was more than a business decision.  It brought me full-circle, from the first time I read John Christoher's "The White Mountains," to now.  Much like his, my own hero of this post-apocalyptic adventure is visually impaired, he wars glasses.  Call it what you want, catharsis or a statement of liberation.  I've been waiting for most of my life to do this, and I have.  What comes next?  Let's find out.

Chase Your Dream

It's an open secret just now that I'm getting ready for Arctic Comic Con.  You might say I that have made the most of being anonymous, I worked on A.C.: After Collapse for many years be-fore I was able to showcase it at this year's convention in Anchorage, Alaska.  As I write this, I've still got some of that anonymity, by this time tomorrow thousands of people will know my name and what I did.  I've already said a lot in recent blog posts about what had to happen before I could get just this far.  Here and now, in the moment, I want to take a few seconds to record my thoughts and share with you some of what I learned.

When I was a kid, many people told me in many different ways: make the future you want to live in.  What in the Hell does that really mean, anyway?  Well, Okay.  Everything we need for the convention is packed and there's no one around to interrupt me, so here it is: Understand who you are, what you are, and what you are good at.  Then, do all three of them at the same time.  No, I am n-not kidding.  Pull that off and certain things become a little more obvious.  You'll start to notice what you can do.  Some of those things will be so small that you won't give them a second thought.  Others wil lbe so freakishly huge that--trust me--you will be scared.

Anyone who says they aren't afraid of doing the bigger things in life has truly lied to themselves before they ever think about deceiving you.  So, here I am.  The house is quiet and everything is done that needs to be.  It's not a glamorous start, nor is anything guaranteed.  All I can say is that this is my best effort.  Nothing I can influence has been left alone.  Lot of things fell through before we got to this point.  Doesn't do any good to be bitter about it, we are here now.  I chased this dream far longer than I wanted to, but I did catch it.  The cost has been high and I will always regret that.  Even so, we are ready to show our stuff at this convention.  Let the chips fall where they may.

The Backstory behind A.C.: After Collapse

A.C.: After Collapse is a post-apocalyptic RPG with a backstory that is  a collapse of many causes.  As a young man in the 1980's, me and my fellow gamers were bombarded by themes of nuclear war.  Turn on a TV, pick up any newspaper, or even just try to read a book--you couldn't get away from it!  As luridly gruesome as it sounded, I couldn't escape the feeling that any catastrophe that was capable of somehow devouring human civilization would be...more.

The older I got, the more I began to see that the world was full of wars, famine, and stupid politics that could boil over in a way that would kill us all.  Yes, the whole nuclear war thing was big and it did dominate the headlines--but--it was just one of many risk factors that threatened to snuff out the world like a spent birthday candle.

Two things happened at roughly the same time. I began to indulge my interest in history, and I was introduced to role-playing games.  One thing lead to another, I went from being a not-so-humble player to one of those much-feared DM's we've all heard so much about.  It was a slow and gradual transformation, the evolution of decades.  Problem was, I never did give up my taste for history.  Every time we started a post-apocalyptic RPG of some kind, players asked questions about the world their characters lived in--and--it was my job to give them an answer.

You'd be right to think that should have been hard, but it wasn't.  Me and my trusted typewriter turned out pages of simulated news print, book extracts, and faked-up government documents that were all made to look yellow with age...after half an hour in an oven at three hundred degrees (F).  Once upon a time, I shocked everyone at the game table by describing a brief case filled with folders labelled "top secret."  They wanted to know more what was inside, so--with some bravado--I put a beat-up old brief case on the table in front of them and...

You get the idea.  All of that prepared me for the day when I started writing names, dates, and places in a notebook that would eventually contain the nuts and bolts of the backstory that was eventually used for A.C.: After Collapse.  I hope you enjoy it!

Rise of the Scavenger

Years before I was ready to begin work on A.C.: After Collapse, I was thinking about the nature of Player Characters and why they are so often...the way they are.  People I knew at the time spent many casual evenings with a pad of paper and a lot of math; trying to figure it out.  The answers to many of our most aggravating questions didn't come until we saw "classless" character generation in action.  Then, we began to understand what was so elusive.  All of that abstraction played its own part in the way I eventually approached role playing games.  What we think of as the Rogue or the Thief in Fantasy gaming evolved in to my concept of salvagers and scavengers in post-apocalyptic settings.

In my youth, the Cold War (1945-1991) was always on our minds.  More than anything else, we asked ourselves questions about survival.  Books and movies probed the question darkly, it was widely believed that surviving a nuclear war just wasn't possible.  I've never been one of those people who takes "no" for an iron-clad answer.  Life has taught me that people can survive anything except extinction--if they want to.  When it came on to the market, The Morrow Project seemed to support my thinking; that it was possible to survive "the end" no matter what form it may eventually take.  When I got, the internet and the mapping of our human genome made me revisit this grim subject.  As we approached the 21st Century, my thinking crystalized.

In those days, I was not yet a full-time author.  I'd write short stories at night and during weekends that always got thrown out every Monday.  As a civil servant who was working 40+ hours a week, that process of writing was good therapy that reduced my frustrations; it also helped me to construct the pieces woaht eventually became the backstory for A.C.: After Collapse.  That part of me that doesn't like to give up kept coming back to salvagers and scavengers.  Over the years, I've known people who are like scavengers.  You know the type, they're always trading one thing for another.  For some vague reason, they always seem to know a guy who has the thing you want--for a price.

People like that exist in every society, it made sense to me that they would thrive in a dying world where nothing was off limits...if you could find it or pay for it.  In some ways, the might be the most heroic resistors of the Collapse.  You can think of the civic-minded thief in a Fantasy game as the man or woman who becomes the new Robin Hood.  Imagine how hard it might be find prescription drugs during the collapse, then imagine what you might be willing to do just to get those drugs for people who mattered to you?  As criminals go, you might not be terribly noble--but--you'd know why you taking the risk.  That's an extreme example, though it does illustrate why I put so much effort to portraying scavengers in the post-apocalyptic fiction I write.

Post-Collapse Priorities

A.C.: After Collapse has been formally-officially launched and on the market for one whole month; the dust is beginning settle while we catch our breath.

I don't think I've worked this hard for anything in my entire life.  As you can see from what's in this blog, I have been trying to gather my thoughts and put them in to some sort of order you might want to read.  It's not quite everything I have learned, though it is a lot of it.   Anyone who has ever chased a dream can tell you from firsthand experience that pursuit is one thing; achieving the goal is something else!

 What do you do AFTER you finally found and captured the one "thing" that kept you awake at night for so many years?  In our case, we already know what has to come next.  Over the next few years, we have to finalize and publish more.  As a compulsive maker of lists, I constantly update my list to reflect what we finish and what needs to be done next in the long line products.  It's not glamorous, but it does keep me out of trouble.

Small Victories, When You Are Finished

When I think about it, there is something quite unique about finishing a novel or even a large project.  It is for me a feeling of irritability, satisfaction, and relief, almost but not quite an emotional release.  The sudden loss of stress work-related always makes me feel just a little bit "grateful" for surviving.  Sentiment aide,  I do think it's important to take a step back from whatever you just finished to breath and appreciate the moment--your book or project is at long last...done.

it's been said that the first novel is a harsh teacher, your second manuscript is not usually as hard as the first one was.  Same thing is true for big projects, especially when you've never done it before.  It's one thing to write all the individual pieces of something that gets put together as one big "thing," it's a whole different matter to plot and scheme what all those pieces should be, before you start.  When you read this, I'll be working on the final phases of a very larger (i.e., massive) project that took 4 years to start and finish.  I recognize the need to calm down and decompress when it's done.

Experience has taught me that some down-time between writing projects is always quite necessary.  Most people I have known need as much as 6 months to just "live" after they wrote their first novel.  Me?  I don't seem to be capable of sitting still for more than 2 weeks.  I've been known to unplug the phone and sleep too much, then go back to work after a long scary junk food binge that has been known to last 3 days.  Bottom line is this, accept your victory for what it is and then slow down so that your brain can catch up.  that much gives your subconscious mind a chance to think ahead.  There have been moments when I just  can't help myself, I jump off in to the next thing sooner than I should--and--I pay for it later, when I'm exhausted.

Planning Your Book like a Large Project

Anyone with experience in large project management knows that little things make a big thing--and--"order" is more than sequence of activity.  Fiction and Non-fiction writing has a lot in common, those books don't write themselves.  Before you get started, you can eliminate a lot of the pain by knowing what you really want to say.  Many writers admit to some suffering when they develop a new project, what they often mean to say is that frustration builds gradually over time when they don't know what to do next.  That's why the much-dreaded outline matters, think of it as a road map can save you a lot of sleepless nights.

Everything from a novel to cookbooks can broken down in to chapters and individual sub-sections.  Putting that on paper rots your brain--but--it gives you that much-needed road map to future victory.  As bad as that sounds, you should still have some idea of how long it takes to do the actual writing, we're not all very fast or very slow; some of us just poke right on along at a middle-of-the-road pace.  Knowing how long it takes you to write a chapter gives you a chance to do some simple math that suggests how long it may take to write the whole book.  Example: If it takes you seven days to write 1 chapter, it's fair to say that it might take 25 weeks to write a 25 chapter manuscript.

With your road map and some sense of time commitments, you can more confidently go to the library or look online for the information you want, need, or just gotta have.  It's not unusual for research to take longer than you expect.  Remember the old saying about needles in haystacks, flipping through the paste of one book to find a single factoid can take days.  I have actually spend several years (4+) gathering my research materials, just to write one book.  That brings me to my last point, always give yourself more time; never force yourself to knock out a project so fast that it makes trouble for people around you.  I'm not a lot of fun when I'm trying to hit self-imposed deadlines, so; I try to spread things out just enough to stay calm.  Being honest with yourself about the scope and scale of what you are doing makes it easier to learn the things that drive you nuts.

Yes, I know how generalized all of this is.  There is no one right way to develop your road map and set priorities--but--if you can do it in a way that works for you...many of your problems provide their own solution; especially when you understand that no book is ever as small or easy as you think it is going to be.  Know that much, and the bigger projects are a little less scary.

100th Anniversary of World War I

100 years ago today, the "war to end all wars" came to a formal end when an armistice was signed.  What we call World War I happened at a time when global industrial expansion was at its peak, innovation was a fact of life in those and--and--just about everyone liked it.  As much as we pride ourselves on 21st Century greatness, early decades of the previous century were just as marvelous.

I spent the earlier part my day being somewhat conflicted about what to say in this blog, if anything.  My own family's history and legacy would be different if World War I had continued much longer, it's not unreasonable to suggest that I might not be here.  As the treaty of Versailles was finalized, British Prime Minister Lloyd George worried out loud that the major nations might reluctantly be back at war in just 20 year.  He was right.

As we commemorate this centenary observance, many Americans are mulling over the mixed results of our most recent congressional elections.  We find ourselves with a President who harkens back to the days of 1930's isolationism, complete with undertones of racism and a growing cult of personality that would make Hitler jealous with its scope and scale.  Mr. Trump's animus toward the French is a matter public record, I won't burden you with it here.  All I care to say--after some thought--is that we seem to be perilously close to making the same old mistakes, again.

The American Expeditionary Force (AEF) that went to Europe in 1917 probably did save the world as we now know it.  Two decades later, when Nazi Germany rapidly conquered Europe, we returned.  As we now stand on the threshold of our era of authoritarianism, I reluctantly ask--who saves us?

Motivation Aggravation

Anyone who pursues writing as a serious professional "thing" can tell you from firsthand experience that the process will very often test what you believe about yourself and what you want to stand for.  The pace of constantly looking for work, wading through rejections, and struggling onward to finish what you starts feels desperately slow.  There will be days when you question the rightness of what you are doing.  Any number of things you might hear from others, see on television, or read in print can feel like they drain your energy--because--they do; when you question your decision to write.

It's been said that some things happen as fast as they do because we take the path of least resistance.  Some very impressive poetry has been written about the road less travelled.  So says "them," we are better off when we test ourselves against harder things, because they are so very damned difficult.  There is truth to it--however--I think some of those philosophers leave out one very vital ingredient.  You've really got to know what you want and what you are willing to suffer to achieve that goal.  Somebody somewhere said you've got to suffer for your art, what they really mean is that you should know what you are willing to do just to make that thing happened.

What really matters to you?  Answer that one question and you're on your way to figuring out what needs to be done for any chance at achieving that goal.  If you really like a story you are writing, you may be willing to suffer through many re-writes.  If you like your day job, you might be willing to put up a certain amount of stupid just for the opportunity to do that kind of work.  Knowing what you want is like knowing a secret that's very hard to explain, even when you really want to spill your guts to the world.  Please understand, there is real a difference between being selfish and knowing what you stand for.  When a job or a project really matters to you, you'll endure a lot to make it happen.

First Novel as Cathartic Process

Anything "cathartic" is something you feel deep down, it's a gut response that has the power to make you extremely happy or dreadfully sad.  Ask anyone who will answer truthfully, and they'll tell you that part of what made their first novel so hard was the feelings of protectiveness and insecurity that hit them like a sledgehammer.  Nobody likes to think they are going to write a bad story, nor do they start out trying to fail.  The images and ideas that fly around inside our minds do not always translate to a written page.  The terrible truth is, if it's not on the page it didn't happen.

It sounds simple enough to say that book manuscripts are edited, re-rewrites can be a brutal process.  It's a whole different thing to live through it, especially for the first time.  Like it or not, that novel is a part of you.  Might even be connected to something dark or ticklish you don't care to talk about.  Even so, you're probably going to get up the nerve to ask somebody to tell you what they think about what you wrote.  They'll read it and say...something.  Editors read the whole thing and then say a lot. There are two things to remember about that feedback process:

Story is story, nuts-and-bolts details are something else.  As you read this, somebody somewhere is writing a good story.  While they write or type, they are not thinking about the many rules of gramma and what-not that are going to drive them insane later on.  Spelling and punctuation are always going to make anyone's blood pressure go up.  When any editor wants to pick a bone with you over the details of long/short sentences, they are in some small way doing this without your sense of style.   What you see as too many short sentences can be that stylish part of you complaining about the lack of words that convey what you want a reader to see, think, or feel.  That one single factor by itself should be enough for you take your own style more seriously.  Don't just put words on the page because you know what they mean, choose them wisely pain a word picture that says what you feel.

There is no easy way to take the sting out of editing a first novel, it's always going to be hurtful.  That's why so many writers read books about writing.  That may sound counterintuitive, but it's not.  Authors all over the world read things they would not write just to learn from them, to sharpen their own sense of style.  That includes thick dry books written by editors about the subject of writing.  We're all tempted to think we know everything there is to know about some subjects, even writing.  When you realize that the art of storytelling is a life-long journey that prepares you to spin your yarn,
it becomes possible to take those punches.  No matter how much they hurt.

Finishing Your First Novel

Why is it so hard for anyone to finish their first novel?  There is no "good" answer to that question, no short simple reply that can somehow make your life easier.  The terrible unavoidable truth is that it's hard for anyone to actually finish the damned thing.  More than a decade later, I am still conflicted about the way my first novel was wrapped up.  All I can say is this:

The first novel is a harsh teacher, everything you thought you knew about style and/or composition is tested in ways that no classroom experience can prepare you for.  What you observe on a written page is powered by your imagination and colored by your life experience.  Editors are infamous for their ability to dispassionately shred what you works so hard to create, you might even feel a bit like they somehow have it in for you.  The terrible truth is that most editors think differently than writers do.  From their point of view, anything on paper is governed by regulations a writer doesn't know about. 
I myself have hit the proverbial wall many times, because I got mark-ups from an editor who was not sympathetic to my way of thinking.

Anyone who has been through the college curriculum has had a larger dose of writing rules than they might realize--or remember.  As useful as that is, it won't be enough.  Nobody writes a book once, there is a process to it that can require dozens of rough drafts.  As I've remembered it, my first novel came to life after something like 54 rearrangements.  All of this is much harder for anyone who has not been schooled, especially when it was never necessary to learn the nuts-and-bolts like editors do.  As a technical writer, I have often found it useful and very necessary to think about what I am doing in editorial terms.  What is or is not a complete sentence factors in to what you could call "style," because a paragraph full of short sentences looks and reads differently than something is more wordy.

Fiction, as we think of the term, is all about storytelling.  Some story forms are founded on more emotion than others.  I like to write military fiction and science fiction, neither one of these rely on heavy doses of emotion--even when they are just slippery with sex.  Even so, I find myself needing to inject some emotion in everything I write.  That emotiveness can result in some very long sentences that feed very long chapters.  If there is any one thing that would get me busted fast by an editor, that's it right there.  When bullets fly and troops are on the move, setences can get severely short--which gets me a lot of grief from an editor every time.

Bottom line is this: understand that none of the editorial process is person and you're on your way to a compromise that helps you finish your book without leaving behind any unforced errors that are the result of inattention or lack of knowledge.  You are the writer, it's your creativity that made that story coalesce on a page or inside your computer.  Editors are not always authors, so they won't see things your way.  When they are on your side, they will want to make you look good.  That good will comes with a willingness to disagree with you when they don't think you are on the right track.

Authoritarianism in Fiction

Is it really a good idea--or even safe--to write about heroes and heroines who foil corrupt politicians?  The short answer is "yes," because fiction writers can do things with words that are often too spendy  for some movie studios to ever think about.  In my lifetime, I have read books that include creative fictional stand-ins for such men as: Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and recently--Donald Trump.  Years ago, I tried my own hand at such a project:

In recent days, the topic has appeared in a lot of my e-mail correspondence, which makes me think it's time to say a little something about the bravery of writers. Everything we believe about "right" and "wrong" can be enshrined in pages of fiction.  It's been my experience that we don't always stop to think about the many shades of gray in what we do, all we really want is some degree of success.  That same world view can be present in our heroes and villains, even if we don't try to put it there.

As a lifelong consumer of conspiracy fiction, I've always been fascinated by the process of "things."  One action or event often leads to another,  even when it's a series of outcomes that cause/promulgate something that turns out to be painfully complicated.  For as long as I can remember, authors have been writing about power-hungry leaders who go too far.  They are always cautionary tales intended to warn readers about what might happen.  That's easy enough when the abuses of power you write about are not happening in your own country.  What happens when they are?

That's rapidly becoming a difficult question for some Americans to answer because we are verging on a period of authoritarian rule we caused or allowed because nobody thought it can ever happen here.  No matter how you see this--for or against--that should not change what you write as a form of story.  I have always felt just a little uncomfortable when writing about imagined politicos who take power, it really bothers me.  Even so, I tell myself that's what all those vibrant heroes and heroines are for--to save the day and make a point.  In the long run, that's why I write in different genres, as a way to cleanse my palette when things taste too bitter.  If we do not preserve and maintain the idea that it is possible to defeat evil, we will surely lose.

Arguing Against Authoritarianism

Throughout many centuries of record human history, it has been observed that that the pen of a writer is mightier than any wielded sword.  That age-old saying has taken on a great deal more "truthiness" in a world where rapidly evolving social media provides us with instant worldwide communications.  that power belongs to all of us, no matter who we are or where we come from.  Rich and poor alike can test what they think and/or believe in a limitless arena of give-and-take that proves what we say.

Some ideas really do stand the test of time in a "good" way.  Treat others how you want to be treated, never diminish another person's dignity, and--you get the idea.  You already know this stuff by heart, there is always a chance the other guy is right.  Even when they aren't, you can still make your case for what you believe in by talking about the process of something that has happened in the past and how those events turned out.  Chances are that somebody somewhere has already done something like what matters to you.  If those events didn't work out well for them, you've got some clue that the decisions they made are not the choices you should make.

Americans have a bad habit of being unaware of their own history, we so almost never stop to realize that it's been more than two centuries since British forces burned our capital during the War of 1812.  As infamous as he was, Senator Joseph McCarthy ignited the "red scare" for the sake of his own political ambitions more than six decades ago.  Trauma he in inflicted has never completely faded, the same dark forces that idealized Hitler seem to have blinded us to the miracle of our survival and the danger of current threats.

As writers of history and various fictions, many of us have the power of the pen I mentioned earlier.  Cautionary tales allow us to speak with a voice that will outlive us when those books go in to print.  Even as e-books, those words have the power to travel fast all the way around an uncertain world--even if you never do.  Your heroes and heroines are what you make them to be, they live and die for what you make them believe in.  Your villains can embody all the evils you stand against, even if they carry out their crimes with style.  Stories that bear some resemblance to the times you live in allow future generations to "read between the lines."  They'll know what you meant, if if you didn't say it directly.  No tyrant has ever been able to defeat the printed word, not even yours.