Flash Fiction Saturday – True Love

This one is a bit morbid, but that’s how I’m feeling today…

Enjoy!

 

True Love

“Um, excuse me?” Cole could hear his voice shake and he hated himself for it. He took a firmer grip on the spray bottle in the pocket of his lab coat.

“Yes, what is it?”

She was perfect. Her brown hair was tied back into a bun, showing off her perfectly shaped ears and graceful neck.

She made a small inquiring sort of noise and he realized that he was staring, caught up in her beauty.

He watched her about to draw breath to ask him something else, perhaps and inquiry into how she could help him, and he seized his moment to pull the bottle out of his pocket and spray her full in the face so that her next indrawn breath was almost as much his specially formulated potion as it was air.

She started coughing violently, but it was too late. The potion was in her, and doing its work. He dropped the bottle back into his pocket and steadied her, gently.

A couple minutes later, the coughing subsided and she turned to look at him. Really look at him, the way he always wanted her to. Her eyes widened with love and affection, and she gently cupped his cheek with her hand.

“Oh, my.” She breathed. “You are perfect. How did I not see that before?” She grasped his hand and tugged. “Come, I have to show you something.”

Hands clasped, in a heady daze that his potion worked and she was finally his, he followed her. She led him down, deep into the building, where he had never been before, to places he didn’t even know existed.

She let him go to unlock an unobtrusive door, then pulled him inside. He looked around to see a laboratory. A secret, highly illegal laboratory.

She went to a refrigeration unit humming quietly to itself in the corner, and pulled out a sealed test tube. She uncapped it and put it in his hands.

“Sniff this.”

When he hesitated, she covered his hands with hers and looked beseechingly up at him. “Please. Show me that you love me as much as I love you.”

So he raised the tube to his nostril and sniffed. The acrid odor made him toss his head a little.

She smiled and took the tube back and recapped it. “I knew it. I knew you felt the same as I did, that you see all the evils and horrors of our world, that it needs to be cleansed so that we can start over, anew. I will always love you, and remember you for your sacrifice.”

The end of privacy

Charles Stross, one of my favorite authors, did a very interesting talk back in 2007 about Moore’s law and the shape of the future. The thing I found most interesting about it, was his discussion about how with advancing memory capacity and miniturization, there will possibly be a point where everyone has a camera on all the time, a “life log” that could be uploaded, searched and referenced.

It means that you’ll never again forget where you put something. Or more accurately, you will, but then you’ll be able to just refer back to your lifelog to see where you put it, and go find it there. It will also get rid of that really annoying problem (at least for me it’s a problem. And annoying. You might feel differently) of remembering that you read something, but not remembering the reference.

The good part, is that it would be a record of history on a grand scale; history like it’s never been recorded before. A worm’s eye view, as it were, of everything going on everywhere. A historian’s job, then, would be to sift through the data to find the useful patterns, or the “stories” of history, out of volumes and volumes of data, not trying to piece together the stories out of a few fragments here and there.

The bad part would be that it would be very, very easy to create all sorts of laws about how people may or may not behave, and use the data to prosecute people who are doing anything that people in power don’t like. It would be very, very easy to become a totalitarian police state.

And Stross is right about this projected future. The interesting thing is that you don’t see it much in science fiction; one I can think of off hand, not including the work of Stross himself, is the excellent, too short-lived, Canadian-produced show Continuum. Another one is an episode of the British show Black Mirror; for those who aren’t familiar with it, the show is stand-alone stories, usually with a technology theme, and usually pretty bleak. In the episode I’m thinking of, a couple made themselves miserable and took their fighting to another level by being able to replay scenes of humiliation over and over to themselves, and throw back nasty and ill-considered words in each other’s faces. It wasn’t pretty. And another possible down-side to the lifelog that Stross didn’t consider.

But it’s a possible future that we need to consider – if everything is recorded, what about things that you need, or want to forget? Like arguments with your romantic partner, for example. Or thoughtless things your parents said. And where are the boundries of privacy? If we think things are bad now, with police, governments and big business being able to watch our every move online, what about when they can watch every move period?

This is something I’m going to be thinking about for awhile. If you want to read the transcript of the speech by Stross, you can find it here.

But since you’re really here to read some more Changeling, here it is.

Changeling2_part3

Action versus Motion

Over the last couple of weeks or so, I’ve run into a few instances of what Steve Blank calls Action versus Motion. And specifically, I’ve run into people who can’t seem to distinguish between the two.

Here’s the difference: Action is meaningful work that brings you closer to goals, results, finished products, any of those kinds of good things. Motion is activities that take up time, can make you look good (at least for a little while), but don’t actually do anything to bring you closer to that goal, result or finished product.

So Actions are things like working on and completing an outline, or sitting down and writing a piece of your book, even if it’s only a sentence or two. It’s also writing some code on the program you want to build, cleaning a room for your goal to unclutter, unrolling the yoga mat and doing a few yoga poses, even if it isn’t a long practice…you get the idea.

In comparison, Motion includes most meetings, it often includes going for coffee or lunch to discuss ideas. A lot of studies commissioned by businesses and other large organizations (marketing studies, environmental scans, cluster studies, etc) are also Motion and not Action. It’s stuff that people can claim is Action, if the person they’re talking to doesn’t understand the difference, and isn’t looking too hard.

And the problem is, the people who don’t understand the difference between Action and Motion spend most of their time doing Motions instead of Actions, and then get frustrated that they aren’t making any progress. Or they get offended if you suggest that perhaps they should do some Actions instead of Motions.

Part of the problem is that sometimes meetings and lunches and studies really are Actions. And of course, sometimes doing nothing, or just goofing off is an Action, because giving yourself down time is the most productive thing you can do in that moment.

For myself, I think I’m pretty good at doing more Actions than Motions, though of course I know I sometimes do Motions and tell myself they’re Actions. I watch a bunch of TED talks and tell myself they’re “research” when I should have been writing a page of my book. I read a yoga magazine when I should have been on my mat doing a yoga practice. If I think about it, I’m sure I can come up with more examples.

But to make this year as productive as I want it to be, I’ll have to pay attention, be a person of Action, not a person of Motion.

Flash Fiction Saturday

Before I get to the flash fiction, I just wanted to mention that Adam Grant’s article in the New York Times, Why I taught myself to procrastinate is an interesting one. He makes a similar point to what I was talking about regarding procrastination versus creative incubation, a little while ago. To read Grant’s article, click here.

Now here’s your Saturday Flash Fiction. After all the fantasy scenarios I’ve been giving you, here’s a little science fiction.

Hunter

Carefully, carefully, Rylin stalked her prey. As she slid past the cargo container, her stomach growled loudly and she froze, holding her breath.
Her prey didn’t seem to notice, though, and continued to wander through the hold, nose and whiskers twitching. Cheeky Bastard. It was good and plump, too, it would make a good meal. If Rylin could catch it.

She crept past the porthole, ignoring the stunning vista of stars tumbling slowly through the black on the other side. She had seen it too often to pay attention anymore, even when she wasn’t involved in a desperate attempt to catch some food.

A little closer, she edged up behind the rat. The damn things were everywhere, even going into space with humans. The things were a constant source of annoyance for the quarter master. Or had been, anyhow. He was long past annoyance, now, and Rylin was glad of them, a source of food among inedible machine parts.

Slowly she moved, slowly. The rat twitched and she lunged. Silky fur slipped through her hand, but she finally closed on the rough textured, naked tail. The rat squeaked angrily and twisted to sink its teeth into the hand that held it. Rylin gasped, but still held firmly to the tail. She wasn’t going hungry today. Not again. She wrapped her other hand around the rat’s throat and squeezed until it let go, then with both hands, wrung its neck.

She looked at her bleeding hand in annoyance. That was going to be a bitch to clean and bandage by herself, one handed. Even worse if the rat had passed on some nasty disease through the bite, though she found herself to be surprisingly philosophical about that possibility.
At least the sickbay was reasonably well stocked, yet. That was the first stop, for her hand. Then the mess hall, to make something of her catch.

This meant survival for a little while longer, yet. Would it be enough? Rylin had stopped actively considering that question, as matters of survival occupied most of her waking hours, but it still lurked in the back of her mind.

Would it be enough? She would find out, sooner or later. She just had to wait…

Loving the Haters

I came across an interesting blog post by writer Cecelia Tan, where she discussed how, as both a writer and an editor, she has found that often the parts of a story that bad reviews call out as being things they hated, are also the parts that are called out by good reviews as being the things they loved. She goes on to note that this is good – when writing evokes a response in the reader, whether it is love or hate, a response means that the writer is doing something that works. Writing that doesn’t work, doesn’t achieve a response, and likely isn’t going to inspire a reader to write a review.

She’s very right about that – people or corporations who ask for reviews of products or services often put great stock in this feedback, without really considering that people who do polls or questionaires about a service or product, or write reviews, are usually the ones who have had an outstandingly good experience and want to thank and congratulate the person who did good, or they have had an exceptionally bad experience, and want to vent. It’s made me want to scream more than once, when these types of voluntary feedback have been used as a serious performance metric at places I have worked.

I like her point, though, that writers can use the bad reviews as just as much of an indication that they’re on the right track, doing something good, as they can the good reviews. Being a writer in public isn’t just about getting a thicker skin, it’s also understanding the larger meaning behind what’s given back to you.

If you want to read Tan’s full blog post, you can find it here.

And since it’s Thursday, here’s part two of book two of Changeling, where we meet the other main characters of the story.

Changeling2_part2

Talent and 10,000 hours

Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers has had a substantial impact on public consciousness since it’s publication in 2008, especially the popularization of the idea that people need to put in about 10,000 hours of focused practice to fully master a discipline.

Which is true – up to a point.

In almost so many words, Gladwell says in his book that there is no such thing as talent, it’s all practice. It’s the ultimate extension of the “blank slate” theory, that humans are born without pre-dispositions or talents, it’s all nurture, not nature.

Taken to its logical extension, this means that every single one of us has the potential to be another Gretzky, Einstein or Mozart, (and anyone could write a book as well as Gladwell, for that matter), it’s just a question of putting in the practice.

Which is utter crap.

The “blank slate” theory has been very well de-bunked over the last couple decades, with things like twin studies showing that there is a substantial genetic component to our personalities, behaviors, and, yes, talents. Even without those studies, though, all you have to do is ask anyone who has ever tried to teach something to a number of different people, and they’ll tell you that there are differences in how well people catch on to something they’re being taught that has nothing to do with previous knowledge and experience.

Which means, of course, that a broad, generalized rule like 10,000 hours are needed for mastery of something, is of very limited use. Inherent talent means that some people may need only 5000 hours to be good enough at something to be considered a master, and others might need 20,000 hours, or may never be good enough, no matter how much practice they put in.

But Gladwell is right in that talent is not enough, there is a great deal of practice needed to become good at something. His book seems to be in reaction to many people he had encountered who didn’t seem to recognize or acknowledge to sheer volume of practice that’s needed.

So in that respect I’m glad his ideas have gotten the attention they have, because it’s brought back to the public at large that practice is important, and people shouldn’t give up on themselves because at first try, they aren’t as good as their masterful role models. Even so, I’ve had math students say they should give up on math because they aren’t as good at it as me, their teacher, without giving any thought to the huge volume of practice that I’ve put in, that they haven’t.

The problem the existence of talent brings, though, is that it complicates the choice of what to pursue, where to spend your limited amount of hours available for practice. If talent exists, it isn’t just a matter of picking something that interests you and going there, it means that there are some thing in which you can achieve mastery relatively quickly, and others in which mastery will come slowly, or perhaps not at all.

How do you find what you’re talented at, then? It seems to be to some extent aligned with interest, but not entirely – I’m sure we can all think of an example of someone with a great deal of passion and enthusiasm for something, but little ability, even after a lot of practice.

Unfortunately, the only answer seems to be to keep trying things, and see what you pick up easily, and what you don’t. It isn’t a very satisfying answer, but there you are. Pay attention to talent, but don’t underestimate the value of practice.

And don’t get caught up in the 10,000 hours rule. Just practice.

Flash Fiction Saturday

Here’s your flash fiction for the week. Enjoy!

Mammoth

“Sir, could you please tell me where you first saw the Mammoth?”

“It was over there. About. It was just minding its own business. At least at first.”

“So it didn’t seem…odd? That there was a live Mammoth at the party?”

“Oh, well, you know. Odd things happen in this town.”

“I…see. What happened next?”

“Well, it pooped.”

“Excuse me?”

“The Mammoth. It dropped a great steaming pile. You can still see most of it over there. People weren’t really looking where they were going, and ran through it, later. It was truly amazing what a huge volume of -”

“Thank you, I get the idea. When the Mammoth completed it’s…business, then what happened?”

“It waved its trunk around. Like it was smelling for something. Or someone.”

“And no one else was any more concerned than you were, with a Mammoth at the party?”

“Well, it is somewhat concerning. You let one extinct animal in and the next thing you know there’s velociraptors hunting in the streets, and Genghis Khan’s horde raping and pillaging.”

“But right at that moment…”

“No, no one was panicking, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“And then?”

“Then it started to run. Like it had discovered what it was looking for, and wanted to get there as soon as possible.”

“Did you realize it could move that fast?”

“No one did. Extinct, remember?”

“Oh. Hm. Then what?”

“It went straight for Mayor Jameson.”

“And?”

“And…well…trampled him.”

“Straight for the Mayor, no one else?”

“Yes, I was watching…wait, are you implying that this was a political assassination?”

“No one can actually prove a thing, now, can they? Thank you for your time, sir, you’ve been most helpful.”

“Wait, who are you, exactly?”

“No one of consequence. Good bye.”

“Wait -”

The saddest week

Earlier this week we lost David Bowie, and then today we got the news that Alan Rickman has passed. A very sad week, indeed.

By all accounts, Alan Rickman was a kind, generous and considerate person, despite the roles he played on the big screen. He was most certainly a highly talented actor, and one of my favorites; I loved him as Snape, in the Harry Potter movies, and in GalaxyQuest, where he had one of the most quotable lines – “By Grapthor’s hammer, you will be avenged!”

Rest in Peace, Alan Rickman. You will be missed.

A link and a new book

So for those of you who aren’t here to read my fiction, (I’m hoping that aren’t very many of you. No offense, but I hope you’re here for both the posts and the fiction), here’s another blog I like. It’s Math Babe, a very geeky blog, written by a mathematician. She has some interesting things to say about the use and mis-use of math to understand the world, and what’s going on. And she doesn’t get all technical and jargon-y, either, so I hope the non-math nerds among you check out the blog, as well as you math-y ones.

But if you’re really here for my fiction, today is the day when I start posting Changeling, book 2. (I haven’t come up with any better name for it than that. Please tell me your suggestions, if you have any by the end.) This one is also written in two timelines, which are again “now” and “then”, except the two timelines are only months apart, rather than years. I hope you like it, I’d love to hear your comments on it.

Oh, and if you haven’t noticed yet, I’ve taken down all the individual parts of the original Changeling that I’ve posted in the “Fiction” page in the menu on the left. Instead, there is a pdf of the whole thing, all nicely formatted. There’s no cover illustration or photo, yet. I hope to have that at some point, but I don’t know when, yet.

Feel free to download the book and pass it around, but if you enjoyed the book enough for that (and I hope you did), please also support me on Patreon. Click on the “support” button in the menu on the left. (Writing fiction takes a lot of time and effort, and I have bills to pay.)

So without further ado, here it is, part one of Book 2.

Changeling2_part1

RIP David Bowie

I’m far from the world’s biggest Bowie fan; many others have done a fabulous job pouring out in-depth and heartfelt tributes for him. That’s good. He touched many people with his art, and we should mourn for losing an amazing artist today.

The thing I found the most amazing and inspiring about him, was that he took major changes in his art and presentation as an artistic imperative. At a time when we’re surrounded by re-boots and sequels, artists doing the same thing over and over, David Bowie was a true role model, an artist who refused to stay still, who pushed the envelope, embraced the strange, and pushed both himself and his audience further than we thought we could go.

David Bowie is the one who inspires artists of all types, not just musicians, to ask themselves if they can dig deeper, push further, challenge themselves and their audiences more.

And for that, he’ll always have my profound respect.

Rest in Peace, Starman.