One of the things that helped change this, however, was when Bill Clinton cheated on Hillary. As much as 9/11 made me re-think my assumptions, Bill’s infidelity did too. And not so much because I think Bill is a horrible person — I think he was very wrong to do what he did, and he’s lucky Hillary didn’t destroy him politically and financially — but because I greatly disliked how the Democratic party and the press seemed very much to want for it to not matter that the President of the United States had just been caught — red handed! — cheating on his wife.

I thought then, “Are we really this cynical, that we’ll excuse and permit this? Screw the stupid impeachment, the chief public official of the country has just been revealed to be a liar and a wife-cheater, and this is who represents us to the world?” I didn’t care that people said Bill (and Hillary) were free to resolve the problem in their own way, and it was nobody’s business. I think marriage has been trampled enough by rampant cheating and divorce in the last 100 years, without us having a damned President who gets caught. I don’t ask much of my elected officials, but I do ask this: in the affairs of your home and with your spouse, be true, above all else.

Barack Obama, though I believe him to be informed by wrong-headed ideas about economics and the role of government, has his family going for him. So far as I know he loves Michelle and he loves his daughters and he has never soiled that marriage — that sacred obligation — by putting his little brains (testicles) in charge of his big brain. I choose to not support Obama because I believe his ideas on economics and the role of government to be unsound, but if my only choice other than Obama is… Newt Gingrich??

Uhhhhh…. no. That’s really all I have to say about it. Just, no. Part of me never stopped being an independent. Part of me never stopped loving being able to disengage from the “team sport” of Democrats vs. Republicans long enough to make my own, individual moral or ethical decisions about a thing. I never felt obliged to support Democrats at all costs, for “the team” as it were, and I feel no compulsion to support Republicans “for the team” even though I think 4 more years with Obama would only further exacerbate the economic crisis and the swollen problem of government with too much debt and deficit about it.

Because, as I said before, the President is our representative to the world. I think that matters. I want that man in that office to be someone I can be proud of, even if he may not agree with me on certain issues. Obama, at least, before the world, is a family man. He is not a wife-cheater. His daughters — hopefully — will never have to watch their father disgrace the family, the way Bill Clinton disgraced his. No child should have to face the public humiliation nor the private questions, the private shame, the private betrayals, of an unfaithful father and husband. In this, I applaud Barack and I hope very much that his marriage to Michelle is long-lived, that his daughters will grow up and know that Daddy was always true, and in this way — at least — I can take comfort knowing that the Chief Executive properly represents (for me) what America ought to be all about.

Newt Gingrich…. Newt Gingrich represents to me much of what’s wrong with our society. I am told over and over that Newt’s the only one with the intellectual fireworks to “excite the base” and motivate the Republican electorate against Obama in November. I am also told over and over again that none of the candidates are perfect, they all have flaws, and that we shouldn’t judge Newt based on past mistakes. Cast not the first stone, etc, etc.

Well, frankly, I agree, it’s not for us to cast the first stone… where Newt’s personal affairs are concerned. But when you run for President, your entire life is up for display. Every choice you ever made, fairly or unfairly. Because you are being proffered to the world as “America’s Man” and when it comes to picking America’s Man I gosh damned jolly well want someone in that chair who is faithful to his wife and honors her and has not made a further mockery of marriage by using it and abusing it to his own ends.

Say what you want about Romney the “flip flopper” or Ron Paul “the weirdo” or Rick Santorum “the homophobe,” all three of these men — to my knowledge — are not cheaters with their spouses. Where Romney and Santorum specifically are concerned, I know they’ve actually gone out of their way to demonstrate total and absolute marital fidelity.

And I think that counts. For me, at least, that counts big. Newt may have reformed and maybe he regrets his past choices, but the record is what it is, and I cannot as a social conservative cast a vote for Gingrich and not feel like I am committing hypocrisy when I do it.

Plus, Newt wasn’t scoring any points with me during his rather savage attacks on Romney — anti-business and anti-wealth attacks, they were — designed to pander to the anti-capitalist sentiment which is already being pandered to by Democrats who want to re-engineer our economics and our social structure, to fit their own theories. That alone would have made me very, very, very hesitant to support Newt if he were to become the Republican nominee.

But Newt’s record of cheating on his wife seals it. I cannot support the man. Not in his bid for Presidential office. I will sooner do what I did in 2008 — I will write in MITT ROMNEY for President, and CONDI RICE for Vice President. A throw-away vote, I know. But being forced to choose between Obama and Gingrich is not a choice I am willing to make. Newt is so contra to my own ethics and my own beliefs, and appears to be so willing to pander to populist messages — thump the reporters good, Newt, yeah! — that I fear he’d be an even more flip-floppy President than even Romney is often accused of being. And Obama’s policies make him a non-starter too, so rather than hold my nose, I will simply elect to follow my conscience and tilt at the proverbial windmill. I want Romney, or barring that, I could possibly consider Santorum, or maybe even Paul, as a distant third option. But I absolutely will not consider Newt. Better that the country endure 4 years of Obama than we have a Newt Gingrich Presidency. I foresee all kinds of problems if Newt is the one, and I will never be able to tell myself I am a serious social conservative if I pretend Newt’s marriage-trashing is somehow OK with me, just to go along for the ride in November.

I would hope that, as the year goes on, Newt does what he always does — takes his leads and his popularity, and squanders them by saying and demonstrating his loose-cannon approach to politicking. Once the roar of the crowds have died down — stick it to the press, Newt! — people will realize that it takes more to be President than just bashing the press, whom most conservatives already distrust or outright loathe. That’s preaching to the choir.

What we need is a leader who can work in ‘hostile territory’ with budget problems, and government largesse, who can rein them in, and do it by winning enough opposing minds to his cause to secure the legislation, and thereby turning the United States away from its path of ever-expanding Federal power, ever-expanding Federal debt, and ever-expanding Federal deficits.

Mitt Romney is the only one in the race who has demonstrated — for me — that he has any clue how to do this. And he’s been his wife’s faithful and adoring companion for the entirety of their adult lives. Mitt represents, to me, the potential for both economic sanity in the White House and a proper, dignified representation of the United States to the world. That we are not a nation of wife-cheaters, despite what statistics may say. That we do in fact honor and value the commitments men and women make when they promise to love and bond with one another.

The cynical mind may mock and scorn such idealism on my part. I care not. Past a certain point I have to just hork and spit on cynicism — and peddlers of cynical philosophy — because cynicism is a hopeless and sorrowful paradigm wherein all is suspect and all is hopeless and shame on anyone who dares to believe in anything greater or more noble than the grubby little inconsistencies and petty evils of the world. In fact, I’d argue the abject cynic is the real coward, because the abject cynic never has to commit — never has to lay his or her money on the table and take a stand. The cynic gets to hide behind snark and jokes and eye-rolling, trust-nobody-because-all-is-vain emptiness.

No, I will say no to cynicism as readily as I say no to “going along to get along” just to demonstrate sufficient allegiance to a mere political party. I support Mitt not because he’s Republican, not even because he’s LDS, but because I think he’s got the best experience and the best record for the current job, as required by the straits of our predicament, and he is also a devoted and faithful family man — just like Obama — so that he need not stand on the world stage with a sign that says WIFE CHEATING HYPOCRITE emblazoned over him.

I’ve been married to my wife Annie for over 18 years. Those have been the best — and often the toughest — years of my life. Staying married and faithful to the same person, through thick and thin, takes works and effort and being willing to set aside your own selfish desires and needs and commit to making things work even when your own ego or your own lusts may want to take you in a different direction. It’s precisely because I value my marriage that I am such a staunch critic of rampant divorce and rampant cheating on spouses, and why I cannot let this one issue — apparently, my “single issue” in the vernacular of our political process — pass without serious and ultimate considering.

Newt fails. Mitt wins. Enough said by me.

It should be noted at the start that discussions of women in the US military are a lot like discussions revolving around gun laws, abortion, taxes, and other eternally-debated and politicized subjects. I entered the thread being keenly aware of the fact that I had points to make — pro and con — and that I was risking being seen as a “con” when I am, in fact, a “pro.” Albeit a “pro” with (what I consider to be) some sensible caveats. Which I explain below.

For many science fiction (and sometimes fantasy) writers, the question of women in combat is ever-present. This string of commentary is my particular take on the challenges faced when we as a modern 21st century liberal society demand integration of our armed forces. LTC Kratman’s ultimate question — do women in the military detract from capability and readiness to such an extent that their presence is dangerous or futile? — is not a matter I think I can resolve with any surety. There’s still a lot we don’t know about fully-integrated women troops, especially if the United States (or its allies) were to ever go to war with a matched opponent — which hasn’t happened since World War II.

I am merely trying to flesh out the positives and the not-so-positives, as I have seen and experienced them to date, combined with speculations on how future technologies and sensibilities may (or may not) mitigate the (often real) concerns over integration, female soldiering, and females on the front lines.

–==|||==–

…LTC Kratman’s experience is from the [United States] infantry, and it should be noted that the infantry is almost a world unto itself, especially as one ascends through the hierarchies of the skill badges and tabs: Airborne, Air Assault, Pathfinder, Ranger, Special Forces, et cetera. These designations — and the schools that produce them, and the units that keep them employed — breed an attitude of exclusivity that is hard to separate from combat arms. Ergo, it’s not just women who are on the outside. It’s anyone, male or female, who isn’t sufficiently badged, tabbed, or blooded.

Having said this, there is more to the military than just the infantry. My two mentors were both tough, professional, highly-competent female CW3s who helped boost me out of the NCO ranks by challenging me to reach for something more — because the Warrant Officer’s job is usually a technical job, and for technical jobs you don’t always need brawn, but you do need brains. And this is why the modern US military could ill afford to lose its women due to the number of technical positions they fill — and, often, excel at. I have witnessed this with my own eyes and would go to the mat stating that the competent woman technician has earned her place.

Moreover, future warfare is liable to become ever-more technical, thus women will become still more enmeshed with combat equipment, weapons, and systems.

The challenge then becomes: how do we keep these women and the men around them from doing what men and women usually do when they’re bored, horny, afraid, stressed out, or all of the above? Sex won’t ever go away in this scenario, and neither will the power games that often come with it. Thus LTC Kratman may seem pessimistic in his appraisal, but he’s also being a realist. Gender integration at the company, platoon, and squad level hasn’t been foolproof. Indeed, it probably never will be. And to simply assume that a couple of extra centuries will ‘grow up’ the human race such that sexuality ceases to exist in a military context, is very much a fantastical notion to my mind.

Segregation, as unpalatable as it sounds to the 21st century American, is one way to go. (Note: read LTC Kratman’s book Amazon Legion to view his extrapolative take on a future, segregated woman infantry force; or you can always take a look at his somewhat controversial article at the Baen.com web site.

The other way is probably to just keep on doing what we’ve been doing: living with a certain percentage of fooling around that erodes morale, undercuts chain-of-command, creates distractions, and consumes time and resources in the form of complaints, investigations, and prosecution, to say nothing of pregnancies and the entanglements of child care, divorces, custody battles, etc.

In 2011 I personally watched a poorly-handled sexual harassment complaint obliterate a deploying unit’s morale, command structure, etc. Before that unit ever left the States. People take sides in those kinds of fights, grudges then develop, and this often manifests as passive aggression… it can get very ugly very fast.

As long as we’re going to put young men and women together the way we put them together in the modern US military, these problems will persist.

Whether or not they pose a dire threat to the readiness and effectiveness of the military as a whole is a matter of some debate, not only with the infantry stalwarts, but across other specialties and occupations as well. The “solutions” to this issue, if it’s decided the problem is too damaging to be permitted, may not be to our liking in our era. But here again science fiction — speculation about the possible — is not obliged to adhere to 21st century liberal American sensibilities.

Civilians can easily miss all of this, or assume it’s simply “Boys’ Club” scaremongering.

But I’m a booster of women in the military and even I am sometimes concerned by what goes on, at my decidedly small and limited level. And it’s not always the males who are perpetrating. Plenty of females have been getting caught with their hands in the cookie jar. And it’s not an issue that can be wished — or legislated — away. It’s affecting the real world right at this moment.

(…later)

Having read a lot of the back and forth between LTC Kratman and others, I think it may be worth it to point out that even though a thing might be possible, this doesn’t automatically make the thing probable. I think because gender integration is now accepted — indeed, mandated — in almost all walks of civilian life, that civilians tend to regard the military as just another male-dominated echelon of the civilian sector: overdue for wide-spectrum integration, and infested with too many stodgy old chauvinists who don’t want to let the girlies play the game with them.

Before I joined in 2002, I certainly believed this. It was conventional wisdom — the military was an Old Boys club and women were going to break down those barriers and “win” just as they’d done in various other jobs and roles across the civilian work force.

Let me quickly tell an interesting story: my wife (the über-feminist) had a retired US Navy CPO (Chief Petty Officer) for an instructor in one of her college classes. Since they were both PoC (People of Color) they could talk about discrimination in ways even my wife and I sometimes can’t — because they shared an overlap of experience, on the receiving end. Anyway, one day they got to talking about women in the military, and my wife and her college instructor went 180 degrees opposite. He was firmly of the belief that full gender integration was both dangerous and futile. My wife, then a bit hot with her tongue, demanded to know why he — who had faced discrimination as much as she, for his ethnicity — would be willing to see it done to women for their gender.

His answer? “If I am laying unconscious on the deck and the boat’s burning around me and the only person who can attempt to pick me up and fireman-carry me to safety is a woman half my size, half my weight, and half my strength, I am as good as dead.”

Even my wife (the über-feminist) had to stop and think about that one for a second. Because he was right. Integration doesn’t just bring sexual problems to the force, it also brings practical problems. In our modern military there are still many, many jobs and situations for which there is no replacement for raw, brute strength.

How many women can lone-carry an M2 .50 caliber machine gun up a hill? That’s an infantry task that’s tough for even the biggest, toughest men. A 5′-2″ 105 pound female? Even if she’s not already burdened with tens of pounds in load vest, SAPI plate, ACH, personal weapon, ammo, etc, she’s going to find the M2 practically impossible to lug for any reasonable distance because the weapon weighs almost as much as she does.

LTC Kratman pointed out artillery in his own example. Howitzer shells are heavy! Most 21st century civilian men (who work a desk job) would find them near-impossible to lift. Anyone here ever lay cement? I have. How easily can you lug 60 or 80 pound bags of concrete? Now add 20 to 40 more pounds. Even if you’re in very, very good physical shape and lift weights and are conditioned to lug 100-lb loads on a bar at Gold’s Gym, it’s physically taxing. Perhaps a large and extremely fit woman could do it as well as a similarly large and fit male. But these kinds and types of women are vanishingly hard to find, and thrusting women without the size and strength to fill the role, into the role — for the sole sake of gender integration — is not only unfair and dangerous to the female soldiers, it’s unfair and dangerous to the men around them who will (as LTC Kratman noted) be forced to lug the burdens their female counterpart(s) cannot.

In our future hypotheticals we will, of course, conjure power armor or other exoskelatal assistors — like the now-famous loader from the movie ALIENS. Such mechanized strength multipliers will offset the brute strength requirements of the infantry and artillery and numerous other jobs. But one thing a modern mechanized military must always assume is that the equipment can and will break down at the worst of times, thus it’s up to human muscle power to get the job done. You have to be able to trust that when the machines aren’t working, human brawn will make it happen anyway.

So, what other possible solutions are there?

More exotic even than power armor would be “juiced” female troops — shot through with hormones and drugs to force their bodies to “amp up” to or beyond male levels. Or perhaps endoskeletal solutions in the form of cyborg-like implants? How many women would desire or even permit their bodies to be altered in these ways, so as to eliminate the natural physical limiters that might prevent them from “manning up” to the level of the men?

Science fiction allows us to run away with these hypotheticals, because they are — in our time — conceivable.

But as I said at the start, this would not necessarily make them inevitable. Nor desirable.

Currently, our social and political climate demands that we think of men and women as interchangeable in all situations and under all conditions. It’s a requirement of polite society: one must never under any circumstances question the capacity or ability of any woman to do anything a man is doing, or might do.

Nominally, that’s a good thing, because in most respects, it’s true. And I would never suggest that women who have come into their own and proven themselves in a multi-faceted work force be removed from it or prevented from expanding their horizons or taking on new challenges. I welcome this.

But I also welcome some realism, where a few, very specific kinds of roles are concerned.

Infantry? If we’re going to integrate, can we please require that women entrants meet all the same strength, endurance, and durability requirements as men? Because infantry is something even most men in the Army don’t do, or won’t do. That’s why many of us are not infantry. (g) Infantry is a tough, hard, often brutal job that requires tough, hard, often brutal people. For those females brutish enough to cut the mustard, fine. Maybe we can try it out and see if the doubters are wrong.

But I think there are so few women like this — truly physically imposing, and with the heart and attitude to match — that it’s almost a self-defeating question.

Which is probably just my much-too-wordy way of saying what I said before: there are jobs and roles in which women can do wonderfully, and these are often technical, require brains, and are not necessarily in the rear or outside the possibility of combat.

I am just not sure pretending that all jobs in the military are equal — and that all women in the military are equally suited to tackle them — is realistic. Now, or for the future.

I am sympathetic to those who’ve lost work. No, really.

I’ve been fired 4 or 5 times in my 21 years in the work force, and I’ve been laid off exactly once. My wife has also been fired and/or laid of several times in the same span. Each time for both of us it was an event of no small magnitude in our humble house, and if it happened again today it would still be an event of no small magnitude. I “get” the life storm that a firing or a layoff can bring. Been there, done that. May do it again. In 2009 I was very, very close to getting axed — by a (now former) boss who was on the hot seat himself, and trying to take others down with him. It made for a very stressful year.

My point is that the era of eternal job security — if it ever existed at all, which I doubt — has long since passed. The modern vocational or professional person must expect transition. There are ways to stay ahead of the curve. To see the layoffs and the firings before they happen. To store up a sufficient reserve for the transition points, so that when they come, they don’t wreck everything down to the ground. I think many people have learned this the way my wife and I did: the hard way.

And there are tons of people with their heads in the sand. Who persist in believing that the job they have now is the job they should have forever, and that if ever they are fired or layed off, it is an act of the utmost and supreme evil, curse those devil bosses in their shiny top hats, twirling their finely-waxed handlebar mustaches, saying, “Nyah nyah nyah!”

Many of these same Americans happily plunder their credit cards and run up fantastic amounts of consumer debt on “things” while putting not a cent aside for a potential rainy day. My wife and I used to be among these people. We learned better as we got older, and after enough life storms taught us the hard trick of living more sensibly, and taking action to jump to new jobs when the clouds of the tempest are still far on the horizon. Not on your doorstep.

Romney must sound like a horrible man, if you’re a head-in-the-sand type. ZOMG he said he likes to fire people, oh noes!

For those who are in touch with the new reality — which seems not so new, and in fact appears to have been the norm for at least the last 25 years, or more — Romney does not sound evil. He sounds like a realist. Companies need to compete, and to compete you occasionally have to cut staff and/or prune the unproductive. Sucks. Sure thing. I’ve been on the shit end of that stick many times. It’s a real gut punch. But expecting companies to take on and keep staff forever…. unreal. Literally.

Now, we might argue about golden parachutes, and corporate millionaires skating across the gulfs while the poor working class take it in the shorts over and over and over… but I don’t think Romney was defending golden parachutes or corporate graft of the sort that’s been highlighted in the last few years among the “bankster” set. Trying to spin it as if Romney was defending golden parachutes and corporate graft, or that he likes firing poor innocent working people, you know, because he’s a dirty rotten bastard deep down in his rich little black heart of hearts… it’s just silly. Populist, for sure. But still silly. And I don’t think it will fly in November. Not with the 51% necessary to win.

Overall, it was a rather good year.

I retained my full-time civilian employment — no small feat in this economy of ours — and was in fact able to secure both a raise, and the appreciation of my boss and co-workers by being a pinch-hitter when it came to handling call. Those of you who work IT or IS will know what I am talking about when I use the word “call,” and if you’re not IS or IT, you’ve doubtless had to call about this computer issue or that computer issue, for your own day job, so I hope I don’t need to explain it more than that. For those of us on the receiving end, call sucks. But it’s also the best way I’ve found, at my current level, to have an immediate and positive impact on my team as a whole. Which is pretty much my philosophy with my Army job too: I will never be the strongest, fastest, toughest, or smartest, but I like to find ways to help out — and often simply helping out is more than enough.

Speaking of my Army job, I got promoted — CW2, Chief Warrant Officer — and while I did spend the usual more-than-two-weeks away from home (Fort Dix) I did not have to spend them in Iraq or Afghanistan. Which has been true every year I’ve been in the Reserve. It’s strange being one of those minority guys who have been in almost ten years, and yet haven’t had to go spend time in the sandbox. All the same, every year I’ve been allowed to stay home with my young daughter, is a year I’d not trade for anything. And I’ve still been able to contribute positively to King and Country, beyond the bare necessities of annual training or weekend drill. (Ergo: helping out.)

In 2011 I went from having two published stories, to having 11 published stories; including a cover story in the December issue of Analog Science Fiction & Fact, as well as a collaboration with my mentor, Mike Resnick. I got the Analog readers’ choice award — the AnLab — for last year’s story in the November issue, and I saw my first foreign reprint, for the same story, in a Russian digest of high repute. Mike and I did a total of three collaborations — two of the three due out next year — and have become good friends, in addition to being teacher-and-student. And finally, my exploits in Analog, Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show, and elsewhere, have given me the profile boost necessary to begin building a working relationship with both a major agent and a major novel publisher — the dividends of which will hopefully come forth in the next two or three years. Providing that I don’t slack off, get distracted, or otherwise fritter away the opportunities that are being placed before me.

If that sounds a little too deterministic — placed — I should say that I very much believe in good fortune. There are wonderful things that are happening (and have happened) for me which I could not have planned and over which I’ve had almost no control. Just the same, I also believe that hard work and creativity and pouring energy into multiple avenues all have a way of generating luck. Just as helping out — the mere act of expending extra effort so that others don’t necessarily have to — also has a way of generating luck. Almost always of the good variety. So, I look to the new year with much of the same attitude that I’ve taken into the last several: more hard work, more energy expended, more helping out, and hopefully the ball will just keep rolling.

And of course, you can’t have good fortune without being very, very, very thankful. I am thankful my wife, daughter, and I have enjoyed good health this year, and no serious injury. I am thankful that both of our cars still run, and that we’ve managed to stay afloat with bills and a mortgage. I’m thankful that my little family has enjoyed the generosity and support of both my parents, and also aunts and uncles and my sister and her husband and family. Nobody is an island, and where families and friendships especially are concerned, everything is like a web: interconnected and interdependent. The more you invest in the web, the more the web invests in you. Or at least that’s my experience.

I’m also thankful that 2011 has been unusual in that it’s the year I’ve gotten to know some of the people in my Ward. For those not in the know, the Latter-Day Saints operate what are called Wards, and these are organized into Stakes. Which are somewhat analogous to parishes and diocese, respectively. When my wife and I moved back to Utah, we bought a house that was walking distance from the chapel where our Ward meets each Sunday — and during the week for other activities. I am a notorious hermit about most church duties. My time is precious to me, and I don’t give it up easily or without grumbling. This year, though, I’ve felt my grinchy heart softening. I’ve made more effort to be plugged in, aware, and active in my Ward, and among the brethren with whom I share it. I still have a lot of work to do, but unlike years past, the additional effort made in 2011 did not feel like a burden. And this heartens me for the year ahead.

Speaking of which, I ought to dwell a bit on goals and plans. As my mentor Dean Wesley Smith is good at pointing out, the difference between a dream and a goal is that a goal is something which can be accomplished 100% under your own control, while dreams are largely up to other people — or the aligning of events and circumstances which are most often not under your direct control. Ergo, my writing goal for 2012 is to write no less than 7,000 new words every week, while my writing dream is to sell my first novel to a traditional publishing house — hopefully, Baen Books. The first part? Totally under my control. If I am disciplined about how I use my time, 7,000 words a week is perfectly within my ability; even on busy or disrupted weeks. But getting a Baen contract? Not in my power to deliver. I can go half way — turning in a finished manuscript — but the rest is not up to me.

I also plan to complete (at last!) my home office — which has been in a perpetual state of demolition and re-finishing since 2008. It’s been apparent for the last two years that for me to be functioning at my best, I really do need to have a space of my own. I haven’t had an office — really, just a room where I can close the door, and nobody messes with me while I am in it — since 2003. Almost ten years. It may have been a luxury before, but now it’s something of a necessity. With some work and a bit of money for paint and a few other supplies, I should be able to move into the office by my Birthday in April. This is not a hard-and-fast date, but it’s something to shoot for, given how close my wife and I are to wrapping the project.

And — sigh of sighs — I am going back to school. Urk! I hate college. Hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it. Have avoided it. Tried to shimmy and shake my way out of it. And, so far, have done damned well for a guy with only a HS edumacation. But the writing’s on the wall. I can’t avoid it forever. I have to finish my BS, and then, probably, pursue an MS afterward. We live in an era when education is more important than ever before. And if those writing-related dreams don’t lead to a river of gold, well, it’s a good idea to have some tangible, objective education targets to shoot for. Because a chap in my place with degree(s) is far, far better off than a chap without same.

Of course, much of this depends on effective use of time, at which I am rather terrible. I like to chide myself that I am a professional slacker. But that’s because it’s true. I am a pro at finding ways to divert and distract myself from jobs that need doing. When asked what my favorite pastime or activity is, I usually — and honestly — respond with, “Goofing off!” But all signs are pointing to the need for me to make 2012 more structured, more regimented, and less chaotic. I won’t make my writing goals — or my fitness goals, I have those too — or a lot of other good things happen, unless I can use my hours and my minutes more wisely than I have in the last few years.

2011 was good. No question about it. But 2012 could be much, much better. Indeed, it deserves to be much better. There is so much happening — electricity at the fingertips! — I just need to “level up” and make it happen.

I want to riff a bit on what Dave wrote, and on the content of those panels, because I think these points are important for anyone who wants to write about the military and military life, and do it halfway convincingly. Be it contemporarily, or as part of a broader science fiction or fantasy conceit.

Every soldier’s experience is different. This can’t be emphasized enough, IMHO. The military is literally a society unto itself, with almost every possible job and role being occupied by a man or woman specifically trained to be there. And the different branches of the military — Navy, Army, Marines, Air Force, Coast Guard — have their own subcultures which overlap somewhat with the others, but retain a degree of uniqueness that I think some writers — who haven’t served — too often overlook. And then of course there’s the Citizen Soldier experience — Guard and Reserve — which again overlaps with that of Active Component, while still retaining uniqueness. And this is just the United States military. Go outside the U.S. and you see the pattern replicated across the militaries of hundreds of nations. Like an insane Venn diagram, with countless thousands of circles that overlap each other, and yet also don’t overlap much at all.

Soldiering is not just about shooting or blowing shit up. Most of the time soldiering is about extraordinarily mundane things. Like sweeping and mopping floors. I’ve been in the Army Reserve almost ten years, and in that time I’ve had the handle of a GI mop or broom in my hands far, far more often than the stock of a rifle. The thing is, when you sign on that dotted line, raise your hand in front of the flag, and put on the uniform, you are basically agreeing to do whatever the nearest NCO (non-commissioned officer) tells you to do. Which means you are bound by law as day labor. And in the pay grades of E-1 through E-4 this usually entails lots and lots and lots of menial, boring, maintenance work. Cleaning the barracks. Cleaning the kitchen — I may have been one of the last cycles to still do KP at Ft. Jackson, South Carolina? Cleaning weapons after going to the range. Cleaning your boots, and your helmet, and your load-bearing vest, and just about everything else. All in preparation for one of an endless number of inspections. Which is what NCOs often spend a lot of their time doing: checking up on the Privates to make sure things are getting done to standard, because much of the time, they’re not.

Basic Combat Training (aka: Boot Camp) is mostly about teamwork. It is also a weed-out. Yes, there is the, “Break ‘em down and build ‘em up aspect,” but by and large BCT — at least the version I experienced — was primarily about learning to work around and with other people. Usually in less-than-ideal conditions and under less-than-ideal circumstances. And often with guys (or girls) you didn’t particularly like. And they didn’t like you. And somehow you have to figure out a way to lug Ammo Box A across an idiotically-devised obstacle to equally-idiotic Point B. And this is just a dress rehearsal for the real thing where you will again be asked to spend time around people you may not enjoy, and who may not enjoy you, and yet you will all be tasked with performing various jobs and accomplishing various missions with less-than-ideal time constraints, materials, etc. Those who can’t hack this — who cannot find a way to get along and work it out — tend not to make it. The physical training isn’t even the thing, although for a civilian marshmallow man like me, PT in the initial entry phase was hellish. But if you can climb that small mental hill, you’re fine. That’s not necessarily what snags you up. It’s learning to bunk with and shit with and eat chow with and generally live on top of a bunch of other people with whom you are stuck for no reason other than you’ve all been ordered to do it. One of the latest U.S. Army rah-rah TV recruitment campaigns had a very apt line in it. As troops are seen climbing over an obstacle, the words…. THE POWER TO GET YOURSELF OVER — THE POWER TO GET OVER YOURSELF…. reads across the image. Emphasis mine. Thin skins and fragile egos cause problems. BCT doesn’t eliminate all of the unsuited. But it does eliminate many. And contrary to popular belief — you can check out any time you want. Quitting is an option. I saw lots of people do it. Still see people do it. Heck, the Army will even “fire” you if you want. Happens all the time. You just have to not mind getting a Dishonorable Discharge, or a Discharge Under Other Than Honorable Conditions. I myself would sooner cut my nuts off, but that’s just me.

Most soldiers have never shot at, much less killed, another human being. I was in a college class about 6 years ago when a remarkable thing happened. A young woman, upon learning I was in the Reserve, got a sour look on her face and remarked, “Well, it’s a shame that your job is to kill people.” That took me by complete surprise. My job — my military occupational specialty, or MOS — was to shuffle papers. More specifically, I was the Army’s equivalent of Human Resources. A clerk. Rear Echelon Mother Fucker — REMF. Yet because this young woman’s conception of soldiering had been formed (doubtless) by movies and television, she thought that I — indeed, all of us — were half a step away from being serial murderers. Even my daughter got me a few years later when, holding one of my ACU patrol caps in her hands, she asked, “Daddy, do you kill people?” In both instances I had to offer the same answer: no, honey, Daddy does not kill people, and hopefully Daddy won’t ever have to kill people. Even among front-line infantry units, the numbers of men who have significant fighting and/or killing under their belts, is just not that large. If the average soldier really had to go to work and kill people on a regular basis, it’s probable we’d all be put out of the service as PTSD cases. Because killing — especially the close up and personal kind — is jarring. It leaves marks on its perpetrators as well as its victims. And unless a man is a psychopath or sociopath, that kind of event — events? — will stick with him for the rest of his life. In bad ways, often. And thank goodness most of us are blessed to be able to avoid it for most of our careers. Even in a war zone. Because most of us aren’t infantry. Most of us have other jobs — which may or may not involve weapons, patrols, or other potentially bloody duties.

Not everyone is gung-ho, or bleeding heart, as a result of serving. Dave hit on this a little bit when he said that the politics of servicemembers are all over the map. And it’s true. I would say that, in the aggregate, the U.S. military probably has a minor imbalance towards what we in the U.S. might call, “conservativism,” but this is not a guarantee. In my time in uniform I have met other people in uniform who are terrifically liberal in their views — socially, economically, and as relates to foreign policy — so I think it’s safe to say that just because someone serves, or has served, it doesn’t guarantee that they’re going to be an R. Lee Ermey clone — to exemplify one of the better-known and more outspoken veterans who may be recognizable to a civilian populace. Also, service and combat does not “make” people any certain way. People may or may not have a change-of-heart based on their experiences in the service. People may or may not have a change-of-heart based on experiencing combat. From what I’ve seen, people often walk out of the service with many of the same views they took into the service, and those views range across a very, very wide spectrum. Likewise, you have a great many patriots who do it for their country, but you also have a great many people who simply do it for the money, or because they literally had nowhere else to go. I myself had never, ever considered a military career, until 9/11 that is. But then, as I have noted before on this blog, 9/11 began a whole-sale paradigm shift for me, so I may not be the best example. Just be careful that you don’t make sweeping assumptions — to one side, or the other. If every one of your military vet characters is a war-hating hippy protestor or a cigar-chomping kill-’em-all John Wayne, you’re probably doing it wrong.

Militaries — all militaries — are bureaucracies. As such they are prone to follow what famed writer and veteran Jerry Pournelle has deemed his Iron Law: the goals of the organization will often become secondary to the perpetuation of the organization itself. This creates a thousand and one ways in which the letter of the proverbial law trumps the spirit of the proverbial law. Asinine and seemingly nonsensical regulations abound. Forms required to fill out forms required to fill out forms, in order to fill out yet more forms. Labyrinthine chain-of-command and approval channels that make it hellish to requisition equipment, manpower, ammunition, anything and everything that may be crucial to accomplishing training or a mission. In nearly every case, the military is almost guaranteed to have erected a way to make it harder for the person — the soldier, the NCO, the officer — to get his or her job done. And because the rules are so often dense, contradictory, or just a massive fucking hassle, this invites all kinds of creative thinking . About how to work around, under, above, or through the regs. Such that the military then becomes a quasi secret society, complete with special handshakes and code words and winking and nodding, as people invent a “black market” system to aid them in their struggle to follow orders and get their assigned tasks completed — while lumbering under the weight of a bureaucratized structure that is contra to quick, efficient, plain-spoken or otherwise common-sense approaches.

I could write more, but I think that covers it for now. I would just recommend to everyone interested in writing anything about the military, this beloved novel that first came to me in 1988. Long before I’d joined. It was as eye-opening and illuminating as any Tom Clancy or Stephen Coonts techno-thriller. It’s called, A RECKONING FOR KINGS, and it’s by my friend and mentor Allan Cole, and his (late) writing buddy, Chris Bunch. Chris was an Army Ranger in Vietnam, among many other and sundry things, and Allan’s been around the world, was raised in a CIA family, and together they so thoroughly managed to display and replicate — authentically — the military, in this book, that I am not sure I’ve seen a volume before or since which can match it. It’s not that easy to find. It’s been out of mass market circulation for a long time. But it can still be had at Amazon and around the internet. Absolutely and completely worth your time. Even if you’re not into “war novels” this one is absolutely about more than just war. It’s a marvelous (if fictitious) drama that shows the battlefield of Vietnam from both sides, and manages to be entertaining, hilarious, tragic, and deeply moving, all in one volume. Most importantly, it does not preach. It merely tells. And it tells so well I cannot recommend it enough, even 23 years after having first read it. (click the image above for Kindle version, or click here for the trade paperback.)

Tuesday ETA: having discussed the matter with David Brin, I am going to redact what I said in this space previously. I had been attempting to paraphrase him but neglected to confirm whether or not Mr. Brin believed the paraphrasing to be true and accurate. Which he did not, and in fact resented having words put in his mouth. Which is understandable. Apologies to Mr. Brin, who has been kind enough to accept my mea culpa on the matter.

Though Occupy Wall Street is nominally anti-Cronyist, they are not and never have been the so-called 99% that’s written into their slogans. If this really were a case of the 99% vs. the 1% then the “war” would be over already. Working Americans would have surrounded all of the state capitols, and the national capitol, and a lot of politicians would now be on the unemployment line. Working Americans understand that, as ugly as Wall Street corruption can be, it’s the corruption in the government which permits the corruption on Wall Street in the first place.

Also, working Americans are not and have never been rabidly anti-business, nor even anti-wealth. In positioning itself as an anti-capitalist, anti-rich movement, Occupy Wall Street has deafened the ears of its nominal allies. Every working American wants to earn what he keeps, and keep what he earns, and when the language of OWS becomes too “redistributive” even those who spit on Cronyism get a sour look on their faces, and keep their hands on their pockets. What working America wants is to see the Cronyists in the corporate world and the state world, divorced from each other. No more billion-dollar bail-outs for the proverbial money-changers in the temples. No more revolving doors between the halls of big government and the executive chairs of big business.

Working Americans also pride themselves for being Good Citizens who uphold and abide by the law. Especially the laws against vandalism and destruction of public property. I remember when I lived and worked in Seattle in 1999, the WTO riots made even a lot of Seattle’s run-of-the-mill liberals upset. There was a lot of wanton destruction that accompanied the WTO. A lot of senseless sound and fury, which ultimately signified nothing. And cost the tax-payers millions of dollars to repair, to say nothing of the disruption to work-a-day businesses. Marching and speaking your voice are all well and good, but the moment you begin defacing, vandalizing, breaking windows, etc, you’ve lost the faith of people who work for a living. And you’re liable to not get it back.

Finally, working America likes a clean, coherent, one-issue or very-few-issues platform. Smorgasboard or accretion platforms tend not to resonate, because invariably the more people you try to appease with inclusion, the more self-contradictory your position. And OWS has become nothing if not self-contradictory. Like the previously-mentioned WTO, it has become an all-protest for the all-protestors — professional complainers and recreational thrill-seekers for whom the “message” isn’t as important as making a spectacle, making trouble, or making a nuisance.

A couple of weeks ago I said on John Scalzi’s blog that I was hesitant to criticize OWS because I was, at my core, sympathetic. Cronyism is a *BIG* problem which has allowed some *BIG* problems to develop. If OWS had managed to keep its focus on Cronyism — and if OWS had correctly targeted the seat of government, instead of the seat of finance, I’d not be saying a word against them. Alas, OWS has become a diluted, generalized, contradictory, and increasingly dangerous and destructive operation that doesn’t have any more control over its “membership” than any other would-be anarchist-agitator group. If OWS has been poisoned by the so-called “Black Bloc” it’s because OWS willfully took on the language and the trappings of the perpetually aggrieved. Taking matters to the pols, as the much maligned Tea Party has done, was not terribly fashionable.

Better to try an Occupation of Everywhere, which — farce of farces — ends up going nowhere.

And now working America’s patience with OWS is growing thin. The camps are starting to be cleared. Not because Americans love fascism — but because Americans don’t put up with childish tantrums. OWS had a chance to latch onto the public imagination, and barring that sector of committed Leftists who really do follow a Marx-Alinsky playbook, OWS lost the public imagination. Through contradictory messaging and contradictory behavior. Through vandalism and rioting that seemed to target everything and nothing, everyone and no one. Through intra-party squabbles and porous policies that permit the accretion of the crazy, the derelict, the willfully miscreant, and the haphazardly criminal.

If OWS has an “image problem” with working America, don’t blame it on the media. Which has been and continues to be extraordinarily kind-hearted to OWS at almost every turn. Blame it on the fact that OWS chose to break faith with those it claims to champion — the clock-punchers of the universe. People who work real jobs and get real stuff done, and just want to go home to their families at night, flip on the TV and enjoy a few of the good things in life, and know that everyone in America plays by the same rules.

Right now, the Cronyists don’t play by the same rules — and working America is realizing this. But that doesn’t mean working America automatically has sympathy for street theater or tired and childish shenanigans.

The E-Publishing vs. Traditional Publishing war (of words) between genre writers, continues to heat up.

Is this a good time to make an appeal for cooler heads? How come we’ve gotten to the point where working professionals in science fiction publishing refer to each other as “house slaves” and “fuckwads?” I’m not really interested in unearthing a, “Who started it,” conversation, as much as I am interested in reminding people that hyperbole and metaphor are just that — hyperbole and metaphor — and that where passions are strongest, it’s easiest to tip over into ad hominem commentary. Which simply isn’t necessary (in my opinion) because this isn’t a winner-takes-all scenario. This is not the Steelers vs. the Packers in the Superbowl. One game, one trophy, one win for one side.

Alas, more and more professional writers — at all levels — seem to be choosing sides. Or, rather, are being forced to one “side” or the other. And some rather unfortunate language is going around as a result. Speaking as someone who has done fairly well on the “traditional” end and has yet to seriously contend in the “e-publishing” realms, I look at both avenues and I see options. A table of choices. I have not yet been in the business long enough for any of the various on-ramps to be closed to me, nor have I been forced onto any of the many off-ramps. The “freeway” looks clear and if there is any sign hung over the road, it reads, CAVEAT AUTHOR. It’s up to me to pick and choose what I want to pursue — and with whom — and if I suffer setbacks or fall on hard times or find routes shut to me, well, I just have to be creative and see what else works. And that’s no mark against people who have succeeded via streets or byways that didn’t work for me. And it’s no reason to declare my particular avenue as The One True Way.

I think all of the combatants in recent internet dust-ups on this issue make good points. If either side seems to be shouting anything clearly, it’s that writers — now, more than ever — have to keep their heads up and their eyes and ears open, and be “situationally aware” in ways they probably weren’t ten or fifteen years ago. I said it earlier this week: the industry is shifting, things are changing, and it’s a genuine crisis. Which poses both dangers, and opportunities. Many will succeed in the flux. Many more will fail. But then again, it’s ever been thus.

So can we please throttle back? Stop taking the rhetoric so personally. Stop accusing other people of character flaws (or worse) because they’ve said or claimed something — in the heat of argument — that ruffles our feathers. I have friends on both “sides” of this thing. Good friends. Professional friends. Every one of them has a different opinion about the coming change — or the change that’s come? All of them give advice, and the interesting thing is that virtually all of them are right depending on your point of view, where you’re at in your career, what you want to do with the evolving technology and markets, et cetera. There is no Royal Road. No need to get huffy, or insulting. And certainly no need to let times when people have been huffy or insulting, get too far under our skin. Of all the issues over which to make enemies — in this field — I think E-Pub vs. Trad Pub is probably the silliest. And yet, it’s the issue that’s causing more fights than practically anything since the New Wave.

Unnecessary!

Part of me thoroughly sympathizes with the predicament of the full-time freelancer, and for my full-time freelancing friends who are making hay with Kickstarter as a result, I say: more power to you.

But I won’t be using Kickstarter. Even if I had enough traffic on this site that I thought it would net me a significant amount of money.

Why?

Well, to be blunt about it, I work for a living. And before my freelance friends come to my virtual door and blow my virtual head off for saying it like that, let me explain. I have not just one, but two steady paychecks rolling into my bank account every month. The first from my day job with a sizeable healthcare company, the second from the United States Army Reserve. When I’m not selling fiction — happens a lot less these days, thank goodness — it’s not a disaster. The bills still get paid, there is still food in the fridge for my family, the lights stay on, and the house is kept warm. I decided two years ago, when I sold my first piece of professional fiction, what the criteria would be for me to go to full-time freelancing. And the bar is set so deliberately high, it’s probable I’ll retire from my work first — just like L.E. Modesitt, Jr.

Second, and more philosophically, I’m not comfortable asking people to pay me for anything which does not yet exist. Back when I was doing community radio, we were at least presenting listeners with a product in real-time. We didn’t ‘thon with the promise that we’d eventually get on the air and begin playing They Might Be Giants or Phish or Skinny Puppy or Kraftwerk. We were already on the air, anyone could listen to us day or night, and all we were asking for was a fresh infusion of cash to keep the power on and the transmitter warm.

Doing a ‘thon for a book project that’s still theoretical… I dunno, sounds too much like speculative investing. Even if you like the writer in question, there’s no guarantee (s)he will deliver. If you know anything about the history of publishing in the U.S. then you know authors are notoriously tardy when it comes to delivering product — John Varley being perhaps the best (worst?) example, when he turned in STEEL BEACH approximately 8 years late.

Now, I don’t know about you, but when I pay for fiction, I expect to be able to read it the moment my money crosses the desk — or the electronic interface, if we’re talking about the internet and e-books. I don’t “invest” in the possibility that someone might write a book, and that I might enjoy. I want the damn thing in my hands — or on my screen. Every now and again I will — out of pure kindness or charity — throw some bucks into a PayPal tip jar. But in those cases I do so with the understanding that I expect nothing in return, and there is no implicit obligation on the part of the receiver.

And obligation is the thing I’d feel worst about, if I was trying to get people to pay me for a book I’d not yet written. The moment the first nickels appear on the meter, I’d feel locked in. And while that’s fine for an actual publishing contract with a publisher, I feel the relationship with readers is altogether more personal. Last year I tried to start up a “free” novel on-line, and it rapidly ground to a halt because I was frustrated with the scope of the project, did not plan well, and was embarrassed when, after a few months went by, I had to abandon progress altogether and formulate a new plan. If I’d had readers forking out dinero for that book, I’d have felt utterly trapped into blundering ahead as best as I was able. And looking back on it now, the results would probably have been unsatisfactory for me, and for the readership as well.

That book will still be written. But I’ll write it when I’m ready again, and I won’t expect a penny from anyone until I have a finished product to present.

This is, of course, my personal decision. I am not trying to impose my opinion on the world, as if it were the only valid one out there. But I’ve been seeing this Kickstarter thing a lot, and a lot of people are making a big deal about it — and now I’ve got other people e-mailing me and asking me for money to fund their various writing projects. So what do I do?

I’m going to be the Grinch. If you are not prepared to sell me a finished book, please don’t e-mail me asking for money. I will happily buy a completed book. I will not fund a theoretical book. I am sorry if this hampers your efforts. It’s not personal. It’s a rule I am making for myself, and it affects everybody — even my friends and associates in the business. Please don’t come to me with your Kickstarter solicitations. If I get any Kickstarter solicitations, I will politely decline them. Not because I am a miser or because I am rude. But because I don’t feel comfortable being your investor. I will be your friend, I will cheer you on, and I may buy your finished product when all is said and done. But I think the onus is on you, the writer, to finish the product first. Before you get the money.

Rejections never stop. If you’re still sending your work to New York (or anywhere else an editor is residing, and offering coin-of-the-realm for unpublished fiction) you’re familiar with rejection. Contrary to what I dreamily imagined in 1992 (when I first conceived of becoming a pro science fiction writer) there is no such thing as having “made it” in this business. Oh, the type and quality of rejections do change. And the sales, once you’ve begun to establish yourself as a popular and/or reliable commodity, do come more often. But the “no-thank-you” notes don’t stop. What has stopped is my feverish tracking of same. My mentor and collaborator Mike Resnick put it to me best in one of our (now frequent) exchanges: why on Earth would any author care about how many times (s)he failed?? So, I file, and I forget, and I send the work back out into the world. This appears to be the only sane way to operate — at least for me.

The publishing world is enduring an upheaval. I was one of the very last new Analog Science Fiction and Fact authors to sell my first manuscripts to Stanley Schmidt on paper. This, after having vigorously argued with John Scalzi (and a few others) about the wrongheadedness of declaring paper submissions outré. Poof! The paper manuscript is (almost) no more — barring a very few holdouts. Stan’s now reading slush on his Kindle, and I’m only going to the post office once every other month. It is easier this way, no question. But I am proud to have been among the last of the Analog Men to have sent mine in the way Herbert and Pournelle and Card and Bujold and Asaro and all the many, many accomplished Analog alumni first sent theirs in. Meanwhile, I am e-publishing — just like everyone else. I like that e-publishing offers me a way to keep my expanding backlist in print. To say nothing of offering a safety net for books which might not find a home with a major publisher. The truly mystical part of the equation is that nobody really knows how to quickly cut through the “noise” of the e-pub universe; much less retain an audience, once you have. I rather suspect that many readers still prefer a vetting process of one sort or another. Deluged with arf! arf! dogs, the consumers may yet cling to editors (or agents?) as a reliable filter.

Productivity cannot be overemphasized. Publishing is like all the other “glam” art industries: all of us are only as good as our last story, or book, or album, or movie. Go too long without something new on the market, and you’re at risk of slipping back off the radar. There are 100,000+ would-be authors eager to take your place. Standing pat and riding on your inertia is — at any stage — a poor recipe for continued success. The trick for me has been to find and keep a schedule that results in regular, consistent progress — while I am doing all of my “real world” stuff at the same time. Day job, Army job, the wife and child, church, these things demand my time. And since I am a bad multi-tasker I too often allow them to shove the writing to the back burner. Because I still cling to the wistful idea that writing, as a creative process, must be performed sans time clocks, time limits, interruptions, or other distractions. Well, it just ‘aint happenin’. My life is like a giant merry-go-round of competing demands. Days disappear into weeks, or even months, with little or no writing accomplished. It’s just not possible to unearth whole-block increments of silent time. And until I am truly supporting myself 100% with fiction, such blocks aren’t going to exist. So, I have to make do as best as I am able. And the honest truth is, whether I’ve managed to find 2 hours to write, or 20 minutes to write, after the first 10 minutes of hesitant, cold, perfunctory typing, things heat up and I’m on my way.

Professional person-to-person relationships are priceless. Before 2009 I had gone to very few conventions, no professional workshops, and if I “knew” anyone in the business — editors, or writers — I could count them on one hand, and our interactions were strictly limited to e-mail and blog exchanges. As soon as I actually began to invest my time and my money in professional activities — workshops especially — I began to see dividends. Mainly because I was learning more in a few business trips than I’d learned from all the years of reading, “How to write,” books. But also because I was coming face to face with many, many professional writers and editors. And lo and behold, getting to know and like these folks — and be liked by them — has proven extraordinarily important. Case in point: Mike Resnick is a made man in the business, whose awards and accolades and reputation need no introduction. Until he met me at Writers of the Future, we didn’t know each other from Adam. Since then we’ve struck up a conversation, then a dialogue, then a professional exchange, and now we’re becoming good friends. That Mike helps me out, goes without saying. But I’ve been able to help him out, too, and it’s evolved into a delightfully cooperative and collegial partnership. If I’d made an effort to get out of my little “silo” from which I was writing and sending stories — 1992 to 2008 — sooner, maybe my career would be much further advanced? I didn’t know then how much the industry relies on “face time” among professionals. But it’s been a revelation discovering how fun and productive “face time” can be, now that I’m working in the field.

No two professionals are doing it the same. That’s another myth I’ve been disabused of — that there is a Royal Road to success. Every professional I’ve become acquainted with, or have developed a true friendship with, has a career trajectory which is unique to him or her. None of them have followed a straight A-to-B-to-C-to-D path. And especially in the current climate of shifting markets, evolving markets, dying markets, emerging technologies, etc, no two professionals are agreeing on what’s the surest, safest bet for new writers. Is it to grab an agent by the lapels and not let go? Ditch agents and go right for the editors’ lapels? Skip agents and editors and go for the readers’ lapels, via self-publishing and e-publishing?? All of the above??? Ideas and theories abound. Most confusing, what works for one professional, isn’t guaranteed to work for another professional. Sales vary. Experiences vary. About the only constant I can discern is that there are no constants. Not anymore. And probably, not ever, if anecdotal evidence of the Good Old Days (which weren’t always so good) is to be believed. It’s a chaotic and uneven landscape. Best policy seems to be to be prolific, write a lot, put a lot of work out there in front of whoever can read it — agents, editors, readers — and hope that something takes off. An idea, a series, a character, something. Might not be the thing you (ubiquitous “you” here) envisioned as your gravy train. But the market is not always going to ask us (ubiquitous “us” here) which stories or books we’d like to go down in history for. Thus I am trying to be humble, work hard, and be thankful for whatever success I can manage. There truly are no guarantees.

Lots of readers seem to miss happy or uplifting stories. I had suspected this for several years. It’s probably a leftover from the New Wave, that the science fiction culture has absorbed a great deal of the nihilism of contemporary literary culture (“Life is meaningless, all is without hope, despair, despair!”) without realizing that what makes science fiction truly different from its learned betters is that sci-fi is a genre ready-built for hope. Hollywood has not forgotten this. Find me a blockbuster science fiction or fantasy film — of any description — and I will show you how the themes developed have been almost entirely life-affirming, devoutly positive, even spiritually fulfilling. Yet a good deal of written sci-fi adores the “downer” ending, the anti-hero, the morally ambiguous and ultimately meaningless stories that my friend and instructor Dave Wolverton expertly analyzes in his Rant Fantastic. There is a time and place for “downerism,” but I personally do not believe this is what science fiction is best at. Which perhaps explains why fantasy — the once kid brother of sci-fi — has become the cash cow? The dozens of nice letters I’ve gotten from readers in the last two years have confirmed for me that the readership — fatigued by “downerism” — is ready and eager for a return to happier themes, happier times, and that good old Sense-O-Wunda™ which attracted most of us to the genre as kids and as teens.

Blogs, Facebook, and the Net culture have their bad sides. I was something of an “early adopter” when, in 1990-1991, I first began to get on-line via dial-up bulletin boards. The identifiable “blog” was still years away, though Jerry Pournelle rightfully claims first dibs, for his Chaos Manor “day book” (which is still one of the best and most interesting reads on the web, and I think the web will be the poorer when Chaos Manor — and Jerry — are gone.) Back in the BBS days, it was a new, fun way to interact with people — thoroughly geeky, thoroughly not mainstream. Which was part of the appeal. Now? I find myself slowly and almost imperceptibly turning away. And not just because of the massive crush of blogs which have propagated over time. A lot of it has to do with my simmering suspicion that social media have, as an unintended side effect, sparked a sharp rise in narcissism and narcissistic behavior. “Look at me! Look at me! No, I said, look at me!” If all a blog or web site or FB page was, was a tool for keeping up with real friends and family in the Real World — aka: meatspace — it probably wouldn’t bother me so much. But social media have turned into a competitive stewpot of people, all trying to be popular because… that’s what you do when you run a blog, or a FB page. Cleverness and one-off one-liners substitutes for real content, and eventually the whole enterprise has come to represent for me a pernicious waste of time. And yes, savor the irony of my complaining in this vein, using a blog with my name emblazoned at the top. You’ll notice I don’t post multiple daily updates blathering about the laundry, posting random pictures of my pets, or engaging in my favorite e-social sport: political bickering.

What the !#*^%$@#! Is a blog for? I’ve come very close a few times to just shutting mine down entirely. Because if I’m not combating the problem(s) outlined above — by ceasing to engage — I’m contributing to them, right? Alas, I think social media are here to stay. And I am not necessarily a Luddite. I think there must be a way to use a blog or FB or social media For Good, as opposed to the growing and tending of chattering, genuflecting cults of personality, or shouting endlessly past the neighbors as we all scrap at the virtual fenceline over whether or not President Obama is, in fact, a born American citizen. I went round it a bit with some other Writers of the Future winners, and their feedback has gotten me to thinking carefully about what I post, and why, and when. Which explains why it’s been over a month since the last update. If 2012 will be “about” anything, for me, it’s going to be about developing a personal philosophy for this space. One which will be healthy and cooperatively engaging for me as the owner and you as the reader. Not just a honey trap where you come and waste your time reading me as I write about how awesome I think I am. Those blogs do exist — we’ve all seen them — and as was noted by someone better versed in the matter than I am, the era of the personality-driven SuperBlog is probably about 5 years past. No point in trying to become one of those now. So, I shall endeavor to become something quite different.

That the very first cover would be an Analog Science Fiction & Fact cover, and that the artist doing the work would be award-winner Bob Eggleton, and that I’d get to share the cover with one of my mentors and friends, Kris Rusch, are all stupendously exciting for me. Because this is an ‘arrival’ moment. If breaking in with Writers of the Future established my capability to be a pro, getting the cover for the December 2011 issue of Analog establishes my bona fides as a pro. Dilettante no more.

Stan Schmidt, editor, is saying to the world: this is my new guy, he’s worth my time, and he’s worth your time too. That cover with my name on it is now going into the great repository of covers stretching back across Analog’s vast history.

I’d known this was going to happen since Bob Eggleton facebooked me in April to let me know he was doing the cover art for my novelette, “Ray of Light,” which was a workshop story I’d done for one of Kris Rusch’s and Dean Smith’s workshops up in Lincoln City, Oregon. I’d sold the story in March, but hadn’t dared dream of a cover until Bob let the cat out of the bag. Since then I’ve been quietly anticipating the moment I can walk into my local Barnes & Noble store, and see copies of Analog on store shelves — with my name and story displayed prominently for the world to see.

A lot of very successful and prominent authors have been in the pages of Analog, and/or seen their names grace the covers, including Kevin J. Anderson, Greg Bear, Gregory Benford, David Brin, Lois McMaster Bujold, Orson Scott Card, Michael F. Flynn, Frank Herbert, Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, Robert J. Sawyer, and Vernor Vinge. Being able to count myself among these names — as an Analog Man — ranks as one of the highlights of my writing life. Perhaps one of the highlights of my life, period? These are serious names, and this is a serious magazine, and if early reviews are any indication, I’ve acquitted myself well with, “Ray of Light.”

I won’t spoil the story. Those of you with subscriptions will have a chance to read it — have had a chance to read it? — for yourselves. Everyone else is cordially invited to pay a visit to their local Barnes & Noble sometime this month and pick up a copy. The cover is a beautiful cover. And not just because it’s “my” cover. Bob’s done marvelous work — the same caliber as displayed in Juliette Wade’s magnificent cover for her story, “At Cross Purposes,” from January of this year.