Musings on my muse: The care and feeding of my inner control freak

If you met me, you would probably think I'm perfectly normal.  But inside, I do have a quirk that makes me a tad different from most folks: on one level, I'm a control freak. This might surprise a lot of people who see me as reasonably laid back (except when I'm worried about my kids, and then I freak out).  

But I'm a different person when I write books. It's not just being a writer that makes me different. Technology has made it much easier to write and to publish, which has revealed that gazillions of folks have that ambition. Some of them write hoping to make money, some write hoping for recognition or fame, and some write because they enjoy it. I write because I want people to read what I have written. Let me stress that—what I have written. What appeals to me writing stories is that by writing them as science fiction or fantasy, I control not only the characters but the setting. I can create my own worlds, each with its own appearance, environment, inhabitants, and cultures. And I can populate those worlds with whatever characters I think would make for an interesting story.  

In the Wakanreo trilogy (Alien Bonds, Alien Vows, and Alien Skies), I created a world where  an alien people mate because of biological reaction that cannot be controlled. I wanted to create a society in which sex was completely divorced from morality, and where nudity was not linked to a desire to provoke a sexual reaction. I also foresaw greater equality between the sexes and among socioeconomic groups; because there was no such thing as marriage, either arranged or from affection, and divorce did not exist, class structures were too difficult to enforce. Also, since pairing off was purely pheromone-driven, looks didn't matter. Add to this the question of love; just because you paired off with someone doesn't mean you have to love him or her.

In Tribes, I wanted my readers to inhabit a world where there was one overriding loyalty, at least in a legal sense. Belonging to a tribe was a a life-long and immutable thing. One's tribe provided security, a safety net against disaster, and also determined what was legal for an individual. On the other hand, if someone had no tribe, his life was doomed to slavery, drudgery, and degradation. Interjecting a slave into such a setting provided a way to see how the other characters behave toward him.

But setting a story on another world or in the future isn't the only way to control all the facets of my story. In Hidden Magic, I gave some characters magical abilities, but plunked them down in a society that feared and suppressed magic. I made them brother and sister, and then, because I enjoy a romance, I had each of them find someone they loved.  

I don't only read science fiction and fantasy. I enjoy mysteries, historical fiction and historical romance, and even sometimes young adult novels. But I don't think I would ever write in those genres because I would be stuck with the rules imposed by reality. 

Writing in a series, and finding a good surprise

 Writing in a series has at least one basic difference from writing a standalone:starting with book 2, you have to allow for the reader not having read book 1 in a while, or even never having read book 1 at all. Therefore, you may need to explain things from time to time. The tricky part is, you don't want to bore the reader who has read book 1 recently (or who read it a while ago, but has an excellent memory). If a story keeps telling the reader things he already knows, he will get bored with it. It's basically a balancing act between  the need to move the story forward and the need to make the reader understand what's happening and why.

Another big difference is, in a series you can follow one character for years, if you can keep coming up with interesting things for them to do. That's a real plus if you have a character you want to grow and change with time.

Readers who fall in love with one or more characters tend to love reading a whole series about them. This can be a problem for the writer, who wants to move on. Personally, I've never sat down to write a book that hadn't already sprung  to life in my head. My first published work is 2-book series set on the panet Haven , I have another 2-book series (not yet published but coming soon) called the Nameless World series. They are very different in the way there were written. I thought of the Haven books as two stories while I was writing them; there is a nine year gap between the two books, for one thing, and characters who were secondary in book 1 come front and center in book 2 for another.  Ergo, I ended book 1 before I moved on to write book 2.

The Haven Series

The Nameless World books were written as one story but it was so damn long (240,000 words!)  that I eventually decided I had to cut it into two books. I found a place where a few months elapsed, and added a little additional text to give the book some resolution, I  made that the end of book 1. I also had to add some text to the start of book 2, and I had to edit the rest of the m.s. carefully to allow for the non-reader of book 1 (see first para in this post).

Cover at for Nameless World, Books 1 and 2

My three-book series set on the planet Wakanreo was kind of an amalgam of the other two series. I saw it as two books, one about the relationship between a human woman and a Wakanrean man, and another one about their children. However, on writing it, the "second book" turned into books 2 and 3. 

The Wakanreo series

I usually end a series because I have no more story in my head for that setting and those characters. That's not a problem until readers express a desire for more books in that series. This has happened more than once with the Wakanreo books in particular. I remembered starting  a fourth book, but as I recalled, it was only a few chapters, more of a short story than a novel. I published Alien Bonds in 2018, but I wrote the first draft more than 20 years ago, using a DOS-based software called XyWrite. I went looking for those few chapters and discovered to my surprise that the file was actually 56,000 words, nine and a half chapters! Luckily, I had transferred it into MS Word so I could read it. 

Now I have to decide if I want to return to Wakanreo with a book 4. But first I have to remember how I planned for the book to end! 

Wakanreo, world without castes

One reason I enjoy setting my stories in fantasy worlds, or in the far future is that it lets me create the world itself-- not only the geography, but the culture. I especially like to try different dynamics as far as gender, sometimes making men and women equal and sometimes giving more power to one sex or the other. 

But when I created the Wakanreo trilogy that begins with Alien Bonds, I took my world building to a new level. The aliens known as Wakanreans are unique in my far future universe because they mate for life from a pure biological reaction. I was reminded of this recently when I was reading a couple of recent articles about the new Netflix show "Indian Matchmaking." I saw the first one in the Washington Post. It described how many Indian families still rely on old-style matchmakers who connect people looking for spouses. In fact, 90 percent of marriages in India are arranged, I found that statistic amazing. 

The thing is, when these marriages are arranged, they almost always result in couples from the same caste marrying, which reinforces India's strict caste system. Many countries have stratified levels of society based on wealth, occupation, and such, but India's system comes from the Hindu religion and not only assigns names to castes but treats the stratification as being justified by the will of their gods,

Then I saw a second article in my news feed; this one, from Al Jazeera was also about the same Netflix show but it mentioned that Indian Muslims practice arranged marriages and that they use them to also practice "classism, ethnocentrism, and colourism."  So, even though it wasn't part of their religion, these folks were relying on arranged marriages to maintain the same kind of stratification that a caste system imposes.

And of course, in the Western world, many people use online dating apps to screen prospective partners for compatibility, not only of temperament but also income, race, and looks, so I can't claim it's purely an Indian thing. 

Finding a life partner is a serious matter, Some people stay single from choice, some from despair after a bad relationship, and some because they're waiting for the right person to walk into their lives. In Alien Bonds, I created a society where every adult is either paired off  (or every now and then, in a permanent threesome) or waiting to be paired off, based on a reaction beyond his or her control. This system has advantages and disadvantages for individuals, but one side effect is, there are no castes, no aristocrats, no stratification of society.

 

ALIEN SKIES is now available in paperback!

The paperback version of Alien Skies is now for sale on Amazon!  The Kindle version is still on pre-order with a release date of October 29. Amazon has not yet linked the two versions, so click here to buy the paperback.

This means the trilogy is now complete! As of October 29, all three book will be  free in Kindle Unlimited. 

ALIEN SKIES is available for pre-order!

It has taken much longer than anticipated to get Alien Skies ready to launch, but it's finally ready! The trilogy is complete! You can pre-order the Kindle version here. The Kindle version is, like the rest of the trilogy, free in Kindle Unlimited. The paperback will be out about the same time, but no link is available yet. because Amazon does not support pre-order for paperbacks. Also, at the moment they are having trouble displaying the cover image for pre-order Kindle books but they assured me they are working on it. The cover is below, in any event.

Alien Bonds was very much Dina's story, and Alien Vows was Yulayan's. All the characters are in the final book, but this story belongs mostly to Kamuhi,. Here's the back cover blurb:

 Wakanreo was not always a safe place for a half-Wakanrean—

Or for a human married to a half-Wakanrean. Unfortunately, it was where Kamuhi Hailoaka had been posted by ThreeCon. He and Yulayan work at being married and being parents on the only world in the galaxy where the dominant species mate for life. They deal with the usual obstacles to two strong-willed individuals making decisions together, but Wakanreo has some extra challenges, even dangers.  

Kamuhi finds this out the hard way when they attend Yulayan’s grandfather’s funeral. Their toddler daughter starts to fuss, so Kamuhi takes her outside for some air. He returns to find his father-in-law and his-brother-in-law lying unconscious on the steps. Worse than that, Yulayan has been abducted.

Now Kam has to figure out how to get her back!

Do you have to buy champagne for a relaunch?

Because of a family medical situation, work on Alien Skies is behind schedule. The manuscript is with the copy editor now, so hopefully it won't be too much longer until it's ready to go.

However, in the meantime, I had decided to re-launch of one my ThreeCon novels, Tribes, as a science fiction romance. I didn't write it as one, but the love story in it starts on page 3,continues to the last page, and is central to the plot, so I think it will fly as a science fiction romance. In addition, I am issuing a paperback version at the same time. I commissioned a new cover for it, from the same studio that did Wakanreo books 2 and 3.

Here's the new cover! It will be available as a paperback as well as an ebook.

 

I'll post the paperback link as soon as it's available.