If This Goes On: Labor, Immigration and Activism

I’ve been doing some reading and documentary watching lately about labor movements and revolts, particularly in Wales.  Immigration and activism were two faulty valves that couldn’t keep up with the horrific pressure on labor movements in the UK. The history of labor in the 19th and early 20th century was bloody, and not just in terms of the opportunities for horrible deaths and maimings on the job. I can’t help but imagine similar squashings of fully justified revolts happening in the US again now and over the next 10 years or so.  Our government isn’t owned by plutocrats – to an overwhelming extent it is made of plutocrats. Trumpism has just revealed that identity much more clearly and unmistakably.

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The Parkland Mass Shooting: A Presidential Photo for the Ages.

On Friday, February 16, the photos of Donald Trump at a hospital and meeting with first responders began to show up in my newsfeeds.  At first, I didn’t see anything past the smug, smirking Presidential buffoon with his absurd grin and thumbs up, and the First Lady in an outfit reminiscent of a Halloween nurse costume.

An uncomfortable gathering before the camera
Trump, first responders, GOP Senator Marco Rubio, GOP Governor Rick Scott and GOP Attorney General Pam Bondi in Parkland, Florida two days after the February 14, 2018 mass shooting

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My Reaction to Jane Friedman’s “How to Start Blogging”

This will be a strange way to begin a guide to blogging, but I want to save you time, trouble, and heartache: The average author does not benefit much from blogging.

Yet blogging is still recommended to authors as a way to market and promote. Why? Because blogging does work, if certain conditions are met. The problem is that few authors meet those conditions. This post will delve into what it means to blog successfully and in a meaningful way for an author’s long-term platform and book marketing efforts.

For clarity: I define “blogging” as publishing material to a site that you own and control—usually your author website. Blogging is sometimes conflated with online writing for other websites or blogs, but that’s not what I’m discussing in this post.

Source: How to Start Blogging: A Definitive Guide for Authors | Jane Friedman

Living In Interesting Times

This updated article crossed my facebook feed at just the right moment.  I’ve been contemplating how to go about making this blog more relevant to what I write, and more plugged in with the works of fellow writers.  I was on a potential right track (or at least part of a right track) earlier this year, but I felt unqualified to write monthly how-to articles when I’m still trying to push my own novels across the finish line.

Jane Friedman’s advice resonates for several reasons. Like several writers I know or have read about, my story was overtaken by reality in 2016-2017. It’s the risk writers in my genre run, writing about characters set in a near-future dystopia. The flip-side of the risk is this: each day’s headlines pose a series of what-ifs that can be incorporated into my story if I can extrapolate far enough.  Not since the Cold War have current events and cautionary fiction so closely mapped against one another.

Coming Attractions

I’m not the only writer facing these challenges.  I have an opportunity to study what is working and not working for other writers in my subgenre.  And, I have an opportunity to write about where the trends I see may lead.  The saying, “May you live in interesting times” is purported to be an  ancient Chinese curse.  The saying is aptly demonstrated as a curse in real time this year.  But its origins are not Chinese at all. Stephen DeLong started researching this quotation in 1996, and managed after several years to trace it back to a 1950’s science fiction story: U-Turn by Duncan H Munro, a pseudonym for Eric Frank Russell. How apropos!

In 2018, I will read more.  And I will blog more about my genre and about where it’s headed in these unusual and troubling times. And most importantly, I will story-write more.

Watch this space.