Death of a Good Friend
Discovered this over a Wil Wheaton’s lovely blog. If you don’t know who he is then learn. You’ve likely seen him before. In any case, I love you Mr. Wheaton. (Don’t click the read more, there isn’t any more after this!)
More Sanders Bologna
I’m just going to post links, because right now I’m getting exhausted by how far into the idiot hole this guy is going. Anyone still considering Helix for the publication of their work should probably get their head checked. So, here is what Sanders has been saying about the people wanting to have their work removed from Helix because he’s a bigoted wacko. Make sure to read through the replies by him too; they’re priceless. And if you want to see Tobias S. Buckell’s take, go here. Yeah. (Don’t click the read more, there isn’t any more after this!)
Professionalism Out the Window
Not too long ago I talked about the explosion of crap that is Mr. Sanders’ rather bigoted and, well, disturbing rejection letter. Now it comes to my attention that Mr. Sanders is actually mentally handicapped in a way that most of us aren’t. We all have an inner editor, that little person that sometimes goes “yeah, you probably shouldn’t say that” or “that sentence looks like crap”. I have it (most of the time it works, though occasionally something moronic slips through, usually as a failed attempt at a joke). Well, Mr. Sanders doesn’t have an internal editor. Rather than attempting to do what any intelligent person would do at this point (what with bloggers and authors alike throwing the Book of Dumb*ss at him), he has made the glorious decision to open his big mouth once again and shove his foot all the way to the back. I’m surprised he hasn’t choked himself yet.Recently some authors have taken offense at his recent heavy-handed approach in a rejection letter and have since requested he remove their work from Helix’s archives. One such author is Yoon Ha Lee, someone that I’ve never heard of, but apparently is a good writer. She sent a notice to Mr. Sanders requesting that her work be removed from the archives. It’s a very professional letter and one I think anyone with some integrity might treat with some respect. Not Sanders. Oh no, professionalism and integrity have apparently left Mr. Sanders’ building. Here’s what Sanders should have said: Dear Ms. Lee,I have decided to remove your work from our archives per request and must give you my humble apology for my poor behavior. I have been a very bad boy and hope that we can move past this in a later date, and after some therapy. Sincerely,William Sanders And what Sanders actually wrote (this is taken from Lee’s post, so her writing is in here too): Sanders flounced off in a huff, stating that the story “never did make any sense” and that he only accepted it to “please those who admire your work”–what altruism!–“and also because (notorious bigot that I am) I was trying to get more work by non-Caucasian writers.” If I were a writer currently submitting to Helix, I would kind of worry about that bit–all things considered, if a story really does suck, I’d rather have it rejected so I can fix it. He then played psychic and claimed that I only asked for the story to be withdrawn “because, let’s get real here, you feel the need to distance yourself from someone who is in disfavor with the kind of babbling PC waterheads whose good opinion is so important to you, and whom you seem to be trying to impress with this little grandstand play.” He closed with: “There was a suggestion I was going to make, but it is probably not physically practicable.” A note here: just because you publish work by non-caucasian writers (which is interesting, because I wonder how he knows who is white and not and whether he was making a very general assertion that her name meant she was asian) doesn’t mean you can’t be a bigot. You know, when blacks started showing up on TV I bet a lot of the folks working for those stations didn’t like it one bit, but didn’t have much of a choice if they wanted to stay in the market.Just keep putting that foot in your mouth, Mr. Sanders. Seriously. You’re not making yourself look good one bit. I’d be surprised if any authors with any integrity are still sending you work. Look, it’s entirely possible that you didn’t mean what you said that way people are taking it, but right now it doesn’t look like it. All we see is an angry, grumpy old codger attempting to put people down for not wanting to work with someone who hasn’t done anything to prove they aren’t a bigoted nutjob in the first place.Sanders has also taken it a step further by posting on the Helix webpage for her story the following phrase: Story deleted at author’s pantiwadulous request. Really? This is the make of a professional quality magazine? Are you sure? Good luck with that buddy. Seriously. You’re going to need all the luck you can get, because at this point you’ve gone from trying to be the innocent victim of a misunderstanding to full-blown wacko with a grudge. For those who want to offer a little support to Lee you can find the story that she asked to be removed here as well as some other work here and here. Maybe another magazine will pick her up. I certainly hope so. Anywho.
Writing Updates
If any of you have been paying attention to the right column where I keep all my writing nonsense (which you’ll likely pay attention to now, if you haven’t already), then you’ll have noticed that I’m terribly behind. I hit a horrible slump. Yes, I had been writing (mostly blog posts), but I refuse to include those in my writing total unless they are essay-style.Well, I finally got on track today. I wrote roughly 2,300 words, and have finished writing two new chapters for The Spellweaver of Dern and am about 5/6th through a new fantasy short story called “The Gnomes of New Timberfax”.If all goes as planned I should finish the gnome story tomorrow and have scheduled two chapters to show up this week and next week for SoD. I apologize for the lateness. Many things came in and really sucked up my time (school mostly, as I’ve said before). I expect to have some sort of semi-regular schedule for SoD now. I’m going to try to shoot for the “new chapter every other week” thing, with my optimistic side shooting for “new chapter every week”. I am writing a load of other things.In other news about my writing in general: I’m planning to take a short hiatus from writing to do something that I need to get done. I won’t stop SoD, but other writing will come to a standstill. What could possibly be more important that writing new work? I have hit a snag in my SF novel The Lies of Venicia that can’t be resolved unless I spend a considerably amount of time developing a map for my universe. I had decided that for the time being I could just put ellipses where I couldn’t be sure of a system’s name or planet’s name due to not having a set out map of where things lie. I’m using a form of wormhole jumping for space travel, but it’s limited. You can’t jump great distances (in terms of lightyears as basic units of measurement here), which means that all jump nodes (or gates, or whatever you want to call them) have to lead to a relatively nearby location. That means you can jump from Sol to Alpha Centauri just fine, because that’s under five lightyears, but you can’t jump from Sol to Eta Cassiopeiae 2 because that’s a distance of over nineteen lightyears, which is too far for such a jump to be stable. You could do it, but you’d have to hack the network of jump nodes to do it and you’d be a moron to try (you could kill yourself or kill someone else during the jump, or both). The problem is that the galaxy is extremely complex and stars function in 3D, not 2D. That means I can’t just say “point A to point B” and draw a straight line ————– like so. I have to be conscious of where a particular stars lies in relation to other stars. Alpha Centauri it’s a straight shot if we look at the universe lying on a plane where Earth’s polar north and south are our reference points. It might be up and over to the left, and from Alpha Centauri another star may be down and back.But I don’t know where all the stars sit. I don’t have that in my head mostly because it’s really complex information (a flat map of a fantasy world is easier to remember). What this means is I need to map this universe and I’m not 100% sure how to do that yet. I’ve considered trying a 3D program, but such programs may or may not allow me to create makeshift “shipping lanes” to represent where one can jump from any location.I have one idea on how to do this. It involves using a foam base (some sort of hard foam I can stick things into) and measuring it, then putting Sol smackdab in the middle and try to scale down the coordinates proportionately. I’d use sticks or something that I can stick into the foam and basically cut them to the proper length, etc. That’s what I have right now and I don’t know if there is a better way.Do you all have any suggestions? I don’t know how else to do that. I am not a 3D whiz, nor much of an artist. I basically need a visual to represent stars that actually do exist so I can accurately keep track of things. Perhaps it can be done in a 2D display somehow. I don’t know.Anyway, I just wanted you all to know there may be a brief hiatus to do that. If you have suggestions, please let me know. Maybe there is a program of some sort to create 3D star charts or star maps of some sort. Well, having said all that I can get on with whatever it is I’m supposed to be doing (wait, that’s writing!) and head on out to the wild blue yonder (okay, that was hokey and I know it).