Wednesday, May 24, 2017

This blog post will be doubleplusgood

Isn't it wonderful that George Orwell's dystopic-before-the-word-dystopic-was-cool novel, "1984," is experiencing a resurgence at the bookstores? Our conception that all news is fake, and that shadowy organizations are limiting the truth from us, seems to proliferate the zeitgeist. But why should this bring about an uptick in sales for "1984?" Let me start by looking at the Primary theme in "1984" that we discussed in my eighth grade English class, which was coincidentally back in 1981.

Big Brother


Certainly we've been aware that a Big Brother exists well before now. It's Google, and the dozens of other information partners that allow the Federal Government and an infinite number of Private Corporations to plow through our personal information which we freely share with them for the sake of convenience. Such outrage we all had when we found out our texts and photos were being data mined! Then we remembered that without Google and the like, we'd have to start keeping paper calendars and whipping out the palm pilots again, and we decided letting them look at our data wasn't so bad after all. Then the DNC's plot to kill the campaign of Bernie Sanders came to light. So it's not Google, but the DNC, they're Big Brother! Wait... wait... what about the Alt Right? And the panelists on The View? Oh, hold on, don't forget Hollywood's Gay Mafia. Are they all Big Brother? Did they all conspire to earn more royalties for "1984?" The simple answer, I guess so.

Well, I cleared all of that up. 2017 marks the fruition of George Orwell's vision. We have no privacy, and "1984" is still a big seller. But hold on. "1984" was clearly written about the communists and how they edited history based on their political system. Look at this.

Here is a side by side photograph of members of the Soviet Era space program. Let's go all "Highlights" magazine on this one and ask, can you find all the differences in theses pictures? If you're stuck, let me give you a hand. One of these guys fell out of favor with the party, and was erased from the picture. Pretty sneaky, eh? I hear what you're saying, why not just throw the picture away if you don't want to see Ivan any more. Simple. This is much worse. Hey, wasn't Ivan in that picture? What are you on about? Who's Ivan? This is the world of "1984," where Winston sits at his desk and revises news stories to doctor details toward the favorable, and eliminate key players who are now disgraced. Is this really where we find ourselves today? Too bad Ivan didn't have a facebook account. Then again, maybe this is where the idea of face swapping came from.

Thus, conclusively I've proven that our society is no closer to the world depicted in "1984," until I consider Ariana Grande.

Newspeak


One of the clearly ignore themes of "1984" is how the English Socialist (IngSoc) system seeks to limit creativity and philosophy by shrinking the English language through Newspeak. Periodically words are removed from the lexicon which requires the construction of new words from the ones that remain. If something is good, it remains good. If it's really good, instead of being marvelous, or special, or indescribable, it becomes plusgood.

Ice cream = good
Steak = plusgood
Orgasm = doubleplusgood

Ed, there are a lot of mother's out there concerned that you have written the words orgasm and Ariana Grande in the same blog. Explain yourself. Follow along, children. As I write these words, the world is reeling from another senseless terrorist attack carried out by an Islamic extremist, this time after an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester England. The audience was decidedly young, and right now the death toll stands at 22, with the youngest victim identified as 8 years old. Social media is reacting just the way we've grown accustomed to, a mix of sorrow, anger, and rehashing of the time Ariana Grande said she hates Americans.

Yes, it's true. In 2015, Ms. Grande was caught by a security camera saying the words, "I hate Americans. I hate America." What inspired the hatred of her home country and it's citizens? It should come as no surprise that it was in reaction to donuts.

Ariana and her boyfriend were in a donut shop looking at trays of Homer Simpson's favorites. Then she did the unthinkable. When the clerk turned away, Ariana moved in and motioned as if she was licking one of the donuts. Then more donuts arrived! I would be outraged as well, Ms. Grande, so it doesn't seem weird at all that more donuts, God's greatest gift to mankind, would inspire you to say, "I hate America. I hate Americans." She said it, not me. I suppose everyone's entitled to their own, wackadoo take on the evils of America, but given what just happened after her concert, the word choice seems beyond poor, but maybe it's just an example of Ariana, and everyone born after 1990, practicing newspeak.

Our vocabulary is shrinking, and it's not because of an oppressive political party. We are gladly giving it away and with it our ability to fully express how we feel and what we experience, and I want to see it stop. I'd like to share with you now the rules I am giving to my children about the words they use to describe their experiences. Number one, "Hate" is reserved for Adolph Hitler level evil shit. How can you describe your feelings for math class in the same terms that you describe how you feel about the mastermind of the Holocaust? You can't. Likewise, Love is reserved for describing my feelings for people special to my heart. Should I really use the same word to express my feelings for chocolate ice cream as I do to express my feelings for my wife and children? No. I love my wife. I love my children. Bacon double cheeseburgers are close, but I really find them satisfying and flavorful.

With regard to the "hate" speech, back in 2015 Ariana's press agent explained that she said the hated America because of all the bad food choices that were available. Let's take a lesson from Ariana. Expand your vocabulary. Expand your feelings. Make the feeling of love special again. Learn new words to express how you feel, and use them. 


Monday, May 8, 2017

Query-tastic!

I've been at this writing-and-trying-to-get-published-thing for about eight years now. In that time, I've learned a great deal, mostly that there's always more to learn. There are a few facts I've discovered which I will share with you now.

Fact 1 - writers are not timid
You want to be a writer? Grow a pair. Get cocky. Someone reads your stuff and they don't get it, do not go home and throw yourself on your bed and cry into your pillow.

Fact 2 - confidence comes with a price
You want to be a writer but are having a hard time growing a pair and want to know how to address the problem. Writing helps. Writing every day really helps. Reading and writing every day will encourage enthusiastic creative testicular growth.

Fact 3 - find your muse
I once met an author who lives in Manhattan. She told me that her primary motivation for writing is the mass of people she meets at cocktail parties that are always asking if she is still writing. Not wanting to say she hasn't come up with anything lately, she writes all the time so she can keep the drinking crowd at bay. I'm not going to tell you what my motivation is. When I'm famous, I may write a book about it.

Fact 4 - act professionally
Dreams tend to bring out the child in all of us, namely, when our dreams don't come true, we pout like children. A good portion of trying to get published comes with the word no. We put our best foot forward, no. We enter a new flash fiction contest every week, no. We send letter after letter to an agent list longer than Santa's 'nice' spreadsheet, no. Get used to it. At some level agents are friends to us all, keeping a ton of shitty books off the shelves of your local bookstore, which will soon to be closed and converted to a mattress store.

Fact 5 - know how to present your work
And to fulfil this, you must know all there is to know about alchemy, because you have to scrape your shit together, and turn it into gold. In all the writing I've done over the last 2,920 days, the most important skill I've had to master, or attempt to master, is the ability to tell someone, in writing, what makes my book so special.

Remember this formula, all you budding authors, Hook, Synopsis, Bio, Closing. It is these four segments that make the best query, if you do them right. The hook grabs with a simple premise, usually something from the beginning of your book. The Synopsis is not a chapter by chapter outline, but a simple paragraph that includes enough detail to make a mini storyline of it's own. The Bio has pertinent information about your writing skills. Only include things that make you a better writer! And the Closing is a quick, thanks for your time, tell me what else you need, end. You should also include some contact information, just in case.

I'm pretty proud of the query I just came up with, so I'm going to put it in this post. Remember, I have a 101,000 word science fiction novel to sell, and in less than 450 words, I'm going to try to get someone excited about it.

Let's see how I did.


When scientists are baffled, and corporate investors angered, by the unexplained misbehavior of dozens of drone spacecraft sent to collect minerals from the atmospheres of Jupiter and Saturn, the lucrative mission is taken over by three manned spacecraft, one of which is destined to become the last sample of human life in the universe.

Slade Hobart, captain of the mining vessel Laersk, believes that she is the last living human being, and as such, feels a responsibility to chronicle the final days of mankind in a celebration and condemnation of her own species. From the command chair of her marooned ship, she keeps watch over the pile of bodies that were her crew, now resting frozen and dried on the surface of Ganymede. Close by her side she keeps the body of only one, Joseph, a teenage boy who stowed away on the multi-year mission to pursue his prophesy of the end of man's days. Captain Hobart struggles not only with the boy's interpretation of events, but with her role in guarding the final human specimens. After she realizes that travelers who attempt to return to Earth face only death, then can she accept her fate and find meaning in sacrificing her life to help human kind make the next step in their development. Years later, explorers from a different world make an expedition to the Laersk's crash site. Exposure to the body of Joseph causes one of their crew to become ill. By the time the exploration team reaches their next destination, that crew member has died and is buried on the surface of a barren planet, the seed bed for human life to begin a new phase of development.

“Banished Children of Eve” is my 101,000 word science fiction novel with the flavor of Arthur C. Clark's, “2001 : A Space Odyssey,” and Stanislaw Lem's, “Solaris.” Often more about humanity's undue confidence in it's own creations than space travel and other worlds, it's best accomplishment is making the reader question what their role is in the human story.


I am a creative fiction staff writer for the independent “Bachelor Pad” magazine and several of my works have received honors in Amazon and NYC Midnight competitions. I recently self-published a paranormal fantasy romance novel titled, “Atypical American Girls,” and last year wrote my first screenplay as a part of an incubator project with Cary Granat, producer of the “Scream” franchise and “Chronicles of Narnia.”

It is my hope that you will allow me to present either a portion or the entire novel to you for review. I look forward to your response.

Sincerely,

Edward Varga
<contact information redacted>