Putting my head above the parapet

Over the last couple of weeks I've received several savage reviews of stories of mine, stories I love and really believe in.  This is the downside of putting our heads above the parapet and showing our work to the world. VWhen someone tells you that they cannot believe in the premise of your novel at all, this is a grievous wound.  It goes straight to the heart.  And sometimes we get do shot by critiquers.  Badly shot.  And the words wound us and go straight to the heart.

But sometimes there's more than just a comment on our work going on in these critiques.  In one of those savage reviews, I sensed jealousy, and perhaps even a sense of competition from the critiquer.  This was another writer who had not had her novel published yet.  It's coming out later this year, published by a small press I've never heard of.  And that makes me wonder how good she is as a writer.  I didn't get to critique her work in return, so I can't judge.  But I wonder.

If I were a beginner writer that level of savage criticism might well stop me writing for ever.  But I'm not,  I've been writing for forty years, and spent almost as long putting my head above the parapet.  I've taught creative writing for over a decade, and I'm now Chairwoman of Havant and District Writers' Circle.  And in all my workshops and in the Circle I set rules for feedback.  I ask people to say what they like about a piece first, then move on to what they didn't like about it.

There is always something good about a piece of writing.  I've never yet come across writing without one spark of something good to it.  And yet that was the critique I received.  Nothing was good, she didn't believe in my premise, my characters were stupid...  The critique was the most disrespectful I've ever received, and I can't help thinking of this critiquer as a jaded, cynical 'I've seen it all before' woman.  How joyless her life must be if she criticises everything in that manner.

There's only one way to heal from such a wound.  Remind yourself that this is one person's opinion, and that not everybody will agree with that view.  If we want to grow and learn as writers we have to put our heads above the parapet, but we also have to gain the wisdom to sort the wheat from the chaff.  I'll heal from my current wounds, continue putting my head above the parapet, and keep on learning and risking new wounds.

Wendy Metcalfe is the author of Panthera: Death Spiral and Panthera : Death Song and the short story collection Otherlives.  Find out more about her on www.wendymetcalfe.com

Science fiction conventions - a sense of community

I spent the Easter weekend at Dysprosium, the annual UK Eastercon science fiction convention. As at Loncon 3 last year, I was struck by how much of a sense of community there is between SF fans.

I went to the con alone, and within ten minutes of sitting down with my sandwich at the bar I was chatting  to a woman who'd also come alone.  We discussed our favourite SF and books, and went to the opening ceremony together.

I'd booked onto several writing workshops over the weekend, and spent a lot of the time in the company of other women writers, chatting about our work and the genre in general.  This is so different from my everyday life, where I'm surrounded by crime writers and women's contemporary writers, many of whom I have absolutely nothing in common with. 

I had a very lively dinner  discussion with another writer in which we compared our favourite SF books. It's such a joy to mention a book you read in the1980s and find that someone else has read it too, and understands why that book is so important to you.

There is a sense of cameraderie at cons, and a level of respect for other attendees that I don't see in my everyday life.  When I'm out in my favourite cafe I'm frequently annoyed by insensitive people who have no respect for others.  Yet, in the midst of hundreds of people, a very busy restaurant and hotel, I wasn't annoyed by anyone's behaviour once.

So, I've booked for Nine Worlds Geekfest in London in August this year, where I hope to meet another great set of people who share my passions.  I'm looking forward to it.

Wendy Metcalfe is the author of Panthera : Death Spiral and Panthera : Death Song, and the short story collection Otherlives.  Find out more about her at. www.wendymetcalfe.com

Gender issues in SF - going backwards?

This week saw me reading about the Strange Horizons 2014 count of gender representation in the reviewing of SF stories.  (Niall Harrison, 30th March 2015).  See Strange Horizons for the full data.

The first figure I noticed was the number of US books received by Locus for review : 58% by male authors, only 39.9% from female authors.  So even before we get into the murky area of equality of reviews women are at a disadvantage.  The UK figures are even worse : 68.7% of books submitted by men, only 31.3% by women.  Julie Crisp suggests that's because women don't submit as much, but I'm not convinced that's the problem,  I regularly submit, and am regularly rejected.

What we don't have is any analysis of the types of subject matter magazines and publishers favour.  We know that in contemporary women's fiction the importance of women's books is downplayed.  Hard-hitting books written by women dealing with abuse, prostitution, dysfunctional families, are being given pink and fluffy covers and classified as chick-lit.  That same subject matter in a book written by a man is considered a serious literary contribution.  I am beginning to suspect a similar bias is at work in the acceptance of SF short stories for publication.  Certainly I've not read any real feminist stories recently, anything that radically challenged patriarchal culture.

So here's my challenge to the number-counters.  I want an analysis of the types of story subjects that  get published.  Is there a pattern of magazines rejecting stories with strong feminist elements?  I suspect so, but I can't prove it.  Trying to do such an analysis would be far harder than just counting numbers, but would be extremely rewarding.  This is the VIDA count, version 2.0.

I've read far too many published stories by women that don't see the universe from a feminist point of view.  So many that seem to think the same restrictive forms of relationship will endure into the future.  There have been massive changes In our own culture as women have gained legal equality, and started to earn their own money.  We have choices we didn't have a century ago. In a century's time relationships will be radically different again, and I want to see that reflected in the SF I read.  Is anyone up for that challenge?

Wendy Metcalfe is the author of Panthera : Death Spiral and Panthera : Death Song and the short story collection Otherlives.  Find out more about her at www.wendymetcalfe.com

Getting inside the alien mind

This week I've made a start on re-writing Geneship.  The first book is now Genehunter, and covers the first half of the events that the original book did.  

My alien viewpoint, Yull, was always an interesting character.  Because I had to invent him from scratch, he always had more detail than my human lead, Aris.  He's the leader of a tribe of Ur-Vai, and I knew they had as much tech as humans.  Yet they're big cats, and Aris sees them hunting like lions  early on in the story.  So they retain their predators' instincts even in a high-tech culture.  I knew they lived in caves, and they inserted bioware into a species of birds to make them into a natural type of drone for surveillance.  

In the original book I hadn't worked out the aliens'spirituality.  Now I've decided that each tribe has its own God or Goddess to protect their tribe.  I want Yull's long journey with the humans to question his sense of belief in the tribe's Goddess.

I also had to decide how and where they live.  The planet has two long mountain chains that bisect it north-south and east-west.  I've decided that Yull's species, the Ur-Vai, live in caves dotted along the mountain chains.  That allows me to give them distinct territories with hunting rights.  

In the first chapter Yull makes first contact with the human characters.  When he returns home he has to face a challenge from a hostile deposed leader, giving me a chance to detail their politics (a form of democracy). 

But Yull knows about a mysterious Artefact lying at the far end of the continent, which he suspects is human.  Finding out what it is, and what connection it has to these humans, forms the basis of the story, and drives him to question and challenge everything he thought he knew about the universe.

There's lots more detailing to do, but now I feel much happier about getting into my alien's mind effectively.

Wendy Metcalfe is the author of Panthera : Death Spiral and Panthera : Death Song, and the short story collection Otherlives.  Her website is: www.wendymetcalfe.com

Re-using old myths, legends, and fairytales

Writers have always re-told myths, legends and fairytales.  Sheri Tepper had great fun with her retelling  of Sleeping Beauty.  Her Beauty is a sassy, time-travelling character who compares and contrasts the best and worst things of each time period she travels through.

Yesterday I finished reading Julie Kagawa's young adult book Talon.  The book has been much hyped, and I've read many enthusiastic reviews of it.  I was curious to see if the book lived up to them. The story is a contemporary retelling of the George and the Dragon myth, set in Southern California, and including a teen romance.  But the book is also a deeper examination of duty versus love, and shows us the evils of indoctrination.  And it's a damned good read.

Rick Riordhan has had great success with his books turning the gods of Olympus into contemporary children's stories.  And Kathy Reichs has re-worked the werewolf trope in her Virals series.  There the teenagers aren't bitten, but are infected with a virus that gives them their superpowers.

This set me thinking about using myths and legends in my own work.  I'm currently re-writing a stand-alone book that was originally a young adult adventure into the first two books of a new adult series.  My heroine Aris is human, but the creatures she spends most of her time with in the book are the alien Ur-Vai.  The Ur-Vai indulge my fantasies of what big cats would look like if they'd become the highest intelligence dominant species on a planet.

I've already decided they need a spirituality.  But what to use?  Gods, goddesses, and religions arise out of the environmental and cultural situation of the people of that faith, so their gods and goddesses should be cat-related.  I think I should delve into Egyptian cat beliefs for a start. So far, I've decided that Yull's Ussin tribe worship the Dark Huntress, a powerful dark big cat goddess.  I'm not sure what the legends concerning her are, so will need to work these out.  And as the Ur-Vai are fiercely tribal, and each tribe has their own god/goddess, I'll need to invent a few more individuals for them to worship.  

Myths, legends, and fairytales endure because they deal with universal themes and truths, and I think they'll continue to be a source of inspiration for writers for a long time to come.

Wendy Metcalfe is the author of Panthera : Death Spiral and the Panthera : Death Song, and the short story collection Otherlives.

The passing of the old guard

I started writing this post early on Thursday morning, when Terry Pratchett was still alive.  I then went out for a long working lunch with my fellow Pentangle Press authors, and came home to the news that Terry had died.

It feels like the foundations on which I built my love of SF are crumbling.  Only last week we had Leonard Nimoy pass away.  Being an introverted, bookish type, I always identified with Spock rather than the over-excitable Kirk.  I sometimes feel like emulating Spock's raised eyebrow when I see some of the things around me today.

Then we heard of Terry's passing.  At 66, that's way too early.  Not only have we lost a uniquely talented writer, we've also lost someone who inspired other writers. I was lucky enough to hear him give the plenary address at the Winchester Writers' Conference back in 2010.  Although he managed to get through his talk, there were pauses where the Alzheimer's was already making itself felt.

Just as cherished are my memories of meeting Anne McCaffrey at Octocon some years ago.  Anne is one of my major influences, and in my wildest dreams I hope that someone some day might describe me as 'the new Anne McCaffrey'.  

There's a sense of the passing of the old guard.  One by one, the people who were so influential in instilling in me a love for SF, and the desire to write it myself, are disappearing.

Leonard's and Terry's deaths have left me with a feeling of melancholy, and have turned my thoughts back to my own work.  What legacy will I leave when I join them in the afterlife?  It's made me redouble  my efforts to have my own work recognized and accepted.

With the passing of the old guard I have the feeling that a moment of zeitgeist has gone.  The kinds of influence Leonard,Terry, and Anne had on our SF culture have sadly passed us by, with no obvious candidates to take their places.

Wendy Metcalfe is the author of Eco-SF books Panthera : Death Spiral and Panthera : Death Song, and the short story collection Otherlives.

What legacy will I leave?

As part of my personal development work I've been working through the deeper purpose for my writing this week.  Thirty years ago I just wrote what came into my head, what excited me in the moment.  I wasn't thinking about what genre it fitted into or if I could sell it. But now, 26 novels and 200 stories later, it's time to take stock and see what my writing reveals about me.

My writings divide into two broad explorations.  One is the championing of the natural world, and covers everything from challenging homocentric cultures to showing the beauty of wildlife.  The other broad strand is writing about alternative ways of relating to each other through AI and non-human friends.  It's about challenging the sexualised and objectified way we see people today.

My heroines aren't in sex-based relationships.  This is the future, and I want to show mature cultures that don't do recreational sex, objectification of women, or excess breeding.  My 'relationship' (what a sexualised and abused word that is!) stories explore real love - the unconditional, uncontrolling acceptance of another.  I often use friendships between intelligent big cats and humans for this,but I have used high-intelligence birds too.  My YA novel The Code River charts the non-sexual friendship between a human boy and a half-human, half-big cat girl, and the Panthera novels explore the relationships between the Hunters and sentient AI Panthera.

So what legacy do I want to leave?  I'm aiming to get readers to think about how they live, to question and challenge the sexualisation and objectification of our society.  And if I persuade one woman to breed one less child I will be well pleased.  But I hope my readers will also admire my competent, professional heroines and want to emulate them.  They too might choose to follow their passion, not be derailed by sex, and become world-class experts in whatever fields they choose.

Do I sound deluded when I say my aim is to change the world?  Then so be it.  Every person we now consider a great thinker or leader was reviled and called mad at some stage of their lives.  But the prize we play for is saving Gaia and all her creatures, and if I have to be labelled crazy to achieve that, I'll live with it.

Wendy Metcalfe is the author of Panthera : Death Spiral and Panthera : Death Song, and the SF short story collection Otherlives.