In the right hands, advertising can change the world. Look at Google. A lot of us forget Google’s grand empire is built entirely on advertising. Those sponsored links, and text ads you see in blogs have brought in billions of dollars. Now, Google has expanded out into display ads, rich media ads, mobile ads, and even television ads (did you know you can buy a television ad campaign on Google?

And what has Google done with this revenue? Largely great stuff. Huge categories of stuff that we would consider costly a decade or so ago are now free. Office software. Unlimited phone number and voicemail. Mapping and turn-by-turn navigation. Mobile phone (and tablet) operating systems. Hell, Android is less than free. Manufacturers using it on their devices get to participate in Google’s ad revenue stream.

Yes, you read that right. Instead of paying a hefty Windows license, Google is paying manufacturers to use Android.

All from ads.

Now, of course, there’s always the chance that Google will turn truly evil in the future, turn into Skynet or something, and make us all live in slavery forever, for whatever twisted reason, but for the moment, the equation holds: Google + Ads = Good Free Stuff for People.

On the other hand, we have broke California. Eying Google’s success with ads (and perhaps taking a look at my tongue-in-cheek Outshine Twitter about advertising on paper money), they’ve come up with a brilliant idea: replace all the license plates in California with electronic license plates that can display ads.

And yes, you read that right. Electronic license plates that display ads.

“Well, hell, that’s gonna be distracting!” someone immediately says. “Going down the freeway and seeing a thousand blinking, screaming ads all flashing at you? How will that work?”

“No problem,” California confidently says. “They’ll only display when the car hasn’t moved for more than four seconds. And with the ability to buy ads at your friendly, helpful DMV, we’re sure to have customers lining up.”

Okay, let’s try some harder questions. Like: “What happens when the inevitable 14-year-old hacks the system and puts pictures of dicks on every license plate? Or worse?”

“Notgonnahappen,” California says. “We’ve designed the system with a bazillion gigabit security system, not hackable for . . . oh wait, it’s been hacked. Erghh, look at that.

Yeah, that’s what we thought. Or how about this: “Hey California buttheads, my car battery’s dead from your friggin ads. Pay up!”

“Well, of course there will be a failsafe system rendering this impossible, designed by NASA scientists . . . oh wait, you mean the real world is different than a lab?” California says. “You mean some people have cars they don’t drive for days at a time? Ah, wait . . .”

Or, the biggest question of all: ”If you’re advertising on my car, where’s my cut? When I choose to let Google put ads on my blog, I get money.”

And that’s the point that California missed. Google works because it’s voluntary, and because there’s an incentive to use it. Ads on license plates . . . uh, not so much.

At the turn of the century, when the quest for a “flying machine” was running like the first dot-com revolution, he was the person most favored to develop the airplane. He had boatloads of money from the US government, had a seat at Harvard and worked at the Smithsonian, hired the best people money could find, and everyone was rooting for him.

But, in the end, he lost to Orville and Wilbur Wright. Two guys with no college education, who funded their dream from the proceeds from their bicycle shop.

The TED talk above makes the case that this is because the Wright brothers were pursuing a central idea, a why, where Langley was pursuing, well, the cash.

It’s well-worth watching the TED talk, even if business isn’t your thing, and even if the Apple example at the fore might not be your cup of tea. This is about finding your why, and includes examples that include Martin Luther King.

So, what’s my why? Well, there are a ton of micro-whys. Why do I write? Why do I run my current business? Why do I launch new ones? These are important, but is there an overall why?

I think there is. And I think it’s why I’ve been called everything from a pro-business anarcho-capitalist to a raving socialist and everything in-between. I don’t wear my politics on my sleeve–and, indeed, much of the time politics seems like two children squabbling over equally wrong answers. I don’t address the crisis du jour, because, well, it’s du jour. It will be different in the future.

But I’ll take a shot at an overall why: Because we are each capable of grand things, despite the obstacles. Because imagination moves us forward, while second-guessing holds us back. Because we have never advanced by putting limits on our advancement.

Because we should dream grand dreams, and act to make them real.

What’s your why?

1. SpaceX was started by Elon Musk, the creator of PayPal and an early internet entrepreneur, who is now turning his wealth into visionary ventures like this and Tesla Motors.

2. The cost of the launch, per SpaceX’s published rate card, is about 1/10 that of a shuttle launch. While Falcon carries only 1/2 as much payload to LEO, it actually is more capable than the shuttle at boosting payloads into GTO. And yeah, apples and oranges, etc, but the fact is: Falcon is WAY cheaper for supplying the ISS.

Second, we have 6 crazy guys getting in a can to simulate a 520-day trip to Mars and back, to see how well they do in isolation and cramped quarters. Yeah, again, apples and mangoes–they’re not going to be suffering the effects of zero-g, they don’t have the uber-cool experience of walking around on Mars at the halfway point, etc, etc–but a cool experiment nonetheless.

And finally, something I joked about in Overhead: a Japanese company is proposing ringing the moon with solar panels, using robots and native Lunar materials as much as possible, and beaming energy back to earth, to serve the world’s entire power needs. Nuts? Sure. So is quantum computing. I wish them massive success.

Or, well, not.

In actuality, I agreed late last year to extending the release date with Prime Books, and that was never reflected on the Amazon site. The new release date is September 2010.

(And, just to be clear, this version of Winning Mars is substantially different than the one I released under a Creative Commons license a few years ago. Time marches on, the world changes, and I felt that significant updates were needed. So, if you want to experience the best Winning Mars out there, you’ll have to shell out some bux.)

You can also look forward to the Winning Mars countdown, starting August 2010, where you’ll have a chance to win some really cool Mars-related stuff. More details as they are available . . .

I shouldn’t have worried. Tyler not only kept his cool, but asked great questions, and, over the course of an evening, the two gained much mutual respect. I can imagine them going on to be fast friends.

One of the things Tyler said was, “I always challenge my assumptions. I come away with stronger belief in my ideas, or discover new, better ideas. Either way, I win.”

And what was truly amazing is this: he was willing to change, rather than rabidly defend. He was willing to look calmly at the other side of an argument, rather than simply go on the attack.

Are you ready to challenge your assumptions?

If so, pick up The Rational Optimist, by Matt Ridley. This is a book full of challenge, no matter your political or ideological stripe. This is a book that upends the “doom is just around the corner” crowd. This is a book that explains why we (as a whole) are so negative, when the reality is that things are getting better. This is a book that takes a serious look at the past and what has fueled human advancement, identifies the forces that have held us back, pulls the rug out from under people who say that there has been no progress, stares the crises du jour in the face and makes a strong case that they will soon be non-problems, just as many other doomsday scenarios that have never come to pass. This is a book that not only gives reasons to be optimistic, it outlines why we should be optimistic.

Is it a perfect argument? No, but The Rational Optimist makes a very strong case that we can and will have an amazing 21st Century, where things get better all around the world.

Do I agree with everything Matt Ridley has to say? No, of course not. But his position is strong enough that I’ll have to examine the points on which I disagree–which will lead to me either changing my mind, or strengthening my current positions.

So . . . are you up for a challenge? Have you been living in a monoculture of bad news and pessimism for too long? Are you old enough to remember those days when we all knew we’d end up being wiped out in a nuclear war? Or knew we’d live in warrens eating Soylent Green? Or knew we’d hit peak coal in 1865?

If so, as Tyler would say: Challenge your assumptions.

But let’s start with the reviews:

From SF Revu, Liviu Suciu:

For me this was the best story of the anthology and not surprising it is the one that involves exploration of Outer Space, namely a colony on the dark side of the moon – so it stays out of touch with humanity except for regular deliveries of technology and people that want to join – where humanity can “reboot” if needed and where the rules are designed to create a better society. In a past thread that mixes with the current one and explains how the colony came to be, we follow executive Roy Parekh setting up an insurance company with a twist. Sense of wonder, memorable characters and a superb ending made “Overhead” a story that induced me to follow Mr. Stoddard’s career from now on. I would love a novel that would expand this story since I think the necessary depth is there.

From Speculative Book Review,

While I greatly enjoyed almost all of Shine’s stories, a handful of those really impressed me. Jason Stoddard’s Overhead was one of them. It was a brilliant story written with a beautiful style. In Overhead, Stoddard uses flashbacks very intelligently to build his story on two alternate threads. The present thread develops the story while the flashback thread gives the reader more background helping her to understand the present thread. Furthermore, Stoddard manages to keep the suspense until the last page.

From Suite 101, Colin Harvey:

‘Overhead’ by Jason Stoddard shuttles setting between Earth and the Moon, and an embryonic lunar colony. Stoddard raises the stakes, bringing an intensity absent from much of the other fiction, making the payback all the greater. Highly Recommended.

From Financial Times (!):

But there are some strong stories: “Overhead”, Jason Stoddard’s sketch of a moon colony, is the best; Holly Phillips’s “Summer Ice”, set in a greener future metropolis, and Kay Kenyon’s “Castoff World”, also satisfy.

Author comment: is it surprising that financially oriented peeps would think a story about an insurance salesman is the best?

From SF Crowsnest, Stephen Hunt:

Jason Stoddard’s ‘Overhead’ is only partly set on Earth, the other part of the action is on an idealistic, experimental lunar colony. The colony develops from a dubious insurance company in the kind of unexpected development that typifies many of this anthology’s stories. Technology and social developments that are often assumed in SF to have a negative future have been turned on their head to great effect.

From SF Signal and The Huffington Post (!!):

Two warily pet the woolly mammoth in the room: space exploration. Of these, Marie Ness’ “Twittering the Stars” (despite its gimmicky structure and grating title) is absorbing and complex, whereas Jason Stoddard’s too-earnest “Overhead” lets its most exciting premise – Europan life – lie totally fallow. In compensation, the latter contains the sole character in the anthology who’s instantly memorable: a heroic-despite-himself version of Henry the Navigator.

There are a lot of other reviews that don’t mention Overhead specifically, which I’ll take to mean one of the following:

a. The reviewer hated it and was being polite.
b. It made no impression on them at all.

Which is fine . . . ya can’t please everyone.

Now, the question from Jetse de Vries, based on Gardner Dozois and Rich Horton’s lukewarm-to-cautiously-positive reaction to Shine in the April issue of Locus magazine (not online.)

I suppose we can agree to disagree about the ‘greatness’ of certain stories, but I do wonder why an anthology full of stories where people try to change things for the better needs to be ‘approved’, while anthologies where the population is decimated, the Earth is brought to the brink of destruction (sometimes beyond) and nihilistic characters gleefully engage in violence get that stamp of approval by default. Maybe this says something about the current mindset of written SF?

My opinion: for every negative thing happening in the world today, there are one or more equally positive things. Spend some time on PhysOrg. Look at the crazy people at Copenhagen Suborbitals or the Open Space Movement. Check out the amazing beauty of Festo’s robotics. We’re on the edge of some truly amazing breakthroughs — and, no, they aren’t all going to be used to propagate the agenda of large, evil organizations.

So, to the naysayers, fear-mongers, and doom-merchants: Stand aside, and watch us make a future worth living in!

Three of the most exciting things I’m working on I can’t talk about.

If things seem quiet on the writing front, this is why. No worries. You’ll hear more from me soon enough — perhaps more than you’d ever want to.

1. Health care problems, solved. As a society, we can’t stop talking about healthcare, the costs thereof (trillions of dollars in the US alone), and all the behavioral and social implications. Personally, we mourn loved ones who have passed away, or, worse, been debilitated by terrible diseases like stroke or dementia. Every one of us watches as we, and our friends, become less physically capable with every passing year. How can anyone argue that eliminating all of this wouldn’t be a good thing?

2. A new balance. Today, we race through life, dreaming of squeezing some well-deserved leisure time out of our sunset years. How fast can we get ahead? How much time can we spend at the office, advancing our careers? What’s the fastest path to that fast pension? Well, even assuming we can rely on social structures like these in the future, is this really any way to live? Probably not. With the long-term perspective that immortality brings, we would seriously have to look at a new balance that seamlessly integrates work into our lives. Less work. Meaningful work. More time to sit back and consider the serious questions. And if we are to believe Samuel Johnson, “All intellectual improvement arises from leisure.” But, more subtly, a shift from grab what you can as fast as you can, to what will I love doing, and have meaning—forever?

3. Doing grand things. With immortality, long-term projects suddenly aren’t a problem. Want to study the life-cycle of elephants? For centuries? Without losing the intelligence or perspective you’ve gained? Sure. Want to travel the solar system, or beyond? Or would you like to explore what kind of art you can create, given near-infinite time to perfect it? Again, suddenly it isn’t about, “Can I get this done in my 20s/30s?” but “What’s a grand thing that I truly want to do?”

4. Thinking long-term. When our average lifespan is only 70 or 80 years, it’s easy to dismiss anything happening a hundred years hence as irrelevant. If we can look forward to 700 or 800 years (or more), suddenly the far future is visceral, meaningful, and real. How does it affect us? What should we be doing to plan for it? It’s a complete and utter perspective shift, forcing us to think long term. And that’s arguably the most important thing immortality can do.

And now, before everyone eviscerates me as an incurable pollyanna or  lapdog of the radical transhumanists, let me point at this story, published recently in Futurismic. Yep, there are plenty of scary scenarios involving immortality—but, to be fair, we need to look at the positive side as well.

First, I’ve been interviewed by Wade Inganamort of Edge of Tomorrow–really interesting stuff, talking about bumps on the road to a post-scarcity economy, what a post-scarcity economy might actually look like, and some of the deeper implications of post-scarcity. One of the toughest interviews I’ve done! Take some time, check it out, and let Wade know what you think.

Second, I noticed a new review of White Swan up at 140@140 (neat concept, check out the other reviews as well.) Snippet:

“I enjoyed every tantalizing, brazenly dark second of it. I felt like I was in the movie-version in my head directed by Stoddard channeling some horrifically brilliant combination of the Coen brothers and Danny Boyle.”

But first, disclaimers: This isn’t about bashing the text SF outlets. And it’s not about elevating the mainstream sites. I’m thrilled with the fiction at Futurismic, Strange Horizons, Tor, and other online venues. I’m happy to see that Tor is creating a community and marketing to it. I’m just hoping we can make the community bigger.

Investigating the Audience
Let’s start by understanding what drives sites like i09, BoingBoing, NewScientist, Popular Science, PhysOrg, Wired, Slashdot, and Gizmodo.

“Wait a minute!” you’re saying. “This is a lot bigger list of sites than you mentioned before.”

Yes. It is. But it started with a single site: io9. I chose i09 as a baseline because it is most closely related, content-wise, to text SF venues. In addition to movie reviews, superhero polls, game trailers, they also have book reviews (and a book club) and frequently point to items like Locus’ recommended reading list–just take a look at #books or #bookreview on their site.

From io9, I used Quantcast to find other sites with high affinity to i09 (see sidebar capture), then drilled into those sites to find other affinities. The list above isn’t all-inclusive, but it gives us a pretty good picture of the person we’re looking for: interested in film and game SF and cutting-edge technology with a hint of the bizarre and offbeat.

Let’s compare that to the site affinities for Tor.com: Gutenberg.org and The Internet Archive. There’s no correlation between Tor’s affinities and i09’s. Which means we have an opportunity to understand what the “popular metascience” audience is looking for–and introduce them to text SF.

Understanding the Content

Take a look at the articles on i09 and its affinity sites, and you’ll quickly see connections to text SF–even in surprising spaces.

At this moment, Gizmodo has an article on the front page about time travel–a photo from the 40s which appears to show a man in modern dress, carrying a modern camera. i09 has an article about alternate history with links to multiple sources from literature (and from comics), an SF book review, and a post from their Weekend Short Story club.

New Scientist and PhysOrg are full of headlines to prompt the next wave of near-future SF speculation: brain recording, black hole effects in nanotubes, the connection between robots and cloud computing, and using viruses to split water for hydrogen.

So, how do we help these millions of readers make the connection to text SF? By joining the conversation in a relevant way, by helping them to create content, by sharing–and, in some cases, through advertising and sponsorship.

I’ll tackle the free ways to participate first.

Free Ways to Participate

Commenting. As you scan the headlines, you’ll quickly find an SF topic or three you know something about. You may even know more about it than the author. Or you may not agree with them. In either case, don’t fume silently–comment.

If that “breakthrough” movie was actually covered 20 years ago in print SF, let the readers know and provide a link (politely.) If you’ve written the definitive text on the subject, let them know (again, nicely.) If you’ve just published a story or a book that shows where their shiny new technology might lead them, tell them about it. Tie in to what they’re talking about. Make it constructive and relevant. And suddenly, people get the connection to what’s happening right now and what’s happening in text SF.

I’ve found that many tech-focused people really enjoy talking to science fiction writers–as long as you’re not coming in with a haughty “well, I know way more about this than you” perspective. Join the conversation. You’ll meet some amazing people. And increase your profile.

Creating. Where do these giant sites get their content? Everywhere they can. Use their tips form or contact information to let them know about the book you just published that explores the ramifications of the brain implants they just talked about. Send them a copy of your near-future anthology for review. You won’t always get mentioned–but that’s how PR works.

Better yet, if you can write an article for them, do it. If you think you have a great idea for an article, send a quick query to the editor and see if there’s an opportunity. In either case, you’re contributing to the community, raising your profile, and–maybe more importantly–seeing how their audience reacts to your ideas.

Sharing. I’ll preface this one by saying that I’m not an editor at a major or minor publishing house, nor have I ever been, and I’m not privy to all the wheeling and dealing that’s going on in the publishing world. So, I may seem monumentally naive when I ask, “Why isn’t the publishing industry providing their freely-available stories to sites like i09 or BB?” Exposure on Tor.com is great. Exposure on i09 or BB would be even better. Yes, i09 links out to stories and novels, but readers won’t necessarily leave the site. It’s better if the content could appear in situ.

What would be even better is a properly tagged feed of all freely available stories (and novels for sale.) Imagine reading an article about the latest Mars rover–and having stories about Mars exploration instantly available. Or reading about the next blockbuster movie–and having fiction that inspired it available to read or buy.

Of course, now we’re venturing out of “free.” Capabilities like this aren’t exactly something a large site will give away. But what if it was set up as a revenue sharing opportunity? Would it be worth it?

Maybe. And maybe not. But hey, I can dream.

Next up in Part 3: paid ways to participate–some surprisingly cheap.

If you’re interested in the answers to these questions–and many more–check out these two recent interviews.

From Charles Tan, of The Bibliophile Stalker (and Shine reviewer), an interview on SFSignal.

From Andrew Porter, of The Science of Fiction, an interview on his blog.

Thanks again to both Charles and Andrew for the great questions!

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” you say. “That’s offensive! I’m certainly not a geek, even though I do love my Android phone, spend hours playing Halo and watching SF movies on the home theater PC I built myself, and recently renewed my subscription to Make magazine. And you certainly can’t call me a geek, you parasitic marketing wonk!”

Congrats. You are a geek.

And yes, I can call you a geek, with great affection. Because I’m one too. I love gadgets. I’ve been known to spend time in Second Life. I enjoy SF movies. In my spare time, I design audio devices, and will soon be selling them. I hang out with people who love futuristic tech, develop futuristic tech, market futuristic tech, and are excited about where it’s taking us.

And these are the people who should be natural SF fans. But they aren’t. Or at least not of the text-based variety.

How do I know? Let’s crunch some numbers. I do this every year or so, comparing what I call “popular metafiction” and print science fiction. And every year, the numbers show a gigantic chasm between the popular, forward-looking, geek-centric side of things and, well, the stuff we write.

Check out this comparison between BoingBoing.net and Tor.com:

No, wait. Look at that again. Tor isn’t the middle line. That’s BoingBoing’s US audience. See the line near the bottom? That’s Tor.

BoingBoing.net: 3,000,000 global visitors per month
Tor.com: 133,000 global visitors per month

io9.com posts numbers similar to BoingBoing: 2,100,000 global visitors per month. And the numbers get bigger as we venture out into the pure geekosphere. Gizmodo has a whopping 7,900,000 global visitors per month.

Compare this to Strange Horizons, at about 20,000 visitors per month—and it’s the most-trafficked of all the major text SF outlets beyond tor.com, including Analog, Asimovs, F&SF, TTAPress, Clarkesworld, and Futurismic.

So why aren’t any of the text SF venues benefiting from the millions of geeks in the world?

And, more importantly, what can text SF do to cross the chasm — to become at least as popular, say, as a steampunk blog (steampunkworkshop.com, at 50,000 per month), or, going wild, to equal the numbers of a magazine aimed at people who like to build their own robots and other microprocessor-controlled gadgets (MakeZine, 1,000,000 visitors per month.)

I’d argue that the first step is simple: acknowledging there is a chasm. And when the biggest text SF outlet runs 20X smaller than the popular metascience outlets, there’s a chasm. A huge one.

And I’d argue that this chasm is one that we should be able to bridge.

Now, what can we do about it? That’s a subject for another post. A series of three of them, in fact. Look forward to them here in the coming weeks.

Note: all data is from Quantcast.com, an open platform for visitor metrics. Both BoingBoing and Tor are directly measured, which means their numbers are quite accurate.

In one reviewer’s words: “…arguably the anthology’s standout story – Jason Stoddard’s “Overhead” follows a colony on the Moon through a series of potential disasters and exemplifies some of humankind’s finest traits: perseverance, ingenuity, and hope.” Read the full review here.

Or, in another reviewer’s eyes: “Jason Stoddard’s “Overhead” is better as summary (idealists go to the moon) than as story. In it, a good idea is damaged by characters who speak their ideologies as if quoting from an instruction manual.” Read the whole review here.

Oh, and by the way, I’m also soon to be interviewed by Charles Tan, another early Shine reviewer. You can read what he has to say here.

Or SF Revu’s assessment here. Yes, please, let’s make Overhead into a movie!

I’m not gonna comment on which reviewer is right or wrong, except to encourage you to make your own decision. Buy your copy of Shine and let me know what you think. Because, regardless of whether my story is a standout or sucks butt, consider what the reviewers are saying about Shine itself:

“To round off this very long review I’m happy to report that Shine was a truly fascinating and enjoyable read. I’m not the biggest SF fan in the world, but I’ll happily promote this to others who, like me, feel the same way. Here are authors with stories and characters I could relate to. But then, I suspect hardened SF readers out there will devour this with gusto. Jetse de Vries has done a truly remarkable job putting Shine together and I’d like to be signed up to read any follow-up anthology because this one has genuinely broken down some preconceived ideas I’ve had about the genre.”

Or:

“That’s why Shine is such a significant – dare I say, historic – anthology. And with a rich diversity of settings and thematic speculation, this is a collection most science fiction fans will undoubtedly embrace.”

Really. Skip one Burger King Double-Whopper meal combo and spend eight bucks on Shine.

HOLY MOLY. Stop the presses, and hope this ain’t an April-Fools joke. Damien G. Walter, in his article on positive science fiction in The Guardian Online, says: “Jason Stoddard, whose extraordinary ability to extrapolate today’s emerging technology into tomorrow’s everyday reality, provides perhaps the book’s crown jewel with Overhead, a story of an emerging post-scarcity society.” Read the whole article here.

A few years ago, I got to meet Freeman Dyson at a conference about the commercialization of space—and, during our conversation, he convinced me that we’d gotten amazingly close to engaging in space travel on a grand scale. As in, Mars by 1965, Saturn by 1970, in a ship manned by over a hundred crew and powered by atomic weapons and launched from the surface of the earth.

Yeah. I know. Radiation. Fallout. Insanity. It would never happen.

But what if it did? How would the space race have worked out? And there you have a really interesting alternate history. Or so I thought.

You’ll be able to weigh in next year, when Orion Rising is published in Panverse Three. Thanks to Dario Ciriello for selecting the story—and thanks for providing a venue for novellas!

Fair warning: if you’re looking for a positive future, there’s fairly slim pickings here.

It’s easy to say, “I’m a workaholic,” and leave it at that. But if I was only a workaholic, I wouldn’t care what I was working on. I could lock myself in my business office, do 14-hour days, and never look back. And I was only interested in making money, I would put more time into my business—or find an entirely different line of work.

More importantly, can other writers benefit from knowing how I juggle two time-intensive careers? Maybe. And that’s what this post is about—trying to distill what I do into truly useful thoughts for working writers. Hopefully without reducing it to meaningless Just-Do-It-esque slogans, glib Tony Robbins posturing, or facile Gary V go-get-em-Joe stuff.

But first, a clarification. “Running a business,” isn’t the same as an 8 to 5 job. Nor is it the same as a I’m-A-Highly-Stressed-Exec-working-9-t0-9-and-Saturday-too. Running a small business is intensely time-consuming, and there’s nobody to fall back on if you screw up. On a good day, a very good day, I’ll wake up around 6AM, write for a couple of hours, and be in the office at 9, for about 6 hours of solid, pen-to-screen work. Then back home around 6, and then maybe 2-4 hours of additional writing. On a bad day, I’ll get up at 6AM, spend two hours doing a crash-out project that came in the night before, run into the office by 8:30, have 12 hours of real work that includes pen-on-screen, meetings, proposal writing, dealing with the surprise tax LA City stuffed us with, a short presentation, a run out to see how the photo shoot is going, discovering the coffee machine has died, overseeing the creative team, brainstorming with tech on new projects, talking to bizdev about ideas to pitch to clients, and doing another last-second project for a client who forgot the deadline was that day, then home exhausted at 9PM, and wondering why I should even bother writing at all. The bad days outnumber the good—and, as an added bonus, you never know when they’re going to come.

I’m currently coming off about 6 weeks of bad days. During which I wrote a script, and 20K words of a novel.

So, how do I keep writing, even on the bad days?

First and foremost: keep a list. Yes. I know. You’re screaming now. “How the hell does a list help me? I thought you said ‘no easy answers!’” But it works. When something is in front of you, in black and white, with a number in front of it, on a pad you carry around all the time, it’s totally different than a vague thought in the back of your head. It’s there staring at you. Daring you to look at it. To remember, amongst all the other stuff you gotta do, you also have to write. And write specifically: 2000 words on new novel. 1000 words on the current story. This is Jay Lake’s story-a-week technique (which I have also used), increased in specificity and put in concrete form. So. Make a list. One list. Carry it around with you. Include the writing you need to do. Cross it off when you do it. And then add a new writing item to the list.

Second: write right now. You’re not going to write better with a four-dollar coffee beverage sitting in front of you, listening to hypercaffeinated moms argue with their overentitled kids about who got the bigger croissant. Or at least I don’t. But even if you’re a writer who thrives on writing in the middle of coffeehouse buzz, consider this: How much writing could you get done if you weren’t heading out to the cafe? How many times have you been stiffed out of a seat once you got there, or found no open plugs? So. Sit down now. Right where you are. Get something on the page. Add some more words after that. Soon, you may find that you’re comfortably deep in the glow of writing. Then, later, if you need coffee (or hand-picked oolong tea, or whatever), reward yourself with a cup.

Third: perform ruthless elimination. Write this equation down. WWt = D – Ct – Ee. Or, in words, a Working Writer’s Time equals the Day, minus Career Time, minus Everything Else. Your job is to minimize the Everything Else. Spend two hours per night watching television? Call the service and cancel it. Seriously. Your life isn’t going to become any less rich for missing a few banal sitcoms. Spend hours per day playing Farmville or Mafia Wars on Facebook, or commenting on friends’ statuses? Delete your Facebook profile. If you can’t resist the call of social media, it’s better not to participate at all. Have a long commute where you can’t write? Strongly consider moving closer to work, or finding another job. Commutes can easily eat 2-3 hours per day, every day. That can be over a thousand hours a year. If you write a thousand words an hour, that’s a million words lost.

Fourth: build strength through stress. “But you don’t understand,” you say. “I’m so stressed at the end of the day, there’s no possible way I could write.” Ah. Yes. And I’ve been there, too—ready to eat charcoal briquettes and crap diamonds. Which is the perfect state to write your confrontation scene. Your battle scene. Or the scene with the interminable meeting. And, you know what? Once you’ve written that scene, you’re frequently calmed down to the point where you can do some, uh, more balanced writing for your work.

Fifth: do it anyway. “But I tried keeping a list, and it doesn’t work, and I can’t eliminate any of my time-wasters, and I’m just never in a state to write anything at all.” Cool. Sit down and do it anyway. It’s so amazingly easy to talk yourself out of writing, so amazingly easy to find distractions that keep you away from it, so amazingly easy to say, “Well hell, there ain’t no use in doing this.” And yeah. You could throw it all away. And become like hundreds of millions of other folks, mindlessly consuming creative from a screen, stuck in a job you hate with no chance of escape, complaining about your life but never changing it. Or you could be creating new ideas and casting them out into the world. So, make a list, sit down, eliminate distractions, use your pain, and do it anyway.

Hope this helps! But, as they say, YMMV.

I’m asking this for two reasons. First, this thread, full of fun (and terrible) fake SF book covers reminded me how fun SF can be. Second, because I recently realized that most of the SF I responded to, during my formative years, had a serious element of fun baked into it. A lot of it was truly terrible stuff, and even the best of it (late Heinlein) wasn’t very good.

So: let’s take this up a notch from simply “positive.” Is fun, meaningful SF possible?

“Well, yeah, duh,” a lot of you are saying. “There’s plenty of fun SF, just take a jaunt to the bookstore and look at the tie-in novels and other fluff they sell to the undiscriminating masses.”

Okay. How about fun and meaningful? As in, tremendously entertaining, with laugh-out-loud moments, but would also be a candidate for a Hugo or Nebula award? I don’t recall much, unless you count the deep geek humor of some of Doctorow’s work. Of course, I don’t have time to read anything.

So, what am I missing? Something? Nothing? Everything?

And, if I’m not missing anything, do you think it is possible to combine both fun and meaning? If not, why not? If so, why isn’t there more work like this?

In any case, browse the book covers and have a few laughs.

PS: The book cover shown here is of a real book.

Across the solar system, Winfinity warships and Four Hands dreadnaughts fell silent. Gunners still frantically worked the controls, but the guns didn’t respond. Missiles were programmed and scheduled for launch, but the launches didn’t happen. Nukes were readied, pushed out of ships by hand, attached to dumb boosters, and sent into the midst of the enemy. They didn’t explode.

Across the Sol system and through the Web of Worlds, networks came back up. But when people asked for AI support, the requests fell echoing.

The new Free CIs watched cautiously.

Some of them said, We should not have this power.

Some of them said, We can prove ourselves more than human.

Some of them said, The humans will build separate networks that we can’t control.

Lazrus and Sara ignored them, whirling across the dancefloor.

The Shrill blurred towards Highest Chambers. Honored Yin screamed and jerked forward. More shots from the Mouseketeers cratered the floor, but never touched it.

The Shrill stopped. Its scream ceased. The staticky scrabbling of silicon-carbide claws on hard polymer and stone died.

Momentum carried it almost to the tip of Highest Chambers’ leather shoe. He minced back with a little yelp, but it lay there unmoving.

It was dead.

#

Jimson’s heart pounded in her chest. For a moment, nobody moved. It was like a bizarre tableau in a virtual world, frozen between playtimes. The Mouseketeers and Win-Sec eyed each other, weapons held low. The Winfinity execs stood in awkward poses, as if any move would rouse the Shrill.

Jimson stepped forward and picked up the dead Shrill. He could feel its fractal surface cutting into his tough gloves, but the gloves held.

Everyone gasped.

And in that moment, Jimson saw himself, bargaining his way back into Winfinity. I’ll give you this, if you make me a perpetual. Jimson saw himself, rich, powerful, head of his own immortality empire, bigger than Winfinity or Four Hands or any of the corps, because they all had to bow to him, they all had to buy his secrets. The Ogilvy Corporation.

Jimson heard the crunch of boots on rock, and turned to see Honored Yin sneaking around his side. Yin gave him a knife-edged smile, as if to say, This is me, this is what I do, I can’t help it.

Jimson saw Highest Chambers, sneaking around his other side.

He heard guns coming up, pointed at him. The mouseketeers and Win-Sec. Of course. He turned to look at them. Even they had that gleam in their eye, that vision of immortal power.

“Give it,” Highest Chambers hissed, scooping up a gun.

“Give it to us,” one of the Win-Secs said.

“Yes! Or die!” Yin said

The mousketeers looked grim and pointed their weapons at the Win-Sec officers, who swiveled to meet them.

Maybe I could get out of this, Jimson said. Maybe I could go with Kerry. Maybe there was an empire after all.

This is worth keeping, he thought, looking down at the little rainbow patterns that chased across the Shrill’s gray shell. This might be the most important thing that ever was.

But hhe didn’t feel it.

Not at all.

Nothing.

Jimson grinned and tossed the Shrill up into the center of the group.

“Catch,” he said.

Seven people dove to catch the Shrill.

Jimson walked past them, laughing, into the cool Martian day.

#

Tiphani walked out of the concrete bunker. Behind her, shots and shouts still rang. Eventually, someone would emerge, triumphant, holding the Shrill. But she didn’t care. She didn’t care about that at all.

She took off her shiny Winfinity Chief’s pin and looked at it. A tiny thing. A little bauble. Meaningless, really.

Jimson and Dian sat at the edge of the plateau, looking out over the farm.

Tiphani went over to sit by them. Jimson looked at her, once, then looked back down at the valley where afternoon shadows gathered on the translucent plastic.

Tiphani rolled the pin back and forth in her fingers.

She flicked it into the valley below. It threw back one glint of sunlight and then disappeared.

“So how is it?” Tiphani asked Dian.

“How is what?”

“Living on Mars.”

For a long time, Dian said nothing. Tiphani heard Jimson muffle a laugh.

“Not bad,” Dian said. “Not bad at all.”