How to Tread Water When You Think You’re Drowning

Posted on January 10, 2024 by John Walters

The last few years have been difficult, haven’t they? They have been for me too. COVID knocked us all for a loop. More than anything the pandemic clarified for us just how vulnerable we all are. Seemingly out of nowhere a deadly disease swept the globe in an incredibly short amount of time. No one was prepared. Our shared incredulity made it possible for the pandemic to kill many people before anyone could formulate any sort of effective response. And once countermeasures were introduced, as barriers were erected to save lives, a vast horde of naysayers (one thinks of them as the monkeys proclaiming “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” with their hands over their eyes, ears, and mouth) refuses to comply, claiming that guidelines to protect people from dying of COVID infringe upon their personal freedoms.

Yes, difficult years indeed. Isolation was difficult; wearing masks was difficult; getting vaccines was not difficult, but it was inconvenient and controversial. And the pandemic is still ongoing; COVID is still mutating into different forms.

COVID is a recent example of a phenomenon that has been ongoing since the dawn of humankind: the universe is out to get us. When we are born, it is up to others to protect us; when we become old enough, we have to fend for ourselves. There’s always something, though: bacteria, viruses, bugs, larger beasts, extreme heat or cold, perilous landscapes, and of course the greatest threat of all: the animosity of selfish or downright evil fellow humans. Face it: your spirit is encased in a disposable vessel; sooner or later your body is going to call it quits. What is annoying, and sometimes frightening, is how often the universe seems to be conspiring to hasten the process. Thus it has been since long before recorded history.

The motivation for this paranoid rant is not directly related to COVID, but to less dangerous but annoying intrusions into my living space of unwanted pests. In the past months two different types of insects have invaded my apartment despite all my efforts at cleanliness and containment. Some went after my food, and some went after me. I won’t go into details; my objective is not a how-to primer on pest control. My point is that these intrusions one after another seem to be getting more and more pervasive. Some experts say they are related to climate change. They are probably not going to stop; they’re probably going to increase. Dealing successfully with one threat does not imply permanent victory and a state of perpetual relaxation; on the contrary, it only means a temporary respite until the next attack.

So how does one cope in the midst of a seemingly malevolent universe? You cling to floats that can keep you from drowning. These floats can be personal: for instance, artistic expressions may allow you to share your thoughts and feelings with others, or actively assisting others may cause you to forget your own grief and tribulations. Alternatively, you may cling to relationships with loved ones to keep you buoyant. Often a combination of both helps the ledger remain more positive than negative.

Regardless of your situation, know this: the others you see around you, even the so-called one percent, the well-known, the glamorous, the wealthy, the ones whose autographs people crave, the ones who can purchase a mansion or a yacht on a whim, the ones who consider themselves qualified to tell others what to do, even the ones who offer counsel and guidance to others: all of these people, every one of them, has their own paranoid delusions and secret sorrows. None are exempt, for such is the human condition.

My conclusion? Well, in part I have written this to expunge my own doubts and fears. I struggle to stay positive at least as much as you do. My conclusion, though, is to reassure you that you are not alone. We are all imperfect. We all have our ups and downs. We all have to struggle to survive. Hang in there. Keep up the fight. If I can manage to keep putting one foot in front of the other, then so can you.

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2023: A Personal Overview; Part Two: Some Stats

Posted on January 6, 2024 by John Walters

I recently finished compiling the statistics of how many original words I wrote in 2023. Every year I keep a small journal with important appointments and so on, and every day in that journal I write down my word count for that day. My personal goal is to write at least five hundred words a day six days a week. (I excuse myself on Friday because of the transition into the weekend. On Monday through Thursday I do other paying freelance work in the mornings and afternoons and then do my creative work in the evenings. On Friday, though, I still do my quick-pay work but then I watch a movie in the evening. On Saturdays and Sundays, when there is less online work to grab, I allow myself the luxury of writing my creative words first thing in the morning. My ultimate goal is to get in a financial position that makes it possible for me to do that every morning. Sigh.

I’m not always able to focus on my five hundred fresh words, though; sometimes other bits of business intrude. For instance, there may be a finished story I need to give a final proof to and then send off. I also published three substantial books in 2023, and I needed to spend some of those evenings finalizing them. This year I also took two weeks off to visit and help take care of my grandson; during this time I did almost no writing work.

I knew, therefore, that my total word count would be lower than in past years, and I was pleased that it came to just over a hundred thousand words: 104,191 to be exact. To put this in perspective, my word total in 2022 was 138,365; in 2021 it was 176,939; and in 2020 it was 158,897. I tend to write more words when I am working on longer works such as novels and novellas; when I am writing short stories I often have gaps of a few days when I finish one and I am coming up with ideas of what to write next.

The point is that the urge to write is always there, and I am never so happy as when the words are flowing and I can maintain production day after day. I have never been able to understand authors who in interviews or essays proclaim that writing is so arduous and difficult. I love writing. I can’t imagine an existence in which I am not a writer. And it’s not like exercising; often I like having exercised – in other words the feeling I get afterwards – but the act of exercising itself is an ordeal. Writing is never like that. I love every aspect of the process: first drafts, revisions, and final proofing.

I have been reading a biography of Tolstoy by A. N. Wilson, and at one point, referring to the early 1850s when Tolstoy had begun composing fiction regularly, Wilson observes: “From now onwards, Tolstoy was a writer: that is, a man whose life is defined by what he is or is not writing.” What was true for Tolstoy back then is true for me now and for everyone else who is dedicated to the art of writing. It doesn’t always bring on a feeling of ecstasy, although sometimes it does, but it is always fulfilling. It is our purpose in life apart from mere existence. As Harlan Ellison put it: “In real life, we are what we do. I’m a writer. That’s what I do. Everything I do in a day is in some way connected to it.”

When you think of it in these terms, a year in which I produce only one hundred thousand original words is a slow year. Still, it is what it is. A lot got accomplished. And my goal for next year? To accomplish much more.

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Book Review:  Harlan Ellison’s Watching by Harlan Ellison

Posted on January 3, 2024 by John Walters

I have been going through some tough times lately and enduring situations that have left me stressed and depressed. In search of reading material to lift my spirits, I picked up this volume that I’d found recently in a used book store. How could a book of reviews of long-gone movies and TV shows from the sixties through the eighties cheer me up? It’s not the specific content; it’s the voice. Let me explain.

Of writers who have influenced me most, Ellison ranks near the top of the list. I’ve told this story before, but it bears repeating in the context of this review.

I first encountered Ellison while taking a course in science fiction literature at the University of Santa Clara. I was having my ups and downs that year, and admittedly all the drugs I was taking contributed to fogging up my thinking. I had no idea what I needed or how to get it. And then in the anthology that was the class text I came to Ellison’s award-winning short story “I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream.” In the parlance of the Bay Area hipsters with whom I hung out, it blew my mind. I had never read anything like it. The dark premise, the visceral intensity, and the gut-punch of an ending illuminated my awareness of what writing could be. In fact, by the time I had finished the tale, I realized, with the shocking blast of a revelation, that I had to become a writer. No other occupation on Earth would do.

Cut to Seattle the following summer. I was getting over being dazed and confused by all the pot and psychedelics I had imbibed at college and wondering what to do next. In the midst of my inner confusion, I read a notice in the paper that Harlan Ellison himself was going to do a reading at a University of Washington auditorium. He started his presentation with a talk; he was a great showman, adlibbing banter and answering questions from the audience. He then had all the lights turned down low except the light on the lectern, and he read his new story “The Whimper of Whipped Dogs,” which was soon to be published in a major anthology. Wow. What an experience.

But that’s not all. I found out that Ellison was there as one of the teachers at the six-week Clarion West Workshop. I enrolled for the following summer, and sure enough, Ellison returned for a week-long stint as a teacher. My desire was to wow him, but I have to admit I didn’t leave much of an impression. After all, I had just turned twenty; I was immature and naive. All I had was a burning desire to write.

I met Harlan one more time after that (all of his students called him Harlan – he appreciated the intimacy). For a short time, before I got out on the road in pursuit of my own unique voice as a writer, left the country, and stayed gone for thirty-five years, I moved to the San Fernando Valley and tried to make it as a scriptwriter. Another Clarion grad who I roomed with for awhile knew Harlan better than I did; in fact, he had stayed with him as a guest. So we went up to Sherman Oaks to the domicile that became known as Ellison Wonderland to meet our former teacher.

I continued to read Harlan’s books from time to time when I could find them. He was amazingly prolific, and though some of his work rises to loftier heights than others, he is always entertaining.

And now we return to Harlan Ellison’s Watching. Most of the material is a compilation of a series of columns on science fiction films and television that he wrote for The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction for several years in the 1980s and, as I mentioned above, there are also pieces from other magazines going back to the mid-sixties. He was a very opinionated man. When he blasts what he considers an inferior piece of filmmaking, you can feel the heat and smell the smoke, and when he admires a film or show he tells you exactly why. He was knowledgeable and erudite and unreservedly honest.

I found that I often do not agree with what he is saying. He’s got his take on things and I have mine. But that doesn’t matter, and it certainly isn’t the point. What’s important is that he’s so damned entertaining that I don’t care what approach he takes. I got a genuine kick out of hearing his voice after so long. Whether you agree with his conclusions or not is irrelevant; he gets you to think, and as a bonus he tells all sorts of fascinating insider stories about the TV and movie business. This is a great book for anyone who aspires to filmmaking or who wants a fresh take on the industry.

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2023: A Personal Overview

Posted on December 30, 2023 by John Walters

What can I say about 2023? It started out with a bang with a great event: I finally got a chance to meet my grandson Charlie. I flew down from Seattle to Los Angeles to spend a couple of weeks in late January and early February with the lad and his parents. The timing was fortuitous; my son was about to start a new remote job, and I was able to get to know my grandson and also free his father to focus on work. Charlie was a few months short of a year old. He and I would sit together and play in his spacious playpen, watch his favorite animated shows, and take long walks with him leading the way in his stroller.

Back at home in Seattle, besides taking on all sorts of remote writing jobs to pay the bills, I continued my literary career. In January, my short story “Exorcism and Other Requests” appeared in the horror anthology Tales of Fear, Superstition, and Doom, and during the summer my story “Dark Mirrors” appeared in the anthology Dragon Gems Summer 2023. “Dark Mirrors,” in fact, is my most oft-reprinted story; it had appeared in several other compilations prior to this one. I was supposed to have had one other original anthology appearance in December. Unfortunately, though, at the last minute the publishers canceled the book and reverted rights to the authors due to financial difficulties. Such are the vagaries of the publishing world.

On the book publishing front, early in the year saw the appearance of Silent Interviews and Other Tales of the Telepathic Guild. The blurb offers a succinct summary: Long have the clandestine members of the Telepathic Guild assisted individuals, corporations, and governments by means of their unique skills. Guild Home functions as a headquarters and a refuge, and its strict regulations foster unity and discipline. In this linked series of stories, a guild member falls in love with an outsider and is faced with a life-changing decision; a group of young people rebel against the guild’s stringent rules; a famous sports star discovers he is telepathic and must choose between his wealth and celebrity status and a chance to change the world; a renegade telepath establishes affinity with a wolf pack in the arctic wastes; a talented telepathic detective attempts to solve a brutal murder at a chaotic science fiction convention. These and other tales explore the fascinating, enigmatic, and often dangerous lives of those who have sacrificed everything to join the guild and use their extraordinary abilities for the betterment of humankind.

During 2023 I also published another compilation of book reviews: Reviews and Reflections on Books, Literature, and Writing: Volume 3. This quote from the introduction sums up the contents: A popular topic in science fiction these days is the multiverse, the concept of an infinite number of parallel worlds. Remember, though, that the multiverse is not as far away as you suppose. Each book that you read takes you into a new universe. When you enter a bookstore or a library you are in the midst of thousands of portals to other worlds. To enter all you have to do is follow the words that the authors have set down to guide you. If they have done their jobs effectively, you find yourself in strange lands and alternate timelines with all sorts of different types of characters. The best part is that you can do it anywhere and anytime. Just open up the door, namely the cover of the book, and dive in. I compile these collections of book reviews to serve as maps leading to wondrous worlds. I wish you joy, amazement, prosperity, fun, and adventure in your explorations.

My final book publication of the year was the collection A Glimpse of the Cosmic Dance and Other Stories. In a world whose inhabitants routinely visit famous historical events, two jaded road-weary tourists take a holiday in an isolated retrograde enclave where time travel is forbidden. Humankind is plunged into chaos as the recently deceased reappear and take up residency in their former homes. As the result of an expensive technique that restores their youthful vigor, wealthy old people gallivant from place to place adventure-seeking and partying. However, their newfound energy comes at a terrible cost. In these and other tales you’ll find heart-pounding excitement, deadly perils, baffling perplexities, complex conundrums, dread mysteries, deceptive hallucinations, fantasy landscapes, far planets, distant futures, evil menaces, and unlikely heroes.

As for 2024, I plan to continue writing the best novels, short stories, memoirs, essays, and other works of which I am capable. I would also, if possible, like to do some traveling. I would definitely like to see my grandson Charlie again, and visit my sons, who have all gone off to far-flung places. I would also like to take a trip to Greece. I lived there for almost two decades, but I haven’t been back since I left eleven years ago. Next year around this time, readers, I’ll let you know what has become of these ambitions. For the moment: Happy New Year! Hang in there. Remember that we all go through tough times, but it is how we react to our circumstances that defines our characters. Take it one step at a time and you’ll get through.

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The Septuagenarian as an Aspiring Artist

Posted on December 27, 2023 by John Walters

I suppose the first item on this essay’s agenda is to explain why I call myself an “aspiring artist” when I have numerous traditional publishing credits and have self-published thirty-five books. Perhaps at least part of the explanation lies in the subtitle I considered but ultimately didn’t use: Why am I not rich and famous? Admittedly the “rich” part of the question is rendered tongue-in-cheek. The majority of writers, even well-known ones, are not rich. Early on, though, in my infatuation with writing, I envisioned myself eventually being able to live in some sort of writer’s mansion such as Jack London’s Wolf House. (Of course even for London this didn’t end well; Wolf House was all but completely built when a fire broke out and burned it down to its stone foundations – a disaster that London never really recovered from.) A more realistic vision of wealth for a writer is found in Inside Michael Swanwick, a book I recently read and reviewed. Swanwick says, “I went into this business with my eyes pretty wide open. Part of my plan was poverty.” And: “Once you decide that you’re not going to live as well as a certified public accountant that makes a lot of things possible! One of the things it makes possible is that you get to write whatever you want. I chose freedom over money.” I choose freedom too, any day. Forget the writer’s mansion. I would be satisfied just to make enough through my writing to eke out a lean living. Even that seems beyond my reach. And as for fame, I’m not talking about world renown, although that would be sweet, but I would appreciate it if at least a modicum of readers were familiar with my work.

So what is behind my profound obscurity? Here are some reasons I have mulled over in my darker moments.

I have no talent. I don’t really take this one seriously. After all, a lot of editors have selected my work to appear in magazines and anthologies and have paid me for it – sometimes just a small amount, and sometimes much more. One story has been reprinted in anthologies several times. Writing of the anthology where it made its first appearance, one reviewer stated that my story alone was worth the price of the book. A filmmaker came across another of my stories and was so impressed he bought short film rights and optioned feature length rights. I know the language and I have the necessary sincerity; when I was young I was so desirous of writing true words that I left everything familiar and set off on the road to discover what life was really all about – so I could write about it.

Editors are undiscerning. I don’t believe this one either. In fact, I respect most of the editors to whom I have submitted work. I have even met several of them at conventions and other events. However, I think sometimes they (or their first readers) are inundated by stories and that good work must sometimes slip under their radars, but that’s not their fault.

Readers are undiscerning. Well, many readers are undiscerning. This is obvious when you consider the quality of a lot of items that make bestseller lists. But in my case, I am not good at self-promotion, and they can’t purchase what they have never heard of.

I took a hiatus that lasted too long. This could be part of the problem. I started writing seriously in the early seventies when I was in my late teens. While I was living overseas, I stopped for a couple of decades. These were the years when my contemporaries were steadily producing and making names for themselves. By the time I resumed and started selling stories, I was almost fifty.

I had no chance to network. My wife and I were raising our family in Greece when I once again took up the writing torch. I knew no other writers in southeastern Europe, let alone Greece. It was even difficult to send my stories to market in the days before electronic submissions. I didn’t attend my first science fiction convention until I moved back to the States when I was almost sixty.

I relied too much on self-publishing for my novels. This is possible. However, as I mentioned above, my isolation in Greece made it initially difficult to submit material to agents and publishers. When we finally got internet and I learned about the phenomenon of self-publishing, it seemed to be a good option for me. My main problem with this, I think, is my aversion to self-promotion.

The publishing universe is capricious and unpredictable. Now we’re getting somewhere. In the ever-changing world of publishing, trends come and go; additionally, magazines and anthologies have limited numbers of openings and many good stories are turned down for lack of space. I’ve had sales, but I’ve also had near misses when editors did not buy stories but told me how much they liked them.

Every person’s path is different and this precise spot is where my destiny has led me. I have met a lot of other writers who produce excellent work but, like me, remain largely unrecognized. These things happen. Who knows why? But that’s the reason that in my seventies I am still an aspiring writer. I am continually writing and sending out stories and publishing books. I have occasional victories and frequent setbacks. You have to have thick skin in the writing game; you have to be able to persevere in the face of rejection. And it hurts, let me tell you. Every time. I suppose there is no culmination, really, this side of death. I can’t imagine retirement from something I love so much. So I keep going, hoping for more, hoping for better, hoping to break through to a wider audience. Onward!

I’m a professional writer; I make my living by my words.  I’m happy to share these essays with you, but at the same time, financial support makes the words possible.  If you’d like to become a patron of the arts and support my work, buy a few of my available books or available stories, or support me on Patreon.  Heads Up: I haven’t been keeping up with my Patreon posts recently – if you head over there it should be for purely philanthropic motives.) Thanks!

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Book Review:  Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon by Michael Lewis

Posted on December 23, 2023 by John Walters

The trial of Sam Bankman-Fried has been a hot topic in the news recently. He is the founder of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX and in 2022 made Forbes’s list as one of the richest Americans. All that changed in late 2022 when FTX abruptly became bankrupt and Bankman-Fried was arrested on multiple charges including money laundering, violations of campaign finance laws, and securities, commodities, and wire fraud. At a trail in late 2023 he was convicted on all counts and now awaits sentencing.

Going Infinite follows Bankman-Fried’s early life, the founding of FTX, its rise as a cryptocurrency power, and the collapse and fall of the company and its employees. It ends with Sam’s arrest and the initiation of bankruptcy proceedings against FTX. As I finished reading it, I wished that Lewis had held off publishing it for another year and a half or so; he could have included details about Sam’s trial. Anyway, it is what it is: a fascinating look at an idiosyncratic character working in the bizarre, quirky, otherworldly realm of cryptocurrency.

I picked up the book because I was interested in learning something about the phenomenon of cryptocurrency and its iterations such as Bitcoin. However, Lewis makes it clear early on that cryptocurrency is a complex topic and he does not intend to delve into a detailed explanation of it. By that time, though, I was already hooked on the story of Sam and the rise and fall of FTX.

From the beginning, Lewis presents Sam as an incredibly rude, self-centered, and antisocial person who played video games while on important calls and ignored scheduled meetings and appearances at whim. Everywhere he went, even to business events and introductions to celebrities, he wore the same outfit of rumpled tee-shirt, cargo pants, and baggy socks. His professed attitudes towards art and literature displayed a very shallow, immature mindset. Although he was in his late twenties when he founded FTX, he considered people with adult perspectives to be “grown-ups,” and did not trust them. As Lewis writes: “The truth was that grown-ups bored him. All they did was slow him down.”

Early in his financial career, Sam became interested in Peter Singer and effective altruism, which involves following a career path that will enable the maximum benefit to others. This often means pursuing the accumulation of significant wealth that can then be given away to good causes. However, Lewis clarifies that in Sam’s circle at least, the calculation of which effective altruistic causes to support became a sort of “gonzo science fiction.” As Lewis explains, “One day some historian of effective altruism will marvel at how easily it transformed itself. It turned its back on living people without bloodshed or even, really, much shouting.” He continues: “What mattered was the math. Effective altruism never got its emotional charge from the places that charged ordinary philanthropy. It was always fueled by a cool lust for the most logical way to lead a good life.” Effective altruists, in other words, ignored, say, the plight of starving children to focus on ephemeral existential threats such as pandemics, nuclear warfare, and artificial intelligence.

Sam handled his philanthropy, political donations, and decisions concerning the running of FTX the same way he handled every aspect of his life: as a sort of elaborate video game. No one questioned his high IQ, but his employees described him as remote, uncommunicative, and unemotional. In fact, early on, when he realized that sometimes it was important that he should make a good impression, he had to consciously train his facial muscles to emote – otherwise he maintained a perplexingly blank expression at all times.

What is amazing is not that people like Sam exist, but rather that a sociopath like Sam should somehow accumulate such a vast fortune and that so many intelligent people could be persuaded to work for him at a dysfunctional company such as FTX. The entire unlikely story is like a wild rollercoaster ride, as its characters first climb the steep slope to wealth and popularity and then plunge down into the abyss of bankruptcy and censure. It’s a fascinating true tale. This book is well-written and I recommend it.

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Triumphs in the Creative Life

Posted on December 20, 2023 by John Walters

Recently I wrote an essay called “Setbacks in the Creative Life.” It was a reaction to a publisher deciding to cancel an upcoming anthology to which I’d sold a story. It focused on the necessity of putting aside the many disappointments common to writers and other creators and continuing to move forward with resolve, persistence, and courage. I think it only apt, then, to balance that tough-love essay with one that emphasizes the exhilaration of triumph rather than the disappointment of rejection.

I was living in Greece when after a hiatus of decades I began to write and send out stories to science fiction and fantasy markets. It was all done via paper mailings in those days, so every story had to be printed out and sealed in a manila envelope. Since I couldn’t get stamps to affix to the self-addressed return envelopes, I had to find and insert international reply coupons; not every post office had them, so I had to scour the city of Thessaloniki. Sometimes in the beginning I despaired of ever getting published as rejection slip after rejection slip poured in. This is where persistence helps. You’re starting from a position of being absolutely unknown, and you have to keep sending out stories until an editor takes the bait. During this period I longed for a sale – any sale – and finally it came.

My initial sales were to two Australian science fiction magazines. The first, “Clear Shining After Rain,” was to Altair, which paid well for the standards of the times; in fact, it qualified as a professional sale so that I was later able to use it as a credit to join Science Fiction Writers of America. What a thrill when I received that acceptance and check! I had five sons by then, and I celebrated by going out and buying an abundance of ice cream for everyone. My second sale was a fantasy called “War Horse” to Harbinger: Australian Magazine of Speculative Fiction. What made this sale especially thrilling is that the editor called out of the blue, from Australia to Greece, to let me know he was buying the story. It was also wonderful, of course, to receive my author’s copies of the magazines.

Other sales followed, along with many, many rejections. My advice is that you put the rejections out of your mind as quickly as possible; just accept them as part of the cost of doing business. Focus on the good stuff. It will come if you are patient and persistent. Trust me. And pay attention when editors write personal notes. Once, for instance, I sent out what I considered one of my best stories, “Dark Mirrors,” to an anthology called Warrior Wisewoman, which featured strong female protagonists. The editor liked the story but said she didn’t have room to include it, and she asked me to resubmit it during her next call for stories. I did, and she bought it, and it appeared in Warrior Wisewoman 3. After that, two other important hardcover anthologies picked it up as well.

Another amazing out-of-the-blue event occurred when I was still living in Greece. By this time I had begun self-publishing some of my books and stories. A filmmaker in Los Angeles emailed me and said he had really liked one of my stories and he was interested in making it into a short film. Various personal concerns caused him to delay the project, but about a decade or so later, after I had moved back to the States, he sent me a contract, purchased short film rights, and also optioned rights for feature length.

These are just a few of the success stories I could tell you to offset the setback stories in the previous essay. One thing I would like to emphasize is this: the only way you are going to sell your stories or novels or nonfiction pieces is to put them out there. Often it has happened that I struggled to sell the stories I had thought were my best, while some of the stories I weren’t so sure about sold faster. It doesn’t always come down to what stories you subjectively like, but rather which stories suit the editor’s needs or fit an anthology’s theme.

I still struggle to sell my stories, sure, as do most of you other writers out there. Expressing ourselves through the act of creation offers its own rewards, of course, but there’s nothing quite like that sweet thrill of triumph when you make a sale.

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A Christmas Gift for My Blog Followers

Posted on December 16, 2023 by John Walters

As a Christmas gift to readers, I have enrolled electronic editions of some of my books and stories in the Smashwords End of Year Sale, which runs through January 1st. Complete books are half price, marked down from $3.99 to $1.99. Short stories and mini-collections of essays and memoirs are available to download for free. Take advantage of this sale to stock up on some great reading material.

If the discount price does not appear on my profile page, click on the link to the specific book you are interested in and you’ll see the deal.

Smashwords was the digital distributor I used when I first became involved in electronic publishing, and when I later switched to another distributor, I left numerous editions of my early works in the Smashwords catalog. You can find a complete listing at my author’s profile here.

Among the books available at a half-price discount are my memoirs World Without Pain: The Story of a Search, After the Rosy-Fingered Dawn: A Memoir of Greece, and America Redux: Impressions of the United States After Thirty-Five Years Abroad; the novels Love Children, The Misadventures of Mama Kitchen, and Sunflower; the collections The Dragon Ticket and Other Stories, Painsharing and Other Stories, Dark Mirrors: Dystopian Tales, and Opting Out and Other Departures; and the essay collection Reviews and Reflections on Books, Literature, and Writing.

The stories available for free include some of my personal favorites such as “Dark Mirrors,” “The Customs Shed,” “Life After Walden,” and “Noah and the Fireflood.”

So head on over to Smashwords and pick up some thrilling and thoughtful novels, short stories, memoirs, and essays at deep discounts and even free. Merry Christmas!

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Setbacks in the Creative Life

Posted on December 13, 2023 by John Walters

For almost a year I have been looking forward to the December publication of an anthology with one of my stories in it. Some stories I write just for fun, but this one was particularly important to me. It fit the theme of the anthology so well that I had a strong premonition it would be accepted before I received the thumbs-up from the editor. Besides that, times are lean and I anticipated the extra income. Today, just a week or two before the book was supposed to be published, I got an email from the editor saying that due to insufficient financing the anthology was cancelled. An apology was proffered, of course, but… I really wanted this one. Still, what could I do? Well, what I did was immediately search for another possible market and send the story out right away again. But it hurt.

This is not the first time I have been disappointed by a futile acceptance. About four or five years ago I sold a dark murder mystery to a mystery magazine. It was an anomaly for me because I usually write science fiction and fantasy. The editor explained with the acceptance that he was purchasing stories for issues far into the future and I’d have to be patient. Over two years passed. I would query the editor from time to time and he was always polite but vague as to when the story might appear. Finally he scheduled it for a specific issue. However, one month before that magazine was supposed to come out, he unexpectedly died. The editor that succeeded him decided not to use the story and returned the rights to me.

And that’s not all. At least two or three other times I have sold stories to magazines only to see the magazines get discontinued before my stories appeared in print.

These occasions are particularly painful because what looks like sure victory becomes agonizing defeat. It’s far worse than standard rejections. Hell, almost every writer compiles a stack of rejections on their way to breaking into print. Before the days of ubiquitous digital submissions, I accumulated multiple manila envelopes-full of paper rejections. When you add them all up, paper and digital, I have received thousands of rejections. Sometimes editors take the time to write nice encouraging notes, but most of the time they are form rejections. Like the boxer in the Simon and Garfunkel song, I bear a mark on my psyche for every one of them, but I have no choice but to fight on. Quitting is not even in the realm of possibility. This is my life. This is who I am. I’d rather go down wounded and bloody, struggling to the last for every inch of progress, than give up.

After all, where would quitting get me? I am once again reminded of one of the classic examples of literary despair, the case of John Kennedy Toole and his novel A Confederacy of Dunces. In the face of rejection after rejection, Toole took his own life at the age of 31. Years later, his mother managed to get the unpublished manuscript into the hands of the novelist Walker Percy, who helped in getting the book published. It went on to win the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1981. If Toole had only held on a little longer…

That’s the message of this essay if you are a writer or any other sort of creative person: hang on. Don’t give up. Never surrender. Keep fighting. Yes, you are going to feel the pain of rejection – probably not just occasionally but a lot. You have to accept it as part of the lifestyle. When you get figuratively punched in the face, spit out the blood, smile through the tears, and persevere. The alternative is intolerable.

And here’s the best part: if you keep at it you won’t always suffer defeat; you’ll have victories too. Let me tell you, those triumphs after hard-fought battles are sweet. They really do make it all worthwhile. But even if they are few and far between, maintaining your integrity and your vision is a victory in itself. As Walt Whitman proclaimed in “Song of the Open Road”:

Whoever denies me it shall not trouble me,

Whoever accepts me he or she shall be blessed and shall bless me.

Carry on knowing that you are doing what you are destined to do. How people react to what you have created is their business. Yours is to continue to share your voice with those who will listen.

I’m a professional writer; I make my living by my words.  I’m happy to share these essays with you, but at the same time, financial support makes the words possible.  If you’d like to become a patron of the arts and support my work, buy a few of my available books or available stories, or support me on Patreon.  Heads Up: I haven’t been keeping up with my Patreon posts recently – if you head over there it should be for purely philanthropic motives.) Thanks!

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Book Review: The Best Science Fiction of the Year: Volume 7 Edited by Neil Clarke

Posted on December 9, 2023 by John Walters

The first thing that appealed to me about this substantial six hundred page collection of science fiction stories is that it is ensconced in a well-bound book with an easy to read font. Much as I enjoyed the late Gardner Dozois’s best of the year volumes, they were often difficult to read because of the miniscule print. Speaking of Dozois, Clarke follows his practice of offering in the introduction a helpful synopsis of the year in science fiction publishing.

This volume includes Clarke’s picks of the best stories published in 2021. This was in the midst of the pandemic, of course, and some of the stories deal with this theme. Several others focus on artificial intelligence, another hot topic in recent years.

One of my favorite stories is “Vaccine Season” by Hannu Rajaniemi, in which a young man travels to a remote island to try to convince his traditional grandfather to get vaccinated against the current deadly plagues. It is a story focused on character but also on its near-future predictions, and its overall excellence served as a reminder of why I delve into anthologies like this: to find such brilliant gems. Another excellent story is “Hanai” by Gregory Norman Bossert; Hawaii has become an independent nation, and the last member of an all-but-extinct alien race goes there to perform his dying dance. “A Rocket for Demetrios” by Ray Nayler proposes a fascinating alternate history in which the United States discovered an alien spacecraft just before World War II and used its technology to achieve global dominance. And “Bots of the Lost Ark” by Suzanne Palmer is a light-hearted tale of sentient robots aboard an intergalactic spacecraft that thwart evil and save the resident humans.

As I said, several of the stories deal with AI. In fact, the first three stories in the book, “Muallim” by Ray Nayler, “Dark Waters Still Flow” by Alice Towey, and “Proof by Induction” by Jose Pablo Iriarte all consider this subject in interesting ways. One of the book’s strengths is its inclusion of stories by international authors, including some translated from Chinese by well-know authors from China.

When I approach a book like this, I realize that Clarke’s tastes in fiction will not precisely match my own and that I will undoubtedly appreciate some stories more than others – and so it has come to pass. Overall, though, it is a strong selection; there were only a few tales that I couldn’t get into and didn’t finish. That’s a good percentage for a lengthy collection like this. Besides, your tastes may not match mine. Who knows? The ones I couldn’t wrap my mind around might turn out to be among your favorites. Overall the stories are absorbing and strong, and there’s enough variety so that you’re bound to find some that will hit you just right and will cause you to exclaim: “Yes, that’s it. This is why I read science fiction.”

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