Another day, another ray of hope. The weather is a touch gloomy today, but that's all right, some rain will clear the pollen out of the air for a bit. We had some quiet time Friday night--the Internet was out for a good seven hours. My wife and I both picked up a book and spent the evening reading. One unfortunate bit, the TV will no longer connect to our streaming services. Checking online, our accounts are still there, still valid, we can connect through the computers, but the TV just won't access anything. It fires up, can play DVDs, connects to our household LAN, but can't connect to Roku any more. We've tried everything short of a complete factory reset. That may be our next option, however.

I'm told that I will be starting to train some people at work. The company has decided that they want extra testing done and it would be too great an increase in my workload for them to expect me to do all of it. So, they're going to spread the load around a bit. Of course, the best side effect of this will be that several people will be able to do my job once I retire in six months. I was a bit worried that my co-workers would suddenly get thrust into taking over my duties after I'd left. But this way there will be several who will have time to learn all my tips and tricks so they can carry on once I retire. I've even had to review and approve an official job description form for my position. In all the years I've held the job, that paperwork never existed before. My supervisor has been campaigning for months to keep my job from being phased out once I retire. From the job requirements listed in the form I approved, the computer skills I've learned over the years have not gone unnoticed--even though they weren't originally part of the job when I first got it. Part of that may be due to the sizable number of official, ISO-registered forms I created for my previous supervisors. Another part may be my research into parts of the parts of Quality Control that aren't readily apparent to the casual observer. Management saw only the results, not the work that went into making the results possible. Now, they know about all the behind the scenes work that gives them the results they've come to count upon. I can only hope that my successors in the position will find the job easier because of my contributions. 

But that's something that can be tied into any part of life--anyone's life, and even into writing. Once you put enough work into doing something well enough to make it look easy, an outside observer can often overlook said work to focus only on the outcome, rather than the process. Never forget that all the writers we respect and whose work we enjoy were once just starting out, learning everything we are learning now. They walked in the paths we now tread. They broke ground so that we can follow. All the way back to the first campfire storytellers, someone had to lay down the trails that we all follow today. To be a raconteur, a storyteller, we have to understand how people really interact, how tribes and families and civilizations function, the obvious and the hidden motivations that drive people to act a certain way. It's more than daydreaming and typing. Some of it is understanding that the vast, colorful tapestry of life is woven from many individual threads--some bright and colorful and obvious, and some subtle, in the background, out of sight. That can make your characters compelling to the reader--the motivations, all of them, that drive the characters we create to do the things we relate them doing. We don't have to come out and tell the reader that "secretly, George always wanted to be an actor in the grand operatic tradition, but he was never bold enough to pursue it, and that's why his personality is so flamboyant and dramatic." We don't have to tell it, but we do need to know it to write George a certain way, and write him well.

Understand what drives real people to do the things they do, and your written characters come to life before your reader's eyes. If Castro had practiced his baseball pitching more, the entire 20th century history of Cuba would have been different. If Adolph had spent more time developing his painting skills, the modern history of Europe would have been different. If one asteroid had missed hitting Earth 65 million years ago, we'd be descended from dinosaurs instead of mammals. If one little detail had been changed, the entirety of human history would have followed a different path. If paper hadn't been invented, we'd all be stamping our stories in cuneiform into damp mud tablets. Someone's deathless prose would indeed be carved in imperishable stone...

And now, it's time for a change of pace.

The online streaming shows "Stupid O'clock" and "Last Man Standing" have been uploaded live to YouTube as well as several Facebook pages for over two years now. They are basically live-streaming chat shows covering a range of topics, modeled on the types of conversations people have after hours at SF&F conventions. Joe McKeel and I have archives of past shows on our own YouTube channels. Check 'em out if that sounds like something you'd enjoy I've put links in our Features section that will take you to the YouTube archives of both shows.

With all that said, it's high time I shut up and let you get to reading. 

Enjoy yourselves,

Dan