What are we made of? And where did it come from?

Do you ever ask yourself questions like this?

Our bodies contain Carbon, certainly, with oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium, phosphorous, potassium, magnesium, sodium, sulphur, and chlorine, and traces of other things.

With the exception of the hydrogen—which was created after the big bang—pretty much everything else was forged in the nuclear fusion furnace at the core of a star. Yes, we’re made of “stardust”. In fact, most of what we see was at some point forged in the core of a star. Stars fuse hydrogen to helium and helium to carbon and so forth, as they age.

Some fusion reactions (the heavier elements especially) don’t produce much energy, or even absorb energy. As this happens to a larger extent (based on the fuel available to the star), we see the stars aging, going from a blue or white or yellow color to red and, growing in size. Eventually, they collapse, and either become a white dwarf—for a while, then fade to a brown dwarf—or they explode, spreading stardust across the galaxy, which is eventually reformed into planets and stars and moons and people. We’re a part of the cycle of life for energy and matter.

Really large stars can become neutron stars or black holes.

We’re all also energy, since matter and energy are different forms of the same thing. In another perspective we’re a kind of wave in the energy, a part of time-space. Why and how is a question for philosophers, but the universe is certainly interesting.

Things to think about while you’re trying to sleep . . .

I’m working on this second volume, a bit every day now. The plot for all three volumes (one story) has been in my head since 2012, when I first wrote the draft of Volume 1: The Balance.

Part 2 picks up the saga about 5 years after the end of volume 1. The is set in a post apocalyptic, dystopian world. Prior to a nuclear war that killed almost the entire global population, two organizations—one an ecumenical council formed when three monotheistic religions (Christianity, Islam, and Judaism) created a hierarchy called The Council of God, intent on trying to stop the war that everyone saw coming.

The second group (The Order) was created when the head of a global multinational corporation, based in science and engineering, decided to embark on a dual path to preserve humanity. This leader created living time capsules, called sanctuaries, and distributed these underground facilities globally, hoping some would survive. The Order also began a set of genetic engineering programs with the objective of improving the human design, such that war would eventually be deemed impossible. These programs hoped to develop characteristics in foresight, empathy, longevity and health along three base programs, ultimately these would be combined and then injected back into the general population. The overall project was called: ‘Future Man’.

The Balance volume 1 begins about 200 years after the nuclear war and 17 years after a natural catastrophe almost destroyed what remained of the survivors of the war. The Order has been driven out by the Council, which has banned most technology, and the remnants of the Order, including one of the products of the ‘Sensitives’ program is surviving in a Council city by hiding her true nature.

First, let me say that I receive and have received no consideration for my comments on the things I review. I do this because I want to.

I received my electric bicycle from the Electric Bike Company (Newport CA) about a week ago. I set it up quickly (it was already assembled) and have been out on a few test rides since.

My objective here is to use a bicycle as a part of my knee exercise. Unfortunately, the condition of my worst knee and the steepness of the hills near my house make it difficult to do with a traditional bike. An electric bicycle provides assistance as you pedal, and in the case of the model I have also allows for the bike to move with the motor only (if needed).

I’ve been playing with the setting (from 1 to 5) under different conditions. Of course downhill requires no pedaling and no motor, but uphill varies. Right now, I’m using 4 or 5 for all uphills (I re-injured my knee in October, while boarding a train in Paris bound for Provence). I was in Provence to research a book I plan to publish in 2020.

The motor provides an excellent boost (as needed) and saves my knee from being over-stressed. The hand throttle is very useful to get going if the bike (which weighs over 70 pounds) when I’m facing uphill. It takes a crank or two of the pedal for the assist to kick in.

I bought THIS bike based on the design and the quality of the parts. I added the extra large battery and plan to test its capacity this coming summer. The battery has a built in charger with a plug that can be extended to plug in anywhere with 110V AC power. This is convenient if you’re out and your battery runs low. On flat ground (something we don’t have) and with pedaling the battery I have should be able to get 100 miles from the battery (of course how you use it affects this). I should add that my testing to date has been limited by snow and ice. One thing I’ve found is that the company has been willing to reach out and help me through their chat system and have been very patient, even when I made an obvious mistake. I chatted mostly with Sean.

The bike has a basket to carry things and is configured as a beach cruiser, with wide handlebars (needed in the mountains). I bought the step-through model (again to save stress for my knees).

Overall, thus far, I’m very pleased with the bike.

I’ll update this ongoing review as I put the bike to use more.

I tore the ACL in my right knee in 1979. With extreme PT I was able to avoid surgery (my hamstrings and quads were about equal strength after training, and that held my knee together, through 4 years of Karate training and even competitions). So, for forty years I got by without an ACL, although I’ve injured the knee a couple more times and have now developed some osteoarthritis in it.

I ordered an electric bike from The Electric Bike Company (Newport, CA) yesterday evening. I researched the different models and this one seemed to match my objectives. I like the design and I also ordered the step-through, just in case my ability to mount the bike is compromised in the future.

My overall knee strategy is to delay surgery as long as is practical, but without giving up being active outdoors. The hills around here are a bit steep for my knees using a regular bike, but the electric bike can ‘subsidize’ my riding. And, keeping the knees moving well (without impact) is also good for them—light exercise. I should be able to ride to the Springs, or to Divide, or even Cripple Creek—we’ll see—and maybe even scale Pike’s Peak.

The battery boasts a range of about 100 miles (flat terrain), so I should be able to get decent range out of the bike, and it even allows you to stop pedaling altogether (if the knee hurts too much). It’s programmable as a stage 1, 2, or 3 bike (important, if you want to use bike paths in towns that do not allow stage 3 bikes on bike paths)

The bike is heavy (at about 70 pounds) but the motor makes up for that.

Enough advertisement for this bike. I’ll review it after I’ve had a chance to ride it some. By the way, I am not actually advertising, just sharing, and I receive nothing for discussing products I use.

I’m slowly (now and then) writing bits and pieces of this second part of The Balance. The book will have several threads (I haven’t decided precisely how many yet), and the way I’m writing makes it almost feel as though I’m creating more than one book at a time.

I’m moving from thread to thread to try to keep the context and time sequences more-or-less up to date, although I’m writing each thread in its own file. What I’ll do is to group the chapters and break them into segments, hopefully enough to keep the pace high, but not so disjointed that the reader loses track of the overall picture. It’s a challenge, and so it’s interesting.

I took a year off—and did not publish a book in 2018, although I did write a few short stories, two of which are prequels to what will be the book following The Balance—Disobedience (a supernatural thriller). I had posted a rough sort of short story (one of the two) called “Trampling on the Blood of My Enemies” (which may still be hanging around), although I think I’ll unpublish it for now and release it (for free) just before launching the book, sometime in 2020.

I’ve been coming to Europe about every other year (for pleasure) since around 2002, and every year before that (for work), but the way I travel has been changed. This year I am researching a novel, and so spent 6 weeks in Provence France, where some of the chapters take place—I believe in being as accurate as I can when writing. I’m also spending 6-weeks in Italy, to visit friends.

To make the travel easier—town to town—I used the high speed train in France (TGV) and the high speed Italian train (Frecciarossa). I use an airline travel card for most of my purchases, one that gives me miles for every dollar I spend on United AL. I tried a generic miles card, but not all miles are equal and I suspect the loyalty cards are more effective overall. This is the fourth trip I’ve made using ,miles for my ticket, and more than half of the trips have been in business class.

For accommodation, I’ve used a series of AirBnB whole apartments that are centrally located, less expensive than a hotel, and both more comfortable and with a kitchen and laundry, to save food expenses. AirBnB was used for more than 3 days and I’ve used Booking.com to find good deals for the few short visits. Travel need not be expensive.

Fiction by Michael Selden (Science Fiction, General Fiction, Genre Fiction)

After spending a few hours with Frédéric Paul, I’ve chosen (at least) the neighborhood where the main character from Disobedience lived for several years. Since the character does not age, he will need to move now and then. I’ve also decided on a few of the places where he will have worked during that period.

I think I can describe the city now, how it started and evolved, especially from 1920 to 1939, and what life probably was like. I think, because of the character’s inability to age naturally, he will spend some years in Avignon, too and then—perhaps—return to Aix.

In 1934 and afterward, the political environment here changed, as it did in much of Europe. By 1939, I think many people expected another war, and that would have been the signal fro the main character to leave for the US—a place he had never been. I call him John in the prequel short, but he had many names.

This is my last weekend here in Aix before I leave for Avignon. I’ll be there for about 11 days and then in Nie for a few days before going to Italy. Then I’ll spend the holidays, until January 9th, visiting friends in different parts of Italy, mostly Matera, Rome, and Camerino.

Après avoir passé quelques heures avec Frédéric Paul, j’ai choisi (au moins) le quartier où le personnage principal de Disobedience a vécu plusieurs années. Puisque le personnage ne vieillit pas, il devra bouger de temps en temps. J’ai également choisi quelques endroits où il aura travaillé pendant cette période.

Je pense que je peux maintenant décrire la ville, comment elle a commencé et évolué, en particulier de 1920 à 1939, et à quoi ressemblait probablement la vie. Je pense que, du fait de l’incapacité du personnage à vieillir naturellement, il passera également quelques années à Avignon puis, peut-être, à Aix.

En 1934 et après, l’environnement politique a changé ici, comme dans beaucoup de pays européens. En 1939, beaucoup de gens s’attendaient à une autre guerre, ce qui aurait incité le personnage principal à partir pour les États-Unis, un endroit où il ne s’était jamais rendu. Je l’appelle John dans le préquelet, mais il avait beaucoup de noms.

C’est mon dernier week-end ici à Aix avant de partir pour Avignon. Je serai là pendant environ 11 jours, puis quelques jours à Nie avant de me rendre en Italie. Ensuite, je passerai les vacances, jusqu’au 9 janvier, à rendre visite à des amis dans différentes régions d’Italie, p

Always something interesting here in southern France (I’ve been in the town of Aix for over 3 weeks and have another five days to go before I move to he town of Avignon)—always something new to learn.

I’ve been researching the town for the book, Disobedience.

In the meantime, I’ve put together the final touches on the draft version (still a bit rough) of a chapter for “The Wastelands and the Wilderness” (Which is Part 2 of The Balance).

The period of history I am looking at in Aix is from 1920 to 1939. The character, John, moved to Aix from Italy in 1920 and left Europe as WW-2 was starting in 1939.

My research is being conducted in layers. First I identify interesting years from events that happened and then I drill down into what was happening during the month or months while these events happen.  I will include some of this in the novel as John goes about his life in Aix.

Some Interesting photos from then and now:

This is going to be a bit of a stream of consciousness log

Ive been in Aix now for about a week (out of 6 weeks planned).  When I was getting on the train from Paris to Aix, something popped in my knee. Upon reaching Aix, I went to  pharmacy and got a pair of crutches—people were very helpful—and my knee is doing a little bit better each day, although for safety I still take use  crutch when walking.

I’m renting an apartment through AirBNB. The apartment is ideally located and quite functional, with a small kitchen area, including a washing machine. I rented the place for a month, and will travel to Avignon next, where I also rented an apartment.

I did buy a one-month membership at a gym here in Aix. It cost me 99 Euros, although I could have paid 15 Euros per visit instead. Lifting weights is a part of my overall health regime, although I don’t exercise as often as I should. I am using the “Loft” gym. The owner is clearly a bodybuilder.

I’ve noticed how much faster the battery of my phone drains here in either Aix and in Paris. I attribute it to a couple of things: 1) I use location services more and it uses power, too; 2) the phone struggles to find and keep connections more, either because the cell towers are farther apart or because the stone buildings block the signal more——or both.

At home, I can go 2 days before the phone’s battery level even get’s close to 60%. Here, I need to plug the phone in to keep the charge above 55 or 60% after just a half day.
It’s easy to switch your phone to local number, just find a service provider and buy a prepaid SIM card with the data and minutes you’ll need. I bought what was considered a 2-week card (although he card is good for 6 months) with 1000 minutes of talk time and 10GB of data for about 44 Euros from Orange (one of the largest providers in France). If I run out of data (I never use many minutes) then I can recharge it.

Getting a local SIM is much more efficient than using your US number. I will probably get a new card when I go to Italy (as usually do).You just pop the card in your phone out and insert the new one and Tah-dah you’re in business.
I use Watts Up and I also have an app that makes my phone an extension of my Vonage VOIP phone in the US, so calls (minutes) are free, but I need the data for when I am not near a free WIFI signal. I also use an encrypted VPN when using WIFI to keep my traffic secure.

To navigate the streets, I use Mapme (or is it mapsme). You download maps in advance so the system does not depend on having a signal while you’re walking, and it’s pretty good.

An update on the whole Orange Tourist phone thing (Nov 1, 2018):

I was very careful to only sparingly use data (I used 1GB in 2 weeks and zero minutes taking), but the service expired in 2 weeks nonetheless. I Tried to recharge the phone at an Orange office in Aix, but the man there said he could not help me “Pas ici”—this despite the Orange web site (topup.orange.com) saying that’s where I should go.  I did manage to recharge it for 2 weeks 5GB and 500 minutes for 21+ Euros (with tax).

It was a frustrating morning, and I did use as much French at the Orange office as I could, even arguing (slightly) with the man in French, but my sense is that he simply did not want to help. I suggest not counting on the Orange office in Aix.

I am traveling in Aix-en-Provence, doing research for the book, “Disobedience”. I had a small accident while taking the train from Paris and am using crutches to get around. I hope the injury isn’t too bad.

Aix is a town formed under the Romans and has been an important part of the region for a long time. Specifically, I am reseraching the period between 1920 and 1939—after the fascists took root in Italy but before World War 2 started.The character John (or Jaques) fled Italy to escape the Fascists and then anticipated the war. In 1939 he escaped to America, Boston.

I will be in Aix for about a month and then in Avignon for another couple of weeks beforewrapping up the research.

I used Google’s Translate for the following, although I am trying to learn French, too.

Je me rends à Aix-en-Provence pour effectuer des recherches sur le livre “Disobedience”. J’ai eu un petit accident alors que je prenais le train depuis Paris et que j’utilise des béquilles pour me déplacer. J’espère que la blessure n’est pas trop grave.

Aix est une ville formée sous les Romains et constitue depuis longtemps une partie importante de la région. Plus précisément, je réserve la période comprise entre 1920 et 1939, après l’enracinement des fascistes en Italie, mais avant le début de la Seconde Guerre mondiale. Le personnage John (ou Jaques) a fui l’Italie pour fuir les fascistes, puis a anticipé la guerre. En 1939, il s’échappe en Amérique, à Boston.

Je serai à Aix pendant environ un mois, puis à Avignon pendant deux semaines pour conclure les recherches.

Earlier this year—in fact around June, or so, I made a couple of changes to The Balance.

— The first was to simplify the cover art, removing the twin faces—Phoebe and Rebecca, as well as the symbol on the back cover.

— The second was to remove the Introduction (entitled “What Came Before”) from the book. My sense was that people seeing an introduction might well be turned off from reading. I still think the intro has value—it tells what happened 200 years before to change the world, and what happened about 17 and a half years before to trigger the story. While most of what was revealed in the intro is also available in the book, it’s scattered and IMO summarized knowledge of history helps to bring the reader into the story faster. None the less, I asked a few readers who thought that it might be an obstacle for some, so it has been removed. However, I will post a link to the original intro here in this post, so readers CAN access it, if desired.

Introduction—What Came Before  (This is a link to a pdf document page)

What did the Shire, from the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings, look like? If you’ve seen the movie then you’ve seen one interpretation, but I wasn’t referring to the movie—I meant the books. To me, writing and reading is a kind of collaboration.

There isn’t just one version of a story, but almost as many as there are readers + the writer(s). We each have a picture of what we see in our minds, an image of the characters, and even a kind of physical performance (virtual) of every scene. I know what the Shire looks like to me. I know what Mordor looks like, as well as the Glittering Caves of Aglarond (something you didn’t get to see in the movies). Of course a film HAS to make compromises, or it would cost an infinite sum to build the sets, and the movie would stretch out in time.

I also know what the town of Bosworth looks like to me, and the observatory in I Am, the forest and plains in The Boy Who Ran, and just about every part of The Land from The Balance. I saw them as I was writing, just as I watched the Boy running through the forest and along the branches of its trees. When I wrote the scene in Bosworth where the spirit of the murdered girl visits Jim in his bedroom, I wrote it in a dark house, with just my Mac Air on—that made it all the more easy to write, and to see. Writers and readers share a special bond—a partnership—in the real-time play that happens in our minds when we read.

It’s a bond writers should never take for granted, because if it isn’t clear for you when you’re writing the scene then it probably won’t spark that special feeling in the reader.

I actually like doing research for a book. I get to learn new things, experience new adventures, maybe learn something more about another language. It’s all good, and it’s all a part of making sure the world you create for your characters is real—authentic. I’ve been researching one book (Disobedience) for some time. I studied the city of Rome the changes in Rome from 1880 to 1920, and this year I’ll be studying the region of southern France, in particular Aix en Provence and Avignon.

It isn’t enough to read, and certainly not enough to look at web sites. You need to get to know the places where your characters will walk, and the things your characters do. You need to make the experience of a place seem real, and if the place and the experiences seem real and your characters are compelling then the story seems real, too. For Bosworth, as much to add realism as anything else, I used the actual weather, sun and moon positions and so forth for each day—hour by hour—taken from weather history near the coordinates I’d assigned for the fictional town.

Remember: fiction is by its nature a lie, and people know this. The key is making your lie seem real—in some ways more real than “normal” life. The characters in your books should seem real to you, too.

Book Awards.  I think they serve a purpose, but like so many things in the “business” they can sometimes become a purpose of their own, and they may not achieve the goals we all expect. Still, if your book wasn’t published through one of the big five the American Librarian’s Assoc. seems to pretend you don’t exist, so the normal channels of getting visibility for a new book are limited. There are marketeers and others who pretend that they can help, but—in the end, and even if you’ve written a good book—you cannot expect visibility, and you can’t buy your way to writing success. It’s mainly luck meeting preparation and quality, but that magic touch of luck is more important than quality.

The book business has historically used a combination of agents and editors and publishing managers to separate the chaff from the wheat, and it has worked well for a while, but the publishing model has changed as technology changed and it is no longer an overwhelmingly expensive proposition to publish a good book.  You still need editors—developmental, copy, proof—and you still need designers and artists (at least for the print editions), but the printing and binding cost to print a single copy, or a few copies, is now manageable, and ebooks have no printing cost. That means the publishers and agents and editorial filters have been losing their unique position. But they are reluctant to give up power, as are those who have long fed on the industry.

This leave few alternatives for new micro-publishers and writers who are unwilling to surrender artistic control for the “privilege” of publishing their books. The ALA helps the big 5 maintain their stranglehold, mainly (I think) because they have no way to deal with the deluge of books, many of which have not benefitted from someone who can actually write, nor editors and so forth (simply being cheap to “print” doesn’t make every book a readable book). I understand their pain. I often have difficulty myself in choosing a new book to read—I’ve gotten picky in my old age, and am unwilling to waste my precious time and life reading crap.  But that does not solve the problem, because crap comes from a myriad of places, including the big 5.

I saw book awards as ONE potential way to help me (as an author) help readers choose non-crap books. I know that I have (in the past) used the ALA awards to help me decide which books were worth my time, and I want to have access to authors not choosing to submit themselves to the endless chain of filters. I think the awards are, in fact, useful for this, although there are awards and there are awards. The trick is: how do we know which ones are worth out effort (and money)—it costs money to run an awards program, just like anything else, and these costs have to be met somehow. You want to choose honest awards, and I research them before I enter.

In the past 4 (or so) years I’ve entered one book per year into between 2 and 4 competitions. I chose the following:

Independent Publisher’s Book Awards (IPPY), and related competitions

Next Gen Book Awards

Benjamin Franklin Awards

Colorado Author’s League (CAL) Writing Awards

Foreword Reviews Competition

I think all of these are honest award competitions, and the CAL awards are even about 75 years old.  I’ve won a gold medal (IPPY), a bronze medal (Moonbeam—related to IPPY), and have been a finalist in the Foreword Reviews competition, the CAL writing awards, and the Next Gen Awards. I’d have to say that, thus far, these results have had some, although microscopic, impact on my ability to attract readers. I just don’t think they matter so much. They are a good way to get a kind of feedback for your efforts, but I have not seen much in the way of a direct correlation between award success and book readership.

This isn’t to say that I am opposed to the competitions. I just don’t think they are having as much impact as—say—the connections (a virtual monopoly) the big five have in getting their books in front of the channels that make a difference, although I have to admit I don’t see everyone’s results and the business is still evolving.

One negative is the oversupply of “free” books, though giveaway channels and then (of course) the pirates, who claim to have distributed many times the number of copies I have seen sold. Ebooks make our work easy to steal, and no degree of digital “protection” will ever be as important as the integrity of those who try to make sure the artists are paid for their work (books, music, etc). Incidentally, giving your books away isn’t the answer either. I “gave away” 12 thousand copies of one book and I feel it was a mistake. Free stuff is not valued.

I received the email today

The winners from among the finalists are announced at a reception that will be held in New Orleans this year.

I’ve noticed a tendency for novels to be divided and then subdivided and then further fragmented into smaller and smaller categories, either by anticipated reader age groups or by some other demographic or other subgroup.

I can understand dividing books into children’s books and even novels for teens (together these were called juvenile fiction, although picture books were separated from chapter books), but now we have middle grade, young adult, and new adult—and then within these new categories, like LGBT and Multi-Cultural, or Women’s fiction, or fiction written by narrowly-defined demographic groups, etc. I see this trend “progressing”. Apparently literature can only be compared with literature from ever narrowing categories, and people are being encouraged to further isolate their reading experiences. I’ve noticed this trend (good or bad) when reviewing writing awards especially, as ever more awards are spawned for very narrow bandwidth writing.

Yes, it helps to know if the book I am looking for is science fiction or supernatural or just about plain human experiences. But from my perspective good literature is good literature. I don’t remember Jules Verne, or Jane Austen being parsed only for specific readers, and I think we’re all the better for it. Of course we have seen an explosion of books published, and it can be difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff, but good stories—good novels—still share common things:

• Credible characters—sympathetic protagonists and believable antagonists

• A strong plot with a consistent voice that carries the reader forward

• Good narrative writing and non-stilted dialog

A good book is still a good book and creating a tiny category of fiction will not turn a poorly written book with a weak plot and cardboard characters into a good book.

A photo taken at the CAL event where finalists in each of the book categories were to read. The event took place at one of the Tattered Book bookstore locations, in a suburb of Denver.

A freiend took this photo while I was talkingabout Bosworth (which is a finalist for the 2018 CAL writing award for YA fiction). The annual CAL competition has been happening for about 70 years.