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Supreme Commander Laurie, Draft 1: Completed

Sortmind Blog - Michael D. Smith Posted on September 19, 2023 by Michael D. SmithSeptember 19, 2023

Rough Draft Synopsis of a Rough Draft

Supreme Commander Laurie Lachrer copyright 2023 by Michael D. Smith

The New Supreme Commander

Colonel Laurie Lachrer, just appointed Supreme Commander of the USSF, inexplicably transports to the new Typhoon VIII spaceship where former SCUSSF Jack Commer leads a no-return mission to the Unknown Anomaly at the Center of the Universe. So who’s in charge now, Laurie or Captain Jack who just resigned his commission and turned over all his SCUSSF duties to her to be free to pursue this suicidal stunt?

But the Fools of the Fire who maintain infinite watch over the Anomaly will speak only to Laurie.

In Jack’s and Laurie’s absence, fascist elements overthrow the United System and jail respected figures from the earlier Jack Commer series. But naïve alien university students on an Alpha Centaurian planet mount a resistance in tandem with Laurie’s robot counterpart, Laurie 283, who designs and builds Pegasus, a state-of-the-art flying saucer weapons platform. Meanwhile a decades-old robot with a malfunctioning Sublayer Four writes a novel that he’s sure explains everything that’s happening.

A Stable Platform for a Revision?

I just finished Draft 1 of Supreme Commander Laurie, Book One in a series of the same title, spinning off from the Jack Commer, Supreme Commander series. The book is 335 pages, 98,149 words, but since character Mickey Michaels insisted on inserting verbose chapters from his own novel into the narrative, I can see where many cuts may originate.

SCL didn’t seem to pack much of a catharsis wallop until the last third of the book, when to my delight much of its meaning came together. I revised Draft 1 chapters several times during composition, then reread and lightly edited the entire thing over the past few days. Overall I think this draft story arc is reasonably intact and can be a stable platform for a revision.

Unexpected Energies

Major John West copyright 2014 by Michael D. Smith

Major John West of the Third Space Combat Group

As I read earlier parts of the manuscript I’m amazed at plot I’ve totally forgotten, and how inventive much of it is. I see parts needing strengthening and others destined for the cutting room floor, but I’m withholding Draft 2 judgment for now. I just want to see if I enjoy reading my own work. Revisions so far are minor style issues and keeping dates and facts in line.

The plot demands consistency, so I’ve paid a lot of attention to the timeline down to the minute, to spaceship design, and to who is standing where and when. For instance, it was sobering to calculate that at the end of chapter 27 there have to be 26 people on the first level of spaceship Pegasus. In his novel Fathom the Doomboat Stars Mickey Michaels satirizes this mania for keeping things straight, counting battling spaceships as he lectures his readers on the importance of basic arithmetic.

This novel has been full of surprises, including the evolution of two minor characters into major ones: arrogant Michaels and deluded but sincere Major John West, both of whom pushed the plot in new directions. I would repeatedly look over what seemed like vague notes for a coming chapter, doubting whether any valid fiction could possibly result–then find myself churning out ten good pages of unexpected energies from those same notes. Usually notes that dull just produce dull fiction.

I’m not sure how the absurd Mickey Michaels novel chapters will work in a final version, but I’ve thoroughly enjoyed writing them and they’ve opened some intriguing directions, maybe because it’s such shadow stuff. Halfway through the book came the idea that the utterly wise alien Yrwitt, Waterfall Sequence, would be so in thrall to robot Michaels’ short-circuiting Sublayer Four that Waterfall would of course merge his soul with the obsolete robot’s. That was a great gift to this writer and propelled the novel forward.

The Issue of Endings

Spaceship Drafts copyright 2023 by Michael D. SmithI don’t want endings to merely tidy up the plot. I saw no reason to repeat my usual mistake of charging into a hundred-fifty-page ending I haven’t emotionally worked through, only to have to tear it up and start all over in Draft 2. I wanted a concrete story to emerge from the abstract ideas-fest I’d first proposed, and midway through I put aside fiction writing for a few days to rethink the end chapters. I pushed the book hard over its last four days and the final section came out pretty well. Surprises continued within the revised framework.

Since the novel emerges from the Jack Commer series, SCL includes relevant details of Jack Commer history to get a sense of how Laurie tackles her new role. Books Two and beyond will head into new territory with much less of that background. Jack has no narration voice in Supreme Commander Laurie. He’s now a supporting character.

I have vague ideas for Book Two; some new characters might develop further. But given that I threw everything I had into Book One, unworried about content for coming novels, I’ve also thought that reader comments about missing or unanswered themes may be useful concepts for future books.

Next steps before Draft 2 include cleaning up the facts files and designing spaceship Pegasus in detail. I have just crude drawings for it and the other ship, Typhoon VIII. Balloon Ship Armageddon in the final Jack Commer novel showed me how seriously a ship design can affect the plot.

Robot Laurie 283 copyright 2014 by Michael D. Smith

Robot Laurie 283

I also made a list of new characters needing illustrations:

  • Laurie 1014, wooden robot
  • Rick Ballard, wooden robot
  • Ywer, Martian copilot
  • Saxon Greenhill, doomed copilot
  • Lt, Mickey Mal Michaels, malfunctioning novelist robot
  • Meng Hui, physician/engineer
  • G’nzeel, Zarj museum curator
  • Pam Jonson. navigator
  • Mavis Wilson, up-and-coming copilot
  • Three Maroxin student Nihilists
  • The Fools of the Fire

 

And I definitely need to make a book cover for Fathom the Doomboat Stars.

copyright 2023 by Michael D. Smith

Posted in Character Images, Jack Commer, Novels, Science Fiction, Spaceships, Supreme Commander Laurie, Writing, Writing Process | Leave a reply

More New Drawings

Sortmind Blog - Michael D. Smith Posted on August 30, 2023 by Michael D. SmithAugust 30, 2023

A few more recent 2023 drawings.  Most are in an 8″ x 8″ journal; the size has encouraged experimentation.



Recent Drawings


all images copyright 2023 by Michael D. Smith

 

Posted in Art Process, Drawing | Leave a reply

The Characters Table

Sortmind Blog - Michael D. Smith Posted on August 19, 2023 by Michael D. SmithAugust 19, 2023

The Character Table by Michael D. SmithFor a while I’ve been compiling a list of similar characters in my fiction; for instance, why is Michelle Morgan, graduate student, philosopher, and Sunday supplement author in Akard Drearstone, so much like Moolka Waxtor, writer in residence and secret society initiate in The Soul Institute?

I made a table of similar characters from published and unpublished novels, novellas, and novelettes, inventing eight female and eight male categories:

Female
1. Chaotic, Alluring
2. Quiet Intrigue
3. Earth Goddess, Patience
4. Mature, Grounded
5. Ridiculous Goddesses Who Get their Way
6. Strong Leaders
7. Uptight Bad Leaders
8. Young with Erratic Power
Male
9. Dazed, Low Self-Esteem
10. Leaders, Mature or Mystic
11. Thrust into Leadership
12. Fools or Innocents
13. Naïve, Prone to Life Mistakes
14. Bullies or Tricksters
15. Comic or Tragic Authorities
16. Friends and Sidekicks

Have I just been repeating myself? Or developing themes across many works? The list isn’t complete, and I often shift its characters around. They can also appear in more than one category, even in the same novel. I don’t expect anyone to actually read through this list, or that the names would make sense to anyone but me, but the categories and the number of examples in each are illuminating.

The Characters Table is a PDF, then is translated into bullet points below.

Jackie Vespertine copyright 2018 by Michael D. Smith1. Chaotic, Alluring

  • Amav in The Martian Marauders and Jack Commer, Supreme Commander
  • Jackie in Nonprofit Chronowar
  • Suzette in The SolGrid Rebellion
  • Barb or Jessica in Sortmind
  • Jill in CommWealth
  • Debbie in The Soul Institute
  • Laurie 283 in The Wounded Frontier
  • Reva in Asylum and Mirage

2. Quiet Intrigue

  • Sairjin in “Perpetual Starlit Night”
  • Dazzie in Zarreich / Galaxies
  • Coerjen in The Martian Marauders
  • Anna in Sortmind
  • Lisa A. in CommWealth
  • Lisa B. in The Soul Institute
  • Caspra in Asylum and Mirage

Jasmine Sung copyright 2022 by Michael D. Smith3. Earth Goddess, Patience

  • Sarka and Crystal in Akard Drearstone
  • Diana in Zarreich / Galaxies
  • Elise in Sortmind
  • Sandra and Moolka in The Soul Institute
  • Emala in Jump Grenade
  • Jasmine in Asylum and Mirage

4. Mature, Grounded

  • Katy in Akard Drearstone
  • Mandy in Nonprofit Chronowar
  • Amav in all seven Jack Commer, Supreme Commander novels
  • Laurie in The Wounded Frontier, The SolGrid Rebellion, and Balloon Ship Armageddon
  • Jill in CommWealth
  • Felicia in The Soul Institute

Amy Nortel copyright 2018 by Michael D. Smith5. Ridiculous Goddesses Who Get Their Way

  • Naomi and Michelle in Akard Drearstone
  • Joyce Commer in The Martian Marauders
  • Laurie 283 in The Wounded Frontier
  • Amy in Balloon Ship Armageddon
  • Falpa in Sortmind
  • Moolka and Boots in The Soul Institute
  • Marina in Asylum and Mirage

6. Strong Leaders

  • Janice in “Damage Patrol”
  • Susan in The Psychobeauty
  • Roberta in The First Twenty Steps
  • Ranna in Nonprofit Chronowar
  • Hedrona in Collapse and Delusion
  • Amav and Laurie 283 in The SolGrid Rebellion
  • Suzanne in Sortmind
  • Erica in CommWealth
  • Seveta in The Soul Institute
  • Emala in Jump Grenade

Jipo Jarg copyright 1997 by Michael D. Smith7. Uptight Bad Leaders

  • Melinda Blair in “Damage Patrol”
  • Shi Idnin in “Perpetual Starlit Night”
  • Mary in The Fifty-First State of Consciousness
  • Catherine in Jack Commer, Supreme Commander
  • Carla in The SolGrid Rebellion
  • Jipo in The Soul Institute

8. Young with Erratic Power

  • Lucy in “Damage Patrol”
  • Laura in “Randy and Laura”
  • Rix in The Psychobeauty
  • Jan Pace in Akard Drearstone
  • Karen in The University of Mars
  • Cindy Vespertine in Zarreich / Galaxies
  • Laurie in The Martian Marauders
  • Alicia in Nonprofit Chronowar
  • Elise in Sortmind
  • Jill in CommWealth
  • Rhea in The Soul Institute
  • Uni in Jump Grenade
  • Caspra in Asylum and Mirage

9. Dazed, Low Self-Esteem

  • Randy in “Randy and Laura”
  • Jim Piston in Akard Drearstone
  • Jim Stunde in Zarreich / Galaxies
  • Joe in Nonprofit Chronowar
  • Jonathan James Commer in Collapse and Delusion and Balloon Ship Armageddon
  • Will Connors in The Wounded Frontier
  • Peter in Sortmind
  • Himal in The Soul Institute
  • Dave in Asylum and Mirage

Marshall Singletree copyright 2022 by Michael D. Smith10. Leaders, Mature or Mystic

  • Garsniyyj in “Roadblock”
  • C. in The Psychobeauty
  • Mullein in The First Twenty Steps
  • Akard, Dr. Norsen, and Dyson Annersnex in Akard Drearstone
  • Oceanmouth, Pentacre, and Eric in Zarreich / Galaxies
  • Dar and General Scott in The Martian Marauders
  • Jack in Nonprofit Chronowar, Collapse and Delusion, The Wounded Frontier, The SolGrid Rebellion, and Balloon Ship Armageddon
  • Z’B in The Wounded Frontier
  • Steve in CommWealth
  • Angent, Solis, Larson, Preston, Holcombe, and Tuttle in The Soul Institute
  • Mongar Frederick in Jump Grenade
  • Singletree in Asylum and Mirage

11. Thrust into Leadership

  • Derek in The Psychobeauty
  • Harry in The First Twenty Steps
  • Akard in Akard Drearstone
  • Jack in The Martian Marauders and Jack Commer, Supreme Commander
  • Phil in Collapse and Delusion
  • Kner and Z’B in The Wounded Frontier
  • General Douglas in The SolGrid Rebellion
  • Jonathan James Commer in Balloon Ship Armageddon
  • Mitch in Sortmind
  • Fannin in The Soul Institute
  • Dan Ryder in Jump Grenade
  • Dave in Asylum and Mirage

Rick Ballard copyright 2014 by Michael D. Smith12. Fools or Innocents

  • Gary Blair in “Damage Patrol”
  • Al in The Psychobeauty
  • The Porn King in “Perpetual Starlit Night”
  • Fack in The First Twenty Steps
  • Mike the wise freak in Nova Scotia
  • Harley, Harray, and Kevin Stukia in Akard Drearstone
  • Matthew and Dazzy in Zarreich / Galaxies
  • John and Jonathan in The Martian Marauders
  • John Root in Collapse and Delusion
  • Ballard in The SolGrid Rebellion
  • Jannes in Balloon Ship Armageddon
  • Don Roseparker and Albert Snuck in Sortmind
  • Allan in CommWealth
  • Don Emerson in The Soul Institute
  • Thomas in Asylum and Mirage

13. Naïve, Prone to Life Mistakes

  • Jim in “Roadblock”
  • Randy in The Psychobeauty
  • in The Fifty-First State of Consciousness
  • Bill in The University of Mars
  • Jim Cathedral in Zarreich / Galaxies
  • Joe in The Martian Marauders and Jack Commer, Supreme Commander
  • Urside in Nonprofit Chronowar
  • Patrick James in The SolGrid Rebellion
  • Oliver and Godwin in Sortmind
  • Richard in CommWealth
  • Mitar and Dorrington in The Soul Institute
  • Wally in Jump Grenade
  • Dave in Asylum and Mirage

Billy Bolamme copyright 2019 by Michael D. Smith14. Bullies or Tricksters

  • Mark in “Damage Patrol”
  • The Gasoline Minister in “Randy and Laura”
  • The Porn King in “Perpetual Starlit Night”
  • Bill Punish, Pete, Al Stoker, Emory, and Ted Pace in Akard Drearstone
  • Fred Diamond in The University of Mars
  • Steve Dorch in Zarreich / Galaxies
  • Walter in Notice and Dream Topology
  • Douglas and Hergs in The Martian Marauders
  • Lee Borman and Clopt in Jack Commer, Supreme Commander
  • Carl Posttner in Nonprofit Chronowar
  • Draka Sortie in The Wounded Frontier
  • Jannes in Balloon Ship Armageddon
  • Manfred in Sortmind
  • Tom, Muscles, Leon, and Greg McKinnon in The Soul Institute
  • Billy Bolamme in Jump Grenade
  • Thomas and Leon in Asylum and Mirage

15. Comic or Tragic Authorities

  • The Gasoline Minister in “Randy and Laura”
  • Harper in The First Twenty Steps
  • Mavory Deltrang and Ted Pace in Akard Drearstone
  • Larry Cathedral in Zarreich / Galaxies
  • Major West in The Martian Marauders
  • The Crab Emperor in Jack Commer, Supreme Commander
  • Waterfall Sequence in Balloon Ship Armageddon
  • Duce, Perrine, and Toland in Sortmind
  • Burlcron in The Soul Institute
  • Coach Bolamme in Jump Grenade
  • Singletree in Asylum and Mirage

Churchill copyright 2016 by Michael D. Smith16. Friends and Sidekicks

  • Oceanmouth in “Roadblock”
  • Ch’ing in The Psychobeauty
  • Dan and Mike M. in Nova Scotia
  • The Governor in The Fifty-First State of Consciousness
  • Craig and Richard in Akard Drearstone
  • Jim in The Martian Marauders
  • Joe Commer in The Martian Marauders, Jack Commer, Collapse and Delusion, The Wounded Frontier, The SolGrid Rebellion, and Balloon Ship Armageddon
  • Z’B in The Wounded Frontier
  • Bobby Athens in Jack Commer, Supreme Commander
  • Jack and Churchill in Nonprofit Chronowar
  • Edward in The SolGrid Rebellion and Balloon Ship Armageddon
  • Sam and Godwin in Sortmind
  • Peter in CommWealth
  • Mal in The Soul Institute
  • Frank in Jump Grenade

 

I’m not yet including characters from Supreme Commander Laurie, as the novel isn’t finished.

 copyright 2023 by Michael D. Smith

Posted in A Writing Biography, Character Images, Novels, Writing, Writing Process | Leave a reply

What If?

Sortmind Blog - Michael D. Smith Posted on August 15, 2023 by Michael D. SmithAugust 15, 2023

 Asylum and Mirage by Michael D. SmithAren’t most novels inspired by a central What If? Investigating the original What If of my novels or long stories has required a lot of thought. It’s possible that some really never began with a real What If. But I think it has to be there somewhere.

Note that I’m trying to get to the What If that actually made me want to write the thing, as opposed to some marketing hook for a completed work. So this post obviously isn’t a marketing strategy for these efforts, some of which are unpublished and will remain so. Text links go to sortmind.com pages for more background. Image thumbnails do link to a purchase site.

So the following is what I think I was trying to do:

Akard Drearstone by Michael D. SmithAkard Drearstone. What if I’d helped found an art commune after college?

Asylum and Mirage. What if my artistic refuge proved to be a deluded escape from war and evil?

The Balloon Ship Armageddon Tarot card copyright 2020 by Michael D. SmithBalloon Ship Armageddon. What if robots sailed balloon warships above a toxic waterworld?
This came entirely from a Tarot card drawing.

Collapse and Delusion. What if Jack Commer’s novelist son, in exile in Alpha Centauri, revived a cruel, ancient star empire?

CommWealth by Michael D. SmithCommWealth. What if I lived in a society with no property rights?

“Damage Patrol” in The Damage Patrol Quartet. What if I worked for a corporation correcting everyone’s psychological problems, even against their will?

The First Twenty Steps. What if I were just released from prison and had to rebuild my life?

The Holy Dark Ages. What if I survived World War III in thrall to a madman’s commune?
From a dream, as well as from witnessing immense propane tank fireballs on the night horizon.

Jack Commer, Supreme Commander by Michael D. SmithJack Commer, Supreme Commander. What if I had no clue how to lead negotiations with a psychotic alien culture?
The Crab Emperor dream sparked this follow-up to The Martian Marauders, which virtually ordered a sequel in its last pages. It’s also a story of Jack’s inability to handle his new marriage or be a true partner with his wife Amav; he probably even sees her as a “psychotic alien culture”!

Jump Grenade by Michael D. SmithJump Grenade. What if a psychotic teen basketball star killed thousands of fans on a whim?

The Martian Marauders. What if native terrorists challenged Earth’s toehold on Mars?
Keep in mind that the original childhood draft was written 1965-66, and I did see the native Martian “fish-people” as the Viet Cong.

Nonprofit Chronowar. What if I could follow time hyperlinks to change my past or discover my future?

“Perpetual Starlit Night” in The Damage Patrol Quartet. What if undefined crimes were punished by banishment to a motionless space platform?

The Psychobeauty. What if 97% of the world’s populace committed suicide?
From a dream of refugees from unthinkable disaster.

The Damage Patrol Quartet by Michael D. Smith“Randy and Laura” in The Damage Patrol Quartet. What if my best friend and I were trapped at a nightmare tollhouse job in a foreign land?
This story later changed to two new characters, Randy and Laura, amid Randy’s New Fascist Australia delusion. Briefly migrated to the novel Sortmind but was soon set free.

“Roadblock” in The Damage Patrol Quartet. What if a surreal business partner and I encountered a final blockage of all light?
From a dream originally used in Zarreich.

The SolGrid Rebellion. What if Jack Commer’s troublesome son instigated a rebellion against an authoritarian telepathic network?
Jack gets a lot of grief from his son Jonathan James, in three separate Jack Commer novels.

Sortmind by Michael D. Smith Sortmind. What if a telepathic database uncovered two sets of aliens with opposing ideas for dealing with Earth?
Sortmind in its earliest gestation combined numerous themes, including library career, aliens, art, coming of age, and urban politics.

The Soul Institute by Michael D. SmithThe Soul Institute. What if I sought refuge at a university in my dreams?
Sparked by recurring dreams, this What If was straightforward, though it opened a generational saga and a complex secondary storyline of middle school drug gangs.

Supreme Commander Laurie. What if hysterical fascists blocked Admiral Laurie’s promotion to Supreme Commander?
I may not yet understand the final What If for this novel I’m still writing.

Trip to Mars by Mickey SmithTrip to Mars, the Picture Book. What if we had to evacuate to Mars from a ruined Earth?
A sixth-grader posited this What If.

The University of Mars. How can I escape to the life of the Mind?
Which meant escaping both high-school-level bureaucracy and fears of alien contact.

The Wounded Frontier by Michael D. SmithThe Wounded Frontier. What if a malevolent race destroyed stars to create art?

Zarreich. What if I came to live in a dream commune in a nightmare city?
From a dream of memory-wipe and a clumsy, inadvertent murder.

copyright 2023 by Michael D. Smith

Posted in Novels, Science Fiction, Stories, Supreme Commander Laurie, Writing, Writing Process | Leave a reply

A Writing Biography, Part V: Space, Time, and Tania through The University of Mars, 1974-1982

Sortmind Blog - Michael D. Smith Posted on August 7, 2023 by Michael D. SmithAugust 16, 2023

It’s time I brought this series further up to date; ideas for it have been kicking around since 2014. Though it’s seemed unnatural to try to split my life up into these various parts, which I keep rearranging as I compose these posts, they do seem to form rational stages of my writing biography. Much of what Part V covers has already been the subject of various posts, to which I unhesitatingly link you during this psychic romp. So I don’t need to repeat myself, at least not that much.

Life Changes Amid “Space, Time, and Tania”

Rothko Chapel InteriorThis is an essay about writing, not marriage, but standing as groom with bride Nancy in front of the three center paintings in the Rothko Chapel in Houston on August 17, 1974 marked quite a change. My Rice University college boy consciousness abruptly vanished. Undefinable happy/scary new life energies surged in its place.

As related in Part IV’s summary of summer 1974 after graduating from Rice: our marriage plans, a public health library job in Houston, a new motorcycle, Patty Hearst on the run, the Lester Quartz comic strip, Watergate’s finale and Nixon’s resignation. I wrote the first parts of a breakthrough story, “Space, Time and Tania,” then completed it in Dallas a few days after Nancy and I got married.

As I brought home sustainable amounts of bacon from my downtown Dallas insurance accounting clerk job (expertly lampooned in my novel Zarreich; see below), I was determined to press my writing career despite new marriage/new city/new job/new psychic nutrient/new mind scatter, as exemplified by the stream-of-consciousness poems I typed at the office on adding machine tape and then affixed in my journal. But bits of this nonsense did become fodder for Akard Drearstone song lyrics.11/26/74 Adding Machine Poem by Michael D. Smith

Like most of the stories I wrote during this period, “Space, Time, and Tania” was lengthy at 14,300 words, and though I always referred to these pieces as stories, I now see they can be classified as novelettes (word count ca. 7,500-19,000). I hadn’t been aware of that designation until recently, and it may account for the many rejections of these longer pieces from short story magazines. These lengths also show how eager I was to abandon story writing and move into the expansiveness of the novel.

So bumbling ex-Texas Department of Public Death officer Marty Brimfeeler probes the death of Tania in Houston shortly before World War III erupts. Marty is traumatized by finding the body along with Tania’s cryptic notebook full of edgy metaphysical queries. He finds himself unable to cope with his state trooper work and equally unable to understand the notebook which has unhinged him.

“Tania” was a fun, intelligent, loopy story, despite being inspired by the kidnapping of Patty Hearst and her brainwashing by the Symbionese Liberation Army in 1974. The story strikes me now, as close to an impartial view after all these decades as I’m about to get, as properly channeling the universe. There doesn’t seem to be a career-minded ego trip to it. Of course it’s not really about Patty Hearst.

ISpace, Time, and Tania in PigIron Magazine, August 1977 finished Draft 2 of “Tania” a week before the idea for Akard Drearstone hit me, and was typing the story’s MS. as I geared up on Akard ideas–coincidentally, about the time Patty Hearst was captured in September 1975. “Neutral mindglow” and “the car dawn,” Akard song titles, were phrases used in “Tania.”

I sent the story on its few rounds to magazine publishers and was surprised and elated when Nancy called me at work in 1976 to read me PigIron magazine’s acceptance letter.

The story came out the following August, but suddenly I was wary and nervous. I didn’t know how to react to being published. I was also irritated at some obvious space-filling additions and the changes to the ending’s wording. I did protest this to the editor, yet also in another brief letter I wrote for publication in a later edition of the magazine, my tone was a weird mixture of egotistic and fawning. The editor invited me to send another “masterpiece,” but I said I didn’t have anything to send. I actually did have “The 66,000 MPH Bicycle,” but I guess I must have felt it too precious to expose to editorial mangling–sheesh! But more importantly, I told the editor that all my energies were now going to a monster novel.

PigIron Magazine, August 1977You’d think my stint as editor of the Wiess Crack would’ve made me more sympathetic to the editor and to the difficulties of getting a magazine assembled and published. But at the time I was conditioned to think of editors as gods to be served or fought. But the exchange prompted me to acknowledge that I was now a novelist, no longer a story writer.

My wariness also had to do with the eerie sense I had geographical isolation from my former life in the North and East. I didn’t feel I could relate to PigIron’s Youngstown, Ohio, for instance–even though this attitude was coming from a former Chicago north shore resident. But there was no email and World Wide Web; long-distance calls cost a lot of money; you didn’t just pick up the phone. And most of my old northern friends just didn’t write letters. For me, living in a different section of the country meant living in a different world.

In any case, claiming to be offended by the edits destroyed any possibility of real interaction. I’d had a publishing toehold and spurned it. It’s not wrong to hold your swing and check the pitches, but in retrospect my action was inexcusable. I could’ve published more in PigIron and still held my integrity. (See also an alternate universe in which I did send a masterpiece there.) But between my ego and the rush of Akard, my first story-writing/publishing-seeking cycle evaporated. I tried to resurrect it again in the mid-eighties, but soon saw it was just career-minded BS that went nowhere.

Why did it take me until 2011 to publish anything else? Await “Part VI of A Writing Biography” where I’ll take a crack at the Ambition Crash.

Some stories (or novelettes) during this period, most submitted to magazines:

In “Alan Ice on Morningcide Drive,” 1974 and 10,300 words, guitarist Alan Ice bores the reader with excessively overwrought stream-of-consciousness prose for thirty pages, but there’s a glimmer of interest when near the end he drives onto an infinite parking lot at dawn to watch an alien spaceship explode. This was my last truly incoherent story, because, near the end of typing its MS., I began paying attention to the concept of rewriting, and saw it might even be possible to actually get something sane across to a reader.

“Man Against the Horses!” 1975, 12,600 words, manages to express my new antipathy toward the city of Dallas and a bleak, regimented work schedule that felt like a return to high school compared to my insular, satisfied college student life in Houston. In this story five horses in Paris, Texas have finally had enough. They break out of their corral, charge down the highway, and, imbued with fresh superpowers, tear the city of Dallas to pieces.

“The Highland Park Cadillac Races,” 1975, 18,500 words, continues this vengeful satire of my new city as it showcases how insurance executive Bobby Thompson proves his manhood by racing Cadillac against Cadillac on the mean streets of Dallas.

“The 66,000 MPH Bicycle,” 1975 and 9,300 words, gestated from Rice-era musings while riding my bicycle at night. Here special agent Atoka evades “the Americans” on his nuclear-powered, 66,000 mph bicycle until he’s bombed into chewed-up guts on a coastal freeway. The author was able to ignore physics such as escape velocity throughout the story but came up with some interesting computer concepts for a story written in 1975 by someone who knew nothing about computers. I was chagrined to see this one rejected by PigIron long after I’d refused to send them a follow-up to “Space, Time, and Tania.”

Early Graphic Novels

So This is the Cerebral Cortex! copyright 1974-2023 by Michael D. SmithFor some reason visual art benefited tremendously from early marriage’s delightful scattered consciousness. Over the summer of 1974 I’d drawn a few panels of The Story of Lester Quartz’s Fantastic Journey, Volume l, but I drew the bulk in my office at work that fall. At the time I called it a comic book, but it’s a true graphic novel, 288 panels in an 8 1/2” x 11” art journal, one panel per page, and becomes a sort of psychedelic Bildungsroman about a youngster who finds himself physically inside the city of another person’s brain. Riding buses, motorcycles, and trains to various adventures in that person’s brain, he falls in with urban terrorists trying to destroy the entire mind, and he finally takes control of the mind to, in the outer body, become a rock star–the first appearance of guitarist/songwriter Akard Drearstone. There are further nods to Patty Hearst and the SLA, as well as lucid depictions of the horrors of 1974 downtown Dallas.

I colorized the journal with watercolor, crayon, and tempera through mid-1976, and also tried a couple other graphic novel exercises during this era, 1977’s Acid Loses Nothing! and 1977’s Art Journal #8 zigzagging between drawing experiments and book-length comic strip.

Akard Drearstone, 1978-1981

Akard Draft 1 Part 1 experimental cover copyright 2020 by Michael D. Smith Akard Draft 1 Part 2 experimental cover copyright 2020 by Michael D. Smith Akard Draft 1 Part 3 experimental cover copyright 2020 by Michael D. Smith Akard Draft 1 Part 4 experimental cover copyright 2020 by Michael D. Smith

I often feel that certain stories are heralds of upcoming novels, either due to similar content or from an obvious yearning for more growth. In both these ways “The 66,000 MPH Bicycle” was the herald of the heady experience of a twenty-three-year-old composing the massive Akard Drearstone. The idea for the novel hit me all at once at my accounting desk at the insurance company one afternoon in August 1975. I quickly typed up a two-page synopsis that remained reasonably consistent with the final result, though I didn’t foresee typing 1,587 pages from that. After two years on Draft 1, two on a somewhat shorter Draft 2 along with reworking numerous individual chapters, I had a final version ready to type in October 1980. An Archeological Excavation of Akard Drearstone, Draft 1 goes into much more detail on this, and What Does Your Muse Think of Your Writing Career? ponders how my life would’ve been ruined if this immense project had somehow gotten published and, in modern terms, “gone viral.”

Akard Draft 1 was a vehicle for writing out years of adolescent Sturm und Drang as well as my entire Rice experience. It was my first true novel after two practice ones. I’ve always considered that this rough draft contains one good novel, one failed novel, and three mediocre novels. I believe I got the good one out in 2017’s final version.

But the first draft was such a powerful, life-changing experience that years later I scanned it into a 5 MB Word document just to have a copy, as for some reason I’d never thought to make a carbon as I typed the first two drafts. Those 1,587 typewritten pages, typo-ridden as they may be, come out to 661,581 words, 2,298 Word pages. I also designed covers for a four-part print experiment.

In this first version of the novel, barely congruent with 2017’s final edition, Akard Drearstone is a rising star in 1977, but he wrecks his fifteen minutes of fame on the Johnny Carson show and languishes as a bank clerk in Houston for two years until the spring of 1979, when he meets Jim Piston, troubled genius bass guitarist. Their collaboration rekindles his old fame and Akard sets up a music commune in a rural area north of Austin, adding a keyboardist and drummer. The four musicians battle corrupt businessmen, freak on psychedelics, get busted by mysterious narc agencies, stage demented concerts on the beach and at the scene of a car accident, debate the merits of a new philosophy called Exponentialism with a writer for a Sunday rotogravure magazine, postpone work on their album in favor of a three-month-long videotape, and insert self-serving mini-novels into the narrative. Their psychotic break-up leads to conflicts with national repercussions.

The second draft cut through much of the above BS. It was still an ungainly beast, but I developed new writing technologies for strengthening future novels. I began typing a manuscript to submit to publishers, but in August 1981 I’d aborted the effort at 377 pages. I’d finally outgrown this thing, had new writing to explore, and didn’t have the heart to finish typing out the last thousand pages just to complete a project.

Though I’d backed off short stories, a couple miscellaneous works surfaced during Akard:

“Tollhouse,” 1980, 19,100 words, came from a dream from years before. Two boys are trapped at a surreal tollbooth job in Australia, later emigrate to America, and then are killed at an anti-nuclear protest. But somehow one of them winds up in a hospital on Mars. Or he is just hallucinating that as he dies? Decades later the story morphed into “Randy and Laura,” published 2021 in The Damage Patrol Quartet. When I reread the original story a few years back I was struck by the character of Martian physician Draka Sortie and knew I had to use him for the Jack Commer series.

Another very short work came from a dream, 1980’s “Summer Burning City,” and posits a kid mainframe programmer on the top floor of a computing center who gradually realizes that the entire city is burning around him.

The University of Mars Draft 1, 1980 to 1981 Abandonment

The University of Mars experimental cover copyright 2016 by Michael D. SmithNineteen-year-old Bill longs to escape to an imaginary, mythic university he calls the University of Mars, intended to nurture the best of human culture as well as provide Bill sanctuary from the decaying human society of 2009, by which time the world is governed by a stagnant Christian bureaucracy. Bill begins to experiment with the hallucinatory consciousness brought about by contact with alien Transcendatrons who’ve quarantined the earth to stifle the evolution of a dangerous humanity. But the aliens possess an inherent psychological flaw and they’re as desperate for a solution to their problem as Bill is to evolve.

Even as I readied Akard Drearstone for publication queries, I had an idea for a completely different book, a novel of ideas with science fiction elements. But it was hard to break my attachment to Akard; I felt I was being unfaithful to the previous work. As a matter of fact, even writing “Tollhouse” felt like trespassing on Akard’s territory.

Draft 1 of The University of Mars, 104,200 words, arose fitfully amid several life themes:

  • In late 1979 I read The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich and also ran across the scarcely believable book Rocket Fighter by Mano Ziegler, a German Me-163 rocket fighter pilot. I began thinking about the further evolution of humanity as filtered through the prism of World War II, the mindless evil and the all-or-nothing struggle to eradicate it, as well as the often-murky origins of rocketry and space travel.
  • I was trying to create nurturing life structures: taking the GRE, considering a master of fine arts degree, abandoning that to think about a creative writing degree, abandoning that, looking for new jobs, and finally, looking to a library career.
  • The idea of a University of Mind had percolated for several years: an institution of thought and soul representing civilization in its highest sense, and coincidentally offering me escape from the hated insurance accounting job. (It’s also amusing that it wasn’t until 2015’s The Soul Institute that I finally nailed down this university.)
  • Despite my paranoia about the March 1979 nuclear accident at Three Mile Island, I eventually realized I wasn’t opposed to legitimate uses of technology, and that technology is an indispensable human endeavor.
  • I’d already written the chapters “The Flying Saucer Novelist” and “Don and the Boys,” both about terrifying encounters with aliens, without knowing much about the alien visitation literature. Then I picked up The Andreasson Affair and it horrified me as much as The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich had the year before. I read more and more extraterrestrial contact books, fascinated and appalled. And so alien Transcendatrons hijacked my manuscript.

 

Don Holland copyright 2009 by Michael D, Smith

Minister Don Unknowingly Marries an Alien

But I saw to my chagrin that my novel of ideas was sliding into silly science fiction games. Trying to inject some passion, I launched a Part II incorporating an old idea of incorporating every single detail of the second semester of my sophomore year at Rice–a project doomed to quick and abysmal failure.

I also glued a 1980 story, “Where Eagles Have Unfortunately Landed,” 12,600 words, into The University of Mars until I sensibly cut this jokey account of how child genius Klaus Wolfgang von Stuttelmann fails to become a Messerschmitt-163 rocket ace for the Luftwaffe.

As you can imagine, Draft 1 never came together. See also The University of Mars blog post for further reasons. But the first draft had some noble aspects and it forced me to pull my nose out of Akard Drearstone, to see there was much more to write about than rock group counterculture.

I left this novel in the state known as “sprawling mess” so I could work on a new book.

Zarreich, 1981-82

Zarreich Tarot Card copyright 2015 by Michael D. SmithAfter years of barely holding my own against my hated insurance job, I finally found fun employment at Dallas Public Library, where I began a library career that eventually came to function as a convenient exoskeleton for my writing/art life. Huge new energies arose in the spring of 1981 and soon I was working on an ambitious psychological novel that went far beyond my first four novelistic ventures. This dream was the seed for Zarreich’s 146,300 words:

The village in the sunny valley (arranged as: plain, valley, hill, 2nd plain–the first valley is the quaint village–the 2nd plain is the magnificent city built out of nothing.) Into this I come, a Jim Piston character with my .38. [Jim being the sociopathic bass player in Akard Drearstone.] I live in the first valley with my grandmother. But a guy next door strikes me as evil and so I shoot him–several times–but though I know I am doing damage he keeps standing in the doorway laughing. In paranoia I keep loading my gun and firing at this guy. In the kitchen. Finally I say to myself: “C’mon, you’re acting just like Jim Piston now.”

Thus an adolescent comes to live in a small town with his grandmother, only to discover all his memories have been wiped. He panics and commits a murder, then finds himself a member of a secret commune remembered only in dreams.

My nightmare city of Zarreich had been kicking around in dreams for years. I typed out exactly one hundred of the more surreal dreams I’d recorded over the previous decade, dreams pointing to what seemed to be a valid alternate world. Integrating these dreams into the novel–something like twenty-two made it in–was a severe challenge to organizing a plot.

Zarreich only made it through a first draft. I later tried a revision called The Galaxies Groan Within, but all that book did was cut the original novel in half and trivialize its extremely disordered forces. I rejected that second draft and now consider the first one to be the real, albeit unpublishable, novel. Much more on this novel in the Zarreich blog post.

A few stories during this time explored similar new forces:

“Zorexians,” 1982, 23,302 words, composed during Zarreich and somewhat complementing it, plunks my childhood spacepilot Jack Commer into a detective agency foursome that discovers that alien masterminds have subverted the United System Space Force and indeed, all of humanity. Everyone is terrified when Jack’s partner Huey is revealed to be an alien himself, but soon mystical interspecies communication takes place. Later Jack is interviewed by the author about his feelings for Huey’s sexy wife Jackie. I tried to port this to early versions of Nonprofit Chronowar but though this story was part of the inspiration for NPC, it never fit. I did include the interview in The UR Jack Commer.

In the two-page “The Selector,” 1982, strange, supercilious animals chew out the electrical grid of a downtown skyscraper. Apparently they’re eating the entire building, but a night shift supervisor is in extreme denial about the entire affair. This came from a dream and it works well enough to have been posted to blog.sortmind.com.

Another short piece from a dream, 1982’s “Caretaker” follows a similar night watchman who unthinkingly samples some of the cactus from a university’s extensive peyote planters. Soon he hears an ominous and unexpected visitor tromping down the concrete stairs to his basement caretaker lair.

In November 1982 I had great fun banging out “Six Plots,” short musings intended for a graphic novel I only got a few pages through. But they included a Jack Commer scenario and the earliest ideas for Sortmind, in a way forecasting much different writing ahead in Part VI.

And, odd to say, one Zarreich chapter was published after all, revised and finding standalone expression in the story “The Roadblock,” which I published in The Damage Patrol Quartet, 2021.

Back to The University of Mars: Draft 2 Breaks the Censor

Karen Tansley Harrison copyright 1980 by Michael D. Smith

Karen in her Sydney, Australia candle store

Zarreich’s major contribution to my writing career was breaking the internal censor; I quickly found myself crashing through scenarios that broke all my previous taboos. Even the obscene rock-and-roll world of Akard Drearstone failed to record anything real about male-female relationships. My writing hadn’t been grown-up; Akard and the first version of The University of Mars often aimed at serious issues but quickly veered into irony and cynicism.

Finishing the rich but disordered Zarreich opened the way to rewrite The University of Mars into a real novel. I permitted Bill to ponder his feelings for Karen and grapple with their separation, I had my first practice writing from the female character’s point of view, and I saw a way to deepen Karen’s character in an emotionally satisfying ending. The final chapter was a triumph, though it was naïve of me to expect anyone to wade through three hundred pages to get there.

I truly struggled to create a good and satisfying ending to this book; in fact this was the first of my five novels to arrive at one. I guess The University of Mars showed me how this could actually be done.

It felt great that, after years of struggle, such a good-hearted book emerged in its second draft. Eleven people read the photocopy, laughing in the right places and generally complimenting the work, and I was ready to type up a fresh MS. and send it to publishers.

copyright 2023 by Michael D. Smith

A Writing Biography, Part I: First Efforts in The Gore Book
A Writing Biography, Part II: The Blue Notebook
A Writing Biography, Part III: Unhappy Kid Interlude, Yet Two Novels, Sort Of
A Writing Biography, Part IV: The Perfect Cube and Beyond

Other URLs mentioned:

Homage to the Wiess Cracks
What Does Your Muse Think of Your Writing Career?
An Archeological Excavation of Akard Drearstone, Draft 1
Akard Drearstone
The Damage Patrol Quartet
The Soul Institute
Homage Part 1: Farewell to The University of Mars
The Exoskeleton
Homage Part 2: The Zarreich Enigma
Nonprofit Chronowar
The UR Jack Commer
The Selector
Sortmind
Symbionese Liberation Army (Wikipedia)
Rothko Chapel

Posted in A Writing Biography, Akard Drearstone, Book Covers, Character Images, Drawing, Dreams, Early Writing, Jack Commer, Novels, Publishing, Stories, The University of Mars, Writing, Writing Process, Zarreich | Leave a reply

The Unknown Ending for The Martian Marauders

Sortmind Blog - Michael D. Smith Posted on July 31, 2023 by Michael D. SmithJuly 31, 2023

The Martian Marauders by Michael D. SmithThis post is incredibly introspective and self-absorbed, but at least one of us is finding it interesting. I won’t say the final page of the incomplete, handwritten eighth-grade draft of The Martian Marauders ever deeply fascinated me, but in looking over its three pasted notes I realize how much my personality is reflected in them. The fact that I kept this sheet with the novel means that even though I’d abandoned the book, part of me felt I should finish it. These notes are much like other stern childhood plans I made for stories I thought I should write, though they morphed into dire checklists that actually made me not want to get started on anything.

So we have three notes glued to the last page of the handwritten 1965-66 Martian Marauders. I’ve never looked at them terribly closely, long assuming they were just vague ideas about continuing the action after I stopped writing during Chapter 11. But now I see that the lower left note represents the entire remaining plot, with an estimated final total of 145 pages–down from an originally posited 160. These notes were likely made after writing Chapter 7.

The 1966 ending notes for The Martian Marauders by Mickey Smith

The note at the top left seems to refer to the beginning of Chapter 11, which I did get started on, and “earthquake” and “explode” might be how this chapter was to proceed.

Last page of the 1966 Martian Marauders by Mickey Smith

A sad last novel page

The right note is a draft of the lower left one, which is much neater, in ink, and shows corrections from the draft. In fact it’s a checklist complete with checkboxes showing Chapters 8, 9, and 10 finished. I then began Chapter 11 and stopped at page 110.

I’d begun the novel in high energy; I recall coming home from school on Fall 1965 afternoons to churn out one fun chapter per day, feeling quite disciplined and professional. But I finally did lose interest, as exhibited by an entire page devoted to a space-wasting spaceship countdown from 100 to 0.

Thus the last page notes forecast additional boredom. No wonder I didn’t finish the book in March 1966, and have no memory of how it might have turned out other than these chapter titles and page estimates.

Here’s a mention in a letter to my friend Sabin Russell, March 5, 1966:

“The Martian Marauders” (remember that old thing) is now on page 107. I figure I can waste another 50 pages if I’m lucky. I just finished a part where a guard has just been melted by a electrified cell-door when one of the prisoners (my hero) pulls him into it. It is messy.

So the intrepid Jack Commer and his brother Joe were left to languish in a Venusian prison until I came across the loose notebook pages of the MS. twenty years later, input them into EasyWriter II as my very first word-processing endeavor, and typed out a new Part II in high-energy. I didn’t consider the three sheets of paper from 1966 as anything more than the dreary eighth-grade obligation they were, and so came up with an entirely new ending. But titles for Chapters 11 (The Escape) and 12 (Return to Venus) are echoed in the final version. Of course, the boys have to escape, don’t they? And Jack does have to return to Venus to track the evil Emperor Hergs down in his lair, right?

The 1965-66 manuscript, featuring the doomed spaceship Typhoon I, had also, pretty subtly for an eighth-grader, been setting up the as-yet-unfinished Typhoon II as the eventual replacement for the first ship. Thus the II begged to star in the 1986 conclusion.

1960s brown glue sample

1960s brown glue sample

I also note with some disgust the fragility of the hideous albeit necessary 1960s brown glue on this page. The righthand note came completely off upon my latest perusal, and I see on the reverse the name “Rod Morgan,” which so far had not been used in the book. Was he to be part of a rescue operation? Now I want to use him in a future novel!

The concept for “Siege of the Earthmen” might have been a ripoff of the Mars Attacks cards of the early ’60s, where human soldiers fly to Mars to thoroughly brain-bash and bayonet the evil ugly Martian monsters who dared screw with Earth.

The UR Jack Commer mass market paperback by Michael D. SmithIn 2011, many revisions later, an adult Martian Marauders was published, becoming Book One of the Jack Commer, Supreme Commander series. But the unfinished eighth-grade version has nostalgically made its way into my history of the series, The UR Jack Commer.

copyright 2023 by Michael D. Smith

The Irregular Origin of The Martian Marauders
A Writing Biography, Part III: Unhappy Kid Interlude, Yet Two Novels, Sort Of

Posted in A Writing Biography, Early Writing, Jack Commer, Martian Marauders, Novels, Science Fiction, Writing, Writing Process | Leave a reply

Online Interviews and a Resuscitated CommWealth

Sortmind Blog - Michael D. Smith Posted on July 21, 2023 by Michael D. SmithJuly 22, 2023
CommWealth a novel by Michael D. Smith

2023 updated Sortmind Press cover

Where are the URLs?

Over the past seven years I’ve had the opportunity to be interviewed on various online blogs and websites. Though I’d saved the original webpages as files to my computer, for some reason I neglected to note most of the live URLs anywhere. Thinking it was really time to organize these twenty online interviews in one place, I finally pulled their live URLs into an Interviews page.

Most of the interviews relate to my novel CommWealth. I’d thought that most of the older ones might have become defunct by now, but to my surprise there are working URLs for all except one, for which I copied my portion of the interview to Word and then PDF.

Seventeen of these twenty interviews are true Q&A to the author, though all were online interviews where I could peruse the template questions and then write Word responses at my leisure; I have no idea how I’d do in a live interview. Hmm. Just writing that down may expose me to this actually happening. I await with trepidation.

The Beverley Bateman post of May 2018 is an interview with CommWealth’s Allan Larson character, but it still has that “author interview” feel. Likewise the two posts from Maryann Miller in 2019: her review of Trip to Mars including meeting me at the June McKinney, Texas author fair, and my interview with my character Colonel Laurie Lachrer for Balloon Ship Armageddon.

I have no plans to add any of my own blog’s fictional interviews with Jack Commer characters, or God forbid, the Orange Rhinoceros of 1974.

In 2020 I posted The Blank Zen Interview, my own unsettling interview questions. I’m not sure how I’d respond to most of these.

CommWealth a novel by Michael D. Smith

2020 Sortmind Press cover I’ve secretly hated

Featuring a Resuscitated, Error-Corrected CommWealth

One reason I got interested in these CommWealth-centric interviews is that I’ve just tuned up that comic/dystopian novel, which describes a society where no one can own anything. This is the same novel of 2020, but I cleaned up typos and made a badly needed new Amazon cover. I used Grammarly to ferret out errors. There’s much for any author to disagree with Grammarly about, but out of the hundreds of suggestions it offers, it does catch serious errors like these:

  • This is really is all coming too fast
  • No, because you’ve never make any sense!
  • lead bullets than can harm the environment
  • Wasn’t he was pulling out of the line

How dare such pollution persist over scores of my careful rereadings and edits, readings from friends, and work from beta readers and editors! I groan to give these examples but it seems we must be open about the persistence of these devils.

CommWealth a novel by Michael D. Smith

The 2023 Sortmind Press wraparound cover

I Think … CommWealth is Now … Perfect

The new Amazon 6 x 9 trade paperback’s wraparound cover is nearly identical to the lulu.com mass market paperback of 2020 that I’ve secretly considered for three years to be far superior to the dense brown one of the 6 x 9; how did I ever think that cluttered mess was appealing? The back blurb needed to rise to the top to make room for Amazon’s bar code, and I added the Sortmind Press logo, choosing the black and white version because the color one’s blue clashes with the cover photo.

The blue is hypnotic. I see the intrusive light with its overexposed moon slice as being the theater setting where the characters operate. I’m so pleased with how this book has turned out that I’m definitely reassessing it and will play it up more, especially at the North Texas Book Festival next month but also on my various web pages.

copyright 2023 by Michael D. Smith

Posted in Black Comedy, Book Covers, CommWealth, Editing, Interviews, Marketing, Novels, Publishing, Sortmind Press, Writing, Writing Process | Leave a reply

Supreme Commander Laurie Gets Underway

Sortmind Blog - Michael D. Smith Posted on July 13, 2023 by Michael D. SmithJuly 22, 2023

Draft Supreme Commander Laurie cover copyright 2023 by Michael D. SmithI finished the seven books of the Jack Commer, Supreme Commander science fiction series in 2021, and on what I felt was a strong note. I didn’t want to keep writing Jack Commer just because I was comfortable with it, and I knew that sooner or later any series usually goes downhill. To quote my blog from July 2022:

When the series begins to get overripe, create a new series in the same universe to retain reader interest.

I’m now 111 pages through the first draft of Supreme Commander Laurie. I made a draft cover to anchor the book in my head, but it won’t be the final. You have to ask yourself whether you’re attached to your own cover as artistic self-expression, or if it can really help sell the book. But nobody’s thinking in those terms now.

A Minor Character Goes Major

The Wounded Frontier by Michael D. SmithOne of my favorite characters in the Commer series, Laurie Lachrer, now steps into the spotlight. A minor figure with one scene and a few lines in Book One, The Martian Marauders, in 2034 Laurie was a nineteen-year-old USSF airman first class, a hanger technician involved with ship storage and security. She was mainly present to amaze everyone that Jack’s feckless younger brother John could possibly have snagged such a petite, stunning, super-intelligent redhead as a girlfriend.

But Laurie was called out of obscurity for the series’ fifth book, The Wounded Frontier, where she stars on the cover. By the 2070s she’s abandoned a succession of responsible yet low-level USSF jobs to ascend to the exalted position of physician/engineer for the highest-tech Typhoon spaceships. In 2076 she’s sixty-one, but rejuvenation technology has kept her and most other series characters looking thirty to forty. Now Colonel Lachrer, sent to rescue Jack’s crew in a solar system thirty-four light-years away, matches wits with the Wounded, a nefarious race that blows up entire solar systems for artistic kicks. Though she’d secretly scorned Jack Commer as a naïve and outmoded leader, Laurie gains new respect for him as they work together in the last three books of the series. At the end of Book Seven, Jack promotes her to admiral and Supreme Commander of the United System Space Force.

The New Series

Supreme Commander Laurie is also the series title. I don’t have an overarching plot stretching across several novels, so I’m throwing everything I have into Book One. I’ll let Books Two and beyond take care of new themes and new life forces at their proper time.

I have extensive notes for this novel as well as a condensed overview, but since the thing is opening into spaces I hadn’t conceived of, and since I expect more of that, the notes are provisional and no book blurb can possibly form at this point.

At the end of the final Commer book, Balloon Ship Armageddon, Jack sent Laurie back to the Milky Way Galaxy to become Supreme Commander of the USSF. But as SCL opens, she finds herself inexplicably transported to the brand-new Typhoon VIII spaceship manned by Jack and his crew, who all volunteered to undertake a possibly suicidal mission to investigate the Unknown Irregularity at the Center of the Universe. So who’s in charge of saving everything now, Laurie or Captain Jack who just resigned his commission and turned over all his SCUSSF duties to her?

I also have to ask: am I really qualified to fix the Basic Problem of the Universe in this novel? I now see I need to walk Jack’s grand plans back a bit. I gave Laurie too many supernatural powers at the end of Balloon Ship Armageddon and so naturally the new plot mandates that she isn’t able to sustain those energy levels and will revert to normal human intelligence and fallibility. And I’ve got to push Jack back into a supporting character role.

The Laurie Conundrum

The next problem is that, while Laurie has a decent scene so far in these first 111 pages, her robot counterpart, Laurie 283, might be coming across as the main character. Laurie 283 was supposed to accompany Jack to the Central Irregularity but instead found herself in command of the ship Jack sent back to the Milky Way. The two Lauries–they’re both damn smart–quickly realize they’ve switched places but have no idea why. At this point I don’t either.

But as far as Sol is concerned, it’s the newly arrived robot who’s now Supreme Commander.

Then I find I’m having way too much fun with another walk-on character from the original series, Mickey Michaels, who was killed along with five other USSF crewmen when Jack’s foolhardy brother John elected to heroically ram the Typhoon I into Mercury at 4.3 million miles per hour. So read Book One to find out what I’m talking about. Michaels was a true expendable movie extra but he did have some lines; I just went back to the MS. and counted the fifteen times he spoke, usually to just chirp in some random comment.

How do I resurrect all the dead characters I want? Through the magic of Heroes and Villains of the Thirties robots, created in the 2040s to honor the soldiers and spacemen of the terrible years of Final War and time-travel combat with Alpha Centaurians. All these characters were commemorated in robot likenesses numbering in the thousands, and the last four Commer books make much use of the clunky contraptions. Since RoboticsMindPump, Inc. flooded the market with these HAVOTT collectors’ items, there are still many hanging around in 2076, when Supreme Commander Laurie begins.

Mickey Michaels copyright 2012 by Michael D, Smith

Mickey Michaels starring in 2017’s Trip to Mars

So a Lt. Mickey Mal Michaels robot was created with as much detail as its programmers could find about the Typhoon I turret gunner, including his private online journal devoted to his secret aspirations to be a science fiction writer.

Thus several sections in SCL are novel chapters from robot Michaels’ new novel, Fathom the Doomboat Stars. He writes Chapter One from Jack’s point of view even though Jack is trillions of light-years away, yet Michaels insists his robotic mind is assessing billions of possibilities and coming up with the most likely conversation between Jack and a bewildered Laurie who’s just found herself on the wrong spaceship.

Michaels head-hops as he pleases in a florid, word-wasting, relentlessly obscene style. He becomes a Hunter S. Thompson-like commentator on action he thinks he understands, but so obviously doesn’t. His sections are absurd, but so much fun to write that they’re helping open up new territory. I find myself laughing out loud at some of his passages, always a sign of good energy flowing.

I don’t have to leave Mr. Michaels in this position, however. I just want to see where his idiot style takes me for now. I can tamp his sections down later and retain him as an ego-tripping narrator; there’s really no reason for such over-the-top obscenity other than that it describes his character, but I’ve seen how easy it is to replace four-letter words yet retain the same flavor.

Or I may choose to just rewrite his stuff back to standard fiction prose. In any case I have plans for Mickey Mal to surface later in the plot. I’m not terribly worried that he’s going to take over the novel. I can tell he wants to, though.

But hey, who’s really the focus of this thing? Laurie, Laurie 283, or Mickey M.? The series is Laurie. What’s she all about here? Before this book she’d always been a supporting character, albeit an extremely important one, but now she has to step up to be The One.

But a funny feeling is rising that Laurie is being held in reserve, that she’s not really ready for her part on stage yet, but that … it’ll come later in the novel, at the appropriate time. And that her unfolding will define the new series as completely separate from the original one.

Useful Planning Insights

A couple things I’ve noted in planning Supreme Commander Laurie can apply to any novel’s idea gestation period:

1) Initial plot notes can easily turn into a morality play, a shallow “How good shall triumph over evil.” I do try to go easy on myself at this point, recognizing that these first notes can be an expression of anxiety about how all this is supposed to work, and after all they’re just part of the entire process from first idea to published manuscript. As I settle down and let other energies start pouring through, this uneasiness fades away.

Plot notes can easily expand into numerous pages of dense, single-spaced musings. This creates confusing obstacles; navigating through forty pages of this is tiresome. But as I begin the novel, I start seeing which notes are writable and which are non-writable. I quickly discard the vague, low-energy notes and what remains is the fun fiction.

I also recently started creating an additional overview document for new novels; a couple pages long, they summarize each chapter in a sentence or two. I update this as the book moves along and it keeps the novel in focus. Later, when the book is done, the overview easily morphs into a novel synopsis.

2) You’re never disrespecting characters from previous novels if they don’t have a supporting part in the next novel in the series. Nor do you have to keep their whereabouts up to date. I’ve actually felt guilty about whether to record what’s going on with earlier characters in the Commer series, or if I need to get them a few lines on stage.

But this is simply not the case. Not only does the reader not care about the previous characters, the flow of the novel doesn’t need them either. They can just live in the background like any former staff member you used to work with. It doesn’t mean they didn’t have their useful function in preceding works.

copyright 2023 by Michael D. Smith

Posted in Balloon Ship Armageddon, Book Covers, Character Images, Jack Commer, Martian Marauders, Novels, Science Fiction, Supreme Commander Laurie, Writing, Writing Process | 1 Reply

The Exoskeleton

Sortmind Blog - Michael D. Smith Posted on July 3, 2023 by Michael D. SmithJuly 3, 2023

Mindful of one of my favorite saws probably picked up from The Internet, “There are two kinds of people: those who place people in categories, and those who don’t,” I nevertheless postulate that there may be three kinds of artist interaction with the world. Let’s assume a high level of talent and hard work/discipline on the part of the artist for all three categories:

Category 1. Good Fortune!

Drawing 6/30/23 copyright by Michael D. Smith Those artists for whom something came together, either for enough influence to make a real living, or to at least have an audience, live the “art life,” and see some monetary return. The talent and dedication may be highest here, but luck and who-you-know play a part; any of us can cite numerous examples of trash art that enriched their creators.

These artists surely have experienced the down moods of the next two categories, but their success must have seemed fated, that somehow “This was how it was all supposed to happen.”

Oooh, and there’s the subset that this early fame destroys. I certainly have no idea how that works.

But as an example of where I’m coming from on this:

I arrive in Houston for my junior year at Rice having previously refused a claustrophobic college (dorm) assignment. I realize I must hunt for an apartment, but being utterly callow I have no idea how to get started. But a friend knows a friend who knows the perfect place: I do nothing but show up and meet the landlady. And so I loved that quirky garage apartment with its extreme privacy and it was the perfect place for art for the next two years. The wonderful thing just landed in my lap, but I had no idea how such good fortune came about, and I certainly never developed apartment-hunting skills. It was just damn good luck, and did seem “fated” to happen–though this story illustrates the value of maximizing your contacts, through which luck flows.

Category 2. Despair

These artists can never seem to get any traction and just give up. Other life events soon dominate everything. The world-ocean slowly covers their sand castles. Nothing is left.

Category 3. Perseverance

Exoskeleton copyright 2023 by Michael D. Smith

Throwaway sketch from initial notes for this post

These artists keep going no matter what. I know many of them. Which leads me to discuss my exoskeleton.

To support my art, in 1981 I developed what a called a “world structure” around a library career. It became a complex, evolving exoskeleton which sustained my art life well. Despite a few times when I probably admired the exoskeleton a little too much, and veered a bit off course, I stayed faithful with my art. Some accomplishments since 1981:

  • 232 paintings
  • 12 solo art shows, plus participation in 43 group shows–and some paintings sold
  • 17 novels, 13 of these published; 3 novellas, 1 published; 4 other books published
  • 238 blog posts
  • 2.2 million words in journals

 

All that is solid work and can be built on. But the exoskeleton worked so well that the true inner skeleton for supporting an art life atrophied. I have had art, but an important sustaining force has been missing. Which is why, when I retired in January 2023 and took a look back at decades of a library world structure, I was surprised by a feeling of rootlessness.

I’ve often maintained that the deleterious effects of my library world structure were simply the waste of time and energy that could have been spent on art and writing. But now I see another issue: the type of energy demanded. Keeping up with the endless problem-solving and decision-making, ranging from trivial daily concerns to the momentous issues that either bolster or threaten your career, as well as the unceasing interaction with people, their expectations, ambitions, and conflicts. You can say all that is unavoidable in human life, but in a structure that’s not your real love, that’s just intended to provide support, it distracts you and diminishes your energies. You find it difficult to replenish yourself, and then discover that you need to spend much time working on the exoskeleton itself to make sure it can carry you through the days.

It’s the nature of the enterprise to snag as much of your attention as it can. It’s hard to do an eight-hour workday without falling into “the corporation’s” psychic needs. And trying to slack off during those eight hours, in the name of “conserving art energy,” actually requires more energy than simply getting the various tasks done as best you know how.

I’m still not sure whether I should’ve remained at some “proper level” to minimize the amount of energy the structure required. For instance, whether to seek to rise, to supervise, to take on more responsibility, and the concomitant question of how much money you need at whatever level you stop at, to maintain housing, food, transportation, and health, and to keep the art life going. Trade-offs in all directions. It was always a struggle, but I did keep coming up for air, painted and wrote.

The exoskeleton strikes me as being like the Hindu/Buddhist idea of the illusory ego self. It kept me going, but at such a cost. It protected the art part but actually weakened it in some ways. Consider an astronaut who’s been in space for a year, but despite all his exercise in orbit, when he finds himself back on Earth he’s unable to walk.

I’m not saying this ruefully; what happened, happened, and I’ve learned from it. And there’s always fuel for art here.

The good news is that in the absence of schedules and deadlines and projects and team-building and looking out for “the career,” I’m finally looking to the endoskeleton. Some accomplishments since retirement in January:

  • Novels: Published Asylum and Mirage and began Supreme Commander Laurie
  • Published 13 blog posts
  • Conducted 3 interviews with VoyageDallas
  • Created a fun trailer for my novel Collapse and Delusion
  • Began fresh experiments in two art journals
  • Error-corrected all seven Jack Commer novels and republished these
  • Digitized hundreds of pages of important older writing (stories, the Wiess Crack, letters, journals). Yes, some looking backward has been in order.

 

This initial period is taking longer than I’d thought it would, but I can feel it drawing to a close. I realize I’ve been putting off thinking about some of the creative plans I wrote up as I came up to retirement. I need to assess whether I’ve really needed to rest before going after them, or whether I really want to do them at all. In which case they could be standing for something else much better.

copyright 2023 by Michael D. Smith

Footnote 1: I’m glad I’ve kept this account: https://sortmind.com/art/shows-and-exhibits/
Footnote 2: As for the journal count: For handwritten journals not yet digitized, estimate words per page and multiply by number of sheets stated on the cover of the notebook. Then multiply by 2 because of course you write on both sides of the sheets. All others use Word’s word counts. I know this sounds obsessive but I want to keep track of how much is left to digitize.

Posted in A Writing Biography, Art Process, Asylum and Mirage, Jack Commer, Marketing, Novels, Painting, Publishing, Supreme Commander Laurie, Writing, Writing Process | Leave a reply

ChatGPT Edits My Elevator Pitch

Sortmind Blog - Michael D. Smith Posted on June 19, 2023 by Michael D. SmithJune 19, 2023

One Paragraph

Drawing 6/19/23 copyright 2023 by Michael D. SmithI asked ChatGPT for a one-paragraph summary of the relevant 518 words from my previous blog post (also reproduced at the end of this post) and got these 150 words. It’s rather sobering to see this rendered in about a second:

As a writer, I am driven by the pursuit of stories that resonate deeply on an emotional and thematic level, evoking a sense of déjà vu or the surreal sensation of living within a novel. Exploring the psychological novel genre, I blend elements of humor and introspection, avoiding the grim and embracing the transformative power of storytelling. Guided by the belief that every experience fuels my art, I observe, participate in, and process the world around me. From science fiction to literary works, my writing delves into the psychic landscape of contemporary existence, unraveling fresh inner territories. Influenced by science fiction films, books, and iconic creators such as Kafka, Heinlein, and Kubrick, my narratives spark curiosity with captivating “What if?” scenarios and draw readers in with laughter. Through my writing and accompanying character illustrations, I share fragments of myself, exploring the depths of human nature through a diverse ensemble cast.

One Sentence

Rather long-winded for the elevator. So I asked for a reduction to one sentence, and got 56 words:

I am an introspective writer who explores the psychological novel genre, crafting stories that evoke deep emotional resonance and a sense of living within a surreal narrative, while blending humor, curiosity, and transformative power to unravel the psychic landscape of contemporary existence and delve into the depths of human nature through diverse characters and accompanying illustrations.

A Sentence Suitable for the Elevator

Still long. I asked ChatGPT to cut the above in half, and got 36 words. Note its definition of “half” doesn’t produce 28 words.

As an introspective writer, I explore the psychological novel genre, crafting stories that evoke deep emotions and a surreal narrative, blending humor, curiosity, and transformative power to delve into human nature through diverse characters and illustrations.

What does all this mean?

Still computing. Can I really talk about myself like that? What is “transformative power”? In this case I gave ChatGPT actual text to chew on. I didn’t ask it to simply make up a marketing pitch from various keywords I might have supplied.

But consider: aren’t the above productions akin to concepts a reader might recall after reading my original 518 words below? What are people actually digesting from what we write? What if they even get some of it wrong?

The Original Human Attempt

Following is the relevant content of the post, a series of my marketing statements from various web interviews, and, so as not to confuse dear ChatGPT, omitting the last couple sentences referencing characters in my novel CommWealth.

What inspires me, as a writer, are plots that make deep emotional and thematic sense, like a dream or déjà vu; or the eerie feeling I sometimes get that I’m in fact living in a novel right now. I’ve always been drawn to the concept of the psychological novel. I’m not sure how well I’ve lived up to that genre, but I keep pushing on it. Somehow “humor” and “psychological novel” flow together for me; I don’t think I’ll be writing grim investigations like Crime and Punishment. Then again, never say never.

I have an odd mantra, dating back to my Rice University days as a shy introvert shrinking from interaction with an energy-sapping exterior world: somehow, in the middle of intense adolescent Sturm und Drang, this statement popped into my head: “There’s a super colossal mess jungle going on. It’s my business to get involved with it, any way I can.” I saw that I needed to observe, participate in, and process everything around me for my writing and visual art. My wife Nancy refined this later when she told me: “Everything you do in this life is for your art.” Whenever I feel oppressed by exterior obstacles, I just have to remember that they’re also fuel.

The world is an art supply.

My science fiction is a mashup of literary and space opera genres. My literary novels in turn are infused with science fiction and absurdist elements. My best writing is a solid investigation of “what’s been psychically going on recently,” and this includes even the fun, fast-paced SF plots. When it’s coming out well it opens up fresh inner territories to explore.

Science fiction films and books, absorbed since childhood, prompted my early writing, but they’ve also influenced the bizarre aspects that are part of almost all my work, including CommWealth, which after all has no spaceships or teleportation systems, just an outrageously crazed social order with hysterical, over-the-top characters. The Twilight Zone TV show, which produced much childhood terror, was a major factor as well. Later inspiration came from Franz Kafka, Robert Heinlein, and Stanley Kubrick, and decades of letters between me and my best friend Sabin, whom I’ve known since I was five, helped hone my writing style.

My best work begins with a good “What if?” For instance, “What if all private property were abolished? How would people live?” A detailed dream can also lend itself to that “What if?” question. Or looking at a flawed older manuscript, finally grasping its “What if?” and seeing exactly how to fix it.

I love it when I see someone reading my work and laughing; I then demand to know exactly where they are in the book. And I very much enjoy drawing the characters, and the drawings often give me feedback on their development.

I try to parcel pieces of myself to all the characters, both male and female. The ensemble cast format of CommWealth, in which half a dozen main characters take equal turns on stage, allowed me to represent my best and worst qualities across a wide range of characters and scenes.

copyright 2023 by Michael D. Smith (though I admit ChatGPT contributions to this post would be a gray area)

 

Posted in AI, Drawing, Interviews, Marketing, Novels, Writing, Writing Process | Leave a reply

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Michael's books

Why Meditate: Working with Thoughts and Emotions
4 of 5 stars
Why Meditate: Working with Thoughts and Emotions
by Matthieu Ricard
WordPress Web Design for Dummies
4 of 5 stars
WordPress Web Design for Dummies
by Lisa Sabin-Wilson
Death from the Skies!: These Are the Ways the World Will End...
5 of 5 stars
Death from the Skies!: These Are the Ways the World Will End...
by Philip Plait
Using Joomla!
3 of 5 stars
Using Joomla!
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Serpent's Tooth
5 of 5 stars
Serpent's Tooth
by Toni V. Sweeney
On a cruise Melissa bonds with an older man, Travis, who turns out to be a famous celebrity in hiding from a once successful life. But by degrees we become aware that his enormous success came at the price of bonding with demonic forces...

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