Tag: writing

New Novel Resonance Released!

I’ve wanted to share the story that starts in Resonance for over 20 years, and here it is. I’m excited, and hopeful, and terrified–which is all weirdly in alignment with the book’s exploration of the edge of hope and fear. Perhaps I’ve summoned an élan of my own. I love these characters and their weird story of neurodivergent experience and alien influence, and I hope you do too. Many thanks to Autonomous Press for their support of neurodivergent/queer authors and stories.

Outrageous and acclaimed, 26th-century musician Caran Watts depends on two secrets to stay alive: a dangerous drug that hides his illegal neurodivergence and an alien species whose vulnerable existence he has sworn to protect. But when he arrives in the Galilean system to tour his latest work, those secrets are hijacked by a powerful force to advance a genocidal plot. As fear infects Jupiter’s moons, Caran must choose whether to keep hiding or risk both his own life and the aliens in hope of a better future.

Current ways to read:

Resonance Themes & Motivations

I have a new book coming out in March 2022 called Resonance. It’s a literary science fiction novel set in the same world as Hoshi. It’s about what lives on the edge of hope and fear and the transformative power of art.

The groundwork for this novel (and the one that follows it–indeed all the Liminal Universe world-building) began more than 20 years ago. The first appearance of the book’s central characters—the human Caran Watts and the alien Muse–is time-stamped 2002 in my exploratory writings. It’s not a stretch to say most of my motivation to hone my lit-craft has been to be able to tell this story.

The back-of-the-book text goes like so:

Outrageous and acclaimed, 26th-century musician Caran Watts depends on two secrets to stay alive: a dangerous drug that hides his illegal neurodivergence and an alien species whose vulnerable existence he has sworn to protect. But when he arrives in the Galilean system to tour his latest work, those secrets are hijacked by a powerful force to advance a genocidal plot. As fear infects Jupiter’s moons, Caran must choose whether to keep hiding or risk both his own life and the aliens in hope of a better future.

I created the Liminal Universe because I was interested in paradigm shifts and social change. What does it take to move large populations to more equitable behavior? What makes some individuals focal points of those shifts? And, what if the paradigms themselves–or the ideas that comprise them–were sentient and we could talk to them? Would they change if we asked them to? Or would they push back?

From these what-ifs, the living ideas that are the élan vitals–like Muse–and the Operator rights movement–fueled, in part, by Mx. Watts–tumbled out.

I also wrote this novel because I was interested in a science fiction story that centers art. It’s usually strategy, or science, or politics, or some clever scheme. I love all of that, but for those of us who might have been saved by a paintbrush or a song, art deserves some room.

And lastly, I wrote this story because all of us neurodivergent, queer, traumatized, beautiful, struggling and imperfect, perfectly perfect, marvelous and marginalized hero/ines deserve to see ourselves on the page. Not shiny and oversimplified, not as inspiration porn, not as objects of pity or sad stakes. But as the complex and real people we are, making the best choices we can and creating wonder in a world that doesn’t make it easy, or straight-forward, to survive.

I love this world, this story, and these characters, and I hope you do too.

Athletic male dancing, leaving trails of colors and shapes behind in his movement.

Why “Liminal Universe”

In the category of, “things that make perfect sense in my brain but no one else’s,” is likely why I call the world where Hoshi and many of my other stories are set the “Liminal Universe.” Here’s the missing info.

liminal | ‘limǝnl |
adjective
1. relating to a transitional or initial stage of a process
2. occupying a position at, or on both sides of, a boundary or threshold
from Latin limen ‘threshold’

-Oxford American Dictionary

I started developing this universe over 20 years ago. At the time I was extremely interested in the concept of liminality. Okay, so I’m still extremely interested in the concept of liminality. The first novel I wrote in the world was named Liminal. It takes place about 50 years before the upcoming Resonance (55ish years before Hoshi). I still haven’t managed a draft of it I’m happy with, but hope to eventually as it’s the start of the cycle that Resonance and its companion book Revolution complete.

So how does this ‘verse connect with liminality?

Subliminal vs. supraliminal and thresholds of sensation – This is all about the élans, the aliens, the sensation of someone “walking over your grave” and humanity’s fascination with ghosts on the radio. The world of the aliens and the human world are largely subliminal to each other–outside each others’ ability to perceive–but that does not mean unconnected.

Social liminality – The Operators / nauta occupy a liminal position in society, being both valuable and marginalized. As someone who has always existed in liminal spaces, I tend to write about sectors that don’t fit into social norms, that occupy intersectional positions, or that have large amounts of fluidity, such as communities of individuals who are artists, exiles, or illegal.

The liminality of the Mem – The metaverse-cyberspace-virtual world of the Mem is as inherently liminal as our internet. I mean, really, what the heck is this thing? Is it real? Is it a collective dream? A bunch of zeros and ones or the place where we meet and live?

Literal thresholds between dimensional spaces – Although my SF is grounded in real complexity science and social science, I am not a physicist. So my handwavy way of managing space travel is to throw in some thresholds LOL. The places where space farers transition between realspace and dimensionspace are called, officially, Liminalities. For example, “The Stella-Maru crossed the Saturn Liminality from dimspace into the Sol system.”

Paradigmatic transitions and initial stages of first contact – One of the main reasons why I invented this ‘verse was to explore the transitional stages of paradigm shifts. What makes an entire population change its mind about something or see things in a new way? Also, these stories take place in the initial stage of negotiation and understanding between the humans and élans when outcomes still could go in any direction.

New Song / New Post: It’s the End of the World

Wow the past year was hard; I’m guessing for you too. Even though that meant most of my social media falling by the wayside, I did keep working behind the screens, and have some exciting things to share in the new year.

So happy Solstice season! Here’s a new song. Many thanks to Mr. Alphabet for vocals and City of Troy for visualization. I hope you enjoy it!

I wrote this song accident a few years ago. I was struggling with a scene a novel that required it. After months of failing to get the poetry right from any narrative distance, I closed my eyes, and plunked myself inside of the character, inside of the scene, performing the song. Not only did the lyrics resolve but all of the music too. So technically it’s not my song, it’s my character’s song, but I wrote it, because I wrote my character. Wot!? IT IS WEIRD LOL

Here it is on SoundCloud / audio-only if you’re not keen on video.

Mac Carroll Multiverse Novel Notebook

This is a brief flip-through of the traveler’s notebook I keep for stories in the Mac Carroll multiverse.

Tools I use:

Inserts are for:

  1. Working things out which gets set aside when filled;
  2. Each novel as it develops that gives a longer-term reference for that particular book’s details;
  3. A world bible intended for permanent reference for things like maps, timelines, character details, technology, world-rules, etc.
  4. (Sometimes, but not pictured here, an insert for administrative and marketing type tasks related to stories or books in the world.)

You can read a story in this universe in the anthology Spoon Knife 4: A Neurodivergent Guide to Spacetime from Autonomous Press.

Writing an Original Research Article as a Story

Writing an Original Research Article as a Story

I approach the structure of an academic research article similarly to how I approach a piece of fiction. I shared this with a student the other day, and am elevating it from “Random Email I’ll Lose” to “Blog Post I Can Link Back To.”

I like to think of an original research report like a story: The first “chapter”—Background—sets up the characters, setting, and conflict—why was it urgent to do this research? What pressures are building, what gaps exist, what is troublesome about existing knowledge, who is yelling that problems are unaddressed and why? That chapter ends with, “therefore, because of these conflicts/tensions/gaps/needs, we decided to do a study to address them through these research aims.” Or, to go forth on a journey to resolve these conflicts through the objectives of the study.


The second “chapter”—Methods—is like equipping your heroes and sending them out to achieve those necessary objectives. We therefore took these bold actions to resolve the conflict! March forth and design, recruit, collect, analyze! Do the study thing! Here is how we did it.


The third “chapter”—Results—is the climax chapter. It says what actually happened in the study. What was the result of that journey?


The final “chapter”—Discussion—is the resolution chapter. It ties up all the loose ends. It summarizes what happened on the journey and then ties it back to why you had to go forth in the first place, which is introduced first in the Background. It’s where you conclude how the gaps were filled (or not), the troublesome ideas adjusted (or not), the problems addressed (or not). How did the result of the journey change the world? Or, at least, how did it change the current state of the science, literature, practice, policy, and community? 🙂 

Thinking of the research in this way may help provide some structure, and also make it more engaging to read. No, I am not recommending turning the paper into a literary work full of hyperbole and action sequences! But readers can more easily follow a narrative where the pieces relate to each other clearly. I have also found it easier to write when I consider the process of conducting original research as a narrative arc. HTH <3

Avoiding some early errors in academic writing

Avoiding some early errors in academic writing

By chance, I’ve done a lot of mentoring lately about academic writing. Earlier I posted about rejection. This post is just a collection of random n00b-type things that I’ve found myself explaining to students a lot. Now I can just direct them here bwahaha

Disclaimer: My experience with academic writing and publishing is primarily within applied social science journals related to public health, social work, medicine, psychology, systems science, disability, and engineering. I can’t speak to how to write an effective paper in other fields such as philosophy or the humanities.

I. Pick a journal before you start

Before you start writing, the single most important step to take is to pick your journal. DO NOT just sit down to write something. Every journal has specific types of articles they will take, specific formats for those articles, and a specific scope or spin that they are interested in publishing. Not only will this give a structure to work within which makes things easier, it will save you time because you will not need to rewrite the article after you pick the journal.

To consider when picking a journal:

  • Where do you want the paper to be published?
  • Who do you want to have read it?
  • Where do you think it will have the most influence / do the most good?
  • Which journal scopes fit your aims?
  • Which journals publish the type of paper you want to write?
  • Which journals publish papers on the type of research you have conducted or the type of methods you have used?

Pick the highest impact journal that you have a chance of getting into.

II. Understanding an article type and writing to its format.

After you pick a journal, look at what that journal lists for article types. Find the one that matches what you want to write, and then read the instructions very carefully. For the journal Autism in Aduthood (AIA) which I edit for, these appear in a table under the heading “Manuscript Types and Word Limits.” AIA includes short descriptions of each article type and word limits in the table. After the table, AIA provides highly detailed specific instructions for each paper type, including specific internal structures. Many journals provide this information in their “For Authors” sections. If you are not sure which article type would fit what you’re interested in writing, it’s okay to contact the editor and ask.

After you pick an article type, go to the currently published issues of the journal and read other articles of that same type. That will help show what, exactly, the editors mean and are looking for in those types of articles. Again, you can also contact the editor for clarification if the examples don’t help.

III. Academic writing style

A. Don’t use clichés and colloquialisms. For example, “paint a picture” or “It can be seen…”

B. Don’t use language that makes assumptions about the reader. For example, “clearly,” “obviously,” “easily,” “it stands to reason,” etc.

C. Don’t use overly complex language, which can obscure meaning or hide clarity. Bigger words are not always better words. Flowery language will also steal from the word count you will desperately need to report your work and makes your points, and it make the paper hard to read. (Disclaimer again: some fields may be more agreeable to flowery, complex language–applied social science and health literature is typically not).

D. Do not under-state or over-state things with your use of language. Own your own work with strong verbs. “We did this” not “We attempted this.” Do not make strong statements about the world without a citation. “All people do this.” Really? ALL of them? You know this how? “Most people” is a much more accurate statement unless you have a citation that backs up the strength of the statement. Likewise, your findings, though they may be powerful and compelling, are never absolute because science is not absolute. And there are limitations to every study. Unless it’s a mathematical proof, the findings are never “This proves that people…” but “This shows that people like those in our study…”

E. Write in active voice unless the journal explicitly instructs you not to. Passive voice obscures the actor, and makes things harder and more boring to read. DON’T say, “The interviews were conducted.” DO say, “Our research assistant, who is also a member of the community, conducted the interviews.” See how much more important information is given in the active voice! Using active voice does not “bias” the science; it gives greater transparency to the science.

IV. Writing for an academic audience

A. Know your audience. In the case of AIA one is writing to autism researchers. The audience knows basic research methods, they are used to reading academic papers, and they expect particular structures to those papers. They know what autism is and, while they may not have a nuanced view of it from inside, they understand its nuances better than researchers from other fields. Some of readers may be autistic themselves. Some may be autistic-rights and strengths oriented. Some may be heavily medical-model. They are interested in learning something new in the field of autism and adulthood, with which they are already familiar. This will greatly influence choices about where to spend time explaining things in the paper. Other journals will have other audiences–if I’m writing for a systems science journal I may need to spend more time describing what autism is than if I’m writing for AIA, but for AIA I will need to spend more time explaining systems science concepts.

B. There is a difference between writing for teachers and writing for academic journals. When you write for teachers, you need to prove your knowledge–you’re trying to demonstrate that you learned the things they wanted you to learn. When you write for an academic journal, you can assume that your audience already believes you know what you are talking about, and is already familiar with basic research methods and ideas. For example, we all know the implications of a convenience sample on the generalizability of a study. It doesn’t need to be explained. You just need to say, “we used a small convenience sample” and the reader goes oh, okay, results could be different in a large, random, population-based study where people who have no interest in the topic are participating. The places to spend word count and provide deeper explanations are novel ideas. For example, my study on autistic burnout had to spend extra time discussing what that term was and why we were studying it as it previously was not represented in the literature.

IV. Use outlines and standard structures. Seasoned readers expect certain structures. It helps us more easily read and absorb the meat of the article. Some paper types have pretty consistent structures no matter what journal they’re for, like original research papers or reviews (maybe I’ll post those structures later). Other academic paper types, including theoretical papers, are a bit more fluid but not tons. Most start with necessary background to understand why the topic of the paper is important and why the work reported on in the paper needed to be done (gaps in the current state of the science), then they get at the meat of the new work that’s being reported on, and then conclude with a summary of what was learned followed by an in-depth look at how it changes the state of the science. AIA’s Insight pieces are an exception, and, as more literary works, do not have a set structure. Use structure to make your writing process easier, and also to increase your chance that the journal will be interested in the paper. We want to see novel findings and ideas, not experimental writing (tho that may not be true of a literary journal–or of our Insight pieces!–but knowing the usual rules will help you know when and where to break them).

REJECTED! What academic paper rejections are about from both sides of the process

REJECTED! What academic paper rejections are about from both sides of the process

Academic papers are a lot of work. Your research is dear to you. You’ve loved this study enough to see it through, to write it up, to find a home for it. And then you get rejected—perhaps without any indication as to why.

What’s that about? Are you a bad researcher? Was your paper bad? Your research stupid? Should you just give up? Particularly students and others who are new to the process can be devastated by a rejection.

But–really!-there is no need for devastation! Even senior researchers with hundreds of publications are regularly rejected. But it’s easier to deal with rejections when you have had some successes and, importantly, understand better what rejection can mean.

I spend a lot of time on all sides of the academic publication process. I’m an active researcher with studies and papers of my own. I’m a peer reviewer for multiple journals. I’m the Associate Editor of Autism in Adulthood. As an author I’ve been rejected and accepted; as a reviewer I’ve made a full gamut of recommendations; and as an editor I’ve rejected, accepted, and been tormented by decisions for the papers I adjudicate. Here’s the insider scoop on the process and what the rejections could mean.

DISCLAIMER: Science is large. I am a social services intervention researcher working with disability communities. Perspectives from another field (e.g., physics or biology) may vary.

Step 1: Administrative Review

When you submit your paper the first type of review it hits is administrative. This is the check to make sure it’s been formatted properly and it isn’t missing pieces. Often if it doesn’t pass administrative review, the author will get information about what needs to get fixed to resubmit but there’s no official guarantee to that. Bottom line: This is the one part of the process you can control; be sure to follow the instructions for authors carefully.

Step 2: Editorial Review

The journal’s editors read everything that’s sent in. That may be hundreds of articles in a year. They make a decision about whether or not to send the paper to peer review. A lot of things are considered in that decision. Does the topic of the paper fit the journal’s scope? Does the format of the paper fit the types of articles the journal publishes? Is the science sound? Does the paper have the appropriate level of academic depth? Is this reporting on something new; does it advance the science in some way, whether it’s findings or theory/ideas? Do we think it’s worth reviewers’ time; in other words, would we want to publish this in our journal assuming it can be perfected in the review process?

A rejection at this stage is sometimes called a “desk reject.” There are a lot of reasons why this might happen. Some may be because the science is bad, the paper is poorly written, or the ideas are stale. But others may be that it’s just not a good fit for the journal’s scope, the editors were reading too fast and missed how cool it is (hey, we are people who make mistakes like anyone, and we read a lot of submissions!), or it’s a good start to a paper but needs more mentorship and development than we feel we can ask reviewers to provide.

If you get a rejection at this point, don’t get upset. If there are comments given, they could be useful, but more often it’s just a form letter. When I get one of these, I assume that the editors felt it was not a good fit for their journal and re-do the paper for a different journal.

The majority of rejections I have gotten were at this stage. It’s a little irritating because I just want the thing DONE and off my to-do list, but meh. There are a bunch of other journals out there and given the number of considerations going into editorial decisions, there’s zero reason to assume it’s because I suck.

Step 3: Peer Review

If you get to the peer review stage, congratulations! As editors we’re not keen on sending stuff to peer review that we wouldn’t want in the journal, assuming peer review can clean it up.

That said, the whole point of peer review is to go over the paper in excruciating and expert detail to make sure that every part of it is sound before adding it to the literature. Sometimes the reviewers do find fatal flaws in the piece that were not evident on the editors’ quick read. Sometimes it takes an expert to notice a deeper problem.

The journals I work with have an editor in charge of making a final adjudication on the paper, and–if the editor-in-charge decides they want to work with the paper–between two and five peer reviewers. Peer reviewers are selected because they offer specific expertise relevant to your paper. The reviewers give their detailed feedback and assessment of whether to reject, ask for revisions, or accept. The reviewers don’t always agree on if the paper should be accepted. The editor in charge of the manuscript makes the final call.

It is possible to get a rejection from the editor only; this means they did not feel like they could work with the paper in its current state, so they did not engage peer reviewers.

It is possible to get a rejection along with a full set of peer reviewer comments.

It is also possible to get a revise-and-resubmit letter. This might seem like a rejection because it will say something like “…unfortunately we cannot accept the paper in its current form.” HOWEVER, if you are being invited to address reviewer comments and resubmit, you have not been rejected. This is just the next stage of the process of revising the article based on reviewer feedback.

I have never had a paper accepted outright, and I know only a few cases where my colleagues were given “conditional acceptances” (accepted if you make these changes). Most often I am asked to make “major revisions.” Sometimes “minor revisions.” This is totally normal. Note though, that while your chance of being rejected goes down significantly with each of these stages you get through, there is no guarantee you won’t be rejected until you get an official acceptance message.

Reviewer feedback can be annoying, harsh, misinformed, or otherwise painful. The editor in charge may provide guidance if there’s feedback you should ignore, like if there’s a reviewer who just doesn’t get something (like saying that qualitative findings can’t be generalized due to small N, which is a methodologically ignorant statement). The editor-in-charge comments should take precedence over the reviewer comments.

If you are invited to revise and resubmit, as an author, you get a chance to decide if you want to self-reject (or pull). If you feel addressing the reviewer comments would compromise your work, or don’t want to deal, YOU can decide not to submit a revision and take your paper elsewhere. You can also decide to completely re-do it and resubmit it as a new submission to the same journal. While I have never done this, I have considered it before. Or you could address the reviewer comments carefully and submit the revision.

If you are rejected by the journal at any time during the peer review, take a cold look at the comments. They will help you even if they are harsh. Even ignorant comments (like quantitative researchers who don’t understand qualitative methods) can be useful. I keep using that example because it’s one that I’ve gotten repeatedly. It’s taught me to always put a sentence in my papers that says something like, “As a qualitative study, we were not seeking to generalize to a population, but to gain an in-depth understanding of a wide range of individual experiences.” I stopped getting bad reviews about my N for qualitative studies after doing that.

It is true–your paper might suck. Your research idea might be flawed, your work might have been done before and you just hadn’t found the papers already written on it. BUT!

  1. That does not mean you suck and should give up. It means you learned something and can move on with better knowledge and skill.
  2. It also means that you are saved the embarrassment and damage of it getting published and then getting huge backlash from the rest of your peers in the field when they see it. Better to know before it is made public than after.

It is also true that your paper may have been just fine and the peer reviewers sucked. Instead of getting upset, ask yourself some critical questions:

  1. Was the writing unclear? It may be your technical communications skills that need to be honed, not your scientific ones. Becoming a better writer is a win. Or maybe the reviewers were poor readers.
  2. Were the reviewers ignorant or coming from the wrong paradigm for your work? Reviewers aren’t always right, or don’t always support the kind of work you do. If this is the case, you can try the paper elsewhere. It probably wasn’t a good fit for the journal and you probably don’t want your paper there anyway. (I have recommended rejection of papers on ethical grounds before, even if the science was rigorous.)
  3. Are there actually major problems? Truly? I’ve knee-jerked to reviewer comments before, dismissed them, and then a day or two later had a long, hard think and realized that even though the comment was written pretty brutally, the reviewer had a very good point.
  4. Do you need to find a mentor / get a second opinion? The papers I have to reject most often come from students who have written wonderful student papers that lack the depth of a publishable academic paper. My role as a reviewer or editor is not to mentor them on their science, even though my heart breaks sometimes stumbling over that boundary. Consider going over your review notes with a more senior scientist, or a peer in your field. Not just for students–I go over review notes with my mentors and peers too. Others can help put things in perspective.

Last Thoughts:

Rejection happens to everyone. Think of it as part of your scientific journey, life-long learning, and intellectual challenge. Also think of it as your initiation into the club of every other researcher in the whole world ever ’cause we get stuff rejected too, all the time 🙂

Good luck <3

Hearts & Tails: Spacetime and Mathematics

FIRST LAW OF THE REACHABLE NOWS: No alternate versions of a person may be in eye-line of each other within the same now, or both will suffer immediate death by fire.

My novella “Hearts and Tails” in Spoon Knife 4: Spacetime is set in a soft-SF multiverse where WWI never ended, it just kind of petered out into a devastated landscape and a chemical-weapons cold war. There are 90’s tropes galore: magic, bio-engineered mutant powers, impossible psi-ops, and neon-glow cyberspace–depending which of four reachable nows one falls into. And maths. There are maths!!!

Okay, so I really love mathematics. I know this is mostly an unpopular opinion–Or not! Maybe you may share my love!

Macintosh Carroll, the central character of these stories shares my love. He is a maths savant with color-number synaesthesia.

Red-orange-blue-and-black
a place where four four-dimensional world-lines line up creating a single now, a point shared by four spaces, four-D space-time four four four four times four sixteen blue blue blue blue like the bluest blue that ever was–

Mac stops writing and closes his eyes, the numbers washing him like seas. They are beautiful to him, beautiful and terrifying.

Mathematics–loosely, softly anyway–is how I keep the multiverse of the stories self-consistent and believable.

A formal system in mathematics is an engine for creating truths. It consists of axioms (accepted truths), rules (specified behaviors), and theorems (less obvious truths). New truths can be created by applying rules to axioms and/or theorems, so from a little bit of logic whole universes are made. Logical consistency is what builds a formal system, no matter how outlandish its axioms.

In the case of the Mac Carroll Multiverse, there’s a space-time phenomenon that lines up four realities at a single point. Some individuals can slip between the realities at that point. The axioms include the dynamics of the slip, many of the facts of our world circa 1991, plus unique world-facts such the Ottoman Empire dropping a chemical bomb on Germany because, after 40 years, they want out of the Axis. The rules are called The Laws of the Reachable Nows, and are recorded in a book shared by multiverse travelers. From those axioms and rules, the rest of the mulitverse follows.

But because I love disrupting stereotypes as much as I love maths, Mac’s also a shifty low-life punk with a belligerent attitude who is embarrassed by just how deeply he loves maths, and hides it behind a lot of attitude. Cuz nerdiness is punk rock too <3

In Spoon Knife 4: A Neurodivergent Guide to Spacetime. Autonomous Press, Amazon, or ask your local bookstore.

Theme: Overlay by Kaira 2020 Dora M Raymaker
Portland, Oregon