JOURNAL ENTRY #24
September 1, 2008
Stratford Academy appears to be a dazzling place to go to school. It's ideally located on a lovely campus on the western edge of Macon, GA. The classes are small and the standards are high. I was given the opportunity to speak at the high school, and to attend one of the writing classes. I came away realizing how much I missed being a teacher. Unfortunately, I've reached an age at which the workload would be too much. Although I was almost tempted to ask about faculty openings for next year.
Several of the teachers treated Maureen and me to dinner at an Italian restaurant the previous evening. It made for an entertaining two hours. As we all know, the secret for any good school is a combination of involved parents and teachers who have mastered the art of showbiz. I can't answer for the parents, or the entire faculty, but the ones I met were impressive. And a pleasure to work with.
The drive between our home and Macon is about four hours each way. Much of the trip, coming and going, was complicated by heavy winds and rain from TS Fay. We're still cleaning up at home.
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In Journal #19, I recommended Rob Sawyer's Wake. I was happy to see it's being serialized by Analog, starting with the current (November) issue.
Two of my short stories are about to appear: Asimov's will publish "Welcome to Valhalla," written with Kathryn Lance, in its December issue. And Fast Forward 2, edited by Lou Anders, will run "Molly's Kids." We'll be posting the cover of Fast Forward 2 shortly..
SPOILER ALERT for Seeker:
A number of readers have written to say they could see the end coming from a mile away. That's not necessarily a problem, at least as far as I'm concerned. But there's an interesting adjunct to the story. One of the more common questions at workshops is whether I have a complete outline for a book before I start. The answer is no. Usually, I have a set-up and a conclusion. With Alex Benedict, that means a mysterious event, and a reasonable solution that does not rely on super science or the intervention of aliens or some such thing.
With Seeker, two ships and a mission had gone missing during the third millennium. If you've read the book, you know how it ends. You might be interested to know that my original intention was not at all to end it the way I did. Chase & Alex were going to find, not a thriving civilization when they finally tracked down the mission's detination, but instead would encounter only an AI. "Hello," it would say, "how are you?" Everything else was gone, unable to sustan itself during its early years without support from home. In fact, I wrote the first draft that way, and was several pages into the conclusion when I realized it was the wrong climax. I sensed what everybody else did: That the narrative was building to a party. So, remembering Terry Carr's dictum that the reader should not go through 400 pages to be let down at the end, I went back and did it right.
It's the advice I always give at workshops: When your plans comflict with your instincts, follow your instincts.
Jack
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