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jms

No, no plans to put B5 into book form; it was designed to be told for TV, and that's where it should stay...and the sequel is still being negotiated.

jms

Fm: REBECCA ESCHLIMAN

jms -

Of course, well-deserved congratulations on the second Hugo.

This may be a hard question to formulate as it arose from stream of consciousness.

>From the starting point that the Princess of Wales was defined by semiotic accretions from the moment she stepped into the spotlight and became a story, and from seeing how some series like ROAR seem to have a semiotic starting point, and from the fact that part of the appeal (for me, at least) of B5 is that it has semiotic richness in that actions have echoes of myth and imagery and historical parallel...

does a storyteller such as yourself or others you admire ever start from the semiotic and discover characters that can express it, or is it the more natural process to have the characters tell their stories and later find out that they have semiotic resonance simply because the storyteller has read enough and seen enough that the semiotic bit comes without thinking? (Does the question even make sense?)

- -rje- But then there was a star danced, and under that was I born.

I really don't think you can think in those terms, either way. You pick up the tools of the *story*, not the tools of the *analysis of the story*, and as you begin to line them up, you may have a sense of, "Okay, this character is something of an archetype, so I need certain elements to come into this, but only in service of the story." I find that what truly makes for myth does not come from conscious effort, but from *unconscious* effort, this is where Jung's notion of a collective unconscious comes into play. We may not know *why* a sword raised by a bloodied soldier over a battlefield strewn with bodies has power with us, it's enough to know that it *does*. When you ride a bicycle, you're not thinking about pressure vs. force or force = propulsion, or how many cycles per minute equals X-speed, you're just Riding The Bike.

I just Write.

jms

I was irritable about it at first. Very much so, since it jeapordized B5 ever being picked up as a series. We had a huge battle to fight on the premise that there was room enough for two space SF series (virtually all the studios had conceded that one), then to say that there was room for, and the market could sustain, two *space station* SF series, well, suffice to say it caused us a lot of hassle.

But in the final analysis, you come down to some basic fundamentals. First, it comes down to making a good show. I'd rather compete in the marketplace of free ideas; if we make a good show, it'll succeed...if not, not, and it's a moot point. Second, as much as I may suspect that the development of DS9 was guided by some of the execs at Paramount who had access to all our material, I don't *know for sure* that it was...and if you're going to be fair you *have* to allow for the possibility of simultaneous, independent creation. So I'm fairly sanguine about it, as much as can be, anyway.

jms

Speaking as the guy who made up that internal logic and that fictional universe...there is a profound difference between the examples you were citing from the Revolutionary and Civil Wars and the situation in B5. To command a starship you have to have experience in combat situations, and also in how to be level-headed enough to talk your way out when you have to. The average career military person may enter at 18 years of age, or wait until finishing college or OTS (Officer Training School) at 20-21. You may enter respectively as an ensign, or as a Lieutenant, and be assigned to your first unit at that point. This has nothing to do with any particular country's military scheme as simply with the math involved.

Promotion in EVERY military is based in large measure on combat experience. (Which is why women officers are fighting so hard to get access to battlefield postings.) Working your way up the ranks simply takes *time*.

There's a profound difference between an Air Force captain, who is responsible only for his own plane, and a Captain of a large vessel who must command a staff and be responsible for the lives of hundreds of crew members. Before they will entrust you with that responsibility, you have to have proven yourself over the long-haul. This is all the more true with something like B5, where the CO also operates as a military governor of sorts. With a quarter-million lives on the line, a person in his or her 20s simply does not have the years of experience required for the job...and there is no way to gain that experience other than with time. It's not strictly a question of maturity, it's a question of experience as well, and the bureaucracy that comes with *any* military structure that says "you must pay your way, and earn your stripes."

Just because something is SF doesn't mean we must throw away *external* logic in our attempt to make the *internal* logic into something just because we want it to be so.

jms

No, it isn't specifically or exclusively based on the US Navy, no, but also bear in mind that if you're going to look outside the US military system, you will find that promotions generally take even *longer* than in our own system...so that may not be in the best interests of your argument.

jms

Thanks...yeah, wrote two other books, OtherSyde (novel) and an anthology, Tales from the New Twilight Zone, as well as short stories appearing in Pulphouse, Amazing Stories, Midnight Grafitti, Shadows 6, and a brand new (and rather long) story coming out next Spring in the Death Out West anthology edited by Martin Harry Greenberg (mystery/crime stories), called "We Killed Them in the Ratings."

jms

Fm: ROB CARR

YOU wrote for The Real Ghostbusters?

TRGB was a cartoon far above most cartoons. I could sit at the ambulance station and watch that without embarrassment. The rest of the guys (and gals) got into it, too.

My admiration for your skills has gone up another notch.

Rob

Wrote for it, heck, I story edited the first network season and the syndicated season *simultaneously*, for a total of 78 episodes, and wrote 22 episodes (5 of which came after that first season) including the Halloween ABC special for which I wrote a couple of songs. It was a great deal of fun to work on, until they messed up Janine, which is why I left. Later, when they realized that had been an error, they asked me to write some more with her pretty much as she had been, and then to fix the continuity error in an episode called "Janine, You've Changed."

Some of the ones I wrote were Xmas Marks the Spot, Mr. Sandman Dream Me a Dream, Citizen Ghost, Ragnarok and Roll, The Thing in Mrs. Faversham's Attic, No One Comes to Lupusville, Chicken He Clucked, Doctor Doctor, and a bunch of others.

TRGBs is now playing on syndication again, in the Amazing Adventures package...uncut, as far as I can tell. (I think it airs Sundays at 2:30 here in LA.) It was a hoot, and it's one of the things I'm still very proud of.

jms

BTW, when they did the second season without me, they introduced the odious "Junior Ghostbusters," and at one point asked me if I'd be willing to write a script using them.

"Only if I get to drive a truck over them," I replied.

They never asked me again.

jms

"Also, what might your expectations/desires be surrounding the plots of the films and the new characters themselves?"

I generally don't go in with a notion of what I'd want to see; if that was what it was about, I'd do it myself...I'd rather sit back and see what *he* does. That's the joy of it.

jms

I was thinking I'd like to sit and watch it, but they needed me at some parties. I was also thinking, "man, I wish we'd had a better bridge between those two shots where we took out some lines, and the bump between CGI and live action should've been bigger, since they took such a big hit, and we should've...."

It never ends.

jms

From: ck@zipcon.net ( )

Cheryl Martin wrote:

FYI, I was told by a couple of people about an incident that occurred at the Hugo ceremony at Worldcon this year. It seems that a number of people left the ceremony after JMS received the Best Dramatic Presentation Hugo. This was considered rude and reflects poorly on B5 fandom.

How is this different from when B5 fans go to any other con to see the JMS presentation, then leave after it?

Leaving aside what others have already pointed out, that folks leave after any of the categories are done, and that B5 folks were possibly more noticeable only because there were a lot of them...

I would that having attended more than my share of pre-B5 worldcons, there have been more people at the last two Hugo ceremonies than I can remember being at previous Hugo ceremonies, in large measure because of B5. If 800 more than usual attended, and 300 left, you've still got 500 more than you would've otherwise. 500 more people who were exposed to the list of fine print works in the SF genre.

Maybe it's just me, but I should think that's something to celebrate, not complain about. I spoke to a LOT of people there in the autograph lines who said that this was not only the first Worldcon they had attended, but the first SF convention *in general* they had ever attended. B5 is bringing a whole new audience into the SF convention arena, where they are exposed to the novels and short stories to be found in the dealer's room and elsewhere. Many of those I spoke to said they weren't, or didn't consider themselves SF fans...but as long as they were there, were out buying SF books to learn more about the genre.

This, too, is something to celebrate. Media SF brings people into the fold who might never have sampled it before, where they (one hopes) become readers and buyers of novels and short stories.

And in response, there often comes negativity, dismissal of a new breed of fen, and paranoia. I've been told that right now (well, as of the SFWA meetings in San Antonio) that a number of SFWA members are pushing hard to have media-related novels disqualified from award consideration, because they think that media is "ruining SF," as one SFWAn relayed to me from the meeting.

A story is a story is a story, and we are made stronger by a multitude of voices and venues and forms and approaches. That SFWA fails to recognize this only continues to prove that it is rapidly becoming irrelevant....

jms

I think what I learned was, never ever do this again....

It's hard to pin it all down, really. Since no one's ever really done this sort of thing before, you have to make up the rules as you go. Every day is a new decision, a different fork in the road...I'm not even sure how I'd pin it down to any one thing in specific. It's like saying "what did you learn different going from an automatic transmission to a manual?" It's just different ways of thinking and working.

And it was the EAS Furies.

jms

From: bethany@umich.edu (Bethany Grenald)

Much apologizings to all, but the message below is a repost. I titled it incorrectly before, and I think JMS didn't see it, so I wanted to try again with an "attn JMS" in the subject line this time.

Dear JMS:

A friend of mine is a high school English teacher, and I have managed to convert her into being as big an admirer of B5 as I am. I'm writing because she is currently teaching A TALE OF TWO CITIES to her10th graders, and she was struck by how the opening line of the book resonates with the season 4 intro to B5. So she asked me to ask you if Dickens' writings have inspired you, and if so, in what ways? She'd like to share whatever you say with her students. I checked the archives of the Lurker's Guide, and saw that you've mentioned Dickens several times, and in your scriptwriting book, you mention writers whose writings have been particularly influential to you in your craft, but I cannot find any place where you address this particular question.

thank you!

- -Bethany

Dickens is certainly a good metaphor and study for the show. His books were serialized, released a bit at a time, telling a long story in a medium not well suited for it. He found ways to turn its shortcomings to his advantage, and the structure of many of his longer works makes them readable even today because of it; each piece had to end strongly when originally published, but keep readers advancing towardn and wanting the next installment. It was a very difficult dance to dance, but the way he did it did to some extent help show me how B5 should be done.

His technique was so successful that people used to line up at the docks in New England and New York for the latest installment to come in over the ocean.

jms

That's an interesting question. When I sat down to write In the Beginning, my feeling was that I should look at the long term. Would the hole in Sinclair's mind be the same mystery it was in season one, or would it be kind of known thereafter? If so, then do you want to play with the mystery, or set up what actually happened? I figured, okay, let's go for the latter...let's let the audience know (which will mostly know by now anyway), and set up the background, with the characters not knowing the first season. I took basic greek tragedy as my model, with ItB functioning more or less as a Greek chorus that sets things up.

If you want to play it as a strict mystery, then no, probably don't go near ItB...but frankly, if I were going to start someone off on B5, I'd definitely want to start with ItB, which sort of skims in and out of the overall storyline in a beautiful fashion.

jms

What an interesting question....

There's this thing called "state related learning," which means that if you learn something while, say, in a given room, or under certain specific conditions, you will be able to remember it better in that same condition or state.

When I'm writing, often I'll find or stumble upon a CD that puts me in the right state of mind to work on it...and when I go in the next day, or a few hours later, that one will be the one I fire up, to get me going. So it may play a lot over the course of a number of days. It ain't *all* I listen to, though I do sometimes listen to it sequentially, I can't listen to just one thing endlessly, but it does get played a lot.

That's the first time I've been asked that question. It's rare when I find a new one. Thanks.

jms

Somebody said, "A story is a writer's way of saying "This is who I am today, and this is how the world looks to me today." " Consequently, it always changes as the writer changes and (one hopes) grows. B5, written now, is not the same as it would be if I wrote it back in 1987; I hope I'm a better writer now, and I think I'm a better person now. And the life experiences available to me to put into the *characters* life experiences are broader.

It does affect B5, in many small and large ways. In the latter part of S4, I was constantly running low on sleep...so what you tended to see was the characters lamenting that they can't get one good night's sleep around the place...if some question came along and blindsided me, it ended up in the show...it's all grist for the mill.

There's a hell of a lot more of me in B5 than even *I* want to think about most days.

jms

From: tnaran@mail.direct.ca (Travers Naran)

Considering JMS has been encouraging reading of written SF, I thought I would pass this on. To the best of my knowledge, this is ligit.

[ Article reposted from rec.arts.sf.tv, rec.arts.sf.movies, alt.tv.sliders, alt.fan.heinlein, alt.books.isaac-asimov ]

[ Author was Podkayne Fries ]

[ Posted on Thu, 18 Sep 1997 20:50:36 GMT ]

Please note that I found this in rec.arts.sf.composition. I'm not sure in which NG Dan Goodman found this, but (IMO) he isn't the kind of person to harbor nonsense.

IMHO, this is an important message for SF fans as it does not bode well for written SF in general.

If you haven't read Spider Robinson, this is certainly a good time to pick up one of his books. alt.callahans is a lotta fun, too.

In article <5vo7f9$37s@vanbc.wimsey.com>, Ted Powell wrote:

I just received the message below from Spider. Although I'm in the middle of setting up some computers here, I figured this was important enough that once I get this posting done I'm going to HTML-ize the letter to put on the web site (http://psg.com/~ted/spider/). I hope you'll consider it important too.

[--Spider's text begins--]

I'd appreciate it a great deal if you would post, forward, link, and/or otherwise disseminate the following screed to all those at alt.callahans, #callahansIRC, the Compuserve SFLIT Forum, AOL's Callahan's Forum, and/or any related sites you can dig up or swing up out de jungle:

--------------------------------------------------------------

"Squeegee That Monitor For You, Sir?"
AN OPEN LETTER TO ALT.CALLAHANS AND RELATED SITES FROM SPIDER ROBINSON

My toast tonight is, "To writers--may the saints add preservatives to them. And FAST!"

!!!SMASH!!!

This is something I swore I would never do.

But I'm too worried not to. The horse I ride on--the publishing industry, never exactly a thoroughbred--has just begun to stumble and cough up blood. Suddenly I need your help too badly NOT to pull on your coat-tail.

You alt.callahans folk and related accomplices owe me nothing. You have made YOUR Callahan's Place all by yourselves, with no help from me, and I think it is in many ways a better, finer creation than my own--one in its way more wonderful than I COULD HAVE imagined. I'm not trying to call in some nonexistent marker--just asking for a minute of your time. I promise I'll play you out with a song when I'm done, at least, like the last time we spoke. Okay?

Let me try and give you an idea of HOW worried I am:

I have recently given serious thought to what else I might do for a living, besides write books.

No, really. I have even...God, this is hard...I have even contemplated honest work. Of some kind. There must be some trade you can pick up at age forty-eight...right?

As concise a statement of the problem as I can provide:

The publishing business has, in slow stages over the twenty-five years I've been writing, essentially been captured by the same kind of vampires that ruined Hollywood. Freebooters, parasites, looters...oh, come out and say it: SHAREHOLDERS, and their chieftains and goons...who want only to milk the industry--ANY industry--for the maximum possible short-term return, and don't mind at ALL if they bleed it dead in the process, so long as they personally get sufficient advance warning of the crunch. People who--for reasons I will NEVER comprehend--actually WANT to be Very Rich. (People, in other words, who either don't know or don't care whether they themselves are happy or not...as long as they have all the marbles.)

They have the same swing-for-the-fences mentality that is screwing up cinema. All we want here are zillion-dollar superstar blockbusters...and a few "little" pictures in which to groom the superstars of tomorrow. Nothing in between; no second features. In like manner, many of the people making decisions in publishing today would like to have a list consisting of nothing but Clancys and Parkers...and a handful of talented newcomers who might be the NEXT Clancy or Parker, but meanwhile are willing to work for first-novel prices. (I hasten to add that I mean no slightest disrespect to either Tom Clancy or Robert Parker; I picked them because I respect them both highly, and buy their new books on sight.)

This isn't the editors and publishers themselves I'm talking about, either. Many if not most of them love good books, even now. But their policies are being made for them by the conglomerates that swallowed them up in the last decade or so. Men and women who got into the business for the fundamental purpose of publishing (at least some) books they were proud of, are now working for people whose ONLY guiding principle is the mantra, "Place yourself between the talent and the money." The ultimate, industry-shaping decisions are being made, as in Hollywood, by people who don't give a toasted DAMN about the PRODUCT, much less the producer-slaves. What they want is simple: HUGE profits, NOW. Blockbusters...and good first novels, or hacks who are willing to work REAL cheap.

What they DON'T much want anymore are MID-LIST writers. Quirky scribblers. Ones with faithful but not mammoth audiences. Ones difficult to sum up to a salesman in Paducah with a one-sentence soundbite. Ones PEOPLE magazine isn't talking about. Ones whose books haven't been a sma-shit (no, that's not misspelled) movie yet. Ones whose works not only reward, but REQUIRE a high-school education and some imagination. Ones who sell well...but not VERY well--or not all in one big lump, but over time.

They'll keep a few around, for show...but only if they're willing to accept a little serious downsizing.

I'm not the only one squawking. At least one colleague recently circulated an urgent open letter similar to this one, triggered when he learned that after over 25 years of award-winning publishing, he can literally no longer sell a book in New York--even to editors who like his work. The sales figures for his last book (and ONLY his last book) just weren't good enough...

Upon reading this, I suddenly became very interested in things I'd never paid any attention to, like my own sales figures and print runs. I was fairly cheered by what few numbers I could find, lurking under concealment on assorted "royalty statements"; my printruns were routinely well over 100,000 copies, always sold well enough to call for at least a second printing, always hit the Locus sf Best Seller list. The rent always got paid--often on time. But lately there has been all sorts of Bad News in the publishing biz, talk of "cutbacks," so I resolved to keep a weather eye out, or peeled, or whatever it is you're supposed to do with a weather eye...

Guess what I just found out? Tor, citing "industry retrenchment," only printed up less than ONE QUARTER AS MANY copies as usual of the latest Callahan paperback, CALLAHAN'S LEGACY.

That's right, a book which carries in it printed acknowledgment of all 60,000+ of you alt.callahans members out there plus all the related forums, channels and groups was not printed in sufficient numbers for HALF of you to buy a copy, should you be so inclined.

They will only go back to press if most of those sell out. Those pitifully few copies, like ALL paperbacks, have a maximum shelf-life of about a month. Tops. In some venues, a week. (If they GET to the shelf at all...)

So here at last is what I'm saying: if you were by any chance thinking of picking up a copy of Spider Robinson's new one -- or the new one by ANY author you care about who isn't already a blockbuster superstar -- for the love of God, PLEASE DON'T PUT IT OFF! This chance may not come again. If it's not on the shelf, ORDER it....FAST, before they pulp the returns and unshipped copies...

Times have changed. If you love books, you must now start to change your thinking, and come to see them as precious, evanescent fireflies, which flicker briefly and then are no more. If you do not stay alert for them, and grab them on sight, they will probably never be reprinted: the concept of backlist is on its way to the ash-heap. All of us who put words in a row for your enjoyment are in serious no-shit danger, and we need your help and support. I know *I* do.

How much? Let me give you a clue: I LEARNED the above information about my most recent print-run while trying to get an explanation for why the proposal I had submitted to Tor for my NEXT book about Jake Stonebender and his family and friends (working title: CALLAHAN'S KEY) had, after months of puzzling silence, just brought back an offer of...60 percent of what they paid me for the last one. (In devalued dollars.)

Cousins, I was just barely making it at the OLD rates. Until a month ago, when a miracle occurred, I was composing my books--all my work--on a computer which I just saw advertised in MacWorld for US$49 plus shipping. I can't TAKE a 40% pay cut and pay my rent. And at 48, I just haven't got the stamina to go back on the road as a musician; it's a young man's game.

The ONLY lever I can hope to apply is to show a LARGE sell-through for that miserable first printing...and the next (dear God let there BE a next)...and the next...and hope that eventually one of those illiterate but NOT innumerate bean-counters way up on the corporate ladder of unknown strangers who tell the publishers what to do will see numbers he or she likes, and decide that there just might be room for me somewhere on one of the bottom rungs of the Star section. "Knock that cat a living wage..." rather than "Throw a statue where that cat blew..." as Lord Buckley might have it. THEN I'll be able to write you all the next Callahan book...

(And again, I'm not trying to put a knock on Tor. They've showed strong commitment to the Callahan series; this must be the best they can do for me, the way things are these days.)

Christmas will be here all too soon. Why not get your shopping done early...down at the bookstore? They happen to have, or should have, THREE Spider Robinson paperbacks on the shelves at once, just now--another of those wizardly publisher decisions--containing a total of SIX complete Spider Robinson novels between their six covers. (See my website for details-- http://psg.com/~ted/spider) A Sixpack of Spider (and Jeanne)--for under US$22/CAN$30!

And trust me: they won't be there long...

(The combined ad and promo for all three volumes, from two different publishers, has been far less than I'm used to seeing for a single novel in the past. I guess they now want to wait and see how the books sell, before deciding if it's worth advertising them...see what I mean? Typical Hollywood "thinking.")

As Homer and Jethro used to say at the end of every number, "Thanks for your sympathy." I appreciate your listening, and appreciate any help you may be able to throw my way. So--just like the last time I wrote to all you folks--I'm going to play you out with a song, to thank you for letting me jingle my cup.

I was sitting here in my office one night 'round midnight, last month, pecking away, and Jeanne was two open doors away, invisible to me, lying on the couch in the livingroom reading a Zen book...and all of a sudden for no particular reason I looked up and smiled and called out, softly, "I'm aware of you."

And she purred, and stretched on the couch, and called back, "That's a song title." So when I got dressed again and got back to the computer, I wrote it, and by the next day I had the tune right.

Slow ballad, attempted Ray Charles flavor, key of A. It goes:

I'm Aware of You, Jeanne
(c) 1997 by Spider Robinson; all rights reserved

I'm aware of you
When I'm busy at my work and you are humming in the parlor
I'm aware of you
We don't have to say a word, I never need any reminder
I'm aware of you
And I care for you
        I will be there for you

('cause)

You're aware of me
You give me what I need most times before I know I need it
You're aware of me
I don't have to slay a dragon just to come to your attention
You're aware of me
And you care for me
        You've been there for me

        And this house is alive when you're home
        When you're gone, it's a pleasant hotel
        I don't ask if you're home as I come through the door
        I can tell
                I can tell...

('cause)

I'm aware of you
While my mind is chasing characters across the Galaxy
I am aware of you
When I'm rapt at my computer playing poker with myself
I am aware of you
And I care for you
        I know you know I do...
        You know I know you do...
'Cause I'm aware of you

-------------------------------------------------------------

THANKS FOR LISTENING. PLEASE FORWARD. TELL YOUR FRIENDS. HAUNT YOUR BOOKSTORE REGULARLY, *ESPECIALLY* YOUR INDEPENDENT OR SPECIALTY BOOKSTORE. ASK THEM TO PHONE YOU WHEN A NEW BOOK BY YOUR FAVORITE AUTHOR COMES OUT; THEY'LL BE *GLAD* TO TAKE A LIST. IF YOU DON'T HAVE SUCH A STORE NEARBY, GET AMAZON.COM TO AUTOMATICALLY SEND YOU YOUR FAVORITE AUTHORS' NEW BOOKS ON RELEASE; THEY'RE SET UP TO LET YOU FILE A LIST.

"'PEOPLE WHO READ BOOKS'...NEXT ON GERALDO..." IT'S NOT FUCKING FUNNY.

Well, okay, it IS...but it's a funny DISASTER, for our whole species.

And certainly for

--Spider Robinson
Vancouver, BC
15 September 1997

[--Spider's text ends--]

Regards, Podkayne Fries

I think Spider's got a perfectly valid point.

I can't see much in there to disagree with.

jms