Top Requirement for a Superhero

More likely it was the goofy boots and lasso I saw as a young girl. This modernized Wonder Woman had a faintly Texas air about her, and I wasn’t big on cowboy stories. Was I judging her by her appearance? Sadly, yes. I didn’t know much else about her, though, because although I read comics and watched superheroes on TV,  somehow her stories were never there. Her image was all I had.

Then I became a teen-aged feminist, and Wonder Woman became a sex object. Well, not totally I’m sure, but her outward appearance took a sharp turn, so once again I wasn’t interested in her. I preferred my heroes not to look like that they were prepared to do a lap dance in some sort of kinky bondage strip club.

Read more at  Top Requirement for a Superhero.

(For more Wonder Woman inspired thoughts, see Believe, It’s About What You Believe, I believe in appreciating those who protect us. All of them, and Believe in Tomorrow.)

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The Power of Three

We hold animated discussions about how telepathy works and how to write a phrase readers will want to quote and the other day we got started on ideas that are inherently powerful, even magic if you will. The best example we could find was the power of the number three.

Make three wishes. Blood, sweat and tears. ABC. The popularity of a trilogy. Star Wars’ brilliant three trilogies. Yes, I even wrote a whole fiction book called “C to the power of three.” The Huffington Post has a fun article on threes and marketing experts are happy to advise you on how to harness its power.

Read the full post on my c3 blog at The Power of Three.

Back to Building a World of Telepaths

I am learning more about the concept of privilege  — white, male, western, hetero, cis, wealthy, healthy, pretty, young — there are a lot of variations here — but the concept that I am ordained by God or nature to be better than you seems to hold the key to failing to care about you at all. Why wouldn’t a human who is certain of his (or her) greater importance be deaf to the pain of those lesser? Might they just find it annoying? I think it depends on exactly how superior these people think they are. Maybe if they had a superpower, like telepathy …..

Read the entire post on my x0 blog at Back to Building a World of Telepaths

“Sense8” and “What’s Up?”

“You’ve got to watch this show. It’s just like your books!”

The first time this happened it was Heroes, which premiered in 2007, when the novel I had been toying with in my head for 20 years was starting to take shape. I’m the one who saw the loose connection with what I was trying to do as I watched this show about otherwise normal people with superpowers who were learning to cope with what they could do while learning to work together.

“Maybe I should give up now?“ I thought. “But no. The popularity of this show means people like this kind of stuff. Maybe it means I need to start writing.” So I did.

Read the full post on my x0 blog at “Sense8” and “What’s Up?”

 

I’ll always be glad to see you

We are back to the old issue of uncertainty, and oh if we could only see the future. Maybe the problem is minor.  I should go and get this off my mind already. Maybe it is major and time is not my friend. If I get my butt in there, the outcome may be better. And maybe it is awful and my life will never be as good after Wednesday in which case I’d rather just not go. Except for this eye thing, my life is pretty good now and there is a big temptation not to mess that up.

What to do?

Read the entire post at I’ll always be glad to see you.

d4: Seeing the Future

Ariel, the hero of d4, lived in my head for years and I knew what she could do. She could see into the future. It wasn’t until I began writing her story, however, that I realized how complicated the very idea of precognition is.

I’d already given serious thought to the pros and cons of a fixed future, and I’d thrown out the idea of a predestined universe.  Over my adult life I’ve heard compelling arguments that in a universe ruled by cause and effect, the future is as immutable as the past. Perhaps it is. But as long as I’m writing the book, there are going to be surprises and free will in the story, and any bits of prescience will work on the assumption that the future is a probability curve. Guess you could say I can’t write stories any other way.

But it turns out that there are many more vexing questions to consider.  How far into the future does she see? Why? How much does she understand about what she sees? Why doesn’t the whole process happen all the time and leave her overwhelmed and unable to function?

Read the rest of this post at Seeing the Future.

c3: Out of Body Experiences

No, it was an out of body experience that I was after. In an OBE, as they are affectionately called, the traveler visits a plane that exactly mirrors our physical world. They are unable to interact with the solids around them, but under the right circumstances they can return with accurate knowledge of distant objects and events.

I discovered that there are quite a few books out there that claim to be able to train you to have an out of body experience, and the internet is full of people happy to describe their own adventures doing the same. I had run into something similar while writing x0 and researching telepathy. Once again, I asked myself — do I believe any of this?

Read the full post at Out of Body Experiences.

z2: Slowing Down Time

If you type “slowing down” into Google, one of the first alternatives it will offer you is a search of “slowing down time”. It is obviously a popular topic, and I knew when I created my hero Alex that his ability was hardly unique. Normal humans often report time moving slower during an emergency …

Read the full post at Slowing Down Time.

c3: 6 favorite mini-excerpts

From c3:

I want to go to Usha and see if she is unharmed. It was a simple command and Teddie had no idea what to expect. But she began to move, not by force, but by what felt like her own choice, down the hall and out the door and down the street. Teddie had never been particularly comfortable with heights, so she was relieved that while it felt like she was flying, she was flying in just the manner that she personally would have chosen. She was skimming really, just maybe ten feet above the ground, close enough that if she fell she would be okay. She made her path down roads rather than over buildings, but she was certainly picking up speed as she went. It seemed like she was guiding herself, that a part of her that knew Usha’s location was leading the rest of her to where she wished to go.

She was headed north towards the mountains, speeding now over the major road that leads out of Darjeeling into the Himalayas. Weren’t those some of the renowned tea fields off to the left? Teddie looked closer, and the next thing she knew she was standing in the middle of the tea field, examining the beautiful green tea leaves up close and personal. Great. She’d stopped moving and she had no idea of what to do next. She was stuck in a field.

Read the rest of this and 5 more mini-excerpts at c3: synopsis and my 6 favorite mini-excerpts.

Writing about Superpowers

Each of my books concerns a character with a different superpower, and each time I have struggled to invent ways in which the power doesn’t work. It turns out that the abnormal abilities are fun, but it’s those limitations that make for a good story

read the entire post at Writing about Superpowers

 

It’s all about who you are

How many ways could you make your life easier, or even just more interesting, if you could look like anyone? I spent a good bit of time trying to devise the possibilities that might occur to a real life shape shifter.

Read the entire post at It’s all about who you are

Out of your body or out of your mind?

Did you know that there are books out there that will train you on how to have an out of body experience, and the internet is full of people happy to describe their own adventures doing the same? I didn’t, but I ran into something similar while writing x0 and researching telepathy. Both times I had to ask myself — do I believe any of this? Does it matter if I believe it?

I am a scientist in my real job, a geophysicist to be specific. I believe in the laws of nature and my default mode is skeptical. Thanks to my background, though, I also know that the universe behaves in many strange ways that we can’t explain, and that the more physics you know the stranger some of it gets.

Out of your body or out of your mind?