It's Friday and officially the first day of summer break here! Can you see how excited I am??? :-)
Today, my wonderful guest is Ms. Marjorie F. Baldwin, aka Friday, who has written this little gem called Conditioned Response, which I had the honor of working on with her.
In case you missed my review, you can find that HERE.
Enjoy the interview, and enjoy the Memorial Day weekend!!!
Author Interview
Marjorie F. Baldwin
Conditioned Response
GL: Please tell everyone
a bit about yourself.
Friday: I write SciFi under
this pen name and Romantic Suspense under another pen name, but the one thing
all my selves has in common is that characters are my forte. My stories are
usually character-centered. When I write, I feel like I’m sitting on the
sidelines watching a movie, taking dictation, while the characters live out the
scene in front of my eyes. I tend to listen to extremely high-energy music
while I write so, combined with this mental imagery, I become completely
disconnected from reality while I’m writing. I don’t know how or why I started
doing this (writing), but I started as a young child and it’s definitely what I
was designed to do. It’s what I do best—and I’ve done a lot of different things
over the years from scrubbing floors with a tooth brush to being a bona fide
Rocket Scientist!
GL: Now, tell us about Conditioned Response.
Friday: This book has
undergone a lot of changes since its original inception in the 1980s. I started
out around 1984 thinking I’d write a little machine-turned-man story, in Isaac
Asimov’s shadow, and then I decided to add in a little from Robert A.
Heinlein’s storytelling (the feeling of “down the street and around the corner,
in the middle of next week a few centuries from now” definitely comes directly
from Heinlein’s influence on me). Then I decided I needed more texture in the
setting and made it into a Dystopian view of Earth modeled after Huxley’s Brave
New World and then I couldn’t figure out how to make my original characters
fit into all these different styles from other authors.
The characters were
first so I didn’t worry about the world-building making sense, so much as I
wanted the people to make sense as they were living out their lives. This used
to be the first book of the series and I wrote four (4) books all at once, one
after another until about 1990 when I finished the series with a big conclusion
that I hated. I don’t know if I just hated saying good bye to these people or
hated the way I’d chosen to end the series, but I was dissatisfied, as a
reader, with the series ending.
So, I set it all
aside and came back to it numerous times over the years. However, because I had
no clue how to edit, I couldn’t figure out what was wrong, let alone how to fix
it. This first book had been reviewed by an editor at Del Rey in 1986 and he
loved it (the characters anyway and especially the Phoenicians) and he reviewed
all four books, each one as I finished it, but he didn’t think the series
setting worked for any of the books. He also felt there was too much
inter-dependence on the reader having knowledge from one book to the next.
Turns out, he was exactly right on all counts. The info-dumping in Conditioned
Response was my novice attempt to remove the dependency issue. The
setting... that was a different problem to solve.
In 2005-2006 I
learned how to edit by working on someone else’s book with them, and created
this “tossaway” guy modeled after a Heinlein-style Proctor. I named him Raif
and the rest, as they say, is history. I did the info-dump insertions back
then. I didn’t change the setting to Altair until 2011, but once I did that,
the whole story started making sense again. This just goes to show you authors,
listen to your editors!! They actually know what they’re saying sometimes!
I should probably
have worked harder at trimming the info-dumping down more, but so far, I have
mixed reviews on whether or not it drags. One review proclaims it “...gripped
me hard from the beginning...” and the same reviewer said, “...the pace
is relentless.” while another reviewer admitted the book dragged for her
until nearly a third of the way in. I think the reader’s reaction will depend
on whether or not they like my storytelling style. I jump into what feels like
the middle and then backfill. This is not due to the editing. This is just the
way I tell stories. I’ve done it in other books—even in other genres I’ve
tried!
GL: You’ve said this book
is cursed. J Tell us why you think
so.
Friday: Oh my gosh, well,
you name it and it’s happened. Computers have died, people have died (real
people as well as the characters) and everything that could possibly have gone
wrong seemed to come up all at once. Just when I thought I had a handle on it
all, something else happened. This went on for about six months. It resulted in
the book being four months “late” being released.
I don’t know if the
curse has lifted, but ever since the editing began in July of 2011, I’ve felt a
strong sense of this book being “something big,” that this is my “break out
novel,” as they say. I’ve also felt the same kind of gut feeling about there
being “something big” out there trying to prevent it from happening. I’m not
going to let anything stop me, but one person can only have so much bad
luck—and I’ve had more in the last year than I’ve had in my entire 50+ years of
life.
GL: What is in store for
the series from here?
Friday: Ah, did you want
spoilers? Hmm, not sure I should do that here or anywhere in public! Okay,
well, I can share one of the little Easter Eggs (gems of foreshadowing an
author plants in a book and readers don’t usually notice the first time through
but may notice in their second and later reads through).
I revealed in this
book that Shayla was going to have a baby—by Joshua Andrew Caine. Then she
miscarries (that this is not the first time she’s lost a child was revealed
earlier in the book) and then I allude to her possibly getting pregnant by
Joshua again. At some distant and vague point in the future. That is definitely
going to happen. That was always in the Plan! In fact, that was the Plan
all along, but that’s not all that’s in the Plan and no, I won’t reveal what
that means (haha).
On the subject of
Shayla and HEA’s, she’ll be very happy with Charlie. And Kyree. And yes, I did
say both, but not for long because according to the Plan, one of them
has to die. Someone always has to die. You’ll have to read Book 3 to see!
Other spoilers
coming in the series: Joshua dies. Oh stop groaning (or cheering); everyone had
to know he dies eventually, though it sure won’t be easy to get him to stay
dead, huh? Speaking of which, the Caine Family Line continues through Brennan
and Brennan definitely gets to have his HEA with Julia. After Joshua dies,
William will stop being a martyr and seriously date Jared. Finally. That
started in Book 1 (which no, hasn’t been written yet, or not completely; I
started Book 1 when I started editing in 2005 but decided to finish editing Conditioned
Response before I went off and wrote a whole new prequel) and I continued
the contact in Conditioned Response, but I must say, one reader wondered
why Jared and William were even mentioned, as though it were some kind of
obligatory gay scene.
I’m not sure what
that means exactly, but William and Jared were always going to date and end up
together—eventually. That is, after Joshua’s death does part William from his
husband. I defined William in 1986 as a person who would never start a new
relationship before ending his marriage, officially. He and Joshua were married
in my authorial mind before the Community started back around the year 2147.
The story was originally defined as being set in the year 2539 so William and
Joshua were a couple for hundreds of years. At least, in William’s mind. I made
sure to avoid stating years or dates when I completed the edits in 2011. I also
made sure to maintain William’s character (and the character that is William).
Like me, William doesn’t “believe in” divorce, so until Joshua dies, William
considers himself married, albeit separated. I needed to set up what would
happen in Book 3, however, because William and Jared will be a lot happier in
the next book ^)^ The memories of both Joshua and Raif will haunt them but
it’ll work out in the end. Or The End. I felt the recruitment of Jared into the
Community, for William’s sake, was a pretty big deal in the larger scheme of
things and not “an obligatory gay scene.” Of course, no one but me has read
Book 3 so this kind of interview/book discussion is the only place where I’ll
address why William and Jared “had to” have a conversation in Conditioned
Response.
There are other
spoilers—the Dramond Family line is not quite expunged from the human genome
and it really should have been—but the big news is going to be as I reveal the
Plan of the Seven Chiefs. It’ll be unfolded ever-so-slowly across the rest of
the books of the series. Given all the twisty turns Book 2 just took, I’m not
sure the “big twist” at the end of the series which I wrote in 1986 (I wrote
the ending of the series before I finished the original Book 1) is going to be
all that “big.” I’ll have to reconsider the ending I suppose.
GL: Have you based any of
your characters on anyone else—people in real life, other book or movie
characters, etc.?
Friday: Oh yeah! I won’t
name names but yep, Charlie/Kyree were two sides of one man—a lover I had
on/off again for about 8 years. He was an amazing man, one I think of still
today as the one who got away. I’m pretty sure if he were to read this, he’d
know I was talking about him, but no one else either he or I ever knew would
recognize him in the Charlie or Kyree characters. He wasn’t precisely like
them. They’re well over 6 ft tall. He was short (5’8” or 5’9”, which is now
considered average, but most men I’ve dated averaged 6’3”). Not by design, but
he was the only short man I ever dated. I remember those glowing blue eyes to
this day and when he looked at someone, they felt it down to their toes. Not
just me or just women—he had a way of looking into people that was
startling.
Almost every other
character has at least a little bit of me in them—male, female, doesn’t matter;
the characters have traits that they definitely get from me. Then they have
their own stories going on. There’s one character who is totally unique and
came into existence without any thought on my part. Joshua Andrew Caine.
Joshua came to me,
fully-formed as a 30-something man, back when I was a 5-year-old girl. Now that
I’m a middle-aged woman, I’m kind of creeped out at that idea of my little
5-year-old self having these ideas about a fully-grown man, but back then, of
course, there was no sexual content to the character and as a child, I had no
clue there was anything odd about my “knowing” him. He was just Joshua, perfect
in every way.
Through the editing
process in 2011, Joshua became a lot less likeable. He used to be the Epic Hero of the series, swooping in
and rescuing Shayla at every turn. He was my little girl crush, my teenage
crush, my lifetime crush. That stopped when I created Raif in 2005 and when I
polished things up in 2011, Joshua came out of the other end all tarnished and
pompous and not likeable at all in my opinion. I shall have to see what happens
to him in the next book. I’d like to recapture some of who he used to be before
I kill him off ((smirk))
GL: But, this is actually more like
"real" life. We idolize these
people in our youth, but as we grow and change, we realize they weren't really
all that perfect to begin with. I still like Josh, although he is certainly no
Raif! :-)
GL: If you could clone
yourself (or make yourself an heir), would you? Anything you’d change?
Friday: No, I don’t want
that kind of thing for myself. I don’t know if I could detach and think of
reproduction as a genetically-engineered process like producing an Heir. I
think of reproduction as a magical impossibility that we do more by accident
than by design. I definitely support birth control and planned parenthood and
am as strong a Pro Choice proponent as can be because I don’t think anyone
anywhere should ever tell a woman (or anyone else) what to do with their own
body. However, I’m also a scientist. An engineer by profession.
Almost in
contradiction to my stalwart support of controlled intervention, I think the
human process of bearing offspring should be left to our most-basic level of
behavior. I’m a firm supporter of Darwinian thought. That is, we are animals.
We like to think we’re more than that, but I think we need to admit, we are
simply another animal species on this planet. As such, we have reproductive
rituals (behaviors, choices, etc.) that lead us to bear offspring.
I think that natural
process needs to be left to run its most-natural course and not be
controlled (other than to prevent unwanted pregnancies or to address unwanted
pregnancies when preventive methods fail or of course, in the case of rape).
As a Jew, I’m
spiritually offended by the very idea of a eugenics program. If I try to get
objective and think like a scientist, I still think it’s a terrible idea:
eugenics or selective breeding is begging for our species to self-destruct. I
have very divided feelings on the subject of genetically controlling birth
defects—even detecting them is a question I ponder at times—because I think the
species needs occasional culling.
As I said, I
fully-support Darwinian reasoning about periodic and various means of culling
our gene pool. From pandemics to rare birth defects, I think our species cannot
evolve in any meaningful way without the trial-and-error process on the species
level which results in deaths at both the individual level and the cultural or
societal level.
It’s harsh, but I
think it’s necessary over the course of say, a thousand or ten thousand years,
not to mention a million years of our evolution, for people to die and stop
contributing to our gene pool. Without the random mutations and routine
culling, as I said, I think our species would just self-destruct. We’re not a
very hearty species as animals on this planet go. I mean, whales would
still be around if we weren’t slaughtering them—and they’re millions of years
older than we are. Now that’s a hearty species. Homo Sapiens? Not so
much.
GL: Who are some of your
literary role models?
Friday: Ah, this one is
easy. Robert A. Heinlein, first and foremost. When I was 14, I wanted to be
him. In fact, I went to college to be a Mechanical Engineer because that’s what
he did. Crazy, I know! I got my tendency for “rejecting a $50 word when a
nickel word will do” from Heinlein himself. He said it in a lecture on writing
I heard once. I actually got to correspond with him in the 80s before he died.
The last year or so, of course, I was getting handwritten notes from his wife,
Ginny, but still, it was exciting to me, as a young girl just starting out, to
get an answer to my fan mail from a megastar like him.
Second-strongest
influence was probably Suzanne Brockmann, the Romantic Suspense author. Suz
just makes it easy to learn at her elbow, both in how willing she is to talk
about her books and how accessible she
is (used to be?) for asking questions directly. She’s also an amazing
writer who teaches by example. She’s always trying out new things and she is
single-handedly responsible for “teaching” me how to write multiple
Point-of-View narratives. I haven’t ever met her, but I sure would love to one
day.
The third-strongest
influence was definitely not the least influential. Lois McMaster Bujold
influenced me through her writing. I
didn’t discover her existence until she was 20 years into her career. She and
I are (apparently) almost age-mates. I’m
a few years younger than she but not much more than a few. I read her for the
first time in 2005. That was the impetus to finally buckle down and learn how
to edit.
Lois’s work is so
darned tight, so polished, so perfect, I desperately wanted to turn my
own stories into something of that calibre. I still have quite a ways to go
before I’m up to the Bujold Gold Standard, but I’m a far better writer today
because I read Lois’s books—and I did go out and find and read pretty much
everything she had ever written until 2006 in the course of about nine (yes, 9)
days in December of 2006. She had departed from her SF at that point and was
writing Fantasy genre, which I don’t care for, but I even tried one of her
Fantasy books. Her calibre of writing was still there, glowering at me for not
being that good (yet). The one thing I probably learned most from Lois was the
impact of multi-layering a plot using metaphors and similes, not because they
make for poetic prose, but because these “tools of the trade” are mechanisms
for engaging a reader’s mind anew each time they read my books. And Lois
definitely plans on a reader coming to her work repeatedly, with a different
mindset each time. She has a somewhat famous discussion on the subject of
“Reader as Collaborator” that she’s published somewhere, probably on her MySpace.
It’s an informal discussion she wrote but seems to be referenced by fans
everywhere. That right there is the impact a writer like Lois McMaster Bujold
has on writers like me. We hang on her every word, even the blogs.
GL: What has been your
favorite part of writing/publishing this novel?
Friday: Finally getting the
darned thing to come together how it was supposed to come together 30 years
ago. I can’t believe I had to wait a lifetime for this, but feeling that sense
in my backbrain of pieces clicking into place was a thrill and a half. I’ve had
that “click” everytime I write a first draft of a novel (I have about 20 novels
“in the drawer” as they say) but none other is as near and dear to my soul as
The Phoenician Series. And no other books are as complex or as vivid in my
mind. Lois once said to me in 2005 that the first thing I’ll have published
will be the best thing I’ll have written—to that point in my life anyway. She
was right. Conditioned Response is the best thing I’ve written—so far!
As she noted, every book an author writes, hopefully, is an improvement on the
last as far as mastery of the craft goes.
GL: Conditioned Response is almost as old as I am.
Hahaha… It has to be good to have
been in the making for all these years!
GL: If you could travel to
any other planet, solar system, universe, heck… anywhere… where would you go and why?
Friday: The name Altair is
actually the name of our nearest stellar neighbor, not a planetary name, and I
have no idea if there’s a planet capable of sustaining life (let alone human
life) in the Altarian star system, but if there is, I’d like to go there. Back
when I was a girl.... ((laugh, sorry I had to say it at least once!)) there was
an ad on television for something that had nothing to do with space travel but
it was the 60s and the space race was “on” so everyone referenced it. The ad
had a song that went, “I want to see
Venus, Jupiter and Mars. I even want to go there, if we ever get that far. And
I want to see Venice.” The ad was for something that made me very sad, either
cancer research or some other kind of deadly disease. I always cry when I hear
that song in my head. I can remember the child-me sitting there in front of the
television crying at the sad situation of the advertisement. Someone was dying
and wishing for something they could never have. I remember the magical feeling
of hope the song instilled in my heart. Just think, could we really travel to
the stars? And I’d like to see Venice, too. ^)^
GL: What is one item
you’re looking forward to on your bucket list?
Friday: Travelling the
world, seeing new places, meeting new people. And I want to learn to be fluent
in French again. I had it (and Spanish) once. I hate only speaking American
English again. Being monolingual feels so limited, so wrong.
GL: Are you reading anything
right now? If so, what is it? If not,
what would you like to read next?
Friday: No, haven’t had time
to read lately and am about to change my day job situation so that’ll probably
change, too. If I have time to read again this summer, I definitely want to try
out some of the thriller writers I’ve met on Twitter. Since Conditioned
Response is touted as a SciFi Thriller, I rub elbows on the
#ThrillerThursday hash with straight thriller/suspense genre writers. I’m
definitely interested in checking out Doug Dorow, Stephen M. England and Russ
Blake (who cracks me up @BlakeBooks daily!) There are probably others, but I’d
have to check my Twitterstream for their names. Carmen DeSousa writes Romantic
Suspense and I’d like to try one of hers, too. Oh, and I’d like to have time to
read some non-fiction. I have a list of miltiary history I want to wade
through, starting with Sun Tzu’s Art of War no less! There are a
few books Suzanne Brockmann speaks of having read that I’d like to check out,
historical non-fiction on military strategies and the like. I think it would
improve my plotting immensely if I read more non-fiction.
GL: Do you have any
television shows that you MUST watch?
Friday: Oh, yes! Fringe
and Dexter are tied for my #1 favorite shows of all. I’ve been a huge
fan of House, but apparently they’re ending that series this year so I
shall miss it. Another one I enjoy is Bones, but I don’t “need” to watch
it so much as I really enjoy it. Oh, Archer is a new cartoon that I
“need” to watch and actually own on disc so I can get my fix whenever I need
one, just in case they cancel it! Archer
is definitely NOT for the faint of heart but I laugh so hard I often
cry.
Let’s see, I spend a lot of time on the NatGeo and
NatGeoWILD channels, as well as Discovery’s Animal Planet (I am glued
during Shark Week each year!) and of course, I love Modern Marvels. Two
old shows I still enjoy are Seconds from Disaster and Life After
People.
GL: What is your favorite
season?
Friday: Of television or of
the weather? LOL Sorry, but you followed those two questions so closely
together, I wasn’t sure for a second. Okay, weather wise, spring. Hands
down. I love the new life and growth and
how things change and are different on a daily basis—in hours sometimes! It’s
like the cycle of life or evolution is happening right there in
front of your eyes sometimes. Birds build nests in the course of a day, a tree
buds and flowers, things transform. Strangely enough, though, my favorite
climate is the desert: ultra-hot and bone-dry.
GL: Yes, the weather. LOL I
enjoy spring, but autumn is my favorite.
Only because I hate summer so much, and I know spring means it is
coming. Hahaha… Ultra-hot is NOT for me!
GL: Favorite comfort
food?
Friday: ((scoff)) You really
have to ask? Chocolate. Is there anything else?
GL: Do you have a
specific writing routine? Open window,
music, absolute quiet, favorite chair, etc…
Friday: Already mentioned
this a bit, yes, I do. I listen to music usually. Trance, Techno,
House/Industrial or sometimes, Goth/Darkwave. It all depends on what I’m trying
to write. I have never ever, not once in 40+ years of writing, had “writer’s
block.” I don’t know what that is, TBH. I know that annoys other writers when I
say it, but sorry, it’s true. I can’t imagine being at a loss for words. If I
sit down to write, I have about 20 things spinning through my head at any given
time and have to choose which one I’m going to do first. If I have a problem
with one, if I feel stuck, I just write something else. All of life is story
fodder so there’s an endless source of ideas and material to adapt into my
characters’ stories. The characters always come to me first. Always.
Music keeps me
focused and writing faster, longer, better so I’ll usually put on headphones
and zone out of reality and into the story. I used to smoke cigarettes (quit in
2007) so I used to need my coffee on one side and ashtray/lighter/cigarettes on
the other before I could write. With the
caffeine and nicotine to sustain me, I used to write for 6, 8, 10 hours without
a break except for the bathroom or to get more coffee.
I often still crave
a smoke when I’m writing and/or think of it. In fact, thinking of it right now
to write that sentence made me crave a cigarette a little....just one drag,
right? NOT!! Quitting was the single-hardest
thing I have ever done in my life.
GL: And I'm so glad you did!
I think not looking at "deadlines"
really lessens the chance of writer's block as well. If you have a publication deadline looming
over you, and someone else is expecting you to churn out this fantastic novel
in x amount of days, I can see how you might suddenly blank out from the stress
of it all. I tend to write
spontaneously, and I have that luxury because I am not publishing anything at
the moment. So, if I can't think of much to write, I will just take a
break. It doesn't take long for a scene
to emerge and bug me to death until I sit down to write it out :-)!
GL: What one piece of
advice would you offer to any aspiring (or even experienced) author?
Friday: Here’s two pieces of advice:
1) Write. When you’re not writing, read. When you’re not
reading, write some more.
2) Understand the difference between writing “art for art’s
sake” (writing for the sheer joy of creating art) versus writing for
publication. The former is for you, the latter is a business.
A lot of new authors, aspiring writers, people who have yet
to find their own voice but think “Gee, that sounds like it would be a fun
thing to try.” just don’t realize how hard it is to really be an author. A
large number of them definitely don’t think it’s going to entail starting up
and running their own independent small business!
They quickly start running into the business end of things
and get annoyed, frustrated, fed up and decide to go find an agent and send
their “masterpiece” into a publisher so they can let the publisher handle “all
that business stuff.” Then they get angry at their book not getting bought up
or if it is, at their publisher for not doing “all of that business stuff” for
them.
News alert: even if you sell your rights to a publisher and
let them control your work of art, if it’s published for sale to the public,
it’s supposed to be a profitable business activity. You’ll still need to
participate in “all that business stuff.” Only difference is, if you go with a
publisher, you won’t have any control or rights anymore. They’ll do what they
think is going to turn the most profit—no matter what it does to your book.
If you want to write for the sheer joy of writing, embrace
that and do it. Don’t try to publish for profit. Give your work away for free
and just keep writing. Enjoy the fame you attract from the free giveaways. Just
write.
If you want to make money off your writing, embrace the
cold, harsh reality that the writing serves the bottom line, not the other way
around. It’s possible to do both (obviously, since so many of us have gone
Indie and are making money) but you really have to embrace the business side
and not let anyone tell you to stop promoting your book. You simply need to
find the right arena for the “shameless shelf promotion” and not abuse your
invitation to join readers in their homes.
Don’t forget to be a reader, yourself. Would you want
the author of the book you’re reading right now to hound you for a
review or tell you that your opinion of their work was “wrong”? I suspect not.
Don’t do it to your readers. Be professional, be a business person. If you don’t know how to run a business, buy
and read some books on the subject. Some
good ones include:
Kristin Lamb’s
We Are Not
Alone (which gave rise to the Twitter hashtag #myWANA)
There are a myriad of other places to get advice but the
biggest thing to do is to choose what kind of writer you are (artiste or
business person) and then if the latter type, educate yourself.
Thanks so much for having me on the blog, Cassie! I
appreciated your inputs on the editing process so much, from the early
critiques of the first edits in summer of 2011 over at Authonomy through the
middle stages of editing and into the mad rush to read the final final FINAL
copy in April of 2012. You were always thoughtful and professional. A real joy
to work with for any author! Next time, I’m hiring you first and we’ll set a
schedule together.
GL: Sounds like a great Plan! J
@phoenicianbooks
Conditioned Response is available in eBook format
only and may be purchased at all major eTailers, including:
See Lists on which
Conditioned Response has been
voted up the rankings on the Goodreads Listopias page here:
http://bit.ly/CR-Listopias
Thank you so much, Friday, for stopping by today! I had a wonderful time working on Conditioned Response with you. I have fallen in love with the characters and the story, and I am looking forward to the future of the series!
