Guest Post: TJ Kahn Reveals the Unheard of in Fantasy

Note from Cat: today’s guest blog post comes from Rhonda Eudaly. It’s the latest installment in the cavalcade of content here celebrating the upcoming release of my first novel, Beasts of Tabat.

I thought long and hard about what to write about for this guest post opportunity. It’s like a bizarre Open Mic Night thing. Most of you don’t know me, but I can’t see my hecklers until it’s too late. So what to do? Try to be pithy? Try to be funny? Then the Meme Card came up on Facebook… Editing is 30% Improvement and 70% making this face. And so…is this thing on?

There’s a lot to learn when it comes to writing. You can do it for years and years and still learn stuff (in fact, my opinion is that you should always be learning stuff). I’ve done quite a bit of short story work for…a while…now, as well as working on braided novels and a couple of other formats. And while those are great, I’m currently doing the final edit on my novel before it’s published. And, well, FACE.

Doing a solo novel, especially for the first time, is so different from anything else I’ve ever done. First was the editorial phone call, which – while supportive also made me wonder what the heck I was thinking sending out this…thing. When the manuscript came back, I prepared for the red, but was a complete wuss about looking at it. Fortunately, there are whole pages that don’t have marks on them…and I’ll take what I can get – but still…ow. What made it better? Was hearing J. Kathleen Cheney say, “My editor made me rewrite the back half of my book…”

Then the other real work began. Reading through and seeing the problems and notes and implementing them. As with initial drafts, I’m a Pen/Paper person. I like ink, and the low tech version meant I could carry it with me wherever I went – in case there was an opportunity to work on it. It helped that I was diving in right around ConDFW, where I’m surrounded by support. Cheney, offer to do a “pre-final” read through for me. It gave her an excuse to procrastinate on something, so win/win.

Now, I’m in the process of a strange hybrid editing…thing. I had my electronic file of the manuscript. I had the track changes file from Cheney, and the paper edits. Time to learn a new skill – which I did. I combined the two electronic files first and creating yet another file (in Word 2007 and up, it’s in the “Review” ribbon under “Compare” nifty little trick). Now, while I’m inputting my paper edits mostly from my publisher/editor, but some I made one my own, I also have Cheney’s notes. Made my life easier, but still…there’s the FACE.

Seriously? In some cases, WHAT DID I DO? What is that sentence? Thank Goodness for editors and friends – and this is AFTER it’s been through other people and sent out to publishers for – because yeesh. I’m still kinda embarrassed about what I sent out to several editors before this one took the chance on me. Editors are a good, good thing. The editing process is not glamorous. It’s not at all fun – not like that first blush of a new story or a new set of characters – but it’s a necessary thing. My goal is to make the FACE less and less going forward, but I also don’t want to be solely responsible for brilliance. It’s just too much of a burden, and by having good editors (and friends) involved, the story is stronger than I could’ve made it on my own.

So listen to your editors. They’re like Mothers. They know what they’re talking about, and they know what’s good for you, and just maybe help make that 30/70% ratio will skew higher.

Bio: Rhonda Eudaly lives in Arlington, Texas with her husband, and two dogs. She’s ventured into several industries and occupations for a wide variety of experience. She has a well-rounded publication history in both fiction and non-fiction many of which can be found on www.RhondaEudaly.com.

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Enjoy this writing advice and want more content like it? Check out the classes Cat gives via the Rambo Academy for Wayward Writers, which offers both on-demand and live online writing classes for fantasy and science fiction writers from Cat and other authors, including Ann Leckie, Seanan McGuire, Fran Wilde and other talents! All classes include three free slots.

I have many thoughts on the GameStop stock/stonk play. Big movements in complex systems are difficult to write about, because many things that seem paradoxical can be correct at the same time. At different scales or frames, differing takes have validity. So forgive what may seem contradictory. For those not familiar with the topic, let’s start with this @Vox article as the baseline.

In populist movements, the participants are attracted by and manipulated through memetics. We see what begins as a meme becomes hype, then a mass network memetic swarm effect, as happens in the promotion of everything Modern Meme from Bernie Sanders to cryptocurrencies to QAnon.

That the GameStop play has appeared to hurt some predatory shorters and their hedge funds means we will see more #stonk in the future. Success breeds repetition. The latest on r/wallstreetbets is an attempt to wrestle the silver market.

Why did the subreddit readers and social media followers do it? On the face, it’s economically irrational, which is why the hedge funds and investor class didn’t understand it at first. All the investor class cares about is making money above all else. Driving up a stock to protect it from a short will only lose money in the long term. Gamestonk is willing to hold and lose big to make a statement about loving GameStop and hating Wall Street. Reddit’s wallstreetbets subreddit has nearly 4 million self-called “degenerates” alone. And that’s why the Street never saw this coming at first. The combination of paradoxical motivations for this mass behavior is remarkable. Protection, vengeance, anger, fun, gaming, bitcoin play, populism, power, anarchy. One could even say that Gamestonk is the Pokémon Go of 2021. When such a combination of emotional forces can be rallied to a single cause (see the US Capitol on January 6, 2021), anything can happen.

Now add the effect of mass network swarm activity. This can be a weapon, as in QAnon or Internet troll farms. Gamestonk is weaponized investing. When most conflict theorists think of swarms, they think of organization from a single body that sends out many agents of chaos or destruction with a single purpose, coming from every direction. But in this case, so many are in it for the lulz and all those paradoxical motivations listed above, that all they need is a single common interest: take down the Street predators. Everyone has their reasons. They don’t need to be organized.

The Street isn’t a victim. There is no logic behind markets anymore and hasn’t been for some time. Manipulation on all sides, and the decoupling of Wall Street from Main Street, and the end of fundamentals means whoever has the power to define the market does so. And usually, the big institutions run the show and get bail outs when it spins out of control. The only people who suffer are “the little guys.” But when the little guys rally as one? Especially when the world is filled with “money” and no one knows where to put it safely? Anything is possible.

Populism is a powerful and unpredictable political force. It forces reaction or reorganization by the establishment regardless of your position to the cause, because anarchy is the alternative. And institutions hate anarchy. Wall Street wants modellable certainty. No one can predict which way populist-fueled movement will go, because populism is usually about being against something. Not for building a better alternative. See the Russian and French Revolutions, and Brexit as dangerous populism that had ideals but no plans.

But sometimes a plan emerges just in time. See the American or Singing/Baltic States revolutions. Or the New Deal. The reason a populist movement succeeds long after they win is through a combination of cooperation, compromise and construction. We have to build something that benefits most of us, together, to successfully ride through a populist revolution.

If we could get all those people who threw some crypto into the GameStop, AMC or BB&B pots to swarm anew and reorganize healthcare, or law enforcement, or the rest of the predatory financial cycle, that would be something.

Senator Elizabeth Warren is already calling for financial regulation in this case, but to fight the shorters, not the social media/Mom & Pop retail investors. Let’s hope the SEC follows suit. This is part of the constructive, cooperative future, and Wall Street ignores the clean-up of their swamp at their peril.

PJ Manney is the author of the P.K. Dick Award-nominated (R)EVOLUTION, book 1 in a series with (ID)ENTITY, and the upcoming trilogy’s completion (CON)SCIENCE, as well as non-fiction and consulting about emerging technology, future humans, and empathy-building through storytelling. She was a former Chairperson of Humanity+, teleplay writer (Hercules–The Legendary Journeys, Xena: Warrior Princess, numerous TV pilot scripts) and film executive.