A few odds and ends today. Fridays are good days for odds and ends.

First, I wanted to let people know what I'm working on, and what to look out for in the next few months. I have two books that are completed in not-so-drafty form. I think I've mentioned them both before.

One is called "Becoming Queen," a fantasy/sci-fi hybrid, sort of. It's the story of Daneli, who is heir to a throne, the conflict between two nations, and the impending arrival of something that will change everyone's lives forever. I hope to publish this book by mid-March. The second is called "The Artifact," a straight-up hard-sf novel about a woman who grows up within a fundamentalist, patriarchal, backward colony, finds her freedom, and ends up helping to save her people from a horrible fate. I hope to publish this sometime toward the end of spring.

I'm almost finished with my newest novel, tentatively titled "Friends with Wings," about a woman who is stranded alone (well, she has intelligent, non-human companions) on a planet far from Earth. It is set 90-130 years in our future, and includes my first dystopic future, which takes up about the first 1/4 of the book. 

And for you Casitian fans, I am still in progress on the novel which describes the original capture of humans during the bronze age by the Tud'scla, the species that enslaved humans for a couple of thousand years.

Over the next few weeks and months, I'm doing a guest blog exchange, so there will be guest bloggers here. This is new for me, but I'm excited about having new and different voices here, as well as getting to talk to other audiences.

I love books, I always have. Ever since I could read, I read all the time. I don't read nearly as much as I used to, because I write so much, but there was a time when I would read three or four nonfiction books a month, and five or six fiction books a month. Now, it's more like one fiction book a month and one non-fiction book every couple of months.

And I've always liked paper books. My favorite are hardbacks. Solid in the hand, usually with gorgeous paper, and a nice binding. But practically, I never really bought that many of them. Back in the day, when hardback was released before paper, there were a few authors that I couldn't wait for - I'd buy the hardback. I think the last harback books I bought were the Harry Potter series.

And when I traveled, I always brought lots of books. Even on day trips to the beach, I'd bring at least two. Often, for longer trips, I'd be lugging six to ten books in my suitcase. It was that, in combination with selling most of my stuff to downsize on my way to seminary, that sold me on eBook devices. The idea of traveling with basically an entire library was just too appealing to me, even though I do still like paper books. And, as someone who moves as often as I do, the fewer actual physical books I own, the better. Now, I own more eBooks than I do paper books. 

As everyone knows, the paper book is not having a good go of it right now. Bookstores are dwindling. This is not entirely eBooks fault - it also has to do with Amazon, in particular. But eBooks certainly don't help the plight of bookstores, especially independent ones.  The publishing industry is undergoing a huge change, brought about by technology, including eBooks, and print on demand. It's classic disintermediation, and it's happening on a massive scale.

Almost one quarter of all books sold right now are eBooks, and that number is up from last year. There are predictions that eBook sales may outstrip all physical book sales by the end of 2013. But for my books, the deal is already done. 96% of my books sell on eBook platforms, such as Kindle, Smashwords, etc. This is mostly due to the fact that I don't have a traditional publisher, so physical copies of my books aren't getting into bookstores, and the books aren't being promoted in the classic ways.

Which leads me to think about eliminating paper versions of my books moving forward. It takes a lot of time and effort, and a bit of extra money, to make paper books alongside eBooks. And since so few people buy paper copies of my books, I'm wondering whether it's worth the extra effort for any upcoming books (there are several, I will likely publish at least three this year.)

I welcome any thoughts you have about this.

This series is about the joy of worldbuilding. I didn't quite think I'd spread this out into so many posts, but I guess I have a lot of joy to talk about! 

Human beings are far more interesting than one might think given the ongoing social pressure for individuals to conform to the American ideal: the heterosexual, monogomous nuclear family (or, gosh, now, even simply the monogamous nuclear family). I have to say that I think that "ideal" is about the most boring thing human beings have come up with in history (and human beings have come up with a lot of interesting and different relationship structures). And the ideal that there should be only two gender expressions: masculine men and feminine women, is also pretty boring, at least for me (and historically, things have been quite a bit more interesting than that.) Therefore, unlike most speculative fiction, the characters and relationships I most often explore do not fit these ideals.

Humans are pretty much always the main characters in my books, even though aliens are certainly a presence at times. And when it comes to humans, I often start with one fundamental idea: what if we created relationships between people who were free to express their gender identity as they choose, and free to choose whover (and how many ever) they wanted to? What would those relationships look like, and how would society structure itself around those relationships? I think that is core - as a society, we do arrange ourselves largely around the family structures we create - so if the structures were radically different, then the resulting societies would have to be radically different.

One example is the Casitian system. Casitians are basically single, except for a period of about 15 or so Earth years, where they have, and raise, children in a family group if they choose to. An individual Casitian who wants to raise children finds an opposite-sex partner that they think will be a good match for child-rearing (no romantic attachment is expected or encouraged.) Eight to ten adults form a family group to raise their children collectively, until the children reach the age of about 12 or 13. where they leave to join a youth community. Before and after this period, or if someone chooses not to raise children, Casitians live on their own, and most spend the winter (which is actually the equivalent of a year on Earth) living with a "companion" (read: romantic partner), of any gender. This is sort of a modified gender and sexuality fluid serial monogamy model.

Then, there are the Trageri. This is in a book coming out sometime later this year, called "Becoming Queen." The Trageri have one of the more interesting relationship and family systems. I think it's kinda cool, if I do say so myself. Trageri (one of two nations, the other nation does not at all share this system) is a monarchy organized in "houses" - and each house has anywhere from thirty to sixty family members, as well as another thirty to one hundred or (many) more affiliated employees (and that number depends on the wealth and influence of a house.) When the eldest female of her generation comes of age, it is her duty, as head of the house, to find eight to eleven spouses, who will collectively raise the next generation of the house. There are often romantic attachments between these spouses (some can come from the same house, as there will be children unrelated to each other in the same house,) but the primary function of this process is to find others who will keep the house strong, and do well to raise the children. Individuals are free to have romantic relationships of any kind outside of the marraige, as long as they are exceedingly careful about birth control (if necessary - queer relationships are fully accepted.)

When it comes to aliens, I've basically taken my cue from the amazing variability in gender, sexual expression, pair-bonding. and young-rearing that exists on this planet. There are organisms on earth that change their sex during their lives. They were the model for the Kurool, who change sex several times in their lives (although they do it consciously.) Some male animals take the lead on rearing young. The males of the aliens I'm writing about now, called the Eeriv, have a pouch on their back where the young live, and glands to feed them. 

I do have one alien species, the Tud'scla, who have five individuals who contribute their genetic material to their offspring, something not found on Earth (that I know of.) The Tud'scla are pentaploid (that is, they have five sets of chromosomes). There are no sexes or gender in this species - individuals can both contribute their genetic material to one who will incubate the eggs, or they can be the incubator.

Gender and gender expression (or the lack thereof,) sexuality (homo, hetero, bi, pan, etc.,) and relationship structures (monogamous, polyamorous, etc.) will have foundational influence on society, and that is really important (and fun!) stuff to explore. And it's also always important to think about ramifications of these structures, and the kinds of conflict that can arise because of them. Great fodder for plots!