My Favorite Ideas

I can’t sing. When others sing, I stand there and move my lips. So imagine my surprise when I started writing music. I now have five songs produced. I’m amazed at myself. How the heck did this happen? The protagonist of my sci fi trilogy is a singer. (So is the alien.) I started writing snatches of songs she sings at gigs. Just a few lines, or maybe a verse. Then I expanded some of these into entire songs. By the time the story was finished I had maybe twenty song lyrics.

This is Chapter 1 of Aliens Crashed in My Back Yard. “Secrets of Immortality Gleaned from Alien Remains,”trumpeted The New York Times on page 1, sounding like the tabloids. ... Yeah, those were the aliens they dug up from my property up along the California coast near Bodega Bay. And yes, I admit it, I was the one who had buried them, with the help of my friends. Had to. They were dead, and we didn’t have enough freezer space to hold them. 

This short story is taken from the novel Bleeding Edge, which takes place in the 23rd century. Many people from Earth have been lured to a primitive hunting world, where they are used as prey animals in hunts put on by the dreaded Kaark. Some escape . . .

I can’t sing anything more demanding than “Happy Birthday.” So imagine my surprise when I became a lyricist.  In my just-published book “Aliens Crashed in My Back Yard,” my main character and narrator—Selena M—is a singer who nurses a surviving alien back to health so she can send it home. The alien is also a singer, and that’s how they learn to communicate. They help each other recapture the passion of their singing. 

Where did the “ditzy chick” label come from? Did you ever hear a man called a “ditzy guy?” No, only women can be ditzy—according to the men who diss us and bully us. The government spooks going after my spaceship laid that name on me. Even though I outwitted them at every turn, and have kept the spaceship—Star Choice—to this day.

Here's a short piece by fellow author Jim Webster aka Tallis Steelyard. I confess that usurers have a name as being distinctly dour and miserable folk. This is something of a canard, I've known several who have a sense of humour. They have been known to chuckle dryly at a fumbled attempt to hide something embarrassing in a set of accounts.

January 2 is the day every year. So invite your favorite bug-eyed monster to stop in and raise a toast to our favorite genre. I’m going to tell some stories from my own trilogy, starting with this post. My heroine, Selena M, is a well-known singer who lives on the coast north of San Francisco. When an alien spaceship crashes on her back hillside, she decides to nurse the sole survivor back to health, rather than notify the authorities, as any good citizen would do. Turns out the alien is also a singer, and they learn to communicate by singing.