Wielding a Red Sword Page 31

  But the Captain is not the only operating system. There is MS-DOS, obviously the abbreviation for a somewhat prim lady of uncertain age and marital status. Ms DOS distrusts apartment buildings, having perhaps had some bad experience there, but she likes to garden. So her layout is in the form of a garden with paths leading to the various entries. When you enter this garden you encounter a Directory with several diverging paths; pick a path, and it leads to another Directory with several more, and each one of those paths leads to its own sub-Directory of files. So each occupant of the garden can have privacy, with his own selection of flowers and such, but by a different mechanism. Our computer is equipped to handle both CP/M and MS-DOS, so I thought I'd try the latter for this novel. But I found that the Captain and the Lady don't get along together all that well; if I want both at once, I have to split my hard disk into two halves, one for each, and the two hardly speak to each other. And it seems that the Lady doesn't have the MAINT feature that puts all my files in alphabetical order and allows me to change titles, delete files or take a quick peek at any file without disturbing it, and gives me the space used by each file and the total space used by them all. Those are housekeeping features I use constantly, for every day's work is a separate file and there may be sixty of them for a novel. FTP has both CP/M and MS-DOS versions, and so does SmartKcy, so I can have my keyboard layout and macros and things with either, but the Captain's type of organization just seemed to be better for me. So my apologies to those of you who know and like Ms DOS, and wish I had used her for this novel. Maybe some other time.

  Part II: Personal

  But enough (more than enough!) of computers; I realize that the relatively gentle rivalry between the Captain and the Lady is not the type of violence you want to see in this Note. You want to know exactly how violence and war struck at me while I was writing Red Sword. Well, I started this just after the turn of the year. Jamboree 2, 1985, in the Ogre Calendar. Penny, whom we taught to drive two years ago in Hourglass, now drives to school, taking two friends with her, because they have early classes that the schoolbus doesn't catch. You might suppose that there are no hazards of the road, on that twelvemile trip through the sparsely inhabited countryside. But one day some truck left a tangled mass of metal just over the brink of a hill that Penny encountered—flat tire, phone call, we got out there to rescue her, discovering one of her teachers changing the tire, and I drove her car in to get the tire fixed. Since I had never even been in that car before, I had to figure out how to operate it, which was an uncomfortable business, because it has little features that didn't exist in my day. You might say the macros and defaults are all wrong. But that was before; now, in Jamboree, came a more serious call. That's right; there had been an accident, and she was phoning from the hospital.

  Periodically in this region, the forestry folk do what they call controlled bums, burning off regions of the state forest in the slack season so that there will not be uncontrolled forest fires at other times. The policy makes sense, but sometimes the burners lack common sense. This winter has been generally dry, and there have been a number of uncontrolled bums. This time they started a bum adjacent to the highway Penny drives to school, and the wind blew it out of control. We passed it in the evening, as we came home from an archaeology meeting; the fires raged for a mile or more beside the road, and the region resembled a section of Hell. (I happen to know what Hell looks like.) The next morning was foggy, and the fire was still smoldering. We cautioned Penny about driving through that region. "If there is thick smoke there, you don't dare slow down too much, because the car behind will ram you," I said. But we doubted that it was bad, because there had been no news of smoke, and the road was open. However, it was bad, and Penny, driving in to school alone for the first time (the two other girls coincidentally had other business), found herself caught in dense smog. All night, owing to an inversion, that smoke had accumulated by that road. Penny, mindful of my warning, slowed to 25 mph—and rammed into a truck that was moving at walking speed. The truck was hardly damaged, but our little car suffered a $2,600 repair bill. They pushed the car off the road, and Penny, shaken up but not really hurt, thanks to the use of her seat belt (I taught her, remember; I taught her right. Anyone who drives or rides in a car without using the seat belt is a fool; I don't care how educated he may consider himself to be in other respects.), went out to try to flag down other cars before they collided. Her friend, who normally rides in with her, was next to arrive; she recognized Penny and stopped, then started to maneuver to get off the road. And a fourth car came up and crushed the friend's car against the original truck. So there it was, a four-car accident—and it was obvious that had Penny not driven the speed she had, she would have been rear-ended by that fourth car, or crushed between the two. As it was, she was technically at fault—but alive. A person has to consider not only the law, but common sense.

  That smoke, all told, accounted for nine cars that morning, and several more that were peripheral. It was the worst traffic situation in the history of the county. An ambulance was dispatched; when it encountered the smoke, it had a man walk ahead of it to show the way, and then that man had to slow down because the vehicle couldn't keep up with him. The police said that they had never seen worse driving conditions; that visibility was zero. Now they closed off the road; why they had not done so before is an unanswered question. Penny's name appeared in the accounts of three newspapers. Our car was out of commission for the rest of the month. Now Penny is afraid to drive in fog, understandably; the day I started typing this Note, we had to drop breakfast and head out to rescue her because she didn't dare drive into it. The fog gets pretty thick some mornings, and we understand. This is what families are for. I got gun-shy about driving after my roll-over, back in 1956, and I still don't really like to drive. One morning when there was light fog, Penny braced herself and drove anyway. Came a phone call: "Daddy, this is Penny, calling from the bank." Oops; where was she caught now? "The bank? What bank?" "The fog bank," she replied. She had made it through. Oh, what about the real culprits in this mess, the forestry and highway departments who burned recklessly and never told the public about the hazard? It seems they are immune from fault, and our insurance paid.

  That was Jamboree: fire and collision. But this novel required two months to write, even with the computer. I'm not really a fast writer; I'm a steady one. An average of two thousand words a day for two months covers a one hundred twenty thousand word novel. Actually, I work faster, then suffer interruptions. So what violence occurred in FeBlueberry?

  I was awakened at 3:40 A.M. by the phone. It was a neighbor—the high school was burning to the ground. Both my daughters go there. As it turned out, only part of the school burned, but that was enough to eliminate normal functioning. So the freshmen and the seniors had to take their classes elsewhere—and we have one of each. It may never be known whether the fire was natural or arson; it seemed to start with an explosion, but whether it was a bomb or a faulty heater can not be ascertained. Classes will be affected the rest of this year and next year, while they see about rebuilding. Unfortunately the library was lost, with all its books, including some of mine. So we donated a thousand dollars to the library fund; after all, it behooves a writer to support both libraries and the school his children attend. I had a thank-you note from a teacher on another matter, and sure enough, the envelope was scorched. Good thing I knew the cause, or I might have feared it was a letter from Hell.

  And more news: a local company asked permission to explore the entire state forest that we live against for possible limerock mining. Now this sort of mining is open-pit, and it leaves a landscape reminiscent of that of the Moon. Reclamation is a joke; the trees and animal ecology are gone. We bought land where we did in order to have a guarantee that the natural land could never be denied us. But it seemed that while the state owned the land, the national government retained the mineral rights, which meant it could license the land for strip-mining. (It is said that profits can run as high
as a million dollars per acre.) Ah, but was there lime-rock there to mine? Yes, indeed; it was under our own land. Was the acreage we owned to become an island of wilderness next to a wasteland that was once the state forest? If this was not war, it seemed very like it. The outlook was grim. But then, before the battle was joined, new information came to light; the state forest had been designated for public use only, back when it had been set aside, and could not be signed away for private mining. Satan had been balked by a technicality—about the time I wrote the final chapter.

  Let's narrow the focus to the more personal aspect. How am I doing, these two months of this novel? Well, I can write well enough, unless distracted by other calls on my time, such as letters and manuscripts and research for other projects. What was the story there?

  Life continued at its frenetic pace. I made notes on items I might mention here, but the inclusion of all of them would render this Note much longer than anyone would have patience for. So, just the more significant ones, and briefly. My major concern was research for a mainstream novel relating to the situation of the American Indians of this region of Florida at the time Hemando de Soto passed through. Every Sunday we went out to the Indian mound being excavated, where my daughter Cheryl worked. Our involvement is intimate; there will be more on that elsewhere in due course. For now it suffices to say that significant finds are being made and that the matter has been taking up a significant amount of my time. Associated with this, before the turn of the year, our whole family joined an archaeological canoe trip, with Cheryl and I sharing one canoe. It was a kind of nightmare. So I enhanced the details and put it into this novel. Those who wonder where I get my ideas may take due note; I do more adaptation from life than most readers realize.

  Just about this time, my right shoulder began bothering me chronically. It hurts when I stretch or reach too far. We'll check with the doctor when we have time, but meanwhile it is progressive and worrisome. I have lost partial use of both knees, and it doesn't please me to have me same thing happen to a shoulder. I'm still doing my exercises, such as the chins on the study rafter, but it is now painful to get my grip, and I can't descend all the way. I still do thirty, operating in the restricted range, but, if the shoulder gets worse, that exercise may be denied me. Since I have always felt that the end of my physical exercise program will mark the beginning of the end of my life, this is not a minor matter to me. I now do seventy-five Japanese pushups in under four minutes, sometimes under 3:30; my best time is 3:03, beating the time that evoked the kidney stone in Pale Horse by more than a minute. I hate doing them, but I would hate even more to have to give them up. My runs are slowing, too, and I am no longer able to break 21 minutes for three miles, or 22, and usually can't break 23. I am minded of the line from W.B. Yeats: "The hour of the waning of love is upon us." I love my physical fitness, perhaps the final relic of my youth, and I feel the hour of the waning of it. I fear that even the Ping-Pong will be ended by this particular incapacity. Well, I'm past fifty now; the war against age and death is one that every person is fated to lose. But I am conscious of a significant loss, right at this time.

  In one week in this same period, I addressed three different school classes. I don't like taking the time, but I do support education, so I give these local talks when requested. One was to Penny's college-level English class, and Penny took our brand new video camera and recorded me, as I think I mentioned in Part I of this Note. By coincidence, it was in the homeroom of a different teacher (the school fire jumbled these things)—one who had angrily told her classes that "Piers Anthony is wrong." That dated from a prior address I had given, when I had stated "You no more need to know the names of the parts of speech in order to use the English language correctly than you need to know the names of the muscles and ligaments of the legs in order to walk correctly." I was once an English teacher, you see, and I take exception to much of what is currently being taught. I believe that less effort should be expended on irrelevant material like parts of speech, and more on relevant material like how to balance a checkbook or understand mortgage interest—things a person could use in today's world. So I repeated my statement—and this time received applause for it. Of course the teacher who objects to my attitude was not there; I did take the trouble to greet her when she arrived. I am not, of course, wrong. Another presentation was for a selected group in a different school in the county, the attendees being students who were fans of mine. But the challenge was the third, to a second grade class. The youngest fan I have had a letter from was eight years old; these were in the seven-year-old range, and none of them had read any of my books, but they were interested in writing. They were doing books of their own, as a class project. I wanted to be sure not to overshoot their level of interest, so I told them about how the baby ogre in Crewel Lye foiled the dragon and about the monster-under-the-bed, and these were things they related to. Then they had an Author's Reception with refreshments they had prepared, so it became a social occasion. I think it was a success. That, too, is on the videotape. Certainly it was an interesting experience. But this sort of thing does take time, and is one of the reasons I failed to complete this novel within the two-month period I had allotted.

  And in this period the question of a motion picture option was settled. In 1984, interest in the Xanth series developed, stipulating a payment of $300,000 for each novel made into a movie, with the possibility of using all nine Xanth novels. But there was also interest in Germany for cartoon adaptation for the first three Xanths, for $500,000. Which was the better bet? The American deal might peter out after the first novel, so was not necessarily better, and of course there was no telling what quality of movie might be made. We pondered, and finally gambled on the American deal, and I signed the option contract. Time passed, and finally it was apparent that the option was not going to be exercised. So it goes.

  This was also the time of the Sharon/Time magazine and Westmoreland/CBS libel suits, both resolved somewhat indecisively, as wars often are. Freedom of the press—I believe in it, but it does get abused, and I think it is best that an accounting be made periodically. And on a lighter note, this was the time when the war between men and women erupted on a new front. Ann Landers conducted a survey and reported that 72% of her women would rather be cuddled than have sex. Furor followed. Mike Royko conducted a hilarious counter-survey, getting the men's side of it. I, of course, have a fairminded solution: let the women wear placards bearing the numbers 72 or 28 so that the men can make more informed decisions about dating, marriage, etc. Any man who prefers Cuddles can probably have her. The divorce rate might drop precipitously. Not to mention the marriage rate. (And to think they call me a sexist!)

  And Bantam Books ran a five-page promotional ad in various periodicals, showing reproductions of bestseller lists with their books thereon. But Anthony got shown five times in that ad for the Del Rey novels On a Pale Horse and Bearing an Hourglass, the first two volumes in this series. I'm sure Del Rey joins me in thanking Bantam for the free publicity.

  I typed a record 125 letters in the month of Jamboree, and in FeBlueberry I had a manuscript and a book to read and blurb, sent by two publishers with whom I am not doing business, and another expected from a third publisher. No, this is professional courtesy; I do for other writers what other writers did for me when I was in need, though I am a slow reader and it takes me days to get through a book. But about the letters: most of them were cards, as I have become adept at reducing my responses to that length, though each remains individual. Most other writers, I understand, do not bother to answer their mail; certainly I could save a lot of time if I did not. But those are living, feeling people out there, and I feel that they deserve answers, so as long as I can, I am answering. I have no secretary; I bash them out, with typos, strikeovers, and all, on my manual typewriter. (The computer printer can't handle cards.) By going wholesale to the card format, I have managed to keep up.

  One day I received fifty letters: forty-four in a package from Del Rey, six
from elsewhere. Next day I typed thirty cards, and the following day twenty mixed cards and letters, and the third day, seven, saving the complicated ones for last. Only then did I get back to work on Sword. But you know, I don't suffer from Writer's Block, while many other writers do. I can not prove this, but it is my suspicion that those writers who are callous about social responsibilities, so do not answer letters, also tend to be callous about their business commitments, so suffer Block. Those who take all commitments seriously, including the need to consider the feelings and rights of others, do a better job at meeting those commitments: correspondence and books. If this is true, it is poetic justice. At any rate, I believe I write about as many letters and as much fiction as anyone in the genre, and I would like to think the two are linked. There are those who have called me naive about this sort of thing, though.

  And you know, those letters can be interesting. Let me give a couple of examples, positive and negative. One letter in that bunch of fifty informed me that a fan had named her prize colt after me: Piers Anthony Jacob. She says he is the prettiest horse alive. That seems only natural to me. I have asked the publisher whether we can run a picture of that horse on the back flap of this book. Might as well improve that aspect of the volume, after all. Another letter, received as I worked on this Note, is anonymous—no name or address, so I can't answer it. I regard anonymous missives as fair game, so I'll quote excerpts here: "It is becoming abundantly clear that your endless, thoroughly boring rants, diatribes and dissertations 'justifying' (through the many scenes you have depicting them) violent, humiliating [undecipherable word here] and soul-destroying sexual assaults against women are just thinly (very!) disguised versions ofapologiae of the same sorts of assaults on children of either sex." It confines in similar vein, psychoanalyzing me and concluding that I am trying to expiate guilt for similar things done to me as a child, and finishes: "Do you really want the whole world to remember you as 'Piers Anthony, the Battered Child'?" No novel of mine is named; those familiar with my work are free to make their own conjectures about the accuracy of this charge. Yes, I answer this kind of mail too, when able, though I am not as polite as I am to more positive fans. But as you can see, my mail is not boring.