"Creating a Pagan Fiction"

(This is the summary of the talk I will be giving with Elizabeth Johnson Lee at this year's Pantheacon in San Jose, on Feb.16th) 

What comes to mind when you think of Pagan books?  Information on tarot, or candles, or rituals?  Do you think of Pagan fiction?  What do you mean by Pagan fiction?  Do you include science fiction and fantasy?  Have you heard of the newer term Visionary Fiction?

Come hear Bill Baldwin, local COG and South Bay Circles elder, describe his odyssey of creating and publishing a Pagan-themed novel (Soul Flight). Elizabeth Johnson Lee (The House at 844 1/2) will also share her thoughts and experiences. 

What considerations go into writing and publishing fiction with a Pagan theme?  Is everything just variations of (for example) Harry Potter, the Wicker Man, or Charmed?  How can you publish what you have written?  How can you promote it?

We will present a few excerpts of Pagan fiction as well.

"Doing My Best" (Sunday Assembly of Silicon Valley, Jan. 12, 2020)

Imagine you’ve always wanted to build a battleship.  You go online and order a do-it-yourself kit.  The next day the vans pull up and fill your (large!) back yard with 50,000 parts, plus tools and instructions.  “Call us when the battleship’s ready,” says the driver as she pulls away.  What do you do now?

Or you’ve always wanted to paint murals.  Now your backyard is filled with 50,000 gallons of paint and a five-year supply of brushes. 

Okay—I made that all up. But remember the image.

Imagine you’re seven years old, and your parents start playing you Broadway soundtracks.  At nine you’re hearing Bible stories and Greek legends, and seeing all the movies based on them.

In junior high you’re stuck on a military base in Japan with nothing to listen to but Armed Forces Radio – which is pretty educational.  You learn about Shakespeare, Greek tragedy, and Eugene O’Neill.

By high school you’re writing song lyrics and dedicating sonnets to the girls in your English classes.  You toss off a Greek-style tragedy.  Then half-way through college you think, “Hot-durn I’m ready; I’m writing that novel.”

Forward twenty years.  Remember the battleships?  Why are parts left over, paint left over?  How do you fit those 50,000 words together?

Then someone mentions an eight-week informal writing circle.  You notice a Mercury News announcement for something called the California Writers Club.

Forward twenty more years.  You’ve now written eight novels.  How do you publish and promote them?  You know they’re kind of “edgy.”  You’re portraying the misfits of society:  People from different backgrounds, religions, spiritualities (or not!), sexual orientations, genders, relationship orientations.  How do you balance these different characters; the personal, the social, the political, the mundane, the visionary?

Will anyone buy these novels?  Maybe the misfits; but who will publish the books for these outcasts? 

Turns out you can publish them yourself, at essentially no expense.  No expense.  There’s a Learning Curve, but it isn’t really that bad.  I have learned to balance all this, and in November and December I published both the paperback and the eBook version of my novel Soul Flight.  And if any of you—or Sunday Assembly of Silicon Valley—want to publish something important to you, I can provide helpful hints. 

I think now I’m doing my best.  Thank you.

"New Year Fears and Hopes" (South Bay Poly #285 - January 2020)

A new year, with new hopes.

I just spent two days in Sacramento, where I shared a meal with some poly friends who used to live here in the Bay Area.  We reminisced about various friends and events we had known here; some sweeties who have left the area, and the wonderful poly dinners we used to attend every month at a Chinese restaurant in Palo Alto.  Then the host’s work situation changed.  Life is always changing, of course—but change is stressful.

I spoke at this month’s Sunday Assemblies meeting in Palo Alto and described the years of prep that went into my recent novel Soul Flight.  I mentioned the general theme of non-standard lifestyles, but not polyamory specifically.  Next month I’ll be interviewed about the book as part of the Annual Meeting of the Unitarian Universalists for Polyamory Awareness (UUPA).  I’ll also be talking about the book at this year’s Pantheacon in San Jose.

Curiously, someone saw an excerpt from another poly novel I plan to release in a year or two.  “Don’t name the character ________; there’s a well-known poly by that name in our area.”  (This person lives several thousand miles away).

What I’m beginning to notice is how easily people will assume the so-and-so in a novel or story must be based on some real-life person.  It’s funny in a way.  Whether I use ordinary names like Joe or Jim or Lisa, or whether I use more unusual names like Genuflect or Berskawillin…..  People still see themselves in the story.  It’s a barometer of how much polyamory and several “alternate” characteristics still cause unease and self-consciousness and anxiety.

Hopefully society will gradually move beyond that.  How can we help that happen?

Anyway:  Happy New Year!  Happy 2020!