Well, the End of Days is here!  No, I’m not talking about 2012, or anything so apocalyptic, but something almost as important, at least to me.  After years (and I can’t even remember precisely how many—five, six, or even seven years, I believe), wonderful AlienSkin Magazine is finally closing its doors and I, as a resident columnist, must sadly say goodbye to some very marvelous people with whom I’ve worked.

I’ve collaborated closely with a number of professionals at AlienSkin, but I have to say that my editor, Kay Patterson, figures most prominently among them, since it is to her that I constantly turned for guidance and help, and on probably too regular a basis over the years!  But kindhearted soul that she is, she put up with me and my eccentricities to a degree that even those in my personal life, who love me dearly, would not have done and still don’t.  Peasants!  But ah, the patience of some editors (unlike my loved ones) is unbounded, luckily for me, and Kay Patterson is the best of these!

Moreover, to have to say goodbye to my fellow columnists is not easy.  Dr. Kevin Hillman, and Elaine Isaak, the former a true master of horror and the latter a consummate mistress of fantasy, were great people to work with.  I was even lucky even to meet up with Kevin, (alias, Doctor Dume), in person, in Scotland, on a recent trip to the United Kingdom.  Suffice it to say, that memory has scarred me for life, and to this day because of him, I am afraid of traffic cones, especially British ones, but that’s another story..

Enough of this maudlin sentimentality.  Let’s take one last crack at the genre of science fiction before we all depart on our future careers, fly off to far horizons.  I’d like, this one last time as a columnist for AlienSkin Magazine, to discuss ideas for writing science fiction, more specifically, how to come up with them.

And in line with that, let me just say that one of the things that bothers me most about would-be-writers, and even many already-published-authors, is the idea of their having "writer’s block." What an absurd notion!  How silly to claim such a thing.

Finding an idea to write about is not the problem, not really, for they are absolutely everywhere, all around us!  Maybe, fleshing them out "ain’t" easy . . . but finding ideas should definitely not be the problem!  If it takes longer than an hour for a writer to come up with a good idea for a story, then they’re just not really using their minds, in my opinion.

Harsh words, right?  Well, let’s be honest here. 

Why as a writer, should you just sit there moaning about not having a good story idea?  Why should you just lean over your computer wailing that there are no original premises left, that you are unable to think of a single thing to write about, when all the while there is such a wellspring of ideas just a click of a mouse away from you?  All you have to do is get on the Internet and just start a search under a plethora of topics, any number of them, and practically any type, to come up with something useful in the way of science fiction ideas.

For instance, just type in any of these: "Aliens," "Apocalypse," "End-of-Days," "Time Travel," "UFOs," "Ancient Aliens," "Faster-Than-Light Drives," "Space Travel," "Alien Worlds," "Genetics," "Sunken Cities," Parallel Universes," "2012," Dark Side of the Moon," "Aristarchus Crater," "Black Holes," "Worm Holes," "Bubble Universes," and you will see countless pages of material come up.

Moreover, in this information somewhere, there has to be a story idea, one that you can develop and make your own.  And, it isn’t just the Internet that provides such; how about using television as an idea source?  Granted, with today’s television, that, in itself, just may seem like pure science fiction . . .

However, even in that "vast wasteland" of TV there can be interesting ideas for stories. 

Recently, I have been watching the Ancient Alien series on the History Channel.  In the penultimate episode that I viewed, it briefly referred to the Black Death of Medieval Europe.  This plague wiped out as much as half the population there (according to some historians), and profoundly altered Western society permanently thereafter.  But apparently, also some very strange things occurred during the plague itself, things of which I wasn’t aware.

Please remember that travel time in the Medieval Period was very slow, with few roads, and those few in bad repair and dangerous because of local greedy lords, bandits, and such.  Add in the fact that one had to travel overland by walking, horseback, or horse-drawn vehicles.

This means it took time to spread news about the area and lots of it!  Then, throw in the fact that people were deathly afraid of traveling into any area that already had the plague, and communications became pretty darn slow, often nonexistent.

So when tales of strange figures in black cloaks with hideous faces swinging what looked like scythes (but were not, because the oats they were swinging them over weren’t visibly cut according to the witnesses) started popping up in widely different areas of Europe, you have to wonder.  And when some reports were as far away from each other as Hungary is from England, you just have to marvel even more how this could be. Certainly, there were no teams of troubadours racing pell-mell around Europe, rushing into the heart of every plague area to tell these ghoulish stories.  So, such tales often seem to have arisen completely independently of each other.  How is this possible?

By the way, do these weird stories ring any bells for you?  Yep, we’re talking about the actual origin of the Grim Reaper image here!  Apparently, the "swishing" sound of those scythes was abnormally loud, could be heard from far away, and was often accompanied by foul-smelling mists (sometimes seeming to issue from those "scythes").

The plague often broke out immediately after such weird events took place.  Some villagers even claimed you could see the Black Death entering the villages as vile-smelling mists (some say it looked blue, others say gray, or black).  In fact, the whole idea of "bad air," of "miasmas" seems to have arisen from this idea.  But why that particular image of death, that strange figure cloaked in black.  Prior to that, nobody used such an image.  And why a scythe of all things, and not a sword, or a battle axe, for instance, which were actual weapons of death at the time?

Yet, we have this clear image of "the Grim Reaper" burned into to us to this very day as that black cloaked figure carrying of all things, a scythe.  That, plus the strange mists and loud "swishing" sounds, does make one wonder?  Was someone or something using poisoned aerosols that sort of resembled scythes to the isolated peasants of the time, perhaps "scythes" filled with maybe more than one type of bacteria.  Because, in case you weren’t aware, there are several leading contenders for exactly what the Black Death was, and many historians/scientists think it may have been more than just one type of disease, even combinations of them.  A strange plague, indeed!

Oh, and did I forget to mention one other thing, that is, about the weird lights in the sky? 

Oh yes, numerous people claimed that the plagues were often foreshadowed by strange moving lights in the sky.  Others reported seeing multiple comets.  Now remember, anything seen in the sky that wasn’t a star commonly was referred to as being a "comet" at the time.  It was sort of a catchall phrase, rather as we use "UFO" today to cover any strange and unknown sighting in the heavens.

Get it?  If you can’t find a story idea in this information, whether science fiction (aliens using bacterial sprays to spread disease and reduce our population), horror (the whole idea of the Grim Reaper being on the loose in physical form and with a secret agenda), or fantasy (supernatural creatures breaking through from another reality and wreaking havoc), then something is wrong!  The ideas are there just for the taking, hanging in clusters like ripe grapes on the vine and practically everywhere that you look!  All you have to do is reach out and pluck one, work it, polish it, and then write it. 

This one television show alone was a source for many sci-fi story ideas for me.  It doesn’t matter if you "believe" any of what they have to say at all. Just think of these shows as great sources for countless story ideas.

Another good way is to gain your ideas simply by idly speculating about the consequences of various things, what they might entail.  Sources for these can (again) be the television (as with the Grim Reaper and me), news outlets in general, newspapers, magazines, or various Internet sites. So for example, a near-future Earth story could be about a world with a powerful, nuclear Iran calling the shots, (a sci-spy thriller?), or even a world dominated culturally or otherwise by China.  Alternatively, how about the new synthetic cell that’s recently been on the news, made with manmade DNA?  What might be the consequences of that?

Media outlets of all sorts are chock full of possible ideas for stories, if you did but see them.  Whether the tale is a mundane science fiction one, near future story, classic space opera, or a dark piece on alien intervention (invasion?), the ideas are there.

As a writer, your job is to take such an idea and weave a plot around it. That isn’t easy, I know, and I think that’s where the real writer’s block comes in, because it is a daunting task.  At least, you should have no problem with the original idea for the tale now.  Again, those are swarming all around us.  And truth is, even developing stories just isn’t that hard, really.

We should all know well enough by now that the basic plot structure of a story is pretty much cast in concrete.  You must have a hero, male or female, or both (or perhaps an alien/robot/cyborg/clone with human-like attributes), who try(ies) desperately to accomplish some noble goal. Through a series of travails, they must almost attain it, only to seem to be about to lose it near the end of the tale.  However, in the end they do win through, or fail in such a manner as to have done it for a greater good, a noble cause.

This is the basic concept for all storytelling as described by any number of authors, including Robert Heinlein.  There are several versions of this, some include a few twists, but that’s it, folks.  It’s the basic premise for telling any story.

So what’s stopping you now from writing a tale, a science fiction one, preferably (to my way of thinking)?  I’ve told you where you can go for plenty of sources for story ideas.  I’ve shown how you can develop them, and reiterated the basic plot line for any story, as explained by many writer greats.

So, what’s keeping you from writing that tale?  Oh yeah, that actual "writing" part, I’m betting.

That’s the tough part.  However, "Just Do It," as "they" say.  The matter of "good, old-fashioned elbow grease," the need to "roll up your sleeves and get to work," is, indeed, the hardest part.

Then there is the matter of persistence, of staying with the story until it is actually done.  That, I think is the most difficult task in writing any tale, and not "writer’s block" at all, which to me is really just saying that your tired of writing, perhaps don’t want to, aren’t in the mood, and/or need a convenient excuse, as in something "to inspire" you.

All those, in my opinion, are just excuses and nothing more.  Either we lack the initiative to start a story, the persistence to see it through, or perhaps we just get plain bored and want to switch to something else before it’s done.  Those are the real problems with storytelling, I think.

No, I’m not very sympathetic to excuses of such ilk, obviously.  That’s because I’ve used them too many times myself, and as "they" say again, it takes a shirker to know a shirker.  But being productive, practicing, and using persistence will go a long way to solving any writing problems you may have. Again, to write a story, you must actually "write" the story. Excuses, well, I just don’t buy them.

But I will buy your story if you write one and I like the concept behind it. That’s what I do as a reader.  That’s what most readers do.  We want something we can sink our metaphorical teeth into, and know we will enjoy. So writers have to write such tales, and writer’s block (excuses) won’t get the job done. 

So get those ideas, develop them, and write them.  Don’t stop until you’ve finished your tale.  That’s my advice.

And on that note, I will say goodbye to all my fellow staff members here at AlienSkin Magazine, and to the kind readers of my articles.  I wish you all the very best in your endeavors in the future, be it as writers, or as readers.

For all you writers, may there always be a story you wish to tell and do take the trouble to tell, and for you readers, a story you will always wish to read and actually buy to read.  Moreover, I hope that Kay Patterson, Dr. Kevin Hillman, Elaine Isaak, and I (of course), will be among the authors you will wish to read in the future.

Again, I think persistence is the key!  So hang in there, everybody!  Oh, and this isn’t really goodbye.  I’m sure we will run into each other at the occasional convention, and perhaps even be on the same Oprah show, Frontline, Larry King, or whatever, together, if only to announce the movie being made from our novels.

Hey, I can dream can’t I!    Whoa!   Are those men coming for me actually wearing white coats???  I’m thinking those nets they’re carrying "ain’t" for butterflies!!