Issue 109—When a Whale Looks at You
Welcome to 500 Words.
My next novel, coming out in October, includes whales who can think and communicate with people. Researching that took me down many roads. I've learned so much about octopuses and squid that I had to stop eating them. Yes, I will pass on the calamari, even Rhode Island calamari, because I won't eat anything that is more intelligent than I am.
For one strange summer, my father, a Brooklyn-born television executive and lawyer by trade, was briefly put in charge of a marine theme park outside of San Francisco. He learned a lot on the job, and my brother and I, watching the park's trainers work with orcas, learned about animal intelligence. There was something wrong with training intelligent creatures to be clowns. As a boy, I couldn't understand it, but an idea took hold that someday, the orcas who were captured for those parks would find their voices and demand restitution, compensation for their mistreatment.
That experience guided me toward including talking orcas in the novel, but another experience had even more impact.
I was in a tiny rubber Zodiac boat off the coast of Maui on a whale-watching expedition. It had been a good day, because we had seen a few whale spouts on the horizon and had stopped in the middle of the ocean for a Hawaiian pu pu platter of snacks.
There was a flow nearby, a disturbance in the water, and a 40-foot humpback whale surfaced within touching distance from our boat. Seawater streamed off her massive body, which was scarred and crusted with barnacles. She spouted, drenching us with salt spray, then rolled gently on her side to look at me. She regarded me with a steady focus for what felt like a long time. It gives me the chills even now, more than thirty years later. Her eye was glossy black, with an electric blue iris. I've never been regarded so carefully.
Memory plays tricks of course, and the people with me that day in the boat might remember this differently. But the whale story has stayed with me in the way I tell it here. The whale was female. She seemed to communicate with me. I received something from her.
Liberation, the third novel in the Utopia Engine trilogy, is in the final stages of production and will be published in October.
COPING STRATEGIES
My mother never taught me how to cook, and my father never learned. I learned to cook in restaurants. I was writing plays and needed to pay the rent, and I thought being a waiter would be easy. I went door to door in New York's West Village asking for jobs. I entered a brand-new restaurant near NYU. The dialogue went like this.
ME: Are you looking for waiters?
OWNER: Do you know how to cook?
ME: No.
OWNER: You're hired.
He handed me a paintbrush and told me to paint the inside of the place, which I did, because I was being paid. He soon put me in the kitchen, and the chefs generously taught me the skills I still use today. I am the designated cook at home, and it has become my wind-down at the end of a day of writing and production, the perfect combination of improvisation and planning.
What are your coping strategies? Leave me a voicemail and I'll share your strategies in an upcoming newsletter.
PROJECTS
I've started recording new episodes of The Future Lab Podcast, focusing on the current state of science fiction and fantasy writing and publishing. The first interview is with Eleanor Keisman, author of the climate fiction novella New Animal. I continue on an animal theme in the podcast when Eleanor describes how she handled writing dialogue for wolves, who are major characters in the book.
It's exciting to be back behind the mic for the podcast, and I'll let you know when I release new episodes.
I hope you find the right mix of improvisation and planning this week.
Thanks for reading,
Lee
LINKS
The Future Lab Podcast with Lee Schneider
Books recommended in this newsletter
This is a weekly letter about indie publishing from Lee Schneider. Author of the novels SURRENDER, RESIST and the forthcoming LIBERATION. Creator of the audio dramas MISSION OF THE LUNAR SPARROW, YOUR PERFORMANCE REVIEW, and PRIVACY POD. Working on many things. Nice to see you here. 500 Words is a publication of FutureX Studio.