Jason Sanford

You Won't Survive the End of the World

Today's Dilbert strip perfectly sums up how planning for the end of the world is doomed to failure. I mean, whether we're talking the collapse of our financial system, nuclear holocaust, zombie armageddon, or the return of Y2K, the odds are you and I would not survive.

Here's my reasoning: There are almost 7 billion people in our world. If the world ended today, the first people to be selected out is everyone reading this essay. Think about that. If you have a computer in today's world, then odds are you're highly tied in with the current economy and skill set. Well guess what – if the world ends there are no computers, Starbucks, or smart phones, meaning your skill set is totally irrelevant to survival. Instead, the people in this world who'd have a chance to survive are those with more traditional human skills like hunting and farming and simple manufacturing.

"But I plant a garden in my spare time. Surely I'd survive?" Err, no. And the same with the part-time hunting skills where you pack up the Hummer with a half million dollars in gear and drive five hours to bag a deer.  You see, those are not true hunting, farming, and maufacturing skills. When you have lived off your own farming and hunting for several years, or can build a generator from scratch, you can claim to have the skills to survive. Until then, you're merely playing.

However, there is a bigger problem, which today's Dilbert strip alludes to. No matter how many supplies you lay in, or how many traditional skills and guns you have, if you live in the parts of the world with computers and modern conveniences the odds don't favor you. 

For example, say the world ended and you're living in the United States with a population of 300 plus million. Even if half that population died, the other 150 million would be desperate to survive. The problem is that most of those people don't have the supplies and skills needed to survive outside our current economic order. 

So there you are, holed up in your rural safehouse with a thousand guns and ten pounds of seeds and enough know-how to impress even the author of that silly Farnham's Freehold. The problem is there are still 150 million people who want what you have. The odds do not favor you.

Sure, in one way or another humanity would survive. We're like that. We're the intelligent cockroaches of the animal world. But don't pretend you would survive the end of the world.

Help Locate Information on Fallen Peace Corps Volunteers

This year is the 50th Anniversary of the U.S. Peace Corps, the famous "toughest job you'll ever love." Since President Kennedy created the Corps in 1961 nearly 200,000 volunteers have served in 139 countries.  This number includes myself and my wife, with both of us serving in Thailand.

However, not all of these volunteers returned home. As documented by the non-profit Fallen Peace Corps Volunteers Memorial Project, 279 of these volunteers gave their lives while pursuing the Peace Corps mission. The accounting of these volunteers is listed here.

The problem, though, is there's little or no personal information for many of the volunteers listed on the memorial. The is especially true of PCVs who died in the program's early years.

So here's what I'm asking: Will you join me in tracking down information on these fallen volunteers? Simply go through the list of fallen volunteers and find someone without any information on their entry.  These deaths would have been in the newspapers at the time, meaning there are news reports we can locate using online databases. Or perhaps you know the family or friends of these volunteers, who might share some information for the memorial.

What We Are Looking For

• Scans and summaries of news reports
• Personal accounts from the volunteers' family and friends
• Photographs
• Scans of letters and other artifacts

If only a few hundred people pledge to search for information on these fallen volunteers, we will soon fill the memorial pages. I have been in contact with Donna Mack of the FPCV Memorial Project and she supports this data collection effort. Donna's son Jeremiah Mack was a PCV who died in Niger in 1997.

Please help spread the word about this.

Where to Send Information

If anyone finds information or photos, please feel free to send it to the FPCV Memorial Project through their contact page. If the information is contained in attachments or scanned documents which you can't send through the contact page, feel free to email those files to me. I will then pass them on to the project.

I should also note that FPCV will be taking part in the upcoming 50th Anniversary events in Washington D.C., with an Arlington National Cemetery presentation and wreath laying scheduled for September 25th of this year. The families of all fallen PCVs are invited to attend. For more information, please go here.

Writing a Novel On Google+

I'm extremely impressed with the hangout function on Google+. Not only is it a fun way to interact with people, as a writer I've found the hangout tool to be a great productivity booster. As I've previously mentioned, the combination of chit chat with other writers and the peer-pressure to write can result in some impressive word craft.  All that remains to be seen is if the hangout feature can actually help writers be more productive over the long-term, or if the increased productivity will fizzle out as people grow weary of this social media feature.

To test this, I will write a novel while hanging out on Google+. Yes, an entire novel. I actually started working on the novel in my previous two hangouts so if this pans out that means the entire manuscript will be written while my face is webcammed across the Google+ universe.

Here's the deal: Every Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday I will host a Google+ hangout at 9 pm Eastern. Any writer who is in one of my circles is welcome to take part. Starting at 9 we'll spend about 15 minutes talking shop and fumbling through that social awkwardness we writers know so well. After that we'll write for an hour. Depending on how people feel afterward, we can then follow up with more chit chat and writing.

Speaking for myself, spacing the hangouts over the week will give me time in between to do revisions and plan out the novel. However, the actual hangouts will be solely for writing. If anyone else thinks a regularly scheduled hangout will help your writing, please join in.

I'll also be posting regular updates on how this experiment goes.  And once again, thanks to Mary Robinette Kowal for coming up with the idea of these writers' hangout.

More of Me!

In case you haven't had enough me, here's some fun stuff:

• Bryan Thomas Schmidt has compiled a Twitter interview he conducted with me a while back. Thanks to Bryan for both conducting the interview and pulling together all my comments, which were rather scattered. This often happens when you carry on long conversations in 140 character bites.
  
  
• Meawhile, over on the Mad Hatter Review I join with Neal Asher, Hannu Rajaniemi, Robert Charles Wilson and many other authors to describe the science fiction devices we wish were real. My pick? Well, you'll have to read the article to learn that, but let me just say the various Star Trek series have gained a ton of milage from the device.
  
  
• And if that doesn't hit your Jason Sanford fix, don't forget that there are only five days left to order a signed and numbered copy of my new collection Never Never Stories. Details are here.

Writers' Hangouts in Google+

The other day Mary Robinette Kowal explained to the social media world how to hold a writers' hangout in Google+. Basically, you use Google+'s ability to hangout with others while also cranking on your latest literary masterpiece. Since I'm aways looking for ways to bring more fun to my writing, I staged my first hangout last night.

The results: Fun as hell and a great way to motivate yourself into being more productive.

As Mary suggested, I scheduled a time for the hookup and mentioned it on both Google+ and Twitter. Once we started the Google+ hangout functionality worked great, with people easily able to see each other and talk. In short order ten other writers--ten people being the most that can use the hangout feature at one time--logged in. We spent about 15 minutes talking and wrote for the rest of the hour, followed by more talking and writing.

Thanks to everyone who showed up, including Mary, Paolo Bacigalupi, Jamie Rubin, Janet Harriett, Patrick Thunstrom, Adam Callaway, Brian Dolton, Bryan Thomas Schmidt, Juliette Wade, Shaun Duke, Scott Roberts, and John DeNardo. I'm also pleased that the hangout helped me write almost 1,500 words last night. Since late night has always been one of my least-productive writing times, the hangout was well worth doing.

I'll be scheduling more writers' hangouts in the near future. If you want to take part, simply keep an eye out on my Google+ feed.

Update: Bryan Thomas Schmidt and Jamie Todd Rubin give their take on our hangout.

Winners of the 2011 storySouth Million Writers Award

The public vote for the 2011 storySouth Million Writers Award is now complete. We had nearly 1150 votes. Here are the winning stories, along with their percentage of the vote:

1. "Arvies" by Adam-Troy Castro (Lightspeed Magazine) – 18%
2. "The Incorrupt Body of Carlo Busso" by Eric Maroney (Eclectica) – 16%
3. "The Green Book" by Amal El-Mohtar (Apex Magazine) – 15%

The prizes for this year's award are:

• First place: $600 plus the $100 gift certificate from ThinkGeek
• Runner-up: $200
• Honorable mention/third place: $100

Thank you to everyone who votes and nominated stories. Next year's award will kick off in early 2012.

Spotlight Publishing to Release Million Writers Award Anthologies

As I mentioned yesterday, Spotlight Publishing is a small press which recently relaunched with a new focus on science fiction and fantasy books. Among their first new titles are my own Never Never Stories, Edmund R. Schubert's The Trouble With Eating Clouds, and James Maxey's There Is No Wheel. Following these inital books will be the anthology InterGalactic Awards Anthology Vol. I, edited by Orson Scott Card and Edmund R. Schubert. 

Now obviously having my short story collection come out is extremely exciting. But equally as exciting is that Spotlight has agreed to publish two anthologies of stories from the last eight years of the Million Writers Award. These anthologies will be titled Million Writers Award: The Best New Online Voices and Million Writers Award: The Best Online Science Fiction and Fantasy.

The first anthology will focus on the exciting new authors and voices to emerge through the Million Writers Award, while the second anthology will focus on the many SF/F stories our judges and readers have loved. I will edit both anthologies, which will feature stories from all levels of the award process (i.e., winners, finalists, and notable stories).

In the coming months I'll be contacting authors to arrange reprint rights for their stories. The publication date for the two Million Writers Award anthologies is early 2012.