I think of this as the third of my “nanotech” stories because I wrote it after “Suicidal Tendencies” and “Reef Apes,” but you could say it’s the first, because it takes place before the end of the 21st Century, at a point where it has only recently become possible to use nanotechnology to roll back the clock and make the old young again. The other two stories are set further down the line.
What this story brings to my mind is what Theodore Sturgeon once called the space between the lines. That is, whenever I look back on it, what I remember first and foremost is not the particulars of the story, but where I was, what I was doing, and who I was with during its creation. Most of all, I think of a beloved workshop.
From late 1988 until the summer of 1993, I belonged to a monthly writers’ group known as the Melville Nine. The number was an inside joke; there never were nine of us. We aimed for ten and went as high as fourteen. “Melville” was chosen both for its literary connotations and from where we gathered, on Melville Circle in Richmond, CA, at the late Janet Berliner’s elegant fourth-floor condo on the shore of San Francisco Bay. Its members, mostly professional writers, at various times included Joel Richards, James P. Killus, Risa Aratyr, Ron Montana, Lisa Mason, Martha Soukup, Grania Davis, Lisa Swallow, Marina Fitch, P.D. Cacek, and Lori Ann White.
I never missed a meeting. Workshopping is my bread and butter. I’ve been part of some that did me no good, and my non-sf college fiction-writing classes may even have set me back, but by and large, I can think of no better way to improve one’s craft than to present one’s work to a cadre of trusted colleagues and listen with an open mind to their critiques. From those colleagues, I get brainstorming, refinements, confirmation, inspiration. Sometimes a draft would change radically as a result of this feedback. Other times the influence was modest but still valuable — “Marathon Runner” is in that camp. I still recall the smile from Janis Lonnquist, one of our amateur members who has since sold many teleplays, that told me my character had the appeal I intended. I vividly recall brand-new member Risa Aratyr — also an amateur then but who had already completed her novel Hunter of the Light (HarperPrism, 1995) — wanting me to do more with the nanotech possibilities. Being new to the group, she was unaware I had already done most of what she suggested in “Suicidal Tendencies” and “Reef Apes.”
After May, 1993, Janet left the Bay Area. A fragment of the group went on without her, calling ourselves the Will Write For Food workshop, but the tide had turned. We never settled on a permanent venue. A variety of circumstances quickly reduced our roster. Ultimately the monthly meetings became six times or four or even once per year until they petered out altogether in 2005. I still participate in workshops here and there when I can, but it’s not the same. When I was in the midst of a Melville Nine meeting, I was a man at home.