Reader Discussion Topics Part 1/3

As I mentioned last week, these are the questions that Jane Friedman sent me, with the purpose of giving reader groups, book clubs, and individuals as well a sense of the worldbuilding, philosophical stance, authorial biographical information, and general ideas that went into developing the book The Man from Rock Bottom (and its in-the-works companions and sequels).

The format below will be presented with the questions I was given, followed by my answers. There are three total parts to this series, of which this is the first. Following that, I will then present the more polished Reader's Guide that I put together, and which you can download for free for your own uses (even if it's just to have a template for what a reader's guide might look like, so you can make your own).

Now, on to the Q&A!

What inspired you to make humanity responsible for so much of its own destruction, and what did you hope readers would take away from that idea?

Religion, actually, was the germ of the idea behind our self-destruction: this is brought up by Garfi Lett in Chapter 0, where he declares that humanity are the only people that killed their own god, their own savior. I'm a Christian (a Restorationist, actually) and I believe in a universal Christ, but He was only born and lived and died on one world - ours. That says two important things about our species: first, that we are the most righteous of all of God's creations; second, that we are the most wicked.

A dichotomy like that means that there are going to be powerful push-and-pull forces running through our entire society. Too powerful. Add in my studies of war-as-history, and most folks have noticed that people go to war, conquering people and taking their stuff then building empires out of the remnants, because it's a great way to keep people distracted, from focusing on the problems going on at home, from actually trying to fix themselves. When the distractions end, then the whole facade starts to come apart at the seams.

In a future society, where literal monster building is a reality, the collapse was just that much more extreme. That much more complete.

What does “Rock Bottom” ultimately represent in the story, and how does that meaning change as the reader gets deeper into the book?

You noticed that, eh? On a personal note, I had hit "rock bottom" myself when I began to write the story: in the past, I'd gone through a serious nervous breakdown (when the Man describes his own, that's based on my experience); I'd been rejected multiple times from multiple agents and publishers, though I've written five novels; and I was working teaching middle school with inner city kids, far too many of them with significant...let's say "issues" and leave it at that. In the process of writing The Man from Rock Bottom, I reached into myself and worked toward becoming a better person, someone more open to empathy as well as to sympathy, a person who will try to forgive the same way I hope others will forgive me.

Because I wrote this book, I was able to get myself into a place where I was able to get back into school. That's why I'm presently working on my dissertation for my PhD. The topic, naturally enough, is rhetorical-pedagogical empathy, or how to make use of empathy as a means of teaching more effectively. I love teaching, and it's what I want to do the rest of my life...just, um...not in middle school again, please. (Sheesh! I never had to use so much soft-style martial arts until I taught kids ages 12 to 14! But sometimes gentle subdual was the only way to keep them from hurting school property, each other, or themselves.)

That's my personal reason behind the title. But then, haven't we all hit a point we can call our rock bottom? That lowest point, where everything seems lost? And if we haven't yet, I don't doubt that we all will, eventually.

And I think sometimes we need to reach that lowest point before we can experience the miracle. What do I mean by "the miracle?" That's very personal, for each of us.

What happens when the people who need saving don't necessarily want to be saved by outsiders?

No easy questions here! Ah well, you didn't sign up for pablum, and neither did I.

Aren't we all like that sometimes? Haven't we all encountered someone like that sometimes? We're held back by our own pride, our own pain, our own self-loathing and inner guilt. Sometimes we've just been hurt so badly and so many times that we just...we just can't help but lash out at the hand outstretched in gentleness.

(If you haven't, you're a better person than I am.)

Scintillant Camor, the foxy fellow pictured by the wonderful Pierre Joubert on page 18 of the book, is the embodiment of my own desires to heal and to be healed. I've always wanted someone like him in my life, someone who'd just listen with kindness, encourage me toward healing, and not force me into an emotional direction that he thought was best, instead giving me the opportunity to feel my way toward the truth with his gentle guidance and support. I've also always wanted to be able to express similar kindness and gentle support in the right directions.

One thing I know from my studies in rhetoric and religion and animal sciences: you cannot force people to become something better when they do not want to change. And even if you can, you shouldn't. You can encourage, council, commiserate, and even warn with sharpness when the situation demands, but always with love and a desire for the person's best self to come through in the end.

In horse training, this is called "turning loose;" it's also called "horse whispering," but I prefer to avoid that term these days because of the sensationalist associations. Real cowboys tend to be a lot more plainspoken anyway, preferring simple terms for complicated ideas. The goal in turning loose, which works with any creature, as long as you adjust the principles to match the specific needs of the creature in question, is to guide the creature to do something natural to itself, something that it can do, but doesn't necessarily know that it can do, or doesn't know how to do in certain contexts. Then you teach the animal how to do that thing, whatever it is, when you want it done. For horses, this typically involves running - horses were made to run, and it fills them with joy! There are very few feelings that I have ever had that can compare to the moment of sharing in that joy, of being with the horse, becoming one with the horse, not a master, but a partner, both of us acting together as a single new creature, greater than the sum of its disparate parts.

That's...that's not quite answering the question directly, is it? I'm sorry: I think it's the best I can do.

Why was an alien civilization the right way to give humanity this second chance, and what did you want the relationship between humanity and the Pan-Galactic Republic to make readers think about?

Sometimes we need an outside agent to help us through. No, scratch that: we usually need an outside agent to eventually overcome ourselves. Almost always. This is the process of repentance, of true self-improvement, of laying aside our old dead evils and becoming something better.

As for the need to work with another species in a state of empathy? See above, in my metaphor about horses. I've felt that same way with a few people, but I always clench up at those times of deepest shared emotion, realizing how unworthy I am, how full of flaws, how much of a noxious presence I am. Imposter syndrome and anxiety are very real daily experiences for me. To overcome myself, then, I had to use a fictional ultimate outsider, someone sufficiently removed that they could work with me and I could overcome my self-judgement, at least for a little while. Such was born the character of Scintillant Camor as savior-figure.

From https://x.com/foxes_in_love

Do you see Sunflower City primarily as a place of physical safety, or was it also meant to represent humanity's attempt to create a better society after destroying its previous one?

Mostly Sunflower City is meant as a sort of creche, a safety zone for humanity to recover from its recent ordeals. While it's built to serve as a potentially permanent residence, and for most of its present inhabitants that's just what it will be, it's actually intended to serve as a sort of quiet proving ground.

See, there's always a layering of people. We divide ourselves up, whether we mean to or not. Most of us have a hard time actually leaving our old habits behind, and for that, Sunflower City has a host of virtual reality communities, places where people can go and be around other people like themselves, or where they can build their own worlds and live in them - and get lost in them, if they so choose. Since the alien society of this story is post-scarcity, this isn't really a big drain on resources, so they're content to let the majority of people everywhere - not just humanity - live in a place as well as a mental state where they're safe and can explore and be educated.

Of this group, however, there are always going to be those who have ambition, or who want to be of service, the ones who don't want to live in an infantile, protected state forever. Smart, capable, motivated, or just filled with secret desires to be something more, even if they don't quite understand it. These are the people that are likely to be seen on the streets of Sunflower City rather than in its Link virtual worlds (outside of classes, of course - the Link allows access via quantum technology to some of the greatest minds on any number of subjects!). And after they've gotten a taste of what reality can be, a great many of them will eventually take to the stars once more, this time with the goal of being useful wherever they are needed - and if they want to work, as Scintillant Camor puts it in his conversation with Barika Das in the "proper" Chapter 1, then someone will find a job for them!

Have desire, will travel.

These people then produce the third and rarest group: those who want to become better, and see the path of service to others, whatever their profession, as part of achieving the road to one-ness, to enlightenment. These are the aforementioned "greatest minds," as much spiritual figures as they are experts in material matters.

I've personally talked to some experts in a few fields, and sometimes it's been like bashing my head against a wall, they can be so obtuse - focused in their obtuseness, but obtuse all the same! - but at other times...other times our minds meet, our hearts open, and we bridge the barrier between our personal languages, and just commune. It's a deeply spiritual experience, something as much in the heart and the guts as the mind, and I come away filled with what feels like living light.

Once again, I think I'm not quite answering the question that was asked. Instead, I'm answering the question I thought should be asked. I hope that will be enough.

What interested you about creating an accidental hero rather than a traditional heroic figure who deliberately sets out to save the world?

Don't we all want to be a hero, each in our own little way? And, let us be honest, can't we all be heroic, if only we have the right circumstances in which to do the right thing at the right time?

Personally, I feel that real heroism is just doing your best to do the right thing at all times. Be there for others when they need you, and be available in case that time comes up. Those times you've spent talking with someone into the wee hours of the morn, because someone needed to talk and have someone listen, those times weren't wasted.

We're all going to make mistakes. We're all going to have times when we're not at our best. All right, let's be honest: if you're anything like me, that's going to be most of the time! But even when we're not at our best, people need us. I've gotten up at 3 am to just talk my ailing grandmother through her night terrors, and I know plenty of people who've done more, given more, been more, because it was the right thing to do, whatever their personal feelings. We need to be needed, because that's how we demonstrate to the universe at large that we existed, if only for our brief mayfly span. And that, I think, is the essence of true heroism.

Do you think the real challenge facing humanity in the story is simply staying alive, or learning how to become something better than what nearly destroyed itself?

Can't it be both?

Above all else, survive and be happy. They are essentially the same thing, after all.

Was the diversity of species and characters partly your way of exploring the idea that being different doesn't make someone less deserving of a place in the world?

Ah, the ending. Reading the ending still makes me tear up a little, and I'm the one who wrote it.

That said, in all honesty I wrote so much diversity into my book because I love new and strange and diverse points of view! They're fun to think about, fun to act out in the games I play. When I'm writing I like to stop and stand up and try out the movements of the characters, their mannerisms, their speech. Sometimes I'll look around my neighborhood for loading areas for trucks, because those usually have those "Maximum height" signs, so I can actually get a physical feel for the perspective of an especially tall character, or I'll crouch down and hobble around to feel the way the world must be to someone especially short.

What I don't ever act out is being weak. I...went through that during my nervous collapse, where I was literally robbed of my ability to even get out of bed without extreme effort. That was my "rock bottom," the lowest point I've ever reached. I needed months of brutal work to overcome the physical weakness (the emotional recovery took a lot longer, and I'm still encountering occasional weak spots), and it was such an overwhelming experience that I don't think I can ever forget it. When I write about a character in weakness, I just draw on a little sliver of that time, then I shut it back up again as quick as I can, the pain of it too much to endure for any longer than that.

Back to the question, yes, of course, I do genuinely believe in diversity of thought. Diversity, but also unity: different perspectives can be an immense asset as long as they're all focused toward a single goal, just approaching it from different angles. But if I'm being really honest, I play around with so much diversity because I still have that childish impulse to "play pretend," except in a more nuanced fashion now that I'm (at least theoretically) a mature adult.

Was that sense of belonging and coexistence something you knew you wanted the book to ultimately communicate when you began writing it, or did that message develop naturally as the story evolved?

See my mention of being at "rock bottom" when I started writing. This book is the embodiment of my personal - and still perpetually ongoing - process of enlightenment.

Surprisingly, I'm actually backed up by very solid - and federally funded! - research on that statement. I cannot recommend strongly enough that everybody check out the book "How People Learn," as well as its updated version, "How People Learn II," both put out by the National Academies after extended research on, well...just what the book says on the cover. They're free e-books, easily located with a simple online search with the above parameters, and I think they're wonderful.

Part of what they discover, though, is that we actually learn through the process of thoughtful, mindful, research-supported writing. Writing about something can easily become a process of self-discovery and personal growth, if it's done right. For you as easily as it was for me.

Probably more easily, since I expect that you're smarter than I am.

What do you think makes someone finally decide to act when the problem in front of them seems far too large for one person to solve?

That is a very personal question. No, really: that's something that everybody has to figure out on their own. For me, anxiety-paralysis is very much a real thing, and I have to force myself with inner brutality before I can really get myself to swing into action. It gets easier over time, but if I ever slack off, then I have to start the process all over again.

For me, there's always the spectre of the traumas that led to my nervous breakdown, as well as lingering PTSD experiences from that and other events in my life, the fear that I'll be overwhelmed emotionally once again. Physical pain isn't something that deters me, and I'm not afraid to step in and scrap things up if I have to, or wade into the muck (quite literally when I was working in animal sciences!), but my emotions are very weak. When I write, for example, the fear of rejection can get so powerful sometimes that I feel my chest tighten, my throat constrict. I can see what I need to put down on the glowing screen in front of me, can visualize it perfectly in my mind's eye, but know my own weakness, know that the reality will never be as good as the glory inside my head.

But I press on regardless.

Though I'm no expert, based on my observations, I expect we've all got weaknesses of a similar sort. How do we overcome them? Well...I guess I can only hope that none of us try to do it alone. Or if we have to start alone - and I think sometimes we all have to - then we can at least seek help in the midst of our trials. After all, getting help to keep something going is often a great deal easier than getting someone to help get something started in the first place.

If you had to reduce the heart of The Man from Rock Bottom to one idea that you most want readers to carry with them after finishing the book, what would that idea be?

Be brave, do your best, and strive not just for surviving, but for joy. Joy is the ultimate survival of the soul.