See my Member Profile
Well, I guess this is the place to present myself to everyone.
Howdoyoudo! *curtsies with as much grace as possible*
I am a writer. Everyone must be thinking, "Well, Duh!!" *grins and winks* Ok I deserve that, however, I am an unusual writer or try to be at least.
When I was 13 (many many years ago..don't ask how long. Don't ask, don't tell) I was the eldest daughter of a maniacal Air Force Officer. I should have been born a boy and he had no qualms about telling me so. The biggest question was WHY!?!?! What is it that boys have that cause girls to be of lesser value. To a 13 year old's mind, that is how it is. Now, people will argue that women are of no more or less value than men and, as an adult, I agree. But, to be honest, it must be admitted that we live in a male dominated world. Why? What is the "edge" that men have? Strength, pure and simple. Yes, there are examples of women with extraordinary strength out there, but few. If you took two healthy adults, one female, one male and they both worked out exactly the same way, ate the same diet, etc. the man would always come out physically stronger than the woman. Ok..OK...I don't want to argue the issue, but that's the answer I came up with as a budding teen. So, I did a little "what if'ing".
What if women had the advantage? What would that advantage be? I came up with Newath and Dawnslip. People tend to forget Newath's sister planet because it's not mentioned a lot, but it is an important factor to the evolution of society on Newath. I'll probably go more into that as time goes by. So, what's so special about Newath? Well, for some reason (known only to me so far) women have Mind Talents. All women have what they refer to as the Compulsion talent. Compulsion works in two ways;
1 - Any woman can overcome a man's will to make him do anything she wants him to. He may or may not have his mind rendered useless depending on how hard he fights her. By the way, using this talent on men is Newathian's highest taboo. It is rape of the worst kind. A woman who does this is considered the lowest of the low...right along with child molesters...the worst kind of woman. A woman gets caught, she usually doesn't live long.
2 - This is the talent used when two women wish to do a particular kind of battle. It's called a Battle Arcane. It has been around since women discovered they had these talents. It is akin to the duel. Usually, a circle of women who have the Blockers talent (the ability to block or deflect another woman's talent) is built while the two combatants go at it. The two women "fight" using their Compulsion talent to overcome the other. The rules differ from fight to fight; a time limit, the use of any other talent(s) they have, etc. But, that's the gist.
In addition to the Compulsion talent women have one or more other talents. Some are very useful and strong like teleportation or telekinesis. Usually, the stronger the talent the more rare it is. Then there are what Newathians refer to as "hole-in-the-ground" talents. The ability to dig a hole in the ground, the ability to make a tree sing, etc. Those are more common and generally useless. The single most important and most rare is the Queenship Talent. On Newath you do not have to be born into the royal family in order to aspire to be Queen. The Queenship Talent is the ability to Mindspeak with any woman on the entire planet at any time she wants and to hear a response, no matter where that woman is in relation to the Queen. (I also have a book in the works "The Mad Queen" who's Queenship talent included the ability to hear every woman all the time and she couldn't turn it off...but, that's for later).
Now, if women have these talents and men don't, it would be a female dominated society. Then I went to work building that society and how it has evolved. There's more than one society actually; there are the Gypsies, the Or'Nintals, the Camberians, the Elfons, etc. There are creatures of legend and legends themselves. Sometimes I'll write what I think is going to be a minor character and s/he seems to come to life and just refuses to stay in the background.
In any event, welcome to my world.
- Location:
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United States
- Primary occupation:
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Information System Analyst
- Dream occupation:
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Writter
- Hometown:
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USAF
- Schools attended:
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Still attending or attending again.
- I like:
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A rainy day, a good philisophical conversation/debate, a good coffee
- Favorite writers:
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MZB, Anne McCaffrey, Diana Paxson, Mercedies Lackey, Andre Norton...really too many to mention in this short space
- Favorite books:
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"World" books. i.e. Darkover, Pern, Xanth, etc.
- Favorite music:
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Jazz, OLD time R&B...really I like what I like no matter what genre
- Favorite movies:
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Toss up between Lord of the Rings and Matrix (the idea, not the eyewash)
- Favorite TV shows:
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Anything Star Trek, Anything Stargate, CSI, Crossing Jordan, Commercials
- Favorite teams:
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Dallas Cowboys, Colts in professional; Ohio State University in college
- Favorite quote:
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Two actually, "Children are treasures of the heart" and/or "Children are a poor man's treasure"
- Gender:
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Female
- Religion:
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Sometimes