John Varley - Blue Champagne

Valentine's Day Massacre. When I got my computer my output increased dramatically. My family didn't see me for days at a time... then weeks at a time! I was sending in novels at the rate of three a month... and in addition, was writing and selling dozens of short stories every day. Thinking of pseudonyms became a major task in itself, a task I faced with a deepening sense of horror. Have you ever heard of John Jakes? That's really me! And what about Arthur Hailey, I'll bet you've heard of him. That's me, too! And Colleen McCullough, and William Goldman, and Richard Bachman... John D. MacDonald really died in 1976... but nobody knows it, because I took over his name! Soon I was writing movie scripts. (Have you heard of Steven Spielberg? That's me, too.) In 1980 I began writing the entire line of Harlequin Romances. I was making money faster than General Dynamics... but my kids didn't know me. As I sat at my Word Processor, a strange change would come over me. I would become these other people. Friends would mistake me for Truman Capote, or J. D. Salinger. But I could have lived with that... if not for the children. I can hear them now, crying in the kitchen.

"Mommy, mommy," they weep. "Who is daddy today?" If only I could save another writer from this nightmare... if only... if only...

"SR," Halifax, Nova Scotia I used to write with a pencil and paper—I never even used a typewriter for my first drafts... until the day someone convinced me to buy a Macintosh Computer, known in the industry as a Fat Mac. I loved it! In only three or four months I taught myself to type and wrote seventy or eighty letters. I purchased a MacPaint program, and soon was turning out wonderful dot-matrix artwork to amuse my friends. Then I brought a MacAlien program and had hours of fun every day eluding the space monsters that tried to eat me alive. (The MacWrite program still had a few glitches, but I knew I'd work them out... one of these days... when I got around to it... manana... what's the rush?) In the meantime, I was having too much fun...

Well, you've probably guessed I'm a Type B writer. It was always easy enough to find an excuse not to write... and the Mac made it even easier! Now winter is coming on, I've missed a dozen deadlines, my family is starving, and bill collectors are pounding on the door.

Thank God for the people at VarleyYarns®!

When they heard of my plight they rushed over with a typewriter, reams of paper, and a package of pencils.

I know it will be a long hard path back to sanity...... but with the help of VarleyYarns®, I think I can lick it!

"DT" Oakland, California Born Again!

That's what I told my friends when I finally "made the switch" to a word processor. The ease, the speed, the versatility... I began buying new programs as quickly as they came out. I even got to

"road-test" a few of them, developed by friends in the industry, before they were available to the general public. I really liked the MacPlot at first. When you "Booted it up," MacPlot would suggest alternate story lines... while at the same time conducting a global search of all stories written by anyone, anywhere, at any time, to see if an idea was "old hat." Soon all my friends had copied it and were using it, too. Then came MacClimax!, which analyzed your prose for the "high points," and added words and phrases here and there to "punch it up." You've all heard how a word processor can aid you if you decide to change a character's name in the course of a story. With MacCharacter, I was able to change a whimp into a hero, a Presbyterian into an alien suffering from existential despair, or a fourteenth century warlord into a Mexican grape-picker... all with only a few keys... all without lapses in story logic! Before long I had them all: MacConflict, MacDialogue, MacMystery, MacWestern, Adverb-Away. VisiTheme, MacDeal-With-The-Devil...

Then I noticed a strange thing.

I'm a Type A writer, like Mr. "SK/Bachman/Goldman/ETC." I'm not happy unless I'm writing most of the day. And now, writing was so easy I could simply write a first line, punch a few keys, and sit back and watch the story write itself. It was so easy, I was miserable. Now, in today's mail, comes MacFirstline, but I don't think I'll run it. I think I'll kill myself instead.

Now where's the MacHara-Kiri suicide-note-writing program...?

Sad, isn't it? And there isn't even enough time to tell you of the incalculable amounts of money squandered by writers on expensive systems that were obsolete within a few weeks' time, or to print the countless other testimonials that have been pouring into VarleyYarns® since this crusade of salvation began.

We're trying to help. Won't you? Only with your support can we stamp out this dread killer, this hidden disease called Computaholism. Write your Congress-person today. Form a committee. Give generously. Be sure to vote.

And don't forget... to buy and read Berkley's VarleyYarns®.

Dear John, All right, enough is enough. I don't think you realize it, but I put my career on the line over your last insane request. If you think I'm going to publish and mail that diatribe, you've got another think coming.

I went so far as to show it to our lawyers. You said you disguised the names, but how many writers do you think there are in Halifax, Nova Scotia? Or in Maine, for that matter. And do you have any idea how much money that guy has? Enough to keep you in court for the next twenty years.

Maybe I'll regret this later, but there are a few things I've been dying to get off my chest, so here goes. First... was that some kind of crack, back in your first ad? Something like ''as fine a book as the economic climate will allow''? Let me tell you, we editors work hard and we do the best job we can. So we don't usually have much of an advertising budget. So DEMON was printed on newsprint. So sue me, okay?

As for your horror stories about excessively prolific authors... boy, don't I wish! I could say a thing or two about missed deadlines, that's for sure. And did you read what Norman Spinrad and Algis Budrys had to say about your last two epics?

So much for the inherent superiority of the typewriter.

TITAN parts four, five, and six are due at the end of the month, don't forget. You may not find the editors here at Berkley quite so forgiving the next time you ask for a deadline extension.

Yours, Susan SUSAN ALLISON

BERKLEY PUBLISHING

NEW YORK

DEAR SUSAN, HOLD EVERYTHING! NO NEED TO GET UPSET. HELL, YOU

DIDN'T THINK I WAS SERIOUS, DID YOU? THE THING

IS, SEE, I WAS TALKING TO HARLAN ELLISON THE

OTHER DAY, AND WHILE HE AGREED WITH MY STAND

AGAINST THE WORD PROCESSOR, HE FELT THE WHOLE

VARLEYYARNS BUSINESS SMACKED OF TOO MUCH SELFPROMOTION.

BUT BEYOND THAT, AS YOU MIGHT HAVE GUESSED FROM

THE HOLES ALONG THE SIDE OF THE PAPER, I'VE

BOUGHT A WORD PROCESSOR. (SORRY ABOUT THIS

TYPEFACE: MY LETTER-QUALITY PRINTER IS ''DOWN''

AGAIN. I'M USING AN OLD ''WORDSPITTER'' PRINTER

I BORROWED FROM THE ESTATE OF ''DT'' IN

OAKLAND.)

I'M WRITING THIS ON AN EXXON OFFICE SYSTEMS

''ANNIE'' COMPUTER. AS YOU MAY HAVE HEARD, EXXON

GOT OUT OF THE COMPUTER BUSINESS AFTER A FEW

YEARS OF POOR SALES, SO I GOT THIS MACHINE AT A

BARGAIN-BASEMENT PRICE! FOR ONLY $5000 I GOT A

MAINFRAME MORE POWERFUL. THAN THE ONE NASA USED

TO SEND MEN TO THE MOON IN 1969, A DISK DRIVE, A

''SANDY'' PRINTER, A ''PUNJAB'S CRYSTAL''

MONITOR SCREEN, AND A LITTLE DEVICE SIMILAR TO

THE APPLE MOUSE, WHICH EXXON CALLS AN ''ASP.''

I'VE BEEN TOLD THIS IS WHAT IS KNOWN AS AN

ORPHAN COMPUTER, BUT IT SHOULDN'T MATTER, AS IT

WILL RUN SOME OF THE APPLE SOFTWARE, AND THE

SALESMAN--A MR. PANGLOSS--ASSURES ME EXXON WILL

CONTINUE TO SERVICE IT AND PRODUCE MORE

PROGRAMS.