Chicanonautica: Ernesto Update 2022

by Ernest Hogan

2022 is off and running. We got past January 6 without serious mayhem. Covid is still mutating and rampaging, but civilization ambles on.

And I’m still here, alive and well, as the Father of Chicano Science Fiction, doing the day job, waiting for El Porvenir ¡Ya! Citlalzazanilli Mexicatl A Chicano Science-Fiction Anthology to come out with a new story by me. If you can’t wait for another new Ernesto story, there’s one in Speculative Fiction for Dreamers: A LatinxAnthology–buy it, review it now! And it’ll be a while, but my story collection, Pancho Villa’s Flying Circus, is still a go . . .

The main thing I’m doing is fighting to concentrate on finally finishing my novel, Zyx; Or, Bring Me the Brain of Victor Theremin. I’m at the point where it’s all starting to come together, the end is in sight, all I have to do is sit my ass down and nail the entire gonzo mess down. And that ain’t gonna be easy.

I’ve long said that while short stories are like a bout with the flu, novels are more like demonic possession. The monster has been growing in

the back of your brain; so far it’s been fun following it around, jotting notes on the havoc it wreaks on the landscape, but now it’s time to wrestle it down and hog tie it into a conclusion that will satisfy the reader.

Yeah, both rodeo and bullfighting metaphors apply.

This is more work. You have to engage the frontal lobes. The monster drains more brainpower. You start having trouble with the routine, “normal” part of your life . . .

And of course, this takes more of your time, which triggers the diabolical cosmic machinery that throws more demands for your attention your way–like this column, and my personal blog, and my social media activities. 

I struggle to keep a public spectacle dedicated to drawing attention to my writing, rather than me blathering about my life.

It’s amazing how people don’t notice that.

It’s also a good thing that writing takes up so much of my life, and brain, that there’s not much left of anything else.

So I should get back to work. I have this complicated sequence where a lot of subplots come together with giant monsters, artificial intelligences, aliens (extraterrestrial and other), gangsters, a Chicano science fiction writer, and his crazy friends. And dammit, I keep finding places where I need to write new scenes . . .

Later I’ll worry about how to market the chingadera, and wonder if it’s possible for a Chicano to write a worldwide bestseller.

Yeah, I know, some people wish they had these kinds of problems.

Ernest Hogan has too much imagination for his own damn good. He is also the author of High Aztech, Cortez on Jupiter, and Smoking Mirror Blues.