Welcome to June 2024!

Welcome to June!

Reminder to visit me on Patreon.

Summer is upon us. I went camping last weekend, at a site in the Roosevelt National Forest. Absolutely gorgeous. Mountains and pine forests and so many stars at night. And while it might be summer, nights at 8,000 feet are still mucking cold. (Low 40’s F) The fun part about that was I’m currently reading Into the Silence, by Wade Davis, about the British expeditions to Mt. Everest in the early 1920’s. However cold I was at night wasn’t nearly as cold as those guys put up with.

This month’s lesson:  Traditional Publishing vs. Indie Publishing. That’s right, I’m gonna go there. Come read what I have to say about this eternal debate.

Work:  My story “Himalia” is up on Clarkesworld this month. This came out of analyzing the plot structures of the films A River Runs Through It and The Eight Mountains, and asking questions about what nature writing will look like on places not Earth. It’s a quiet and atmospheric story. And if you like seeing new science fiction every month, consider subscribing to the magazine!

Other work:  I have two stories still needing to be revised and sent off. After almost a month away from the current novel in progress because of all the other stuff that happened in May, I’m back to it and just crossed 60,000 words. It’s going to need a lot of work, but as is often said, it’s easier to revise words that are already written. I’ve got a lot to work with and I’m excited.

The calendar is filling up:  I’ll be at the Englewood Public Library Author Festival this Saturday, June 8.

Some other events coming up:  I’ll be at Worldcon in Glasgow, and I’m going to try to be at Bubonicon in Albuquerque right after that.

July 13 I’ll be in Dallas teaching a program on plot and character as part of the DFWWW Writers Bloc program.   More info on that when I have it.

Also this weekend:  the Estes Park Wool Market. My favorite thing about it is meeting the animals that produce the fiber we all work with. Like angora bunnies. SO FLUFFY. Maybe I’ll get some angora to spin…

This brings me to my Craft Challenge #3: I entered two skeins of my handspun yarn in the handspinning contest. Whew. Blame the spinners at the yarn shop for talking me into it. Peer pressure, man. We’ll see how THAT goes.

And one last item: I watched a lovely movie, Catherine Called Birdy, based on the Newbery Honor book by Karen Cushman. Great cast – Bella Ramsey plays the title character. It’s about friends and family, and it’s cheeky and silly and heartfelt, with all the movie-medieval trappings one could hope for.

And that Wade Davis Everest book is like 900 pages long and due back at the library in a couple of days so I’d better get back to it…

Update May 2024 – The Naturalist Society

(Mirrored on my Patreon.)

The Naturalist Society has a cover! That’s my big deal to show off for the month. The novel is due out October 8, available in paperback, ebook, and audio, from all the usual places. (Bookshop, Amazon, Barnes and Noble) Let the self-promotion begin in earnest! I’ve been talking about this book for so long, I’m getting itchy for it to be out in the world. A few more months…

This month’s lesson: How to write a synopsis. Or at least how *I* write a synopsis.

Craft Challenge 2:  Last night, I taught a small SCA group how to use a drop spindle. I’ve been using a drop spindle for a dozen years or so, but this was my first time teaching about it. I did this because teaching is a good way to study my own process and learn more about the craft (much like teaching writing!) and also to get more people in the SCA spinning wool, because it adds to the historical atmosphere and is pretty awesome. I love that people have been using spindles for something like 20,000 years, and the technology hasn’t changed that much in that time. It’s a direct link from the present to the past. Getting the confidence to teach this craft forced me to admit that maybe I do know what I’m doing, and that it’s okay if I don’t, because I can point people to places where they can get answers.

Media:  I’m so behind on books and movies and TV shows it’s a little embarrassing.

In better news, I have a whole summer of fun and work and travel planned, sometimes all three at once. I’ll be at Worldcon in Glasgow in August, and a couple of friends and I are planning a big Scotland travel odyssey in the weeks before and after. We’ll even be in Edinburgh for part of the Fringe Festival. I’m so excited I wanna scream! In the meantime, work. I’m headed to a writing workshop in a couple of weeks. Technically, it’s work – we’ll be critiquing each other’s stories – but I plan on kicking back and making a vacation of it as well.

And on that note, I gotta get some stuff done before then, so away I go —

Update! April 2024

This is mirrored on my Patreon page, which has a lot more info on it!

A bit belatedly, I realized I’ve entered the third year of keeping my Patreon. Thank you to my supporters, especially those who have been here from the start. Your presence here is immensely helpful. This format is working well because it gives me incentive and structure that I had lost on my old regular blog. I’m planning ahead better and reflecting on my own process more. Thank you! I hope it’s been useful for you as well! I especially love talking about writing hacks and doing long-form overly analytical reviews. (When my family saw The Lion King back in the day, I walked out of the theater gushing about how it was basically Hamlet, and my brother yelled at me, “Stop it! You’re ruining it!” I shouted back, “No, I’m making it BETTER!”)

This month’s lesson:  Note taking! Organizing! There’s no “one size fits all” on the issue of how to collect and use all the information and notes you gather. I can talk a little about what I do, and other organizing methods I’ve come across.

Meanwhile, it’s spring! The ospreys are back. So are the killdeers and meadowlarks. Waiting for warblers, wrens and swallows, and all the rest of the migrators.

A big chunk of the U.S. will experience a total solar eclipse on Monday. Yes, I have a plan, that involves friends and a road trip. We’ll see how that goes! If you’re in the path of totality, do you have a plan? I experienced the 2017 eclipse that happened just a few hours drive from my house, and it was astonishing and wonderful enough that I want to do it again.

Writing work is progressing slowly, but it is progressing. I should have a cover for The Naturalist Society to show off soon. The unexpected novel is at 50,000 words. I’ve signed up for a workshop in May, which means I need to actually write a short story to take. I’ve got two outlined.

This is turning into a year of Crafting Challenges. I’m liking it because some of this stuff is outside my wheelhouse. It’s a nice distraction, and I’m feeling productive.

Challenge One:  I entered the Masquerade at Costume Con 42 with my Hieronymus Bosch bird creature. The con was here in Denver so it was a low bar for me to get my ass there and do the thing. It was a good experience, I learned some things. There’s a very high level of costuming here – this is the one convention that has more Master level entries than Novice or Journeyman. (I enter at Journeyman – I haven’t done much competing, but my twenty years of experience mean I’m not exactly a beginner, so…) There are people who’ve been doing this for decades and it shows. So much creativity and skill on display!

Here’s my costume on stage:

(The creature is from Hieronymus Bosch’s “The Temptations of St. Anthony.” Bird Guy is in the lower left corner.)

I’m a dilettante by comparison. And I think that’s okay.  My mastery comes in other areas.  I can do a thing without being the best at a thing, as long as I’m having fun. I need to remember that.

But then…why show off? Attention. I’ll be forever grateful to Ada Calhoun for saying the quiet part out loud – anyone who puts their art out there is, at least partly, doing it for attention. And that’s also okay. From Also a Poet:  “A part of me is writing this because I want people to know more about Frank O’Hara. But maybe, if I’m honest, what I also really want is for people to know about me, so I can feel like I left some mark on the world, however slight.”

What I’m watching/reading/etc. A scattering of stuff. I’m bouncing around between a few different shows. I enjoyed the new Percy Jackson on Disney. I’ve watched the first couple of episodes of Constellation on Apple TV and Three Body Problem on Netflix and jury’s still out, we’ll see if I can actually finish them. I’m curious that we now have a couple of shows messing with time, space, reality and disorientation. (I might stick Monarch, which I loved for many reasons, in there as well. Also Bodies, the time traveling murder mystery from last year.) I need to see where they end up to decide what they’re trying to say. I like Three Body Problem, because it’s setting up some delightful twists and turns and I want to see how they turn out – and see if my guesses are right. I also really love seeing Rosalind Chao in a meatier role than she ever got to do as long-suffering Keiko on Star Trek.

No spoilers please! No, I haven’t read the novel, but I kind of want to now.

Onward, to April!

March 2024: Building Steam

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The new year hangover has worn off, we’ve gotten used to thinking of 2023 as “last year,” and we’re pretty much at cruising altitude. My travel schedule for the year is shaking itself out pretty quickly, and a couple of interesting projects and challenges have presented themselves. Like, I’m being encouraged to enter some of my drop spindle-spun yarn at the Estes Park Wool Market show? Huh. Might just do that. I’m also planning on entering the Masquerade at Costume Con in Denver at the end of the month.

This almost feels like the Before Times, scheduling too much and being excited about it. Let’s do it!

This month’s lesson: I’ve launched a research project for a potential new novel, so I thought it was time to talk about a favorite topic of mine: research for writers. How do I do it and why?

Other stuff.

Uhhh…. Let’s see. I wrote a whole new short story, the first since last May. I’m pleased.

I sorted out my yarn stash and put together like eight new knitting projects, so I’m knitting a bunch right now.

The house finches in my yard are singing up a storm and going through the seed in the feeder at record speed. All sure signs of spring. The juncos are still here, but will probably be gone in a couple of weeks, headed for their summer home in the mountains.

I’m going to Worldcon in Glasgow and planning an epic Scotland tour. I’m very excited!

And the movie everyone’s talking about: Yes, I saw Dune 2.

So I’m a bit of a Dune curmudgeon. I’ve read the book a couple of times but I didn’t find it life changing or anything. In fact, it’s a bit dense and pretentious, I think. But hey, what do I know. I love the David Lynch film because it’s super weird and aesthetically fun. I saw the mini series but don’t remember it very well, except that Matt Keeslar of The Middleman played Feyd Rautha.

Anyway. I thought Part 1 was long and droning and frustrating and sleep inducing. I found no emotional engagement in it. I felt nothing. It was pretty, but the rest of it was characters standing around saying, “Oh, this thing is going to happen.” And then it happens. No tension at all. (Here’s my review of it.)

I enjoyed Part 2 a lot more. It was still too long, but it had a lot going on. I appreciated how much time it spends with the Fremen, portraying their culture in a more nuanced way than we’ve seen. And this is going to sound weird but I really liked what the film did with the women characters. Chani has agency – she’s not going to blindly follow Paul, and she’s not going to keep quiet. Jessica is wickedly manipulative. Alia somehow comes across as even creepier than other versions. And Princess Irulan – I have a confession, she’s my favorite character in the book, which is weird because she’s hardly in the book. But she’s the author of the snippets of history at the start of each chapter, and that was my takeaway: asking questions about whose voice is telling the story and what their motivations are. Which is, really, the whole subtext of Dune. Irulan is this fascinating figure because she’s both part of and outside the whole thing. Florence Pugh is awesome in the role, and Irulan plays exactly that part in the film, and there are a couple of moments when the Emperor just… stops. Becomes frozen with inaction and indecision, and Irulan is there to pick up and carry on in his place. I love it.

The film is totally set up for Part 3. We’ll see what happens.

And now, I’m thinking about space feudalism and why so many SF fans are obsessed with it and what can I do with that.

February 2024 Update!

Reminder that this is mirrored on my Patreon.

Here we are, sliding into the real slog of winter here in the northern hemisphere. How are we doing?

February’s lesson will be: Verisimilitude. “The appearance of being true or real.”  What does this mean in fiction?

Work stuff: I wrapped up the copyedits on The Naturalist Society. I always think I’m going to be able to write something else while I’m working on copyedits, but in twenty years I’ve never been able to. Something about spending several hours a day thinking hard about verb tenses and prepositions and kicking myself for spelling that same name five different ways without noticing makes it just about impossible to funnel creative energy elsewhere. I’ve been making notes on the next short story and that’s about it.

Crafts: A few years before she died, I collected fur from my pupper Lily, just pulling stuff out of the brush for six months or so. I wanted to try an experiment. Well, last month, I finally did the experiment: I spun her fur into yarn. It’s lovely. The fibers were long and grippy enough to take a nice twist. I now have dog yarn and I love it. I think I’ll knit some little memorial tokens, to give to people who knew and loved her.

Media: While I’m still struggling a bit with reading novels – gave up on one eight pages in and am stuck halfway through another — I’ve been watching a bunch of new TV shows and movies. And some old ones – I haven’t seen Northern Exposure since it was on the air, but it’s streaming now and I’ve started from the beginning. It’s sweet and wonderful, and strange even by today’s standards. I’d forgotten just how strange. In episode #5 there’s a Twin Peaks riff that I wouldn’t have gotten at the time because I hadn’t seen Twin Peaks but now that I have it made me fall off the sofa. That’s something I love about Northern Exposure – if you don’t get the references, the show doesn’t care, it’s just going to keep going. That’s how I feel about making references in my own work.

I watched a new movie every day for almost two weeks, I think. A few superhero flicks I missed last year, some small art films, some Oscar bait. Maestro, the Leonard Bernstein biopic, is probably a must-see if you’re a music fan, but I was struck by how it’s the same general story as the Cole Porter biopic Delovely: a genius of American musical theater carries on affairs with men while his long-suffering wife looks on. I think this says less about geniuses of American musical theater and more about what movie makers think is interesting to tell stories about.

I love this quote that Stephen Sondheim wrote about Leonard Bernstein and their time working on West Wide Story: “All the mistakes he made, if indeed they were mistakes, were huge–he never fell off the lowest rung of the ladder.”  (From Finishing the Hat: Collected Lyrics (1954-1981)) In other words: go big or go home.

The movie that’s really stuck with me is The Eight Mountains, which hit my radar because it stars Luca Marinelli, who plays Nicky in The Old Guard. (I’m at the stage of my Old Guard obsession where I’m tracking down other movies the actors have been in.) It caught my attention further because…mountains. Beautiful scenery. Rugged men and nature. It’s sort of a coming-of-age story, and the interesting thing is I think there are two sets of coming-of-ages. The boys growing up, and then the men…also growing up, I guess you could say. A transition from youth to adulthood, and then another from confusion to understanding. Pietro matures, Bruno doesn’t. It’s a quiet story, artfully done.

The film this most reminded me of is A River Runs Through It, which is also a story about two men rooted in a specific wilderness. A River Runs Through It is one of my favorite films, and The Eight Mountains hits the same emotional beats. Plus all that gorgeous scenery.

I’m now wondering what this kind of story – a deep friendship between two people rooted in wilderness – would look like with two women. Storytelling convention says wilderness is masculine. Stories about women and friendship tend not to also be about landscape and nature. At least, I can’t think of any versions of this about women. (Famous movies about women and friendship, like Fried Green Tomatoes, Steel Magnolias, and Beaches are rooted in specific places, but not wilderness, you know? Gah, there must be some more recent movies about women and friendship I should catch up on. Barbie? Is that one? Quick, someone recommend some great movies about women and friendship from the last dozen years!)

And now I’ve got a story seed snugged away in my hindbrain. Let me water it a bit and see what happens.

January 2024 Update!

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Welcome, New Year!

I often try to do a recap of the previous year and mull over thoughts on the new year, but I’m finding this year my impulse is to just let it all go. Don’t dwell. 2023 was strange. Not necessarily bad, for me, but definitely strange, chopped up into different phases marked by big projects and trips. For 2024, I want to slow down a bit. We’ll see how that goes, ha! A writer friend and I were talking about a “word of the year” – a word that encapsulates the tone we want to set for the new year. We had both chosen “renew” as our words, which I think says something about 2023 for a lot of us.

So that’s it, that’s my word: renew. Do you all have a “word of the year?” Share, if you feel the urge!

Along those lines, this month’s lesson is going to be: Self Help for Creatives. Seems timely, right? It’s not really a lesson or advice, but a meditation on this whole string of self-help and creativity/productivity books I’ve read over the last few years because I’m not really sure why. I’m going to get kind of meta here, deconstructing this genre a bit.

News! As you can see in the image above, I have a new Cormac and Amelia novella for you! Broken Roads is available for preorder and due out in a couple of weeks. This is just shy of novel length, so it should be good and juicy for you all who’ve been wanting a bit more heft to these. Kindle link is here. Nook link is here. Others as I get them. 

I’ve been in a bit of a reading rut. I stalled out on three or four novels, quitting halfway through. This means I hadn’t actually finished a novel since October? Been reading nonfiction, but fiction has been making my eyes cross. Finally, on January 1, I finished one: Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver. Gotta be honest, it’s a rough read, an openly Dickensian tragedy (ala David Copperfield) set in the rural/Appalachian coal country of Virginia and all that entails. It’s 500+ pages with a vivid first-person narrator where things just keep getting worse and worse, right up until the last couple of chapters. It’s also one of those books with an epiphany toward the end, but you have to get through the rest for the epiphany to mean anything. Beautifully written. But I may be done with beautiful and depressing literary writing for a while. Time for the new Murderbot novel I think.

Media consumption: I saw Godzilla Minus One. I reiterate my love for the current string of Monsterverse films and TV that started with 2014’s Godzilla (my review of that film is here). These somehow capture the aesthetic of the beloved early films, but with modern sensibilities. The best way I can describe it is that the monsters in these look like spectacular CGI versions of guys in rubber suits. This isn’t a criticism, it’s great, it totally works. 

I finally dived into the new season of For All Mankind, Apple TV’s alt history where the space race never ended. The first two seasons are brilliant. The third and fourth seasons are…less brilliant. Equal parts great and WTF melodrama. I started Blue Eye Samurai but haven’t finished. My list of things to watch keeps getting longer rather than shorter. Hrm.

And with that, I’m going to sign off and write some words and craft some crafts. Get some of that sweet, sweet inspiration going. Happy New Year!

2023 Publication Year in Review

Here it is, all the stuff I published in 2023:

Wild Cards: Now and Then, July 2023. Graphic Novel: My first graphic novel, as part of the Wild Cards series! And I guess according to new Nebula rules it’s eligible under the novella category? (It’s 133 pages)

Water Fire Fae: Stories:  August, 2023. Collection: My new short story collection! It includes one original story, “The Outlaws of Barnsdale.”

And now the short stories! It was a banner year for short stories for me:

“A War of Dust and Feathers”, Brigid’s Sisters: The Art of Elizabeth Leggett, 2023.
“Not the Most Romantic Thing,” Tor.com, October 2023.
“The Tyrant’s Heir’s Tale”, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, 2023.
“The Queen of Copies Meets Her Match”, Analog, July/Aug 2023.
“Dara Needs a Better Job”,, Sunday Morning Transport, June 2023.
“Vast and Trunkless Legs of Stone”, Clarkesworld, June 2023.
“Learning Letters”,, Lightspeed, Feb 2023.
“Time: Marked and Mended”,, Tor.com, January 2023.

If I had to pick one, “Vast and Trunkless Legs of Stone” is probably the best thing I did this year. But I also had two Graff stories, and I do love Graff to bits.

Onward to next year…I’ve already got I think three short stories in the hopper, plus a new novel. Yup, I got confirmation, The Naturalist Society will be out later in 2024. Here we go!

December 2023 Update!

Reminder that this is mirrored from my Patreon page!

Do you know what I did yesterday? Absolutely nothing. I’m on a mini-vacation, visiting my brother and his family as a holiday preview. Already delivered their gifts and everything!

I’m still a bit scattered after the chaos of the last couple of months so bear with me. Another round of edits on The Naturalist Society arrived. This is pretty typical, along the lines of “Okay, all the structural problems are fixed, now here are all the fiddly thematic and character details we didn’t notice while you were fixing the structure!” Friends, there were tears.

There’s a happy ending: the manuscript is now headed to copy editing. Whew. What this means is it’s about time to start on something new.

As I mentioned, I did absolutely nothing yesterday except a little bit of yoga and reading. Comfy sofa and tea for the win. My brother’s yard also has hummingbirds, and I watched them for awhile.

I’m in a bit of a reading slump. I’ve started something like four novels and stalled out halfway through on all of them. I either need to find some cool nonfiction — or pick up Martha Wells’ new Murderbot novel, which I know will suck me right in.

On the other hand, I’m watching a ton of new shows and movies and am happy that part of my brain seems to have turned back on.

I caught up on Star Trek: Lower Decks, which I absolutely love. It’s possibly my favorite Trek. Which is interesting, because the only way it works is if you know Trek very, very well, because the inside jokes and references are nonstop and often deep cuts. It’s deconstructing everything you ever scratched your head about in Star Trek. Every problematic detail, it just lays it out there, but it’s done with so much love. And then this past season… They did all that, and then also threw us a poignant, heartbreaking gut punch of a detail that left me in tears. (Hint without spoilers: When Mariner tells us who her best friend at the Academy was. OMG. It brings the whole show back around to its source material. Just beautiful.)

Anyway, this — deconstructing a thing while also expressing deep love for a thing — is a difficult and neat trick. Another thing that does it very well is my favorite episode of The X-Files: “Jose Chung’s From Outer Space.” It’s masterful.

I’m halfway through the new season of Strange New Worlds and it’s okay. The characters are great, the stories are kind of meh, but the Lower Decks crossover episode was a thing of beauty. I have not yet watched the musical episode because it kind of scares me though people I trust have reassured me that it’s ok.

What else…

The Marvels: absolutely loved it. LOVED it. I laughed so much, and there was so much hugging. Kamala is the best and I love her. Something I really liked about it is how it brought us quickly up to speed on the back stories of the three main characters, without resorting to opening scrolls or infodumps or awkward conversations telling us things we already know.

Great British Baking Show. YES, more quirky Britishisms and accents and weird bakes that Americans know nothing about. I need to start up my “If I want to taste that thing on the GBBS I guess I need to make it myself” project again.

A big surprise for me: how much I’m enjoying Monarch: Legacy of Monsters on Apple TV. It’s part of the series of recent Godzilla-Kong films, which have quietly built up this amazing continuity and franchise without people really noticing. The movies have been kind of great — cheesy, but in exactly the way a big overblown kaiju movie needs to be cheesy. Lots of great action, tight plotting. Knows what the assignment is, gets an A.

The TV show is the same. We’re getting the history of Monarch, the organization that has been studying the Titans like Kong and Godzilla for the last sixty years or so. Once again, it knows the assignment: very earnest characters, and amazing monster action in every episode. If that’s not enough to draw you in, Kurt Russell and his son Wyatt Russell play old and young versions of the same character. I love it when actors and their kids do that. My other favorite one of those is when June Lockhart and Anne Lockhart played old and young versions of the same character in the 1986 film Troll. Not making that up!

Speaking of, there’s another Godzilla film in theaters right now that’s getting fantastic reviews. Not sure when I’m going to get to it, but I really want to.

Oh my gosh y’all, it’s December. It’s the holidays. I don’t currently have a deadline. I get to start thinking about new things — like the new Cormac and Amelia novella I’ll be publishing in January.

Onward!

Stay safe this holiday season. Now, I think I need to go find some new cookie recipes to make. Any recommendations?

November 2023 – Snow!

Cross posted from my Patreon page!

We had our first snow of the season during MileHi Con last weekend!

And here we are. The homestretch. Barreling toward the end of the year and all the usual accompanying stress. This is the time to remind myself that like so many things, the holidays are a process, and I want to enjoy the entire thing, not just the endpoint. Waiting until the end to relax always seems to lead to disappointment, so let’s not do that.

This month’s lesson: I found something of an intellectual/philosophical exercise about creativity via the newsletter of Austin Kleon, author of Steal Like An Artist, which I read last year as part of my big and ongoing self-help creativity binge. (One of these days I’ll attempt to synthesize my thoughts about that, which include a bit of meta-commentary on the whole concept of self help and that industry. But never mind that for now.) I’m curious and thought I’d work on it and see what happens. Come join me, if you’d like!

Current Work:

I’ve already gotten editor’s notes back on The Naturalist Society, with a fairly quick turnaround, so I’m working on that. It’s a bit more than I was expecting and I had to sit with the notes for a few days to absorb and ponder. But I think I have a plan now for revising. *rolls up sleeves, cracks knuckles*

I’m still low-key obsessed with the eight short stories I wrote all in a rush in the first part of the year. I can now report that I’ve sold seven of them. This is a really good run. Still haven’t submitted the eighth one, but I think I might go ahead and polish that up and get it out soon. If I wait for the associated project to be done, I might be waiting a while. I should just kick that baby out the door. I’d like to write a big Seminar post about the eight stories, the process of writing them, the process of submitting them, and what happened next. Mostly this is a debriefing for my own edification, but it might be illuminating for you as well.

Following up, I haven’t written a short story since May. That’s just how it goes sometimes. I’ve pretty reliably written 6 or so short stories a year for most of my career, and that still seems to be the pattern, whether I write them all at once or spread out. I think that’s interesting.

Stuff watched:

Bodies. Sci-fi murder mystery on Netflix. It’s great. Really emotionally engaging with a classic science fiction premise and structure, but with modern sensibilities. I enjoyed it. Only eight episodes and a complete story.

I’ve been catching up on a lot of movies. Maybe my brain has finally unlocked enough to let in some new stories, to move past the reliance on comfort watching. I’ve got a list. It struck me that browsing through the various streaming platforms, looking at what’s new, or what I’ve missed, or what looks intriguing, reminds me a lot of walking through the video store finding something to rent. I say the same things I did back in the day: “Oh, I’d meant to see that, it’s out on video now!” “Hm, that looks interesting, I should check it out.” How strangely recursive is this?

Still haven’t been to the movie theater in a couple of months now, but I think we’ll manage it for Marvels. I’ll let you know how it goes.

October Update! Just a quick word

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This month’s lesson: A different way of looking at genre categories. Writers and readers sometimes spend a lot of time defining and worrying about various genres. I take a different approach.

I have a couple of autumn conventions coming up:

•  MileHi Con, my local stomping grounds. 
•  I’m an Author Guest of Honor at the very first GalactiCon, here in Denver over Thanksgiving weekend. 

I did a difficult thing a couple of weeks ago: I pulled out all my SCA/medieval garb that no longer fits and started the process of giving it away. It’s tough because I have a lot of memories connected to these outfits. Not to mention, I made most of them myself. Making them taught me about costuming. It needed to happen – I wasn’t going to wear them anymore, and they should be out in the world instead of stuffed in my closet. Bonus: more closet space. Also, I picked a couple of pieces that I’m going to try to alter/rehab, which will be a good challenge.

TV: The show Britannia has been on my list for awhile and I finally started on it. Y’all, I love it. Really love it. It’s violent and bloody and over the top. It’s also gonzo and has some interesting things to say about mythology and faith. It’s full-on fantasy. A lot of historical-adjacent shows will play cagey with the supernatural and religious beliefs – maybe it was a curse, or maybe it was just bad luck, maybe the prayer worked, maybe it was just good luck, we don’t know, it’s all fuzzy! Britannia is all in with the magic – it’s all real, it works, it’s doing crazy stuff, the Druid king takes you to the underworld you really go to the underworld, your rite-of-passage has you going into the sacred pond to turn into a fish you really turn into a fish. It’s GREAT! And it pushes the consequences of all that. It’s also doing this thing with a big epic story of prophecy and several different religious practices and cultures converging, but at the same time telling several really individual, personal stories, and the individual stories are their own things but they’re also weaving seamlessly in and out of the epic story. It’s a neat trick that I’m going to be thinking about. I still have season 3 to watch, we’ll see where the show takes us.

Ahsoka: I’m just letting it all wash over me. The live-action versions of the characters are the ones in my mind now.

It’s autumn. It’s October. The nights are cool, the leaves are turning, and for me, this is all coming with a sense of relief, of rest. I’m not a huge fan of autumn like some people, but my instincts are telling me I need to slow down a bit, clean up my house, reset my brain, and the changing season is a good excuse to do that.

I hope you’re finding some restful moments.