rimrunner

WorldCon 2025

Wed, 27 Aug 2025 05:18:02 GMT

Weekend before last I attended my first WorldCon in ten years. It was fulfilling and exhausting in about equal measure, with some notes of grace and frustration.

Probably like most cons, but since I go to very few—this was only my third WorldCon ever—my experience in this respect is limited. I chose to go to this one because it was held in Seattle, and I live here. While I haven’t been to hometown cons much (SakuraCon, Norwescon, and Emerald City Comic Con are all held here), this one seemed like an opportunity to give them another try. As a recovering Shy Person I often had a hard time interacting with people much at conventions if I didn’t already know them, and since I never went to many I didn’t know very many of the people who tend to go to conventions.

The Internet’s made a big difference in this respect. While I’ve been online for a long time (over 30 years), the growth of online spaces for both fannish conversations and professional networking has been really helpful. I also intentionally went to events where I would have to talk to people, like designated networking events, table talks, and the like. (I spent most of the hour with Ellen Datlow trying and failing to come up with something brilliant to ask her, but at least I was there!) I managed to collect quite a few business cards (the digital alternatives that exist now are nice, but I’ve gotta say, there’s really nothing like a physical object that I can look at later, and that will remind me that I meant to through the physical fact of its presence) and contact details for people I might connect with further. I ran into friends I hadn’t seen in years (and also failed to run into friends and colleagues I’d hoped to encounter—WorldCon isn’t that big, but it’s big enough) and may have made a few new ones. I got to hear Ada Palmer read from yet to be published work, and a city planner from Walla Walla explain why bureaucracy will continue to be important in the future—even if it turns out that nobody really knows what future jobs will look like.

I was reminded yet again of my guideline for convention panels, which is to select on the basis of who’s on them, and only secondarily on the topic.

I also pretty much skipped the parties. This had more to do with having become an early-morning person with a new kitten at home than anything else, though I did take my husband to the Weird Al Yankovic concert at White River Amphitheater on Friday night. (We left during the encore. If you’re familiar with this venue, you know why.) So perhaps I could’ve been a little more social. Then again, given the COVID spike we’re having here right now, maybe it’s just as well that I wasn’t.

I also skipped the Hugos, because I was exhausted by the start time and figured I could watch them on stream at home. When I got home I went to bed instead, and only heard how the ceremony went the next day when I had coffee with a friend who’d been nominated and won. People who were actually there and have a far better sense of how awards ceremonies go have pretty much said what needs to be said on that score; myself, I only wish that the awards could be done right consistently.

I know that fan-run cons are struggling; the commercially ones are much larger, at least appear to be more professional, and can attract guests from across a wider range of media. There seem to be a lot of potential problems with the way WorldCon runs specifically, as much as I like the idea of its moving around and being hosted by different people and a different locale every year. Whether there’s still a place for that and whether the myriad challenges of programming, accessibility, and administering the awards can be addressed to any kind of consistent level of success…I honestly don’t know. There’s something to be said for something community run, though. I hope WorldCon figures it out.

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Kickstarter Launched! Shakespeare Adjacent from 2 Jokers Publishing

Sun, 29 Jun 2025 19:30:47 GMT

I'm so excited to announce that the Kickstarter for the 2 Jokers Publishing anthology Shakespeare Adjacent is now live! It's a delight to work once again with Lou Tambone, who also co-edited From Bayou to Abyss, as well as co-editor Ali McDowell. I have a longstanding love for Shakespeare's stories, especially his skill at characterization and, of course, his witty dialogue. I also love how his stories can be remixed, retold, and translated to other media without losing any of their power or relatability. It's a real treat to get to play around with one of my favorites of his plays, and try it out in a novel setting.

I don't write a lot of romance, despite having respect and affection for the genre, so I decided to try my hand at one of the romantic comedies. Of course there's a lot more going on in Much Ado About Nothing beyond the central romances (as fun as it always is to watch Benedick and Beatrice spar--if you've never seen David Tennant and Catherine Tate in those roles, incidentally, it's well worth it), including the larger political context in which the story is set, the family rivalry between Don Pedro and Don John, and the changing gender norms and relationships at the time that Shakespeare wrote it. Do all of these still work in a future Western setting beset by drought and political deterioration?

Back the Kickstarter, and judge for yourself--and get 12 other stories to read, into the bargain!

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Two years later...

Sat, 26 Aug 2023 07:26:20 GMT

I retired.

I'm writing a lot, and reading more.

Erik and I are building a house in the woods.

Beyond that, I don't know yet.

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I guess it's progress of a sort

Sun, 10 Dec 2017 19:28:17 GMT

When I work with students, I often tell them that when they start seeing the same results of their searches over and over, it means they're either reaching the limit of available information on that topic, or they need to alter their search strategy to net different results.

I'm on the third round of agent-seeking, and agencies I've queried before have started coming up again. (One of them even requested the full manuscript, but I've heard nothing since and am now outside the 4-6 week window where I could have expected a response if they were interested.)

It's hard not to get discouraged since I think I've hit all the main agencies that represent SF at this point. But it's either keep trying, or don't. Guess I'll keep trying.

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thingth

Tue, 18 Jul 2017 23:56:16 GMT

Stuff is happening. Like:

- I got bit by something down on our land a week and a half ago. Two urgent care visits, two antibiotic prescriptions, and a shot in my hip later, things are finally on the way toward healing. No more shorts in tall brush for me. I had a follow-up with my PCP today; he was frustrated that there's no way to know what originally got me. It could even have been dermatitis from a plant (there are four on our land that I know of that could have caused it, and two that I haven't seen but whose presence can't be ruled out) though he thinks not. My guess is still ticks. They're way more common than spiders and are really bad this year. I have another few days of antibiotics and a bandage on my leg that people keep asking about.

- Another story came out, in See the Elephant magazine. It's the first story I workshopped at Stonecoast so I'm pretty happy about this one. My publications page is starting to grow.

- I built a picnic table, using a pattern from Popular Mechanics and instructional tips from Erik. I can use power tools. This is good. We have also built an outhouse; with that and the well, basic camping infrastructure has been established.

- I also took a basic home repair class through the local community college. There's only so much one can learn in a single day, but it's also true that a lot of basic repair work isn't terribly complicated. Erik says I get to do the next power outlet replacement. I'm kind of looking forward to it.

- Work continues to be political. After a great deal of back and forth, including a consulting architect who got as far as drafting three plans for a library renovation before being told that the project wouldn't be funded, we're getting a student success center in the library. It's being housed in the currently vacant offices where the associate provost and his assistant used to be, entails renovation of the academic assistance center, and they're taking over our two most-used group study spaces on the first floor as well.

The project isn't a bad idea. Our retention rate is below 80%, which is one reason for our ongoing budget woes (at least the library budget wasn't cut again--as far as we know). But it was more or less dictated from the provost's office, the person in charge of the project has spent maybe an hour in the building and has shown some sign of not really knowing what they're doing (18-foot conference tables??), and the provost herself is on medical leave for the rest of the summer. My boss is supposed to report to her and they didn't have a good working relationship before this.

- I recently finished reading Braiding Sweetgrass. It's a fairly astounding book, much about it telling me that I'm on the right track with some of the decisions I'm making. There's even a chapter about a guy who bought up a lot of recently clearcut timberland and started restoring it, viewing it as helping to fulfill his responsibility to the planet. I'm looking forward to being able to spend more time on the land; right now, dayjob and writing are taking up a lot of that time.

- Last week SPU left a door hanger on the front door indicating that they would be doing construction today and no water would be available from 9 until 5. Of course that's the day I'm working at home because my doctor's appointment was right in the middle of the day. I filled a bunch of water bottles and broke out a bottle of hand sanitizer. I'll still be glad when the water is available again.

- The cat Erik and I adopted last fall, Little Man, continues to be adorable and charming. He's even charmed Erik. It helps that his personality is what many would describe as dog-like.

- I am worried for some very dear friends, whose rough times have lasted for years. I won't delve into the details here. In any case their story is becoming all too common, and is why I am taking certain measures that I am fortunate and privileged to be able to do.

- I'll be a featured reader at Two Hour Transport on July 26th. I'm excited.

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sprucing things up

Wed, 05 Apr 2017 18:11:21 GMT

Finally saved my LJ content as a BlogBook and turned off crossposting to the site. I doubt Russia really gives a shit about anything I've posted over there but the latest TOS tomfuckery proved to be the impetus I needed to finally take care of something I'd been meaning to do for awhile. I'm also on One Post Wonder, G+, and FB under my real name, plus there's my writing site where I post writing-related stuff on occasion.

Abandoning LJ does feel a little weird, probably because it's the longest online presence I've maintained anywhere. I don't know that I'll be posting here any more often--most of my daily wordcount goes into fiction projects, and secondarily into job-related things--but I'm here, anyway.

Speaking of dayjob, I haven't told the boss yet but this coming year will be my last. I'm doing one more year for two reasons: one is health insurance (I expect WA to maintain some sort of state exchange regardless of what happens at the federal level, but figuring out what we want and can afford will take awhile and I've been in the middle of other things like estate planning and buying 90 acres of raw land) and the other is that the university is going through considerable upheaval and we didn't find out until today whether our department of six librarians (one of whom was half time) would be reduced to four next fall.

As to what comes after that, I'm pretty sure I'll be leaving the library profession. For what I'm not sure (I mean, I intend to continue writing, but I need to balance it with something), but right now I'm looking seriously at spending some time on the Pacific Crest Trail, and then taking the full time program at Wilderness Awareness School. It's never too late, they say, but it seems to me that that's the sort of thing that's more feasible to accomplish while one is still in relatively resilient physical condition.

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more changes a-comin'

Mon, 13 Jul 2015 15:52:58 GMT

A couple of weeks ago I did something that I'd been contemplating for awhile: took a week-long wilderness walkabout/survival course with the Wilderness Awareness School.

It wasn't always fun, but overall it was an immensely positive experience and one that I'm really glad I did. Among other things I came home in the best state of mind I've been in for over a year. There might be something to that recent research about getting out in nature to fight depression. I really like the school's teaching philosophy and the way it structures learning. It's also pretty close to what I visualize my spiritual practice being in the future: in a very real sense, I suspect that this is what I've been looking for.

That also means that my ongoing priority shift has taken on a new urgency. In the past year, this has looked like the following:
- Mr. Darcy quitting a soul-sucking job and going back to school for something he really enjoys
- beginning to make some changes in our finances to aid independence for ourselves and our families
- research into buying rural land in preparation to move
- completing my MFA and making a serious time commitment to writing, with some early rewards (I've sold a few stories and have three novels in various states of progress)
- spending more time playing music
- spending more time constructing Wild Gods as a spiritual practice

Here are some possible changes in the works:
- change in my own state of employment
- I'm directing the Orpheus Ascending festival this year. This is the only year that I will do this, though the festival will be an ongoing event—the only presentational ritual event I'll be doing extensive work on in the future is Wyrd Sisters and I'm excited about this year's event
- I'm currently on the board of ACRL-WA. Once my term is up, I will not be seeking another elected position
- taking more courses with WAS, including possibly the full-time Anake program
- I'll be online less generally.

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something not about old associations for a change

Thu, 02 Apr 2015 17:40:31 GMT

So three of my last four posts have been about stuff I used to do and haven't for three years now. I think I've gazed at that navel about long enough.

Some months ago I had a Facebook chat with an old friend from those days. He left the ATC well before I did, for reasons that might best be described as political. (Anyone reading this from that period probably knows who I'm talking about from that alone.) He's been in graduate school, and hit me up for some help with citations, which is, after all, the sort of thing I do professionally. And then we got to chatting, as you do.

At one point he said, "Isn't it amazing how much more time and energy we have for things like this?" We were both in master's programs, in addition to which I was working full time and had several projects in the fire.

And yeah, it kind of is. I never realized how much energy those festivals were taking from me until I stopped doing them.

So, yeah, I got a(nother) master's degree, wrote the first 130 or so pages of novel along with over a dozen short stories, read a ton, and have largely kept up that level of productivity even with the end of my sabbatical and returning to my day job. I'm participating in two different writers' groups, working with Mr. P to turn Wild Gods into a going concern, checking out a number of other events, and contributing in a limited, set-my-own-boundaries fashion to a couple of new festival events that are so much more in line with where my own spiritual practice is these days. Even my marriage has improved (though Mr. Darcy quitting a soul-sucking job that he'd come to hate had a lot to do with that as well. Folks, if your personal relationships are miserable, also take a look at what else is going on in your life. Marriage is not a bubble. Ours hasn't been miserable, but there were some stressors, only some of which had directly to do with our relationship).

Which isn't to say that I've given up what brought me to my spiritual path in the first place. While I remain agnostic at best concerning the reality of the entities that I treat as real in my interactions with them, I've concluded that some sort of practice is necessary to keep myself on an even keel. At this point some of those affiliations have wound themselves into my creative and professional life; last weekend, for example, I presented at this conference on the Dionysian in science fiction, and I'm contemplating turning my presentation into an article.

What is planted will surely grow, we used to say. In the past three years my writing, martial arts, and music have all improved at a rate far greater than they were before; I'm starting to write stuff that doesn't entirely suck, beginning to hold my own against my gung fu training partners, and if I'm not where I'd like to be yet with my chosen instruments, I can at least see how to get there.

So, I guess it's true.

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how writing is like kung fu

Wed, 26 Feb 2014 19:18:26 GMT

The AWP conference is this week. Since it's in Seattle this year, I decided to go; good opportunity to check out what it's about. I don't know if I'd go out of my way to attend if it were in another city, not unless I become a writing teacher or something (unlikely), but the schedule looks interesting and there are some programs also relevant to my work as a librarian, mostly in the realm of digital publishing.

A friend from my MFA program is in town for the conference. His third-semester project was on the philosophy of Bruce Lee, as applied to writing. Since Bruce Lee is buried here, yesterday we went to lunch with another friend from the program and afterward visited Lake View Cemetery.

Lake View is also where Jesse is buried. I'd never visited it before the day of his funeral, a year and a half ago, following a journey back from my first MFA residency fraught with delays and my own grief over the death of a mentor. It was surreal. There's a constant trickle of people looking for the Lees' graves—his son Brandon is buried next to him. Since Jesse's grave is right nearby, that constant trickle flowed by on the day we buried him. Bruce Lee's widow, Linda Lee Caldwell, was among the attendees, along with most of the few people still alive who trained with or were friends with Bruce in Seattle. But those passers-by didn't know that.

Like I said, surreal. One thing about legendary figures is that we don't really think about how they were also human, that they had spouses and friends and students and acquaintances and colleagues. I certainly didn't. Bruce Lee died the year before I was born. Until I started training with Jesse I didn't realize he'd been anything other than a martial arts film star.

What he was, was the kind of obsessive person who will practice for hours to get something right.

So was Jesse, but unless you're in the martial arts community you've probably never heard of him. He was a self-effacing sort who eschewed the spotlight. It was pure blind dumb luck that I became his student, something I still feel incredibly fortunate about to this day.

My friend doesn't do martial arts. It's just not his thing. I did invite him to come down to a class; one of Jesse's longtime students, who trained with him longer than I've been alive, has more or less taken over teaching. I'm glad, because he's a really good teacher with the kind of detail orientation that I really need right now. For a long time he wasn't sure whether he wanted to take on the responsibility. I'm profoundly grateful that he did.

But anyway, I did wish that my friend would come down, because...well. I don't doubt that his paper is a good one. I don't doubt that he's thought deeply about it. And Bruce Lee was, by all accounts, a pretty thoughtful guy who said a lot of useful things.

I do think, however, that my friend would have benefited from actually experiencing the thing that Bruce did that led to all of those insights.

Because writing is like kung fu. They are both disciplines in which you can learn the basics within a few months, and then spend the rest of your life trying to make them work. They are each founded on a set of relatively few principles, the application of which are endlessly variable and context-dependent. Each requires you to balance a number of things simultaneously: in writing, you're trying to accomplish character development at the same time that you're moving the plot along and also bringing in vivid setting details that makes the reader feel like they're there and also watch out for repetitive sentence structure and overuse of adverbs (two of my constant recurring bad habits). In kung fu, there are a number of things that all have to occur together in the proper order simply to get inside the other guy's guard and throw an effective strike. I've been working on footwork recently and have discovered yet another way in which ten years of ballet back in childhood and adolescence is working against me.

And the big way in which they're similar is that you can't rote-memorize a bunch of stuff in isolation and expect it to work when it counts. I've seen people in martial arts classes who'd be destroyed in a real fight because they don't know what the stuff they're doing is for. I know the same thing happens with writing because I used to spill a bunch of words on the page and expect it to be brilliant simply because I'd written it. Naturally, I didn't start selling until I got over myself on that score.

I suppose this is true of anything that requires the performance of a number of different concepts simultaneously, from martial arts to music to open-heart surgery. We don't think of writing as a performance, because the actual act of it isn't what the recipient of that performance witnesses: we instead encounter the resulting artifact. If we do think of the performance of writing, it's probably in the theatrical sense, of a play or a movie script. But that's not a performance of the writing.

And maybe we should. In my experience writing is often perceived as a lonely activity principally requiring the injection of inspiration from the muse, several hours, and a lot of coffee. It's not seen as something to be practiced, as possessing techniques and strategies that can be worked out and applied, though a few writing books I've encountered come close. It's certainly not something a person can automatically do just because they've read a few books, any more than a person can become a martial arts master by watching Enter the Dragon. (Though one should always watch Enter the Dragon.)

And if you don't keep doing it, you lose the refinement of technique that separates the mediocre from the good, and the good from the outrageously great.

I don't think that I will ever be outrageously great at either writing or kung fu. I do not possess the obsession that led Bruce Lee to spend hours, literally hours every single day working on his stuff. Two hours three times a week is what I manage these days. I'm getting pretty good. If you try to mug me you're in for a surprise. That's good enough for me.

Back when I was a musician my teacher used to talk about going to the woodshed. That meant you went into your space with your instrument and spent your time in a Karate Kid-like repetition of techniques, except that unlike in that movie you did it knowing what you were doing it for.

Kung fu also requires going to the woodshed.

And so does writing.

---

(As a footnote: one of the guys I train with occasionally is a timpanist for the Seattle Symphony. He does in fact have a literal shed at his home that he trains in. Given the intersection described above of the woodshed, music, and martial arts, I find the coincidence rather funny.)

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insert Janus metaphor here

Wed, 29 Jan 2014 20:29:52 GMT

I am, at this moment, groping word by word towards a supremely awkward yet neither uncomfortable nor dangerous moment in chapter 3, the moment where the mc, who's been getting in touch with his feminine side, reveals to a prospective partner that he's not like other girls. In the society they both live in, this actually isn't all that big a deal in the grand scheme of things, but it's an intimate moment for this character for a number of reasons and I'm trying to get it right.

It's part of my MFA thesis. For my final semester I get to work with Liz Hand (yay!) who wants as many pages as I can send her of the prospective thesis, asap. Thing is, the first three chapters got workshopped at residency last week so I want to incorporate some of that feedback before I send the pages off.

Thesis is supposed to be 125 pages. I currently have about 104 and a few months yet to finish it, so I'm actually in really good shape. But I want to get this mailed off tomorrow so Liz has it on time, and I can go into a weekend in the woods followed by a very busy week with this off my plate.

From there, it might grow up to be a book.

Return from residency was not plagued by flight cancellations, but my Dulles-Seattle connection did take off three hours late due to mechanical issues. Since I was just starting to come down with a cold (the tickly-sore-throat-uh-oh stage) I was especially not amused. Pretty gun-shy about United at this point, though with as much as I travel (and as generally fucked as air travel has been this winter) I was bound to run into this shit sooner or later.

Despite looming packet deadline, I took the day after I got back off, spending most of it journaling, reading the biography of James Tiptree, and blowing my nose. Since then it's pretty much been all writing (and nose blowing) all the time, except for a much-delayed dinner with Orebasia on Saturday night. Gosh it was good to see everyone. And give them all their now hilariously inappropriate gifts: leopard print-trimmed Santa hats. And talk about ramping up our ritual activities again. (Stay tuned.)

So, things are going well, despite this persistent cold that is making workout out impossible, which is kind of driving me crazy. But I'm being productive at the thing I most want to be productive at, and have the privilege of time and resources in which to do it.

That's pretty cool.

Now if I can just get this scene to not completely fail...

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2013

Mon, 23 Dec 2013 00:28:00 GMT

What did you do in 2013 that you'd never done before?
Strung Christmas lights on my house, together with Mr. Darcy, both of us overcoming near-crippling phobia (him: heights; me: falling off ladders) to do it. It was quite a bonding experience. Next year we're hiring someone.

Did you keep your New Year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I tried. Totally failed on the getting more sleep part.

Did anyone close to you give birth?
World's Awesomest Niece 2.0 was born in August. Her one-month dinner happened to coincide with Niece 1.0's third birthday, so we just let her believe it was part of her birthday celebration. ;)

Did anyone close to you die?
I put my 18-year-old cat to sleep in November. Today's the first day I've been able to work in my office again; for his last weeks he was pretty much ensconced in here, and this is where we did it when the time came—I couldn't subject him to another vet visit. Dr. Gomez from the West Seattle Animal Hospital is a kind and compassionate woman.

What countries did you visit?
Canada.

What would you like to have in 2014 that you lacked in 2013?
For the universe to stop serving my friends shit sandwiches. Seriously, 2013 sucked unremittingly for far too many people who I care about. Most of us are at the age where we start losing people—parents, aunts and uncles, even siblings. And the economic recovery is still only on paper for way too many people.

What date from 2013 will remain etched upon your memory?
July 26, for why see below. And August 1, my niece Kiranna Lea was born.

What was your biggest achievement of the year? What was your biggest failure?
Biggest achievement was selling a short story to Asimov's Science Fiction (March 2014 issue if you're curious; July 26 was the day I got the acceptance letter). Close second was bringing off Stepping into Darkness: An Underworld Journey, a weekend-long ritual event.

I still feel like I'm failing at constructing, or re-constructing, a social and spiritual life after walking away from the groups and communities I used to be affiliated with, although I'm still friends with a lot of these people and, in fact, stood on circle with my former coven last night for Yule. No slam on those groups or anyone involved with them, whether we're currently in contact or not.

Did you suffer illness or injury?
I'm really in the kung fu gang now—I've got some sort of joint injury to my shoulder, which I will get checked out with my next physical. It doesn't bother me most of the time but I'm being a lot more careful when training, especially load-bearing exercise.

What was the best thing you bought?
Tickets to a Loreena McKennitt concert which almost coincided with Mr. Darcy's and my anniversary. She's just about the only musical artist who we both like, which is why we had two of her songs sung at our wedding.

Whose behavior merited celebration?
Mr. Darcy. He's been really awesome in a lot of ways, including some that would surprise quite a few people.

Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
Numerous politicians. I'm sure you've heard of them.

Where did most of your money go?
Between two MFA residencies in Maine, an anniversary trip to San Francisco, a conference in Madison, and a road trip to Canada, not to mention a few trips to the coast, travel was probably my biggest expenditure, second only to taxes. (I have a fair chunk of investments. Hence, capital gains.)

What did you get really, really, really excited about?
My sale to Asimov's. My MFA program. Releasing series 1 of The Hermes & Hekate Road Show and working on series 2.

What do you wish you'd done more of?
Hiking. Sleep. Playing my fiddle.

What do you wish you'd done less of?
Surfing the Internet at 2 a.m., knowing I should go to bed but almost too tired to make the effort.

What was your favorite TV program?
I don't watch enough TV for this to be a meaningful question. The only show I watched was Game of Thrones, so that one, I guess.

Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
I don't really hate anyone. There are a few people I'm disappointed in, but that's probably more about me than about them.

What was the best book you read?
Ann Leckie's Ancillary Justice.

What did you want and get?
A short story sale.

What did you want and not get?
Closure.

What was your favorite film of this year?
I watch movies a little bit more than I watch television. However, I liked The Hunger Games: Catching Fire a lot, even though I couldn't get anyone to go with me.

What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
On my birthday proper I drove back from the Wild Gods retreat and campout. The following weekend, however, Mr. Darcy contrived a surprise during a Green Star Grove and friends ritual wherein he gifted me with a replica of this painting, the acquisition and staging of which had apparently required a conspiracy of about half a dozen people all of whom managed to keep it quiet until it was presented.

What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Selling another story that I've been trying to find a home for for awhile.

How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2013?
Soft butch, with occasional skirt.

What/who kept you sane?
Mr. Darcy. Mr. and Mrs. P.

What political issue stirred you the most?
Please, I just got my blood pressure back down. Economic inequality and the lack of will on both sides to do anything about it is probably at the top of the list, though.

Who did you miss?
Several friends.

Who was the best new person you met?
Several new students in my MFA program. I also really liked Marjorie Liu, who ran one of my workshops, though I hadn't previously been familiar with her work (she writes comics for Marvel and a lot of UF/paranormal romance, not genres I normally read much). And Kiranna, of course, though she's just now moving out of her Winston Churchill phase.

Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2013.
God damn it, you've got to be kind. (Attribution dammit: Kurt Vonnegut.)

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on the importance of structure

Wed, 11 Dec 2013 01:59:33 GMT

My friend Chris used to do a thing where about this time every year he'd divine a single word that summed up the theme of the year to come. This is a rather fun exercise; not because I think it necessarily says anything about what's really going to happen, but it can be a way of identifying what's going on at a subconscious level that one needs to pay attention to.

My word for 2013 was Structure. This has manifested in two important and related ways.

Since Jesse died several of us who were his students at the time of his death get together a couple of times a week to work out. The space is a former speakeasy in a basement under a tea shop in Seattle's Chinatown, which is of course inexpressibly cool (and the owner is letting us rent it for ridiculously cheap), but there's been some talk of moving elsewhere because the building has a pretty bad rat problem--as in, I had to scare one of the little fuckers away from me the other night. (I snarled at it. I have a very good snarl. It's possible it thought I was a cat.)

One of his friends, who teaches over in Port Orchard, comes over sometimes to work out with us. This guy has a very different teaching style than Jesse did. Jesse didn't break things down for you too much ahead of time. He'd show you something, and then watch you do it until he found something specific to correct. Over time, those corrections accumulated until you were doing whatever it was properly. This could take years, and it's not a teaching style that worked for everyone. (Particularly, I theorize, it's not a style that works very well in America. It's not too unlike, I guess, what you see Pat Morita doing in the original Karate Kid movie, except that we weren't doing chores or fixing up the place--although it could have used it. Personally I thought it was great, because by the time you got a "That's good" out of him you knew you'd earned it. Who needs belts when you know you can throw a punch hard enough to knock a guy bigger than you on his ass?)

His friend teaches differently. He'll instruct specifically and then tell you "no" until you get it right. Which can also be pretty frustrating, but I like learning from him because he can explain structure. Jesse knew structure, but it wasn't how he taught.

What I mean by structure is what I guess a lot of martial arts styles call stances. It's how you stand, how you set your posture, how you position your arms. Small changes can make a significant difference here. I didn't appreciate this properly until this year. Part of me wishes I'd understood it sooner, but Jesse's friend reminds me that even if I'd learned it earlier, it takes a lot of experience to make it work for you. Experience I have.

The other arena in which structure has manifested is in writing.

Unsurprisingly I have a lot of issues with how creative writing is taught. That might seem funny since I've taken a lot of classes and am in an MFA program (a very pragmatic one, which surprises nobody who knows me I'm sure) but what I see little emphasis on in a lot of these kinds of programs is technique: the equivalent to drills in martial arts, or scales and technical exercises in music (I've played one instrument or another for most of my life, usually without sufficient practice to be particularly good at it). More to the point, though, there are structural elements to fiction, and a lot of the art involves hiding them so the reader isn't sitting there checking off all the points identified in Save the Cat!

So, I've spent a lot of time lately working on plot: what leads to what, what happens when, how each event influences the next. I think there's a tendency to avoid this sort of thing because it sounds like following a formula, and that can indeed be what happens; Hollywood scripts following Save the Cat! religiously whether or not the resulting story makes any sense is a case in point. But structure in fiction is no more necessarily formulaic than symphonic structure is to an orchestral work, or sonnet structure is to a poem. Structure can give you freedom of movement, the same way that skeletal structure does for vertebrates.

This is really pretty 101 stuff, and it annoys me that it's taken me this long to figure out that a) my writing tends to have major structural issues and b) there's a relatively simple solution to the problem.

But, maybe it's like Jesse's friend said: in order to properly appreciate something, sometimes you have to muddle around without it for awhile. Then, when you do find it, you recognize what you've been missing all this time.

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things which are driving me crazy about A Memory of Light

Sun, 07 Apr 2013 07:15:29 GMT

So it's kind of been a long time since I was really into A Wheel of Time. Over the years I've lost patience with things that get longer and longer and bigger and bigger (insert joke here) solely for the sake of spending more time in the setting, which is why I disagree with almost everyone I know about The Hobbit being too long. (And that's the first of a TRILOGY? Oy vey. Jackson should just film The Silmarillion and have done with it.) Not that I didn't enjoy the movie, but after awhile I felt like I was watching one of those travel videos that every Asian airline I've ever flown loves to show. (I don't know whether this is characteristic of Asian airlines specifically, or if most airlines do this aside from the U.S.-based ones. BUT I DIGRESS.)

However, I also have two hours of commuting each day, and audiobooks are a boon (they keep me from listening to NPR, which always makes me want to blow up the planet and/or kill myself by the time I get to work. THANKS NPR). And they can't be things that I have to pay too much attention to, which means that really well styled or complex stories are right out (I had to stop listening to Shawna Yang Ryan's Water Ghosts for this reason—it's a really good book, with no extraneous words, and that's a problem when you can only half-focus on what you're listening to because you're driving).

So, A Memory of Light, which I got from the library, comes on 33 CDs, and is overdue because even with two hours of driving five days a week, it takes JUST THAT LONG to listen to. I'm not finished yet, but here are some things which are driving me crazy about it:

1. Holy passive voice, Batman. Actually this is only one of the things that's wrong with the narrative voice, but it's by far the most evident. Things are constantly being done to by other things in this story, and when you're listening to an audiobook, the frequency of it leaps out at you. It's especially egregious in the middle of battle scenes which should be all about action. Instead they seem almost leisurely, which is a big problem because they're also fucking interminable.

2. Badly defined points of view. With the exception of Mat, who even so seems like a caricature of himself, the character points of view have begun to blur together. So I'm glad that Sanderson tends to introduce each one with the viewpoint character's name. I'd have a hard time telling them apart otherwise.

More annoying, however, is that the point of view keeps shifting from tight third to camera eye within individual scenes. There's a moment in Perrin's adventures in Tel'aran'rhiod where this is especially noticeable: first we're inside his head, then we're seeing what happens as if watching a movie. This also happens a lot during the battle scenes, when a viewpoint character in the thick of it suddenly has a big picture of what's happening around him. I know Lan's supposed to be awesome, but even he isn't THAT awesome.

The other big issue here is characters thinking in ways that they wouldn't based on their backgrounds as presented. At one point Aviendha uses a metaphor concerning forests in relation to something. She's from a desert, where forests are in short supply. I know she's been living in the wetlands for the past two years, but the other thing about all these characters is how resistant they are to adapting their worldviews to what's around them. If she's constantly running down wetlander ways and feeling guilty for liking baths, why would she use a wetlander metaphor? A United Nations in Wheel of Time-land is doomed, which doesn't bode well for Rand's Dragon's Peace, I'm thinking.

3. Brandon Sanderson cannot write sex to save his life. He can't even cut to the fireplace effectively. I'm thinking particularly of the scene where Aviendha comes on to Rand. The entire scene is winceworthy, not least because, when faced with one of the three women he desires most in the world, who he's only had sex with once and that was books and books ago, he wants to sleep instead. So, okay, that's kind of unbelievable based on what we've told these characters feel for each other so far, but let's say it's the case—the Dragon Reborn has a lot on his mind, after all, not least his impending death, and there are times when people would rather sleep than fuck.

But the other thing here is that Aviendha presses her case, rather forcefully, indicates that she's discussed this with Elayne and Min and Rand basically has no choice in the matter. Um. Again, people arrange their relationships the way they arrange them, but. Maybe it's because I know quite a few people in polyamorous relationships, but while I'm not privy to the details of how they do things, I'm generally under the impression that it's more equitable and less, well, "You'll do this because the rest of us agreed" than this. There's a consent issue in this scene, is what I'm saying, and it makes me uncomfortable.

Plus the whole scene is just awkwardly written, and I have the distinct impression that this author is uncomfortable writing anything that is even within the ballpark of sex, especially sex where the woman is being assertive, and ESPECIALLY especially when it's a polyamorous relationship. I'm thinking he just has no idea how to write this, and it shows.

4. Holy crap the gender issues. People have been saying for years that the Wheel of Time is an examination of gender roles through reversing the standard male-dominated power relationship. I guess. I...really don't think it's as revolutionary as it's made out to be. Call me a feminist (I'll own it!) but the Wheel of Time as a series has always expressed an attitude toward women that I find deeply weird and a bit unsettling. There has been much commentary on how powerful women are in this story, but allow me to observe that most of the women in the story are channelers and thus able to defend themselves handily against many threats, both from other channelers and from people who are not. Faile's captivity among the Shaido (not to mention the nasty bit where her own husband spanks her—possibly I know too many kinksters but the obsession with using corporal punishment on grown adults in this series causes me FAR too much speculation on what impulses Robert Jordon might have been repressing), Siuan's attempts to survive once her ability to channel has been removed, and Min's relative lack of agency throughout, especially where the Seanchan are concerned. (Min is one of the few characters I actually like, so that bit really annoyed me.)

I'd also like to highlight this post which goes into more detail, specifically by a comparison between the fates of the male and female Forsaken.

Okay, it's not like any of this is especially unusual in fantasy, especially epic fantasy. But at least George R.R. Martin doesn't try to claim that his world isn't a particularly nasty place to live if you're female (someone, I forget who, pointed out that men are never threatened with rape in A Song of Ice and Fire, even in circumstances where you'd expect to see it. It's not something I particularly want to see, mind you, but it stands out in a setting where the same threat toward women is sufficiently commonplace for Cersei to engage in some gallows humor about it. Ahem).

5. Description != character development. There's some especially good discussion of this in the OF Blog's review of A Memory of Light (suffice to say, they're unimpressed), so here I'll just say that I understand the tendency to fall into this trap. I struggle with it a lot myself. It's a particular danger of SF and fantasy because we're often most interested in the settings, and the genre as a whole has never been especially known for strong characterization.

But in A Memory of Light it's reached ridiculous levels. This is related to point 2 above, but the tendency to describe moments of pivotal importance to individual characters as though they were landscape paintings robs those moments of emotional impact. You might as well write, "Rocks fall, everyone dies."

6. Two world leaders are incapable of having a civil conversation until some guy talks sense to them. Okay, I guess maybe this is an elaboration of point four, and I get that everyone involved is very young and on one side has inestimable reason for being hostile, BUT: it irritates the everloving fuck out of me that Egwene and Tuon are on the point of killing each other until Mat literally puts himself between them. Can I enumerate what I hate about this scene? It reduces both women from being at all able to live up to the requirements of their respective positions, AND makes Mat an asshole. There. (Oh, and? Egwene's had more than enough time to understand that Mat does actually know what he's doing on a battlefield.)

...I could go on—there are severe structural issues, the plot is just a lot of "and then THAT happened," really the only reason to read this thing is to find out whether your pet theory is true—but you get the point.

So why am I bothering?

Well, aside from what I mentioned at the top of this post, it's instructive. I like epics. I like epic fantasy. I spent this evening listening to a guy recite Beowulf in the original (well, as near to it as we can get, anyway) Anglo-Saxon. At some point I'll probably try writing it.

When I do, let whatever sins I commit not be these.

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progress report

Fri, 05 Apr 2013 06:52:35 GMT

Packet number: 3
Annotation number: -
Annotation status: -
Reading number: 6
Reading status: p. 480 of 548 (not as impressive as it sounds—it's an omnibus edition but I'm only reading one of the books)
Story: hot mess/Library of Annefwyn/Domestic Service
Story status: revision/on hold/notes
Words: 970

Today I wrote a response to one of Chuck Wendig's Flash Fiction Challenges. You can read it here.

Got the tax stuff off today (and accidentally left out the receipts for last year's home improvement projects—that siding replacement wound up costing almost $30 grand due to the other work that needed to be done, so you bet your bippy if we can write that off, we will; at least I remembered the forms for the tuition I've been paying for grad school) and I think have worked out some scheduling stuff that's come up with the podcast. With one voice who needs to travel considerable distance to record and doesn't drive, and the various scheduling issues (and, in one case, a pretty severe family emergency which of course must take precedence) for the others, it's been a challenge. Next time I think we're going to try to have the raw tracks all laid down before releasing any episodes; that way, it's all up to Mr. Darcy and how quickly he can do sound stuff.

Live and learn. But three episodes in, we've had over 1000 downloads! That's pretty awesome. And we're going to get better—which means, hopefully, bigger audiences in the future.

Tomorrow I'm having a spa night with Mama Von, and boy will that be nice. Hot water soak, tea, and conversation, oh yeah. My back's been sore this week, though kung fu and stretching have helped quite a bit. Still, thinking it's time to take up the yoga again. Jesse never had us do any stretching or flexibility work, and everyone I train with has joint problems. That'll be me too unless I do something. So, something I shall do.

Saturday I'm going to this, which should be (literally) epic. I hope so because I'm missing Paganfest to do it—they HAD to have their Seattle tour date the same night as this?! Oy. (Yes, I contemplated heading to Portland or Vancouver and catching the show there, but I am behind on both projects and sleep, and we're interviewing a candidate on Monday and as chair of the search committee I kind of have to be there, not to mention conscious and on the ball. All three candidates are exceptional and I'm going to hate having to tell two of them that we aren't hiring them.)

Speaking of behind on sleep, to bed with me.

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progress report

Thu, 04 Apr 2013 05:38:49 GMT

Packet number: 3
Annotation number: -
Annotation status: -
Reading number: 6
Reading status: p. 437 of 548 (not as impressive as it sounds—it's an omnibus edition but I'm only reading one of the books)
Story: hot mess/Library of Annefwyn/Domestic Service
Story status: revision/on hold/notes
Words: 381

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progress report

Wed, 03 Apr 2013 07:25:25 GMT

Packet number: 3
Annotation number: -
Annotation status: -
Reading number: 6
Reading status: p. 384 of 548 (not as impressive as it sounds—it's an omnibus edition but I'm only reading one of the books)
Story: hot mess/Library of Annefwyn/Domestic Service
Story status: revision/on hold/notes
Words: 504

Went to see G.I. Joe tonight. Summary: "Hi! I'm The Rock, and these are my muscles!" Also, that's Mr. P's dream kitchen, right there.

Work is crazy. We have candidate visits next week and the week after, and two people out this week. I have a ton of stuff to square away before my sabbatical starts in September, which seems like a long ways away until you see how big the pile on my desk is. Sigh. Job security, I guess. Which is good since Mr. Darcy's employer is shedding people like it's the Titanic. We'll be fine, of course, and it might be the kick he needs to find something he likes better and that is sustainable (there is basically no future in his current field, but he'd be a damn good programmer if he decided it was something he wanted to pursue, or else he and Mr. P could get that craft distillery they've been talking about going).

Neighborhood rumbles. The house that is TOTALLY NOT associated with gangs got shot at again, making three times in two months. It's over a mile away so not of immediate personal concern, but gee, thanks, just what this marginal neighborhood needs. Especially since the neighborhood is also asking the city council if they could do something about the homeless encampment down the hill that they've been ignoring for two years, which they wouldn't be if this were Queen Anne or Magnolia or Ballard or Leschi, you know?

I mean, I like the idea of a community banding together and being self governing and trying to fix their own problems, and for awhile it really looked like it was working, with people moving out as they found jobs and stable housing. The problem is that if people don't obey their rules (no sex offenders, no drugs, for instance), they have no recourse if those people, say, refuse to leave. Or they do leave and camp in the woods nearby, and that doesn't make the neighbors happy. Plus the site itself is awful: it floods in winter because there's a drainage pond right next to it. Also right next to it is the Duwamish River, one of the worst Superfund sites in America, which I can tell you all about because I get EPA bulletins about it a few times a year. (Don't eat the fish. Except the salmon, which are just passing through.) There's no infrastructure, there's one slow bus to downtown, the only resources nearby are a gas station, a Subway, and a coffee shop. If you have to live in a homeless camp, there are better places it could be, is what I'm saying.

Easy for me to say, since I have a house and all. But these folks can't quite manage to help themselves, even with considerable assistance from the neighborhood, and the city ignoring them has neither made them go away nor done them any good. So.

And then I could point out that the roads are crumbling and the schools are falling apart and bus service is about to get slashed and this is what you get when you vote for Tim Eyman's initiatives, you stupid bastards, but it's starting to feel like a rant here so I'll just go to bed instead.

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progress report

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 06:44:36 GMT

Did some stuff over the weekend, but didn't really keep track. Oh well, here's where I am today:

Packet number: 3
Annotation number: -
Annotation status: -
Reading number: 6
Reading status: p. 363 of 548 (not as impressive as it sounds—it's an omnibus edition but I'm only reading one of the books)
Story: hot mess/Library of Annefwyn/Domestic Service
Story status: revision/revision/notes
Words: 493

DID I mention that episode 3 of The Hermes & Hekate Road Show is out?? As usual: listen, love, tell your friends.

Good weekend, overall. Hike Friday was good, if shorter than I'd initially planned due to spotting recent tracks of a very big kitty in the woods. If I'd been with someone it wouldn't have been a big deal, but I was alone. Will visit that trail again, with friends; it's a river valley in the Olympic National Forest, beautiful and secluded.

Saturday I went to K and T's for a wee party that I guess could be called Recent Exiles from SMF, or something. I dunno. Mr. Darcy came, which was really nice, and brought tasty booze and snacks, which was awesome. A bunch of us did a brief circle of sending on: an unofficial tradition that got broken this year was that in the past, people who'd held certain roles would pass things on (objects, advice, what-to-expects) to the next to hold them. That didn't happen this year; I'm told that people cast this time around were specifically told not to consult those of us who'd gone before. Seems like a dumbass move to me, but I really don't understand what happened or why, so whatever.

Anyway, it was a fun evening and I got home far too late. Yesterday Mr. and Mrs. P came over and we grilled stuff (well, Mr. P grilled stuff, I assisted), watched Eddie Izzard and the movie Paul, which was charming, and later in the evening I caught the first episode of season 3 of Game of Thrones. Not so much charming, but highly entertaining.

Today was a Monday. Nuff said. But I did get coffee Oreo ice cream at the end of it. Mr. Darcy has saved civilization yet again.

Tomorrow, wrap up the taxes and either punch things or go see G.I. Joe. The latter is Mr. Darcy's idea. He says thinking too much and too hard causes brain damage and he's trying to save me from myself.

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progress report

Wed, 27 Mar 2013 05:59:40 GMT

Yeah, haven't posted these for some days. Here's today's:

Packet number: 3
Annotation number: 5
Annotation status: outline
Reading number: -
Reading status: -
Story: hot mess
Story status: revision
Words: 632

It's a strange week. Last weekend Orebasia and Green Star Grove had a joint Dionysus ritual, which went really well. My former HPS and I co-ran it and that was really fun. The ritual was fun too, though it was so cold that my core temperature dropped while we were outside (but I can attest that Snuggies make excellent ritual robes in a pinch). Fortunately, the Grovestead features a sauna. Mmm, sauna. Prior to that Wild Gods had a social outing that included some spouses and kids as well. That was pretty awesome and I look forward to doing something like that again.

This coming weekend? Well, this weekend I'm not going to SMF for the first time in over a decade, and that feels very weird. Friday morning I'm going hiking. Alone. This used to be my post-festival reconnection activity. Now it's my this is the journey I'm on now activity. (To be clear, I'm going alone by choice. Mr. Darcy would cheerfully join me but I need to be by myself in the woods for a bit.)

Saturday some of us who left are getting together just to hang out. I was worried that this would feel like wallowing, but it doesn't. Instead it feels like preserving social connections that we don't want to lose even though we don't have this event to rally around anymore. (Actually, the projects Mr. P and I are working on appear to be the nearest next candidate for that sort of thing. Gulp. How do I keep ending up in charge of things, again?)

I think what I'm seeking now is balance between my own practice and engagement with the world, which includes the community I live in. I'm still getting used to thinking this way, but it feels both like the right thing to do and also healthier than what I was doing before. That makes me happy.

I think I'm also seeking to make peace between the gratitude I have to the ATC for bringing me my priest and best friend, not to mention a number of other friendships that I value tremendously and much learning from people I deeply respect, and my resentment over having given as much as I did to an organization that seems, based admittedly on second-hand knowledge, to be veering from dysfunctional to toxic. It makes me worried for friends I have who are still involved with it—but they're adults and presumably still see some value in it.

After all, I did.

(I can't help but point out that this wasn't the first mass exodus, though it's the largest that I know of. One of the things that made me start to question my own involvement was how all the people I respected the most kept leaving, usually in states of great frustration. No volunteer-run organization that sheds people like that can sustain itself or remain healthy.)

I'll be over this by next week. Meanwhile, I'm going to do what I usually do in times like these, and find satisfaction in work, some of which is Work.

Peace out.

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progress report (yesterday and today)

Fri, 22 Mar 2013 07:01:15 GMT

Packet number: 3
Annotation number: -
Annotation status: -
Reading number: 5
Reading status: p. 280 of 339
Story: First Run/The Library of Annefwyn
Story status: revision/draft
Words: 363

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progress report, last mumblety days

Wed, 20 Mar 2013 06:19:57 GMT

Packet number: 3
Annotation number: -
Annotation status: -
Reading number: 5
Reading status: p. 218 of 339
Story: First Run/The Library of Annefwyn
Story status: revision/draft
Words: 814

"First Run" desperately needs a better title, but other than that I think it's about ready to start making the rounds.

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progress report

Sat, 16 Mar 2013 08:16:20 GMT

Packet number: -
Annotation number: -
Annotation status: -
Reading number: 5
Reading status: p. 141 of 339
Story: The Library of Annefwyn
Story status: draft
Words: 612

Hot mess went off to mentor this evening along with two annotations. And on we go.

Mr. Darcy has spent most of the past two days working on episode 2 of the podcast. It's sounding really good. I'm going to have to do something extra nice for him for doing all this...

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progress report

Fri, 15 Mar 2013 06:34:46 GMT

Packet number: 2
Annotation number: 4
Annotation status: draft
Reading number: 5
Reading status: p. 60 of 339
Story: the hot mess/The Library of Annefwyn
Story status: resting/draft
Words: 462

This writing program is turning me into a style snob. How do I know? Because I've been finally listening to the final Wheel of Time installment (all 33 CDs of it) on my commute to work, and oh my god, the writing is bad. Passive voice all over the place, ridiculous dialogue (I don't care if the end of the world is at hand, real people do not talk like this!), and it's already too long. (I thought the movie adaptation of "The Hobbit" was too long, too. Yeah, heretic, whatever. It looked gorgeous, but I went to the movies for a story and wound up with a travelogue. Also, wow do they use a lot of Pantene in Middle-Earth. But I digress.)

Anyway, my point is, I've reached the point where bad style actively interferes with my enjoyment of the story. This is also why I don't see many movies. Jordan wasn't a great stylist either and he had some peculiar obsessions, but at least his characters weren't hesitating every other sentence. (Seriously, every time Sanderson has a character hesitate, take a drink. You'll be schnockered by the end of the first chapter. Also, the scene where Aviendha comes on to Rand? I've had sexier times at the DMV.)

I'm not sure I'm going to finish it.

Mr. and Mrs. P come over for dinner tomorrow. Wine-soaked ritual Saturday night, to which I am looking forward unreasonably.

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progress report

Thu, 14 Mar 2013 07:19:45 GMT

Packet number: 2
Annotation number: 4
Annotation status: draft
Reading number: 5
Reading status: p. 13 of 339
Story: the hot mess/The Library of Annefwyn
Story status: resting/draft
Words: 1311

Mr. Darcy read the hot mess and pronounced it "disturbing". Which, well, was sorta what I was going for.

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progress report (yesterday and today)

Wed, 13 Mar 2013 06:25:07 GMT

Had a headache yesterday and couldn't be arsed to post, so here's a two-day COMBINED report.

Packet number: 2
Annotation number: 4
Annotation status: draft
Reading number: -
Reading status: -
Story: the hot mess/The Library of Annefwyn
Story status: resting/draft
Words: 847

Packet 2 has to go on Friday, not least cause I've got a busy weekend lined up.

Mr. Darcy has gotten a bit obsessive about the podcast. So this is what it's like to live with me. ;)

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progress report (yesterday)

Mon, 11 Mar 2013 15:31:30 GMT

Packet number: 2
Annotation number: 3
Annotation status: done
Reading number: 4
Reading status: p. of 270
Story: the hot mess/The Library of Annefwyn
Story status: rewrite/draft
Words: 398

Yesterday also involved an exhausting marathon recording session for the podcast, including redoing some stuff because Mr. Darcy wasn't happy with the sound quality (he's since built some sound baffling, which has largely fixed the problem). Huge kudos to the cast, especially the Canadians, for sticking around to do the extra work. Episode 2 comes out next week!

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rimrunner

WorldCon 2025

Kickstarter Launched! Shakespeare Adjacent from 2 Jokers Publishing

Two years later...

I guess it's progress of a sort

thingth

sprucing things up

more changes a-comin'

something not about old associations for a change

how writing is like kung fu

insert Janus metaphor here

2013

on the importance of structure

things which are driving me crazy about A Memory of Light

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progress report (yesterday and today)

progress report, last *mumblety* days

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progress report (yesterday and today)

progress report (yesterday)

progress report, last mumblety days