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I think most everyone is in agreement that 2017 has gone on for entirely too long, no? It's more than past time for this year to be dead and buried. Normally, this is where I'd sum up the year, talk about hits and misses, make grand plans for the year to come. It feels different, this time. It's not a celebration, but rather a recognition of survival. I know not everyone made it out of 2017. Far too many lost their lives for little more than being themselves. Words will never be enough to make up for the loss, but perhaps they can direct us away from any more loss. To quote  nudityandnerdery  on Tumblr, there are three things to remember for the coming year: Be brave, be kind, be careful. Take care of yourselves, my friends, and remember when we move into the next year - 2017 will be over, and you're still here. That means you win.

It's been a little over a month, and yet again, there's been a lot of movement in the world. On the personal side, I lost my job at the beginning of November, and I'm having a bit of trouble adjusting. I've never been unemployed and out of school for an extended period of time before, and the fact that I haven't been contacted for so much as an interview yet is troubling. At the same time, being on the other side of the interview table, I know it can take weeks, even months, between the time a candidate submits an application and when they start the interview cycle, so I simply need to wait. As for the rest of the world, well...the US has somehow managed to survive the first year of the Trump presidency, and there has been a rash of people (mostly men) who have been accused of sexual harassment and assault actually facing consequences for those actions. That, to me, is worth a lot. It means that all light in the world has not died. Hope remains, my friends. A...

Once again, we in the US are getting an up-close and personal object lesson in hatred. The attack in Las Vegas is leaving a lot of us speechless, and those of us who can speak can only talk about anger and fear. There's nothing wrong with that - there's fear and anger aplenty to go around, and expressing it, sharing your concerns with the people you're close to, prevents it from festering. However, we need more. Fear and anger alone aren't enough to make the changes we need to see happen - if they were, every oppressive regime and reign of terror would end almost as soon as it began. No, we need conviction, and hope, and optimism. Those are what will drive us to make things happen. Optimism and hope are words that tend to be very brightly colored in our society. They're the sparkly unicorn birthday cakes of words - hearing them makes one think of Care Bears and pretty, slightly dopey sidekicks who are always looking on the bright side. We tend to underestimate t...

It's been a really scary few days here in the US. Make no mistake, the US has always had problems with racism, xenophobia, anti-semitism, and other hatred of many varieties. We just don't have daily violent demonstrations on the level of what we saw in Charlottesville this weekend. I want to make sure, those of you who read this, that I'm here, and I'm offering any help I can give. I have a roof and food to share if you need them. I have an ear (either in person or virtually) if you need to talk, vent, cry, scream, or just be distracted from the awfulness of the world. If you need an escape, I will do everything I can to help you escape. Please remember, you are loved. Reach out if you need anything - ANYTHING. Be safe, be careful, and keep the faith. This kind of hatred and violence only flourishes if people remain silent. As we've already seen, people aren't taking this betrayal of human rights lying down.

It's been a while since I've posted. There's been a lot going on, not all of it good. I'm currently taking a leave of absence from work while I try to get my mental health back on track, which can I just say is bloody weird. I don't spend much time and energy focusing on myself, and intellectually I know it's good that I'm doing so now - it's just hard to fight the "wrongness" of it, too. The goal right now is to essentially be a lump for the first few days - reading, watching TV, and not doing much otherwise. I'm currently on a run of food micro-histories, which has been a lot of fun. I'm also hoping to spend more time writing, but I'm trying not to make this leave all about writing - if I did, I know I would just beat myself up if I didn't get "enough" done. So. If nothing else, I'm hoping to blog a little more often, so hopefully you'll see a bit more from me here. Take care of yourselves, everybody.

He thinks I slay dragons. Me? I don't know. The beasts I thought dead keep coming back (Maybe they were hydra instead?). I can only wound, not kill, They bruise but don't bleed. My blade drives them away for moment, To wait and attack another day. One beast, maybe two at a time, I can fence and parry away. But waves after waves, all coming at once With more teeth that snap and claws that snatch Dodging, biting, scratching, attacking, All I can do is dance and pray (Let my sword stay true, let my shield stay firm, Don't let them in, please, don't let them win) And my dance and my prayers aren't enough. He thinks I slay dragons. Me? Not today. Today is for whetstones, and repair, and rest. Today is for caves and hidden tears and sleep. Tomorrow? Tomorrow, sword shining bright, We'll see what these lizards bring to the fight.

I grew up in the Southern Baptist church. My formative years were spent going to Sunday school and Awana  on Wednesdays, reading the Bible and asking questions in class. That last part got me in trouble a few times, and I'm not going to say it was perfect, but it definitely left me with some strong beliefs beyond just a religious foundation. Service is a big part of the church. The example of the apostles, who gave up everything to follow and serve the Lord and the people who needed them, is held as the Platonic ideal of Christianity. If someone has a need, you fill it. Sacrifice is part of the deal - you give of yourself to help others. Now, I freely admit that I tend to go overboard a bit with the "giving of myself" part, and will put everyone first ahead of myself. Selfishness is still a really hard thing for me to accept, because my definition of what's "selfish" tends to include what most people consider "taking care of yourself." I...

Recently, my work space has shifted, and I'm finding it's affecting me much more than I anticipated. Previously, I had been in a large team room with one other person, and we had control over the lighting in the room. As we both have issues with light sensitivity, this meant that the overhead lights were off most of the time. Additionally, the team room was in an out of the way corner, so there weren't many people who would drop by just to chat. It was a lovely space. Now, my desk is in essentially the opposite of all of that. I'm in a cubicle surrounded by other people, many of whom are quite gregarious. I have no control over the lighting, and there are overhead lights in addition to two bit windows; as it's getting to be late spring/early summer in the Pacific Northwest, this means a fair amount of sun. It's definitely been an adjustment. One thing that I noticed is that being in such an open space, having so many people around and near-constant interacti...

I watched a video the other day that made me think. (Dangerous, I know.) One part of the argument being made was that it's not right to lump language that incites violence into the same category as language that hurts people emotionally, because it decreases the value of the words that incite violence. It took a little while for me to pick out why I didn't feel comfortable with that, but I think I have a handle on it now. I was not a popular child. I read novels when I was six; had glasses when I was five (which, might I add, was in 1986, at the height of the  Sally Jesse Raphael  fad of glasses); and I never quite figured out that just because I knew something, it didn't mean that I had to tell everyone about it. I got teased a lot, is what I'm saying. A lot of the insults rolled off my back, partly because I didn't see them as insults. OK, so I'm the teacher's pet - I can't argue with that, I frequently talk to the teachers after class about anythi...

Surprising absolutely no one, I was a theater kid growing up. I think I heard my first musical when I was about 11 or 12, and I never looked back. In 1996, the musical that all the theater kids fell in love with was Jonathan Larson's Rent . As a kid growing up on military bases for the US and passing for white, I admit that I didn't really get a lot of the themes of the musical when I first heard it. It didn't keep me from listening to it over and over, memorizing the lyrics of "La Vie Boheme" even though I didn't understand all of the references. It was the show everyone was talking about. This past weekend, I came across the movie of the musical that was released in 2005. I'd seen the show performed once in a theater, but never watched the movie, and so I decided to take a look. The first thing that hit me was how many of the lyrics I still remembered - it's probably been at least 15 years since I've listened to the cast recording, but ther...

So I'm probably not going to make my Camp Nano goal for this month, and I'm at peace with that. I've had a chance to dig back into a story that's been languishing for a bit, and I'm enjoying that. However, it's definitely revealing some areas of weakness that I hadn't noticed before. The story started as an urban fantasy setting, but, well, plot needs to be a thing, too. So my plot became a murder mystery, and that's where things got...interesting. I know who did it, and I have a decent idea of how, but I'm having a hard time 1) figuring out why (other than demons, but even demons need motivation) and 2) giving any of this information to the main characters. They're cops, so there are some things they're going to be able to get pretty easily. They're also cops familiar with the more fantastic elements of this world, so that will help. But what ties the victims together and how the cops will figure that out is still, well, a mystery. I...

Norwescon was the first convention I ever went to, lo these many moons ago. I had been a geek for a very long time, obviously, but there was something very different about being a geek with a small circle of like-minded friends, and learning that there was a whole community of us. It was a little overwhelming, to be honest. I'll never say that the geek community as a whole is perfect. It's made up of people, after all, and people aren't perfect - something it's always good to keep in mind. Still, there's something freeing about being surrounded by people who understand the excitement you bring when discussing books, movies, games, or other media. It's rare to be able to find someone who understands how exciting it is that a new book by a favorite author is coming out, and is willing to listen to you discourse about the pros and cons of the series. Additionally, there's the joy of watching people learn about new things. There are frequently things that pe...

So far, doing pretty well! Also, I'm rather fond of this one, so have a bit of Steve and Human-Steve. Steve was troubled, there was no other way to put it. Several of the humans had hidden themselves away in one of the smaller recreational rooms, and on occasion there were loud thumps and other sounds that indicated someone might be in danger. Any time someone would attempt to enter the room and see what the problem was, however, they were rebuffed. Steve knew that Human-Steve was in the room, and had been for some time. It was not like Human-Steve to spend so much time around others, as he was what he called an “introvert” and preferred to spend time alone. Whatever was happening in that room must have been very important to the humans in order to draw Human-Steve’s attention. Steve had walked by the door of the room again, trying to find the best way to enter without being noticed, when the door opened and Human-Steve stumbled toward the hallway. “Steve!” he shouted, rea...

Starting with the second thing first, Camp Nanowrimo is going slowly so far. I believe I'm overthinking the Steve and Human-Steve drabbles, which is making it difficult to make progress. I also decided to spend some quality time with Living Cities, which right now involves reading through what I drafted and remembering what the devil was going on. Fortunately, reading through it is giving me inspiration to work on it again, huzzah! And now, the round-up: Words written YTD: 364 on one project (S&H-S). I did mention that it was going slowly, right? To be fair (or not), I hadn't actually written anything until earlier this week. Writer-ly things accomplished: Technically I wrote a couple of short bits on Tumblr, but they don't feel like they count, somehow. Even so, I'm getting back into the swing of things. New books read: Many comics/graphic novels, the first book of the Craft series (now nominated for a Hugo), and a book on the history of the severed head in...

Those of you reading this on Tumblr have probably already seen my initial drabbles on this topic, but I wanted to flesh things out a little more here. This year for Camp Nanowrimo (at least, the one in April), I'm planning on taking some of the various writing prompts related to the "humans are weird" trope. The general idea is that, if alien cultures were to look on human beings, they would find us decidedly odd. Humans do weird things like try to pet nearly every animal that comes within reach, or collecting worthless objects, or laughing when we're scared or nervous. We talk to ourselves and make up songs and give inanimate objects names. The way we're built, we can do things like throw objects accurately and with force, or continue fighting or running even while injured, or break down and cry at the sight of that cursed Sarah McLachlan sad puppy commercial. From an outside perspective, we are just strange. It's a bit of fun, and it definitely gives me ...

As some of you may have noticed with my round-ups, I love to re-read books. I'll frequently re-read an entire series in order to prepare for a new book in that series, partially to remind myself of what happened before and partially to remember why I care about these characters and worlds. Some, I just re-read because it's comforting - sometimes, it's helpful to take a step back and go with what you know for a little bit. A co-worker once asked why I bothered to re-read books. "It's not like you don't know what happened!" Well, yes and no. I freely admit that my memory for details isn't fantastic - I can usually remember broad strokes, but not the nuances of the book. The nuance is what makes the whole experience of reading enjoyable. Re-reading also lets me focus on something different each time. My husband mentioned this with some of the mysteries he's currently re-reading. He remembers who did the crime, and now he's reading the book to ...

I'm not the best when it comes to protesting. I'm well aware that there are some things going seriously painfully badly in the US, and it's difficult to figure out what to do or how to do it. Things like marches and rallies are a great way to make grievances known, but they're not exactly what you'd call "anxiety friendly." Add to that a problem with large crowds of people, and I'm not marching anytime soon. It means that I feel like I can't always help out in the fight. There are certainly groups of protesters who believe that if you don't make the effort to show up in person, you're not really dedicated to the cause. While intellectually, I know this is not true, it still stings. There's always the question of "am I doing enough?" March 8 is International Women's Day, and in conjunction with that, the organizers of the Women's March are planning  A Day Without Women . I'm planning to take part in this, but I ...

So a few weeks ago, one of the people in my writers' group asked if she could do an email interview with me for her online magazine, Pif. I said sure, and so  here it is ! Her questions were great, and they got me thinking quite a bit. One of the things that annoys me about certain games is that there is a "right" way to win - if you follow these steps, then you'll win nine times out of ten. To me, that stops being a game and starts being a puzzle, and after I've solved a puzzle once, I'm less inclined to solve it over and over. Being able to play a game multiple times and getting a different result each time (or even having a similar result via a completely different path) makes it more interesting to play. For me, reading and writing are similar - if there's one "right" way for a character to reach their goal, then it stops being interesting to read or to write. And if it's not interesting to write, it's definitely not going to be i...

One thing (of many) that I've had trouble with for a long time is focus. I'm a bit of a magpie at times, easily distracted by shiny objects. For instance, it took about ten minutes between writing that last sentence and this one. Lately, I've been working on getting myself focused for work and writing, and it hasn't been easy. I've found that meditation helps to a certain extent, if nothing else than to get me to calm down and take the edge off my anxiety. Generally, it goes focus --> lose focus --> get upset about losing focus --> get anxious about not focusing. Meditation is helping me go between the first two steps without making it all the way to step four. I also figured out that there are ways to break my concentration that I can avoid. Notifications drive me nuts - if my phone buzzes due to an email or text, I will HAVE to see what it is, even if I'm in the middle of something. Same with my work email - if I get the desktop alert of a new ema...

There has been a lot of discussion around writing circles with regards to how a bilingual person would use both of their languages. There are definitely not great ways of doing this, so I wanted to give an example from my own use of language(s) to see if that helps. English is my primary language, with Spanish as my secondary language. I generally think and dream in English, though occasionally a Spanish-language dream will come my way. I read and write in Spanish better than I speak it, though with practice I can get more comfortable. Having said all of that, there are certain things that are just easier in Spanish than they are in English. It could be because I heard my mother saying them all the time when I was a kid, and so it became more like a form of family slang than anything else, but some phrases are so much faster and snappier in Spanish than in English. It helps that, frequently, you don't actually pronounce all of the letters in Spanish - there are sort of blank sp...

I'm still here, I promise! So! One of my goals for this year is to spend some time each month with the characters from my attempted Nano, Novel Wars. A character sketch, in my opinion, is something that gives an author a better sense of who the character is, and how to best to present the character to the reader. I'm using a list  I found on Tumblr for this, as I think it gives a good background on some of the things that I may not normally think of. So, with no further ado, I present Maxine Murray, host of Novel Wars! How they present themselves - always put together very professionally, trying to look like an established member of the media. How they stand - very prim, straight backed, head up. How much space they take up when they’re sitting (Meaning do they ‘manspread’ or do they hunch into themselves?) - she's been trying to work on making herself take up more space, but she still defaults to keeping her arms tucked in and feet together when in public. Whether...

I freely admit that I am bad at taking care of myself. I've always been one to focus on taking care of everyone else, until I inevitably collapse or break down. It's not the healthiest of traits, I know, and it is something I'm working on. Having been through the break-downs, I'm intimately aware of the idea that you can't take care of other people if you don't take care of yourself. And yes, I know it's hard, and it feels wrong somehow. Still, it's important to remember a few things: There's no shame in taking a break. Turn off Facebook, Twitter, the news, whatever is sending you into the pit of despair at the moment, and take a breath. It'll be there when you get back, and you'll be that much stronger for not drowning in it the whole time. Find something concrete you can do. For myself, I find that I feel a lot better if I can look at the problem and find one specific, concrete action that I can take. You don't have to solve ev...

A little over thirteen years ago, I met my now-husband Eric. A little while after that initial meeting, I met his two cats, Ramses and Feina. They were around four and five years old at the time, and they were clearly important to Eric. The fact that they were important to him is actually one of the things that attracted me to Eric. Ramses, the older of the two, was a black cat of mighty strength - he was about eighteen pounds at his height, and most of it was muscle. He was not what you'd call a good kitty - he frequently decided that he didn't like certain people, and made his displeasure known by discovering what color their blood was. But if he liked you? He would defend you with all five pointy ends against all foes, both real and imagined. He walked into Eric's life when he was about six months old, skinny as a rail and limping just enough to look pathetic. Eric's then-girlfriend asked if they could keep him, and Eric, who had never liked cats before, said yes...

Music has always been a pretty important part of my life. I have a hard time focusing if I don't have something playing in the background, and I love a good playlist. At the end of last year, I put together a playlist called "Not Yet Dead Dammit," just to help me remember that I was going to get through the rough times. Now that things are coming to a head, and the Malevolent Cheeto is actually taking office, I know a lot of us are worried. Terrified, angry, sad - there are a lot of emotions running wild right now, and it's unlikely that that will change anytime soon. I've added some new songs to the playlist, and they all fall into one of three categories: call to action (lots of angry, "things are broken and we need to fix them" songs), celebration (primarily things that remind me that I'm still here in spite of everything), and rest (songs that remind me to take a breath, that I can't keep up the fight if I don't let myself recharge). ...

This weekend was filled with movies, and the one that made the biggest impact on me was Hidden Figures. Given the timing (MLK Jr. day, the upcoming inauguration, etc.), it felt like a movie that was coming along at just the right time. For those of you who somehow missed any of the ads or previews, Hidden Figures is based on the true story of three African-American women - Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Mary Jackson - who were employees at NASA when the US first launched a man into orbit. Their work in several different areas helped make the US space program possible. Set in 1961, there are scores of undertones and, well, tones, of both racism and sexism in nearly every interaction. There's also a running theme of people - women in general, and women of color in particular - being told that "it's just the way things are." Watching not just the main characters, but several other people, in their own way, decide to find a different way was inspiring. In a...

A discussion with several friends led me to wonder where the line between accurate and too accurate may be when portraying a character who is, shall we say, not well liked. For example, I know quite a few people who stopped reading the Harry Potter books after Order of the Phoenix , because Harry as written in that book is a little too close to the average obnoxious teenager for comfort. I admit, it's very clear when some authors have more experience with, say, teenagers, and use that experience to inform their writing. Obviously, as writers we want to create characters that are realistic and multi-dimensional, because those characters are much more interesting to read and write and they drive more exciting stories. At the same time, I've certainly put books down because a character was getting on my nerves - in general, if I want to reach through a page and throttle a character, it's probably a book I should put down. So where to draw the line? Or is there actually a l...