Day in the Life of an Idiot

That was FAST

2023-05-25T23:39:53Z

I sent in a proposal to the Loft on May 13 for upcoming classes. I happened to check Submittable for something else and discovered it was already rejected. Apparently, my being "talked to" by my boss was not enough to satisfy powers that be (namely a certain summer session "instructor.")

This is going to be a MASSIVE financial hit for my family.

So, now my question is: how I do this? Is there a market for classes by me? I don't know. If so, what format would they even take? Have any of you done this sort of thing--just taught a class that you ran out of your home or a library or online?? I'd love some advice (and/or sympathy.)

I feel like the biggest irony is that when it all first came to light in the summer, Shawn wanted me to just tell them I wouldn't co-teach, to break my contract. Can you imagine? I mean, I guess this has just turned into a slow death and that would have been a quicker way to get the same result, but damn.

This sucks.

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Monday again? WTH.

2023-02-13T19:09:59Z

Image: Willow (a black cat draped morosely over the radiator) wants you to know that Mondays are hard.

Since Rhubarb has joined our crew, Willow makes many more "tired of your crap" faces than I swear she ever used to. Either that, or she's turning into Garfield, the cat (in)famous for his hatred of Mondays.

I just finished up reading and critiquing the student submission for tonight's class and now I need to sit down and seriously consider what I want to talk about. TECHNICALLY, I have a syllabus, but I very intentionally made it vague when I proposed it so that I could change my mind about what I want to teach, session to session. According to the syllabus, I'm supposed to talk further about plot. I could do this, since we only scratched the surface of the idea of plot last session, but I am contemplating whether or not I have ENOUGH I want to say about it. I have not yet drawn this set of students my inverted version of the rising tension arc, so there's that. We've also not really discussed the various ways in which story structure can be decolonized, something I have a lot less experience with writing, but which I should probably mention? I dunno. I may spend part of the afternoon reviewing some sources and decide if I have anything I actually want to say about any of it or if I just want to throw together a resource list and have the students do their own reading on the subject.

Think. Think. Think, as Pooh Bear is wont to say.

Anyway, that's me? I spent much of the weekend working on a sea-themed (mostly sharks!) quilt for a friend out in California.

How's you? How was your weekend.

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Report on Class and Writing

2023-02-07T16:47:48Z

The first thing I want to report is that I revised a short story I've been working on for a shared-world anthology, and have now sent it off to my second writers' group for critique. Hooray!

Secondly, it seems that my Loft Zoom class is finally settling into a good rhythm, I think. We had a great class last night, at any rate. I was actually able to prod people to talk, possibly because I like to teach plotting by using my own failures to create story as an example. I have a very specific story idea that should work, but refuses to gel that I will trot out for class. I think people generally like to offer advice, and so when I say, "Please help me fix this broken thing and let's talk about why it's broken," works actually fairly well as a method to get people to really think about what elements have to come together to start a story.

Then, I had them watch a YouTube video recording of Kurt Vonnegut talking about story plots, so we pretended we had a posthumous guest lecturer.

The last half of the class was the first time we rolled up our sleeves and started critiquing and that went very well, as well. Like I say, a success all around.

In other news I am putting the finishing touches on the sheep + octopus quilt and then it will be on to the next one, which will be deep-sea themed.

Image: deep sea fabric

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Penultimate Class

2022-06-23T17:59:24Z

Image: empty classroom awaiting young minds to warp

I thought I should continue the saga of my on-going class of young, middle school writers. I am beginning to suspect that Kelsey is actually far, far more prepared than I am. The problem with letting the class self-direct is that sometimes we are fairly directionless until I pull us back into focus.

Every time I ask my students about their afternoon, it sounds quite creative and lovely, honestly. The only complaint I get is that it's really not about science fiction or fantasy, only about writing in general. (WHICH, yes, Loft, I could have told you that kids are savvy enough to notice this!) At any rate, apparently, yesterday afternoon, my rival had several clever prompts centered around working in all five senses into writing. There are a number students that clearly appear to favor my rival, (two girls, specifically,) but I have made peace with that because, honestly, it's good that everyone is getting SOMETHING that they are enjoying out of this class.

I'm pretty sure that if the parents sat in on my half of the class and compared it to the second, they would also prefer my rival's style. As I heard the first day, after all, her style is "more like school." Mine is, "okay, but WHY are stories satisfying? How do you make 'and they all died' into the kind of ending you would actually want to read in a book?" (These were the questions we tackled today.)

Also, when my students complained that they wanted far more than twenty minutes to write and I asked them, "Well, how long do you want?" at 10 am, they said, "Can we just write the rest of the class?" Looking around to make sure that was, in fact, the consensus, I only saw desperate nods and pleases...

And so I said yes. Yes, of course we can.

I set aside everything else I had planned, we all hunched over our various writing implements, and wrote for an hour and a half. I am pretty sure parents looking in on that would be thinking, "I paid how much for this??"

I also copied down a cooperative story that the class wrote yesterday in my half of the day. (We actually had two rival stories. The red, serious one, and the blue, crazy one. My challenge tomorrow is to write down the much longer, much more nonsensical blue story.) I contributed one line, though not the first. (I will highlight my contribution below.)

Image: The story that came from amazing (warped) minds.

Here's the transcription:

A soft glow illuminated the cold chamber.

A woman sat in the corner, clearly distraught.

Her arms cradled a small bundle.

Peeking inside, the woman saw that the flowers in the bundle had stopped singing.

She clutched them to her chest, praying for even a small squeak to come from the bundle.

As the piercing silence went by, the woman started to change.

Her eyes began to glow and her lips parted.

Fear grasped her chest and her stomach dropped,

She doubled over, a piercing pain rising in her gut and a foul bile dripping from her mouth.

“Ahhh,” she screamed, as the first layer of the room filled up.

The flowers began to shrink around her.

Her skin withered and turned gray and she collapsed to the floor, eyes lifeless and drowning in her own stomach fluids.

Tears flowed for the realization that the death that approached was something she could not accept.

She flailed at the bile on the floor, struggling to raise herself to her feet.

“Please, please sing,” she sobbed, as if the flowers could understand.

Her hand raised as if she wanted to grab the flowers, but, really, she was begging.

“The curse,” she sobbed, “Why did I ask for it?”

With the last of her immortal power, she chanted, “Ho ta hoo tavi hoo t vi ah tanau.”

As if by a miracle, the bundle burst into flames, a cacophony of floral voices burning in the crimson heat.

In unison with her weak voice, they chanted and chanted until dawn broke.

* * *

Thousands of miles away, I woke up to a room full of flowers singing.

And it begins again,

THE END…?

So basically, this was written by everyone, each person getting to write one of the lines. If you ignore the bile filling the room, it's actually quite clever. I was fascinated that this particular team chose to get consensus. They talked to each other about what could be happening with the flowers, "Was it a curse? What were they doing? Why was she changing?" and this is what they spontaneously decided.

I love these kids.

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I Forgot How Fun Middle Schoolers Are...

2022-06-20T18:46:51Z

Many of you have been following the saga of my class at the Loft in the access-only bits, but I think I can bring this story out into the light of day now, since I have mostly positive things to say about how the class went.

I am still very thrown by how casual the Loft has been, in general.

Like, no one met me when I got to Macalester, which is kind of amazing, given that this is the first time anyone from the Loft has used this venue. Similarly, there was no reminder sent with classroom information or a campus map or guide to parking. I ended up having to find all of that on my own, which... was FINE? But, kind of goes to my general complaint here.

I will say that despite some assurances by the Loft that I might actually see the program coordinator, I never did. She did, however, change the course description as I had asked, to be clearer about how the students' day will be structured. https://loft.org/classes/summer-youth-week-one-not-just-zombie-apocalypse-more (go to the very end.)

In fact, one of the students' parents pulled me aside and said, "It kind of looks like there are two different programs here? My son is really only interested in science fiction, can he leave halfway through?" I told this parent, "You absolutely can." Because I don't see why they couldn't? To be fair to this dad, I'm pretty sure that particular child will beg to stay because I noticed that he, in particular, seemed to be having a very good time? We will see what happened tomorrow.

But, okay, the class went pretty well. Like a lot of Loft classes, students kind of drifted in anywhere between a half hour PRIOR to class and a half hour after class had started. This is just how Loft classes are for some reason? But, that did dilute my ability to be super clear with everyone about how their day will go, but I think enough of them got it not only once, but twice.

After that? I just did what I normally do, which is wing it. I asked everyone to do introductions and pronouns and a conversation just naturally started around the question "Why are most protagonists actually the character you like the least? Like, why are they so stupid?" Because, narratively, there is a reason for that, right? Like, the main character is often the person who is introducing a science fictional or fantasy world to the reader and if they are an outsider or kind of dumb about their world, that's an opportunity for the readers to learn what THEY need to learn, but through the protag's eyes. I could see some lights actually going on in the room already at this point, so that was gratifying. I then played "a game" that I basically made up on the spot in which we talked about another problem that some main characters have, which is that they're kind of overpowered and how you can solve that problem in the design phase, if you consider the "cost of magic." So we listed superpowers on one half of the board and "costs" on the other and had fun matching them up in silly ways, and then I asked them to write a story either based on the prompts (or, as it happens, anything they liked.)

I floundered a bit after that because I really like the class to be self-directed and so it took us all a bit of time to figure out what else might be a fun topic to tackle. I tried talking to them about story structure, but that seemed to lose them a bit.

So, I hopped over to hooks. We came up with a bunch of different types of hooks: opening lines of dialogue, an action or an image, and a question. This was fun because some students went hyper specific and some went broad. This one seemed to be the thing that pulled them in the deepest. So, clearly what they like is coming up with story prompted based around some part of writing (like, in this case opening hooks) and then getting a chance to write on that topic. Since they were so deep into this one, I tried one as well. (At the ends of these classes I always end up with a ton of half-started stories based on various prompts.)

I ended the class with two rousing games of sentence stories (you know the one, where you build on the previous sentence), which everyone seemed to enjoy.

As for the make-up of my class, it's mostly young women. This has been an interesting demographic shift. When I first started teaching SF/F (almost *cough* 20 years ago), I was often the only woman in the room. Now, it's the men who are in the minority. Not surprisingly, a fairly large number of students also used they/them pronouns (though they all seemed surprisingly flexible? There were a number of she or they, for instance.) There were small number of visible POCs? At least two of the young women had Southeast Asian given and surnames and another had a typically East Asian surname. So, the Loft is diversifying a bit more than it has in the past, though it's still not doing great with only three out of twelve.

That's the other last thing of note. As is typical, I picked up two extra students last minute. So, I have an even dozen.

I met the other teacher at noon. I mean, she seems nice? I wasn't expecting her to be sprouting horns or anything, but, yeah, I have no idea how things are going at the end of the day here, but I'm sure it will be FINE. To be fair, one of the first questions one of my students asked me is, "Is this going to be like school?" And, I said, "Yes and no. I will try to impart some knowledge, but there are no assignments or quizzes and nothing I ask you to do is required." It seemed to be the general consensus, too, that what they wanted was more of a summer camp vibe, but that's still easy enough for me to provide.

The bonus of being an on-the-fly teacher who doesn't have any requirement to impart any real or lasting information is that I can just be like, "Games? Sure, let's just do games!"

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My Wife's Birthday (no joke)

2021-04-01T23:48:26Z

Even though it's April Fool's day today really is my wife's birthday.

I just made her favorite dinner and in about an hour, we're going to eat the cake we bought this morning at Cafe Latte. I bought her two things she asked for and one surprise. She asked for a bunch of "fat quarters" for her quilt and I surprised her with one of those monthly subscription things, where you get a box full of random art supplies. She joked (and probably rightly so) that the art stuff was at least partly also for myself, but we still had fun this morning playing with the fancy watercolor ink they sent us.

If anything nice comes out of our experimentation, I will post it here.

Today is the first, so I also got a couple posts together (and a reading) for my Patreon. What I'm finding amusing about this is that I actually don't mind doing the publicity stuff like writing the newsletter or making the video of myself reading. What I hate is promoting myself? Like actually pressing the button to put it out on various social media for people to find? Ah, well, that's part of what one does, so I do it.

Tomorrow I have my class... only three more to go on this 12-week monstrosity. It's been fun, actually? But, twelve weeks is a long class for the Loft--the longest they offer, in fact.

We are also having an electrician come check out what is going on in our basement tomorrow. We have a 100 year old house and the wiring in the basement has decided to quit at various lightbulb points... but not all of them? So, that's concerning. Making the call to have someone come made me into one of those tweets where someone says, "It took me six minutes to do the thing I avoided for a month." But, it's done and scheduled and now we just have to spend a huge portion of tomorrow cleaning up the basement in prep.

Saturday I drive to New Ulm to get my second and final Pfizer shot. So that's a thing.

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Void Cat Cartoons

2021-02-26T19:24:58Z

I have been working on trying to do cat bodies. I am showing off my whole page of attempts, even though, in at least one of them, I make Willow (aka Void Cat) look like a monster. It was kind of intentional, but I also failed bodies. I was trying to go for the whole "cat yawn is actually terrifying?" look, but NOT THIS TERRIFYING.

Image: a picture of a page of a sketchbook full of void cat images.

I also took some close-ups of of some of the images I liked.

Image: cartoon image of void cat with feathers in her mouth

Image: BEANS.

Image: Cartoon image a cat loaf.

So, not perfect, but a lot of fun. I really like having an excuse to fill a page with attempts. If nothing else, the Domestika class has given me "permission" to spend time actually doodling.

Today is my very busy day, but I don't have to actually be DONE with all of it until my class STARTS tonight at 10 pm. So it's weird? Like I know I have A THING I have to do tonight, but it's sooooooo late? Anyway, I hope you all are having an excellent Friday!

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Injeera Class Chaos

2021-02-26T00:50:58Z

Last night was my injeera class. Injeera, for those of you who may not know, is an Ethiopian flat bread. It's usually the "plate" that a meal is served on, sort of the original bread bowl, if you will.

Shawn and I are huge fans of Ethiopian food.

When we were in college, we were on Minneapolis's West Bank (also known as the Cedar-Riverside area.) In 1985-89, the neighborhood was shifting from the last bastion of hippie culture to include new immigrants from Ethiopia and Somalia. We spent a lot of time at the various shops along Cedar and Riverside--I'd go to Midway Books or Evenstar or to check out music down at the Cedar Cultural Center (or, before that, even,) to the Coffeehouse Extempore. At some point, we stumbled across Odaa, our first experience with Ethiopian food.

We were hooked.

Shawn is not normally bit into spice, but she loves Ethiopian. I think a big part of what she loves is being able to eat with her fingers and the injeera. We used to regularly have to order more rolls of it.

So, when St. Paul Community Ed offered a Zoom course on cooking injeera, I HAD to sign up. It's taught by "Mimi" who teaches a lot of cooking classes through St Paul Community Ed, and... her mom. Mimi's mom was the best part of the class? She was a classic grumpy mom who gave Mimi a lot of grief about her cooking, while clearly being very supportive and trying her best to answer our questions about "How much are you putting in?" Unfortunately, a lot of her answers were classic grandma? "This much!" Then she scoops up a bit in her hand, "Like this. I show you!" And, meanwhile all of us on the other end are just shaking our heads and writing down "A cup, maybe???" I mean, they did provide us with a recipe, but part of why you take a class like this is to get the secret arcane knowledge that ONLY GRANDMAS KNOW.

I suspect if we had been in person, it would have been amazing.

I did get a recipe out of it and some tips, but I am not feeling confident that I will successfully make injeera when I next try it. But, hey, it's a pandemic project!!

I'm all about those in 2021.

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More Illustrations

2021-02-21T22:13:11Z

Today, Shawn and I watched the next couple of video lessons from Mattias in our Domestika "Doodles to Illustrations" course.

We were instructed to start to figure out how to draw a character of ourselves. I did a full page of attempts, but ended up with a couple that I thought captured my image of myself pretty well. Interestingly, both are side shots--but I think that's because I tend to think of myself in terms of my nose.

I have a little notation next to some of my first attempts in which I came to the conclusion that having dots for eyes somehow made me look more "lesbian." Perhaps the smaller eyes imply "no make-up" somehow? I have NO IDEA.

Image: cartoon image of me with pandemic hair, from the side, being grumpy about reading.

Shawn is now talking about "auditing" the class--in that she's planning to continue watching the videos with me, but she no longer feels up to the assignments.

I can't blame her. There is a thing that Mattias assumes that a LOT of art instructors seem to, which is a certain level of competence. He will say things like (and this is a direct quote,) "In order to make these characters seem like they're part of scene, have the light come from one source," and then he proceeds to just perfectly shade things... without ever having taught us about how to notice light and shadows.

Mason and I, who both had formal art lessons, remember spending an entire unit--often week or, even a whole MONTH--setting up shadow boxes and learning about single and multiple light sources.

So, I mean, yeah.

It's not required of this class, but the assumption of competence--or at least a certain kind of confidence--is there.

I do think this is one of the reasons a lot of people drop out of art. The thing that I was able to tell Shawn that seem to make her less frustrated is that the world is made of shapes. in doodling, cartooning, and informal illustrations, all you really have to do is imply them to the best of your ability.

Image: Full page of doodles for class--there are images of me, cats, and Shawn

Next lesson is bodies, a thing I am legitimately BAD at, so we'll see if I actually learn anything from Mattais about how to do them. I did learn a bit about different eye types, so there's hope.

I really did enjoy drawing Willow, however.

Image: cartoon of black cat that is nothing but ears and eyes

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Forks, My Child... Forks

2021-02-18T20:59:51Z

I am taking a break from reading manuscripts. I missed the official "What are You Reading?" day, but I wouldn't have had much to report at any rate.

Can I tell you how frustrating it is to finally have the ability to read back and STILL NOT be able to?? Like, I bought myself three books from the Philip K. Dick award nominations list and I was really, really looking forward to settling in and reading them.

The problem is that I have time to read again? But when I do, I think: "I should be doing the reading that makes me money," and so that's what I do. In between the stuff for hire and the stuff for class, I am reading and critiquing the work of my colleagues in my various writers'. I mean, I love it? But I'm also looking forward to having less of it. If only so I can read a BOOK.

I am still watching shows while doing the dishes. I finally remembered to start in on the second season of "Midnight Diner: Tokyo stories." So, it's not all critique all the time.

I also recorded a reading for MarsCON 2021, which is coming up in March. http://marscon.org/2021/ I'm also on at least one panel discussion about the various Apocalypse crafts we've all be up to, so that should be fun.

Shawn and I are continuing the Domestika course on doodling, though neither of us is convinced that we're learning much.

Did I tell you guys about this? So, Facebook decided to target Shawn with ads for art classes. I suspect she hit some algorithm or other because she buys a lot of fun pens and such for her bullet journaling. So, she sees this thing pop up where Mattias Adolfsson is going to teach us to make fun doodles. His art is very cool. So, she decides (since they offered a special deal, the whole course for $11.00!,) she's going to sign us up. So far? He's had us drawing... pens.

Image: pen and ink drawing of pens... and an ominous as f*ck fork.

I ended up drawing a whole page of forks and their shadows, because I found the shadows (and my strange inability to draw a fork that wasn't CREEPY AF, to be kind of entertaining,) but I was looking forward to the next go round.

I mean, as I told another artist friend I was Zooming with the other day, I feel pretty confident in my ability to draw OK when I have what I want to draw in front of me. That's pretty much been the pinnacle of my abilities.I'm NOT AT ALL confident in my ability to draw from memory or, gods forbid, actually make something up. I worked on that a bit when I was teaching smols how to do cartooning (a sordid part of my history--I was wholly unqualified for a job I had for DECADES, but, honestly, when kids are 6 -10 years old you don't really have to teach drawing so much as PROVIDE PAPER AND MATERIALS. So, that's what I did.) And, as you can see above, the work I can do will absolutely impress a six year old. I did not fare as well when I tried to teach adults via Open U. However, I was (and still am) hoping that maybe this class will help push me up another level as an artist.

At any rate, we've been through a half-dozen of the video lectures so far, and we are STILL drawing pens. Last night's course? Draw pens from your imagination:

Image: more pen and ink drawings of... pens--only these are imaginary pens.

So, I don't know. I mean, I'm enjoying the fact that having paid for the course (even if it's only 11 bucks) that I have some kind of obligation to sit down and try to draw every so often. I've been trying to draw every day, but it's more like every other.

Forks will forever be my bane, however.

Image: pen and ink drawings of forks and their apparently terrifying shadows.

So, I guess when my grandchildren sit at my knee and say, "Grandma, what did you do during the pandemic?" I'm going to nod sagely and say, "Forks, my child. Nothing but forks."

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"Watashi wa GEI" Coming Out in Japanese II

2021-02-02T21:18:53Z

So, it's Tuesday, which means I am getting ready for my class tonight.

I've actually had a busy week, so I haven't practiced as much. Plus, as I was telling Naomi via email, I've been really struggling over what to say this time.

The assignment should be easier than the previous one. All I have to do is come up with a couple of sentences that describes my family. I am SURE 88% of my class is not struggling with this at ALL--it's all very STRAIGHT forward for them, (pun intended!)

And, it's not that I feel at all weird or embarrassed or ashamed to say "my wife" either in English or Japanese It's more that I feel like I want to say something more than the awkward mic drop of, "my family consists of three people: me, my wife, and my son." But, if you decide to watch the video, you'll know that, like, everything else that I came up to talk about is super awkward, too?? Maybe I should just chicken out and say: also we have three cats.

IF I had gotten my act together more, I would have polled all y'all to see what you think might be best. However, given that I only have about four more hours until class starts, I have decided to bust out with the TMI option instead of the awkwardly sad option (see video for details.)

In other news, I had a good first class of my own, the one I taught on Friday. I do, in fact, have eleven (because there's always an add-on last minute) students and so that's a darned full class. I think it went pretty well, if I do say so myself. I find it's often really difficult to get people to engage via Zoom, but I managed some back-and-forth... not exactly discussion, but I asked questions that people actually seemed to want to answer. That was a major win from my point of view. It helps that the first class is basically all about talking about yourself and your writing habits.

The demographics of my class were shockingly binary. I always, always open with asking people for name and pronouns and every single person in my class is using a binary option, so that's... weird. I'm hopeful that not everyone is straight, but that's not something I can ask. All I do in that regard is make it clear that I'm queer AF and hopefully vibe WELCOME, MY GAYS on high volume.

Despite being awkward about in Japanese, I'm pretty good at it otherwise.

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Prepping for Class

2020-12-03T18:33:45Z

Since I had some nice feedback last time I posted my list of short stories that we are reading for our class "Reading the (Whole) Room: Race and Queerness in SF/F," I though I would posted it.... even though yesterday was reading Wednesday. (All of these are available online.)

"Africanfuturist 419," by Nnedi Okorafor (Clarkesworld, November 2016)
“Jamaica Ginger” by Nalo Hopkinson and Nisi Shawl (Lightspeed, 2018)

Optional readings:

“Rusties” by Nnedi Okorafor and Wanuri Kahiu (Clarkesworld, October 2016)
“The Book of the Phoenix (Excerpted from the Great Book)” by Nnedi Okorafor (Clarkesworld, March 2011)
“The Go-Slow,” by Nnedi Okorafor (Tor.com, February 2011)
"Fisherman," by Nalo Hopkinson (Strange Horizons, October 2018)
"The Glass Bottle Trick," by Nalo Hopkinson (Fantasy, October 2014)
“Ours is the Prettiest,” by Nalo Hopkinson (Podcastle, July 2012)
“Non-Zero Probabilities,” N. K. Jemisin. (Clarkesworld, Sept 2009)
“Bloodchild,” by Octavia Butler (Asimov’s, June 1984)
“Aye, and Gomorrah” by Samuel Delaney (Dangerous Visions (Doubleday, 1967).

By chance Nalo Hopkinson was named SFWA Grandmaster just a few days ago, so that's cool.

Right now, I am listening to Clarkesworld's podcast of Nnedi's "Africanfuturist 419." Then, I'm going to do some dissecting so I can come up with some questions and thoughts for class. Luckily, once again, I picked a fairly decently complex story that needs unpacking and contextualizing. I did link my students to the basic Wikipedia article that explains the 419 scam, but Nnedi drops references to Sun Ra and a number of other folks that my students might not be familiar with.

Class STARTS at 10 pm tonight, so I have time to get this all figured out, at least.

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Reading Wednesday This

2020-11-26T01:07:53Z

As you all know, my friend Kate and I are teaching a zoom class on BIPOC and Queer SF/F for readers called "Reading the (Whole) Room: Race and Queerness in Science Fiction and Fantasy." Kate has managed to score a live guest author for our next class, Nino Cipri, so I quick read everything of theirs that I could find on the interwebs.

So, this week, I read:

“The Shape of my Name” by Nino Cipri (Tor.com, 2015)
“A Silly Love Story” by Nino Cipri (Daily SF, September 2012)
“Better Girl From Broken Parts,” by Nino Cipri (November, 2014)
“Let Down, Set Free,” by Nino Cipri (Crossed Genres 2.0 #29, May 2015)
‘It Happened To Me: My Doppleganger Stole My Credit Card Info, and then My Life,”by Nino Cipri (Fireside Magazine #39, January 2017)
“It Happened To Me: I Melded My Consciousness With the Giant Alien Mushroom Floating Above Chicago,” by Nino Cipri (Fireside Magazine, March 2017)
“It Happened To Me: I Was Brought Back to Avenge My Death, But Chose Justice Instead,” by Nino Cipri (Fireside Magazine, April 2017)
“Which Super Little Dead Girl™ Are You? Take Our Quiz and Find Out!” by Nino Cipri (Nightmare Magazine #62, December 2017)
“Dead Air,” by Nino Cipri (Nightmare Magazine #71, August 2018)
Odontogenesis, by Nino Cipri (Fireside Magazine, October 2018)

In anime watching, I am checking out the Ghost in the Shell anime. I've seen the anime movie, of course, long ago, but I had never managed to catch up on the anime itself--despite having read a lot of the manga, as well.

I also watched the first six episodes of a show called Ikebukuro West Gate Park, which is a story with a fun premise. The fictional version of the real-life Tokyo district Ikebukuro has been overrun by gangs. Our hero is a young delinquent who has managed to stay outside of the gangs, despite (or most likely because of) his childhood friendship with the 'king' of the G-Boys. Makoto, our hero, basically solves crimes or unravels mysteries that are too hot for the police to touch and too volatile for the gangs to deal with. If you like yankee/delinquent heroes, this is a story for you.

A non-fiction book on linguistics was recommended to me by naomikritzer called Because Internet by Gretchen McCoulch and I bought it. It arrived yesterday. I am completely fascinated by how a lay-person like myself can WATCH language changing real time on the internet and this book tackles some of the recent developments, therein. I'm only into the introduction, but I'm already finding it very interesting.

Oh, and speaking of recommendations--hey, sabotabby. I totally thought of you while I was reading “It Happened To Me: I Was Brought Back to Avenge My Death, But Chose Justice Instead,” by Nino Cipri. You need to read this one! https://firesidefiction.com/it-happened-to-me-i-was-brought-back-to-avenge-my-death-but-chose-justice-instead

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Hello, Hello!

2020-11-23T18:22:10Z

Once again, I must apologize for not keeping up on my journalling here.

It's tempting to lie and say that not much has been going on, but, the truth is, I've been really busy. I mean, again, I don't mean that I've been running around in the traditional sense, but there have been a lot of projects I've been working on.

First, I wrote a short story for a friend of mine's anthology. I actually have no idea if you're going to be able to even buy this anthology or how it's gong to work, but I said "yes," because this year (by which I actually mean 2021, the up-coming year) I am looking for ANY excuse to give myself a writing deadline. The anthology's parameters are: it's supposed to be a hopeful story and, if possible, reflect some aspect of the pandemic. So, I wrote a very low-stakes story about female friendship in isolation--a woman working alone in deep space who ends up in an accidental correspondence with a stranger. I'm personally really quite pleased with how it turned out.

I'm just finishing some revisions, but that one is done.

Kate Johnston and I just finished up our second week of the class for readers called: "Reading the (Whole) Room: Race and Queerness in Science Fiction and Fantasy." That's been... in someways a lot less work than the asynchronous class, and in some ways more? Since this class has a set time and place, I'm finding myself better able to keep class prep to a more reasonable amount of time, but I also expend a lot of energy in the actual teaching of the course, if that makes sense? Figuring out how DOES class on Zoom is it's own thing--plus, I haven't worked with a co-teacher in a long time.

But, that's every Thursday (except this one, of course, being American Thanksgiving.) It's only four weeks, so we are half done.

There have been some interesting things to come out of class, not the least of which was the joy of getting to teach "The Secret Lives of the Nine Negro Teeth of George Washington," by P. Djeli Clark and go over his blog about the historical references in it with a fine tooth comb. There is so much about Black history that I simply do NOT know, like anything about Colonel Tye, a freed slave who fought as a Loyalist (for the British) during the American Revolutionary War. If you've never read Clark's blog post about his research (P. Djeli Clark is a pseudonym for Dr. D. Gabriel, a PhD in the history of enslaved people among other things, who teaches at the University of Connecticut) I highly recommend that you not only do it, but also follow all the links he provides: https://disgruntledharadrim.com/2018/02/27/on-slavery-magic-and-the-negro-teeth-of-george-washington/

So, learning all that as part of teaching has been AMAZING.

But, I have also had the student who signed-up late, lost his internet connection, and wanted me (and/or the Loft) to basically photocopy the internet for him and follow-up with a personal phone call to me, in lieu of participating.... I mean, I feel VERY SORRY for him that he can no longer afford wifi, but.... this is an online course? I had to adult and tell him, "I'm sorry, but no." Between him and some of the other characters we have in class.... it's been kind of wild.

On top of all this, I am starting to outline a novella for another friend of mine's project. This one is going to be lesbians in SPAAAAACE--in my case, a kind of gender flipped Cowboy Bebop, but... darker? I mean, not as TRAGIC as Bebop, but there's going to be some space fascists to defeat because EVERYTHING IS A METAPHOR FOR 2020. But, the sort of high octane space battles and cyberpunk/terraformed Solar System with bounty hunters--a.k.a. the fun stuff of Bebop?--all that will be there, and more, because LESBIANS.

Plus, on a more mundane, day-to-day level, I've been having a grand time lately experimenting with lunches. My family has generally been trying to eat more fish, so my lunch meals have all been various takes on things to do with whatever fish Kowalski's has on sale that week. We have eaten a lot of cod, and today I tried a recipe that included Bulgar wheat... which was more experimental than I normally go in for, but I had tremendous fun making and serving it to my family. (If people want it, here is the link: https://www.olivemagazine.com/recipes/fish-and-seafood/cod-with-tomato-olive-and-chorizo-sauce/)

I suspect that my family now looks forward to lunch with a combination of "Could be fun?" mixed with "What fresh hell is this??" I'm sure. :-)

But, since it's lunch, it's really low-stakes. If they don't like it, they don't eat it. When there is lunch fail, I just make something hearty for dinner that has been a known favorite and everyone remains happy and healthy.

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A Quick Note Before My Eyes Close

2019-07-31T19:55:59Z

I need a nap.

My teen class at the Loft has turned a corner, likely due to the addition of a student who is much, much younger than the others. He's at that sweet spot, the one where they know how to write all the words into a coherent thing, but also SO FEARLESS (or maybe not yet jaded) that writing a story about a unicorn stampede sounds like a GREAT IDEA and, here, LET ME READ IT TO YOU. I love this kid. I hope he never changes, because he also injected a certain amount of fearlessness into my older students. Sort of along the lines of, "Well, if this guy can read his stuff out loud, i can read mine, too!"

So thank the goddess for that.

Meanwhile, I've been spending a huge amount of my down time trying to prep for my last adult class (tomorrow night), trying to come up with new and nutritious ways to serve Shawn food that is in the restrictions of "soft/low-fiber" diets. I mean, Shawn has never been huge on fiber. She doesn't like whole wheat anything, isn't a giant veggie fan, but her stomach is still so sensitive that white rice still seems like a big step up. So, I've been trying to make really tasty egg dishes, introducing her to the wonders of instant oatmeal (I mean, yuck? But, she tried her first bite and was like WHAT IS THIS AMAZING NEW TEXTURE AND TASTE. I had to admit, "maple syrup," because that goo can be pretty tasteless without it.)

I am slowly integrating the good stuff, and I'm finding ways to purėe the hell out of some fruits and vegetables so that she won't die of lack of vitamins while recovering from nearly dying of a blood clot!

But, like this is kind of its own second, full-time job? How did I do this when Mason was a baby? I mean, certainly part of it was that Mason could legitimately eat out of a baby food jar AND DON'T THINK I DIDN'T CONSIDER THOSE FOR SHAWN, especially the fancy, organic stuff you can get at the snooty coops and such.

Hopefully, I can get her back to a regular diet soon. I mean, we graduated to chicken salad today for lunch and that seemed to go well.

At some point, maybe tomorrow, if I have more time, I do want to post some of the other silly stories I ended up writing during class. I can't say that I'm proud of them or that I would finish them for publication or anything like that, but it's nice to be reminded that spontaneous writing can be good for the soul, if nothing else.

Right, to nap!

Oh, and I should say that i only have the luxury to nap because our friend John Jackson came from Michigan to be an extra hand. Today, he ran Shawn's HR forms to the Minnesota Historical Society for me, he's going to pick up bread for dinner, and he's shuttling Mason to and from work for me. Yesterday, I sent him off to get kitty food and kitty liter, and OH MY GOD, WHAT A GIFT. I can actually breathe in between trying to cook two separate meals (I can not make Mason eat gruel), keep up with the dishes, laundry, errands, and teaching two classes. Wha.... how do other grown ups do this without massive amounts of help????

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We Made it Home

2019-07-29T19:40:17Z

Sometime around two o'clock or so yesterday afternoon, we made it home. It's always scary leaving the hospital in a way, since you're no longer under intense care, but being at home means that there are no random beeps or pokes at odd intervals during the night (cats and teenagers notwithstanding.)

My Loft class was a disaster, though I did my flailing best.

The disaster was that, though I had six students on my roster, HALF the class failed to show up, and so i had THREE students. Let me tell you, it is tough to play a room with three, bleary-eyed (my class starts at 9 am) teenagers, ESPECIALLY since my class is structured under the assumption that I will get at least SOME audience participation.

Crickets.

So, that was one of the longest three hours of my life.

I mean, I think the actual information that I gave was useful and possibly vaguely entertaining, but l'm the kind of extrovert that when the class is low-energy, it's a struggle for me to rise above that. My lecture was understandably a little scattered and wandering--more than usual--since my brain was still half at home wondering how I can make the "soft food" diet exciting for Shawn and not send Mason and I into some kind of health crises of our own.

I did write a couple of story starts that I'm tempted to share with you all under the cut. You might be able to guess one of the exercises we did in class based on the story. If you've ever taken a class with me on writing, you know that I love to talk about Orson Scot Card's "cost of magic" which is an idea he put forward in one of his books on writing SF/F. (Yes, OSC is a terrible human being with awful politics, but I loved Ender's Game and think that a lot of his advice on how to write was valuable and not diminished by his odious politics. I won't say "fight me," because, frankly, whatever you have to say on the matter is probably right. Thing is, I bought my copy of Ender's Game before I knew about his politics and I have stuck to my guns and have bought nothing from him since, which is the best way I can think of to protest.) Anyway, I'm pretty sure the thing I do in class is only loosely based on his idea, but we talk about how boring characters who have no weaknesses are and play a "game" (really, brainstorming) that involves making a list of random costs and random "super powers" and then I ask people to write stories based on one of each.

Here's what I ended up with:

( Read more... )

The other story I wrote is much sillier and far more typical of what I usually end up with when I do the writing exercises along with my students. In this exercise, we were asked to use a prompt with character motivations/traits as fill-in-the blanks. Things like: I am____ and I believe it is my destiny to____. I am__, you wouldn't know to look at me, but ____.

The one I chose was I am _____ and my greatest possession is ______.

I decided to fill the sentence in this way:

( Read more... )

That's what teachers write when kids are probably writing something far more brilliant.

And, now I get to figure out what we're going to learn tomorrow. (I have this class every day for a week.)

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Freedom is on the Horizon

2019-07-27T14:59:19Z

For those who would rather skip the details of Shawn's medical condition, the short of it is that the doctors are starting to transition her to HOME.

( What this means EXACTLY and in detail.... )

I'm a little worried about the timing of all this, because, OF COURSE, this Monday (so, day after tomorrow!!) I start teaching my week-long class at the Loft for teens. It's every day, for THREE HOURS (9 am to noon) and normally, I'm like, bah, I can talk for three hours/have things for the students to do, no problem!' but now I'm like, THREE HOURS??? HOW DO I EVEN DO??' I've been scrambling for some good writing exercises because one way I can do is to let the students write on their own for a good, long while....

But, while I'm worried about filling class time, I'm EVEN MORE WORRIED that the doctors will be like, "Oh, discharge? Monday at 10 am." Hopefully, they can be flexible if they do decide that, because, for those just tuning into my life, we only have one car in our family and, basically, only one driver. (Mason is learning and Shawn _can_, but she doesn't really like to drive, and, anyway, no one sane would let the patient drive herself home.) I mean, there are Lyft and friends who could potentially help, but I'd also really like to be there to hear all the instructions for home care, etc., etc.

BUT, even if the timing ends up being super-inconvenient to me, I'm just so, so, SO glad we seem to be nearing the end of this nonsense.

Yesterday, Mason came up with a perfect metaphor. This long hospital stay has been like one of our family road trips without ANY of the good parts. We're all stuck in a small space together, but going nowhere. To be fair (and why this metaphor is actually fairly accurate), is that despite what it might sound like, our family actually does very well together in small, cramped spaces for extended periods of time... but, we are starting to hit our limit.

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More Medical Nonsense, but Progress

2019-07-26T13:42:57Z

For those following along on Shawn's details, the information will be under the cut. ( Medicial TMI, probably, but some may want it )

I left the hospital to teach class. Given that, it went pretty well. I have a generally great group of students, despite one, who yesterday, decided to tell me he "didn't buy it" about the idea that protagonists need to protag, and that conflict should rise (internally and externally) as the story progresses. To me, that seems kind of basic? But, I guess his favorite book is Great Gatsby, which I pointed out is not science fiction (or a book, frankly, that MOST people read for fun,) but, yeah, okay, there are always exceptions. Not sure why he decided to challenge me, but I'm not going to say 'my way or the highway' because this is writing and everyone does it differently and different things work for different readers.

That was just annoying, however, because I have zero f*cks to give right now.

Dude was lucky that I didn't just smile and say, "So... how many books have you published, then?" But, I wasn't ENTIRELY raised in a barn and that would not be productive. Beside, maybe he will prove me wrong and write an amazing book where nothing happens, the protagonist is only ever acted on, and there is zero internal or external conflict.

Only one more class to teach, but, unfortunately, Monday I start my teen class. Shawn is likely to still be here so that sucks.

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Cosplay Friday

2018-08-03T13:43:39Z

I'll be doing light cosplay today at my Loft Class.

We made some off-hand comment about cosplay. When the students found out that I've cosplayed in the past, they were like "Do it! Bring it!" and we all know that if you agree to such a challenge, you really need to follow through to the best of your ability.

Particularly when dealing with teens.

But, now I have arrived at class and realized that I have forgotten a critical part of my shinigmai uniform at home! The kosode! I have a captain's haori, but gah! I'm wearing it anyway.

The other challenge of today is that it's a wrap-up day. As in, "let's talk about anything we didn't previously cover." So, it's going to be the least prepared, by its nature. But, I will be teaching it dressed as Aizen, so I will have all the narcissistic confidence of a GOD.

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Yesterday Went Well, So Going for the Same Model....

2018-08-02T12:56:37Z

...which means I'm sitting at the coffee shop this morning, wondering exactly HOW I should structure the next three hours of my life, a.k.a, my Loft class.

Today's entry on the syllabus reads:

Day Four: Calling a Rabbit a Smeerp and Other Problems of World-Building

World-building is more than just giving things we already know weird-sounding names, because how annoying is it to be reading about something called a smeerp that looks and behaves exactly like a rabbit, even though it’s supposed to be the native life of the planet C-43? If the class is interested, we may pull out a few (and only a few, because, man, is that list extensive!) of Pat Wrede’s world-building questions to see what answers we would come up with—both as a reflection of the work we’re already doing or as story/world idea prompts. Beyond working with her thoughts, we’ll also discuss our own tricks and tips for building believable fantasy and alien worlds.

Sounds pretty good, but these students chew through material like hungry wolves.

On the other hand, spending some time just talking about worlds that they love and why they love them--with this class--is often a gold mine. I have to say that I've been extremely lucky. I have some of the most out-going students that I've had in a long time. And, a really decent percentage of people who want to share. Even some of the people who won't read their writing out loud (which is... let's admit it, even *I* hate doing that from time to time) still contribute ideas to class.

Yesterday went really very well, too. So fingers crossed that I can keep up this winning streak for another couple of days.

The last class is Friday and then I drive home, pick up my family, pack up the car, and we head to Siren, Wisconsin to hang out at a friend's cabin. Sounds like just in time, too. It's supposed to start getting warm again.

I have to say that I've been LOVING this cooler weather. Good sleeping weather, and I think that's actually one of my concerns today. I actually got enough sleep last night and now I feel kind of... well, like I'd rather STILL be sleeping. And, my ability to roll with the class and lead them and teach, entirely depends on the energy I have to give. I got myself some food, though, and a coffee, so I should be okay.

Wish me luck again! It worked last time.

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Happy Lammas!

2018-08-01T12:57:44Z

I'm at the coffee shop early trying to prep for class, but I keep getting distracted by my review blog. (A couple of comments came in while I was sitting here).

I decided to go to a movie last night with friends (Ant-Man and the Wasp) and that was fun, but now I'm feeling a little crispy around the edges because I stayed up later than I normally would. I also feel wildly unprepared for class.

I probably haven't managed to mention this earlier (see above blog about how insanely busy July has been), but I've been teaching a week-long science fiction/fantasy class at the Loft called "Not Just the Zombie Apocalypse." It's part of their teen summer program. My attendance is once-again extremely healthy. I have 16 teenagers, all of whom are willing to show up for an 9 am class, and, on top of that, all of whom have been (crossing fingers that this trend continues) enthusiastic participants.

BUT, because of said enthusiasm, I've been tearing through material in class.

I'm ahead of my synopsis by about a day--so I'm thinking today is going to have to cover stuff I hadn't planned on doing, so that we can match back up/get back on track. I think to that end, I'm going to loop back to character design/development. We touched on it only briefly earlier, so it's time to go back to that.

This means, of course, that I don't have writing prompts ready to roll and I'm doing that last-minute scramble to find fun ideas.

Sometimes I wonder how i survive.

In this case, I survive because it really takes almost nothing to get my class talking. In fact, I intend to start to day getting them to list some favorite/memorable characters. Then, we're going to do some deep thinking about why these characters stood out: was it just their story? Was it some unusual personality trait? Was it they way they "talked" (aka the narrative voice)? Was it a special ability we all wish we had (world's greatest detective/wizard/etc.)?

I think we'll do some thinking about how do you make characters distinct from one another. We'll talk about how important (or not) physical description is, naming, dialogue quirks, etc. I think maybe I'll ask them to do an exercise where they write dialogue between two characters without ANY dialogue tags or "blocking" with the express purpose of focusing on making voices distinct enough to be recognizable without the 'he said/she said tags." (And then we'll have to discuss why huge blocks of dialogue like that are actually a TERRIBLE idea in actual fiction. :-)

Okay, I'm feeling better. I'm going to head out so I can get there early and settle in.

Maybe I'll also grab a second cup of coffee for the road.

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What the...? Where Did this Month Go...?

2018-07-12T17:51:53Z

Well, CONvergence has been over for almost a week now and I never managed to write-up my con report. All I can say to that, is that this week STARTED with me showing up to my library gig at New Brighton at quarter to five on Monday only to hear them announce that the library would be closing in fifteen minutes....

Luckily, it wasn't that I had completely missed my shift, BUT that I'd showed up a day early.

OMG.

I had somehow mentally shifted my entire week in my head, because then I also had a panic about a talk I'd agreed to give at the University of Minnesota, which I suddenly worried conflicted (it didn't. That was last night, Wednesday.) The only good thing that came out of that is that one of my colleagues at work might have me come to her library science class at St. Kate's and have me talk about manga/anime for libraries, which would be neat.

Last night, I was a guest at "From Rocket Ships to Gender Politics." There were only about 11 students, so that was a pretty perfect size, and they had all just finished reading Neal Stephenson's SNOW CRASH, which was a nice segue into my version of cyberpunk. I only feel a little badly because I am a very bombastic personality (Scorpio with a Leo Rising, heavy on the Leo Rising!) and I pretty much dominated the classroom discussion for 2 and a half hours. I gave away various copies of books that I had lying around, which was great. I'm almost nearly entirely out of RESURRECTION CODE hardcopies.

But, that was a good time. I had initially expected to only have to carry 45 minutes or so of the class, but we were having too much fun and I ended up staying longer and longer. :-) In fact, I ended up staying all the way through and even listened to the class discussion of SNOW CRASH, which was interesting, since I haven't tried to re-read that book since it came out.

Okay, so, backtracking to CONvergence....

My CONvergence was fairly good. It ended on a down note for me, but that was kind of me just feeling like a fraud/loser who hasn't published anything since 2013 (which is accurate, but mostly I don't feel the loser/fraud part so keenly.) I think having two panels in a row about literary awards is what caused that, alas.

One of the first things that happened when I got to con on Thursday was that I ran into my old editor (now writing colleague) Laura Anne Gilman. Laura Anne and I ended up hanging out together, getting coffee, and generally having a great time chatting about state parks and road trips and things like that. I mean, I never know how she feels about me, but, this many years later, I have nothing but fond memories. I ended up following her to her panel on "How to Say 'No' to Your Editor." I probably embarrassed her by publicly commenting that I thought that her editorial letter, while LONG, actually made my novel better. Which is all true, and it's not like sucking up to her NOW would help my career any.

From there I had a panel, which I moderated, on DEATH NOTE a manga which has spawned a zillion adaptations, including an American remake for Netflix. I thought that panel went very well. I think it helps that I reread the entire manga a few days earlier, so all the character interactions were fresh in my mind.

I did a lot of bumming around at con this year because I was semi-chaperoning three teenagers: Mason, his girlfriend, and their mutual guy friend. So, I took them all out to dinner and whatnot and ended up watching part of the "Infinity War" panel with them. But, while waiting for my teens to get their acts together, I ran into opalsong and talked fandoms and the various things she's been podcasting. I made Thursday an early night, though. I think we were all home by 8pm-9pm.

Friday I had a 9:30 am panel. I saw Eleanor having breakfast in the hotel restaurant and so I crashed her table for a few minutes (and an extra cup of coffee) before my panel. Anne Lyle was there so we ended up talking about the World Cup and some of the other differences between American and U.K. life.

My panel, another one that I moderated, seemed to also go pretty well. This one was about Timothy Dalton as Bond and I think we ended up with a fairly lively discussion, despite the early hour.

At some point later, I ended up at "Judging a Book By its Cover." CONvergence always has this track of panels that are really more like entertainment, Villification Tennis, Power-point Karaoke, the Poetry Slam, etc. This one is one that Mason and I have seen before and it is almost always quite hilarious, even if the 'panelists' flail, because the covers they find for it are always worth the price of admission. But, the performers were all amazing, so it was very entertaining.

I spent a LONG time sitting on the floor near the costuming atrium near the pool/cabana area chatting with Ty Blauersouth about... kind of everything, which was lovely.

Then, I was one of the judges for the Poetry Slam, which went very well. It was enough fun that I think I'm going to try to catch it next year, even if I'm not a participant.

The final panel of Friday for me was another one I moderated which was the Chuck Tingle fan panel. I'm not sure how well that one went, but the audience seemed to enjoy it as one of them gave me a "good job" ribbon afterwards (which is only ironic since I really felt like I'd flailed around a lot.) But, I mean, the subject matter alone is fairly entertaining, so there is that.

Saturday was my off day, but I did get to have lunch with naomikritzer and Ms. Shannon Paul, which prompted me to hit the comedy show to watch Ms. Shannon perform, which was, by far, the highlight of my day.

I ended up skipping con entirely on Sunday because I was WORN OUT.

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I Literally Just Sat Down...

2017-04-13T18:42:22Z

Feels like that, anyway.

As class ended last week, one of my students asked me if I "do" CONvergences and I was all flippant and said, "Of course, of course..." and might even have SOMEHOW managed to let slip that I'm a former GoH. He takes all this in stride and says, "Yeah, I'm hoping to actually be on programming for the first time this year," and starts making it sound like he's already getting his schedule. Suddenly, my heart is in my throat and I think, "!" and I think, "!!" and then, "!!!" and then: "OH GOD, DID I EVER EVEN ACTUALLY TELL THE GUEST LIASON THAT I WANTED TO COME THIS YEAR??

CONvergence should not have been that far from my mind. My BFF Naomi is going to be one of the literary GoHs and I was asked to write her bio. Mason, my son, has only been having crafternoons with his cosplay buddies for the last several weeks, building their costumes for CON. So, it's not like I could possibly have forgotten that CONvergence was coming, but somehow I FORGOT THAT CONVERGENCE WAS COMING.

In an utter panic on Tuesday night at like 10:30pm, I dug up the email asking if I was coming to con. (Thank you, Gmail, for never making me delete anything, ever!) There is was, FROM JANUARY, very politely asking if I could please let them know my attendance for 2017. I hit reply so hard and typed out a desperate, apologetic, OMG PLEASE STILL TAKE ME I AM SO ASHAMED I AM REPLYING 4 MONTHS LATER message. Thank goodness the CONvergence folks are flexible and professional and accommodating even to pathetically forgetful old ladies like me. So I will have a badge! *whew!*

That settled, my next freak out was about paneling. The way my student was talking I was half-convinced final schedules were going out and that panels were all already filled. Plus, a couple of my twitter peeps were talking about the annual midnight slash panel in a way that ALSO made it sound like maybe it was already scheduled and my panic level kept rising. I was fairly convinced I had MISSED THE BOAT. COMPLETELY. So, I shot off an email to programming, who were very nice but a little confused at my panic and wrote (paraphrasing here), "Uh, we only just opened it? Here's a link: http://panels.convergence-con.org."

Deep breath.

I am happy to say that I've since filled out my programming form and should be set. I got the little acknowledgment email, so unless the universe conspires against me, I should be in the programming matrix somewhere. That is good enough for me. At least I didn't miss the deadline. I really was convinced I had.

So yeah, class. I have to say I have always been tremendously lucky when it comes to my Loft classes. I can really only think of one, very early group, that I would have categorized as 'meh.' That was the class that, when I asked them what their favorite science fiction or fantasy novel was, told me, almost to a person, that they didn't have time to read and/or "weren't big readers." After that group, I started making sure to have at least one part of my lecture series entitled, "So you want to write? THEN YOU'D BETTER F*CKING READ."

I also started assigning readings after that class. With the Loft, I can't actually _assign_ anything. I put it on the syllabus and I *strongly* encourage people to read the stories if they have time, but the majority of my students work full-time (and have families, etc.) This year I have one student (besides myself) who is faithfully reading the stories. We're going through some of the Nebula nominees right now, so we've read, ‘‘Welcome to the Medical Clinic at the Interplanetary Relay Station│Hours Since the Last Patient Death: 0’’, Caroline M. Yoachim (Lightspeed 3/16) and ‘‘This Is Not a Wardrobe Door’’, A. Merc Rustad (Fireside Magazine 1/16). I actually highly recommend LISTENING to the podcast of "Welcome..." It's a kind of a chose-your-own adventure and the narrator pauses in a way that, I think, makes it a little easier to parse? I'm not sure, but, the point is, I really enjoyed it as an audio story. The structure of it makes me think it'd be harder to read, I guess. (Though, admittedly, I did not try.)

it's interesting that one of my students (one who had to dropout, actually,) was talking about how difficult it is to sell portal fantasy. I think that's still true for novels, perhaps, but there are two stories on the Nebula ballot that are portal fantasy related, Rustad's and Seanan McGuire's "Every Heart a Doorway" (novella). I see that I can listen to McGuire's... hmmm, I might have to consider that option. Naomi was telling me about the plot of that one and it sounds like... well, it sounds like parts were problematic, but that it's still a good read.

At any rate, the point is my class is great. I love teaching the advance class though I have not quite hit my stride with lectures. Usually, by this point (this was the third class) I've had a talk where I thought, "yes, that was good information. I have given them INSTRUCTION!" That has not happened yet for this class. I think, in some ways, it's because they're all active writers and therefor, my peers. I feel less beholden to pass on INSTRUCTION! to my peers, you know? And I think that sense creeps in when I start to stand in front of them. Last time, in fact, I was supposed to talk about character building but instead ended up asking each of them about their process--where they started, what hit them first. I think this next time I'm just going to have to confess that this class has turned into a round-table. :-)

If we weren't doing a lot of critique, I think my evaluations would suck this time around. But, luckily, the majority of class is critique and that's like high-intensity learning that covers All The Topics.

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Just Enough to Be Dangerous

2015-04-23T14:46:47Z

That's how much science I told my students they needed to know. (Also your magic needs rules).

That pretty much summed up class. We have come to the point where it has dawned on my students that the true value of the class is in the last hour of instructor/peer critique. In fact, I'm certain they figured it out because the ones who had never volunteered previously all asked me suddenly if there was a way to slip them in to the schedule (now that we're literally at the half way point). And, the answer is, of course, yes: I will lecture less and we will critique more.

My insights into writing are just that: mine. And we all know that there are as many ways to write properly as there are writers writing.

It's so much more valuable to have people talking to you, directly, about your work and helping you do what it is you're trying to do. So much more. I'm super glad they all twigged to that. Of course, if anything, this means I'm going to be working HARDER--because critique is time consuming when done as instruction. But, I think the students are all going to come away very satisfied and feeling like class was time (and money) was well spent.

So, yay. And they all behaved admirably again too. Only once did I need to say, "Okay, but you need to say something you liked about the piece. It's part of the structure of how we do critique and one of the rules."

The problem wasn't that there weren't nice things to say to the student being critiqued last time, as I told him after class, the problem was that his prose was at such a high level that it became invisible to the reader. They fell, head first, into his story, and so they wanted to nitpick the EVENTS of the story, and had a hard time remembering that the amazing thing was that the story captured them SO PROFOUNDLY (even as they ran up against things they didn't like.) Adorably, he looked at me and asked, "So I don't suck?" I was like, "Oh, honey, no. So much no. You're writing at at a professional level." He blinked, "You mean it? I could sell this?" I said, "Yes, some day, you WILL."

I don't say this lightly. I have been wrong, of course. But, I've also been right.

Speaking of being wrong, I really didn't expect to enjoy Jeff VanderMeer's ANNIHILATION as much as I did. As I was telling Mason, it kind of reads like Myst come to life...only weirder. Normally, I'd have told you that this book reminds me of some of those trippy movies where it turns out in the end that the "hero" is a psych ward patient, but a) that's not at ALL what happens and b) while it does have that style, which I normally don't like at all, coming off PEOPLE IN THE TREES (which I hated), I found this really awesome, refreshing, and clever.

As an aside, I've noticed that women writers rarely forget women's periods, but men, even ones writing in a female p.o.v., always do. There was actually no reason for the author of THE PEOPLE IN THE TREES who was writing a faux memoir from a guy's point of view to ever mention the one female explorer's period, but she finds a way. Our doctor "hero" manages to come across the female explorer's unburied, bloodied feminine supplies and is horrified by the fact that they're just laying there, destroying the pristine jungle's greenness with their awful white and blood-red. He doesn't much like her anyway, but this kind of seals the deal.

Meanwhile, though, TBF, it's only a matter of weeks that the events of ANNIHILATION takes place in, our heroine, never even worries about what she'll do when that time comes. She doesn't even think about what supplies she might need, even though she's in the middle of an (alien) wilderness. Despite the fact, also, that the entire crew is female, periods never come up. Which only struck me because there is, in fact, a lot of discussion about supplies. A similar packing-for-a-possibly-suicidal-adventure scene in THE GIRL IN THE ROAD is all about, "I wonder how many periods I'll have, and what I should use when I have them?" Similarly, THE BOOK OF THE UNNAMED MIDWIFE could be subtitled, "F*ck, I still have to deal with my period in the apocalypse (and worse, while I'm trying to pass as a dude)." The heroine in that is always scouting for a pharmacy, not only for medicine, but also for tampons.

To be complete, periods never once came up in MEMORY OF WATER or Cherie Priest's MAPLECROFT DISPATCHES. So, it's not all women, all the time... and I'm certainly not implying that *not* mentioning a women's period is some kind of sin of omission. Certainly, I don't think about mine all the time (and I'd rather not think about yours, thank you very much, especially when there's something more interesting to talk about... which is pretty much anything.) But, I don't know. I guess I might expect it to come up when planning a trip or thinking about surviving in an unknown wilderness where there are no pharmacies to restock from... and maybe if these other women hadn't mentioned it, I wouldn't notice when it's not there.

It certainly isn't this important, but I will tell you I'll be looking for it other places, gods help me. :-)

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Flu and Such

2015-04-16T14:49:04Z

Some time yesterday afternoon, the rumbling in my guts finally stopped... just in time for me to get ready to teach my Loft SF/F writing class.

I can't say my lecture was terribly coherent or useful, but we had our first critique and my students are all 100% amazing, no kidding. Not only was everyone intelligent and civil, but they also all hit the same notes as I had. So, I feel very in sync with these folks. And, honestly, I suspect, for them, the class just paid for itself, because there is no bigger boost to your writing skills, IMHO, than getting real, helpful critique from peers and a mentor (and learning how to look at work with a critical eye.)

But, as promised, I'm going to try to reconstruct a more cogent version of my lecture for them here, on my blog. We were discussing characters and how you create them. I've talked about this a bit before: "What's My Motivation? Creating Character Through Narrative Voice.", "Narrative Voice (An Epiphany about Adjectives)" and then I apparently once had a grammar aneurysm over Omniscient Point of View: Grammar GeekFest and More About Bob

As I flailed around in class, I hit a lot of things that I talked about in these blog posts, so go ahead and read through them if you like, since apparently much of what I think is true about writing hasn't much changed over the intervening years.

I did manage to pass on that other tidbit that I probably wrote about at some point, too, which is the idea that EVERYTHING, absolutely EVERYTHING you write should be in service to plot. In terms of character, I specifically mentioned the idea that an author should cultivate a narrative voice that creates atmosphere and mood, something that hooks the readers into the FEEL of the plot (sometimes without their conscious knowledge). Literary writers, what with all their focus on word choice, are trained to do this better than genre writers are, but I think we're certainly capable of it to one degree or another.

...

Oh dear. It seems my brain isn't very coherent this morning, either. Well, I'll keep pondering this until next class and if I have other thoughts on character, I'll post them.

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