Day in the Life of an Idiot

Image: con material--program book, table tent, pen and notebook


Friday Night
I will not bury the lead. Thank you to everyone who wished me luck with logistics. I MADE IT TO THE CON IN PLENTY OF TIME.

I got an email from a friend shortly after I posted my pre-con report on Friday afternoon, letting me know tht 494 was so backed up that a trip that should take 11 minutes was taking 36. So, I absolutely should NOT wait until 5 pm to head out if I wanted ot get there in time. This prompted me to call Shawn who also realized that she had a meeting with the Board of the Friends of the LIbrary (her volunteer gig) at 4:30 pm so she actually couldn't stay at work as long as she wanted to, anyway. Our compromise was that I would pick her up at 3:45 pm. That gave me plenty of time to get her back home and get ready to head out.

The highway was pretty awful. But when I left it was only just after 4 pm, so I had an hour and some change before I needed to panic. Thus, when I hit the slowdown near the interchange, I just went into my Zen driving mode. I listened to the songs on the radio and just let the ebb and flow of the stop and start just be whatever it was going to be. I often have a weird amount of patience for traffic jams? The thing is, there is really no point to getting upset (unless you are late and/or you really need to pee or something) because you can't make the traffic move any faster by yelling at it. I mean, don't get me wrong. I absolutely have also spent plenty of traffic jams yelling and fretting. Sometimes it's cathartic to just tell everyone else on the road how stupid they are. But this time I was able to just relax into it... and so I made record time. Somehow managed to get to the hotel by 4:30 pm.

The upside is that it gave me a chance to orient myself.


Image: an inflatable saucer, in the atrium, pool side, if you will.

For those of you less familiar with this convention, this was the first time (I believe) that Minicon has returned to a hotel that used to host us nearly since time immemorial. I have spent so much of my local con life in this particlar hotel (since, for a while it also hosted CONvergence) that I actually dream about its architecture. It's nooks and crannies are all well known to me. The only draw back to this 'muscle memory,' if you will, is that I still have, in my mind, a map that no longer perfectly overlays the current configuration, ala, "Dealer's room = this spot, programming = these rooms, Con Suite = this place."

Because of this, while I likely would have had plenty of time to actually get some food at the con suite, I ended up wandering around aimlessly. The good news is that I had a chance to check out the dealer's room a bit, say hello to a number of my panelists who were handselling their books, and figure out where my panel actually was. I talked to a couple of friends that I never see anywhere other than cons, specficially Greg J. who apparently spent his vacation last year bicycling all the way to Duluth which is hella impressive to me. He was very demure. "I took it easy. I only biked 40 miles a day." Meanwhile, I was thinking I would be exhausted after mile 5, but, honestly, good for him. It's absolutely the kind of thing I would enjoy if I could actually bike for that long and that far.

Of course, just as I was heading into my panel I ran into Eleanor A. and Ruth B. who invited me to dinner with them, but, at that point, it was about fifteen mintues until the start of my panel, and so I had to decline.

My first panel was "On Learning How to Write," and I was moderating.

I have to admit that some weird vibe was in the air for me for this whole convention. I only had ONE panel that rose above "meh" for me and at least two that I might classify as "unmitigated disasters."

"On Learning " fell into the 'meh' catagory and, I guess, as the moderator, I only have myself to blame. I thought the panelists were will chosen. We had a wide range career options--self-published, small press, and traditionally published. There was a time in my career when I might have been snotty about the fact that I, a PROFESSIONAL, was seated at the table with anyone who wasn't also traditionally published, but it's not 1998 anymore and lots and lots and lots of people I respect (including many of the folks on that panel with me) are having hybrid careers and/or are making a very fine living as small press or self-published authors. Lois McMaster Bujold and Ursula Vernon self-publish these days, for crying out loud. SFWA accepts self-published authors. The lines--which never needed to be there in the fist place--have been blurred to the point of zero distinction: Writers are writers.

I bring this up because it felt to me like Wesley Chu, who was Minicon's Guest of Honor this year, seemed a little prickly about these distinctions. He seemed to keep wanting to tell us how many books he has out, generally. More speficially, when the question of beta readers came up he seemed to want to go on and on about how beta readers are worthless because they're just some randos. At this point, I may have leaned into the microphone to note that my beta readers aren't randos. Not only are they people I trust and RESPECT but a number of them are multiple Hugo award winners--so maybe Wesley just needed a better set of friends.

Do I regret this in the sober light of day?

No, actually, I do not.

First of all, I also have beta readers who are not award-winners who are amazing and for WHOM I WOULD DIE FOR. I chose them because they understand me and my writing and I have read their writing and/or respect and admire their experise and intellect. My beta readers--ALL OF THEM, including those who beta read my fanfic--have HELPED ME IMPROVE MY CRAFT, full stop.

Second, do not dis the experise of the other panelists on my watch.

I will have you know that Ozgur Sahin is an award-winning author; Douglas Van Dyke is an award-winning author; Deb Kinnard had already started the panel out with a whole thing about "not being smart enough to be a science fiction author" and "only" being a romance author. (DEB I TOO AM A ROMANCE AUTHOR, HOW ABOUT WE DON'T.) Guy Stewart, who I know less about, had just finished telling a lovely story about how his DAUGHTER is his beta reader and I'm sorry. But I  don't care how many books you've had published, no one gets to call anyone's child a 'rando' or imply that they don't contribute in a meaningful way. My son has helped me work on my novels, including traditionally published ones.

So, yeah, that one probably could have gone better.

If there were extra prickly feelings afterwards, it's entirely my fault. I did pull Ozgur aside afterwards to ask what he thought of the panel (and spectifically our GoH's performance on it.) Ozgur had a generally a better sense of it and was much more willing to chalk some of the comments up to Imposter Syndrome and general nerves than I was. By chance, later, one of the audience members I ran into  said that they thoughs that particular panel was very encouraging, so at least I got across what I wanted the panel to be about--which is that there are lots of ways to learn the craft and none of them are wrong (or right, for that matter.) If you are writing you should do whatever feels right for you. Get words down on the page. That's the most important thing. And, to be fair to Wesley, he also reiterated that sentiment several times.

I will say that I went into the next panel I had with Wesley on Saturday fully willing to give him a second chance, but that panel was one of the two near unmitigated disaster panels, so.... more on that later.

To finish up Friday--I ended up finally making it over to the con suite to get some food. I ran into Mike S. there and his friend Tom (whose last name I have forgotten, if I was ever told it.) They both got up and started to leave, so I asked if they could have their table. They said yes, but then talked about going somewhere else to talk and I said, "Well, stay here! I would love your company." I think they were both surprised by this? But, I like Mike a lot. I got to know him a bit outside of convention space when I was regularly working at the Maplewood Library. We would run into each other there and talk about the books he was checking out, etc. Plus, he and I are mask buddies? In fact at one point on Saturday when we had finished eating at the potato/taco bar at the GIS room, he reminded me when it was time to mask back up. Plus, he and Tom are both interesting guys. Once Micheal Mirriam joined us, the talk turned to airplane near-accidents, and I learned that Tom was in the navy in (and I'm guessing here because he didn't say, but it sounded like probably) Vietnam. I loved hanging out with all of  them, and not only did we gather Michael M, but also pegkerr so it felt very much like a classic Minicon moment.

It felt like time to drift back towards the programming area and so I stood around near registration with Adam Stemple, Ari S., and Delia I.  Adam and were loud and boisterous (like we are--I later joked that we can easily be found by "echolocation," although in our case, you just follow the vibrations of our LOUDNESS until you spot us.) Eventually, it was time to go to naomikritzer 's panel on "The Female Gaze." The people on that panel did a good job, though I will confess I was not all that invested in the topic. I was there to see Naomi. We connected after for a little bit, which was nice, but I was turning into a pumpkin, so I didn't stay terribly long after.

This is getting a bit long and the next section on Saturday is likely to be even longer, so I'm going to break these in two. 

How do I keep missing posting earlier in the week???

Sorry about that, everyone! I will try to be better going forward. Well, since it's What Are You Reading Wednesday again I might as well catch you all up on that. Let's see, I did, finally, out of guilt (and the library harassing me to return their books) make a decent dent in my TBR pile. I still have more books out and unread than I probably should and I returned several without finishing them... but the pile is smaller, and I did actually find a couple of gems.

The surprise gem for me in the bunch is a manga called My Love Mix-Up by Hinekure Wataru (writer) / Aruko (artist), which I assumed was shoujo, but which turned out to be stealth Boys' Love.

The basic story is a classic romcom, only with a REAL love triangle (instead of a love-Y,) and thus at least 1/3 gay.

Our hero, Aoki, has a crush in class--the girl who sits across from him Hashimoto. Hashimoto is, honestly, a delight. Often in these stories where there's a chance for two guys to get together the women are non-entities or worse. Hashimoto is perky and charming and Aoki is in love with her because she's just really, honestly very kind. So, it's no surprise that when the pop quiz is announced and Aoki realizes he's forgotten his eraser, Hashimoto loans him hers. Erasers in Japanese high schools have their own huge culture, including as "love charms" where girls (and sometimes boys) will write the name of their un requited crush on it and carry it around, sort of a homemade version of what you might get at a shrine. So...  Hashimoto's eraser has another dude's name it! It reads: Ida <3. Our poor hero is immediately heartbroken. Worse, the guy that his love interest likes is the very one who sits in front of him! In his distraction, Aoki drops the eraser and who should pick it up like the gentleman he is?? IDA.

So, now Ida is staring at this love token with his name on it and assumes it comes from Aoki.

Wacky hijinks ensue.

When I was reading this, I thought a lot about the general problem with the miscommunication trope, because in many ways this story depends on people holding on to the wrong idea. However, for me, at least, this issue was mitigated by an author who seemed aware that readers lose patience and start yelling "Just talk to him, damn it!" if you push things too far. So, the first complication to "just tell him it's not your eraser" is extraordinarily Japanese, which is that Aoki doesn't want to embarrass Hashimoto in front of her crush RIGHT BEFORE A POP QUIZ. So, he grabs the eraser back from Ida and says, "Can we talk after school? I need to explain this to you." (Which, hilariously, is often code for "I'd like to give you my love confession"--love confessions are their own huge thing in Japanese high school culture, and savvy readers immediately understand how Ida gets the wrong idea.)

Aoki is ON HIS WAY to tell Ito the truth when Hashimoto corners Aoki and makes him PINKY SWEAR (also its own huge thing, but pinky swears in Japan are meant to be unbreakable bonds. You do NOT go back on a pinky swear) never to tell anyone what it said on the eraser because she's not ready to confess to her love.

So now Aoki is headed up to the roof with no idea what to say this guy who thinks he's about to give him a love confession. Meanwhile, Ida is like, WTF, what do I do? No one ever confessed to me, and my first is another guy?? How do I feel? I need to treat this with respect, but I really don't think I can date a boy, can I??? All the while, Ida is thinking about all the times he remembers how Aoki shared an umbrella with him (<--another trope that romance readers in Japan see as a sign that someone LIKES you,) etc. So, Ida is working up to saying "Thanks, but I can't," but then Aoki comes up, looking distraught because he's upset that the can't just tell the goddamn truth now and he knows how high school is and he does NOT want it getting out that he's gay, especially since he's not... and so he basically just shouts "FORGET YOU EVER SAW THAT. THERE'S NO CHANCE  FOR US ANYWAY, SO WE'RE DONE HERE, K??" and kind of starts to cry, which Ida immediately thinks is Aoki backing away from his true feelings.

Thus, Ida, being the consummate gentleman, says, "Let me consider my answer carefully" despite the fact there's been no real love confession.

Of course, as the story progresses, Ida slowly starts to fall in love with Aoki (and visa versa). Meanwhile, Aoki tries to be a good wingman to Hashimoto, continuously and humorously screws that up so that he and Ida end up together instead The whole time Aoki's bestie, a guy named Aida is hanging around in the background.

And you see that name, right? You can probably guess the twist coming.

This is where Volume 1 ends, basically.

I didn't want to hunt down all 9 volumes from the library, so when I discovered that there was a live-action tv series somewhere I could watch it (Viki), I decided to go for it. The acting is not bad? As you know, I normally prefer 2-D, but I think my used-to-be-anime-night-but-has-morphed-into-C-Dramas friend has worn me down? Plus, the series kept surprising me. Like, it is so clear that part of why this story works for me is because I have finally read enough of these kinds of romance manga to understand the tropes that they are playing with. The eraser, the expectations of a love confession, the umbrella sharing, the crossdressing for the school play, (and, later in the series, the school trip... the first date....) all of these end up getting subverted and twisted, and yet the author actually treated the boys' romance as sincere, without short changing the female love interest--her story remains central and once Aiko and Hashimoto realize they are NOT rivals (another trope), the two of them become confidants, etc. in a really loving way.

The series is complete in nine volumes, which seems to translate perfectly for about 10 episodes of a TV series. I finished the TV series yesterday and am happy to report that the whole thing is charming from beginning to end. 10/10 would recommend. 

Then, I realized that I'd accidentally ordered an e-book from St. Paul which showed up in my in-box and since reading a manga this way (on loan AND on line) was novel, I gave it a go, despite the fact that the manga was a baseball light yaoi... and I am a really tough sell on sports manga. This one was called RePlay and it was by Tsukahara Saki. I don't have a lot to say about this one, other than the fact that there are occasionally romances (and, I feel like particularly yaoi,) where I look at the behavior of the couple and my brain starts screaming that if this were real life I'd be yelling: "RED FLAG! RED FLAG!" in the protagonist's face. Our hero, Yuta, spends his summer busting his chops to get into the same college as his love interest, which would be fine--but it's clearly the other guy's pick because there are programs there for him and Yuta TURNS DOWN A POSSIBLE BASEBALL SCHOLARSHIP to do it.

Don't do this in Real Life(tm), kids, he's never worth it.

The other one I got through last week was Volume 1 of Lord Hades’s Ruthless Marriage by Yuho Ueji which was a silly retelling of the Greek myth of Hades and Persephone, without the kidnapping (and instead, the interference of Cupid, aka the embodiment of Evil Twink Energy.) See my official review to see what I mean about Cupid (this one needs picture evidence): https://mangakast.wordpress.com/2024/03/07/hades-sama-no-mujihi-na-konin-lord-hadess-ruthless-marriage-by-yuho-ueji/ .

One of the manga (actually, in this case manhwa,) I ended up returning without doing more than a light skim was called 7Fates: Chakho by HYBE. It was very pretty, being in full-color, but I tapped out on the idea of "beom," which were just sort of otherworldly monsters that this group of extremely hot dudes are hunting. I mean, normally this is exactly my jam? I can not point fingers at hot monster hunters, given that I'm a Bleach fan. I guess I just wasn't in the mood for it. Plus, sometimes when you get the overdue notice you just think, "eh, to hell with it, then," you know? 

I think that's everything. I don't think I added anything new to my TBR pile, though I did randomly read a couple short things online, which I'll be writing reviews for later today on my other site:  Akuma no Kare / My Devil Boyfriend by Anything (naop) and After Staring at the Starry Sky by Bisco Kida. 

Akuma no Kare is a one-shot that is almost entirely a Plot-What-Plot, so I'm not sure there's enough THERE to review it, except I may end up talking about how on Baka-Updates someone seems to have gone through EVERYTHING that this author has written in order to give it a one star review, even things that have not been fan translated. This makes me think that's just someone targeting  Bara. Bara manga almost never get scanlated in part because it's written by gay men for gay men, and thus is male-gaze at men and NOT women's fantasies about what queer relationships are like. The art is not slender, hairless, androgynous, pretty bishi men f*cking each other in heteronormative and highly gender-coded ways, but big, burly, manly men being into each other (and the romance tends to be absent in favor of "wham, bam, thank you, man.")

I suspect this "look" offends the main readership of yaoi/ male/male romance, which is to say: women. 

Which just pisses me off. Especially since this means that I don't get to read good bara! 

Otherwise, I have spent the week trying to hunt down fellow authors who might be willing to blurb my newest book. I was telling a friend that this is part of the job that I've grown to hate. I never used to mind it, because I've always been part of an ask culture, so I never get embarrassed asking someone who is perfectly capable of telling me "No thank you." But, that was before, when I had a LOT of writer friends. In the intervening years as Tate Hallaway, I have largely lost touch with the SF "it kids." So I'm now in the position of having to cold call people I don't know at all (and, more importantly don't know ME) and ask them for a favor. I can not say that I like it much. 

I do have some other RPG gaming news, but I'll put that in a separate post (and probably a locked one, since it involves local folks.) The short of it, though, is that I had a really good time playing Old Gods of Appalachia -- an RPG based on the fiction podcast -- with some friends. 

I think that's it. How about y'all? Reading anything good this find Wednesday?

 I should probably friends-lock this in case the student who reached out to me to do this gig in question actually reads my blog, but I feel like that's both generally unlikely and also that maybe I've been losing readers since I started posting my D&D stuff... so I'm not going to. No one is reading this. Plus, what I have to say doesn't reflect badly on anyone but myself.

And possibly not even that. 

Really, this problem is silly. (And to that end: I don't need advice. I just want to sing my complaining song.)

So, okay, context: I get the occasional requests for teaching/speaking gigs just by the nature of being a published author. I'm really down with these? I like talking to people, in public. Unlike my more shy or reserved colleagues, doing a public speaking gig is no skin off my nose and in fact I tend to really dig them. I do a lot of speaking for free, in fact. The gigs that pay me, usually do so minimally.

A little more context: It is important to know, as I revealed in a recent post about my visit to a student's middle school class, I don't really like PRESENTING. I'm not a lecturer. I like the discussion method of teaching, in part because it leans into a skillset that I have perfected and honed over the years, namely: pulling sh*t out of my a$$. This sounds like I'm lazy (which is true to some extent,) but this is also me at my best, FOR REAL I'm more lively and entertaining and... if it's going to happen at all, here is where you might see the occasional flashes of actual brilliance from me. Not to toot my own horn too much, but bullsh*ting my way into a really good lecture is my superpower.

But, so, okay. Here's the complaining song.

I have an upcoming gig this weekend to speak to a writing club. This is one where, initially, they'd hoped to have me in-person. Unfortunately, while the event venue still in the region, this writing club is a hotel night stay away. Due to the fact that part of activating my superpower involves engaging other people in my madness and dragging them along (sometimes kicking and screaming, see: my previous Loft class), I would've considered driving anywhere that was a reasonable day trip for me. Being able to dance around in a physical space does wonders for "class involvement," I've found. Unfortunately, this gig is JUST outside of day trip range. 

Zoom was offered by them as an alternative, so, after considering all of these factors, I agreed... somewhat reluctantly. I tend to like Zoom just fine? I feel less excited when it's something like this, but I can pull my magic trick superpower on Zoom? It just takes some extra effort and a lot of the times the results of Zoom teaching (particularly a one-off like this) just doesn't feel as satisfying. I tend to feel more like I'm babbling than engaging in the "might be brilliant if we keep going and hit on that magic moment" skillset, you know? I don't like to complain about What Is Wrong With Zoom because I have had really excellent classes on Zoom and I'm mad that Zoom is disappearing as an option for many of us, and so the complaining song isn't necessarily about the fact that this class/lecture/gig is now a Zoom thing.

BECAUSE, the real problem is: the venue folks then dropped in how much they were thinking about paying me.

Let me put it in these terms (although this will possibly give you an inflated sense of the amount, since I am actually paid peanuts to teach) but they offered to pay me HALF of what I normally get for a full eight-session course at the Loft.* To me, this is a lot of money. This is nowhere even close to a Neil Gaiman speaks at the library amount of money, but it's not nothing. More importantly for the context of this post... this amount of compensation is edging into the WAIT, SH*T, I SHOULD PROBABLY ACTUALLY PREP BECAUSE THEY'RE EXPECTING SOMETHING WORTH THAT AMOUNT territory for me. 

Aye, there's the rub.

You guys, I think I need to maybe prepare...a thing? Do the kids do Power Point any more? I am not good at this. I am unhappy. Send sympathy and cookies. Until Saturday evening, I will be staring at my screen crying a lot because I swear to all the gods that the second I write out writing advice in black & white it all looks so stupid. "Ya know, write... maybe?"

Is that gem worth this  kind of money??? SEEMS LIKE NO.

I'm screwed.


--
*For context on the payment, one decent hotel night, road food, and a couple of tanks of gas would virtually wipe out the amount they are going to pay me. I would have some change? But not a lot. Add the hassle factor of losing an entire weekend to driving back and forth while leaving Shawn without a car and the change leftover seems even smaller. I will admit that I still considered it? I do these things for free? So, it's not really about the money in that sense, more that now that I'm not paying to travel it feels like a LOT.

 One of the exciting things that happened today that I totally forgot to mention in all my various updatery (Patreon and my newsletter) was that I was interviewed by Cat Rambo as part of the promotion they are doing around The Reinvented Heart Anthology. In a couple of days, Cat expects to have the interview with me up on the Cat Rambo Reinvented Anthology playlist. I will also absolutely drop a direct link when it goes live.

I always feel like I'm rambling? But, Cat says they will clean it up, so fingers cross that I come across vaguely human-ish. 

The interview came at a good time, at least, since I JUST (as in literal minutes earlier) finished writing the story that I'd promised Cat and crew for the next "Reinvented" anthology, called The Reinvented Detective. There is no detective in my story? Though it does deal with crime and punishment, per the submission guidelines. I love this story a lot because it is PRIME Lyda Morehouse weirdness, but I am uncertain that it will actually sell to this particularly market. We shall find out in May, one way or the other.

Other than that, I've been watching at lot of Satoshi Kon movies, actually. The Smithsonian's Museum of Asian Art is in the middle of a virtual film festival of Kon's work, and I've been taking advantage of the free access to finally catch up on Tokyo Godfathers, Millennium Actress, and a documentary of Kon's life called: Satoshi Kon: The Illusionist. My anime-turned-C-Drama friend had shown me his Paprika movie early on and I ADORED it. Paprika is 100% the kind of science fiction I strive to write. (I should probably read the novel is it based on, but I'm not sure if it's been translated. I should look.) I have not seen Kon's Paranoia Agent (which is a TV series,) but I have now picked up and read at least one of his manga, which I'll probably talk about tomorrow.  

Anyway, the virtual film festival has proved so popular that they opened up additional viewings of Perfect Blue (which I ran out an snagged a ticket for) and Tokyo Godfathers. It is a weird thing they are doing because it's free, but they make you get a ticket? I think because they are the Smithsonian/a museum, they're just trying to get a sense of how many people would attend a virtual showing, and since they have sold out, perhaps they are limited in terms of whatever they may have spent to be an official venue for these classic movies. Anyway, check them out, perhaps there are seats left: https://watch.eventive.org/satoshikon

So, that's been kind of fun.

The other thing I've been doing is finally going through a box of junk that I got as part of a stamp collection someone gave away on our neighborhood Buy Nothing group. I say junk, but it's basically a box full of envelopes with stamps on them. The stamps are all of one kind, so I am currently just harvesting them off the envelopes for eventual resale. But, occasionally, there are envelopes that have not been entirely stripped of their contents. The most interesting thing that I've found so far is a Japanese Government-Issued Peso, which was a fiat bill that was produced during the Japanese occupation of the Philippines in WWII. This one is very specifically a 1942 issued ten centavos. 


Image: WEIRD bit of history found in a box of worthless stamps

I was a bit disappointed, after having read the Wikipedia article about these, that this one was not one of the counterfeit bills that the United State government printed in an attempt to destabilize Japan's occupying force. Apparently, those had specific letters printed on them and/or were actually overlaid with propaganda (and then dumped by the bucketful out of airplanes, holy shit)!  

Anyway, I also found a few letters home from 1889, of which only one is interesting because it is clearly in response to an accusation by this person's mother, who is convinced that son(?) talked dad out of an extra $200 loan (on top of the THOUSAND dad had already given him!!) What I found most amusing was the overuse of underlining, which of course made me imagine the whole thing as an ALL CAP email. :-)

The more things change, right?

Okay, I'm off. Hope you all are doing well!

 Periodically, I think to myself, "I should have a Patreon."

At this point, we are well past the period when all the cool kids were doing it, but I still hear Patreon success stories now and again from writer and artist friends. Honestly, for me, it wouldn't take much for it to be worthwhile, either? I used to make less than a couple hundred bucks a month busting my butt at the library, so anything on par with that would be totally successful in my book. 

Of course, like all writers I know, I swear I have enough impostor syndrome that I am easily convinced that I'd be lucky to get a dollar a month from ANYONE.

That aside, there are a number of things beyond the obvious "I will produce and share x number of pages of a work" kinds of premiums that I think people might like.  

1.  During the pandemic, I started a "fictitious World Tour." I've been sending a random collection of my friends (for whom I had snail mail addresses) postcards from around the world with a little silly note talking about what my ideal vacation would be, if I were actually travelling there. In 2020, these were all real places.  Now that the pandemic has worn on, I started to include space travel and time travel.

 
Image: several different kinds of postcards: a dinosaur, art, and several destinations... including MARS!

Postage prices being what they are I could potentially offer to send a postcard to a donor willing to give me $3 - $5 a month.  For five bucks a month, I could even send postcards internationally. I wouldn't make a huge profit, but I have a lot of postcards lying around.  Also, postcards are easy to MAKE. So, I could also send out some of my silly cartoons of void cat on postcards at some point, too, if I find keeping myself in travel postcards is too expensive.

2. I could also offer the service that I offer a lot of my friends during the pandemic. I could write a no-strings attached (as in, you don't have to reply) snail mail, personal letter once a month. If I did this for Patreon, I would be clear that my intention would NOT be a newsletter or any kind of spam. It would just be letter that would update people on mundane happenings in my life. 

3. Special access to other writing related things?

This is where it starts to break down for me. What things do people WANT as premiums for a Patreon? Pictures of my cats? Sneak peaks of works-in-progress? Fan fiction?  

I should also add that naomikritzer and I are thinking about starting a writing-related podcast, so obviously there could be sneak peaks/early access to that? I mean, that i provided that we actually get that off the ground.

I know some of you have these. Ideas for what works?

Indicative of my day yesterday, I started a "What are You Reading Wednesday?" post, only to discover this morning that I hadn't finished it...it was still sitting here, in a tab, in draft form, on my computer.

*sigh*

I mean, to be fair, I haven't had much to report in terms of reading lately beyond "my Broad Universe mentee's manuscript," but I did finish My Solo Exchange Diary by Nagata Kabi, which I reviewed here: https://mangakast.wordpress.com/2019/02/08/my-solo-exchange-diary-hitori-koukan-nikki-by-nagata-kabi/ Thanks to a VERY QUIET night at Maplewood on Tuesday, I also have a bunch of books being pulled for me at the Ramsey County Library from the most recent Locus Recommended Reading List. So, hopefully, I'll have a better list of things I've read soon.  

Yesterday, I was also unaccountably sad to have heard about Opportunity, the Mars rover.  I know it lasted much longer than expected and it's _just_ a robot, but I feel like maybe a person is a little bit inhuman if they don't shed a small tear at its final communication: "Battery dying. Everything is going dark."  Jesus F*cking Christ, NASA. 

Then, on top of that, this morning I turned on the radio to AM950 and heard about the horrific destruction scheduled for the National Butterfly Center in Mission, Texas, as Trump's bulldozers and border control are seizing PRIVATE PROPERTY with immanent domaine.  I'm planning, on payday, of becoming a member in order to help them fight this, legally... even though I don't have a lot of hope that they'll win. And that's it, the frogs and the butterflies and the tiny little owls are all going to die because we're all a bunch of racist pig-sh*ts.

And, Shawn says to me this morning, "Hey, happy Valentine's Day, BBC is reporting that Taiwan voters rejected same-sex marriage."

It's honestly this sh*t that's going to break me.

Ugh.

In happier news, Mason really enjoys judging debate tournaments. He had one last night, at Washington, and he came home almost giddy with stories of the middle schoolers he critiqued and graded. "I'm SO PROUD of them!" he says to me, beaming. 

Next Monday we go to the informational meeting for PSEO (Post-Secondary Education Opportunities, a program that allows public school students to attend university for free, particularly if there's need--like for Mason, he's exhausted high school math, as of this year. Technically, he was done with the official HS math curriculum last year, but Washington Tech has a "College In Schools" Calc I class that he's in this year.). Mason also talked to his school councilor who is really supportive (especially after his early PSAT scores) of him going full-time PSEO next year. We're still debating the merits and the drawbacks to that, but the idea that Mason could basically be in college next year is kind of amazing. I think it could potentially be really good for him. He's a funny kid. The more rigorous the class, the better his grades tend to be. If he's in any class where there's a lot of busywork that most people would find to be "low-hanging fruit," (ie easily done), he struggles to do it, because he can't see the point. We tease him that he's the only person who get A+s in Calc I, but can barely pass "Independent Living." 

In much happier news, I have a book contract on the horizon.

It's a kind of funny story about how that happened. So, as reported here, Wizard Tower Press has put out an omnibus edition of all 5 of my AngeLINK books. As I was going around posting all the various self-promotion things one does, I came across an email from a fan complaining that she could not get a copy of Song of Secrets a book that Rachel Calish and I wrote together (but which has since been removed by the publisher for various reasons) AND she wanted to know when he heck I was going to get around to publishing that sequel to Precinct 13.

Those who have been following along at home know that i have a large portion of a sequel already written. I was posting it in installments on Wattpad for a while, but then I ran out of steam and never finished it.

WELL. I thought to myself, I wonder if Cheryl Morgan, my publisher at Wizard Tower Press, would be interested in that. Plus, if Cheryl gave me a deadline (and a contract), I might actually get off my depressed BUTT and finish it.  

Turns out, Cheryl was more than willing to send me out a contract... so, I now have a deadline of September 2019 to get things into shape. Should be very doable.

I HAVE NO IDEA WHY I NEVER THOUGHT TO ASK CHERYL BEFORE. Thank you, random complainer! Without you, it would NEVER have occurred to me that I could just see if Wizard Tower Press was up for a new novel by me.

So that's kind of big news. It's not official-Official yet, per se, so I'm not shouting it from the rooftop--but, dang near. I have a draft contract in hand and everything looks very much green to go.

It's crazy, but just having this in the works has lifted a huge weight off my shoulders. I feel like a _real_ writer again.

 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.

It might be the beans and rice I had for lunch (that's a lotta fiber!), but I actually think it's nerves. I just finished a draft of my proposal submission package for Carina Press. A friend of mine is beta reading it RIGHT NOW and I think that's part of my grumbling tummy. I mean I like this novel start. I once read it at a WorldCON reading and there's someone who heard that reading who keeps asking after it. So, I know it doesn't suck on a fundamental level, but breaking through this block I've head is... kinda a big deal, you know?

After she reads it and makes comments, I'll have a couple more days to polish it up. The proposals are due June 4, 11:59 Eastern Time!  So, an hour earlier for me, but still basically I have until late night on Sunday to get it all in working order.  

Nervous?

What, who me?

*GURGLE*

Anyway, I'm distracting myself from watching over her shoulder in Google Docs by writing this... and listening to my stomach gurgling like crazy!

Wow.

I felt inspired to finish up and send it along to my beta reader today because I got some other good writer news. Several months ago, a friend encouraged me to send in a short flash fiction piece to a Queer SF flash anthology, (on the theme of "renewals.') I'm excited to report that I may or may not be a winner, but, regardless, they have selected my piece for inclusion in their anthology. Whoohoo! As their letter to me explains, "This does not mean you are or are not also a winner in the contest - you’ll have to wait to find out. ;) We will be announcing the honorable mentions, runners up, judges choices and winners over the next couple months." So I'm still in the running for the cash prize, too.

A red letter day, I would say if I hadn't recently realized that's a Biblical reference.

Maybe I'll still say it. I mean, I used to write religious stuff, after all.  A RED LETTER DAY.

Despite what's on most people's minds in the SF world today, I ended up over at Kurtis Scaletta's blog talking about failure. Not the culture of "fail" in the SF community, but my own personal f*ck ups.

"My Biggest Failure: Letting the B-st-rds Get Me Down."

Those of you who are regular readers here will have already heard much of what I have to say in the blog. If I have ONE regret, it's that I've sat on my hands for too long.

To that end, I'm happy to report I have a draft of the first book in a three-part comic book script, which I'm intending to hand out at the next Wyrdsmiths. I haven't done much yet about UnJust Cause and what I need to do with that story/novel, BUT I did start a novella about Garnet Lacey that I'm hoping to keep working on. I also have a short story that needs an ending, but that I have several pages on. So, I am starting to write for publication again, too.

Fingers crossed that I continue to be prolific.

I ignore Tate Hallaway a lot.

I think I've always been a little jealous of "her." But, ever since I created her persona, I drag my feet when it comes to things like posting to her Facebook page, Twittering as her, or even opening her gmail account to see what people have written to her.

It's been a couple of months since I checked her gmail account. I'm not proud to have gone that long, but, honestly? Since I've been "between contracts" I get really, REALLY depressed to open fan mail from someone who just discovered Tate and absolutely adores Precinct 13 or one of the Ana books. So, I've been avoiding it kind of subconciously and kind of super-consciously.

Guess what? Tate apparently had an LJ account. LJ deleted her for inactivity.

Wow, I feel like an idiot. Of course, I didn't even remember getting an LJ account for her until it hit me that I'd used it YEARS ago to contribute to the fairies, fang, and fur group LJ... except I was terrible at that too. I actually kind of failed at being Tate a lot. I loved the books I wrote as her, but I really felt fake when I participated on the Internet ast Tate. I should probably delete her from Twitter, too. Because hell if I even remember my password it's been so long since I've check her Twitter account.

I had thirteen friends waiting at Facebook for her too.

Man, I really suck. I must seriously hate my-psuedo-self.