John Philip Santos reveals the secret history of the Texas Rangers. Mass murder of Indigenous and Mexican peoples and bounty hunting escaped slaves were part of their assigned duties. Texas Monthly
Welcome to the first—and last—tipsday of November! Load up on informal writerly learnings and I’ll see you in December. ‘Cause NaNoWriMo.
Black and Indigenous lives matter. All lives cannot matter until Black and Indigenous lives matter.
Wear your masks. Maintain physical distance. Get your flu shot. We are firmly in the second wave and the situation is getting steadily worse. We all have to pull together to survive and protect each other until a vaccine is available.
October has ended. NaNoWriMo has begun. This year has been temporally bizarre. Covid time moves both slower and faster than normal time. Months have passed at a snail’s pace, and then I blink and the next month is gone.
Black and Indigenous lives matter. All lives cannot matter until Black and Indigenous lives matter. Marcellis Stinnette and Jonathan Price were killed by police in October. The RCMP has refused to protect Mi’kmaw fishers and their rights.
I’m so afraid for what will happen, not just in the US, but also to countries and economies all over the world if Trump gets in for a second term. Not a little of my anxiety these days is due to this election.
Pandemic Life
Worldwide, we’re in the second wave. Numbers of infections are exceeding those seen in the spring in many countries are increasing restrictions. While I understand that people are tired, if we don’t recommit to reasonable restrictions like wearing masks in public, maintaining physical distance, washing your hands, and getting your flu shot, governments will have no choice but to implement lockdowns again.
It’s not about inconveniencing you. It’s not about violating your civil liberties. It’s about protecting other people. It’s about preventing the spread of disease.
Do your part.
The month in writing
Having finally finished my rewrite of Reality Bomb in September, I’d hoped to map things out and revise by the end of October. Once again, my ambitions exceeded my capabilities.
I didn’t finish mapping the story until October 20th. When I got to work on revisions, it wasn’t too bad. With eleven days left on the month, I set the goal of revising 30,000 words. I managed 24,714 words, or 82%. I’ve not just been cutting words, I’ve been rewriting whole sections again, so this is not bad. This is also the first month I’ve posted substantial revision numbers all year.
For NaNoWriMo this year, I’m doing the rebel thing again and I’m hoping to revise the remaining 60,000 (and a bit) words. I’ve already cut over 2,000 words from the over 120,000-word draft. I’m hopeful that I’ll be able to tighten everything up and end up with a 90,000-word story that I can present to my critique group. I’m sure there will be further revisions, but this is my short-term goal.
Thanks in part to these long monthly updates, I once again outstripped my blogging goal by 174%. I wrote 6,532 words of my 3,750-word goal.
I also drafted most of my next Speculation column for DIY MFA. I managed to write 840 word of my 1,000-word goal, or 84%.
Overall, I wrote 155% of my writing goal of 4,750 words.
Also, my poem “Visiting Endymion” was published in Polar Borealis 16.
Filling the well
My family did get together for a low-key Thanksgiving at my Mom’s. Even though there were just five of us, we had more than enough food to send everyone home with leftovers.
For my birthday, Phil ordered sushi, I had wine, and we watched a seasonally appropriate movie (more on that, below). I’m a level 51 human now. I still behave like I’m a kid 😛
Virtual event-wise, I started the month with the launch of Ariel Gordon’s Tree Talk on the 1st. On the second, I attended a Carl Brandon Society lecture by Desi authors called Our Literary Mothers.
On the 6th, I attended a talk with Waubgeshig Rice and Eden Robinson in anticipation of the CBC series Trickster, based on Robinson’s books. It’s awesome. You need to watch it. CBC Gem.
I signed up for a series of webinars from Free Expressions. So far, I’ve attended a couple of Donald Maass lectures/workshops, and a Lisa Cron presentation on story and the brain.
I also registered for Surry International Writers’ Conference (SiWC) online, which combined their usual weekend offering with the Writing Excuses virtual retreat. I have to admit that I hit peak zoom saturation on Saturday night, but the recorded sessions will be available for a month for registered attendees. I’ll catch up.
Almost full/blue/hunter’s moon
What I’ve been watching and reading
In the viewing category, the month started off on a lowish note.
We finished Wizards: Tales of Arcadia. It wasn’t as good as Three Below, but it was okay and a better interpretation of Arthurian legend than Cursed.
Season two of The New Legends of Monkey was fun, but dumb. It doesn’t pretend to be anything else.
We watched The Boys, season two, and it was awesome and bloody and surprising, but Lucy traumatized me.
Lovecraft Country blew my freaking mind. I’ve seen some less than stellar reviews, but Phil and I loved it.
Utopia was good as well. I enjoyed it more than Phil, but I think what got him was the lack of resolution. Every plot line ended on a cliffhanger. I’m more comfortable with this than Phil is.
We also watched two movies. The Old Guard was good, but fairly standard and somewhat predictable. Zombieland Double Tap was as delightful a romp as the first one.
Reading-wise, I finished Jade City by Fonda Lee. I’ve been diversifying my reading and quite enjoyed the Asian-based fantasy world. The characters were fabulous.
Then, I backfilled a gap with Sabriel by Garth Nix. I quite liked the world of the Abhorsen.
I consumed Harrow the Ninth, Tamsyn Muir’s follow up to Gideon the Ninth. I went in prepared for the second person narrative, the apparent retconning of many of the events of the first book, and the lack of Gideon’s exquisitely kiss-my-ass voice. There is a point to it. Trust me. The second novel is as much a mystery as the first and part of the delight is trying to figure out what the hell is going on. The pay off is worth it, though the ending still leaves a lot of questions unanswered. Loved.
I also read K.M. Weiland’s Writing Your Story’s Theme. You may have noticed my book review 🙂 Yes, I’m A K.M. fangirl, but her analysis is on the mark and she has a way of making theme accessible to the reader without too much brain twisting.
I finished off the month with Alice Munro’s Runaway. There are only two standalone stories in this collection and the rest are linked in two groups. The title tale is chilling.
And that was the month in this writer’s life.
Just a reminder, I won’t be doing curation for most of the month of November. There is just one each of tipsday and thoughty Thursday, and then I’ll be devoting most of my time to RB revisions/NaNo. Of course, I hope to provide you with a weekly update on my revision progress.
Until tipsday, be well and stay safe, be kind, and stay strong. The world needs your stories.
Thank you for visiting, and I hope you take away something to inspire your next creative project.
This weekend, I hope to get my next chapter update done before NaNoWriMo hits. Also, while I should get next week’s curation scheduled as well, those will be the last until December 8th. I will, however, post my progress, weekly. This year, as last, I will be a NaNo Rebel, because I will be working on the revisions for Reality Bomb. I’m focusing on getting a project completed before moving on to the next, these days, and I’m not at all ashamed to say that this year has thrown my writing for a loop.
It takes the time it takes.
Until the weekend, then, be well and stay safe, be kind, and stay strong. The world needs your stories!
Reed Abelson and Abby Goodnough explain what would happen if the Supreme Court ends Obamacare (AKA the Affordable Care Act). Most of these negative outcomes will disproportionately affect marginalized populations. The New York Times
Another week, another collection of informal writerly goodness.
Black and Indigenous lives matter. All lives cannot matter until Black and Indigenous lives matter.
Wear your masks. Maintain physical distance when you can’t. Wash your hands. Get your flu shot as soon as you can.
K. Tempest Bradford: World Fantasy, the convention that keeps on failing. The lack of diversity on panels and lack of a properly enforced anti-harassment policy have been ongoing for the better part of a decade and organizers are reluctant to admit there are problems, let alone take action on them.
Princess Weekes breaks down true womanhood and black girlhood in media. Melina Pendulum
K.M. Weiland has helped you to outline your novel, structure your novel, and create your character arcs. Now, she completes the “holy trinity” of craft with Writing Your Story’s Theme.
What is theme and how can you identify it in your story? How does theme relate to story structure (plot) and character arc? Why should every character and subplot reflect or enhance your theme? How can theme help you to outline your novel? How is theme related to but distinct from message and how can you keep your theme from reading as too preachy or on-the-nose?
As with all of Weiland’s craft books, Writing Your Story’s Theme is meticulously researched and full of insights the author gained through her own writing practice. There are additional resources to help you dig deeper into the topic in the appendices at the end.
If you’re a fan of Weiland’s craft books, you need to pick this one up. If this is your first of Weiland’s writing books, it will leave you wanting to complete your library (and you should—they’re that good). Weiland’s writing advice is accessible and consistent with her blog, podcast, and other craft books. If the pattern holds, Weiland will likely have a workbook coming in the next year.
I always have “lightbulb” moments when I read one of Weiland’s craft books and Writing Your Story’s Theme was no exception.
These 100-million-year-old microbes are still alive. (I think I shared an article on this a few weeks ago …) SciShow
Hedy Phillips: yep, just like humans, dogs can give blood. More than half my life ago, I worked in an emergency veterinarian clinic. They kept two blood donor cats on site and assessed surrendered or stray dogs (animal control was the next building over) for blood donor suitability. SugarPop
Thank you for visiting. I hope you found something to inspire your next creative project.
Until next tipsday, be well and stay safe, be kind, and stay strong. The world needs your stories!
Now that we’ve entered month seven of the pandemic, we have to balance self-care with medical compliance. Be kind to yourself and nurture your creativity with some informal writerly learnings.
Black and Indigenous lives matter. All lives cannot matter until Black and Indigenous lives matter.
Wear your masks. Maintain physical distance. Get your flu shot as soon as you can. Sacrifice now (and really, it’s not that much of a sacrifice) will mean that fewer people have to contract covid-19 and fewer people have to die from it. Compliance is not a violation of your rights. It is respect for your fellow human beings.
Princess Weekes critiques Antebellum and movies about slavery in general. Melina Pendulum
Always Looking Up 