As the meme says: I’ve just sucked one hour of your life away. Tell me, and remember, this is for posterity, how do you feel?

Life in general

Happy Easter/Holi/Nowruz/Purim/Ramadan/Ostara and Trans Day of Visibility! There’s a lot to celebrate.

I am currently 6 days from the launch of The Art of Floating and I’m so excited/nervous, I can barely stand it!

The deets for those interested:

Date: Saturday, April 6, 2024
Time: 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.
Location: Place des arts, Studio Desjardins

The evening will include Q&A with Kim Fahner, a reading by the author, and a book signing.

For those who would like to attend via livestream, select the link here: https://boxcast.tv/…/heather-book-launch…

Early in the month, the moon was arcing in the southern sky. In a landscape of outcrops, she was hard to see. Earth and the moon dance around each other and later in the month, she appeared in the northeastern sky.

The month was busy. At work, I was moving toward the completion of another phase of the big project.

At home, it was mostly launch-related activities. Though I had a deadline to meet with Suzy, I decided that after that, I would focus mostly on the launch and maybe fit in some less demanding writing work on short fiction and poetry.

I had a three-day cold early on in the month, and then, later on, caught a bit of a doozy. Going on three weeks now … May have to go to the walk-in clinic so I’m not all stuffed up for the launch (!)

The month in writing

As I mentioned above, I had one deadline to meet with Suzy. It was a bit rough going because I’ve hit the point in the novel where I’m basically rewriting 90% of it. After my meeting, I took a break from Reality Bomb to focus on the launch of The Art of Floating and try to devote some time to short fiction and poetry.

On the 3^rd, I was informed that The Art of Floating print run would arrive that week. That day, I also submitted a couple of pieces for future promotion of TAoF. When they come out, I’ll be sharing widely.

Kim was in touch to firm up a few details for our informal conversation on the 7^th.

I met with Suzy on March 20^th. Again, because I’m basically rewriting the last third of the novel, I wasn’t feeling confident. Fortunately, I was just being my own worst critic. The submission was not perfect, but it was in better shape than I feared.

I’m going to take a break to focus on my launch, book signing, readings, finishing up the short story that seems to have stalled, and get some more poetry written. I’m not going to abandon RB but will probably pick up revisions again after the launch.

I’ll resume work with Suzy for the final push on RB in May. At that point, I should be within spitting distance of the end and may be able to use one of my sessions to work on my query or synopsis.

I was notified on March 1^st that I did not make the Your Personal Odyssey earlybird cut. As in past years, I’m still in the running for the main deadline, but I don’t hold out much hope. So many writers apply to YPO, the competition is always fierce.

On the 8^th, I was notified that the short story I submitted back in January was not accepted for publication.

The League of Canadian Poets (LCP) declined my event funding application for the launch of TAoF on the 9^th. Fortunately, I was approved for some reading series funding last year. I’m grateful for every bit of support I get.

On Sunday, March 24^th, my unboxing video and a 90-second poetry reading for The Little Boathouse went live.

I attended an SF Canada board meeting on the 26^th.

And the Canada Council for the Arts held their annual public meeting on the 27^th.

I was also invited out to the Sudbury Writers’ Guild meeting to share my path to publication and some tips on marketing and promotion.

Filling the well

The new Ash moon in Pisces was on the 10^th. Observed with a guided meditation. Daylight saving also arrived on the 10^th. In honour of the occasion, I will share my favourite meme.

The spring equinox was on the 19^th. A little early this year, but it felt apropos given the exceptionally warm winter we’ve had. As usual, I sparked up ye olde altar, and Alina Alive produced a guided meditation specifically for the equinox.

The full moon (of the crusted snow) in Libra was on the 25^th. Overcast, as usual. No guided meditation this time.

I signed up for a Tiffany Yates Martin webinar on “Secrets, Twists, and Reveals” through Jane Friedman on March 6^th. I watched the replay. Always excellent.

On the same night was the Women in Motion poetry reading and open mic, organized by the League of Canadian Poets (LCP). Powerful and painful.

On the 8^th, Authors Publish offered one of their free webinars, “Fun and Effective Book Promotion,” with Nev March. Again, I watched the replay. A lot of good ideas.

I signed up for a Mary Robinette Kowal webinar, “Verbal and Non-verbal Dialogue,” on March 10^th. I always learn one or two tasty tidbits with every one of Mary Robinette’s webinars.

Premee Mohamed shared on Bluesky that she would be delivering an online class on “Polishing Your Query Package” through the Edmonton Public Library (where she is Writer in Residence) on the 11^th. Really good. I’m a fan.

The Free Expressions webinar “Rethinking Scene and Sequel” with Damon Suede was on the 21^st.

I started intermediate Finnish classes on March 18^th. It’s challenging, but I’m enjoying them.

Dori Zener held a webinar on “Autistic Girls and Women: Celebrating Strengths and Supporting Needs” on March 6^th. Good information.

My next therapy appointment was on the 26^th.

The Good Company support group met on the 27^th. The topic for this month was autistic inertia and transitions.

I saw my doctor for a physical on the 4^th. My bloodwork results were good and I’m doing well.

And I had a massage on the 13^th. Rest and digest, for the win!

I took the week of the 18^th to the 22^nd off. It turned out to be a working holiday. I got a lot of launch-related work done (!)

What I’m watching and reading

Phil and I watch the first season of the live action Avatar: The Last Airbender (Netflix). We enjoyed it, but I share some of the criticisms floating around das interwebz. If Aang had run away, it would have explained his resulting anguish about being the avatar better. Kitara has all of the feisty written out of her. Aang doesn’t train with her, doesn’t even try to learn another bending style once in the whole season. The forest spirit got two seconds of screen time! That story was so lovely. Zuko could not have “almost” struck his father in the agni kai. His utter defeat drives his character arc in the first season. And don’t get me started on Bumi.

Like I said, we enjoyed it for what it was. It could have been better without being an exact duplicate of the animated series.

I know I’m late to the party, but I finished watching Little Fires Everywhere (Amazon). An awesome gut punch of a limited series, superbly acted, and thought-provoking. Another book for the TBR pile 🙂

I watched Poor Things (Disney +) when it came out on streaming. I was blown away. Loved. A fantastic tale about a woman becoming her truest self. Yes, there is a lot of sex, but as Bella Baxter is the protagonist, everything is from her point of view, and her sexual awakening is innocent and joyful. Again, LOVED!

Then, I watched American Fiction (Amazon). A Black writer of literary fiction is struggling to find a home for his latest work and indignant that other black writers, whom he sees as pandering to the white stereotypes of the Black experience (read trauma porn) gets into a financial bind when he’s suspended from his university teaching job, his mother is discovered to have dementia, and his sister, the family caretaker, dies of a heart attack. In a fit of pique, he pens his own sensationalist Black narrative and, as a joke, asks his agent to shop it around. When the novel becomes a hot property and the movie rights sell, the author must play along, because he needs the money to give his mother the support she needs. A sharp-edged satire. Very good.

Next, I finished the first season of The Power (Amazon), based on Naomi Alderman’s novel. TL;DR: women begin to develop electrical power and use it to turn the tables on the patriarchy.

I finished the novel a few months ago and while I enjoyed it, I wasn’t satisfied with the denouement, which projected the events of the novel into a future in which women simply flipped inequality for a society of institutionalized misandry. The series takes the events of the novel almost to the climax. Mayor Cleary-Lopez has thrown her hat into the senatorial race and attacks her opponent on stage. Tatianna has murdered her abusive husband and eliminated his army by sending them to root out her sister, who has amassed an army of women. Tunde witnesses the devastation of the conflict and is undone. Roxy has found her way to Eve. Urbandox is trying to reassert the rights of men. I don’t know that there’s enough story left to fill an entire second season, but apparently, it’s been greenlit.

Finally, I finished watching the first season of Silo (Apple +). LOVED! Rebecca Ferguson is fabulous. The whole cast is amazing. Apple + is really producing some of the best SF adaptations around these days. I’ll say no more. Watch this show.

My first audiobook of March was Adrian Tchaikovsky’s The Expert System’s Brother. Except for the title, the novel doesn’t come across as science fiction. At first. It soon becomes apparent that the “ghosts” that inhabit specific villagers are, in fact, expert systems (what everyone wants to call AI these days). The story is set many generations after the initial settlers of a colony planet made specific modifications to their bodies to both accept cohabitating expert systems into their minds and to mitigate the harmful effects of the planet’s biome. That’s all just backstory and setting, though. Hendry is accidentally “severed” from his community (i.e., he is de-modified), and must make his way, alone, in a world that wants to kill him.

Then, I finished Chance Encounters with Wild Animals by Monica Kidd. This collection is a poetic travelogue. It subverts the reader’s expectations, interweaving wanderings and ponderings with concise and revelatory reflections. Kidd’s sketches are composed of lush words. As Kidd explores the world and its denizens, we are most reminded that the wild animals we often encounter by chance are human.

I read Travis Baldree’s lovely Legends & Lattes. Viv’s aches and pains after years of adventuring lead her to seek out a legendary item and a new life in a small town. While she gathers friends and allies, antagonistic forces loom. Fabulous. Loved.

Next, I read I know something you don’t know by Amy LeBlanc. In this collection of poetry, LeBlanc interprets folklore and myth through her body and experience.

I’m again dipping into classic SFF through Audible’s Plus Catalogue. Titles are periodically added and removed, and I try to get through them before they’re no longer accessible.

The first of these was C.S. Lewis’s Perelandra, the second in his Space Trilogy. Dr. Ransom is recruited to travel to Perelandra (Venus), where he encounters that world’s Eve, whom he calls The Lady.  Before long, Ransom’s old antagonist, Weston, who abducted him to Malacandra (Mars) with the aim of sacrificing him to the inhabitants of that planet, arrives. But all is not what it seems.

It’s not a bad book, but because of the framing narrative, in which Lewis himself is asked to record Ransom’s story, it is almost entirely narration, and, toward the end, the main topic of the book is religion. Not my favourite topic. Perelandra is a product of its time and of its author, who was deeply interested in religious thought at the time.

I finished reading Lunar Tides by Shannon Webb-Campbell. This poetry collection is written from a mixed Mi’kmaq and settler perspective and framed by the eight phases of the lunar cycle. Originating in the poet’s grief after her mother’s death, this collection is not only a journey to find her mother “in the little space of sky that sleeps next to the moon,” but is also an exploration of colonial legacies, family, and Indigenous resurgence.

Next in poetry, was Beth Kope’s Atlas of Roots, in which the poet tries to decipher her life as an adoptee. She iterates pasts, presents, and futures, some real, some imagined, and determines how to live when so much is redacted or inaccessible.

Then, I finished reading Sotto Voce by Maureen Hynes. The poet explores injustices great and small, from impersonal genocide to a more intimate death. Inspired by the natural world, the poet is disquieted, finds her voice, and then learns to listen.

I read Nnedi Okorafor’s Like Thunder, the second in her Desert Magician Duology. This book focuses on Dikéogu, the storm bringer’s, story. In a world both saved and decimated by the Change, Dikéogu tries to learn how to control his powers, is separated from his mentor, and tries to find his way back to Ejii. Very dark, but very good.

Next, I listened to the Audible Original of John Wyndham’s The Midwich Cuckoos. During the “Day Out,” the entire village of Midwich is rendered unconscious. Following the strange occurrence, it soon becomes apparent that every fertile woman in Midwich is pregnant. The narrator of the story is a Midwich resident who was, fortunately, out of town on the “Day Out,” and reports on the events following for a friend in MI. The novel gets its name from the practice of cuckoos to lay their eggs in the nests of other birds, forcing them to incubate and feed the young cuckoos, even to the detriment of their chicks.

I read The Chrysalids last year and, though I read it in high school, I’m rereading The Day of the Triffids. I guess I’m on a Wyndham streak 🙂 All of Wyndham’s books are a little different. The Chrysalids was set in a post-apocalyptic world in which children who develop paranormal abilities are considered abominations by their religious extremist communities. The Midwich Cuckoos I’ve described above.

The Day of the Triffids is a bit different again. Triffids are a species of large, perambulatory plants that produce a “high grade oil” but are also carnivorous and have deadly stingers. When a comet blinds everyone who looks at it, the triffids suddenly have the advantage. The novel is about one of the fortunate survivors.

I don’t think that near-universal blindness would be as apocalyptic as Wyndham depicts it. I believe that humanity would be collectively more invested in making the world accessible and adapting to their new circumstances. But in the 1950s when the novel was written, disability was more catastrophic than it is today, if only because assistive technologies and accommodations didn’t exist as they do now.

My next audiobook was Samuel R. Delaney’s Nova. Though the Tarot and the Holy Grail feature prominently in the novel, Nova reminds me of … Moby Dick. Captain Lorq van Ray assembles a crew on a quest to extract illyrion, the most precious energy source in the universe, directly from a supernova. His nemesis is trying to figure out what his plan is and Even the structure is reminiscent of Melville. Introduce a character and their backstory, introduce another character and their backstory, introduce the main character with a huge backstory, and along the way exposit upon net fishers, history, music, writing—yup, there’s a budding author in there—the workings of the ship, Tarot, and the Holy Grail. He does some interesting things with language in there, too.

I finished Vanessa Shields’ Thimble. This poetry collection grew around the poet’s grandmother, her life and loves, and the poet’s visceral reactions as her beloved Nonna slowly disappeared and then died because of the ravages of dementia. It is a complex and gut-wrenching read. Having lost all my grandparents, I walked beside Shields as I read.

Finally, I listened to Falling in Love with Hominids, a collection of short fiction by Nalo Hopkinson. Entertaining and varied stories from the author’s career. Very good.

And that was the month in this writer’s life.

Until next month, be well and stay safe; be kind and stay strong. The world needs your stories!