Melanie Marttila

The next chapter: July 2020 update

/ Melanie Marttila

Another month has passed. July was eventful and not in the all the ways I expected.

And yes, this post is late. A week and a day late. You’ll understand.

Black lives matter. Indigenous lives matter. All lives cannot matter until all Black and Indigenous lives matter. This is a fundamental truth.

The lives of all BIPOC, LGBTQ2A+, disabled, neuro-atypical, and all other racialized or marginalized people matter. We all need to listen, learn, and do better.

That is all.

Pandemic life

So. 24 new confirmed cases of covid-19 have occurred in Sudbury over the last couple of weeks, most of them in people under 30. While there hasn’t been any confirmed written report on the topic, the rumours are that a group of young people went down to a huge party in southern Ontario and brought the virus back with them. Police have also reported breaking up a couple of large parties within the city.

Some people are blaming covid exhaustion. Indeed, it’s taxing for people who haven’t been able to engage in any of their pre-covid social activities, but going from isolation to parties that exceed the safe gathering limits? Travelling to do so? Not smart.

The worrisome part of it all is that we now have community spread in our area and health officials haven’t been able to determine where some of the newly infected might have been exposed.

It’s a drop in the bucket with respect to covid cases nationwide, and we’re faring so much better than other areas of the country. Overall, Canada is doing better than some countries and worse than others. Considering that we had, in total, 68 cases and 2 deaths up until this new rash of infections, though, I think that we may be heading for a second wave. Those 24 new cases represent a 35% bump for our relatively small city. It’s not necessarily going to happen the same way everywhere, but even extrapolating a 15% increase elsewhere means a lot of new infections.

I’m still worried about what’s going to happen when kids return to school. The “plan” we have in Ontario is missing a lot of key details. I think now is not the time to experiment. “Let’s wait and see” is not an acceptable strategy.

Wear your masks, people. Stay safe. Keep your distance when you can. Gather in safe numbers and watch out for your friends and family.

My situation remains status quo with the one key excitement of being invited to write an exam for an internal position I applied for pre-covid. As the position is one that I am very interested in (in many ways, it’s my dream job), I confirmed my participation and awaited next steps.

It turned out the exam was to be written over the course of a week, well, six and a half days, most of which would be while I was working my substantive job. So, evenings and on the weekend, which in this case was the Civic Holiday long weekend.

Then, due to a technical issue, the exam materials, which I was to have received Monday morning, were not issued until that night, but they were sent to my work email (which, admittedly, I had requested because of the technical issue). This means I didn’t even see the email until the next morning when I logged in to my remote desktop. The due date was extended, but only considering the time of issue, not when I would have, in fact, received it. So, I lost any time I could have devoted to the exam on Monday and the due date was now the morning of the Civic Holiday.

It was a lot of work. By Friday, I’d only managed to devote about three or four hours a day to the exam. I determined that I would submit the exam on Sunday night, rather than work through the night to submit the exam in the morning. I know my limits. Going without sleep is not something I can do without consequence. I planned accordingly. I devoted eight hours to the exam on Saturday and 12 on Sunday and I still didn’t have the time to do all I’d wanted to do.

For better or worse, I submitted the exam at 11:57 pm on Sunday.

Because I was catching up on all the work I hadn’t done during the exam week, I didn’t get around to writing this update until today.

The month in writing

Once again, I failed to finish my rewrite of Reality Bomb. I’m closer, but I’m not done yet and the draft is over 108k words. Once I do bring the story to a conclusion, more or less, I’m going to be going over it again and cutting like mad. I have to tighten it up and make sure that the overall story has continuity. I want to reduce the draft to 90k if I can. I’ll settle for 100k, but I want a trim beast to present to my critique group.

I also critiqued a draft for one of my group members.

JulyProgress

I set another modest goal of 5,000 words and wrote 6,628 words, or 133% of my goal.

I blogged 5,448 words of my 3,750-word goal, or 145%.

I planned to write 8,750 words and actually wrote 12,076 words. That’s 138% of my goal.

Filling the well

On July 1st, I attended an online workshop with Roz Morris on backstory, offered through Jane Friedman. Love Roz 🙂

On the 11th, I attended the WXR virtual reunion and the taping of their annual “cruise” portions of the Writing Excuses podcast. The cruise is cancelled this year, and this was a great compensatory virtual get-together.

I also attended the virtual launch of Mary Robinette Kowal’s The Relentless Moon on July 14th. It was fun. The Lady Astronauts Club showed up in period-appropriate/IAC costume, MRK was dressed as her protagonist, Nicole Wargin, and they framed the experience as an orientation session for new lunar colonists at the IAC. There was a lecture on orbital mechanics, a lander simulation (which I managed on the fourth try), and several other entertaining activities. I’ve since received my copy of the novel and an IAC Artemis Base badge.

On July 20th, I attended a virtual lecture by Ibram X. Kendi on how to be an anti-racist broadcast by Prince George’s County Memorial Library System.

Finally, on July 24th, I attended a session on Mythology and Speculative Literature that was sponsored by The Carl Brandon Society. Vida Cruz, Piper J. Drake, Kate Elliot, Rebecca Roanhorse, and Shveta Thakrar discussed the mythological inspiration for their work, problematic or clichéd uses of myth, and other mythic goodness.

A couple of friends from out of town were visiting family and came over for an evening, which we spent on the backyard patio, appropriately distanced. These visits are always too short.

What I’m watching and reading

Phil and I watched all of Penny Dreadful. Though we enjoyed the first two seasons, the third left us scratching our heads. Ethan was taken back to America and Sir Malcolm, recruited by Kaetenay, travelled from Africa to rescue him. Ethan temporarily goes dark side before the resolution to his troubles brings him abruptly back to the light. Then, Kaetenay has a vision that sends them back to London to help Vanessa …

… who has been languishing, abandoned by all her supposed friends and family. At Dr. Lyle’s suggestion, she enters into therapy with Dr. Seward, who looks identical to her witch mentor from the previous season’s flashbacks. She makes progress through hypnosis and ventures out into the world again with Dr. Sweet, who is, in fact, Dracula (dun, dun, dun!).

Frankenstein teams up with an old colleague, Dr. Jeckyll in a subplot that doesn’t really go anywhere.

The creature reunites with his family, only to discover that his wife wants him to take their dying son to Frankenstein for resurrection.

Brona recruits the fallen women of the city and trains them to become her army with Dorian’s help. Her goal: to liberate women everywhere from the power and cruelty of men. Sadly, Dorian bores of the game and delivers Brona into Frankenstein’s hands, where both creator and creation have inexplicable changes of heart. He refuses to use the serum he and Jeckyll developed to tame Brona, and Brona, once freed, knowing that Dorian delivered her into Frankenstein’s captivity, decides not to take her revenge on either of them. She returns to Dorian’s manor and, seeing her disciple dead on the floor at Dorian’s hands, simply leaves. Brona delivers an empowering speech that’s supposed to leave Dorian devastated, but it doesn’t.

Meanwhile, a new friend enters Vanessa’s life, Catriona Hartdegen. Cat knows a lot about vampires and Dracula in particular and together, they figure out that Dr. Sweet is Dracula. Vanessa goes to confront him, intending to defeat him, but—again, inexplicably—decides instead to surrender to him. Darkness and chaos descend upon London.

Ethan, Sir Malcolm, and Kaetenay, newly arrived, team up with Dr. Seward and Cat to save Vanessa. Dracula tells Vanessa that her former friends are coming, and she intimates that she will welcome the opportunity to slay them all. When the battle is joined, however, Vanessa is no where to be seen. Everyone fights valiantly, but it looks like the tide is turning in Dracula’s favour. Ethan breaks away and finds Vanessa isolated in a room where she merely begs him to kill her, which, after some weeping and moaning, he does.

And that was it. I know the series was cancelled while they were in the middle of filming this last season, but in an attempt to compress the story, the writers were unable to set up the appropriate character development that would make the last few episodes feel earned (where have we seen that before, eh, GoT?). Instead, we have uncharacteristic actions/decisions by nearly every character, lose ends, and a lot of lost opportunities. It would have been better if they had changed course and written and ending that made sense, even if it wasn’t the ending they had been writing toward for the whole series.

On TV, I watched the most recent season of The Good Witch. It’s candy and fluff, but sometimes you need a little candy and fluff.

I finally finished Orange is the New Black. They had to do some fancy tap dancing to get everything rolled up and they did leave some loose ends. I’m glad Piper decided to stick with Alex, but I think I would have been just as happy if she’d gone on to have her own life. It was the other stories, Taystee’s, Original Cindy’s, and Gloria’s stories in particular, that grabbed me. Blanca got a happy ending. Pennsatucky’s end was tragic. Maritza and Shani’s deportations were senseless. Aleida and Daya just continued the cycle of violence. Suzanne was left hanging, much as Red and Lorna were. I know it was supposed to be a commentary on the incarceration system, but aside from being largely depressing, I was left with a solid meh.

I watched The Crown’s latest season and it was interesting, but it wasn’t edge-of-your-seat viewing.

13 Reasons, season 3 definitely had me on the edge of my seat, but I kept asking myself why. Why even write a second season? The first season covered Asher’s book and did so well. They just delve deeper and deeper into trauma and its aftereffects to the point that in season four, it’s just painful to watch. That may have more to do with my trauma than anything else, but there you are.

I finished the 2018-19 season of Riverdale, which was already out there (juvenile prison fight rings, a criminal empire based on a D&D analogue, and an organ-harvesting cult) and am trying to catch up on the 2019-20 season.

And I finally finished the 2018-19 season of The Flash. Solid meh. But proceeding with the 2019-20 season, anyway.

Reading-wise, I only have four offerings.

I finished Jenn Lyons’ The Ruin of Kings. I liked it. I wish I could rate a book three and a half stars, but I gave it four. Lyons did play with structure in an admirable way. The book overall is presented as a report to the current empress (a very long report, might I say) and the annotations that appear throughout are not distracting, as you might think, and they do add to the content of the story. Once I learned who the empress was, I had trouble understanding how most of the annotations were necessary and that returned them to the category of authorial intrusion, however.

The first part of the book is told by two narrators, prisoner and jailer (kind of like Black Panther, Red Wolf) but the jailer is a shape-shifter named Talon who has the ability to absorb the memories of the people they imitate. Or come into contact with? Or consume? Really, the process isn’t well-explained. Talon and Khirin (the prisoner/protagonist) use a stone, handed back and forth. It’s a clever conceit that allows Lyons to present other POVs than Talon’s and Khirin’s, by virtue of Talon’s abilities.

Not only that, but Khirin starts telling his story from the point of his enslavement. Talon complains and goes back further, to the point they believe in the true beginning of the story. So, we have a narrative frame within a narrative frame and dual timelines that intersect and the end of part one. That’s another structural oddity. Part two is maybe a fifth of the book.

There was nothing wrong with the story itself and the structural gymnastics were definitely novel, but it made me wonder if Lyons had presented the story chronologically, without the frames and the annotations, if I would have thought differently about the book.

Then, I read The Queen of Katwe. I was hesitant, because the author is a white man (Tim Crothers), but it’s a non-fiction book using a lot of interviews and correspondence and thus presents the book in the words of the people involved. The book was, by turns, depressing and uplifting, but there was no real resolution. It’s an incomplete biography that leaves the reader wondering if Phiona ever achieved her dream of becoming a grandmaster. Wikipedia indicates she holds the title of candidate women’s master, but that’s as far as she got.

Kij Johnson’s The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe was interesting. Rather than starting in this world and entering one of dream, Johnson flips the concept. Vellitt has always lived in the dream world and must travel into our world to recover the favourite granddaughter of one of the gods, who, if he wakes to find his favourite missing, will destroy half the dreamlands. The one thing I wasn’t comfortable with was that the real-world dreamers who travel to the dream world are always men, powerful and ageless. When Vellitt finally reaches our world, she is instantly transformed, has an identity and all the knowledge she might ever need or have gained from living a life in this world, though. Maybe Johnson’s statement is more subtle. Maybe women are the only true dreamers, living lives simultaneously in the dream world and in this? It’s thought-provoking, to be sure.

Finally, I read Justina Ireland’s Dread Nation. What kind of country would America have been if the civil war was interrupted by a plague of zombies? Ireland calls them shamblers and, in her novel they basically make time stand still. In some respects. The protagonist, Jane is biracial, though her skin is not light. She’s at a school for “attendants,” Black girls who are trained to fight shamblers and protect wealthy white women. It’s the best she can hope for in a world in which slavery and indenture still exist and people of colour (Black and American Indian) are seen as biologically inferior. Ireland examines the racism of the world she’s created through the lens of her “finishing school,” the viral shamblers (one plotline involves the development of a vaccine), and the white supremacists who attempt to create their own isolated empire in the midst of the chaos.

Each chapter begins with an excerpt from a letter that Jane has written to her mother and later, after she learns that her correspondence has been intercepted and she comes into possession of them, her mother’s letters to Jane. It’s a good book, but I kept wanting a little more and there were some events that seemed to resolve in the favour of plot convenience rather than where they seemed to be heading. I’ve already nabbed the next in the series, though.

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

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

The Next Chapter

Tipsday: Writerly Goodness found on the interwebz, July 12-18, 2020

/ Melanie Marttila

Black Lives matter. Indigenous lives matter. All lives cannot matter until Black and Indigenous lives matter. I believe this more than ever. I’m not going to stop putting this important message out there until it’s true.

Regardless of whether your area of the world has never closed, is reopening, or is still under some degree of lockdown, please, for the love of all you hold dear, wear a mask.

As for schools, I sincerely believe the safest way forward is to keep all classes virtual. I know this isn’t a popular stance, but we know how quickly a common cold, or the flu proliferates in a classroom. And this is covid. We still don’t know the long-term effects of this virus.

I also know that virtual learning presents its own challenges. This will require a sea change for parents, teachers, schoolboards, employers, and governments and I think leaving these important discussions to this late date was naïve on the part of many. Ignoring the issue is not going to make it go away.

Having said that, Sudbury hasn’t had any new cases reported since about June 22 or so. We’ve only had 67 conformed cases and two deaths. It might be more reasonable to consider modified, in-person classes here, but I’d like to wait on the possible impact of phase three of reopening before we go there. Those numbers have yet to be publicized.

Now, onto the informal writerly learnings!

Kris Maze shares seven unstoppable YA plot ideas to make your novel fabulous. Barbara Linn Probst is editing for theme: search and employ. Writers in the Storm

Elizabeth A. Harvey explores a writer’s sense of place: where I ought to be. Jim Dempsey is writing and napping. Sophie Masson shares what she’s learned about presenting online workshops. Then, Juliet Marillier tells a tale about finding resilience: a dog story. Writer Unboxed

Gender and Jurassic Park. Cold Crash Pictures

Janice Hardy explains some story rulez: the two things every novel needs to do. Later in the week, Angela Ackerman stopps by: how emotional wounds can steer a character’s job choice. Fiction University

The female friendship revolution. The Take

Peter von Stackelberg shares an intuitive four-step process for creating vibrant scene structure. Helping Writers Become Authors

Andrew Noakes offers six principles for writing historical fiction. Jane Friedman

Lindsay Ellis looks at Tolkien’s constructed languages. It’s Lit | PBS Storied

Leanne Sowul wants you to commit to self-education about racism and anti-racism. And here’s my latest Speculations: ten Black science fiction and fantasy authors to read now. Then, Gabriela interviews Django Wexler: using fantasy to “literalize” the metaphor. DIY MFA

Chris Winkle explains why storytellers fail at grimdark and how to fix it. Then Bunny and Oren Ashkenazi team up: five reasons your story shouldn’t deny that it’s a story. Mythcreants

Deborah Ahenkora is slaying the dragons of hate with words. CBC Books

Aya de Léon: crime fiction is complicit in police violence, but it’s not too late to change. Electric Literature

Jeana Jorgensen describes what happens when fairyland is not for you: on escapism, fantasy, and survival. The Wrangler

Paula Findlen explores Petrarch’s plague: love, death, and friendship in a time of pandemic. The Public Domain Review

Thanks for visiting, and I hope that you found something to support your current work in progress (whatever stage it’s in).

Until Thursday, be well and stay safe, my writerly friends!

Tipsday2019

Join me over on DIY MFA for my latest Speculations

/ Melanie Marttila

While I had planned to write something else for this column, given recent events, I felt moved to amplify Black SFF authors.

SFFAuthors

Please feel free to explore the site and check out all the awesome Gabriela has on offer.

Until next time, be well and stay safe!

 

The next chapter: June 2020 update

/ Melanie Marttila

I hope you’re all keeping safe and well. Wear your masks. Abide by your local health authority’s guidelines for physical distancing and safe reopening. If you don’t take action to protect others, particularly the most vulnerable members of your community, how can you expect anyone else to take action to protect you?

Black lives matter. Indigenous lives matter. All lives cannot matter until Black and Indigenous lives matter.

Trans women are women. Trans men are men. Trans non-binary folk are non-binary folk.

We have a real opportunity here to rebuild a better world, post-covid. I’m worried that we won’t take advantage of that opportunity. I live in hope that we do.

Pandemic life

Not much has changed except that I seem to be rallying/getting used to the new normal. I’m still working from home. Phil’s still doing the running around. We both wear masks when we go out.

With the reopening, my registered massage therapist as resumed taking clients. She pre-screens. Twice. I wear a mask. She completely cleans and sterilizes her workspace between clients. I’m so happy her business has survived. So many small businesses and independent workers have closed because of covid-19.

In terms of my creative life, I have continued to be productive, but I have not been as productive as in past years. I’m being kind to myself. I’m still making headway and I’m recognizing my accomplishments. More on this in the next section.

I made it through my back-to-back virtual training deliveries and am back to my usual duties at work. It’s still surreal, but I’m adapting. Slowly.

I’m actually grateful that most of the series I watch on television are over for the year. I can focus on catching up on my streaming watching 🙂 My reading has slowed a bit.

Phil continues to devote his free time to woodworking.

2020-06-06 18.04.47

The dog gate I mentioned last month.

2020-07-04 11.38.12

And … Phil’s trying his hand at making a cabinet.

It’s been very hot up here in northeastern Ontario. It’s been hovering around 30 degrees Celsius with the humidity driving the temperature up as high as 41. For those of you who only relate to Fahrenheit, that’s between 90 and 105 degrees. Every day. For two weeks. We don’t have central AC, but we do have a portable unit we use in the bedroom so that we can sleep at night. We’ve been feeding Torvi ice cubes and we bought her another kiddie pool—which she has not chewed! She just steps in to wet her feet, but we’re good with that. Dogs cool through their panting and their paws.

The month in writing

I exceeded my modest goals again this month, but I STILL haven’t finished my rewrite of Reality Bomb (!) I’m over 100k on the draft, now. This will mean some MASSIVE cuts. I’ve been making notes, though, and I have a good idea of where I’ll be going, but I HAVE TO FINISH THE GODDAMNED THING FIRST!

I set my goal at 6,969 words and wrote 7,595, or 109% of my goal.

My blogging goal was 3,750 words and I wrote 5,529, or 147%.

Finally, I wrote my latest Speculations column. It came in at 1,012 words, or 101% of my 1,000-word goal.

Overall, my goal was to write 11,719 words on the three projects, and I wrote 14,136 words. That’s 121% of my goal. Not as fabulous as the 161% I achieved last month, but, interestingly, more words written. Go figure.

JuneProgress

Initially, I was intending to have finished with RB back in March and handed it off to my critique group so I could move on to working on revisions of Marushka. Marushka will be another rewrite and so I’m thinking that I’m going to have to set aside my plans to get back to the revisions on my epic fantasy series and focus on Marushka for the remainder of the year.

Though I was working on the series bible and revision notes for Ascension, that work screeched to a halt when covid-19 hit.

So, I just took a few minutes to revisit my goals and figure I’ll continue working on RB through the end of August and then focus on Marushka for the remainder of the year. I’ll pick up work on Ascension in 2021.

So there, ambitious goal-setting brain. So there.

Filling the Well

Lots to report here this month 🙂

First, I attended the Renaissance Press Virtual Con over the weekend of June 5 – 7. It was all on Zoom and all Canadian. I attended sessions on tropes, eco-fiction, bad writing advice, mystery, characterization, and podcasting.

The following weekend, June 11 – 14, I attended TorCon, and took in sessions with Christopher Paolini and Brandon Sanderson, Neil Gaiman and V.E. Schwab, worldbuilding with a group of awesome authors of colour (Tochi Onyebuchi, Bethany C. Morrow, P. Djèli Clark, and Charlotte Nicole Davis), another Panel with Kate Elliot, Andrea Hairston, Alaya Dawn Johnson, and Ryan van Loan, and another fabulous conversation between Cory Doctorow and Nnedi Okorafor. *chef kiss*

I also watched Mary Robinette Kowal record the audiobook for The Relentless Moon. I’m a member of her newsletter community and jumped at the chance to take part, even though I had to view the videos after the fact (‘cause work). From June 16 – 26, I viewed between two and six hours of awesome footage a day, often catching up on the weekends. It was fascinating to watch the process and the bloopers were hilarious.

Finally, on June 20, my lovely sister-in-law invited us out for another family get together in her lovely yard. We’re now allowed to gather in groups of 10 or less and we’ve formed a “bubble group” of six (me and Phil, sis and spouse, and the moms). We played kubb, another yard game that Phil made, and ate burgers and fresh-cut fries.

 

What I’m watching and reading

After last month’s epic end-of-season bonanza, I have amazingly few shows to report on.

Phil and I watched through to the end of Supernatural, season 14. We dreaded the introduction of Jack, the Nephilim, because we knew the destructive potential of an overpowered character. So, of course, Jack loses his powers when Lucifer steals his grace, forcing Dean to let Michael possess him and kill Lucifer. And then, because Jack’s a Nephilim, his grace doesn’t regenerate like any other angel’s would. Then, because he drags down the story without purpose grace, he contracts angelic tuberculosis and dies. And, of course, soft-hearted Sam can let him die and resurrects him with magic that links his soul to his use of power. So, he can’t use his powers without burning up his soul. So … of course, Michael possesses (repossesses?) Dean and then Rowena, killing the team of Apocalypse World hunters, and Jack has to burn off what remains of his soul to kill Michael. At that point, we could see that Jack would be the big bad of the season (we were mostly right and not happy about it). Jack burns Nick alive in front of Mary when Nick tries to use Jack’s blood to resurrect Lucifer, and when Mary tries to tell him what he’s done is wrong, Jack kills her. Through another series of shenanigans, Jack goes rogue and finally, God/Chuck shows up, revealing to Sam and Dean that, after all this time, in all the universes he’s created, Sam and Dean are his favourite “show.” He just loves to watch the drama. Instead of resolving the situation himself by restoring Jack’s soul (Chuck says he can’t) Chuck gives Sam and Dean a Nephilim-killing gun and tells them to kill Jack. Jack is ultimately remorseful and kneels passively, waiting for Dean to kill him. Sam tries to intervene and Chuck eggs Dean on. At the last moment, Dean turns the gun on Chuck and shoots him, so Chuck smites Jack and apparently sets off the final apocalypse.

We were disappointed.

I finished watching The Witcher. Not horrible, but not great. I did not appreciate all the unmarked time travel of the first episodes.

I finished last year’s season of Anne with an E in time for this year’s episodes to cue up. I like the additions they’ve made to the story (Black, LGBTQ+, and Indigenous storylines). I think the creators had to add these elements in order to make the series unlike any other iteration of Anne of Green Gables.

I also finished last year’s run of Homeland. It’s getting a little long in the tooth for me, but I am curious to find out what happens to Carrie now that she’s been incarcerated in Russia for months without proper medication.

I only read three books this month.

The 7 ½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle was an interesting mystery along the lines of Russian Doll or Groundhog Day. The concept is too intricate to explain briefly, but it reads well, and the tension is high throughout. Thoroughly enjoyable.

Then, I read Robin LaFever’s Grave Mercy about a sect of assassin nuns in medieval Brittany.

Finally, I read Rohinton Mistry’s A Fine Balance. It’s a sweeping epic set over several tumultuous decades in India’s history. I enjoyed it, but it broke my heart because everyone suffered, no one was happy in the end, and the climactic suicide was senseless. It’s stayed on my mind because I keep trying to make sense of it. I think that may have been the point.

And that brings me to the end of the month in this writer’s life.

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

The Next Chapter

The next chapter: May 2020 update

/ Melanie Marttila

Yes. This post is late. I just couldn’t finish it last night.

Black lives matter. Indigenous lives matter. All lives cannot matter until Black and Indigenous lives matter. I think I’m going to be repeating this for a while, if for no other reason than to remind myself that I have work to do.

I’ve been reading Black and Indigenous authors for a few years (N.K. Jemisin, Marlon James, Ralph Ellison, Octavia Butler, Nalo Hopkinson, Nnedi Okorafor, Lawrence Hill, Waubgeshig Rice, Eden Robinson, Richard Wagamese, Robin Wall Kimmerer). I’ve taken a few Writing the Other courses. I’m not looking for a pat on the back. I’m just saying that I’ve already been making an effort to educate myself.

The last weeks have made it clear that I haven’t interrogated my white privilege nearly hard enough.

I have consumed more media created by Black people in the last couple of weeks than I have in the last couple of years.

I’ve been heartened that charges have been laid against the four police officers involved in the murder of George Floyd and by the ongoing protests all over the world. The call to defund police makes so much sense, I hope the will if found to make this work. I have hope that change is coming, but I also know that we can’t stop working toward a better future until our politicians are moved to act or are removed from office for failing to do so.

Pandemic life

Meanwhile, I’m still working from home, and am about to commence the last of four consecutive weeks of virtual training. Training exhausts me at the best of times, but now, I barely have the spoons left to do more than take a nap in the evenings. We’re not using Zoom, but the sap is the same.

While I’ve been working, Phil’s been woodworking. He made his mom a potato bin, he’s made stools and a bench (the bench was actually stolen and busted up, but I found the wreckage and Phil has now rebuilt it), he made his sister a beautiful table for her patio, a couple of lawn games, another board game (Ur) and a more permanent gate for our door. All of it from old pallet wood.

About that last, there is no door to the stairs for our basement and the basement is not a place we want Torvi to be. There’s too much for her to get into, too much for her to consume that she shouldn’t. Until we get motivated to clean up the basement, the gate will have to do.

While some services have opened up again, it has been a cautious process. As it should continue to be. Even though we haven’t had a new case identified in Sudbury in a few weeks now, the more people move around, the more likely it is that people will get infected and we’ll have another outbreak.

The earliest we could get Torvi in for a groom is July 27th. I’ll be able to visit my massage therapist again at the end of June. As of the end of this week, in Ontario but outside of Toronto and Hamilton, hair salons will soon be able to reopen (Mom will be happy—her hair is driving her CRAZY) and restaurants with outdoor patios.

From what I understand, I’ll be working from home until there is a vaccine, and possibly even after that. I don’t mind working from home except for the continuing time warp effect. When I’m not training and my time isn’t as rigidly scheduled, I often forget to take my breaks or lunch until my gut reminds me that I haven’t eaten anything in a number of hours.

For now, my employer is keeping 90% of their workforce working from home. Our IT department is still distributing laptops and VPN accounts. They haven’t quite supplied half our workforce yet. I’m not looking forward, honestly. I have a nice set up with my desktop and I will not be happy to lose it.

The month in writing

I had only two writing tasks on my plate this month: trying to finish the rewrite of Reality Bomb and blogging.

I blew both goals away, but … the story of RB is still not finished. I’m continuing to work on it, as I can, and I’ll have to adjust my writing goals for the remainder of the year accordingly. My goal for May was to get to 90k and that meant 4,057 words. I wrote 7,181 words, or 177%, and now, a week into June, I’ve broken 95k. There will be some serious cutting involved in getting this one ready for my critique group. At this rate, I expect it to go over 100k. By how much? Who knows?

I aimed for 3,500 words and due to longer tipsday curations including a brief covid-19 update, and now Black lives matter, I wrote 4,989 words, or 143% of my goal.

MayProgress

Overall, my writing goal was 7,557 words and I wrote 12,170 words, or 161%.

Not too damn shabby 🙂

Filling the well

I attended another webinar with Jane Friedman on conquering the dreaded synopsis. I like Jane’s webinars, and whether she’s presenting or hosting the presenter, the content is always very good.

Phil and I also went out to his sister’s for a physically distanced afternoon of testing out his mölkky game and just hanging out.

And, of course, I took lots of lovely pictures on my twice-daily walks with Torvi.

What I’m watching and reading

Because if the time of year, a shit-ton of shows had their season finales. To keep this post from getting huge-mongous, I’m going to offer a short summary for each. I know covid-19 had an effect on a number of productions, but I’m not sure which ones.

Grey’s Anatomy—I’m glad Richard’s in recovery, but Meredith’s being pulled into Deluca’s black hole again, and while Link and Amelia seem to be okay, Owen and Teddy are definitely not. Did not like how they got rid of Karev. Bwa-wa.

Nancy Drew (actually ended in April, but I forgot)—I enjoyed this first season, but it just kind of ended/not ended?

Outlander—another great season, though there were definite divergences from the novels (beyond what would be strictly necessary for the change in medium). Glad they ended Bonnet’s subplot early, and sweet, merciful Mary did the final episode put Claire through the wringer.

The Rookie—love Nathan Fillion as I do, and as much as I enjoyed the season overall, the cliff hanger pissed me off. They’ve done this before and have had to dial back in the first episodes of the second season. Nolan is the protagonist, after all. Are they really going to put him in jail? Will tune in but withholding judgement until I see how they resolve this one.

How to Get Away with Murder—the wrap up was precipitous. They basically killed off or ostracized anyone whose story was too inconvenient to resolve within the final episode (Bonnie, Frank, the governor, Michaela).

Bat Woman—I know Alice’s murder of Mouse was supposed to be a touching moment, but it just confirmed for me what a psychopath Alice is … and what a dead-end character Mouse was (I mean, seriously, why?). And the fact that I’m not talking about Kate’s arc should speak volumes on its own.

Supergirl—Brainy’s sacrifice rang hollow. Though I know it was supposed to be this big, angsty moment, it came off meh. And all so that Lex could have his mommy issues.

Charmed—I found the ending puzzling. They seemed to be building up to this big confrontation with Julian, but it never happened?

Westworld—I thought this season was the best yet, though I seem to be in the minority. *shrugs* I love what I love.

Dark Crystal—while I loved it, I think it was my nostalgic memories of the movie that influenced me more than anything else. The series was not without its problems and they all came down to the limits of puppetry in telling what was, ultimately, a battle-heavy story 😦

Killing Eve—mwah! Both Eve and Villanelle are evolving. And that last scene of them facing each other on the bridge? Love.

DC’s Legends of Tomorrow—I was kind of pleased when Sarah became Oracle, but then they undid everything? The resolution was a cheat.

Finally, Phil and I watched the latest season of The Last Kingdom. We abandoned Vikings in favour of this more historically accurate (hey—I said more) series. Uhtred, of course, is completely fictional. The poor guy can’t win for losing, though. He’s lost Aethelflaed to honour and duty as she becomes queen of Mercia, his kids are scattered to the winds, and now, Bebbanburg is further out of his reach than ever. And now he’s charged with the protection of Aethelstan, who will be the first true king of a united England.

Turning to the month in reading, I started off with N.K. Jemisin’s The City We Became. It starts with the novella that was The City Born Great and the diverges into a series of stories about the avatars of all the boroughs. They come together in a fabulous found family, each of them with their own skills and abilities, fighting a Cthulian invader. Some readers found the coming together part a little too slow, but, considering the avatar of each borough is literally bound to their borough, I think it took a realistic amount of time. Loved, but the ending, though it’s what the story demanded, caught me off guard.

Then, I read Starsight, the second novel in Brandon Sanderson’s Skyward series. This novel was very different than Skyward and sends Spensa off on an undercover mission. With the exception of M-Bot and Doomslug, she’s on her own. While the reader gets a little in the way of “meanwhile, back at the ranch” interludes, the characters readers bonded with in the first novel are largely absent. Spensa makes new friends and has new adventures, but even as all her hard work seems to come to naught, Spensa jumps into even more danger.

Next, I read Madeline Miller’s Circe. A lovely reinterpretation of the myth. I really enjoyed it.

I also read Johanna Skibsrud’s Giller-winning novel The Sentimentalists. Actually, I listened to it on Audible and I think the narrator had something to do with my enjoyment, or lack thereof, of the novel. Skibsrud writes in complex sentences with a lot of phrases and parenthetical statements. The narrator paused for every comma appropriately, but it came off sounding very disjointed. The story was good (it won a Giller) but it was difficult to get inside it as an audiobook. It might have been better if I’d read the physical book.

Finally, I read Kate Heartfield’s novella Alice Payne Arrives. Loved. It was nominated for an Aurora Award last year 🙂

And that, at long last, was the month in this writer’s life.

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

The Next Chapter

Tipsday: Writerly Goodness found on the interwebz, May 17-23, 2020

/ Melanie Marttila

Another week of #pandemiclife, another batch of informal writerly learnings.

Before we get to those, though, here is my weekly update:

Though Ontario’s efforts at “reopening” have been cautious, numbers of confirmed cases have increased. Some of this is to be expected, but testing has not kept up. The federal government is trying to get the tech companies on board to have 1 tracing app across platforms (Android and Apple). While Phil and I did take my mom and Torvi out for an afternoon of physically distanced fun at his sister’s (she’s worked hard on her back yard this year, increasing the size of her patio to accommodate a gazebo, making a proper fire pit, and various planter boxes) we were careful to stay two metres apart.

Phil made a couple of yard games, a set of lawn dice for outdoor Yahtzee and a Finnish game called mölkky. I’ll let you look the latter up on the interwebz 🙂 We played a couple games and had an enjoyable afternoon.

Onto the curation!

K.M. Weiland strikes a balance between creativity and distraction: 13 tips for writers in the age of the internet. Helping Writers Become Authors

Janice Hardy is clarifying ambiguous pronouns. Then, Orly Konig wants you to organize the chaos using these five revision tips for pantsers. Fiction University

Gabe lists the four questions every pitch must answer. Bookish Pixie

Marjorie Simmins offers an excerpt of her Q&A with Lawrence Hill: memoir beyond the self. Then, Susan DeFreitas returns with part seven of her developing a writing practice series: engrained. Jane Friedman

Shaelin finishes her series on developing a novel: creating a writing plan. Reedsy

E.J. Wenstrom lists ten ways to connect with readers while physically distancing. And here’s my latest column: mythic storytelling with the tarot, part three. In which I create an outline for a fantasy story using the tarot. Jason Jones shares five tips to get your book on local media. DIY MFA

Dave King goes into the woods. Barbara Linn Probst is learning from Pinoccio how to create a character who’s fully alive. Writer Unboxed

Christina Delay thinks you might as well jump—into the third act. Writers Helping Writers

Ellen Buikema takes a look at body language in writing. Writers in the Storm

The Take looks at the girl next door.

Jami Gold explores the spectrum of third person point of view. Then, she helps you develop a powerful point of view.

Chris Winkle explains how to plot a series. Then, Oren Ashkenazi considers the world building of The Expanse. Mythcreants

Kelly Grovier: the women who created a new language. BBC

Deborah Dundas: Amazon hurt them. The lockdown hurt them. Now there’s a painful loss in court. Canada’s book biz — authors, publishers, retailers — is hunting for a new business model. The Toronto Star

Thank you for visiting. I hope you’ve found something to support you with your current work in progress.

Until Thursday, be well and stay safe!

Tipsday2019

Join me over at DIY MFA for my latest Speculations

/ Melanie Marttila

In part three of my series on the tarot for writers, I create a rough outline for a story using the tarot. It was a lot of fun. Maybe you’d like to try it?

Mythic Storytelling: Tarot for Writers, Part 3

TarotPt3

And while your there, check out the other great columnists and all the awesome Gabriela has up for offer.

See ya Thursday!

The next chapter: April 2020 update

/ Melanie Marttila

Here we are in the first week of May. It was an interesting and surprising month.

Pandemic life

In Canada, and Ontario, specifically, there are indications that the numbers of new cases and deaths are no longer increasing exponentially, but they are still increasing. This is likely due to the number of international travellers over March Break and returning Snow Birds as well as various waves of repatriation.

These returning travellers were all back in March, yes, but I think that because most of those travellers were not equipped to quarantine for two weeks, there was likely some scrambling to shop for supplies before self-isolating, and that unintentional transmission occurred. I’m not pointing fingers. None of us had any idea things would get so bad so quickly. People can contract covid-19 and not be symptomatic. There are reports of people in Italy and Spain being diagnosed almost a month after self-isolating. We live and we learn and we try to do better.

Because they’ve had to, the federal and provincial governments have made public their “plans” for reopening. I have to emphasize that these are plans, and plans that are dependent on widespread testing and infection tracing. Several plans do not contain hard milestones because they can’t. It’s a matter of waiting until the curve is truly planked—and confirmed—and then implementing a cautious reopening of some services and businesses and waiting to see how that affects the rates of infection and death before proceeding.

It’s true that some provinces haven’t been as affected as others and thus may be tempted to rush the reopening process, but the federal government’s message remains, “stay the course.”

And so, we are.

The month in writing

AprilProgress

I had adjusted my writing goals for Reality Bomb once again because I had almost reached my writing goals but ultimately fallen short of them in the past two months. I had lowered my overall goal to 85k words and am pleased to say that I’ve exceeded that goal this month.

Specifically, I wrote 11,378 words of my 10,264-word goal, or 111%. This put me over the 85k mark.

But … the story’s not finished yet. So, I’ve extended the project into May. Technically, I only have 4,057 words left to reach 90k, which was my original goal, but I suspect I’m going to have to overshoot that, possibly by quite a bit, to finish the story properly. Then I’m going to return to the middle section to see what needs to be cut (it is a bit of a sprawl) to bring the overall word count back down to 90k.

I once again blew away my blogging goal. I wrote 5,283 words. My goal was 3,750 words and that meant I achieved 141% of my blogging goal.

I also wrote my next Speculations column and, because it was the creation of an outline using tarot cards, it was another of my huge posts. I wrote 2,112 words of my 1,000-word goal, or 211%.

Overall, I aimed to write 15,014 words and ended up writing 18,773. That’s 125% of my goal and makes up for prior months’ shortfalls. Actually, with respect to writing goals, I achieved 111% in January, 91% in February, 99% in March, and 125% in April, for an average total of 107%. The only month I worked on revision, I achieved 96% of my goal, so that means between writing and revision, I’m running an average of 101% of my goals. I’m good with that 🙂

In addition to my writing, I finally got my poetry collection organized and submitted it to a press. We’ll see where that goes. I also entered several of my poems into a contest. The results should be out May 15, 2020. I’ll let you know if I get good news or bad news.

I heard back from the short story submission. It was rejected, but with a couple of comments. The mystery was solved too easily, which I accept and can work on. The other comment was something I’ve seen many times before, and that was that the story felt more like the basis of a longer work. Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever effectively conquer short 🙂

I’ll definitely keep trying. In the meantime, my backlog of novel ideas continues to grow.

In non-writing-related happenings, my right eyelid became inflamed. It’s called blepharitis and was probably due to a blocked gland in the eyelid. I had the same thing two years ago. Same treatment. Warm compresses twice a day and antibiotic drops (as a preventative) every four hours for five to seven days.

And then, it appeared that my iPod classic (the kind they don’t make anymore) finally kicked the bucket. I’ve had it for a loooong time and thought that it was due. Basically, it froze (wouldn’t sync with iTunes, change menus, reset to factory settings, or anything) and none of the troubleshooting tips appeared to work. Phil and I were considering buying a new Touch, but lo and behold, I looked over at the shelf where I put the poor, gorked (or so I thought) thing, and it had miraculously reset.

I am now happily listening to my musics again 🙂

Filling the well

In April, I attended a Webinar through the Canadian Authors Association on the publishing process following the completion of a book (fiction or non-fiction). It was called, “The End” is just the beginning.

I also participated in a stress test of Zoom breakout rooms in anticipation of its use for a virtual conference. It was pretty cool. I was shunted in to two or three separate breakout rooms, hung out for a while and chatted, and then the experiment was over. We didn’t break Zoom, as far as I understood, but I think it was a valid trial of the system for the intended purpose.

This weekend (May 1-3) was to have been the Ad Astra convention, but it was, of course, cancelled.

What I’m watching and reading

Phil and I watched I Am Not Okay with This. The series was short and so were the episodes. One of the people involved in The End of the Fucking World was behind it and the series had the same aesthetic. It had a very retro vibe (the soundtrack dates it in the 80s) but the story felt contemporary.

Syd discovers she has telekinetic abilities even as she discovers her sexual identity. It’s a kind of supernatural weaponizing of a coming out story, kind of like how Ginger Snaps supernaturally weaponized female sexual maturity. The fact that Syd feels she needs to hide who she is and what she can do makes her doubly monstrous. She doesn’t want to hurt anyone, but continually ends up doing the worst possible thing in the moment. It was good, quirky, and horrific in a metaphorical and (fictionally) literal way.

There wasn’t anything new that we were interested in on the immediate horizon, so we turned to catching up on Supernatural. We’d watch up to the end of season 12 on Netflix and then they dropped the series. It moved to Amazon Prime, but we didn’t have the gap to indulge until recently. We watched season 13 and have started 14. I classify it as comfort watching. Supernatural doesn’t demand a lot of the viewer 🙂

We also watched Spiderman, Far from Home. Not as good as Into the Spiderverse, but we enjoyed it. Tom Holland is the best Spiderman yet.

In my personal viewing, I finished up the latest season of Frontier, Jason Momoa’s passion project about the genesis of the Northwest Company. They did some necessary hand waving at the travel times for story reasons (they couldn’t dedicate realistic screen time to the ocean journeys), but the story was interesting.

In terms of reading, I read the next two books in Sabaa Tahir’s series, A Torch in the Night and A Reaper at the Gates. The story is good. I liked how the three main characters each develop in their own ways. It’s the continuing relationship drama that frustrates me as a reader.

I also read Alex Bledsoe’s The Hum and the Shiver. SPOILER WARNING I quite liked the displaced Tuatha de Danann, living in seclusion in America. Good plot, humorous secondary stories, and a damaged and compelling protagonist.

Autonomous by Annalee Newitz was thought provoking. Newitz comes at the topic of slavery from multiple perspectives. The protagonist, Jack, is a slave to her past. Threezed, is a human slave. Paladin is a robot with a human (cadaver) brain that aids in facial recognition. Most bots are created indentured but can earn their autonomy through service. Med is a bot created free, educated, and with a stable career. Elias, the human antagonist and Paladin’s partner is a slave to his preconceived notions of free will, consent, and sexual identity.

Throw all of these characters into a mixing pot of big pharma, piracy, a drug that enslaves people by addicting them to their jobs, free labs that attempt to make life-saving pharmaceuticals available to everyone, and the security agency tasked to police it all and you have a SF thriller that never stops and never stops making you think.

Finally, Brandon Sanderson’s Skyward was surprising. I’ve read quite a few of Sanderson’s novels. I really liked the Mistborn series. I enjoyed the Legion novellas, Steelheart, and The Way of Kings. Warbreaker was good, too. But Skyward kept me reading in a way his other novels haven’t. I was really invested in Spensa’s journey. The theme was simple: what does it mean to be a coward or to be brave? Spensa’s father was a pilot—a great one—but in one of the greatest battles in her people’s history, he’s said to have run from the fight. Spensa grows up under the burden of that legacy, but still wishes to be a pilot despite it. Frustrated at almost every turn, Spensa has to come to terms with what her father did, her true legacy, and she has to decide who she really is.

It was fabulous.

And that was April in this writer’s life.

Until Tipsday, be well and keep safe, be kind, and stay strong. The world still needs your stories.

The Next Chapter

Tipsday: Writerly Goodness found on the interwebz, April 5-11, 2020

/ Melanie Marttila

Another week of physical distancing has come and gone. Another week of working from home or unemployment, and increasing numbers of confirmed illness, hospitalisation, and deaths from covid-19. There is also hope that, in some areas, at least, that we’re reaching a peak, beginning to flatten or plank the curve.

Treatments are being investigated while a vaccine is in development, but this new normal may pertain until a vaccine is available. I hope that you’re finding a way to navigate the enforced isolation.

My own humble contribution is this curation of informal writerly learnings. Enjoy.

K.M. Weiland lists seven ways writing saves us when life is hard. Helping Writers Become Authors

Susan DeFreitas returns to Jane Friedman’s blog with part two of her developing a writing practice series: community. Then, Susann Cokal suggests that instead of setting a goal, try a writing dare.

Shaelin Bishop explains show, don’t tell, so you can actually understand it. Shaelin Writes

Over on Reedsy, Shaelin lists the pros and cons of past and present tense so you can choose the best one for your story.

Tamar Sloan shares what you need to know to keep the words flowing in difficult times. Writers Helping Writers

Jeanette (the Writer) Smith considers whether you can trust editing software. And here’s my latest column: five books on the tarot for writers. DIY MFA

Jenna Moreci shares her favourite man tropes 🙂

Jami Gold wants you to escape generic storytelling by asking why. Then she helps us understand the past perfect tense.

Janice Hardy helps you identify whether it’s a loss of momentum or writer’s block. Fiction University

Chris Winkle tackles Act II of Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. Then, Oren Ashkenazi explains what Tolkien did right—and wrong—when he built Middle Earth. Mythcreants

Kristen Lamb shares the truth about introverts and why isolation is hard on us, too.

Thank you for visiting, and I hop that you’ve found something here to support your current work in progress.

Until Thursday, be well and stay safe.

Tipsday2019

Join me on DIY MFA for my latest Speculations

/ Melanie Marttila

Hey, everyone!

On the last Speculations, I provided a brief introduction to the tarot. This time, I review five books on the tarot for writers.

FiveBooksonTarotforWriters

While you’re there, you might as well peruse the site and the great articles by my fellow columnists. Or have a look at some of the awesome resources Gabriela has put together for you.

Until next time, be well and stay safe!