Happy Hanukkah (ongoing), and happy solstice (tomorrow) for those who celebrate! Here’s my gift to you: informal writerly learnings. Yeah, I share them every week, and you know what, every week they’re gifts 🙂 Enjoy!
Thank you so much for visiting. It’s like your gift to me! And I appreciate it. I hope you found something to support your current work(s) in progress.
Until Thursday, keep staying safe and well, my writerly friends.
December is here! Time to trundle out the seasonal decorations 🙂
I’ve been mulling over a few things, and I’ve made a couple of decisions. First, using my current system (template and fill it in as I go in dribs and drabs) I’ll be converting my monthly updates into weekly updates starting in January 2023. This will be in anticipation of converting my updates into a newsletter, down the road. (Perhaps way down the road? Honestly, I’m not sure.)
Second, I’m going to be trimming down thoughty Thursday, cutting out the newsy bits (y’all get enough of all that in the real world) and refocusing on articles and resources that will either a) generate ideas, AKA get your mental corn popping or b) help you in your research, worldbuilding, or other non-writing aspects of craft.
TT has always been the less visited, less liked, and less commented-on curation post.
What do you think? Let me know in the comments if you like the idea of shorter, more frequent updates and smaller TT curations. Or if you don’t. I’m happy to hear from you, either way.
Your monthly PSAs:
All lives cannot matter until Black, Indigenous, and people of colour lives matter.
Continue to observe public health guidelines (washing hands, maintaining physical distance, masking where you can’t, getting your vaccinations as recommended). Covid is endemic. That means it’s here to stay, like the flu or colds. Take care of yourselves and the people you love.
Russia’s unprovoked war in the Ukraine continues and continues to be deplorable. I stand with the Ukraine!
Reproductive rights are everyone’s fight!
The month in writing
It was refreshing to focus on drafting a new novel idea after so long working on revision. For that reason alone, NaNoWriMo 2022 was a win.
Here’s how the month broke down.
Week 1 – 3,378 words on Assignment1/Reality Bomb; 3,469 words on Alice; 1,219 words on the blog; total 8,066 words.
Week 2 – 8,492 words on Alice; 320 words on the blog; total 8,812 words.
Week 3 – 6,548 words on Alice; 380 words on the blog; total 6,928 words.
Week 4 – 7,718 words on Alice; 364 words on the blog; total 8,082 words.
Last three days – 2,072 words on Alice; 1,880 words on the blog; total 3,952 words.
I wrote 28,299 words of the 50k-word goal of Alice in Thunderland, or 57%. It’s definitely going to be a novella, which is something new for me. I usually write long. Like way too long.
There were two curation posts (the last of October) plus a weekly NaNo mini update for each week of November. I also counted whatever words I’d written in this post as of November 30th. This resulted in 4,163 words of my modest 2,500-word goal, or 167%.
Finally, I also counted the assignment I wrote up for my book coach, Suzy. That was 3,378 words.
This adds up to a grand total of 35,840 words for the month, all of which I counted toward my NaNo goal of 50,000 words. That worked out to 71%. So, I didn’t “win” NaNaWriMo 2022, but I made good progress on a new story and got a few other things done.
Filling the well
In writing events, Wordstock Sudbury took place from November 3rd to 5th. I split my time between online events and in-person events. The venue’s just up the road from me, so it’s convenient, but when Torvi sees me (or Phil) walk away without her, she is inconsolable for at least an hour. I didn’t want to inflict her howling on Phil more than I had to.
The solution? I drove to the venue on the main day of the festival. Torvi was just fine.
The sessions were great, both online and in-person. I particularly enjoyed Kathy Friedman’s “Writing Our Lived Experience” workshop and Tanis MacDonald’s “Measure Twice, Cut Once,” all about the editing and revision process. I got to see Danielle Daniel’s workshop on writing across genres and Liselle Sambury in the “YA for Everyone” panel. David Robertson was also in that panel, and I caught him again in the “Tell a Good Story” panel, with Ernie Loutit and Waub Rice.
It was probably the best Wordstock yet. Already looking forward to next year.
Something else that happened at Wordstock: I now have an editor for my poetry collection (!) She won’t have room in her schedule for me until Spring, but I think we’re going to work well together 🙂
I did what I could with the first assignment and submitted it to Suzy. We met to discuss it on the 22nd. It was good, but I rambled on … Things are taking better shape. I now have a second assignment and another meeting on Dec 7th.
I attended the launch of my friend, Kim Fahner’s latest poetry collection, Emptying the Ocean on November 24th. It’s always a grand time. And I got to catch up with another friend from out of twon who’d also come to support Kim.
I attended AugurCon online (November 26 and 27). It was fabulous.
Finally, on November 30th, I attended another webinar by Mary Robinette on short stories. Though I have gotten better at writing these over the years, I can always improve.
Another filling the well thing:
I watch Shaelin Bishop’s YouTube channel, Shaelin Writes. Recently, her vlogs have been a great comfort. Though she writes literary fiction, I find I really relate to her. She was originally a pantser, switched to outlining, and discovered that she preferred pantsing. Which is something I’m learning myself.
She did a great vlog on why telling isn’t a bad thing 🙂 and several about how she thinks of structure in short stories and novels, which have been revelations to me.
More recently, she was lamenting that, after years of revision and editing, she was finding it difficult to get back to writing. In fact, she thought her most recent novel was crap. It wasn’t sparking joy for her like her other novels did. She decided to work on it for NaNoWriMo, not with the intention of “winning,” but with the intention to work on it every day. After the first week, she thought she was going to have to shelve it, but in the second week, the story broke for her, and she decided to stick with it.
It’s so nice when things work out—she was so happy! It gives me hope for similar breakthroughs in my own work.
In non-writing-related events, I celebrated a friend’s retirement on the 19th. Low key. And I celebrated my mom-in-law’s 81st birthday on the 25th. Also, low-key.
Finally, I engaged in some self care with an RMT appointment and a meeting with my support group.
In the health issues department, my semi-annual outbreak of blepharitis has decided to complicate my November. This means four to five sessions of hot compresses a day, and the necessary sacrifice of writing time 😦
What I’m watching and reading
In the viewing department, I have to rewind a bit. Because I wanted to get October’s next chapter update out before the end of the month, I missed out on a couple of October viewings.
The first was that I finished my rewatch of Veronica Mars (Crave). The fourth season ending wasn’t satisfying. The true bomber wasn’t caught. I’m a little disappointed. Though I really like Kristen Bell and the series. Up next, the movie, which takes place between seasons three and four.
Then, on Hallowe’en night, Phil and I watched Altered Carbon: Resleeved (Netflix). There’s a nice set piece that can make the animated movie standalone, but there are also call backs to the series that, if you watched it, will help everything make more sense. Take or leave that caveat as you will. Kovach is resleeved and assigned to protect a tattoo artist for the Yakuza. Lots of blood and violence. Decent story, though.
Phil and I also watched Weird Al, the parody biopic, when it came out on Roku. Hilarious, and we were pressed to identify the actors playing various cameos (and sometimes the cameo characters, like Gallagher).
Then, we watched Enola Holmes 2 (Netflix). I think it was better than the first one. Fun, fourth wall-breaking protagonist, witty banter, and a whole bunch of butt-kicking women.
The Handmaid’s Tale (network) finished its latest season on the 9th. With Commander Fred literally torn apart at the end of the last season, this season focused on June and Serena and issues of motherhood. Both characters vacillate between out-for-revenge bloody-mindedness and motherly solidarity, ending the season on the latter.
The series seems to be diverging from the books (which are, admittedly, bookends to the series), but I’m still interested in seeing how it all works out.
I watched Horns (Amazon). This is a 2013 movie based on a 2010 Joe Hill novel. Ig (Ignatius), the protagonist, has been accused of his girlfriend Merrin’s murder, and everyone believes it’s true except for his best friend and lawyer Lee, his brother Terry, and another of their childhood friends, Glenna.
After a drunken and grief-driven one night stand with Glenna, Ig sprouts horns. After that, everyone is seemingly compelled to share their deepest, darkest secrets with Ig, except Lee. Ig uses this paranormal ability to find out who really killed Merrin.
I watched the ill-fated first (and only) season of Tom Swift (network). It’s considered a spin-off of Nancy Drew, because of the character’s appearance in one episode last year. It wasn’t terrible, but it suffered from the same problem many CW series have, which is characters doing 180s continually (i.e., acting out of character for no discernable reason).
I also watched the first season of Vampire Academy (network). Fairly standard YA fare set against a political backdrop. I was curious to see what Julie Plec would do with it. If Paramount+ renews, I’ll probably watch it.
The first season of The Time Traveller’s Wife was great. I’ve seen the movie but haven’t yet read the book (guess what’s next on my TBR list?).
Moving on to the month in reading, I read Grady Hendrix’s The Southern Book Club Guide to Slaying Vampires. The concept is straightforward. Hendrix imagined what would happen if his mother had to deal with a vampire. It’s set in the 90s, but it read like the 50s. A weird dissonance.
Then, I dove into Maggie Stiefvater’s Greywaren, the third in The Dreamer trilogy. I always feel sad when I finish a Stiefvater book, and then ravenous for the next one, but this was the end. The. End. Epilogue and everything. I read the first book of the Raven Cycle and listened to the rest in audiobook. Will Patton really gets these characters. I’ve decided that next year, I’m going to start rereading and studying my favourite books. I’m starting with The Raven Cycle.
Next, I read Mary Robinette Kowal’s The Spare Man. It’s The Thin Man, in spaaaaaace. If you think you’d enjoy Nick, Nora, and Asta … in space, then read this book. Loved, loved loved! Another book that I was sad to finish. That’s all Ima say.
I finished reading Lauren Beukes’ Shining Girls. I’m also watching the series on Apple +. The two are quite different. I’ll probably finish watching the series next month.
Through a strange series of events, a man in the Depression is drawn to a house, which sends him on a series of quests to murder the girls that shine. The house takes him through time to accomplish his grisly tasks, until one of the shining girls survives and hunts him down. It ended a little abruptly, but I was okay with that.
And that was the month in this writer’s life.
Until next tipsday, be well and stay safe; be kind and stay strong. The world needs your stories!
Week four is in the can! Three days left. Will I make it?! (SPOILER: I never intended to.)
The plan
To do what I can and feel good about the progress 🙂 I’m not a fast writer at the best of times.
The progress
Here’s what week four looked like:
I wrote 7,718 words on Alice in Thunderland and 364 words in this post, for a total of 8,082 words for the week.
Overall, I’ve written 31,868 words, or 64% of the 50k goal.
And … I made an adjustment to the first three days of the month. I forgot to count the assignment I’d written up for my book coach (!) So, that added 3,378 to my word count (reflected in the above). I’ll break down my weekly progress on Alice and on other projects in my next chapter update.
The pivot
I’m getting better at the quick shift from work to writing to work brain. Also getting better at sleep and the rearrangement of Torvi afternoon walk times, but appointments, meetings, and events continue to disrupt my plans/schedule/rituals. The appointments, meetings, and events are things I want to do, but they’re still disruptive. I plan around them to the best of my ability, but it’s still a challenge.
Am I coming off as too whiny? Too first world problems? Too middle-class CIS/Het white chick privilege?
Change can be an autistic’s nightmare, even when you expect it and plan for it. That’s the truth.
And in another three days, I’m going to be adapting to change again, as I resume curation and my usual daily schedule. I have to fit in the de-Hallowe’ening and Christmasing of the house as well. Yup, still have the Hallowe’en door decorations up. Everything else has been gathered and made ready for its trip into the storage tub downstairs. November generally means a pause on a lot of day-to-day activities.
In any case, I’m happy with how NaNoWriMo 2022 has gone so far.
I’ll fill you in on the last three days in my next chapter update next weekend.
The days of grey skies are here.
Until next week, be well and stay safe; be kind and stay strong. The world needs your stories!
There were a few good days, but work and appointments, and social events also meant several low-production days.
Here’s what week three looked like (notice the nifty colour-coding?):
So, 6,548 words on Alice in Thunderland and 380 words in this post, for a total of 6,928 words for the week.
In NaNoWriMo so far, I’ve written 20,428 words of the 50k-word goal, or 41%.
The pivot
It’s not a pivot, but I’m trying to use my afternoon breaks at work to write. It’s not been as successful as I’d like, because it’s hard to shift gears between work-brain and writer-brain and back to work-brain again. Also, it’s only 15 minutes (yes, I hear you say, that’s the length of a sprint) so I don’t get a lot written.
As the days have been getting darker, I’ve also had to change the time I walk Torvi, which is right after work, most days, meaning that I can’t get right to writing. It’s that time of year when I have to bundle up in boots and scarf and mitts and winter coat, which turns a 15- to 20-minute walk into a 30- to 40-minute walk. Change, even seasonal change, is never easy for me.
Daylight Saving Time ended on the 6th, and that always discombobulates me for about a week. I’ve tried to compensate by getting to bed at a more reasonable hour and using earplugs and a sleep mask to help me sleep better. It’s definitely helped me get to sleep faster and stay asleep longer.
So, workdays, I write on my afternoon break (15 minutes), between walking Torvi and supper (30 minutes to an hour, depending), and then after supper to about 9 pm (an hour and a half to two hours). After 9, my brain shuts down and good words stop happening. That adds up to 2 and a quarter to 3 and a quarter.
Weekends aren’t much better.
It’s been a limited success.
But that’s been week three of NaNoWriMo in this writer’s life.
Until next week, be well and stay safe; be kind and stay strong. The world needs your stories!
Week two is done, for better or worse. Welcome to week three!
The plan
The plan was just to keep going, honestly.
The progress
I’m back to work this week (I forgot to mention that I was on leave last week) means all I have are evenings and weekends. And I still have other obligations to attend to. Again, I’ve been taking it easy on myself. There’s no point if I’m not having fun. And I am having fun, so whatever the ultimate outcome, I consider that a win.
Unfortunately, this week’s impediments to progress included a power outage, a forced Windows update, and a plant emergency (it fell, spilling soil all over the floor—I had to clean up and repot it). All of this resulted in about three hours that could have been devoted to Alice 😦
Week two looked like this:
I wrote 8,492 words on Alice, and blogged 320, for a total of 8,812.
At this point, I don’t think I’ll even make 30k, let alone 50k, but every word’s a victory! That is, every word is one I didn’t have before. It’s also more than would have written without the motivation of NaNoWriMo. It’s progress even if the ultimate goal isn’t reached.
The pivot
Again, not pivoting.
I did get my laptop updated (a little belatedly, as it’s been a few months since I last used it), and now I can work on the couch or dining room table if I want. I could even write in bed (!) though I haven’t, yet.
My portable desk.
I just have to be careful to close the document on my desktop. It will update on both with frequent saving, but honestly, it’s easier just to have the document opened on one computer at a time 🙂
Until next week, be well and stay safe; be kind and stay strong. The world needs your stories!
Welcome to my NaNoWriMo project for 2022, my alternate history/steampunk novel, Alice in Thunderland.
Airship captain Madeline Hatter must rescue her girlfriend and military research and development scientist Nuala Rabbit when she is kidnapped by otherworldly agents. If she can’t, Canada and its allies will be ill-prepared for the next great war. And if she can’t stop Thunderland’s Queen Hart from using Nuala’s wormhole generator to launch an attack of his own, it might not be a world war they face, but a worlds’ war.
It’s a work in progress 🙂
The plan
I didn’t have much of a plan. I’d roughed out the first 20 chapters or so and was just going to pants the heck out of it. So far, so good.
While I signed up for the 50k, I don’t anticipate that I’ll be able to “win” this year. I’m trying not to put pressure on myself and aim for quality over quantity. I’m learning that gamification doesn’t work well for me anymore.
Even counting words from other projects might not get me to 50k. I’ll settle for whatever I get. This year, NaNo’s all about diving into a new project and giving myself the space and grace to do it well.
The progress
I started off slow but gained momentum as I worked. There was a little hiccup because of Wordstock Sudbury, but attending the literary festival was worth it. More about that in my next chapter update.
The firs six days of NaNo looked like this:
4,688 words of 50,000, or 9%.
The pivot
I don’t really have to pivot, but I want to get my laptop updated and try writing in the living room sometimes. Just for a change of place. I even have a lap desk ready to go …
Well, that’s it for this week.
Sun dogs. I take ’em where I can find ’em.
Until next week, be well and stay safe; be kind and stay strong. The world needs your stories!
Ah, November. Time for NaNaWriMo and a break from weekly curation 🙂 Getting this update out early before the word rush begins.
I’ll be providing mini updates every week, as I have in past years but, with my new system, a regular update on November’s doings should be feasible. Look for that in early December, just before curation resumes.
Your monthly PSAs:
All lives cannot matter until Black, Indigenous, and people of colour lives matter.
Continue to observe public health guidelines (washing hands, maintaining physical distance, masking where you can’t, getting your vaccinations as recommended). Covid is endemic and new variants continue to crop up. Get your bivalent booster when you can (got mine!). Take care of yourselves and the people you love.
Russia’s unprovoked war in the Ukraine continues and continues to be deplorable. I stand with the Ukraine!
Reproductive rights are everyone’s fight!
The month in writing
I continued working through Reality Bomb but had to give up around the 15th. By then, I’d only managed to cut 4,000 words. I realized that my map was failing me almost as much as the draft. I need to step back, take an objective view, and prepare myself for more rewriting, I think.
So, the only writing tracked this month was on the blog.
Including this post, I wrote 6,774 words or by 5,000-word goal, or 135%.
But … I made my choice and am now working with editor and book coach extraordinaire, Suzy Vadori 🙂 She’ll help me whip my WIP into shape.
I also had a Canadian Authors Association Board meeting on the 24th.
Filling the well
The Writer Unboxed OnConference continued through to the 16th. Lots of great sessions with Donald Maass, David Corbett, Desmond Hall, Kathryn Craft, Keith Cronin, Julie Duffy, Gwen Hernandez, Tiffany Yates Martin … there were just so many excellent sessions!
I attended the virtual launch of Mary Robinette Kowal’s The Spare Man on the 10th.
Then, I kind of did the crazy about mid-month. I signed up for Sandra Wickham’s five day “Outline Your Novel” workshop from the 12th to the 16th, and I had already signed up for Can-Con (virtual stream) from the 14th to the 16th. Both events overlapped with the OnCon. Thank goodness for replays.
I then continued the crazy by signing up for Daniel David Wallace’s Escape the Plot Forest event from the 22nd to the 25th. Again, replays saved my butt.
Finally, I attended Mary Robinette Kowall’s No Prep NaNoWriMo on the 29th. It’s the second time I’ve attended and I’m hoping that her techniques will help me draft my next project.
I read some of my poetry for the first time since the panini hit (and, truthfully, a long time before that) at the French Kiss open mic on October 4th. It was a lovely evening, and I got to reconnect with Pandora Topp and Chloé LaDuchesse. I also received some news from Latitude 46: the publisher has a line on a poetry editor for my forthcoming collection.
Had Thanksgiving supper at my mother-in-law’s. For simplicity and convenience, we opted for Chinese (few of us really enjoy Turkey). It was delicious, and we had apple cake for dessert.
We had to leave Torvi at home alone (for the first time) for the 2 hours we were there, as my mother-in-law’s building doesn’t allow pets on the premises, even to visit. The good news, Torvi—though she went ballistic when we got home—was a VERY good girl who deserved all the treatos 🙂
A non-writing event I attended was the Beyond Limits Autism Conference on the 23rd.
I got my second covid booster (Moderna bivalent) on the 12th. I will say that my arm was the sorest with this vaccine, but I’m as protected as I can be. For now.
What I’m watching and reading
In the viewing department, I finished watching the first season of Severance (Apple +). Weird and creepy and totally absorbing. Twists abound, but no answers … yet.
Phil and I watched She-Hulk (Disney +) and we both loved it. I read She-Hulk (both savage and sensational) when I was young, and the series reflects the comics. A focus on the difficulty of trying to be a lawyer and a superpowered person? Check. Breaking the fourth wall? Check. Fun sex positivity? Check (check, check)! And the finale was so meta.
I watched the third live action Full Metal Alchemist: The Last Alchemy. Again, it adheres to the FMA: Brotherhood storyline, but I liked the divergences. Subplots are all tied up at the end.
I watched the first season of House of the Dragon. I liked it, despite repeated misogyny and body horror. I know it’s being done for a reason, but honestly, I could have done without it.
Finally, I watched Red Notice. Fun triple-heist, opposites attract/buddy comedy, long con, double cross, and double-double cross, with a little Indiana Jones thrown in. You’d think with so many tropes, the movie wouldn’t be coherent, but the writers dove into each trope with such gusto, it all worked. And Ryan Reynolds is always entertaining.
Moving on to the month in reading, I read Kazuo Ishiguro’s Klara and the Sun. It’s very Velveteen Rabbit and gave me the same feels. Klara is an artificial friend (AF) who is purchased for a young girl, Josie, by her mother. Josie is sick and needs Klara is ways most other children don’t need their AFs. Klara is solar powered but has a special relationship with the sun. She plans to cure Josie with the sun’s “special energy.”
But the mother has other reasons for purchasing Klara and as the mystery unravels and Josie gets sicker, Klara takes drastic measures to save her girl. The ending is bittersweet.
Then, I listened to The Sandman, Act III by Neil Gaiman. S&S Audio pulled out all the stops. Orchestral score, sound effects, actors like James MacAvoy. I can’t imagine how long it takes to produce these things, but bravo. And I loved it.
Next up was Gail Carriger’s Changeless, the second in her Parasol Protectorate series. Alexia stops a humanizing “weapon” from being used to manipulate the supernatural world, but her friend Ivy elopes with an actor and, when it’s revealed she’s pregnant, her werewolf husband suspects her of infidelity, because supernaturals can’t procreate.
I also finished reading Tanya Huff’s The Future Falls. It’s the third in the Gale Women series, but I suspect that each book is fairly standalone. Essentially, Gale Seer Aunt Catharine (all the powerful women in the family are Aunts—the capital counts) Sees that an asteroid is going to strike Earth in an extinction-level event. The Gales can protect themselves, but Charlie wants to save the world. She’s kind of grown to like it, mostly because of the music.
And that was the month in this writer’s life.
Until next tipsday, the last for November, be well and stay safe; be kind and stay strong. The world needs your stories!
This is the final tipsday of October (!) Will you NaNoWriMo this year? I am. It will probably be another NaNo rebel combo, though I will be focusing on Alice in Thunderland. It might actually be a novella, though I’m not certain, yet.
In any case, it’s time to get your fill of informal writerly learnings. Enjoy!
Sweet Lord! It feels like forever since I wrote one of these. Forever and a week. And three days. Sorry about that. The last couple of weeks have been hectic at work. Ran out of weekend on the 4th/5th (what with all the Christmas-ing). And I ran out of weekend again on the 11th/12th because it was my mother-in-law’s 80th birthday party. Both of those will feature in December’s next chapter update.
The month(s) in writing
Will start off with October … if I can remember that far back 🙂
The writing was not going well.
I was still recovering from my autistic burnout, still being kind to myself, and still busy at work. There are more days when I did not work on Reality Bomb than days I worked on it. Of my conservative 5,000-word revision goal for the month, I only revised 3,060 words. That’s 61%.
I did work on a piece of short fiction, but it was focused editing to reduce the word count, so there was nothing to record. I submitted the story and the rejection came back two days later.
Aside from RB and the story, I kept up with my curation posts. I wrote 4,811 words of my 3,500-word goal, or 137%.
And that’s all I did in October.
The November update is just going to be summary 🙂 I embarked on NaNoWriMo 2021 with a conservative goal. All I really wanted to do was get back to a regular writing habit, if for no other reason than to prove that I could do it.
I was a NaNo Rebel and titled my project NaNo Rebel Combo. I counted everything I wrote or revised in the month. It helped that I had the first two weeks of November off work, but I sincerely thought my progress would crater after I returned.
Surprisingly, it didn’t.
Words revised on RB and edits to its story map: 44,854
Words written on short fiction: 1,424
Words blogged: 2,138
Words written on (my last) Speculations column: 1,653
Other words written: 360
Total words revised: 44,854
Total words written: 5,575
Grand total: 50,429 words
I submitted the short story I wrote to an anthology call. Will let you know if anything comes of that.
Filling the well
In October, I attended two virtual writerly events. A reading by Wab Kinew, and the combined Writing Excuses/Surrey International Writers’ Conference online. Both were lovely. And WXR/SiWC posted all their sessions for attendee viewing for 30 days after the event, so I was able to watch all the sessions I had to miss because work.
My mom hosted Thanksgiving for our family.
I also tracked down a therapist who specializes in autism and scheduled an appointment with her in early November.
I went in to work on October 29th and retrieved my chair. It was an accommodation request resulting from an ergonomic assessment before we got our adjustable desks at work. At the time, sitting was the issue and standing was the solution. After eight years of standing to work and write, I decided to change things up and try sitting again for a while.
I adjusted the seat pan and back to encourage me to lean back, so I wouldn’t get tense and torque out my neck, back, and shoulders the way I used to. And it’s working. I had some difficulties with the height of the arm rests, but now that I’ve resolved those, I’m golden. I credit my NaNo win, at least in part, to my new, comfortable sitting arrangement.
I made the tough decision to stop writing my column for DIY MFA. They’ve become a kind of family. I’ll miss writing for them, but I have to refocus on myself right now.
In November, aside from NaNo, I attended several virtual sessions from this year’s Wordstock Sudbury and a couple of Jane Friedman webinars.
Home for the Howlidays, with my short story, “The Wolf You Feed,” was launched on November 23rd. It’s available on Amazon if you want some wolfish holiday reads.
I had my first session with my therapist, got a note from my doctor for insurance, and submitted my first claim (which was subsequently paid). I investigated the accommodation process at work. In short, I made progress.
My two weeks of vacation in November, compared to the two weeks of sick leave I took back in September, were truly restorative. September was just about getting my head back. My success in NaNoWriMo cemented for me that I can still write and/or revise daily, that everything I produce is not crap, and that I can still accomplish lofty creative goals if I commit.
But now, there’s another urgent project that needs to be completed at work, and I’m taking another break (not voluntarily). I have to manage my energy levels and health.
And get lots of cuddles!
What I’m watching and reading
Watching first, as has been my pattern of late.
The Black Widow movie wasn’t as bad as I’d been led to believe. It didn’t blow my mind, but it was enjoyable.
I finished watching the last season of Riverdale, for real this time. Not fond of the time jump and the super-clichéd storylines. Betty’s basically Clarice Starling, Jughead’s every substance-abusing writer ever rumoured, Archie’s a veteran now, but all his flashbacks look like WWII (?), Veronica is the vixen of Wall Street … just ugh.
The New Mutants was okay. I always enjoy Maisie Williams and Anya Taylor Joy, but I wasn’t fond of how the latter, as Illyana Rasputin, was framed as a mean girl. It just didn’t fit with my experience of the comics.
The series finale of Supergirl was sappy, as expected. The conflict felt off all season, though. Kara (and everyone, really) made a lot of uncharacteristic decisions, because final season? A little disappointing.
Phil and I watched the second season of Locke & Key. Not bad. Better than season one, I think, but it took a while to kick into gear, and, honestly, it had been so long since the first season, I was unclear on a lot of the plot, even with the season one recap under my metaphorical belt. It came together in the end, though.
The latest season of Doom Patrol was … frustrating more than anything. Excuse my language, but they’re all still fucked up fuckups. You’d think they’d have spanked their inner moppets by now.
Finally, the shining view of the last two months, Reservation Dogs. Loved! That is all. Go watch it now!
In the reading department, I read nine books over the two months. Having said that, I’m currently nine books behind in my 2021 Goodreads challenge. I may not even make last year’s goal (which I surpassed, by the way) of 60 books.
I listened to Neil Gaiman’s Sandman, part 1 on Audible. It was a fully produced audioplay, with top actors, and I loved it, despite its meandering story. It was originally a graphic novel, and episodic, so that was to be expected. I’m looking forward to the Netflix series.
Having read and enjoyed P. Djèlí Clark’s Master of Djinn, I thought I should fill in the gap with the novellas that lead up to it. The Haunting of Tram Car 015, was fun and focused on supporting characters from the novel, Hamed and Onsi.
I read Django Wexler’s The Thousand Names as part of a book club my critique group started. It was good, but the protagonist, Winter, doesn’t show up right away. Maybe it’s because the novel is more properly Marcus’s story, but, being a woman, I connected to Winter more. As a result, it was an uneven read. I enjoyed it, and the world building was great, but Marcus was a very traditional protagonist in epic fantasy. I wasn’t as interested in his story and thus didn’t enjoy the novel as much as I might have.
I finished This is How You Lose the Time War by Max Gladstone and Amal El-Mohtar next, though I’d started it before taking up The Thousand Names. It was actually the first novel selected for our book club. I loved the lyrical nature of the book and the largely epistolary structure. Other readers were not as enamoured. El-Mohtar is a poet. So am I (sometimes). I really got into the words, savoured them, rolled them around on my tongue and in my brain. Loved.
Witchmark, by C.L. Polk, was an enchanting (pun intended) read. It was so good I can’t wait to get into the rest of the series 🙂
Alice Payne Rides is Kate Heartfield’s follow up to Alice Payne Arrives. It was interesting reading this so soon after This is How You Lose the Time War. There were enough similarities that I wonder if El-Mohtar might have been influenced by Heartfield’s Alice, at least in part.
Catherine Hernandez’ Crosshairs was a bit of a harrowing read. It’s a dystopia, which takes as its genesis that Canada followed our neighbours to the south in instituting a totalitarian, fundamentalist, and fascist regime. In fact, Hernandez imagines a Canada that goes even farther, instituting workhouses for all “others,” be they people of colour, Indigenous peoples, LGBTQ2S+, or followers of religions other than Christianity. An excellent novel that challenges everything you think Canada is.
I then listened to Tanya Talaga’s All Our Relations. Excellent. I now want to find out more about the Sami, Scandinavia’s Indigenous people.
Finally, I read Roshani Chokshi’s The Bronzed Beasts, the third book in the trilogy that began with The Gilded Wolves. Yum! Bittersweet ending that in some ways reminded me of The Invisible Life of Addie Larue.
And that was the last two months in this writer’s life.
Until next time, be well and stay safe; be kind and stay strong. The world needs your stories!
Always Looking Up 