The next chapter: April 2025 update

May 4, 2025 / Melanie Marttila

My brain, she does not brain. Oh! And … May the fourth be with you. See what I mean? My priorities are all messed up.

A picture of the almost-full moon through birch branches.

Life in general

With the political pandemonium and continuing chaos at work, it was all I could do to manage my spoons day-to-day.

April started with a dysregulating week at work. My project co-lead (really, the project lead—I was more of an assistant) went on holidays and I and another instructional designer attached to the project tried to divide up her duties between us.

I could not deal, people, especially when I discovered something that would make the lot of us look incompetent in courses that had already been uploaded to the learning management system. Add to that two incomplete translations (we risk-managed due to time constraints) coming back at the same time as client content reviews with additional changes (that were also not included in the translation), and I had a shutdown.

My brain refused to process any of it, but I did what I’ve done for the 20 years of my career prior to diagnosis and kept working on other parts of the project. You can imagine how well all that went.

This resulted in my usual case of Sunday scaries transforming into full-on weekend scaries. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights, I woke up at 2 or 3 or 4 am and ruminated in overdrive. Friday night, my heart was bounding out of my chest. It felt like a panic attack. I did work out part of a solution, though.

Saturday, part 2 of the solution came through. And Sunday, I rehearsed the plan, ‘cause it involved a discussion with my team leader, and I had to feel confident in what I had to say.

But all 3 nights, I was sleeping with my weighted blanket and my weighted sleeping mask and my ear plugs. Sensory input minimized (to the max)! I shouldn’t have had an internal meltdown like this if my shutdown was due to sensory overwhelm.

That leaves the disruption to my routine and sudden demands. Autistic inertia and demand avoidance for the win!

I was exhausted. And vibrating. I hadn’t had a shutdown/meltdown this bad since August of 2021.

Fortunately, my plan resulted in a validating meeting with my TL and actionable steps to delegate some work, defer other work, and make space for my brain to process. Also reassuring: there will be a full content review conducted by our client’s Executive Head. Any changes identified/required by this review will mean amendment to the e-learning and reuploading to the LMS anyway. So, the problem I identified would not really be a problem.

I slept through the night on Monday and felt more level on Tuesday. Still a little dopey, but also calmer. I delegated work and accomplished a satisfying amount of work myself.

In the health arena, I’ve survived the change of seasons without an outbreak or blepharitis. As soon as the weather rose above freezing, I added the Ryaltris nasal spray to my regime of twice-daily neti-pots, Emergen-C, and ColdFX. So far, so good (she says, knocking on every available wooden surface).

I forgot to mention it last month, but I got Torvi in for her annual checkup. This year, she was due for her vaccines, which expired at the end of January, but post-pandemic, my vet has experienced some challenges. Last year, Torvi’s annual exam was pushed into March and though I booked this year’s at that time, they didn’t have an opening until May 1^st. Torvi was unprotected, in the middle of her mid-winter shed, and groomers require a vaccination certificate.

So, I called, and the receptionist suggested a virtual exam. I jumped at the opportunity. The technicians conducted the physical exam and vaccinations with a vet supervising over zoom. A friend was offered a virtual exam for her dog but felt that paying full price for half an appointment was a bit of a cheat. I’d rather have my grrl protected.

Voted in the federal election on April 18, 2025, in the advance voting period with Phil and Mom. There were lineups! And initial numbers indicated that people voted early in record numbers. As of the end of the month, the Liberals have a minority government, but there are several outstanding polling stations where validation is still in progress.

And I haven’t even mentioned the shit show that was RFK Jr.’s autism registry. Mutant registry, anyone? Even though it was in the US, when the initiative was announced, the Canadian federal election hadn’t yet been decided, and the possibility of a maple MAGA government was real. Fortunately, the NIH walked things back thanks to the focus efforts of the autistic community, but the fight isn’t over.

Strength to your sword arms, my American ND friends!

The month in writing

Reader, it was not good. At least at first. The above-mentioned difficulties at work meant that I had few, if any spoons in the evenings to devote to my creative work.

But I persevered. Writing is, if nothing else, one of my special interests. I created a rough query last month and finished the synopsis early in April and, as I’d hoped, creating these two documents allowed me to see in a bird’s eye sense where I could focus my trimming efforts.

Then, I moved onto fixing my final chapter. I struggled initially, not having the brain power to sort out the way forward ‘cause no spoons = no brain power.

But with the respite of the Easter long weekend, I rallied and made some headway.

On the 12^th, as I publicized last month, I joined the lovely Vera Constantineau for a spring/National Poetry Month reading at the South End branch of the Sudbury Public Library. It was an intimate event, with 3 friends from the Sudbury Writers’ Guild and two of my former high school teachers. Vera and I read and went a little overtime with the Q&A.

We’re going to do it all over again on May 10^th, at the Copper Cliff branch of the GSPL, just in time for Mothers’ Day.

Then, on the 21^st, I recorded an episode of Show Don’t Tell Writing with Suzy Vadori! We had a fabulous time.

And in a super quick turnaround, it was released on the 22^nd! It turned out great! Have a listen here and consider subscribing to Suzy’s podcast.

Show don't tell writing podcast, episode 42: Writing as a neurodivergent author with Melanie Marttila.

In a lovely surprise, periodicity journal’s virtual reading series #33 featuring me, Kate Cayley, Mahaila Smith, Susan Gevirtz, and Noah Berlatsky was posted on the 28^th. So grateful to rob mclennan for all he does for Canadian poetry and poets.

Filling the well

The full sugaring moon in Libra was on the 12^th. The night before, the almost-full moon was a delightful pink. I honoured the night with a guided meditation.

The new alder moon in Taurus was on the 27^th. A truly lovely day. Sunny, warm, and low-key. Did another guided meditation.

In writerly events, the last session of Starting it Right with Cece Lyra was on the 3^rd. This session, she critiqued submissions. Useful analysis. And food for thought.

I attended the launch of A Thousand Tiny Awakenings at Laurentian University’s Indigenous Learning Centre on the 5^th. It was lovely to hear Connor Lafortune, Lindsay Mayhew, and Blaine Thornton read in person and enjoy several audio or video recordings from other anthology authors. And there was cake (!)

The 12^th, when my poetry reading with Vera at the GSPL was scheduled, was also the day of Can-Con Virtual—oops! But I caught the sessions I wanted to, before and after the reading and a couple days later, I was able to catch the sessions I missed with replay links.

Finally, The FOLD started on April 27^th. I watched most of it in replay, because working.

Finnish classes continued throughout the month on Monday nights.

I had a lovely massage on the 9^th. Have I mentioned how much I love my RMT?

My semi-annual dentist appointment was on the 23^rd.

My support group also met on the evening of the 23^rd. The topic this month was meltdowns and shutdowns.

And I enjoyed the long Easter weekend rest.

What I’m watching and reading

I finished watching the whole run of the original X-Men (Disney +). I remember seeing a few episodes, here and there, but I was mostly past my cartoon-watching phase by the time the show ran. And yes, I’m that old. Enjoyable, but the animation does not age well. I wanted to watch the series mostly as a background for X-Men ’97, which is what I’m watching now.

Then, I finished watching the second season of Severance (Apple TV +). Just, OMG, so good! I can’t really say anything about this series without spoiling it. Several major reveals. Mark S and Mark Scout have a conversation. How many severed personalities does Gemma have? And is she safe now? What do Mark S and Helly R intend to do? And yeah, it’s all vague-booking. But it is one of the, if not the, best series on streaming today.

Next, Phil and I watched the third season of Wheel of Time (Prime). Everyone (almost) levels up. Perrin becomes Lord Perrin Goldeneyes after his defense of Two Rivers from the Trolloc hoards, but Loial sacrifices himself to close the Waygate and Perrin hands himself over to the Whitecloaks. Rand travels to the Aiel Waste and enters Rhuidean where he undergoes a trial. He finally sheds Lanfear’s influence and becomes the Ca’ra’carn while Morgaine defeats Lanfear. Nyneave finally overcomes her block when Leandrin tries to kill her. Mat reunites with Min and encounters an Eelfinn who grants him three wishes. Though he gets rid of the memories haunting him since he blew the Horn of Valere, the Eelfinn hangs him as part of the “price.” A lot (and I mean a LOT) more happens, but that’s all I’ll say here. It’s worth watching.

Then I watched Flow (Crave). A-MA-zing! I can see why this movie won a Golden Globe and Academy Award. This is a movie that will stick with me for a while, and it may take some time and potentially additional viewings to tease out all the implications. No humans, no dialogue, and no narrative or voiceover. Just animals, the sounds of nature, and story. First impressions though . . . a fable about climate change; a non-human version of the flood myth; a post-human (post-apocalyptic?) world; an affirmation of animal intelligence and emotion; a bittersweet tale of found family and unavoidable loss; a secretary bird as Christ figure. Like I said, I’m going to be thinking about Flow for a while. Loved this movie SO HARD.

I also watched The Electric State (Netflix). This movie was a little different from the other robot-related media I’ve been taking in recently (The Wild Robot, A Psalm for the Wild-Built). Definitely not as cozy. In this world, Robots and humans went to war in the 90s. Protagonist Michelle is the only survivor of a car crash that happened as her family tried to escape the conflict. Shortly thereafter, Sentre CEO Ethan Skate invents neurocaster technology, allowing humans to remotely control drone robots and win the war. Neurocaster technology becomes universal after that. Everyone works, learns, and plays using their neurocasters. Everyone, that is, except Michelle, who is traumatized by losing her family and years of trying to survive foster care. Until a robot shows up that she figures out is her brother and she sets off to rescue his body from Sentre.

This movie was adapted from the graphic novel of the same name and has been largely panned, despite being written by the McFeelys, produced by the Russos, and having a star-studded cast. It’s also one of the most expensive movies ever produced, which may have something to do with the critical response. I didn’t think it was that bad. Yes, there were a lot of missed opportunities, but it was a perfectly enjoyable post-apocalyptic action movie. You can’t really go all in on the action movie vibe and have a deep philosophical conversation about technology, humanity, and whether the kid in Omelas needs to be freed at the expense of the society their suffering made possible. That’s one of the missed opportunities I was talking about.

My first read of April (April!) 2025 was Somewhere Beyond the Sea by TJ Klune, the second of the Cerulean Chronicles. This novel continues the tale begun in The House on the Cerulean Sea, in which Linus Baker, a hapless drone in the Department in Charge of Magical Youth (DiCoMY), finds his life upended in the most pleasant way when he is assigned to assess the conditions in one of DiCoMY’s orphanages for magical children.

This novel is told from Arthur Parnassus’s perspective. He’s worked hard to make a good life on the ashes of his old one. Literally. Abused as a child in the same orphanage he returned to run, Arthur still hasn’t overcome the trauma of his past. Though he now has a loving partner in Linus and six wonderful magical children, the Department in Charge of Magical Adults (DiCoMA) and DiCoMY have it out for him, calling him to testify in a thinly veiled attempt to discredit him and take the children he has applied to adopt.

Somewhere Beyond the Sea is a story of resistance, lovingly told, about the daunting experience of fighting for the life you want to live and doing the work to keep it. Loved!

Then, I read A Thousand Tiny Awakenings, an anthology edited by Connor Lafortune and Lindsay Mayhew. This elegant, slim anthology features the poetry and prose of 15 dynamic young voices. Every piece in the anthology is a wakeup call.

I listened to English Fairly Tales by Flora Annie Steel. A lot of familiar material in this collection of tales, and a lot of surprising intersections with the Norwegian Folktales I read last month.

Next, I read Heavenly Tyrant by Xiran Jay Zhao, the second in her Iron Widow series. At the end of the first novel, Zetien had just revived Emperor Qin Zheng and lost Shimin when the gods took the wreckage of the Vermilion Bird to the Heavenly Court. Now she and Qin Zheng are reluctantly thrust together as Emperess and Emperor and Zetien must play the part perfectly. The gods are watching. Qin Zheng sets off a Communist revolution and Zetien uses her influence to improve the lives of women. Secretly, Qin Zheng trains Zetien so they’ll be ready to attack the Heavenly Court and kill the gods. Excellent!

And I caught the place where Zhao wanted to include “The Peggy Hill Amendment.” IYKYK. LMAO.

Then, I read Indian Fairy Tales, collected and edited by Joseph Jacobs. The more folk and fairy tales I read from different cultures, the more similarities I find. It’s interesting to get this taste of another culture’s tales. Very good.

I finished reading A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers. Gave me the same vibes as The Wild Robot. It’s set in a post-industrial world in which robots decided they would no longer work in factories for humans. Centuries after the robots wandered into the wilderness, society has settled into a kind of ecological utopia. Small, self-sustaining communities, green energy, but there is still technology. In this world, the best tea monk (read therapist) in Panga finds themselves dissatisfied with their life. They set out to find an ancient hermitage. And then, a robot walks out of the wilderness. Truly lovely.

Next, I listened to Zen Cho’s short fiction collection Spirits Abroad. These ten speculative stories weave together Malaysian myth and folklore with everyday life. A Datin recalls her romance with an orang bunian; a teenage pontianak struggles to balance homework, bossy aunties, first love, and eating people; an earth spirit gets entangled in protracted negotiations with an annoying landlord; we watch Chang E evolve over the course of four generations; an imugi is foiled in its ascent to dragonhood, but when it seeks revenge on the human responsible, it falls in love with her instead (such a lovely story!); and a timid second wife tries to escape her life in hell. When these stories are brought to life by a narrator who knows the language and idiomatic speech of the characters, it’s even better. Loved!

Then, I finished reading Linghun by Ai Jiang. This Nebula-Award-winning novella is a modern gothic. Set in the mysterious town of Home, a place where people who can’t release their beloved dead move to reunite with them, Linghun tells the story of Wenqi, Liam, and Mrs. Wenqi’s family has moved from Toronto into one of Home’s haunted houses to summon the ghost of her brother, who died when he was a child. Wenqi barely remembers him and wants to go back to Toronto and live an actual life. Liam and his family are “lingerers,” people who can’t afford a haunted house and engage in blood-sport auctions when one becomes available. Liam has been assigned the task of making Wenqi and her family give up their house, but Liam has other ideas. Mrs. lives and dies in the house where her deceased husband refuses to apparate, but she has a strange connection to both Wenqi and Liam. Great, creepy read!

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!

The next chapter: A month in the writerly life. https://melaniemarttila.ca

I acknowledge with respect that I am in Robinson-Huron Treaty territory, that the land from which I write is the traditional territory of the Anishinaabe and home of Atikameksheng Anishnawbek and Wahnapitae First Nation.

The next chapter: August 2024 update

September 1, 2024 / Melanie Marttila / 3 Comments

Starting a new position at the day job—is a change really as good as a rest?

Life in general

The month started with another heat wave (our fourth?) and it was so hard just dealing with the heat.

After the humidex reaches 36 Celsius, the air is the same temperature as your body. There’s no way for you to cool down. You just sit and sweat to no avail. And then heat edema swells your hands and feet to the point where you can’t remove jewelry or fit comfortably into your shoes.

The only respite is the portable AC unit in the bedroom but, even at full power, it struggles to get the temperature below 20 Celsius. And the relief is temporary because, even with all the windows open and all the ceiling fans on, the coolish (often still 20 Celsius or above) night air can’t bring the inside temperature below 24 Celsius and you emerge from the (comfortable, if not cool) bedroom into a wall of heat.

Fortunately, after the 4^th, the weather, while still hot, moderated, and the evenings got cooler with the slow reduction of daylight hours. We had to use the AC a few more times, and there was another spell of heat toward the end of the month, but it’s been a lovely month, overall.

Despite the heat, I’ve really been enjoying this summer. I’ve been wanting to go swimming since I took that dip in Lake Simcoe in June but haven’t made it to the beach yet. Dang autistic inertia.

On the 6^th, I started my new position on a new team. It was a bit of a chaotic first week with a new working group, and an urgent assignment, but I kept my head and made sure to regulate. My new team lead is on vacation for the month, so I’m helping out with other projects, much like I was in the last month on my former team.

I’m learning that my new team is a little bit of chaos in general, and all the projects we’re tackling are subject to change with no defined timelines. I’m going to have to get used to tolerating ambiguity.

The month in writing

With the enforced break/disruption last month, I was eager to get back to Reality Bomb. I’m in sight of the finish line and it’s so frustrating not to be crossing it!

I met with Suzy on the 29^th. It was a lot of the same issues that I mentioned last month. Revision that Suzy hasn’t seen necessitating explanation. The need to either add action to or compress slow scenes. But now I’m moving onto the climax (!) and feeling nervous.

I also continued to work on a CNF piece for an anthology call and submitted some more poetry.

The rejections on last month’s poetry submissions began to roll in as well.

But … I received notification of an acceptance on August 28^th! W00t! Will share on social media when I can 🙂

The Dispatches writing group met on the 6^th. It was lovely to chat with like-minded Canadian authors and discuss our work.

On the 8^th, a video I’d recorded for the periodicities virtual reading series was posted to YouTube. It won’t be posted to the journal’s site until there are five of us, so that will have to wait for a bit, but if you want a sneak peek (and to critique my crappy captioning skills), just toddle on over here.

Over the weekend of the 10^th and 11^th, I cleared out a whole pile of email. I entered a couple of poetry contests, reviewed a story proof, submitted The Art of Floating to the Canadian Authors Association’s Online Member Book Catalogue, and submitted the first two pages of RB to Pulp Literature’s First Page Cage.

My big event of the month was the Second Annual Greater Sudbury Roving Outdoor Book Fair on Sunday August 25^th from 2 to 5 pm at the Copper Cliff Complex Gazebo. It was a hawt afternoon, but I purchased a table and sunshade. I should have thought to bring some cold water or pop, but I’ll know better next time. I read some of my poetry, listened to others read (and sing!) and generally enjoyed myself.

While I didn’t move any copies of The Art of Floating, I did sell two NeoVerse, which basically allowed me to break even given the participation fee but not considering the outlay for the table and sunshade. I’m sure I’ll make use of those at future events.

On the 28^th, I was advised that my entry in the CAA Online Member Book Catalogue was live.

I did some administrivia for the SF Canada board on the 1^st and set up a PO Box for professional writing-related things (like my Substack newsletter, which requires an address displayed in every issue).

Filling the well

Lughnassadh was on the 1^st. Unfortunately, the heat prevented me from lighting up my altar until the weather cooled. Candles produce a surprising amount of heat (!).

The new Holly moon was on the 4^th. I was doing a good job in July of tracking the waxing moon in the afternoons (in pictures), and then the waning, but the sun was so bright and the sky so clear, there was no chance for me to track the moon a week out from the new.

I kept up the waxing picture trend in August until a sting of rainy days leading up to the full Sturgeon/Ricing moon on the 19^th.

Writing events were super light this month, for which I was grateful.

The League of Canadian Poets (LCP) Member Appreciation Week open mic took place on the 8^th.

I signed up for an Authors Publish webinar with Emily Harstone about querying and publishing on the 14^th. It was during the day, and I watched the replay.

I went out to visit Emily De Angelis at her book signing at Chapters on the 17^th. I’d already bought the book and had it signed at her Launch but, having had my own signing experience, I wanted to show my support. And I got a chance to see the rearranged store and their lovely new local authors’ shelf.

And, since I’ve applied for Your Personal Odyssey every year since its inception, I was able to sign up for a series of YPO Workshops, the first of which took place on the 18^th. It was good and even referenced some of my favourite K.M. Weiland posts.

And I attended the virtual launch of Contemporary Verse 2 (CV2) on the 29^th. One of my Dispatches writing group members read her poem from the issue.

In non-writing events, there was a CAMH session on Sleep and Mental Health: REM Sleep Disorders on the 15^th. It made me wonder if I have an REM disorder, because I have had various parasomnias throughout my life.

In personal care, I saw my optometrist for my bi-annual eye exam on the 23^rd. I’ve been looking over or under my glasses (or taking them off altogether) when reading. So, I have a new prescription and I’m getting new frames. They’re something a little different for me (i.e., not purple).

And I had my orthotics assessed on the 27^th. In the spring, I noticed some uneven wear in my shoes. I got new ones, but the discomfort I felt in my feet never went away. So, I’m getting new orthotics, too.

I took Torvi for her last Furminator of the summer on the 2^nd. She’s pretty much done with the major shed of the year. This last was just to help her feel more comfortable in the heat of the summer.

And I attended a friend’s 50^th birthday cruise on the 30^th. It was a lovely evening.

What I’m watching and reading

I watched the second season of House of the Dragon (HBO). This just reminds me how much I enjoyed the early seasons of Game of Thrones. Loved. After Luke’s brutal death at the end of season 1, I was expecting things to escalate. Still, I was shocked by Blood and Cheese (and felt so sorry for Cheese’s poor wee terrier), wigged out by Daemon’s visions in Harrenhal, horrified by all the dragon carnage, and left both eager and dreading what the next season brings.

Then, I finished Cloak and Dagger (Disney +). I’d wanted to see the series when it originally aired, but ABC Spark was not available to us at the time. So, I watched the two seasons when it was added to Disney + (along with al the other Marvel TV and Netflix series). Not what I remember from the comics, but it wasn’t too bad.

On the recommendation of a friend, I watched The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare (Amazon). Based on Operation Postmaster, the movie fictionalizes an unauthorized operation to disrupt German U-Boat supply lines, which would allow American troops to join the war in Europe. Fun action. Very entertaining. A Guy Ritchie jam, if you have any feelings about that.

Then, Phil and I watched the fourth and final season of The Umbrella Academy (Netflix). The season was short (only 6 episodes) and I wondered how they were going to pick up from the end of last season, when the ‘brollies had all lost their powers. Unfortunately, they found a box of random stuff from other timelines, including a full jar of “marigold,” the substance that endowed them with their powers in the first place. There was a lot of random happening in this season.

And I can’t say that the ending was satisfactory. Yes, the release of the marigold into the world set everything on the road to annihilation, but it would have been nice to have a resolution that didn’t erase the main characters, and therefore the point of watching the show in the first place. It was very much “and then they woke up.” The wee marigolds under the tree were no consolation.

Next, I finished the latest season of Bridgerton (Netflix). I enjoyed Penelope’s arc finding love with Colin while having to navigate the whole Lady Whistledown mess (the harm she’s caused, principally). But I found the writers tried to cram too much into this season and felt that if they cut some of the subplots (e.g., Benedict’s experimentation with bisexuality, while there was nothing wrong with it, contributed nothing to the larger story) they could have focused more on developing the main stories.

The last episode felt rushed. In one inspired move, Penelope rescues her family from the loss of their title, foils Cressida’s attempt to blackmail her, mollifies Queen Charlotte, and comes out to everyone as Lady Whistledown—at her sisters’ ball. There is an ending montage with a time jump at the end of which we see the three nee Featherington babies, Penelope’s the only boy (and therefore heir to the rescued title). It could have used two more episodes, or the pruning of unnecessary subplots, or both, to tie everything up neatly.

Then, I watched the first season of Orphan Black: Echoes (AMC). I was happy to see Krysten Ritter in another series, and the premise seemed promising: a woman wakes up with no memory of who she is, escapes the apartment she’s been locked into, and discovers it’s a set within a huge industrial space. Exploring further, she encounters a vat of goo out of which a body surfaces. She runs. I would too.

But then, it’s revealed that the scientist who developed the biotechnology to print viable human clones is none other than Kira Manning, daughter of Sarah Manning, the protagonist of the original Orphan Black. And why does she do it? Because she’s trying to recreate her wife, who died of Alzheimer’s. After what she’d been through as a child, she should have known better. The series even hangs a lampshade on it. Multiple times. And I was like, come on.

The first season ended with episode seven in a series of cliffhangers, and I thought, this isn’t the end, is it? But it was. A second season hasn’t yet been approved, but if AMC can greenlight a second season of The Mayfair Witches, they can greenlight a second season of OB:E. I’m just saying.

Next, I watched both seasons of We Are Lady Parts (Amazon/Stack TV). Loved! A three-piece punk band of Muslim women seek a lead guitarist. Amina is a young guitarist who makes a living teaching lessons while she finished her degree in biochemistry. It seems a match made in heaven, except Amina has performance anxiety so bad she projectile vomits.

The show was reminiscent of Ms. Marvel, in that Amina, and then the other characters as the series progresses, tend to narrate their lives and internal monologues, sometimes with surreal special effects.

My first read of the month was Dark Matter by Blake Crouch. This is pretty much my ideal comp for RB, but it’s technically too old (2016). I’m hoping that the Apple TV series (which I’m watching now) will be sufficient to keep it relevant.

In the novel, Jason Dessen is happily married, has a son, and teaches physics at a local college. He gave up his research into superposition and his wife gave up her career as an artist, when they married. Jason’s best friend receives a prestigious award for his work in neuroscience and after Jason attends the party, he is abducted at gun point by a masked man, taken to an old warehouse, and drugged.

When he wakes, he’s in some kind of research facility, surrounded by people he doesn’t know, but who seem to know him. Eventually, Jason figures out that he’s in another world where he made the decision to continue his research instead of marrying his wife, and that the version of him from this world, having achieved the pinnacle of his success, regretted that decision and decided to change places.

The book gets wild from there, and I do have a couple of cavils with the climax and denouement, but it’s a very good SF thriller. I’ll do a little side-by-side of the novel and its adaptation once I’ve finished the series.

Then, I returned to Dr. Tim Sharp and his Audible Original series. This one was Habits for Greatness, in which he gleans 30 lessons for greatness from the great philosophers, psychologists, religions, movements, and fictional characters. He then turns them into habits that can be applied in daily life.

My next read was Mercedes Lackey’s Oathblood. Although it’s noted as the third book in the Vows and Honor series, it’s a collection of short stories and one novella (novelette?) about Tarma and Kethry, with contextual notes from the author. The first story is how Tarma and Kethry met and bonded. The next couple of stories were parts of the first two novels (I thought there was something episodic about them). The last stories and novella are further adventures, and the novella is set in Tarma and Kethry’s school—yes, they finally establish one—and features Kethry and Jadric’s growing brood of younglings. Verra enjoyable.

Then, I finished reading Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. It’s interesting to get to know the lives of the writers you only know from their works. A compelling story, well-written.

Back to Tim Sharp again, this time with Habits for Action, which is all about eliminating your excuses for doing the things you “know you should.” Demand avoidance immediately set in, and I was like, “he’s shoulding all over everyone.” And his strategies are all firmly allistic. Minimal value in this one.

Next, I read Rivers Solomon’s An Unkindness of Ghosts. Again, it feels like a perfect comp title for RB for the neurodivergent protagonist in science fiction. Unfortunately, it’s too old for most agents to consider.

Aster is a neurodivergent biologist and doctor aboard a generation ship headed for “the promised land.” Unfortunately, life on the Matilda resembles that of the antebellum south, and Aster, along with the rest of the residents of the lower decks work as sharecroppers, producing food for the ship, maintenance workers, and any other work the upper decks deem beneath them.

But Aster’s been trying to solve the riddle of her absent mother’s journals and when, with the help of a friend, she begins to decipher them, she learns that there may be a way off the ship…if she can avoid the sovereign’s persecution and a nascent civil war. Excellent.

My next non-fiction read was The Beginner’s Guide to Runes by Josh Simonds. It was interesting. Simonds is a professional psychic who traces his lineage back to the Plantagenets. The guide is comprehensive, including the history and mythology of the runes, how to create your own, the magical uses, throws, spreads, and more. And he finishes up with a list of resources that I’m probably going to check out. One warning, though: the traditional method for creating and some uses for the runes involve blood. It’s optional, but still. If it’s not your thing, just be warned. Though Simonds does recommend using proper medical supplies and having a first aid kit on hand, every mention of the use of blood kind of struck me as weird.

Finally, I read Micaiah Johnson’s Those Beyond the Wall, her sequel to The Space Between Worlds. The first novel was Cara’s story, the traverser who took down the Eldridge Corporation that employed her. This novel is about one of the side characters in the first novel, Devon, daughter of the emperor of the wasteland.

Devon is now Mr. Scales, a mechanic and runner in the current emperor, Nik-Nik’s, service. When her beloved friend dies in a twisted heap in her arms with no apparent cause, Scales sets out to solve the mystery. People in both Ashtown and Wiley City have died in this way, and each blames the other. Now Scales is trying to stop a war, and the possible annihilation of her people as well. There’s a lot more to it, but I will say no more, cause y’all gotta read this. Excellent.

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!

The next chapter: A month in the writerly life
melaniemarttila.ca

The next chapter: June 2024 update

July 7, 2024 / Melanie Marttila

I just may be more burnt out than I thought I was.

Picture of a cloud-speckled evening sky above trees.

Life in general

Though I knew I needed to rest during my six-week leave with income averaging (LIA), I thought it would only take a few days and then I’d be ready to hit the ground running with some planned activities.

I was hoping to:

Recover my garden from two years of neglect and three of minimal effort before that.
Paint the outside door (to match the other that has been painted for, like seven years now?).
Give the house a thorough cleaning.
Rearrange my office.

But the most I was able to accomplish in May was to repot some plants and get my bird feeders and bird bath set up. I bought the paint for the door, but never got around to the repainting.

Also, I was still seeing signs that I was dysregulated. Stumbling around and bumping into things; forgetting that I had something in my hands (like a freshly-emptied incense holder) and carrying it with my into another room only to realize I had it in my hand, putting it back, and forgetting why I was walking into another room; forgetting my meds; forgetting components of my rituals. And the list goes on.

As a result, I thought I’d let my recovery process guide me until after the Stillwater Writing Retreat (see below) on the second weekend of June. The retreat itself would be a bit of a reset with minimal/no access to social media, streaming, and my favourite time-waster game.

No revenge procrastination (though there’s no longer anything to revenge?) for two days. I was hoping that might help to reset my internal clock.

Since the onset of my LIA, I’d been routinely staying up until 1:30 or 2 am and sleeping in to compensate the next day. In June, that naturally started to sort itself out and I was getting to bed at midnight or 12:30 am.

I did get to bed earlier at the retreat, but it was only two days and as soon as I was back home, established habits took hold. I slowly came to the realization that I may not get many (or any) of my big goals completed during this leave.

And then a heatwave arrived. In a house with no central air, it was a miserable few days.

Just focused on recovery. And revision/writing.

But … I seem to have recovered from my sinusitis (at last). The third course of antibiotics was finished the day I left for the Stillwater Retreat. And I decided to discontinue both the antihistamines and the neti pot while I was away. I would have been too much to manage while travelling.

I resumed the neti pot when I returned but stopped it again after another week. I never got used to the sensory ick of it. Yes, it was effective in clearing out my sinuses, but my eyes watered, I drooled (!), and I sneezed multiple times during each session. Even if the water was cool, the saline solution felt like it was burning my nasal passages. Thoroughly unpleasant.

I am keeping the neti pot and remaining saline solution sachets as well as the remaining month of antihistamines in case the seasonal allergies return in the fall. A few days of discomfort is worth fending off another bout of sinusitis.

And I have a follow up appointment with my doctor on July 2^nd. We’ll see what he says.

The month in writing

The month was devoted to continuing revisions/rewriting of the third act of Reality Bomb, as well as the work I committed to when I enrolled in Ariel Gordon’s workshop.

A gentle reminder that I’ve stopped sharing screenshots of my Excel writing and revision tracker because I’ve stopped setting goals in it. It’s purely the tracking of the writing and revision I accomplish within the given months and year. And I’m not tracking RB at all. At this point there’s more rewriting going on with that project than straight revision, and it’s had to compare previous drafts with this one, particularly when I’m combining bits of what were separate chapters in the last draft and then shifting bits around so that none of it even vaguely resembles what went before.

It’s actually made writing and revision easier. I don’t feel the pressure of not meeting a particular goal. I used to revise my goals multiple times a year because I wasn’t “up to par,” which is ridiculous. I’m feeling better about my writing and revision progress now. I’m flowing with highs and lows of my energy. I do what I can, when I can, with the energy I have, and it is enough. So am I 🙂

June 6^th was a good news day. First, my poem, “Vasilisa,” was published in Polar Borealis 30.

The cover of Polar Borealis 30 featuring artwork by Derek Newman-Stille.

Then, I received an email that work was proceeding on the anthology that one of my stories was accepted for last year (!). I can’t talk about it now, but I’ll share what I can, when I can.

On the 13^th, I received an email from a reader telling me how much they appreciated “The Art of Floating.” It warms an author’s heart to know that they’ve touched someone with their words.

On the 14^th, The Temz Review released this thoughtful and thorough review of The Art of Floating. It gave me all the feels. But mostly gratitude.

Then, of the 15^th, Trish Talks Books posted this lovely review on Instagram.

On the 18^th, I received the notification that my reading fee and travel reimbursement for the Conspiracy of 3 reading last month would be deposited by the end of the week.

I only had one meeting with Suzy this month because I had to work around the Stillwater Retreat (see below). We met on the 20^th. It was a good meeting. I’m still getting many of the same comments, but I’m anticipating them now, and I have a better idea of the revision I need to complete after each session. We’re moving on to the climax. The end is in sight. Exciting!

On the 21^st, I received notification that I have been accepted as an Access Copyright Affiliate.

And then, on the 28^th, The Wordstock Sudbury literary festival announced its lineup for this year’s festival, including me (!), Kim Fahner, Ariel Gordon, Danielle Daniel, Drew Hayden Taylor, Hollay Ghadery, and more! So honoured to be included in this stellar 11^th edition of Wordstock! Here is the article by Heidi Ulrichsen for Sudbury.com, and the Sudbury Star’s coverage.

Press release image for the 11th edition of the Wordstock Sudbury Literary Festival.

In the area of the business of writing, the League of Canadian Poets (LCP) town hall was on the 18^th and their AGM was on the 25^th.

In between, on the 23^rd was the an SF Canada Board meeting.

And the Canadian Authors Association AGM was on the 29^th.

I am definitely AGM’d out!

Filling the well

The new Hawthorn moon in Gemini was on the 6^th. It was not only overcast but raining as well.

The summer solstice was on the 20^th this year. The heatwave we’d been suffering through all week finally broke. It was still hot, but overcast (surprise, surprise!). I lit my altar and followed a guided meditation.

And the full Strawberry moon in Capricorn was on the 21^st. Another overcast day.

A picture of the waxing moon among dynamic clouds.

My intention was to keep my learning light this month and I think I managed it, despite myself.

I registered for the virtual Nebula conference and awards weekend from June 6 to 8, but then (and this is just one of the many symptoms of my ongoing dysregulation) I signed up for Lauren Carter’s Stillwater Retreat from June 7 to 9. Fortunately, I was able to catch the virtual sessions in replay.

ICYMI, here was my post about the Stillwater Retreat.

The second session of Ariel Gordon’s Dispatches from the World workshop was on the 11^th and the third and final session was on the 25^th. I wrote 2 poems for the 11^th, which I revised into 1, and then I wrote and revised a creative non-fiction piece for the 25^th.

The next Free Expressions webinar I signed up for was Fate vs. Destiny with Donald Maass on the 13^th. Interesting and thought-provoking, as usual.

And on the 17^th, I virtually attended Imagining the Future We Want to Live In at the Sudbury Indie Cinema. I had intended to go in person but, at the last minute, I noticed that the event would be livecast on Facebook, and I attended that way. Minding my spoons 🙂

The Locus Awards weekend started on the 19^th and went through until the 22^nd. I caught several readings and the awards ceremony on zoom or Youtube and hope to catch the rest on replay.

Finally, I registered for a webinar on “Writing and Pitching your Hybrid Memoir” with Courtney Maum (!) through Jane Friedman on the 26^th. I wasn’t back from walking Torvi in time, so I watched the replay when it was released. As I continue to toy with the idea of a hybrid memoir, this course was invaluable.

In personal care, I had a support group meeting on the 12^th. The topic was emotional regulation, and it was a good session, though the last until September.

I took Torvi for a Furminator groom on the 21^st. This was her second with the happy hoodie. She’s still stressed but I like to think the happy hoodie helped.

On the 27^th, my mom’s sister and her daughter came to visit. Phil made a lovely bruschetta and salad, and Mom cooked a frittata. We hadn’t seen each other is years, and it was nice.

What I’m watching and reading

I watched the first season of Hazbin Hotel (Amazon). Charlie Morningstar, daughter of Lucifer and Lilith, has opened the titular hotel in hell with an eye to rehabilitating sinners and getting them into heaven. At the same time Adam (yes, that Adam) and his inquisitors (essentially Valkyries) are increasing the frequency of their culls (read massacres) of hell’s denizens from annually to every six months. Every episode features several musical numbers, so be aware of that, or skip if that’s not your jam, but the performances are quite good. Intended for adults.

Then, I finished watching The Second-Best Hospital in the Galaxy (Amazon), about two alien doctors, Klak and Sleech, who incite all kinds of medical and relationship hijinks while trying to protect the secret of a parasitic lifeform that eats its host’s anxiety…until it departs explosively, killing the host. Very fun, very adult.

Next, I watched Chevalier (Disney +). The movie focuses on Joseph de Boulogne’s attempt to run the Paris Opera House, a position that was chosen by a royal counsel. Though he was an accomplished composer, because he was the son of a slave woman, Boulogne was prevented from taking the position. The end of the movie predicts the next phase of his life in which he fought on the side of the Revolution. Very good.

Phil and I watched the most recent season/series of Doctor Who (Disney +) with Ncuti Gatwa. Phil wasn’t that enamoured, but I enjoyed it overall. There was a little unevenness in the season, but it came together in the end.

And I finished watching the final season of The Crown (Netflix). It focused on the events leading up to Diana’s death through to the marriage of Charles and Camilla. Overall, I think the series was an interesting interpretation of Queen Elizabeth II’s reign, though they declined to carry the story through to her death, which may have been a more complete rendering of events. I’m sure they wondered how to address the later scandals of the Royal Family and how to make the last years of Elizabeth’s reign dynamic as health concerns kept both her and Phillip more and more secluded until their respective deaths.

I watched the second season of Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock (Apple TV). Yes, this is a kids’ show, but it’s rich with nostalgia for me. This season focused on the gardening crisis of the gorgs obsession with strawberries and use of chemicals to increase the size of their yield, leading to the disappearance of the radishes and the depletion of the soil. Meanwhile the human doctoral student is trying to perfect her floating wind turbine design. And yes, the series is a little heavy-handed on the moral lesson side, and events can seem either contrived or completely random, but everything comes together at the end. This won’t be everyone’s cuppa, but I love me some Muppets.

I also watched Iwájú (Disney +). It was a lovely fable set in a future Lagos. Tole is a child whose father is a busy inventor. He cannot spend time with her because of work pressures, though his primary goal is to create a robot lizard to protect Tole because children have been disappearing in nearby Lagos. Sadly, the robot isn’t working properly.

Tole and her friend Cole decide to take a trip to Lagos, Tole with the goal of proving to her father that she is a big girl, and Cole with the goal of turning Tole over to the man who’s been abducting children in order to secure care for his sick mother. Because this is a kids’ show, all works out in the end. It was an enjoyable, if short, series.

Finally, I watched Interview with the Vampire, Part II (AMC). Sadly, I missed the first season and since AMC wants viewers to subscribe to AMC + to see it, I missed out. But I now understand why everyone is raving about this series. It’s really good.

A note on the month in reading before I get to the books. Had intended to make time to continue reading my print and ebooks during my leave but ultimately did not. My recovery took precedence. So, all of these books are audiobooks.

My first read of the month was Tomorrow’s Kin, the first novel in Nancy Kress’s Yesterday’s Kin series. I read this series out of order and my head didn’t explode 🙂 In this novel, we’re introduced to Maryanne Jenner, her three children, and the complicated series of events around the Worlders first visit to Earth. But that’s all over by the midpoint of the book, when Noah departs with the World ship. The rest of the novel addresses the fallout of the spore cloud and its effects on the ecosystem (it kills almost all mice and so disrupts prey and predator populations as well as agriculture and the economy, also, Russian and east Asian populations prove not to be immune, also, also, it alters the genome of fetuses making a generation of super-hearer kids, of whom Colin, one of Maryanne’s grandchildren, is one). This novel focuses on the science and the billionaires competing to build the first starship based on the plans the Worlders left behind. Like I said last month, an interesting series.

Then, I read The Men of the Otherworld, by Kelley Armstrong. This collection of linked short stories focuses on Clay and Jeremy. It was nice to get some backstory and context for the werewolf men.

Next, I read Oathbreakers, the second in the Vows and Honor series by Mercedes Lackey. Tarma and Kethry, still intent on earning enough money to open their own schools of battle and wizardry, respectively, join a mercenary company. When their leader disappears, they depart to investigate and enter a world of regal intrigue. There’s still one more book in the series, so I anticipate there will be more adventures in store.

I read Long Hot Summoning by Tanya Huff. It’s the third in her Keeper series (another disordered read—what’s going on?). Diana has graduated high school and finally come into her power as a Keeper. Her first summons? A mall in Kingston in the process of succumbing to the other side. And hell is trying to get a foothold in the real world. Her older sister, Clair, is away on a summoning of her own and Diana dived in, eager to prove herself. Entertaining.

Then, I took a brief break from fiction with The History and Enduring Popularity of Astrology by Katherine Walker. It’s a The Great Courses course converted into an Audible Original. Interesting insight into an art I’ve always dabbled in.

Next, I read Rollback by Robert J. Sawyer. Dr. Sarah Halifax, a preeminent SETI researcher, is in her eighties when the response to a message she sent to an alien civilization arrives. A billionaire benefactor steps in, offering Sarah the titular procedure, which will reset her body to its biological age when she was 25 and enable her to remain alive long enough to continue the conversation with the aliens, the one-way transmission of which takes 18 years. She agrees, her only condition that her husband Don receives the treatment as well. In a cruel twist, the procedure works on Don but not on Sarah. She must duplicate the decoding miracle that she accomplished nearly forty years ago, while Don comes to terms with his restored youth and the inevitability of losing the love of his life.

I listened to Habits for Good Sleep by Timothy J. Sharp, an Audible Original. Nothing new or startling, but a lot of good advice that I could stand to hear again.

My last read/listen of the month was another classic, Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. This novel seemed to be a response to Melville’s Moby Dick, starting with the narrator, a French naturalist, his servant, and a Canadian harpooner boarding The Lincoln in search of a mysterious sea monster, responsible for the sinking of several ships.

The sea monster comes for The Lincoln, and the narrator and his two companions are thrown overboard, only to be brought on board The Nautilus (AKA the sea monster) by Captain Nemo. From there, Nemo declares that they may never leave his ship, and they embark on the titular adventure. The novel shares many of the conceits with Melville’s, including long digressions into the nature and function of The Nautilus, the various sea life the narrator documents in his travels, the occasional people they meet (Nemo is a misanthrope), and the details of their navigational journey. It was okay.

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!

The next chapter: March 2024 update

March 31, 2024 / Melanie Marttila

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!

The next chapter: February 2024 update

March 4, 2024 / Melanie Marttila / 2 Comments

February’s the month I emerge from winter hibernation. Yes. I’m a bear.

Picture of a sky of cirrus clouds framed by trees.

Life in general

The light is visibly returning. Even so, most of the days are overcast. It’s still unseasonably warm, with a lot of days above zero degrees Celsius and not as much precipitation as I’d like. Yes, Phil doesn’t have to shovel as much, but I’m worried about the coming year.

Not a lot of snow means a dry spring, unless it rains every day, and even then, it may not be enough to prevent forest fires from sparking. Last year was bad. I expect this year to be even worse.

Work is work. I’m back on the albatross of a project (I’ve been working on it since spring 2022) but the end (for now) is in sight. There’s always maintenance, and the wholesale revision of the other modules in the curriculum, but it should be off my plate by the end of March.

I’m taking a self-funded leave from the Victoria Day (May 2-4, we call it, even though the holiday Monday rarely falls on the 24th) long weekend until the Canada Day long weekend in July. It will be nice to have a stretch off. I want to do some gardening. I want to go swimming. I want to see what diurnal cycle my body naturally settles into. I want to just enjoy myself for a while.

I also want to see if I can dive into one or two new creative projects, revise a novella, and see what I can get done when I’m not spending eight hours a day working for someone else. It’s been seven years—well, six and a half years—since I’ve taken a self-funded leave. It’s the first leave of this nature I’ve taken since being diagnosed as autistic and, most of all, I want to learn if I can adjust my life and the routines I’ve established so they support me better.

We’ll see how things go.

The month in writing

I’m still working on Reality Bomb revisions. My focus changed a bit this month, however. I signed up for Suzy’s Developmental Editing Mentorship in February program and continued to revise and under the auspices of that program.

We did meet on February 1^st to review my most recent submission. I’m to the point in the novel where I’m basically rewriting the second half of the second and all of the third act. I had expected to have a rough go with this critique, but it was a lot better than I expected. I’m learning!

As ever, though, learning is never a straight line.

I’ve given up on trying to track my revisions on the spreadsheet. Now that I’m in the second half of the novel, I’m completely rewriting most of it. It’s hard to compare a sprawling, meandering draft with the tighter rewrite. I’m eliminating whole chapters, combining chapters, and making the whole more cohesive. I’m figuring out when to show and when to tell.

I’m hopeful that I’ll be able to get some interest when I query, later this year.

I paid for my annual membership to the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Association and submitted “Psychopomps Are Us” to the nomination list for the 2023 Aurora Awards. I also submitted the story to The Year’s Best Canadian Fantasy and Science Fiction: Volume Two, for consideration.

I submitted my final report for the mentorship microgrant I was approved for through The Writers’ Union of Canada (TWUC).

I applied for TWUC National Reading Program funding and event funding from the League of Canadian Poets (LCP) for my poetry launch.

I tossed my hat into the My Personal Odyssey ring again. I’ll find out some time in March if I’ve made the cut this year.

My associate membership renewal for the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) came due in February.

And I continue to work on the launch, and arranging reviews, readings, and so forth for The Art of Floating.

The venue is booked! It will be in the Studio Desjardins of Place des Arts, at 7 pm on April 6^th, 2024. Now to get the livecast details in place so I can start promoting in earnest.

Kim Fahner has agreed to a brief casual conversation about my poetic journey to start the launch. I’m so happy she’s agreed to help me out. She’s been such a central figure in my poetic life.

Now … I have to think about what I want to wear. I don’t have any nice clothes left after I lost weight back in 2021. The prospect of some new clothes is pleasing, but I hate shopping with a passion.

My publisher confirmed a book signing at Chapters on April 13^th from 11 am to 2 pm.

On the 23^rd, I received a lovely email informing me that my application for The Writers’ Union of Canada’s National Public Reading funding was approved!

My poem, “Time and Tide,” was published in Polar Starlight 13 on February 24^th.

And I submitted some more poetry to a themed issue of one of Canada’s best known literary journals. I’m not hopeful, to be honest. They had over a thousand submissions (!)

Filling the well

February 1^st was Imbolc, but I was so dysregulated at the time, I didn’t get around to lighting my altar or doing my usual, quiet observation until the 2^nd (!)

The new Rowan moon in Aquarius (and beginning of the Year of the Dragon!) was on the 9^th. I observed with a guided meditation. It was overcast up here, which it usually is this time of year.

I’m a Rooster and this is what the Year of the Dragon brings for me: Your careful nature and attention to detail will strengthen during Year of the Dragon 2024. You’ll be good at handling difficult tasks with care.

Bodes well, methinks!

The full Snow moon in Virgo was on the 24^th. It was overcast, but I got a lovely picture of the moon a couple of days before the full. I again observed with a guided meditation.

As I mentioned earlier, I signed up for Suzy Vadori’s developmental editing course from the 5^th to the 29^th. Virtual meetups were twice a week, with asynchronous training in between. The course gave me more insight into Suzy’s methodology, and I used the month to once again review the draft-to-date.

I attended the Wordstock and Sulphur open mic night at Books & Beans on the 7^th. It was standing room only, but I got to read some of my more recent poetry (i.e., stuff that’s not in The Art of Floating) and promote my launch.

The first Success Series webinar from Free Expressions, “Neurolinguistic Programming for Writers” with Beth Baranay was on the 8^th. I was dysregulated and watched the recording. NLP, or neurolinguistic programming is all about changing the connections in your brain to learn, improve, and form and break habits. Beth applied NLP techniques for both authors and their characters. We didn’t quite get to habits, but the grounding is there.

On the 9^th, Authors Publish presented a webinar on “The Art of Writing Immersive Worlds,” presented by Cat Rambo. Still dysregulated. Watched the replay. The webinar felt intimate, and Cat is always a good presenter.

I signed up for a Freedom to Read Week event co-sponsored by TWUC and the LCP on the 22^nd featuring Farzana Doctor and Gary Geddes. It was a lovely evening.

Then, I signed up for a Black History Month poetry reading featuring Ian Keteku, Asiah Sparks, and Damini Awoyiga. Black poets rock, y’all!

On the 29^th, there was another Free expressions SSW, “Character Dynamics” with Damon Suede. Because I opted to go to the poetry reading, I watched the replay.

In non-writing-related events, I attended a Toronto Public Library Black History Month presentation about “Reframing History: Newfoundland and Labrador & the Black Atlantic.” Bushra Junaid, Afua Cooper, and Camille Turner each presented pieces of Black history in Newfoundland and Labrador. Compelling and poignant.

I also had an appointment with my therapist on the 28^th. I’m trying to work through the idea that I feel, at least recently, that I’m always on the cusp of burnout. I’m trying to come to terms with the fact that it might just be part of life.

What I’m watching and reading

I finished watching the first season of Citadel (Amazon). A second season has been green lit, but I don’t know if I’ll watch it. I was left confused more than anything. Madden and Chopra-Jonas have zero chemistry and even Stanley Tucci couldn’t save it.

Next, I finished watching Little Bird (Crave). Touching and compelling story about a family divided by the 60s Scoop coming together to heal.

Then, I finished watching the third (and final) season of Res Dogs (Disney +). Bear finds his way home after missing the bus. We get some backstory of the Dogs’ parents and elders, and the series ends with Elora meeting her father (Ethan Hawke) and his kids and the Dogs coming together around the funeral of one of their elders before the ancestor says goodbye, Elora heads off to university, and Bear’s mom leaves for a new job. Bear’s in a good place.

I finished watching the first (and only) season of First Kill (Netflix). It was inspired by a short story by V.E. Schwab and is essentially a modern, queer, and supernatural retelling of Romeo and Juliet. Juliette is the youngest daughter of a legacy vampire family who are pressuring her to make her first kill. In fact, she’s on medication to “take the edge off” her bloodlust and the last thing she wants to do is kill anyone. Calliope is the youngest daughter of a monster hunting family and eager to make her first kill. When Juliette and Calliope fall in love…a whole bunch of people die. The series ended on a weird cliffhanger and wasn’t renewed, so we may never find out what was going to happen. Unless Schwab wants to turn it into a comic or something?

Then, I roped Phil into watching The Marvels (Disney +) with me. It was fun. I loved Goose and the flerkin kittens. I loved Iman Vellani as Kamala Khan. The rest was okay. It wasn’t as bad as reviews led me to believe, but it was like everyone was too tired to make the film as good as it should have been. I mean, it has the name of the studio in its title. You’d think someone would have cared enough to make it at least as memorable as Iron Man.

When I watched Captain America and The Avengers (each for the umpteenth time) shortly thereafter, I was reminded of the kind of story Marvel is capable of telling. Neither is perfect, but they were both so much better than recent Marvel efforts.

Then, I finished watching the adaptation of Anthony Doerr’s All the Light We Cannot See (Netflix). Loved! Even though it’s a WWII story, the series (and therefore Doerr’s novel) offers a unique perspective. Marie, a blind Parisian girl, and Werner, a German orphan, are bonded through their love of “The Professor,” who broadcasts educational radio programs. During WWII, the two meet in Saint Malo, a coastal French town, where Marie now broadcasts for the French resistance and Werner is a radio operator in the occupying German army. The Americans are coming to liberate the town, but can they do it before Werner is forced to track down Marie for his commander, who has a sinister motive for finding Marie?

I watched The Hate U Give (Amazon). It was a gut punch, but in the best way. Starr Carter is in the passenger seat when her friend Khalil is shot and killed by a police officer. The movie and the book it’s based on by Angie Thomas are a good reminder that systemic racism kills tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of Black people a year. Black lives matter.

I finished watching (most of) the first season of The Irrational (network). Alec Mercer is a behavioural psychologist who helps solve crimes. This season focused on Alec’s backstory of being caught in a church bombing. As the season progresses, the man convicted of the bombing proves to be innocent, uncovering a conspiracy that Alec has to unravel to serve justice and gain closure.

Then I finished watching the second season of the new Quantum Leap (network). The third season is still up in the air. I wasn’t too certain about the 3-year time jump after the first season finale. The Quantum Leap project has been shut down, Ben is thought to be dead, and Addison moves on. But Ian hasn’t given up, and when they find Ben, the team regroups, including Addison’s new love interest. Things get sorted out in the end, but I think the uncertainty of the network series machine means that they had to have a self-contained story arc, just in case. Things felt contrived. I’ll leave it there. Still enjoyed it and will watch season three if it comes to fruition.

My first read of February was Zen Cho’s Black Water Sister. Closeted and broke, Jess returns to Malaysia with her family after living in the US for most of her life. She has a degree from Harvard, but that hasn’t translated into success, or even a job. Then, she starts to hear a voice in her head, her recently dead grandmother, Ah Ma, who’s set on getting her revenge on a mob boss. Dark, but very good.

Then, I finished William Gibson’s The Peripheral. I realized I had the ebook after I watched the Amazon series. Once again, it’s an interesting exercise to compare a novel and its adaptation, to see what creative decisions were made and why. Having said that, I enjoyed both equally, though I must say that I’m not as fond of book Flynn as I was of series Flynn. And, of course, Amazon cancelled the series.

Next, I read The Bone Witch by Rin Chupeco. As a child, Tea (pronounced tee-ah) accidentally resurrects her brother and discovers she’s a bone witch, or necromancer. Feared and ostracized by her family and community, Tea is taken under the wing of a more experienced bone witch who whisks her and her brother away to a foreign land to be trained as an asha. This book is the beginning of a trilogy and is very much just the set up for the rest of the series. Although there is a framing narrative told by a bard, whom Tea has asked to tell her story, it doesn’t give much away. One thing is clear, though; The Bone Witch is a story of revenge.

I finished reading Waubgeshig Rice’s Moon of the Turning Leaves. In this sequel to Moon of the Crusted Snow, Nangohns, daughter of Evan Whitesky, begins to see the signs that her people are beginning to exhaust the natural resources around their isolated northern community. She then embarks on a long journey south with her father and several other members of the community. They need a new place to settle. Or an old place. Their ancestral home on the shores of Lake Huron. The problem is, they still don’t know what happened when the lights went out over a decade ago. And the last scouting party they sent south four years ago never returned.

Then, I turned to poetry. Kim Fahner lent me a stack of collections she thought might be in my poetic wheelhouse. I started with Bernadette Wagner’s this hot place. The sections of the collection are named Maiden, Mother, and Crone, and Wagner recounts her life on the prairies in verse. She has a talent for lovely subversions. Verra nice.

I also finished The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty. A retired pirate captain is lured back into the world of supernatural high seas adventure when a northern sorcerer abducts a young scholarly girl. Nothing is as it seems. I’ll leave it there. You should read this.

Next, I listened to Delicious Monsters by Liselle Sambury. A brilliant supernatural mystery told in dual timelines. Daisy can see the dead. When her mother inherits a mansion just outside of Timmins, they both see it as their opportunity for the life they want. For Daisy’s mother, Grace, it’s to finally be free of the ghosts (figurative and literal) of her past. For Daisy, it’s the chance to escape from her mother’s narcissism. But the mansion is haunted. And now people are dying. Ten years in the future, Brittney, co-creator of the podcast “Haunted,” wants to uncover the secrets of the mansion, which her abusive mother calls the “miracle mansion.” She wants to tell the story of a forgotten Black girl but gets more than she bargained for. LOVED.

Finally, I listened to C.S. Lewis: Writer, Scholar, Seeker, an Audible Original based on The Great Courses series of lectures by Sorina Higgins. Interesting insight into one of my favourite authors.

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!

The next chapter: January 2024 update

February 4, 2024 / Melanie Marttila

Sweet Lord, but January’s a hard month to get through.

Image of a winter sky with sun and clouds, through tree branches.

Life in general

The month started out fine. Daylight hours are growing longer. I’m starting to feel better, come out of my winter shell, but then, I was presented with the prospect of ALL THE THINGS I have to do to prepare for and promote my poetry launch and …

Let’s just say I’m dysregulated now. Meltdowns abound.

I attended my union’s AGM virtually on the 24^th.

The month in writing

I was once again focused on Reality Bomb revisions.

I revised and submitted a piece of short fiction to one of my dream markets.

I started revising an old story for an anthology call in April. I know, it’s a ways off, but the story basically needs to be rewritten in its entirety.

I met with Suzy on the 11^th. I’m back to struggling with grounding the characters in scene, not giving my disembodied protagonist enough agency, and not providing enough detail. My strengths remain dialogue, clean writing (which makes all my other problems so much easier to find), and my premise, which is complex, but compelling (and therefore incredibly challenging to write).

Our next meeting is scheduled for February 1^st.

In other business-y news, I’m working on securing the venue for my poetry launch! While my publisher does have a budget for the launch, I’m hoping to receive some funding from the League of Canadian Poets (LCP) or The Writers’ Union of Canada (TWUC) to cover part of the rental cost and webcasting for the event(!)

Yes. The launch will be in person, but broadcast for those of my family and friends who are in other places in Ontario and unable to make the journey up.

Now, I’m playing with ideas for making the launch a little different/special. I met with my publisher on the 30^th to discuss and came away with a list of things to do. I contacted friend and networker extraordinaire Kim Fahner (also former poet laureate of Sudbury and current vice-president of TWUC) and I have several balls in the air with regard to reviews, readings, and one interview.

I’m tempering my expectations. Debut poets generally don’t get a lot of attention.

My publisher has also secured my first reading with The Conspiracy of 3 in North Bay on May 14^th at the North Bay Public Library at 7 pm.

Unfortunately, that conflicts with the launch of the Sudbury Writers’ Guild’s Superstack Stories anthology. Can’t be in two places at once (!)

I’m going to have to put up a new page on my web site for appearances and readings!

Eeeeee! Things are happening!

At the SF Canada AGM last month, I joined the board of directors. Our first meeting was on Jan 23^rd at 8 pm. We sorted ourselves and I have a better idea of the issues facing the organization and board at this time.

Filling the well

The new Birch moon in Capricorn fell on Jan 11^th. Unfortunately, I was working toward a deadline and totally dysregulated after work. Moon did not cross my mind 😦

The full Spirit moon in Leo was n the 26^th. I was able to work in a guided meditation.

I signed up for the DAW Fantasy Book Buzz on January 11^th. It was a great preview of the coming season and John Wiswell was one of the featured writers.

I took part in the Free Expressions Success Series … on the 18^th. I decided to purchase a few webinars from the series.

Back in December, I registered for a workshop called Poetry and Prose: crossing genre boundaries to strengthen your writing with Kate Heartfield and Amanda Earl on the 20^th. It was a great session. And I drafted a new poem.

Finally, I attended a three-day virtual writers’ retreat with Suzy from the 25^th to the 27^th.

In personal events, I finally got into a meeting of my autism support group. It’s been months since I haven’t been put on a waiting list. It was a good session.

I had a massage on the 17^th. Much needed.

A friend celebrated her retirement on the 21^st. It was a nice afternoon and I got to catch up with some colleagues from my old team.

On the 22^nd, I attended a guided meditation with Pat Tallman. It was relaxing.

I booked a virtual appointment with my doctor on the 24^th to get some annual insurance referrals, including one for therapy. I’m starting up again. I have more work to do. Then, I booked a follow up, an appointment for bloodwork, my first therapy appointment, and tried to figure out how to get my emailed referrals to my insurance.

Torvi went for her first Furminator of the year on the 27^th. The house is still full of fur bunnies, but Torvi’s all a-floof.

I won a year’s free subscription to the Beeja meditation app. I’m hoping it will help me regulate.

Finally, I met with my therapist on the 31^st. We decided to stop meeting back in 2022, by mutual agreement. At the time, I was in a good place and didn’t need a lot of support. But winters are hard and I’m realizing in retrospect that I could have used her support when Phil broke his shoulder last year and again when I went on strike. I reverted to my default mode of bulling through the difficulties. Now, I’m paying for that decision.

And I had some well-earned annual leave from the 29^th of January to the 2^nd of February.

What I’m watching and reading

Phil and I finished watching the first season of Blue Eye Samurai (Netflix). Amazing story of a complex character and absolutely gorgeous animation. The voice cast is great. Hyper-realistic, violent, and mature content, though.

Then, I finished watching The Last Thing He Told Me (Apple +). A good thriller with a bittersweet ending.

Phil and I also watched the second season of What if … ? (Disney +). There were hits and misses among the episodes, but we enjoyed it. It remains one of the better Marvel series.

Next, I watched Bottoms (Amazon). It’s been on my list since Amanda the Jedi reviewed it. Hilarious. Absurd in the same way as Polite Society. Loved.

Then Phil and I watched Echo (Disney +). Echo’s story was great, but we wanted more of it (and less of Fisk). Five episodes wasn’t enough.

I roped Phil into watching The Brother Sun (Netflix) with me. He was reluctant at first, but by the end of the season, he was invested despite himself. A story about a triad family reunited in LA after a lifetime of living apart is going to be dark and bloody, but it also has a lot of heart. I enjoyed it.

My first audiobook of 2024 was Goblin Quest by Jim C. Hines. An entertaining tale of a goblin named Jig and his pet fire spider and how they are captured by and pressed into service by a party of adventurers.

Next, I listened to Word Puppets by Mary Robinette Kowal. A delightful collection of short fiction including the three stories that gave birth to the Lady Astronaut series. Fidel and Mira’s tragic love story touched me, even as Fidel worked to redirect the asteroid that would crash into the easter seaboard. This was followed by a light story about a fireworks display on Mars that almost goes wrong. And then, the original Lady Astronaut of Mars novelette. Also touching. Kowal is so good at writing strong but complex relationships.

Then, I read Dreams Bigger than Heartbreak, the second book in the Unstoppable series by Charlie Jane Anders. I followed that up with Promises Stronger than Darkness. The whole series is a fun YA, neurodivergent romp. And the worldbuilding is wacky. Terrible things happen, but everything works out in the end because people choose to care about one another. And I’m stealing the phrase, “I’m a slow cooker.”

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!

The next chapter: November 2023 update

December 3, 2023 / Melanie Marttila

Welcome to December?! Where has the fricken year gone? Did you survive the month of NaNoWriMo, American Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, Cyber Monday, Giving Tuesday, and ALL THE THINGS?

Me? I’m not sure yet. Give me a minute. Delayed processing is a thing.

Life in General

Back in April, I took the dive and registered for the Writer Unboxed UnConference (more on that, below). While I was away in Salem, Phil reported a) our first snowfall, b) followed by another 10 to 15 cm (4 to 6 inches) the next day, and c) the death of our snowblower.

Poor guy had to clear our very large driveway of some very wet, heavy snow by hand (and arm and back, etc.). He was in quite a bit of pain the next day because of his shoulder, which you may or may not remember was broken this past February.

He got a new snowblower and we didn’t have any more snow … until the 26^th! We got 5 to 10 cm (2 to 4 inches) and it was cold enough to stick around. Phil gave the snowblower its first workout the next day. It works great, especially the heated hand grips! He just has to get used to the new controls. The drive gear and auger controls are opposite to the old machine and there are triggers underneath the handles to engage the steering. The wheels can be steered with one or the other trigger. They can also be locked with both triggers. It’s going to take time. But he’s happy with the purchase.

Getting back to my flight to Salem, I was prepared for the trip—my first since the pandemic—with the exception of arranging for a temporary roaming plan for my cell phone. I would have had to arrange for that at least a month in advance, because our plan is billed monthly. But I didn’t, so I did without. I am not looking forward to our next bill.

It was nice not feeling the pressure to do all the social media all the time, though. I could focus on the writerly learnings.

Unfortunately, that meant a greater burden of social media catch-up on my return. It was a couple of weeks before that was accomplished.

In the process of packing, I found a couple old things in my courier bag (one of my staple travel gear items). I discovered an old Burt’s Bees wild cherry lip balm that was still completely usable. And a little Tolkien Moleskine notebook that I had taken to work. I’d written in it periodically from 2014 to 2019 and it wasn’t quite half used. So, I packed it for the trip and took my session notes in it. I’m also filling it up before moving onto another newer journal. I’ve finally filled the refill for my lovely leather journal.

After my return from Salem, I marked off the important stuff in my journal with sticky tabs, so I could refer to past notes on various writing projects at will.

I took my new Manta weighted sleep mask and Flare Sleeep ear plugs and slept well considering I was in a strange city and bed. I had my Flare Calmer Soft ear buds, one of which I lost 😦 Fortunately, I had a set of Flare Calmer Secure as a backup. Yes, they were more obvious, but I didn’t have to worry about losing them, ‘cause lanyard. I also brought an aromatherapy diffuser necklace for more sensory support.

Update: I appear to have lost the Calmer Secure as well, somewhere on the journey from the airport. I’ve checked my courier bag, suitcase, the sweater and jacket I wore to Salem, and the car. I may find the pouch in the driveway in the spring, or it may have been garburated by the snow blower. So, I ordered another pair of Calmer Soft. We’ll see if I can hang onto these 😦

One other thing I should have done was to call ahead and find out when the Porter check in desk was open. My flight to Toronto left at 7:10 am on November 6^th, and CATSA says to be on site three hours ahead of time. The airport’s web site states it’s open from 4 am, so Phil drove me out there only to discover that the Porter desk wouldn’t be personed until 5:30 am. I really could have used the extra hour and a half sleep.

Despite the super early start, the flight to Boston via Toronto went well. I was stuck in customs for about an hour and spent another 45 minutes trying to connect with the person I was ride sharing with, but everything else went smoothly.

Travel is always tough. Lessons learned. I’ll know better next time.

The return trip was a bit fraught, starting out with a delay which meant a hasty turnaround at Billy Bishop (customs, check in, security, and board), but I arrived in Sudbury at the appointed hour and Phil was waiting for me to debark.

Torvi gave me the atomic wig when I got home.

The month in writing

Silly Mellie was silly. I decided to do NaNoWriMo this year (again), despite Wordstock and the UnConference and working the rest of the month and Finnish classes … but I set a lower goal (30,000 words) and did my NaNo Rebel Combo thing.

Revisions on Reality Bomb, ‘cause ongoing. Whatever words possible on The Fenwoman’s Tale, ‘cause I wanted to work on something new. Revisions on a short story (done on the 8^th!). This blog post/newsletter. And whatever else I wrote in the month.

I met my reduced goal just a little over half-way through the month because RB revisions. And, by the 30^th, I actually had over 50k words. I should have just gone with the standard WriMo. Again, lessons learned.

I met with Suzy twice in November. The first session was on November 2^nd. After my month-long illness, I was feeling fragile. Still, progress was made.

Our next meeting was on the 23^rd. I’d hit the stage where everything I wrote seemed like crap to me but by the time we met, I was starting to come out of it, and I ended up feeling good after our meeting.

As I mentioned parenthetically above, I completed my edits for my short story on the 8^th. I had some questions and let the editors know, but I received word on the 20^th that my revisions were acceptable. Once all the edits for all the selected stories are in, the editors will bundle everything up for the publisher, who has final say, and I should learn the ultimate fate of my story by the end of the year.

I supplied bios for that story and the creative non-fiction piece that was accepted into the Sudbury Writers’ Guild’s Sudbury’s Superstack: A Changing Skyline anthology.

Filling the well

The new Ivy moon in Scorpio was on the 13^th. I observed with a guided meditation.

The full beaver (or freezing) moon in Gemini was on the 27^th. Once again, observed with a meditation. It was overcast, so no actual observation.

Image of a fingernail moon in a moody blue cloudy sky.

The month started with the Wordstock Sudbury Literary Festival, from November 2^nd to 4^th. I caught the Thursday and Friday evening sessions virtually, because work and still recovering from the illen. I attended Saturday’s sessions in person. It was a very poetic festival this year and I did a little networking.

Then, after a scant day off, I got up at ridiculous o’clock to fly down to Boston and make my way to Salem for the Writer Unboxed UnConference from the 6^th to the 10^th. It was a fun first in person conference adventure, post-pandemic. I got to meet some of the people with whom I’d only interacted online. I made a few new friends. I enjoyed some great local food, walked around Salem, and took in a lot of writing craft instruction.

It’s one of the better conferences I’ve been to, up there with the Surrey International Writers’ Conference (SiWC) and the Writing Excuses Retreat (WXR).

After that, I took a break. Travel is hard, and though the UnConference was great, I was masking on steroids. It’s just what happens, and I haven’t figured out a better way to handle conferences yet.

I did sign up for an Authors Publish webinar that I watched on replay. Agent Michael Mungiello and Daisuke Shen discussed their working relationship and fielded questions about finding and working with an agent.

Finnish classes continued through the month, as did my supplementary learning on Duolingo.

I signed up for an RBC Patient and Family Learning Space webinar on November 28 on the connection between sleep disorders and mental health. It was interesting, but more of a confirmation of what I already knew.

I got shot twice on the 13^th with my covid and flu vaccinations. I am now up to date (again). Just sore shoulders for a couple of days afterward and a brief resurgence of congestion. By the weekend of the 18^th, I was feeling myself again.

I also had a massage appointment on the 15^th, which helped me to recover from the post-vaccination bleargh. Reached the rest and digest stage again, but not for long.

Something wonky has happened on my smoking cessation journey. Now that I’ve recovered from that sinus infection, I no longer have that awful taste in my mouth. I can taste and smell again. And it’s lowered my urgency to quit.

I had once again gotten down to 6 to 8 cigarettes a day but bounced back up to 10 to 12. I’m not quitting … quitting, but I may have to hang out at half my former consumption for a while again.

What I’m watching and reading

I watched The Fablemans (Crave). It was a lovely look at a filmmaker’s development and coming of age.

Then, Phil and I finished watching the second season of Loki (Disney +). While I thought the finale was bittersweet and appropriate, Phil was saddened that we wouldn’t be getting a season three. There may be something featuring the TVA (I mean, we have to know what happened to Renslayer and Eliath, at least, don’t we? And what of OB?) and I’m fairly certain that Loki’s new role of the god of story will have further implications for future Marvel movies and series. Phil just really likes Hiddleston’s portrayal of the god of mischief and didn’t want to see it end.

Phil and I also finished watching the first season of Gen V (Amazon). As bloody as The Boys and featuring cameos of a few of the regulars (Ashley, Mallory, Soldier Boy, Victoria Neuman, Homelander, and Butcher). We really liked it, and the characters, in particular, were fabulous. It was interesting to see more characters like Starlight, before they get screwed up by the capital-industrial complex that is Vaught.

Next, I watched Blue Beetle (Crave). I loved it. It wasn’t a perfect movie, even a perfect superhero movie, but it was definitely one of the better DCEU movies to come out to date, and it’s a little disappointing that the new DC may not pursue Jaime’s future adventures. My favourite line: “Bug Fart activated.”

Phil and I watched what they’re calling the “midseason” finale of Invincible (Amazon). This part of the season focused on the aftermath of the revelation of Nolan’s deception and his departure from Earth. Mark feels he has to make up for his dad’s actions and Debbie’s turned to alcohol. It looks like the second part of the season will deal with how Mark handles his assignment from the Viltrumites to finish his dad’s work and prepare Earth for its new Viltrumite overlords.

Then, I watched a cheesy Matel movie from 2016. Max Steel (Amazon) wasn’t horrible. A kid starts manifesting powers and has to team up with an amnesiac symbiotic lifeform to defend Earth from aliens.

Finally, Phil and I said farewell to the Doom Patrol (Crave). While the series offered up the main characters, villains, and even storylines of various DP comics series, it got mired in the fucked-upness of the team to the point that, after four years, none of the characters had sorted their shit. The Chief, Rita, and Cliff are dead, Cyborg decides to teach gifted kids, Jane and Casey get together (in space), Larry and 104 become a sun with Keeg (I think), Rouge takes out the Ant Farm, and Dorothy’s just doing her own thing … ?

I think part of the problem was that Jane (DID with each alter having their own superpower), and later Dorothy (with very powerful imaginary friends at her beck and call), ended up being grossly overpowered and the writers didn’t know how to deal with them.

When we enter the dark months of the year, I tend to slow down in my reading.

The first book I finished in November was Naomi Alderman’s The Power. Girls begin developing electrical powers, entirely upending society. Margaret Atwood’s influence is clear, particularly in the faux-documentary postscript, which is a written correspondence between the male author of a novel and his publisher (Alderman), which implies that women will be no better than men in responsibly wielding their power.

Next, I finished Nnedi Okorafor’s Shadow Speaker. Ejii Ugabe witnessed her father’s decapitation and now that she’s manifesting the abilities of a shadow speaker, she’s going to join her father’s killer on a mission to try to prevent a war. I enjoy Okorafor’s stories of young people changed by external circumstance trying to find their ways in the world.

Then, I read Hannu Rajaneimi’s The Quantum Thief. It was a recommendation from Desmond Hall because the main character, Jean le Flambeur, encounters several different incarnations of himself. It’s not the same as my protagonist and her Others in Reality Bomb, though. Jean and his others are never in the same physical body. They’re in a Dilemma Prison (which I think is a quantum realm) or they exist in different times accessible only by memory.

The Quantum Thief is a bizarre heist novel pitting Jean against a brilliant young detective in the Oubliette, the moving city of Mars, where time is currency and memory is treasure, and post-human tribes and police vie for control.

Finally, I finished my reread of Guy Gavriel Kay’s The Summer Tree. The characters and story hold up just fine, but the first chapters are a bit rough. I was surprised and disappointed, but Kay remains one of my favourite authors. I’m going to give the rereads a break until the New Year. I have a whole pile of TBRs that I need to put a dent in (!)

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!

A hand hold a book with mist rising from it.
The Next Chapter.
A month in the writerly life.
melaniemarttila.ca

The next chapter: October 2023 update

November 5, 2023 / Melanie Marttila

Welcome to November, the month of NaNoWriMo and American Thanksgiving! As a Canadian, I’m legally obligated to specify American Thanksgiving, as Canadians celebrate Thanksgiving the second Monday in October (former American Columbus Day and now Indigenous Peoples’ Day).

The lovely weather continued through the first two weeks of October—I got out onto the deck again!—but over the Thanksgiving weekend, we had tonnes (again, Canadian, therefore metric) of rain and below seasonal temperatures. But no snow, thanks the powers that be. Well, there was snow, but it melted as soon as it hit the ground.

This was followed by another stretch of above-seasonal temperatures, though with persistent cloud cover and often rain. Phil put away the patio furniture by this time and put the garden to bed for the year.

Life in general

I’ve continued to struggle with dysregulation. I think I’ve been walking on the thin edge of burnout since summer. Also, what I thought were brand new seasonal allergies was, in fact, a persistent sinus infection. It went subclinical over the summer but came back with a vengeance at the end of September.

I was quite sick over the weekend of the 14^th and tried to make an appointment with my doctor on Monday, but he was booking in-person into November, so I went to the walk-in clinic and came home with antibiotics and a corticosteroid nasal spray. I may also have brought home another virus from the crowded waiting room.

What followed was a miserable stretch of days while the meds took hold and started to do their thing. I worked (day job and writing), though slowly. The nights were the worst. Gravity works, and infection drains everywhere (ears, bronchus, etc.). I tested for covid twice this time. Both negative, but damn. This was the sickest I’ve been in years.

And then I gave it to Phil 😦 Fortunately, he recovered in a day and a half.

The month in writing

For most of the month, I was once again focused on my new inside outline for Reality Bomb. Having finished writing it out by hand, I then transcribed it. And adjusted the cause-and-effect flow still further, ‘cause I can’t seem to get it nailed down the first (or even fifth) time. Once that was done, I moved onto my next submission.

I’ll have to circle around to do revisions next month (for my NaNo Rebel Combo).

Before the illen truly took hold, I also managed to write 8 poems and 1,392 words on a short story. I’ll take the win!

An Excel spreadsheet showing writing progress for October 2023.

I applied for a mentorship microgrant from The Writers’ Union of Canada (TWUC) and the funds were approved in time for them to be applied to my next six-session package with Suzy. While I’ve paid my next session, I won’t meet with Suzy again until November. This is a good thing. I’ll need the rest of October to get RB reorganized and in shape to resume coaching.

I delivered my fiction writers in the schools visit early in the month. I think it went well. A few students shared their ideas and some of what they’d written. And they asked questions. Mrs. Belanger was helpful and accommodating. I dared to be imperfect, and it paid off.

I submitted some poetry to Polar Starlight and Polar Borealis and two of my new poems were accepted for publication in 2024. Grateful to Graeme and Rhea for their continued dedication to Canadian speculative poetry.

I received edit notes for the short story that was shortlisted. The publisher still has final say, even after I’ve done the requested revisions, so there’s no guarantee, but I’m hopeful.

Filling the well

The vine new moon in Libra was on October 14^th and I observed it with a guided meditation. The day was cloudy, so I didn’t get to see the partial eclipse (all of the annular eclipse we’d see up here in northeastern Ontario), but I watched the NASA broadcast.

The full Hunter’s Moon in Taurus fell on October 28^th this year. There was also a partial lunar eclipse. Of course, it was overcast again. And I watched the partial lunar eclipse on the Time and Date YouTube channel.

And Samhain (my birthday) was three days after that. It was, as usual, a quiet day. I took it off, Phil made me a full breakfast (pancakes, eggs, and bacon), and we had a Greek feast (souvlaki, lemon potatoes, rice, tzatziki, pita, and salad) in the evening. Phil made me a banoffee pie. We invited my mom.

As usual, we had no trick or treaters. The are I live in is on the commercial side and kids don’t see it as a viable source of candy. More importantly, their parents don’t see our area as a convenient on to take their kids to. There is a subdivision not far away, and they tend to pack up their kids and go there.

Still, Phil bought a box of chocolate bars “just in case,” and now I’m trying to consume them before he eats too many of them.

Because we received our retro pay, I got myself a new computer. My old one was giving me a CMOS error message every morning on startup. So that’s what I spent the three days leading up to my birthday doing—setting up my computer and making sure all of my documents and pictures and music were transferred over.

Well, the pictures weren’t an issue, because they were backed up on the cloud, but the rest had to be zipped and backed up and copied over. But, in the process, Phil set up a back up server for us. Now, everything’s sorted, and I have a lovely new computer that should last me for a few years.

I started Finnish classes through the Sudbury Finnish School in anticipation of drafting The Fenwoman’s Tale. Eight weeks through October and November. I also returned to the free version of Duolingo to supplement the classes.

I attended the DAW Library Fantasy Book Buzz with Julie Czerneda and Bradley Beaulieu on the 5^th. It was a lovely discussion.

The next and final Free Expressions Donald Maass webinar, “Narrative Drive for Sagging Middles and No-plot Novels” also took place on the 5^th. Due to timing, I watched the replay. It was a helpful webinar, because my protagonist in my current work-in-progress is trapped in one way or another for a good portion of the book. It’s challenging to maintain agency, but it’s a challenge I set myself.

I registered for a TWUC webinar, “Three Things Agents and Publishers Must See in Your First 30 pages” on October 11^th. Barbara Kyle is a great presenter and has a lot of knowledge to impart.

I attended the virtual version of Can-Con from the 13^th to the 15^th. I didn’t catch all the virtual sessions, but I watched everything I could. An excellent con, as always.

The FOLD Academy offered another webinar on “Writing from Desire and Body” by Linh S. Nguyen on the 14^th. Because it was on the same day as Can-Con, I watched the replay once it was posted. It was more of a workshop than a webinar, with practical exercises to encourage you to be present in your body and write what you feel.

I attended Waubgesig Rice’s Sudbury book launch for Moon of the Turning Leaves on the 16^th. In person, even! I got a signed copy of the book!

I had registered for the Anne Szumagalski Lecture with Joshua Whitehead back in September, but it was rescheduled to October 20^th. A compelling presentation about paranoia as an effect of colonialization and marginalization.

I signed up for “Writing Characters Who Practice Non-Standard Religions” by Nisi Shawl from Writing the Other. The course ran from Oct 28^th to Nov 5^th. It was a good refresher of being respectful of everyone’s spiritual beliefs.

Thanksgiving was a relaxed affair at my mom’s and the immediate family gathered for ham, scalloped potatoes, turnip puff, jellied salad, and Greek salad. There was apple and blueberry pie for dessert.

I signed up for another Pat Tallman event on mastering motivation. It was mostly practical information and familiar, but it’s always good to refresh and rededicate.

Later in the month, she offered a bonus workshop on forgiveness. Forgiveness is hard, especially forgiving yourself.

What I’m watching and reading

I’ve had a realization. The less I write about something (book, movie, or series) the more I want y’all to experience it for yourselves.

I watched The Whale (Amazon). A lovely, but desperately sad movie that gave me similar feels to Leaving Las Vegas. Charlie is a morbidly obese virtual college instructor who is dying of congestive heart failure (what my father died of, so extra feels there) and refuses to go to the hospital. As the days pass, more and more clues about Charlie’s trauma are revealed. I won’t spoil it. Brendan Fraser earned his awards.

Phil and I finished watching the first season of One Piece (Netflix). Phil says it’s pretty faithful to the manga and anime. It was fun and kind-hearted, which we can all use more of.

We also finished watching the second season of The Wheel of Time (Amazon). They took us on a journey. It was excellent, in my opinion.

The first book I listened to was Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, narrated by Michael York (BBC). The last time I’d read the book was in high school and, to be honest, I didn’t remember much of it. It’s a scathing commentary on a society that is technically utopian but as is usual with utopias, if you scratch the surface, there are flaws. While I appreciated the ending focusing on the tragedy of John Savage, I was left wondering what the ultimate fates of the other two main male characters were. And I was somewhat disappointed that Huxley focused on the dissatisfaction or difference in his male characters only. It seems that there are no alpha females dissatisfied with the utopian world they have been given.

Then, I read A Crown So Cursed, by L. L. McKinney. It’s the third in the Nightmare-Verse series and an urban fantasy retelling of Alice in Wonderland. I really enjoy these books, even if they are young adult. McKinney has made the protagonist’s mother a feature rather than a bug, and in this novel, her grandmother gets in on the action, too.

Next was Tread of Angels by Rebecca Roanhorse. A tragic tale of two sisters in a world shaped by angels and demons. When fallen Mariel is accused of murdering one of the virtues, her sister Celeste becomes her advocatus diaboli to defend her. Celeste sacrifices everything to prove Mariel innocent, even when it becomes apparent that Mariel did everything she is accused of and more.

I read Alaya Dawn Johnson’s Library of Broken Worlds. It was a challenging read (in the best way). A lot of dense ideas and rich world building in this tale of a secondary artificial intelligence created to kill a god.

Finally, I listened to the Audible production of Jim C. Hines’ Terminal Alliance. This one was a lot of fun. In a post-apocalyptic world in which humans have gone feral and have been given a second chance by an alien “cure,” Lieutenant Marion “Mops” Adamopoulos leads a rag-tag team of human janitors to clean up after a nefarious conspiracy leaves them the only crew capable of sorting out the mess.

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!

The next chapter: September 2023 update

October 1, 2023 / Melanie Marttila

Welcome to October, my favourite month of the year (my birthday notwithstanding). May you find a way to shift the veil during this spectral season and see what’s on the other side 🙂

September began with a four-day heatwave, from September 3^rd to the 6^th. Then, overnight the temperature dropped to below seasonal. But I got out onto the patio! After that, it was a beautiful September, weather-wise. Above seasonal, sunny. Just lovely.

Picture of a dawn sky with Venus among the clouds.

Life in general

After my big project was finished in August, I’ve hit a period of dysregulation and am in recovery. But I’m also still working, so the recovery is taking a while. I don’t have enough annual leave to take a longer period of time off, and, while I have a lot of sick leave banked, I need a medical note to support more than three days off in a row. I’d need to make an appointment with my doctor and get him to fill out the official medical leave form.

The process comes with its own set of difficulties (read autistic inertia/demand avoidance). Really, I’m just being lazy, but I don’t have the spoons to take on more administrivia at the moment. So, I’m taking my sick leave a day or two at a time, here and there. I had a couple of days of leave in September, but I was just starting to feel better when I had a reading to deliver. It was a good event, but just enough to reset my recovery.

And then I had a schedule change at work so I could observe the delivery of the big project I finished in August. The training delivery was in the Atlantic region, so I was getting up super early. The upside was that I got to finish my workday earlier, but the schedule change was a disruption.

So, executive function is low right now. I’m forgetting things I would normally remember, making errors, and stumbling and bumping into things. The brain is having trouble braining. This is a part of the autistic life that I’m still learning to navigate, to be conscious of my executive function in the moment and to give myself the recovery time I need. But it’s a challenge on many fronts.

The time of year and the slow reduction of daylight hours also has an impact on my energy levels. It’s why I save the bulk of my annual leave for the darker months of the year.

I’ve notified my team lead that I will be applying for a self-funded leave in the new year so that I can focus on the launch for The Art of Floating and any readings in the weeks immediately following. My intent is to use as much of that time as I can for a more focused recovery, as well, but I’ll have the launch and readings and possibly conferences to attend. We’ll see how it goes.

The month in writing

Most of my month was dedicated to revisiting my inside outline, which I’m rewriting by hand, so there hasn’t been a lot of writing or revision to record this month.

I have managed to write a few new poems, however. And there’s always the writing to record from this update/newsletter.

Image of an Excel spreadsheet showing my writing and revision progress.

I met with Suzy for the 6^th and final time (for this package) on September 14^th. I hadn’t finished my revised inside outline but got as far as this submission. As usual, Suzy provided insights I wouldn’t have discovered on my own.

I’m taking a break for a month to get the revised inside outline done, write up my report for the CSFFA about my professional development grant funding (done), prepare for my Writers in the Schools visit (done), and see if I can’t get some poetry written (done), and make further progress on some short fiction (done).

I submitted another grant application on the 7^th. And then another on the 30^th.

Also on the 7^th, I received my professional photo package! You may have noticed the mid-month post about the pictures 🙂

On the 11^th, I received notification that my last grant application from the spring was not funded.

Something that I haven’t thought to mention in past months is that I’ve continued to submit my poetry for consideration. Welp, those rejections have started to roll in.

On the 16^th, I met with my publisher. It was a good meeting and things are progressing. Cover reveal should be coming soon, and once the collection is posted for pre-orders, you know I’ll be posting again. Now, it’s time for readings and other networking opportunities.

Then, on the 20^th, I received notification that the creative non-fiction piece I’d submitted for the Sudbury Writers’ Guild Superstack anthology has been accepted! My first CNF acceptance! I edited the piece and returned it and my signed contract on the 25^th.

My publisher was in touch again on the 23^rd to advise that Sudbury’s current poet laureate, Kyla Heyming, had an opening in the second of two Poetry on the Water cruises. I jumped at the opportunity and read my poetry in public for the first time in a year (!) It was a lovely afternoon.

Picture of The William Ramsey cruise boat.

Filling the well

I observed the hazel new moon in Virgo on the 14^th with a guided meditation.

The fall equinox was on the 23^rd this year. I lit my alter and gave some thought to the coming season and what it will bring.

And the full corn supermoon in Aries was on the 29^th.

In terms of writerly events, I started the month with a Dan Blank webinar, “How to find the readers who will love your writing,” on September 8^th. I purchased a consultation package, filled out a form, and received an informative response video. Then, on the 22^nd, Dan and I had a video call to discuss my platform and focusing in on what I share and why. He’s encouraging me to go for it and not to wait. Again, autistic inertia/demand avoidance is playing a role. Highly recommend.

Then, I attended a FOLD Academy webinar with Jael Richardson on “The business of publishing,” on the 9^th. Very good. Lots of useful information. Love Jael 🙂

I had registered to receive the recording of “Healing history’s wounds,” a Writing the Other webinar with Nisi Shawl back in August. Unfortunately, Nisi was ill, and the webinar had to be rescheduled for September 10^th. It was awesome! There are a couple of strategies I want to try out with my solarpunk/alt history novella.

Then, it was Science Fiction Writers’ Week with Pro Writing Aid from the 11^th through to the 14^th. I did not watch all the sessions. I was there for a few special events. Lauren Beukes, Catherine Asaro, Julie Czerneda, and Jordan Ifueko.

The next Donald Maass webinar from Free Expressions, “Imperfect Heroes and Excellent Anti-heroes,” was also on the 14^th, so I watched the replay. Excellent, as always.

I signed up for a Tiffany Yates Martin webinar through Jane Friedman on the 15^th. “Handling multiple storylines” was great. Tiffany always pulls out examples that really illustrate what she’s talking about.

I signed up for another Mary Robinette Kowal webinar on “Endings, or How to Wrap Things Up” on the 17^th. I got some solid advice on my WIP that I can use when rewriting my inside outline.

“The Art & Craft of Writing Powerful Emotion” with Ellen Bass offered through Authors Publish was on the 27^th. I opted to watch the replay because of a conflict.

Carly Watters and Cece Lyra presented their “Writing the Perfect First Five Pages” webinar, also on the 27^th. Basically, the best of their advice from The Shit No One Tells You About Writing podcast.

Finally, there was another SFWA connecting flights panel on “Genre Benders and Blenders: Storytelling Beyond Tropes and Conventions” on Sept 30^th. It was a nice ending to the month.

Moving into the self-care portion of the month, I signed up for “Sidewalk oracles” with Pat Tallman from the 4^th through the 7^th. It’s all about being open to guidance on your morning walks. There were several different techniques to help get into a mindful and receptive mood.

On the 18^th was my next massage appointment. I didn’t quite get to the rest and digest stage, but it was a much-needed respite.

I had my semi-annual dental checkup on the 20^th.

What I’m watching and reading

I couldn’t resist. The reviews have been so horrible, I just had to watch The Flash (HBO/Crave). It wasn’t the trash fire I was led to believe. Don’t get me wrong. It was bad. But I’ve seen worse. >koff, koff< Black Adam.

Phil and I watched the final season of Titans (Netflix). It was full of plot holes and so rushed. I mean, it all feels kind of pointless. DC’s clearing the slates and starting over … again.

Next, Phil and I watched the second season of Good Omens (Amazon). I don’t know what everyone’s upset about. It’s clear that Aziraphale and Crowley love each other. We thought the second season was great and are looking forward to the conclusion of the trilogy.

I watched Elemental (Disney +). This was another movie that struggled out of the gate, but as far as I could see, it was typical Pixar fare. A sweet story about an immigrant family trying to make it in a new city, the pressures of tradition, and finding your own way in the world. The romantic subplot was a little meh, but overall, I enjoyed Elemental.

Then, I watched Marcel the Shell with Shoes On (Amazon). OMG so sweet! I mean, totally ridiculous, but So. Sweet! A balm to my neurodivergent soul.

Next, I watched the live action version of The Little Mermaid (Disney +). It was … okay? Exactly the same as the animated version with a little more diversity in the cast and a couple of additional musical numbers? Halle Bailey has a great voice. Melissa McCarthy added a little more nuance to Ursula. It was completely adequate and what I expected, but I keep wondering why the movie industry reboots everything or keeps franchises going on (Fast & Furious, I’m looking at you) long after they’ve ceased to be entertaining. There are so many stories out there that could be adapted into great series or movies. Get creative, people! Try something new.

I also finished watching Tiny Beautiful Things (Disney +). This was an adaptation of Cheryl Strayed’s book of the same name, which was a collection of her Dear Sugar columns. It was an interesting story about a woman who finds purpose offering advice to others while her life falls apart. There is meaningful resolution in the end. Kathryn Hahn was superb.

After a brief internal struggle, I gave up on Riverdale (Netflix). I started watching the final season, but thanks to Friendly Space Ninja, I learned that the final season doesn’t resolve any of the plot threads from previous seasons. It just reboots the show to the comics’ original 1950s setting. So, no real wrap-up of the pseudo-Marvel multiverse/superpower storylines. No resolution for Betty and the trash bag killer. No future for any of those characters. Just a handwave to the fact that the other timeline no longer exists, and they’re stuck in the past. They get to hold onto the “good” memories, though. Final word on the series as a whole? Meh.

I finally finished watching The Crown (Netflix). The latest season brought viewers up to the point where Di’s bombshell BBC interview has taken place, Di and Charles have divorced, and Di’s about to meet an engaged Dodi.

I watched All the Old Knives (Amazon). It’s a tragic political thriller about the aftermath of a terrorist hostage-taking that resulted in 120 deaths. Years after the event, a CIA agent is sent to investigate. Evidence has been uncovered that there was a mole in the unit.

Finally, Phil and I watched the first two seasons of Bleach: The Thousand Year War (Disney +). Loved! We’ve been fans since the anime first came out and started following the manga as they were released following the last anime series. Season 3 should be released in the spring and 4 before the end of 2024. This could be the last series for Bleach. Creator Tite Kubo continues to struggle with health issues.

The first book I read in September was Samuel R. Delaney’s Babel 17. Rydra Wong is a poet and linguist, and she is called upon by the military to decipher Babel 17, which they believe is a code the Invaders are using to relay messages. Rydra figures out that Babel 17 is a language, not a code, and travels into deep space to solve the riddle of what it is and what is does to the people who understand it.

Then, I took a left turn and listened to Carmen Maria Machado’s Her Body and Other Parties: Stories. It gave me the same flavour as Mona Awad’s Bunny. Surrealist body horror is my best approximation. Though I did find her take on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, an epic poem—yes, I will call it a poem—involving doppelgangers, love, and family to be … kind of hilarious, actually (what does that say about me?). Unsettling, but good.

I finished Premee Mohamed’s The Annual Migration of Clouds. Really good. In a post-apocalyptic Alberta, most people have been infected by Cad, a parasitic fungus that seeks to save its host, no matter what. Reid has been given an opportunity to leave her community, but it involves a dangerous journey. And how can she leave when her mother and her best friend depend on her for their survival? A boar hunt promises to give Reid the means to support her mother, but will her Cad let her take the risk?

Then, I listened to The Mabinogion. I’ve wanted to read it for years, but never gotten around to it. Like most older tale collections, it has a rhythm to its storytelling. Several rhythms, actually, because it’s several different stories collected into one volume. There’s a lot that’s similar to The Kalevala.

I finished Solomon’s Seal, by Skyla Dawn Cameron. This is the first in the Livi Talbot series, pitched as Tomb Raider meets The Gilmour Girls. In a world utterly changed by “The Pulse,” which unleashed magic, magical abilities, and magical creatures globally, Olivia—Livi—Talbot, once heiress, now impoverished treasure hunter for hire, struggles to keep her daughter in private school, pay the rent, beat her archeologist brother to the next artifact, and fend off the unwanted advances of past and potential boyfriends. When a rich benefactor sends her to Ethiopia in search of Solomon’s Seal, Livi has to dodge dragons, betrayal, and her employer’s mysterious second in command. Very good.

Finally, I finished Ada Hoffmann’s The Fallen, sequel to The Outside. Yasira Shien is all but incapacitated following the miracle she performed in the first book. Tiv and the Seven—young people with Outside abilities—try to help Jai’s survivors, while being hunted by angels and fallen angels alike. But the gone people are working toward something that could make life for the people of Jai better, if anyone could understand them. Neurodivergence is centred in Hoffmann’s novels. Really 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!

The next chapter: August 2023 update

September 3, 2023 / Melanie Marttila

Welcome to September, the meteorological beginning of fall (and the return of all things pumpkin spice).

The weather in August was indeed lovely. Despite that, I did not get out to the patio to write. I kept updating my laptop. I intended to go out. A few days, I only opened the documents that are on the hard drive of my desktop, but eventually gave in and opened up the rest, as needed, and did my usual.

I have been enjoying longer walks with Torvi, looking at the houses, imagining what it might be like not to live on a busy streetcorner, to be able to sleep in the quiet, or for Phil to have a dark night sky to take out his telescope and actually do some astronomical observation.

Yes. I’ve been daydreaming.

The big project at work was completed early. And it’s been a huge relief. Despite that, my brain is definitely not braining. Executive function is compromised. Dysregulation is the rule of the day. I’m taking time off as I need to and I’m practicing self-compassion. Or trying to.

It’s one of those things. After a protracted period of hyperfocus, you need to rest and recover. This is even more important for an autist (or other neurodivergent).

The second phase of the big project is yet to come, and with it, more stress, but this is the career I chose.

The month in writing

I had two more meetings with Suzy Vadori on the 10^th and the 31^st. Our meeting on the 10^th was a bit of a revelation. I had to restructure and compress the timeline at the start of Act 2. I thought I had done it, but I hadn’t gone far enough.

In our meeting, I said I’d have to think about how to do it. Delayed processing. It’s an autistic thing. And I told Suzy, I’d restructure the piece in outline and move on.

Reader, I did not do this.

Having restructured, I realized I needed to know the specifics. I couldn’t write forward until I knew the content of this section. I am not the kind of writer who can write out of order. At least, not right now and not with this project.

After a day, I had my strategy in hand and went through the draft-to-date again, trimming where I could. I also asked for an extension. I was supposed to have my next submission ready to go August 20^th but was still struggling with the previous session’s revisions.

My extension was granted. Still, I struggled with the rewrite until the day before my next submission. I’m not happy with it, but it’s time to move on. I can’t spend any more time on it now. I have to get to the half-way point, story wise, if I hope to have a reasonable-sized draft by the end of my sessions with Suzy.

Our meeting on the 31^st led to discussion of just that—the size of the novel and how to mitigate the growing wordcount. I’ve decided to redo my inside outline. There have been a lot of changes and there will probably be more to come. Having a smaller document than my map will help me to manage things better, I think. I hope?

I’ve already committed to another 6-session package with Suzy (to finish off the revision), but I may take a wee break in between. I have to write my grant report for the CSFFA, work on my short fiction presentation for my fall writers in the schools visit—which has been approved; more on that in a bit—and submit another grant proposal.

An Excel spreadsheet that tracks wordcount.

I set up a Substack account on the 7^th. This month, I played around and set things up. I’m starting my newsletter in September. Basically, it’s going to be this update with a few strategic additions. I’ll keep publishing news and announcements on my blog/web site and try to figure out how to get a signup set up on Always Looking Up.

I’m also going to keep posting these updates to my blog. I’m going the free route with Substack. If I decide to move into paid territory, I’ll have to think of something sweet to put behind the paywall!

I may move back to weekly updates at some point in the future. And I may add a limited amount of curation into those, like a top five blogs/articles I read this week, or some such. Right now, there are a lot of things happening and I’m not quite in the right headspace to commit to a weekly newsletter.

On the 9^th, I received a lovely email to let me know that one of my stories has moved to the shortlist for an anthology I submitted to earlier in the year. I’ll find out more in September. Watch this space!

I had my photo session with Gerry Kingsley on the 16^th. I arranged to have my makeup done by Dana Lajeunesse and reported to the park just before 7. It was my first photoshoot and Gerry was very kind about my awkwardness.

The pictures are fabulous, and I can’t wait to share them with you.

The end of the month was a bit of a momentous rollercoaster with regard to acceptances, non-acceptances, and other publishing news.

On the 29^th, I was notified that one of my grant applications from the spring was not funded. So that means one funded, one approved but not funded, and one not approved or funded. One more to go, and I should hear about that in September.

Also on the 29^th, one of the two creative non-fiction pieces I submitted earlier in the year was not accepted.

Then, I received a TWUC newsletter indicating that the writers in the schools (WITS) approval notifications had all gone out. I hadn’t received an email one way or the other. I also thought, things come in threes, so this is it. I haven’t been funded for this, either.

But I enquired and, of the two WITS visits I applied for, one was approved—yay! Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough funding to award all applicants for all WITS visits. I’ll take the win!

And then, my publisher got back to me about the cover for The Art of Floating. We had chatted about requesting a print from Gillian Schultze, who just happens to be my cousin (second, in fact), and she agreed. The draft cover looks amazing!

Again, watch this space. I will be doing a more formal cover reveal when the final cover is approved.

Filling the well

Lughnassadh was a quiet affair. I lit my altar and did a guided meditation for the full sturgeon moon in Aquarius, which was the same night.

The new Holly moon was on the 16^th, which was also the evening of my photoshoot. It was lovely being out at a park on the shore of a lake.

Then, the full blue supermoon in Pisces arrived on the 30^th to finish off the month in lunatic style. The moon was gorgeous as I watched her rise during my evening walk with Torvi. Sadly, my phone camera has proven that it isn’t good enough, even in night mode, to capture a picture of the moon without significant lens flare. I partook of another guided meditation.

My pagan practice is quite simple.

My weekly card pulls tended to be positive this month and in general, I’ve felt positive. I’m seeing it all as a good sign for the future.

July was FULL of online writing events. I dialled back a bit for August, because I was kind of overdoing it. Enjoying it, but definitely overdoing it. Also, big project at work continued, and I need to be mindful of my energy levels.

I started the month with an Authors Publish webinar presented by Ley Taylor Johnson about creating a dynamic act one. It was in the middle of the workday on August 2nd, so I watched the replay, which came with a free ebook by the presenter (on the same topic).

Then, in anticipation of taking the dive into Substack, I attended Dan Blank’s “Launch & Grow Your Email Newsletter with Substack.” A lot of good information.

The next Free Expressions webinar in the Donald Maass series was “Advanced Microtension” on the 10^th. Because my meeting with Suzy was on the same day, I watched the replay. Excellent, as always.

On August 13^th, I had the opportunity to attend “From Helplessness to Habit: Backstory as Behavior,” a webinar by David Corbett offered exclusively to past applicants and current students of the Your Personal Odyssey program. Really good.

I signed up for a DIY MFA webinar on “Unleashing Your Platform’s Storytelling Superpower” on the 22^nd. It’s an extension of the storytelling superpower quiz, taking the four archetypes and extending them to authorial personas.

I signed up for “Hiding Exposition in Plain Sight” with Mary Robinette Kowal on the 27^th. I really just vibe with her teaching style.

On August 28^th, I lucked out on a webinar with Beth Revis about plotting your novel offered through Inked Voices. I really like her system. It’s intuitive.

I attended a Cross-Pollinations reading offered through the League of Canadian Poets on the 30^th. The specific topic was about organ donors and recipients. Interesting reading.

Finally, I signed up for a CAA/SFCanada webinar on Pushing the Boundaries of Urban Fantasy with Jes Battis, another autistic author, also on the 30^th. It was a fabulous presentation.

Something that I neglected to mention last month was that I seized the opportunity to take a pilot course from Taylor Heaton (Mom on the Spectrum) about unmasking. It’s self-paced with video, transcripts, worksheets, and other resources. I enjoyed it. I’m still on a long journey to true unmasking. I learned the skill early and practiced it diligently until I received my autism confirmation in 2021.

I will recommend it to any adult or late-diagnosed autistics, though. We need all the help and support we can get, and MOTS is a great online community to be a part of.

This month, I signed up for Patricia Tallman’s Wake up with Me! I subscribe to Pat’s newsletter and have flirted with some of her offerings in the past (e.g., Tame Your Fear Dragon). And yes, Pat is the actress from Babylon 5 and a former stunt woman. I already have a morning routine, but figured it could use some tweaking 🙂

What I’m watching and reading

I watched Guardians of the Galaxy 3 (Disney +) when it came out on streaming. And then, Phil and I watched it the next night together 🙂 It was a fabulous conclusion to the trilogy, and I got teary at several points. Teefs, Floor, and Rocket go now! Finding a litter of racoons! The release of the animals! The High Evolutionary was a little one note, but every heavy or dark scene was undercut with GOG’s signature humour. One of the better Marvel movies of recent years.

I watched the season two finale of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (network). I really think it’s the best ST series to come out in recent years. The Lower Decks crossover was hilarious. And the musical episode was fun. Very enjoyable, all around.

I finished watching the final season of Nancy Drew (network). I started watching this series in hope, but it soon became apparent that ND suffered from the same deficits as most other CW shows of recent years. It was a supernatural soap opera for teens. The final few episodes rushed to tie up lose ends and send the Drew Crew off into their separate lives.

Then, I watched Z for Zachariah (Amazon). This 2015 adaptation was a radical departure from the book, and starred Margot Robbie, Chiwetel Ejiofor, and Chris Pine. In the novel, Ann Burden lives alone with her dog and believes she is the last survivor of a nuclear war. Somehow, the valley in which she lives was protected from the fallout. John Loomis is a scientist travelling in a “safe-suit” of his own design. He comes upon the valley and Ann and though he suffers with radiation sickness, she nurses him back to health.

As soon as Loomis recovers, he begins to direct Ann—what to repair, what to plant. It’s clear he wants to rebuild and part of that includes producing children with Ann. She runs away, there is a confrontation (during which Ann must kill her dog—*sob*), and she leaves the valley in the safe-suit in search of other survivors.

The movie starts out the same, but Loomis isn’t half as odious as he is in the book. Then another survivor, Caleb, shows up (even though everything outside the valley is supposed to be radioactive) and there’s an awkward love triangle. It’s implied that Loomis kills Caleb, and the movie ends with Ann playing a hymn on an old organ. The dog disappears partway through the movie with no explanation. It was not good.

But then, I watched Polite Society (Amazon). OMG, so hilarious. And kickass. Ria wants to be a stunt woman and her sister Lena wants to be an artist, but after an EID Mubarak party, Lena begins to date the host’s son, Salim, and Ria acts out of jealousy, going so far as to attempt to smear Salim’s reputation with Lena. But Ria soon finds evidence of a more insidious plot and must rescue her sister from her own wedding. Excellent.

The first book I read in August was Shveta Thakrar’s novella, Into the Moon Garden. A lovely paranormal romance about a young scientist trying to come to terms with her mother’s death. The story alternates with chapters from a book about the moon gods and goddesses from around the world, each with a lesson for the protagonist as she navigates her grief.

Then, I listened to Robert A. Heinlein’s Orphans of the Sky. The book was noted as a “fix up” of a 1941 novelette and a 1963 novella. Interesting premise. A mutiny kills the skilled crew of a generation ship and the ship floats aimlessly in space while generation after generation is born, lives, and dies on the Ship, which is all any of them know of the universe. When Hugh learns that everything he’s been taught is wrong and that the Ship is actually intended to reach a destination, he tries to convince the current captain to let him pilot the Ship.

The book itself is hugely problematic. Civilization on the Ship has devolved into a patriarchy where the captain and crew are figureheads and the scientists have more in common with clergy. Children born with mutations are killed. The “muties” who survive are at war with the rest of the Ship, and none of the people on the Ship are depicted well. The muties practice cannibalism. Women, when they appear, are hysterical slaves, and men practice spousal abuse and bigamy. I must confess to being terribly disappointed.

Next, I read Out of the Silent Planet by C.S. Lewis. Yeah, I’ve been on a classic SF kick recently. It was better than the Wells and Heinlein books I recently read, but it was pretty much a sausage party with nary a female character in sight. I appreciated Lewis’ take on the typical male explorer, however. At least Ransom got to know the various peoples of Malacandra (which he later figures out is Mars) and actively prevented his fellow humans from exploiting them. It seems to me that this book was in part written out of colonizer guilt.

Then, I listened to Powerful Women Who Ruled the Ancient World, a The Great Courses lecture turned into an audiobook, by Kara Cooney. It wasn’t just Cleopatra. Cooney unpacks the gendered rules of the ancient world and then profiles women rulers from Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, Rome, and China and how they worked around those rules to seize power. Verra cool.

I read Binti: The Night Masquerade by Nnedi Okorafor. I’d previously read the first in the series, but unintentionally skipped over the second to read this one. I didn’t realize my error until I was already into the novella. Though it bothered my autistic sensibilities, I persisted, and was rewarded. Loved it.

I read J.A. Andrews’ Pursuit of Shadows. I read the first book in The Keeper Chronicles a couple of years ago. She was part of my critique group, but already not active when I joined. The first book focused on Alaric. This book was Will’s story. Will considers himself a second-rate keeper, but he’s out searching for the next generation—and his sister, abducted when they were both children. Good story, solid character arc, nice romantic subplot. I enjoyed it quite a bit.

And I finished my reread of The Raven King. Did I ever mention how much I love these books?

I’m taking a break for a few days, and then I’m picking up another favourite series: The Fionavar Tapestry.

My next listen was another Heinlein novel, Double Star. Not as bad as the other Heinlein, but there was all of one female character in the whole thing. Also, the protagonist, a down-on-his-luck actor, was demonstrably racist. Yes, it was against Martians, but still. The actor is hired to be a politician’s double after the politician is abducted. Not bad. It won the first Hugo Award. It was written in 1956. Makes me wonder what I’d think if I read Stranger in a Strange Land again …

Then, I read Callahan’s Legacy by Spider Robinson. A good friend is a big fan, but the only other Spider Robinson book I’ve read is Variable Star, which was actually a Robinson completion of a book Robert Heinlein left unfinished.

Callahan’s Legacy is filled with pun and pathos. A nigh on unstoppable enemy is headed for Earth and Jake and the gang at Mary’s Place have no choice but to come together around the birth of Jake and Zoe’s child, achieve telepathic communion, and stop the creature in its tracks with an offer of … freedom and friendship?

Finally, I finished off the month with Bellwether, by Connie Willis. The protagonist, Dr. Sandra Foster, studies fads for a corporate research facility called Hi-tek. The plot is largely absurd, centring on the influence of a Hi-tek employee named Flip, who brands her forehead, wears duct tape as a fashion statement, and feels she is being abused in her position as mail clerk, though she is basically lazy and incompetent.

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!

Life in general

The month in writing

Filling the well

What I’m watching and reading

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Life in general

The month in writing

Filling the well

What I’m watching and reading

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Life in general

The month in writing

Filling the well

What I’m watching and reading

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Life in general

The month in writing

Filling the well

What I’m watching and reading

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Life in general

The month in writing

Filling the well

What I’m watching and reading

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Life in general

The month in writing

Filling the well

What I’m watching and reading

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Life in General

The month in writing

Filling the well

What I’m watching and reading

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Life in general

The month in writing

Filling the well

What I’m watching and reading

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Life in general

The month in writing

Filling the well

What I’m watching and reading

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The month in writing

Filling the well

What I’m watching and reading

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