Tim Powers is a master of turning an already weird tale five
ways on its head, upside down, and inside out until it begs for mercy in
ancient Akkadian. His new short novel, After Many A Summer, is no
exception. It begins, as do many of his books, with a semblance of normality: a
down-on-his-luck screenwriter, Conrad, accepts a too-good-to-be-true deal from
a movie studio: they’ll produce his script for a fabulous sum if he drives a valise
around LA, transferring it from one vehicle to another. What does he have to
lose? He figures this is an elaborate scheme for delivering a ransom for a
kidnapped heiress. He’s sort-of right and very, very wrong. The heiress is
indeed being held captive, but the valise contains a centuries-old mummified
skull that can talk, prophesize, and even alter the course of time itself, and
is given to quoting the poet Tennyson. And that’s just the beginning of things
going seriously pear-shaped.
I’ve loved the work of Tim Powers ever since I discovered The
Anubis Gates in 1983, so I was prepared for superb storytelling and major
revamping of reality. I was not disappointed on either count. The story, taking
the reader further and further from expectations, requires a bit of patience,
but the central character is sympathetic enough to act as a naïve if likeable
guide. Highly enjoyable (and an object lesson).
Why is it that juicy story ideas, as well as brilliant solutions to plot problems, pop into my mind when I'm dozing off? All right, that's a rhetorical question. We all know that as we drift into sleep, our brain activity changes. Logic and other constraints on creativity shut down and we make unusual and often wonderful connections between otherwise disparate bits of memory, thoughts, etc. The point of my question is not why this happens, but what to do about the inevitable waking up and being unable to remember.
Catherine Mintz playfully suggests that "it is a law of writing that wonderful things appear as soon as you are too tired to make notes."
Keeping a pen and paper at bedside is a logical remedy. I've done this for a dream journal, which has a slightly different objective, and I've done it for writing ideas at various times over the years. I don't any more, and here's why.
What a marvelous page-turner of an “Angels and Devils in the
Weird West” murdeer mystery adventure! Rebecca Roanhorse does a brilliant job
dropping the reader into an Old-West-That-Never-Was, a town that mines divinity
as an energy-source mineral, populated by the Fallen descendants of demons and
ruled by the snobbish ruling-class human Elects and their police arm, the
Virtues.
In the late 1880s. a cardsharp named Celeste and her sister
Mariel, an immensely talented singer, eke out a living. They’re both Fallen,
although Celeste has managed to hide her outcast status. She’s also trying to
forget an intensely passionate affair with a demonlord. Her world shatters when
Mariel is arrested for the murder of a Virtue, and the only way to save her is
for Celeste to become an untrained defense attorney, a “Devil’s Advocate” or advocatus
diaboli. To make matters worse, she has only a short time, not nearly
enough to investigate, and she’s managed to put herself in debt to her demon
lover.
The story swept me up on the first page and didn’t let go
until the surprising, ambivalent-but-satisfying conclusion. I especially admired
how Roanhorse plomped me into her world without big chunks of exposition. Instead,
she uses character, action, and nuanced detail to construct a world as seen
through the eyes of an unreliable but highly sympathetic protagonist.
A few years ago, a friend wrote poignantly about what it's like to be blocked. I asked some pro writer friends for words of encouragement.
This is from a well-known, NYTimes-best-selling author:
WRITER'S BLOCK
I am sitting
here looking at a fic I have not touched since 2007.I have 135K done, including the last scene...or,
about 2/3 of the total fic.I am ALSO
sitting here looking at a novel that was due three years ago, for which I have
something similar to an outline and the first 50K written (only 100K to go,
right?)
I've been
writing fanfic and profic since the 80s, and dealing with blocked, derailed,
and MIA stories for most of that time.Here
are some of the strategies that have worked for me.(NOTE: some of these ideas are
mutually-exclusive, because every writer writes differently.)
1. WELCOME TO
THE GULAG: Block out a specific time and place where you do the same thing
every day: sit in front of the screen and make words come.Doesn't matter what you write, or even if you
don't write.Just be there doing nothing
else (no shopping, no reading AO3, no social media) for that one or two hours
(no more) each and every day (same Bat-time, same Bat-channel).Eventually your brain gives up and you get to
write what you want to write.
1A. If
absolutely nothing else will come to your fingers, choose a favorite book (or
longfic) and retype it.
2. FACE THE
MUSIC: Between day job and commute (long) I was really bushed when Writing Time
arrived in the evening.I just didn't
have the energy—but I did have a deadline.Solution?ROCK'N'ROLL
BAY-BEE!!!I wrote two novels to
"Bad To The Bone".Just that
one track.On infinite repeat.Loud.So pick a piece of music, declare it your writing music, and hit
"Repeat" on iTunes.
Knot of Shadows (A Penric
& Desdemona Novella in the World of the Five Gods) by Lois McMaster Bujold (Subterranean)
Knot of Shadows (A Penric
& Desdemona Novella in the World of the Five Gods) by Lois
McMaster Bujold is not your ordinary murder mystery, but anything involving Temple
sorcerer Penric and his chaos demon, Desdemona, is bound to be anything but
ordinary. In this case, they’re called in to investigate when a drowning victim
turns out to be not quite dead. The animated corpse houses two souls, sundered
from the care of their gods, the result of vile and highly illegal death magic.
But is the corpse the victim or the perpetrator, a person so desperate to
avenge a wrong that they are willing to sacrifice their own soul?
As usual for these novellas, the story is intricately
crafted, and full of snappy dialog, vivid characters, and profound emotions. I
hope we’ll see many more of them.
This post from a couple of years ago still gets viewers, so in case you missed it, I'm giving it another day of blog-glory. With the recent publication of The Children of Kings, which takes place entirely on Darkover, but does involve things going 'splody in space, it seems appropriate.
My husband, sf writer Dave Trowbridge, and I were discussing the appeal of space opera at breakfast, what it is and why it appeals. Basically, space opera is a type of science fiction set on a large scale, highly dramatic and sometimes melodramatic. It tends to have military elements -- huge battles upon which hinge the fate of galactic empires, that sort of thing. Although wikipedia says it has nothing to do with the musical form, I think that reflects their own ignorance. What space opera and musical opera have in common is being larger than life, or rather brighter and more intense than life. Opera was, after all, the epitome high-tech special-effects knock-your-socks-off entertainment for centuries. Music, lyrics, sets, and costumes, not to mention trap doors and wire harnesses, exotic animals and fireworks, all enhanced one another. But that's another topic.
We agreed that we love the grand scope of such tales, but that it needs to be balanced by emotionally intimate moments. The same is true, for me at least, in epic fantasy. Monstrous dark forces are threatening the entire world, volcanoes exploding by the thousands, rivers of fire and poison...and then a detail in the characters that's so human, it touches my heart, not just my things-go-boom adrenalin endorphins.
Play the Fool, by Lina Chern is a murder mystery
with more than one delicious twist. Katie True, whose ability to read tarot
cards verges on (and plunges headlong into) the supernatural, is the classic
underachiever in an upwardly mobile, hyperconventional middle-class family. Her
world of one dead-end job after another takes a surprising turn with a new
friendship. Marley is free-wheeling, mysterious, and absolutely comfortable in
her own skin. Their burgeoning relationship gives Katie hope that she, too, can
one day live an authentic, irreverent, and joyous life.
Then a hapless young man stumbles into the shop where Katie
works, claiming to be the boyfriend Marley intends to break up with. Katie
takes pity on his evident distress and agrees to do a tarot reading for him.
She discovers a photo on his phone. It’s of Marley, murdered by a gunshot wound
to her head.
Shocked and grief-stricken, Katie determines to find
Marley’s killer. Even if it means taking reckless chances and ignoring the
advice of the gorgeous, emotionally bottled-up cop to stay out of it.
Throughout the thriller whodunit that follows, Katie’s first-person
voice shines through. In her quest to discover Marley’s killer, she must come
to terms with her own lack of purpose, fend off her well-meaning but
domineering family, and stay alive through one dark, dangerous plot twist after
another.
Katie’s luminous voice elevates a well-written mystery to
something more. I didn’t care whether or not she possesses supernatural
clairvoyance or an exceptional ability to read people. What matters is her
brilliant insight coupled with all-too-human vulnerability. The fact that she
is both kind and hilariously funny adds to the delicious tone.
In the early 20th Century, a Black woman named
Adelaide Henry sets out from California to the wilds of Montana. Like many
others, she dreams of homesteading a much-hyped paradise. Everywhere she goes,
she lugs an enormous steamer trunk…which she sings to as it makes ominous
thumping sounds.
Montana turns out to be anything but a paradise. The weather
is unimaginably brutal, and the physical labor of setting up a homestead is
unrelenting. Worst of all is the crushing loneliness. From practically the
moment she sets foot in the shack that came with her deed, neighbors appear--women
desperate for a friend, and men equally desperate for female company and
possible courtship.
Not all the visitors are benign and they all harbor secrets.
There’s a family of grifters, thieves, and murderers, whose innocent-appearing
blind children are the most vicious of the lot. A single woman schoolteacher with
a clouded past and a child shunned inexplicably by everyone. A lesbian couple,
one Black, one Chinese. Adelaide, with her work ethic and essential decency,
soon settles into the community. She’s ever anxious to protect her own secret:
What’s in the trunk? And what havoc will it wreak if it
gets out?
Gorgeously written, the book alternates between passages of
emotional depth and suspense horror. Everyone hides something, and some secrets
are more deadly than others. The layered unveiling of those secrets, and the
compassion of the central character are handled with exceptional skill.
The relationship between Richard I (“Lionheart”) of England
and Philip II (“Dieudonné”) of France has been the subject of much debate, particularly
whether it was of a romantic and sexual nature, as a number of medieval and
modern scholars attest, or an intense friendship at a time when sharing a bed was
a common expression of trust. Historically, the relationship turned bitter and
ended only with Richard’s death in 1199.
Historical fiction, especially romantic historical fantasy, takes
such questions as these as a starting place. It goes beyond the dry facts and
dates to the juicy question of, “What If?’ What if Richard (then Duke of
Aquitaine), larger-than-life action hero, and introverted, cautious Philip fell
in love the first time they met? Richard was not then heir to the throne and
had a contentious relationship with his father, Henry II. Philip, newly
ascended, had to contend with repairing the damage to France caused by the
weakness of his late father. But what if they each found solace, completion,
and joy in one another?
In the hands (or rather, the pen) of a brilliant poet, the
answer is a heartbreakingly beautiful story whose words sing on every page. The
author relates how she used history as a starting point and then followed where
the story lead her. This is the “romantic fantasy” aspect of Solomon’s Crown.
This love story shaped Western Europe perhaps never happened but should have.
It is not altogether accurate regarding the social attitudes of 12th
Century C.E. England and France. I agree with most of Siegel’s choices and with
her commitment to make the story emotionally true.
My favorite character was neither Richard nor Philip, but
Philip’s wife, Isabella of Hainaut. In Siegel’s version, by the time Philip was
forced into marriage, he had had enough lustful encounters with Richard to have
figured out his sexuality, to the point of severe doubts he can perform on his
wedding night. She’s very young (only eleven years old) and terrified of
pregnancy (the desired result of said wedding night) and its high mortality
rate. When she summons the courage to beg Philip to postpone intercourse, he’s
relieved. But he’s a kind person, so when she lies beside him, unable to sleep,
he soothes her by reciting her favorite poem (in Latin). The next day, she
memorizes the following part to recite to him. With such a beginning, they
become friends. She turns out to be a perceptive, resourceful person who has no
issues with Philip’s relationship with Richard, not just the sex but the love.
Like Richard’s mother, the redoubtable Eleanor of Aquitaine, Isabella matures
into a force in her own right. While Philip and Richard wrestle with inner
demons and family power struggles, Isabella’s character growth and essential
decency stand out.
I loved every page of this book, even though I knew the
romance would eventually fizzle and Richard would die. Those sad events remain
in the future, and perhaps in Siegel’s world, the lovers will remain joyously
devoted and grow old together.
In my mind, the spring season will always be associated with COVID-19.
In spring 2020, the federal government declared a nationwide emergency, and life drastically changed. Schools and businesses closed, and masks and social distancing were mandated across much of the nation.
In spring 2021, after the vaccine rollout, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said those who were fully vaccinated against COVID-19 could safely gather with others who were vaccinated without masks or social distancing.
In spring 2022, with the increased rates of vaccination across the U.S., the universal indoor mask mandate came to an end.
Now, as spring 2024 fast approaches, the CDC reminds Americans that even though the public health emergency is over, the risks associated with COVID-19 are not. But those risks are higher in some groups than others. Therefore, the agency recommends that adults age 65 and older receive an additional COVID-19 vaccine, which is updated to protect against a recently dominant variant and is effective against the current dominant strain.
You have a 54% less chance of being hospitalized with severe COVID-19 if you’ve had the vaccine.
Increased age means increased risk
The shot is covered by Medicare. But do you really need yet another COVID-19 shot?
As a geriatrician who exclusively cares for people over 65 years of age, this is a question I’ve been asked many times over the past few years.
In January 2024, the average death rate from COVID-19 for all ages was just under 3 in 100,000 people. But for those ages 65 to 74, it was higher – about 5 for every 100,000. And for people 75 and older, the rate jumped to nearly 30 in 100,000.
Even now, four years after the start of the pandemic, people 65 years old and up are about twice as likely to die from COVID-19 than the rest of the population. People 75 years old and up are 10 times more likely to die from COVID-19.
Vaccination is still essential
These numbers are scary. But the No. 1 action people can take to decrease their risk is to get vaccinated and keep up to date on vaccinations to ensure top immune response. Being appropriately vaccinated is as critical in 2024 as it was in 2021 to help prevent infection, hospitalization and death from COVID-19.
These symptoms can be alleviated with over-the-counter pain medicines or a cold compress to the site after receiving the vaccine. Side effects are less likely if you are well hydrated when you get your vaccine.
Getting vaccinated is at the top of the list of the new recommendations from the CDC.
Long COVID and your immune system
Repeat infections carry increased risk, not just from the infection itself, but also for developing long COVID as well as other illnesses. Recent evidence shows that even mild to moderate COVID-19 infection can negatively affect cognition, with changes similar to seven years of brain aging. But being up to date with COVID-19 immunization has a fourfold decrease in risk of developing long COVID symptoms if you do get infected.
Known as immunosenescence, this puts people at higher risk of infection, including severe infection, and decreased ability to maintain immune response to vaccination as they get older. The older one gets – over 75, or over 65 with other medical conditions – the more immunosenescence takes effect.
All this is why, if you’re in this age group, even if you received your last COVID-19 vaccine in fall 2023, the spring 2024 shot is still essential to boost your immune system so it can act quickly if you are exposed to the virus.
The bottom line: If you’re 65 or older, it’s time for another COVID-19 shot.
I'm always on the lookout for great information about world-building, especially fascinating astronomy discoveries. This is an excerpt from an article in Universe Today by Evan Gough. Check it out for the full story. (I find this image evocative and beautiful -- do you?)
Stars end their lives in different ways. Some meet their end as supernovae, cataclysmic explosions that destroy any orbiting planets and even sterilize planets light-years away. Our Sun is not massive enough to explode as a supernova. Instead, it’ll spend time as a red giant. The red giant phase occurs when a star runs out of hydrogen to feed fusion. It’s a complicated process that astronomers are still working hard to understand. But red giants shed layers of material into space that light up as planetary nebulae. Eventually, the red giant is no more, and only a tiny, yet extraordinarily dense, white dwarf resides in the middle of all the expelled material.
Can some planets can survive as stars transition from the main sequence to red giant to white dwarf? Researchers at the Space Telescope Science Institute, Goddard Space Flight Center, and other institutions have found what seem to be two giant planets orbiting two white dwarfs in two different systems.
If the researchers are correct, and the planets formed at the same time as the stars, this is an important leap in our understanding of exoplanets and the stars they orbit. It may also have implications for life on any moons that might be orbiting these planets.
Some white dwarfs appear to be polluted with metals, elements heavier than hydrogen and helium. Astronomers think that these metals come from asteroids in the asteroid belt, perturbed and sent into the white dwarf by giant planets. “Confirmation of these two planet candidates with future MIRI imaging would provide evidence that directly links giant planets to metal pollution in white dwarf stars,” the authors write.
Astronomers have found that up to 50% of isolated white dwarfs with hydrogen atmospheres have metals in their photospheres, the stars’ surface layer. These white dwarfs must be actively accreting metals from their surroundings. The favoured source for these metals is asteroids and comets.
This artist’s illustration shows rocky debris being drawn toward a white dwarf. Astronomers think that giant planets perturb smaller objects like asteroids and comets inside the WD’s Roche limit. They’re destroyed, and the debris is drawn onto the star’s surface. Image Credit: NASA, ESA, Joseph Olmsted (STScI)
Poor Mallory! Ever since she can remember, she’s been a
magnet for murders. To make matters worse, only she has the intuition and
insight to solve them. This hasn’t put her in favor with law enforcement, once
they figure out she isn’t the killer, she’s just bad luck. As a social pariah,
she’s tried to fly under the radar. Then aliens contact Earth and agree to
accept a human ambassador to their space station (Eternity). For some reason,
the sentient station allows Mallory to come onboard, too. For Mallory, getting
as far away from other humans as possible seems like the solution to murders always
happening near her.
Until word comes that a shuttle filled with humans is on its
way to Eternity, perfect fodder for the next round of killings. What a great
set-up!
There’s more, of course. It turns out that Mallory and the
quintessentially nasty ambassador are not the only humans onboard Eternity.
There’s a third, Xan, AWOL from the military after all evidence points to him
as the perpetrator of the last murder Mallory found herself involved in.
Actually, he was the target, but it takes the two of them overcoming their
extreme reluctance to interact to figure it out.
In the midst of all this, Eternity’s hostile-to-the-point-of-rudeness
symbiote who is her link to organic beings is killed and the station goes berserk.
Lafferty shifts from the focus on two people, Mallory and
Lan, to a widening cast of characters in a manner that reminds me strongly of
her brilliant science fiction murder-mystery-on-a-spaceship, Six Wakes.
The characters all have ties to one another, and such a pattern of interactions
and relationships precipitates a murder, or so Mallory believes. If she doesn’t
figure out what’s happening, the list of victims is sure to skyrocket. What
seems at first to be a series of side-tracks is really a spiral network of
connections that all come together in a most satisfying manner.
A Turn of the Tide (A Stitch in Time - Book 3) by Kelley Armstrong
(KLA Fricke)
A Turn of the Tide is the third book of Kelley
Armstrong’s “A Stitch in Time” series, the “stitch” being a time portal between
modern and Victorian times, a room in Thorne Manor, England (now kept locked!).
The first two were fun adventure-romances, linked by the women of Thorne Manor.
These women also have “second sight,” the ability to see and communicate with
ghosts, and to lay to rest the spirits of those who have been murdered by
naming aloud their killers. (There’s a catch, which plays a part in the plot,
which is that if the person calling aloud the name the murderer gets it wrong,
dire consequences ensue for the ghost.)
This third “Stitch” novel features Miranda, a Victorian
woman writer of “risqué pirate adventures who, having learned about the wonders
and liberation of the 20th Century, decides to embark upon her own time-travel
adventure. Miranda’s plans go astray when the “stitch” lands her not in modern
times but a century earlier, in the late 1700s. She encounters the love
interest, a French expat named Nicolas, on the run from the French Revolution
and repaying the locals who have given him shelter by acting as a Robin Hood, stealing
from a corrupt lord and fencing smuggled goods on the village’s behalf. Almost
immediately, before the couple can even begin to get to know one another, chemistry
ignites.
This is where my interest bobbled. I feared I was in for the
rest of the book being the typical Romance attraction/pulling back two-step. I
enjoy a love story as the frosting on a compelling plot with strong ideas, but
not the entire central driving force of the book. However, I’d enjoyed
Armstrong’s other books and found her writing to be both pleasant and engaging,
so I kept going.
The Seven-Petaled Shield is the first volume of my epic fantasy trilogy. Here's what reviewer Reggie Lutz had to say about it:
It has been a while since I've read a fantasy that, at first glance, appears to be categorized in the genre as clearly as The Seven-Petaled Shield. It is almost deceptive in this way. What the author does with the form, and the narrative is engaging, unique and managed to keep me up past my bed time a couple of nights. There are swords, there is sorcery and as the cover suggests, yes. A sea god does appear. Though to many, such themes are familiar territory, what she does with them, how they serve the narrative, and how all of this is viewed through her protagonist's unusually compassionate gaze is unique and engaging. I'm still digesting a lot of this as I've finished reading this book only recently, but one of the things that I noticed as I read it was having the thought, "Oh, this is another Chosen One story," and then of course having that perception proven wrong, which is an absolutely delicious experience as a reader. There are moments like this throughout the book, accomplished with deft prose and subtlety. I agree with another reviewer about how the mutli-cultured worldbuilding is handled well. For me, as a reader, I love a strong character, and in that regard this book does not disappoint. It was a joy getting to know her main character, Tsorreh. I will definitely read the rest of this series.
"A critical, inventive spin brings an exciting uniqueness to the good and evil quest theme." —Midwest Book Review
A murder mystery set on a space station, what could be
finer? When the detectives are Tesla Crane, a brilliant and extremely wealthy
inventor with an array of PTSD and physical injuries, her service dog, and her
real-life (although retired) detective husband, Shal. No sooner do they embark
incognito upon their honeymoon voyage than a fellow passenger is murdered and
all clues point to Shal. The ship’s security cuts off their communications (to
their Earthside attorney, for one thing, and to one another, for another). Only
then do things start to go seriously pear-shaped.
For me, what makes The Spare Man stand out from
similar tales is its depiction of a disabled protagonist. Tesla faces the
limitations of crippling spinal damage, an implanted pain-suppression device,
and the risks of having her trauma re-triggered. She has an array of coping
strategies, the most outstanding of which is her service dog, a Westland
terrier named Gimlet. As the former owner of a retired seeing eye dog and
friend to a number of folks who rely on service dogs (as opposed to the badly
behaved pets that sometimes pass as such), I appreciated how Kowal portrayed a
service dog at work. These included how Gimlet was “on work” or “released” to
be just a dog, and when working, how she was focused on Tesla and her
specifically trained behaviors to alert her owner of impending trouble.
Sometimes, the dog would physically prevent Tesla from engaging in emotionally
perilous behavior. I cheered when another character would ask to pet this
absolutely charming dog and Tesla would say, “No, she’s working. If you pet
her, you will interrupt her focus.” I wish more people understood this before
they walk up to a vested service dog and start interacting without asking first
(or, worse yet, allow their toddlers to rush up to a service dog!)
Unfortunately, the mystery unfolded too slowly for me, with
many interruptions that dissipated the tension and forward momentum. Halfway
through the novel, I began to be increasingly irritated with Tesla. Her
propensity for interfering with the investigation by the ship’s security, ignoring
her service dog (including leaving her dog behind and going into dangerous
situations), dialing up her pain-suppression device at the very real risk of
injury through numbness, and especially lying to her husband about being fine
when it was obvious she was not fine, all these eroded my sympathies. I
thought her lawyer was overhyped and ineffective, although possessed of an
extremely colorful and imaginative vocabulary. I had a hard time moving past a
point fairly early in the book where Shal has been drugged, probably by the
security force who are holding him against his will under the pretext he is a
suicide risk. I would have been terrified this was all a set-up to do away with
him as the only competent investigator around, but Tesla blithely goes about
her way, following clues in a desultory fashion only when it suits her.
In the end, the resolution of the mystery was quite
satisfying and put together a wide array of clues. Some of these had gotten
buried under inconsequential chit-chat about how cute Gimlet is, not to mention
the excessive repetitions of Tesla’s coping strategies (if she’s that
successful in using them, why does she end up on the verge of an incapacitating
meltdown so often?) This would have been a much better, tighter, more
dramatically sound book at half the length.
I loved Kowal’s other work and will continue to read her
books as they come out, but The Spare Man was, alas, not up to her best.
For a long time, I used to joke that I couldn't afford writer's block. I began writing professionally when my first child was a baby and I learned to use very small amounts of time. This involved "pre-writing," going over the next scene in my mind (while doing stuff like washing the dishes) until I knew exactly how I wanted it to go; when I'd get a few minutes at the typewriter (no home computers yet), I'd write like mad. I always had a backlog of scenes and stories and whole books, screaming at me to be written. The bottleneck was the time in which to work on them.
I kept writing through all sorts of life events, some happy, others really awful and traumatic. Like many other writers, I used my work as escape, as solace, as a way of working through difficult situations and complex feelings. I shrouded myself with a sense of invulnerability: I could write my way through anything life threw at me!
Unfortunately, I was wrong.
I hit an immovable wall during a PTSD meltdown following the first parole hearing of the man who raped and murdered my mother. For weeks at a time, I battled flashbacks and nightmares. I couldn't eat, I couldn't sleep, and I couldn't stop crying. Also, I couldn't write. That creative paralysis added another dimension to the crisis. If I couldn't write, who was I? Where were my secret worlds, my journeys of spirit and heart where people healed and things got better? Gone...and I didn't know if I'd ever get them back.
I was fortunate to have a lot of help, professional and friendly, during those dark weeks and months, some of it from fellow writers. No pep talks, just friendship, constant and true. Eventually, as I recovered, I was able to return to fiction writing as well, although by then, I found myself a single working mom and had a new set of demands on my time.
Writers stop writing for all kinds of reasons. In my case, it was personal and emotional, part of a larger crisis. Other times, however, the well runs dry when the rest of life is going smoothly. Quite a few years ago, I ran into a writer I greatly admired (at an ABA convention), and I'd not seen anything from this writer in quite a few years. I introduced myself and asked when the next book would be coming out. Only when I saw the change in the writer's expression did I realize how difficult the subject was. I was probably the hundredth person that weekend to ask. (Eventually, this writer came out with several new books; I wonder now if the appearance at the ABA wasn't a way of trying to get the head back into writerly-space.)
Sometimes, a writer feels they've said everything they have to say. Or that one book or one series is it; there are no new worlds begging to be explored. They can rest on their laurels with a feeling of satisfaction and closure. For the rest of us, though, not writing is anywhere from excruciating to devastating.
I think it's not at all helpful to try to "cheer up" a writer in the middle of a dry period. The specific reasons--creative paralysis, personal crisis, discouragement--vary so much. I think it's safe to say that each of us has to find our own way through. For me, it's helped immensely to know I'm not the only one to go through it--and that's the operational term "go through it." Come out the other side. Talk about what happened, in the hopes of being the light in the darkness for someone else.
Using the European Space Agency's (ESA) ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO), scientists have observed Mars' atmosphere glowing green for the first time ever — in the visible light spectrum, that is. The effect is called airglow (or dayglow or nightglow, depending on the hour). Nightglow "occurs when two oxygen atoms combine to form an oxygen molecule," according to ESA. On Mars, this happens at an altitude of approximately 31 miles (50 km). Scientists have suspected Mars to have airglow for some 40 years, but the first observation only occurred a decade ago by ESA's Mars Express orbiter, which detected the phenomenon in the infrared spectrum. Then, in 2020, scientists observed the phenomenon in visible light using TGO, but in Martian daylight rather than at night. Now, we've seen the phenomenon at night via TGO.
The moon is at least 40 million years older than we once thought, a new study reveals. Scientists confirmed our cosmic companion's new minimum age after reanalyzing tiny impact crystals from lunar samples taken by NASA's Apollo 17 mission in 1972. Earth is approximately 4.54 billion years old. So based on the newest study, the zircon crystals were formed around 80 million years after our planet formed. However, the collision that birthed the moon could have actually happened even earlier. After the Earth-Thea crash, the infant moon's surface would have been covered by a magma ocean due to the intense energy of the collision. Therefore, the lunar zircon crystals could only have properly solidified into their current state once the magma ocean had cooled down.
Astrobiologists think a planet needs to have certain features to support life: oxygen in its atmosphere, something to shield organisms from dangerous radiation and liquid water, for a start. Although big land masses aren't strictly necessary for living things to emerge, Earth's history shows that they're important for life to thrive and exist for long periods of time. So, if an exoplanet had continents before Earth, it follows that there might be older, more advanced life on that world.
This line of thought led Jane Greaves, an astronomer at Cardiff University astronomer in the U.K., to answer the question: When did the first continents appear on a planet in our galaxy? Turns out, two exoplanets' continents — and perhaps life — may have arisen four to five billion years before Earth's.
If the Tasmanian Devil is a type of dead star, it’s not behaving like the others. As a dead star, the light coming from it could signal its transition into a sort of stellar afterlife. It could be a new type of stellar corpse. “Because the corpse is not just sitting there, it’s active and doing things that we can detect,” Ho said. “We think these flares could be coming from one of these newly formed corpses, which gives us a way to study their properties when they’ve just been formed.”
In the very early universe, physics was weird. A process known as “inflation,” where best we understand the universe went from a single infinitesimal point to everything we see today, was one such instance of that weird physics. Now, scientists from the Chinese Academy of Science have sifted through 15 years of pulsar timing data in order to put some constraints on what that physics looks like.
When methane (CH4) and oxygen (O2) are both present in an atmosphere, it’s an indication that life is at work. That’s because, in an oxygen environment, methane only lasts about 10 years. Its presence indicates disequilibrium. For it to be present, it has to be continually replenished in amounts that only life can produce.
What Song the Sirens Sang, by Simon R. Green
(Severn House)
Simon R. Green’s supernatural mysteries and adventures are
always a delight, and What Song the Sirens Sang proves a worthy addition
to the adventures of legendary master thief Gideon Sable. Actually, Gideon Sable
isn’t a person, it’s an office that has been taken over (AKA stolen) by a
nameless and infinitely resourceful narrator.
“The original Gideon Sable was a legendary master thief, who
specialized in stealing the kind of things that others couldn’t. Like a ghost’s
clothes, a photo of the true love you never found and jewels from the crown of
the man who would be king.”
At the end of the last episode, Gideon and his
partner-in-crime sweetheart, chameleon Annie Anybody, have defeated the most
evil man in the world with the help of their team, have acquired (i.e., gotten
coerced into taking on) the truly bizarre magical shop known as Old Harry's
Place, and have set about replenishing its contents in the forlorn hope that
once everything is up and running, they’ll get to enjoy lives of their own. One
of the articles of merchandise that arrives on their doorstop is a small stone
from the cavern of the sirens (as in “the” sirens from The Odyssey). The
last song of the sirens, said to drive whoever hears it to insanity, still
resonates in the stone, making it as unique and valuable as it is deadly. All
that remains is for someone to figure out how to unlock the song.
Before Gideon and Annie can properly secure the stone, it
goes missing and they’re off to gather up another team and track it down. Their
team begins with their old ally, The Damned, a man who killed two angels (one
from Above, one from Below) and fashioned their halos into armor. Now he joins
Gideon and Annie in search of his kidnapped wife, switch artist par excellence,
who is now in the clutches of the stone collector, a shadowy figure named
Coldheart. They’re joined by a lady werewolf with an unerring tracker sense and
an unexpected crush on The Damned.
As in earlier Gideon Sable supernatural heist thrillers,
nothing is as it seems and nobody can be entirely trusted (except Annie, who
isn’t Nobody, she’s Anybody). The prose is delicious, the characters terrifying
but lovable, and the “long con” disguised as a plot has so many twists and
turns, it’s auditioning for a Los Angeles highway.
Prepare to be vastly entertained, but beware: the series is
addictive.
Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries (Book One of
the Emily Wilde Series), by Heather Fawcett (Del Rey)
In many ways, Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries by
Heather Fawcett reminded me of Marie Brennan’s best-selling A Natural
History of Dragons and the “Amelia Peabody” mysteries by Ellis Peters: the
Victorian lady adventurer-scholar genre. In all of these, the narrative voice
(that is, the personality of the l adventurer-scholar) grabs my interest and
keeps it for page after page. The stories are as much about the protagonist’s
inner emotional journey from adamantly self-reliant spinster to emotionally
awakened, relationship-literate partner as they are about external action. Emily
Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries fits neatly into this model with a
delightful array of plot and character twists. In this case, Cambridge
professor Emily Wilde takes her sabbatical in the far North (Norway?) to
complete her magnum opus on all things Faerie, particularly the “Hidden Ones,”
what we would call high elves. Her tone-deaf social skills alienate the
villagers upon whom she must depend not only for the folk tales that will form
the heart of her treatise but for sustenance and rescue. She has no idea what
she’s done wrong or how she’s going to cope with her insufferably handsome
academic rival, Wendell Bambleby, who arrives unexpectedly and manages to charm
the townsfolk, muddle Emily’s research, and alternately bewilder and frustrate
her.
This book is familiar enough to relax into and enjoy the
ride, and a fresh enough rendering to surprise and delight me with the
original, often whimsical elements. Footnotes and references perfectly enhance
the “scholarly” voice. If there were moments when Wendell felt tempted to grab
Emily and shake some sense into her before kissing her, I was right there with
him.
Today's thoughts on writing arose from Sandra Tsing Loh's review of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother (Amy Chua, Penguin) (about which I may write a completely separate blog post) in the April 2011 Atlantic. Loh wrote:
I follow the old writer's chestnut: "When you face writer's block, just lower your standards and keep going."
Cute, I suppose, and encouraging in its own way, but I'm not sure I agree with the mindset. I had never heard such a thing, and I've been publishing professionally for over 30 years. Maybe it's the difference between mainstream writing (and the expectation of peerless prose?) and genre writing. Or that the mentors I've have and and the pros I hang out with have a more organic approach to writing, an appreciation for story-telling over meticulously "beautiful" language? Or has this writer never been truly blocked, only impatient and self-critical?
Whatever the reason for my not hearing this before, I find its underlying premise destructive: that writing (i.e., composing a first draft) must somehow embody one's highest literary standards. Not to put too fine a point on it, but this is nonsense! If you can just "carry on", what's going on isn't writer's block. It's elitist self-indulgent pifflebunk. If worrying about your "standards" interferes with the flow of your writing, then maybe you're trying to write and to critique yourself at the same time, and it might be better to get out of your own way and just write!
You can always edit and polish to your heart's content, but get the story down first.
For a long time in my early career, I wrote perfectly awful first drafts. I mean really bad in almost every sense -- except the passion I brought to them. Grammar, plot, characterization, prose style, you name it, I butchered it. As a consequence, I learned to revise with a vengeance. I learned that all of these things, these "literary standards" things, are fixable. The only thing that can't be changed is inserting "heart" into a story when it isn't there to begin with. (Or maybe some writers can do that, but I can't.) I'd a thousand times rather write--or read--a story with that core of fiery truth than with the most sophisticated technique in the world.
Tanya Huff is a seasoned, multi-genre author whose work
never ceases to amaze me with its sensitivity, thoughtfulness, and sheer drama.
She’s as prolific as she is versatile, both with her many long-running series
and her stand-alone novels. Into the Broken Lands introduces a
completely new world and characters. The set-up is familiar to fantasy readers:
generations ago, mages intoxicated by their own limitless powers shattered the
laws of nature and reality, resulting in their own demise and a landscape of
magical impossibilities, The Broken Lands. Since then, the royal heirs of
Marsan, greatest of the surviving human realms, venture into The Broken Lands
in search of the fuel for an ever-burning flame and their own legitimacy as
rulers.
Here, Huff does something both challenging and brilliant:
she weaves together two such journeys, one in the present and the other, a
couple of generations ago. At first, the two seem disjoint, the past being no
more than prolog to the present. As the two sets of characters venture deeper
into the perilous Broken Lands, both similarities and differences echo and
build on one another. Eventually, the fate of the earlier expedition shapes the
present, and the present offers redemption for what has come before. The
unifying elements include records kept by the first expedition, taken as reverential
gospel, and the discovery of how scholars have selectively edited them,
horrendous dangers that are repeated with unpredictable variations, and a
single character: the sole surviving weapon of the mages, without which no heir
can reach the source of the fuel and return safely. Only the weapon isn’t a
thing, an “it;” the weapon is a person, a giant rock-like female warrior who
had been enslaved and imprisoned until a healer, a member of the first party,
saw her as a person.
Into the Broken Lands is understandably character-fueled,
although there is plenty of action, escalating tension, and mystery in the
story. At its core, however, the story allows us to examine key questions. What
is a person—and how does one become a person? What is the redemptive power of
love? What is the role of knowledge and is there such a thing as knowledge free
from ethics? While an entertaining story filled with bizarre magic and
compelling characters, it is at its heart a story of love and grief. Exceptionally
well done!
The Golden State rings in 2024 with these new laws (and more):
Tax Increase for higher wage earners
California has a short-term disability program that pays people who cannot work because of a non-work related illness, injury or pregnancy. The program is funded by a 1.1% tax on wages. In the past, this tax only applied to wages below a certain amount, about $153,000 in 2023. But starting Jan. 1, a new law, which was passed in 2022 but takes effect this year, eliminates the wage cap. People who make more than $153,000 per year subsequently will pay a 1.1% tax on those wages.
Protections for abortion pills
Abortion is now illegal in 14 states after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. But doctors and pharmacists in California who mail abortion pills to patients in those states will be shielded from prosecution or fines. The law bans bounty hunters or bail agents from apprehending California doctors and taking them to another state to stand trial. It even prohibits state-based social media companies, such as Facebook, from complying with out-of-state subpoenas, warrants or other requests for records to discover the identity of patients seeking abortion pills.
More sick leave
Workers in California will receive a minimum of five days of sick leave annually, instead of three, which they will accrue once they have been employed for 200 days. Labor advocates say the increase will curb the spread of disease by preventing employees from working when they are sick. But opponents say the law will be another financial burden for employers and claim some workers request sick leave when they are not ill.
Cannabis laws for workers
State lawmakers passed a bill that stops companies from punishing workers who fail drug tests that detect whether a person has used marijuana at all in recent days. The tests relied on urine or hair samples and looked for a substance that can remain in a person's body for weeks after use.
Unions for legislative staffers
With AB1 Newsom signed off on allowing legislative staffers to form unions. The law will allow regular staffers to form and join unions but will not apply to lawmakers or appointed officers.
Minimum wage increase
The minimum wage for fast food workerswas increased to $20 an hour starting in April. Newsom also signed a law to raise the minimum wage for healthcare workers. The new law will raise the minimum wage to $25 per hour over the next 10 years.
Child sex trafficking
SB 14 defines child sex trafficking as a serious felony. This would instill harsher penalties for such crimes and require repeat offenders to serve longer sentences.
Social media
AB 1394 will levy steep fines against social media platforms that fail to combat and remove content that depicts child sexual exploitation and abuse. The bill, hailed by child safety advocates, will institute fines from $1 million to $4 million per violation, starting in 2025.
Book bans
AB1078 prohibits public schools in California from banning any books based on gender and race topics.
Security deposits
AB12 is a housing bill that limits security deposits to one month's rent, down from the previous limit of two months. Advocates for the law said steep security deposits were another barrier to housing, effectively forcing prospective tenants to save an unreasonable amount of money to qualify for a place to live.
Business emissions
Large businesses in California are now required to disclose a wide range of emissions that are known to contribute to global warming. The law was lauded as the most sweeping mandate of its kind in the U.S. The law will bring more transparency about how big businesses contribute to climate change through direct and indirect means.
Conservatorship
Newsom signed an expansion of the state's conservatorship system, designed to allow local governments more leeway in forcibly detaining people who refuse treatment for mental illness and addiction issues. This was hailed as necessary to combat homelessness.
LGBTQ youth support
Foster families are now required to prove their ability to meet the health and safety needs of children regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity.
Fentanyl distribution
Prison sentences for criminals convicted of dealing high amounts of fentanyl will increase.
Ebony Alerts
SB673 established the Ebony Alert, which will inform the public when a Black woman or child goes missing.
Gender-neutral toys
This new law going into effect in 2024 requires gender-neutral toy sections at large retail stores in California. This won't do away with the boys' or girls' sections, rather it adds a new section for similar toys to be put side-by-side along with toys that appeal to everyone.
State mushroom
AB 261 established the California golden chanterelle as the official state mushroom.
