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Month: August 2019

Breaking the DOOM Loop

I don’t have to tell you that the world is looking pretty grim lately. I’m sure I’m not the only one who keeps getting caught in a doom loop. So apparently the way out of a personal doom loop is to do something small. Something good for you, or good for someone else. Make your bed. Love on your dog. Buy a friend coffee. Post a blog of good news. First, please enjoy these baby goats in pajamas. Feeling better? Now you can read about Europe’s wind farm capacity. Here’s a video of sixteen things that are going to help make the world a cleaner place. Twenty-one African countries are working together to plant the Great Green Wall. It is already increasing resources and decreasing poverty, and they’re only 15% of the way done. (15% of that is a LOT, though!) Plants may save the world. Again. Plants are awesome, but how about the animals? Well, we’re working on that too. Women in prison are saving endangered butterflies. Bald eagles, sea otters, grizzlies and others are recovering. I utterly adore whales, so the fact that humpbacks are also recovering is great news to me. Check out this friendship for some serious warm fuzzy. And the kakapo are getting a lot of help, thank goodness. They are ridiculously cute. I watch a lot of nature documentaries, and I never heard of a pumice raft before. But this one might help repopulate the Great Barrier Reef after a bleaching event! We’re working…

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The End of the Great Surgery Adventure of 2019

So I saw my foot doctor this morning. She asked me some questions, then told me I was “all set.” My mom jumped in before I could really process it. She asked if I still needed to wear my orthotic (my “cyborg leg,” lol) that I’ve been wearing for about a month to stabilize my Achilles’ tendon so it heals better/faster. She said yes, until I am one hundred percent pain free, then I need to wean out of it. I’m done, unless there’s anything that comes up. It feels a bit surreal to be done. I’ve been seeing her since Dec. 21st. I’ve been dealing with this foot issue since maybe last September, which puts us at just under a year. (That’s an estimation because I don’t actually remember the exact onset of the pain). I’ve been working upstairs in our kitchen at least since December. My plan is to get down there ASAP but it needs to be cleaned and organized badly. I might just start working there anyway—I miss my solitude. It’s been rough working in a different space long term. I am truly a creature of habit and need stability in my routine. It’s hard to believe that on March 1st —five months ago—I had surgery and wasn’t able to walk for a month. In that time, I’d been cleared to walk (March 29th—two days after my birthday…it was the best birthday present ever!), had physical therapy for almost three months, and have been in an…

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The Art of Finishing

They say the hardest part of finishing a story is getting to The End. This isn’t necessarily wrong, but there’s a lot of “The End”s to get through in the creation of a story. In some ways it feels like it never ends. First you have to finish the draft. Then you have to finish the revision process, then work on publication and all that entails–covers, descriptions and marketing, and the marketing never really ends, does it? Book after book, all it gives you is more to keep an eye on, more upkeep to do. It can a bit exhausting, not going to lie. And a little depressing at times, when you look at everything you need to do. And I think that’s why writers tend to…not finish. Why we’re always picking up new projects when old ones aren’t done, or trying to squeeze one more thing in that we just don’t have time for. There’s something in the act of creation that, even if it’s not going well, is freeing. A story, when it’s still in its nebulous phase, can be anything, is full of potential. Reality hasn’t caught up to it yet. It’s a balancing act, I think, the creation and the rest of it. And if you get out of balance, it’s hard to see any real progress. So, I guess my point is to make sure you call still see the forest for the trees, and that you’re having some fun somewhere, writing or otherwise. Or…

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Resting

On my Instagram, I’ve been following this account called The Nap Ministry, a performance art project by Tricia Hersey about how resting is a form of political resistance. She posts about how rest was something practiced by the leisure class as they exploited the working and enslaved classes (with both economic and racial inequities). Today there’s an emphasis on hustle, on being busy, on having side gigs. That’s at least in part because it’s hard for many folks to get a regular, steady 9–5 job with benefits that pays the bills without side gigs, but also because being busy is glorified in our society. Lean out, Hersey argues—lie down, and reclaim your right to rest. I’m thinking about that today because we’ve just had a long weekend, heading into a week off for me. My day job has been incredibly busy as we race to get a big project out the door. (It’s not quite out yet, but my colleagues are handling it, thank goodness.) At the same time I’ve been doing edits for the next Turtleduck Press novel, coming from KD Sarge in just a few months. And I even ended up spending Saturday afternoon working on a piece of the day-job project that arrived, naturally, on the Friday afternoon before a long weekend. After all that, I’m feeling more exhausted and brain-dead than I have in a long time. I spent the rest of Saturday staring blankly at things. Sunday and Monday I started to feel human again,…

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Curiosity Killed the Cat — Part 4

By KD Sarge Read previous installments: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Jhi Bo slipped through the door and flung herself back, adding her weight to Gerda’s to slam the door. A tentacle thudded against the other side. Maybe two. The door shuddered but held. A few more thuds, then silence. Jhi Bo thumped her head lightly on the door behind her. Idiot! Srivasi wouldn’t have forgotten the proper order for solving an equation. “Inda brofid na?” the girl said, waving at Jhi Bo’s sword. She mimed drawing it and swinging mightily. Jhi Bo scowled at her. Why would she fight the squid if they could escape it? The animal had only defended its lair. Right. So. Solve the equation in the correct order this time, and the door was… Jhi Bo noticed as she stepped forward that the girl stepped back. *** Srivasi hadn’t argued, but Dasid said it again, louder. “It’s a death trap. It’s a stupid lousy—you know what? Sod this.” He plunked down on folded legs, folded his arms in front of his chest. “I’m done. I’m not giving some madman his jollies, watching me run in circles like some trained chicken.” “I thought you wanted to find the gold?” “There is no gold,” Dasid snarled. “There are circles. There are doors, and questions. Answer wrong, and there’s a monster. Answer right, and there’s more doors. Sooner or later you’ll blow it again, and then what if we can’t outrun whatever we find?” “Not saying you’re…

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