Bookpost: Not Sure How to Deal with Wanting to Re-Read Books

(Here are two of the four shelves of books I'd like to re-read someday)

(Yet somehow I keep reading new ones instead)

(It's a pickle, y'all)

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This is something that bothers me often. How can I balance the non-negotiable need to read more new books with the intense desire to re-read excellent books like the ones shown above, as well as the ones not shown above: wonderful books by Kage Baker and Jeff VanderMeer, and several more by Tim Powers, plus others? Hmm? How exactly is that supposed to work? I only have so much reading time, you know.

This is not a problem for the majority of Americans. That's because the majority of Americans never read a book again after they graduate from high school or college. Never. Not another book. Not even non-fiction. So I'm already a weirdo because I tend to read between forty and fifty books a year - and if you are also this type of weirdo, I salute you and hope you can recommend some books to me if you get a chance. On top of that, I also have the ambition to really get to know the books I enjoy the most, by reading them again. I want to be able to linger over them and see how they work, after I've found out what happens in the plot. Sometimes there's more to enjoy about a story if you read it again with the knowledge of how it's going to end. At least you can take the time to appreciate the words better.

I have actually succeeded in re-reading some of the books in this photo, some of them a couple of times. For most, I haven't gotten to the second time. I don't know when I will. I've tried to create systems, like reading one new novel, and then one new non-fiction book, and then one re-read, and then one anthology or collection, and so on, but the systematic approach neglects the important consideration of my mood on any given day. Sometimes one new novel will get me started on tearing through every single other book that author has written, or it will steer me toward an unexpected subgenre that I never knew I was into, or toward finding related non-fiction. Or something else. By the time I get through with that spontaneous dive into whatever I feel like, I'm usually ready to follow another mood. 

Also, the more I read, the more I change, and then if I finally re-read something I loved before, sometimes I've become different enough that I enjoy it less. Not always. I believe I could read The Goblin Emperor dozens more times without loving it any less. But I've lost my attachment to enough books that now I feel hesitant to re-read, sometimes. I know that's ridiculous. If I don't re-read a book I've kept, the alternative is to let it sit there and deny myself the opportunity to enjoy it again, just to keep my first impression intact. 

I have no solution for this. Either give up on the idea entirely, or try harder to make time to re-read. There are worse problems to have.

Bookposting, because YES TO BOOKS

(A few of the books I'm reading, as of today)

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I don't think the premise of this post requires much explanation! So here are the books I'm reading, or in one case about to read, and why, and what I think of them so far. Alphabetically by author/editor, because that's how I like it.

The Witch Elm, by Tana French 

Earlier this year, I read the six books of Tana French's Dublin Murder Squad series. The first one basically turned me into the sort of person who's going to stop everything to read any new book by this author, so when my pre-order of this new, standalone novel arrived at my house, you know it was a struggle for me to finish writing my short story instead of putting aside all responsibilities to make more reading time. It's not a spoiler to say that this book - unlike the ones in the series - is a murder mystery that is not about the police investigation side of things. The main character is a young man from a fairly privileged background, experiencing some significant difficulties for the first time in his previously easy life, and the book is also about his extended family and his friends. I'm not quite halfway through it, because I want to take my time and enjoy the words instead of tearing through to see what happens. As with every one of French's other books I've read, I feel confident that the whole experience will be satisfying.

Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming, edited by Paul Hawken

I haven't started to read this one yet, but I'm looking forward to it because I need an optimism boost. The content is divided into categories: Energy, Food, Women and Girls, Buildings and Cities, Land Use, Transport, Materials, and Coming Attractions. In each category, there are articles of one to several pages that cover specific approaches, with a summary at the end of each to describe its potential impact. It's the sort of book I can envision reading in small bites, maybe one or two of the approaches daily. I hope to learn a lot of general ideas, and then look for more detailed information on the ones I want to prioritize. The truth is that we need to be working on a lot of things at once, but no single person is likely to be able to get involved in all of them, so it will be important to find the ways I can be the most useful.

The People's Republic of Everything, by Nick Mamatas

Nick is a writing convention buddy of mine, and I also enjoy his fiction; it's pretty rare to get both of those things with an author, so thanks, Nick! I go in and out of wanting to read short fiction, so it can take me a while to finish a collection of short stories even when I'm enjoying the stories. I'm maybe two-thirds of the way through this one, and definitely enjoying both the stories and Nick's commentary about how he came to write each of them. If you're bored with predictable plots and mainstream ideas, check this out.

Climate Change: What Everyone Needs to Know, by Joseph Romm

This is a highly-rated overview of how climate change works, what's going on, and what's likely to happen in the future. I'm reading the 2018 second edition in ebook format, so I can read a section on my phone here and there. The truth is that even the introduction of this book made me cry, although to be completely transparent I was already feeling fragile that day and I had no business reading that material. I just thought an introduction should be pretty safe. NOPE. Don't get the wrong impression. The author isn't going out of his way to make it sad. The information itself is sad. We still need to know it if we're going to have any kind of chance to do something about it. That's why the other climate change book, above, seems like a good way to balance myself out, since it focuses on what we can do to improve the situation. I'll be writing about what I learn from these books, eventually, in my EcoAnxiety Club project, which you can follow for the free posts, and get notifications if you want them. There's even a free Patreon app you can use!

That's my book load for now! I may do another bookpost later this month if I start any others, but I want to finish some of these before I do that.

Open Endings in Fiction: Terrible, or THE WORST?

(A sunset view from my house)

Nayad: Overly Dramatic, or INCORRIGIBLE?

There are good examples of open-ended stories. I'm sure I could definitely think of some. They're probably all by Kelly Link, now that I think about it. I do love a Kelly Link story.

However, I'm not a fan of completely open-ended fiction. Let me back up and explain what the hell I'm talking about.

What do I mean when I'm ranting about a story with a completely open ending? I mean a story where it's left to the reader to figure out the meaning of what just happened, and the clues given could be interpreted in a number of ways. It could be written as a series of vague hints and suggestions, or there's conflicting or missing information, or there may be an unreliable narrator. The story goes along, full of fascinating possibilities, and then leaves all the possibilities equally possible. 

The reason I'm writing about this is that I just finished reading The Grip of It, by Jac Jemc, It's a haunted house story. A young couple gets a suspiciously amazing deal on a beautiful Victorian house with some quirky features - lots of hidden compartments and passages - and then the weird stuff starts. I love the weird stuff. The weird stuff is not the problem. It's just that, in this book, the weird stuff is so abundant, and so escalating, that I could never develop an opinion about what's really going on. What I want is for the author to know what's going on, and to write a book full of weird stuff that allows me to guess what's going on. And if the author would be so kind as to set up two or three equally plausible ways to interpret the story, that would be the best thing. A not-completely open-ended story: one that allows for forming opinions that make sense, but then doesn't tell you which interpretation is the right one. 

To be fair, that's probably the hardest kind of book to write, so I will support you in your opinion that I am demanding and difficult. And I still think you should read The Grip of It, because I like the prose, and the possibilities. It starts very well, and you may very well have the kind of imagination that would appreciate being handed no answers but dozens of questions. It will give you lots to think about!

Tracking 2018: What I Did In January and How I Recorded It

(Here's my monthly "hair-growth progress" photo. Um, not much progress yet.)

Happy February! I hope you're having a good 2018 so far. I am! Since I ended last year feeling like I couldn't remember much, I set up a system to keep track of my activities this year, and here's how that worked out in January.

I needed to come up with a system that I would actually use. While I like the idea of putting everything in a digital format, I know that I'm more motivated by being able to write things on paper. I like to make lists and cross things off, and fill boxes, and make check-marks. So just know that I recycle and buy recycled paper products and try to be as efficient with my uses of paper as possible. 

The system I came up with is a binder with three pages for each week: one page for noting how much time I spend on the activities I want to do, as well as ones I'm trying not to do as much; one page for nutrition (like how many servings I eat per day of fruit, vegetables, nuts, etc); and a page with spaces to write the notable events of each day of the week. This might sound incredibly tedious to people who are motivated differently than I am, and that's okay! But when I want to put in a certain amount of exercise each week, for example, I enjoy writing that I did it, and I find that I'm more likely to fit it in if I look at the page for that week and see that I haven't done it yet. 

I'm probably not going to post much detail about exactly how many minutes I did this or that, but I may sometimes write about how a certain category is working out, especially if I find it particularly helpful or particularly vexing and in need of an overhaul! 

Generally, I have an idea of how much time I want to spend on various things each day or week, such as blogging, reading fiction, reading non-fiction, making art (which can be either visual art or any artistic form of writing I'm working on), meditating, exercising, crafting, and doing "life maintenance chores" like cleaning the house and doing the dishes. I'm starting the year with just tracking what I do, and I hope to improve on my stats as I figure out better ways to arrange my time.

Anyway... In January I:

• Went on a six-day trip to Michigan to attend ConFusion SF.
• Finished reading four novels: Seveneves, by Neal Stephenson (which I had started to read in December), and the first three Dublin Murder Squad books by Tana French, which are In the Woods, The Likeness, and Faithful Place. I don't usually read mysteries, but my current favorite author, Jeff VanderMeer, posted that he had really enjoyed reading Tana French's novels. So I thought I'd better give those a try, and they turned out to be extremely good and hard to put down. One thing I especially like about them is that the main character is different from one to the next. You get to know them as a side character in one book, and then they become the main character in the next (and the impression you've gotten of them from the outside can change a lot once you get to see things from their perspective: this series is a master class in character development). Speaking of VanderMeer, btw, I am super-psyched to see the movie Annihilation this month, which is based on his Annihilation: A Novel.
• Got the new tires my car needed BEFORE going on a road trip in the middle of winter, because that's the way to be an adult in spite of much preferring the idea of spending that money on, say, ANYTHING ELSE.
• Also read most of Better than Before, by Gretchen Rubin, which is an outstanding book about making and changing habits, and I think it will deserve its own post after I finish it. It was a lucky find on the day that I was walking around while waiting for my new tires to be installed. Anyone who knows me understands that I can spend hours in Barnes & Noble. When I worked there (over 20 years ago! Jeez!) they said that they wanted to encourage people to read the books in the store. I have learned exactly how effective it is for their sales, when they let people get attached to a book and then feel the urgent need to buy it.
• Went on a few fun outings with my boys, mostly involving restaurant food, because that's what teen and tween boys are talking about.
• Spent many lovely hours with the man in my life, who is shy and doesn't want to be written about, but deserves the occasional mention for being awesome nonetheless. :)
• Achieved my goal of losing one pound this month. I'm trying to be more about changing my eating habits for long-term health, and less about dieting to get to a certain weight as soon as possible, but I think it's reasonable to adjust my eating habits to aim for losing a pound a month for a while.
• I exercised every week. Not quite as many times as I think I should (I want it to be three, and I mostly managed two), but that's better than not at all, ever. I'm trying to make my exercise about benefits other than weight loss. There are so many benefits, and it's more encouraging for me to focus on those. Maybe this philosophy will become another post!
• I meditated one single time in the whole month of January, right on the last day, because I didn't want to have to say I never did it at all. I don't know why I resist it. I like it when I'm doing it, and it's usually only ten to twenty minutes. So I'll be working on finding a good time and/or trigger to get myself to do it more frequently.
• Finally, I'm very pleased with the illustration I drew for the story I co-wrote with Maurice Broaddus, "What the Mountain Wants." I really want to post it to show you! But I'm saving it for a more impactful reveal sometime in the future. I may post a smaller detail portion of it before the full thing, though!

It was a good month! I do have ups and downs in my moods, and I don't want to give the false impression that nothing bad ever happens in my life. January was a happy time, though. :)

Here's What You Get for 2017

(It's me, age 46!)

Well, People of Earth, here's a little summary of what I can remember of what I did this year (because as you may or may not have noticed, I did not blog. Except for today).

Let's just get this out of the way: I spent the entire year being mad about political things in the United States, because I'm a proud liberal and I like diversity, equal rights for everyone, taking good care of the environment, and sharing our resources to lift up people who don't have enough. I'm not seeing those things getting enough support. This entire paragraph has been the most understated expression of my feelings I have ever achieved. 

Big things I did this year:

• Attended the event formerly known as Mo*Con, which will again, in 2018, be called Mo*Con.
• Repainted the entire exterior of a playhouse/shed in my back yard, which was a bigger project than I thought it would be! Several hours a day for over a week (the priming and multiple colors added to the time, but it looks fantastic).
• Co-wrote a short story with Maurice Broaddus, which will be included in the Do Not Go Quietly! anthology in 2018. Click the link to see the impressive list of authors involved!
• Traveled to southern Illinois to watch the total solar eclipse, WHICH WAS AWESOME.
• Participated in Inktober for the month of October, creating one ink drawing each day for the entire month. You can see all 31 of my drawings in my Instagram gallery, but one of my favorites was Wednesday Addams:

I've also read 32 books this year! Some of my favorites:

• Borne: A Novel, by Jeff VanderMeer (I also went on a short road trip to see him read from this book, and that was well worth my time. He is a great reader. Also, his outstanding editor wife Ann VanderMeer interviewed him afterward, and it was hilarious).
• Provenance, by Ann Leckie.
• Station Eleven, by Emily St. John Mandel.
• And a set of books by Leigh Bardugo: Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom.

And all through this year, that kitten I got in November of 2016 (Annabelle) has been tremendously entertaining, not to mention increasingly LARGE. From a tiny, wee iddle thing, she has turned into the biggest cat I've ever had. Tall, long, solid, muscular, and around 11 pounds the last time I weighed her. As far as I can tell, she is simply a basic American Shorthair cat, but she has personality plus and she caught her first mouse when she was about four months old. I don't get mice in here often, but when one shows up, it is nice to have a team of cats to get it under control while I go and fetch the Mouse Removal Kit, which is a piece of cardboard and an old plastic storage container that is now dedicated to this one purpose only. I put the container over the mouse, slide the cardboard under, and take the mouse across the street to a conveniently-situated field. I assume none I've taken that far have ever returned since there's always been several months in between mouse invasions, so it seems the field is far enough away.

Plus, you know, day-to-day life stuff and knitting a few blankets on a really clever, twisty-shaped knitting loom I found in 2016. It gives me an easy way to make full-bed-sized blankets while watching my way through all the Netflix shows I can take in, which turns out to be a LOT. I just finished Season 2 of Travelers. It's a good science fiction show that I don't hear much about from other people, so check it out if you're interested in time travel!

Even with all this stuff I've listed above, I feel like I've forgotten way too much of how I spent my time this year. That leads me to my plan to briefly jot down what I do each day next year, and to summarize each month for myself, to keep track of it all better. I have a system in mind that I don't want to describe right away; I just want to use it for a while and see how it works out. Taking the premise of "underpromise and overdeliver" to the next level, I guess, wherein I promise nothing and you're happy to get anything. Right?! MAKES SENSE, YES???

Speaking of Reading, as Surely We Always Are...

...I might as well post a list of books I particularly enjoyed reading this year, regardless of whether or not they were published this year. BECAUSE DECEMBER IS FOR LISTS, and you might find something here that you'd like to read or give as a gift. These are books to which I was moved to give five-star ratings (out of five, just so we're clear). According to my way of rating things, that means I would gladly read them again and I imagine I'll get even more out of them upon doing so.

None of these links have anything to do with me and I will not profit even a tiny bit if you click on them, unless there's some karmic system that operates on a different level from financial gain, in which case I'm pretty sure there's no law against it. ENJOY.

Non-fiction

• Zig Zag: The Surprising Path to Greater Creativity, by Robert Keith Sawyer - "A science-backed method to maximize creative potential in any sphere of life." 
• Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear, by Elizabeth Gilbert - "Balancing between soulful spirituality and cheerful pragmatism, Gilbert encourages us to uncover the 'strange jewels' that are hidden within each of us."
• The Fire Starter Sessions: A Soulful + Practical Guide to Creating Success on Your Own Terms, by Danielle LaPorte - "We have ambition backwards. Getting clear on how you want to feel in your life + work is more important than setting goals. It's the most potent form of clarity that you can have, and it's what leads to true fulfillment."

Fiction

• Medusa's Web, by Tim Powers - "...a phantasmagoric, thrilling, mind-bending tale of speculative fiction in which one man must uncover occult secrets of 1920s Hollywood to save his family."
• City of Stairs, by Robert Jackson Bennett (my second reading of this one) - Divine Cities #1. "Years ago, the city of Bulikov wielded the powers of the Gods to conquer the world. But after its divine protectors were mysteriously killed, the conqueror has become the conquered; the city's proud history has been erased and censored, progress has left it behind, and it is just another colonial outpost of the world's new geopolitical power. Into this musty, backward city steps Shara Thivani. Officially, the quiet woman is just another lowly diplomat sent by Bulikov's oppressors. Unofficially, Shara is one of her country's most accomplished spymasters — dispatched to investigate the brutal murder of a seemingly harmless historian. As Shara pursues the mystery through the ever-shifting physical and political geography of the city, she begins to suspect that the beings who once protected Bulikov may not be as dead as they seem — and that her own abilities might be touched by the divine as well."
• City of Blades, by Robert Jackson Bennett - Divine Cities #2. Just as outstanding as the first! I'm looking forward to #3 in 2017.
• The Library at Mount Char, by Scott Hawkins - The description of this book is too long to quote, and it also doesn't even begin to explain how freaking weird, dark, awesome, and amazing this book is. Probably because that would be impossible to explain. JUST READ IT.
• The Goblin Emperor, by Katherine Addison (my second reading) - "A vividly imagined fantasy of court intrigue and dark magics in a steampunk-inflected world, by a brilliant young talent. The youngest, half-goblin son of the Emperor has lived his entire life in exile, distant from the Imperial Court and the deadly intrigue that suffuses it. But when his father and three sons in line for the throne are killed in an "accident," he has no choice but to take his place as the only surviving rightful heir."
• Uprooted, by Naomi Novik - "Agnieszka loves her valley home, her quiet village, the forests and the bright shining river. But the corrupted Wood stands on the border, full of malevolent power, and its shadow lies over her life. Her people rely on the cold, driven wizard known only as the Dragon to keep its powers at bay. But he demands a terrible price for his help: one young woman handed over to serve him for ten years, a fate almost as terrible as falling to the Wood."
• The Severed Streets, by Paul Cornell - "Summer in London: a city in turmoil. The vicious murder of a well-known MP is like a match to tinder but Detective Inspector James Quill and his team know that it's not a run-of-the-mill homicide. Still coming to terms with their new-found second sight, they soon discover that what is invisible to others - the killer - is visible to them. Even if they have no idea who it is."
• The Necromancer's House, by Christopher Buehlman - "Andrew Ranulf Blankenship is a handsome, stylish nonconformist with wry wit, a classic Mustang, and a massive library. He is also a recovering alcoholic and a practicing warlock, able to speak with the dead through film. His house is a maze of sorcerous booby traps and escape tunnels, as yours might be if you were sitting on a treasury of Russian magic stolen from the Soviet Union thirty years ago. Andrew has long known that magic was a brutal game requiring blood sacrifice and a willingness to confront death, but his many years of peace and comfort have left him soft, more concerned with maintaining false youth than with seeing to his own defense. Now a monster straight from the pages of Russian folklore is coming for him, and frost and death are coming with her."

More Is Not Always Better, Unless You're Talking about Kittens

(My new kitten, Annabelle)

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Today's photo has nothing to do with today's topic. BUT LOOK AT THIS SWEET LITTLE FACE.

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I'm really here about the reading challenge I signed up for this year on Goodreads.com. I was possibly a little too ambitious. See, for my 2015 challenge, I said I would read 50 books in 2015 and I did. Just barely. 

Then I thought I should really PUSH MYSELF for 2016, so I signed myself up to read 60 books this year. As of today, December 7th, I'm at 52, and almost done with two more books, but even after those two are done I'll need to finish reading six books by the end of December 31st if I'm going to finish the challenge. I might do it. I might take a couple/few days to just read, and choose some short books so that I can finish them. I've already read more books than I did last year. However, I'm starting to feel that this challenge thing is not helping me, for the following reasons:

• I sometimes avoid choosing longer books, just to get done faster.
• I rush through reading books, just to get done faster.
• I force myself to finish books I don't really like, just to avoid losing the sunk cost of the time I've put into starting to read them.

...and for what? To say I've technically read a large-ish number of books, when I didn't get much out of them due to the rushing though? That's just dumb. The main benefit I get out of the reading challenge is that I end up with a convenient list of what I've read in a given year, in order. To get that benefit, I could sign up for a much smaller challenge--say, 12 books in a year, because I'd have to spend most of the year in a coma to avoid reading that many. So that's what I'm going to do. I'll probably end up reading more, but it will be at the pace I want, because I feel like it. 

The One with the Year Ending

This year was, to be all cliché about it, a roller coaster. BIG GOOD THINGS alternating with BIG BAD THINGS in a way that I haven't really experienced before, most years. I'm not going to get into the bad ones, because I dwelled in them at the time and I don't want to dwell anywhere near them anymore. I think I've learned some things from them, at least, and I'll be using the knowledge I've gained for the rest of my life, which should turn out to be helpful. I think that's the best way to look at it.

So. In my writing and editing news, the good thing that's the most current is my story for Steampunk World, a multicultural steampunk anthology that's now in the last days of a popular Kickstarter campaign! "The Emperor Everlasting" is an alternate history story in which the Incas were much more successful in the world than they were in the actual past you may have learned about. Intrigue unfolds as a royal Deviser is thwarted in her every effort to complete the most important job in her nation's history! Who wants to read about a country that features battle llamas? Maybe you? Then here's what you need to know:

Steampunk World Kickstarter

Featuring stories by Jay Lake, Lucy A.Snyder, Ken Liu, Nisi Shawl, and many more!

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My most exciting professional development was editing my first anthology, What Fates Impose, which was published after its own successful Kickstarter campaign earlier this year. The fundraiser allowed the publisher to pay professional rates for all of the stories, because paying writers well for their work was one of the top goals for the project. And so we created this anthology of new tales of divination!

 

What Fates Impose

Featuring stories by Cat Rambo, Ken Scholes, Lucy A. Snyder, Tim Waggoner, and many more!

 

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2013 included the planning stages for TWO new editing projects for me, so I'm looking forward to doing that work in 2014! I will write more about those projects as more of the details are sorted out.

 

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There's only ONE MORE MONTH left to get copies of two soon-to-be-discontinued science fiction anthologies that contain stories of mine. It's not great news that they'll be gone, but at least there's time to grab them! Because they contain many wild stories about life in space, including my own "An Assessment of the Incident at Camp Righteous" and "Running in Wonderland."

 

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I did some good reading this year, too! My project of reading a Story Each Day for the whole year fizzled out at the end of August, but by then I had read over 250 stories, so I still feel good about it. That's approximately a million words of fiction, at minimum, which is around ten novels' worth. That's in addition to the other thirty-four books I read! Some of the best books I read this year were:

 

• The Yiddish Policemen's Union, by Michael Chabon
• Salvage and Demolition, by Tim Powers
• American Elsewhere, by Robert Jackson Bennett
• At the Edge of Waking, by Holly Phillips
• Somewhere Beneath Those Waves, by Sarah Monette
• The Road, by Cormac McCarthy
• World War Z, by Max Brooks
• Perdido Street Station, by China Miéville

 

(I realize that I was WAY LATE to reading many of these, but they were definitely as excellent as everyone had been saying!)

This concludes 2013! Best wishes and good luck for 2014! I'll leave you with a recommendation for my favorite blog, which offers science-backed recommendations for living well and being happy:

Barking Up the Wrong Tree: How to be awesome at life.





Two Books I'm In Will Soon Go Out of Print!

I got a letter this week that told me the company which published a couple of my stories will be dropping most of its books. It's a struggle to run a small press, and often the profits don't even come close to matching the level of work involved, so the decision is understandable. But in case you're interested in grabbing some books that may be rare collector's items one day (I CERTAINLY HOPE), I'll post the links below. The books will be discontinued as of January 31, 2014, so order before then because it's your last chance! I will get a tiny cut of any sales that transpire, but more importantly, I hope to get more copies out into the world because soon they'll be gone forever...

Space Grunts: Full-Throttle Space Tales #3 is a military science fiction anthology edited by Dayton Ward. It contains my short story of a militant theocracy gone terribly wrong, "An Assessment of the Incident at Camp Righteous." The story is set in a prison camp for native aliens on a planet that's been conquered by humans.

Space Tramps: Full-Throttle Space Tales #5 is a science fiction anthology about vagabonds in space, edited by Jennifer Brozek. It includes my novelette, "Running in Wonderland," which is about a mentally ill refugee who must navigate through the criminal parts of a huge space station as part of her quest to find a home on a frontier planet.

In other news, I AM MOVING. I've lived in my current house for over twelve years, which is the longest time I've ever lived in the same place, and I've accumulated ABSOLUTELY TOO MUCH STUFF. Sorting through it and getting rid of the excess has been taking up lots of my time, but that's a good idea in itself AND the new house is in a much more convenient location, so the effort is worthwhile. The official move will be in early January.

I hope you'll enjoy any holidays you celebrate, and also all of the other days coming up!

BOOK REVIEW: You, by Austin Grossman (SPOILERS)

RATING: 2 out of 5 stars

I went into reading this book with high hopes, because I thought a novel about making video games, with a mystery involved, would be interesting. But...

The first problem is that whoever wrote the jacket copy made false promises. The main character, Russell, gets a job with old high school friends at their company, Black Arts Games. The book's description says, "But mostly he needs to know what happened to Simon, his strangest and most gifted friend, who died under mysterious circumstances soon after Black Arts' breakout hit." This is a lie. Russell reminisces about things they all did together back in their high school days, but hardly gives a thought to the circumstances of Simon's death. The false expectation set up there IS NOT THE AUTHOR'S FAULT, but there are plenty of things that ARE the author's fault, and he is not helped by the way the cover sets readers up for disappointment.

To start with the positive, as far as I can tell Grossman gets everything right when he describes the video game industry in the late 1990s; I've known many people in that field since the early 1990s, and I was tickled to see mentions of a couple of people I met long ago, John Carmack and John Romero. But describing an industry accurately does not necessarily make an interesting story. Russell is a very low-energy main character, who sort of drifts into his job as a game designer without really caring about games, and then he gets an undeserved promotion to lead game designer when a bunch of the company's employees leave. He does develop some motivation and job satisfaction along the way, but then the book wanders into long, long, long descriptions of him playing through the whole backlist of the company's games, and having conversations with the games' characters that could be interpreted as either imaginary or magical.

The most interesting thing about the book is the hunt for a mysterious "bug" that goes through all of the games, occasionally causing the appearance of a devastating weapon that wreaks havoc and does things it should not be able to do. However, I found it difficult to stay interested through the looooooooong sections of game summary. There's hardly any dialogue in the entire book, and few scenes with conflict, tension, or action that's shown directly. Russell spends a lot of time pondering the nature of games and wondering whether it's okay to like his job rather than preferring to work in a more conventional profession, such as being a lawyer (he's a law school dropout), but he never seems to fully engage with his life and move forward.

And another thing! There are many places in the book where Russell describes things that he wasn't present for, such as events in Simon's life, so he shouldn't know about them. They could possibly be interpreted as vivid imaginings, but they're not presented that way. They're told as if they're facts and Russell is an omniscient narrator. That bothered me every time it happened. I was not as bothered by the shifts between Russell's first-person story and the sections of second-person "you" describing the player in a video game, but the third-person omniscient sections took it too far.

The book was just barely engaging enough to keep me reading all the way to the end, but it took a lot of work to get through the second half, and I kind of wish that I hadn't.

Check out my Goodreads page to read more of my opinions about books!

AUTHOR INTERVIEW: Erika Holt

Note from Nayad: The series continues. This week I'll post interviews with authors contributing to my speculative fiction anthology, WHAT FATES IMPOSE: Tales of Divination. If you want to read twisty tales about struggles with destiny, this anthology is for you. I hope you enjoy these author interviews!

As of this posting we have only 30 more hours to go on the Kickstarter Fundraising Campaign for WHAT FATES IMPOSE, and WE ARE FULLY FUNDED. Yay! We're up to $5,185 from 217 Beloved Backers!

You can still pre-order the book and get awesome rewards until 8pm Central on Sunday, July 14th. All extra help we get will go toward the finishing details for the book and making more books like it possible, because we want to keep on creating anthologies and paying authors the pro rates they deserve.

You can easily tell your friends about the project by using this page to give us three clicks.

Erika Holt lives in Calgary, Alberta, where she writes and edits speculative fiction.  Her stories appear in Shelter of Daylight Issue 6, Evolve Two: Vampire Stories of the Future Undead, and Tesseracts Fifteen: A Case of Quite Curious Tales.  She is also co-editor of two anthologies from EDGE and Absolute XPress: Rigor Amortis and  Broken Time Blues: Fantastic Tales in the Roaring ’20s, and assistant editor of Nightmare Magazine. I can give you my personal guarantee that she's fun to drink with!

Erika's story in WHAT FATES IMPOSE: Tales of Divination is called "Murder of Crows," and it's a chilling tale about the nature of trust, belief, and terrible choices.

Now here's Erika to tell you about her methods of developing stories, some of her favorite writing themes, and her thoughts on divination. *all the crows in the world startle into flight*

AUTHOR INTERVIEW: Beth Wodzinski

Note from Nayad: The series continues. This week I'll post interviews of the authors contributing to WHAT FATES IMPOSE: Tales of Divination. FYI: There is some outrageously imaginative work in this book, and I can't wait for you to see what these writers have accomplished. I hope you enjoy what they have to say in their interviews!

As of this morning we have only seven more days to go on the Kickstarter Fundraising Campaign for WHAT FATES IMPOSE. We're up to $3,732 from 153 Beloved Backers. That's almost 75%, but we still need some help to get to $5,000. The Clock of Let's Get Serious is now ticking.

If you'd like to help out, telling your friends about this book project is free and easy by clicking here, and there are reward levels from $1 on up at our Kickstarter page.

In addition to being an excellent writer, Beth Wodzinski is the editor of an outstanding magazine, Shimmer. Her story in WHAT FATES IMPOSE is called "One Tiny Misstep (In Bed)." It features fortune cookies, gives the reader many choices, and demonstrates exactly how deceptive choices can be.

Here's Beth, testing out various methods of online divination to find answers to my questions! *flocks of shimmery birds take to the skies in what is clearly an omen of some kind*

AUTHOR INTERVIEW: Ferrett Steinmetz

Note from Nayad: The series continues. This week and next I'll post interviews of the authors contributing to WHAT FATES IMPOSE: Tales of Divination. KNOW THIS: every one of these authors has a shot at becoming your next favorite author, because they're all that good. I hope you enjoy what they have to say!

As of this morning we have only ten more days to go on the Kickstarter Fundraising Campaign for WHAT FATES IMPOSE. We're up to $3,398 from 137 Beloved Backers, but we still need some help to get to $5,000!

If you'd like to help out, telling your friends is free and easy by clicking here, and there are reward levels from $1 on up at our Kickstarter page.

Ferrett Steinmetz is a Nebula Award-nominated author. He has been mentioned by Neil Gaiman in at least one public speech as an example to show that creative writing can, in fact, be taught. His story for WHAT FATES IMPOSE, "Black Swan Oracle," gives us a chilling look at how predictable people and their choices can be, and the outcome of making such predictions.

Now here's Ferrett! Who can explain to you how vacuum cleaners lead to Deep Thoughts about the divination prospects of social media, and also give you solid, get-to-work writing advice. *a thousand muppets flail at once*

AUTHOR INTERVIEW: Alasdair Stuart

Note from Nayad: The series continues. This week and next I'll post interviews of the authors contributing to WHAT FATES IMPOSE: Tales of Divination. ADVISORY: every one of these authors is full of talent and marvels. I hope you enjoy what they have to say!

As of this morning we have only eleven more days to go on the Kickstarter Fundraising Campaign for WHAT FATES IMPOSE: Tales of Divination. We're up to $3,368 from 136 Beloved Backers, but we still need some help to get to $5,000!

If you'd like to help out, telling your friends is free and easy by clicking here, and there are reward levels from $1 on up at our Kickstarter page.

Alasdair Stuart's introduction to WHAT FATES IMPOSE is the kind of inherently interesting piece of writing you often see as a non-fiction article but rarely get to have at the beginning of a book, because someone wrote in some Publishing Scripture somewhere that nobody actually reads introductions, but you still have to have one for Reasons. Well, you're going to want to read this one. I mean, first of all, it's called "Singing from the Book of Holy Jagger." It must come from a different sect than that Publishing Scripture I mentioned. But you don't have to just believe me about how good it is. You can listen to Alasdair reading the heck out of a portion of his intro on the project's page by clicking that great big arrow in the middle of our cover image.

And here he is! It's Alasdair! With ideas about divination, and thoroughly correct writing advice. *cheers*

GUEST POST: Jennifer Brozek and her Karen Wilson Chronicles

Jennifer Brozek is an award-winning anthology editor and a talented, prolific speculative fiction writer. Her story, "A Card Given," is part of the anthology I'm editing, WHAT FATES IMPOSE. Jennifer has also very generously offered up a donation of her series of novels, the Karen Wilson Chronicles, as a reward level for the anthology's Kickstarter fund-raising campaign. Jennifer tells the world about her series below, and at the end I'll tell you how you can get it (and my book, too)!

Here's Jennifer:

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Ten Books for a Desert Island

The eternal question: which ten books would you want to have if you were stranded on a desert island for the rest of your life? This is what I'm pondering, as I stare down summer (yesterday, coincidentally, was the last day of the school year for my three sons). I have not yet read and will not ever get to read everything, but for me, today, this is the set of books I would choose.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it: Take a look at my list and comment below with books you think I would like, based on the books I'd be willing to read over and over for the rest of my life. There are no wrong answers! Your opinion counts around here!

Story Collections

It's a challenge to write a short description of a whole book of short stories, so I'll tell you the things these collections have in common: excellent prose, very strange circumstances in every story, menace and conflict within and without the characters, and my total envy because those people wrote these stories and I didn't.

• Mother Aegypt and other stories, by Kage Baker.
• At the Mouth of the River of Bees, by Kij Johnson.
• Pretty Monsters, by Kelly Link.
• In the Palace of Repose, by Holly Phillips.
• The Bible Repairman and other stories, by Tim Powers.

WisCon Book Haul

Over the weekend, I spent a lot of time at WisCon 37, socializing and doing my best to make sure other writers don't starve (also known as buying books, my favorite strategy). I feel the need to tell you what I selected.

Before and Afterlives, by Christopher Barzak. From the back cover: "These are tales of relationships with unearthly domesticity and eeriness: a woman falls in love with a haunted house; a beached mermaid is substituted for a lost missing daughter; the imaginary friend of a murdered young mother stalks the streets of her small town; a teenage boy is afflicted with a disease that causes him to vanish; a father exploits his daughter's talent for calling ghosts to her; and a wife leaves her husband and children to fulfill her obligations to a world from which she escaped." In case you were wondering what kinds of things I like to read about in short stories, now you know. It sounds like a great collection, and I have already enjoyed reading the first story in the book, "What We Know About the Lost Families of – House."

Seeing Things, by Kater Cheek. Description: "Coffee shop barista (and part-time treemaker) Kit Melbourne’s life turns upside down when her tea-leaf reading brother predicts that someone will rob her, break her heart and oh yeah, murder her. Kit suspects it has something to do with the priceless jewel she inherited from their infamous witch uncle. As the jewel’s powers begin to reveal the secret, supernatural side of the town of Seabingen, Kit realizes she has to uncover the mysteries of her uncle’s past, to find out which of his many enemies wants the jewel badly enough to kill for it." I've read enough of Kater's short stories to know that I enjoy her writing style, and I'm always psyched up to read about the secret, supernatural side of anything.

Trampoline: An Anthology, edited by Kelly Link. This book is not new—it came out about ten years ago—but I had been meaning to get this for a long time. It is a matter of public record that I'm a huge fan of Kelly Link's stories, so I'm certain that other stories she chose to put together will also make me very happy.

Scatter, Adapt, and Remember: How Humans Will Survive a Mass Extinction, by Annalee Newitz. From the book jacket: "In its 4.5 billion–year history, life on Earth has been almost erased at least half a dozen times: shattered by asteroid impacts, entombed in ice, smothered by methane, and torn apart by unfathomably powerful megavolcanoes. And we know that another global disaster is eventually headed our way. Can we survive it? How?" You might not know this about me, but this topic is something I fret about. A lot. I'm also curious about what other people have to say about it. Given the fact that Annalee Newitz is a particularly interesting person (and also fun to chat with!), I can only believe that this book will be just right for me, especially since it seems to be angled toward fascinating science and optimism.

Which books have you picked up lately?

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Disclosure of Material Connection: None! I have not gotten and will not get any financial compensation for mentioning these books. I don't do affiliate links.

How I Learned to Be Social Despite Having Introverted Parents

The other day I wrote about How Being Social Helps Me as a Writer and an Editor, and now here's my post about how I learned how to do that.

My parents are both very nice people, and they are thoroughly introverted. Their home is their restful place away from other people. They don't get the notion to invite friends over. It's just not their thing, and that's okay.

Anyone looking at me when I was a child, if they were inclined to think about introverts and extraverts, would surely have thought I'd turn out to be an introvert. I was shy and quiet. I liked to read. I played by myself, and didn't really understand other kids. I didn't smile much, and when I did it was with my lips closed. I was SERIOUS.

Anyone who saw me then and saw me now, with a gap in between, would think that the child they'd seen had been replaced by someone else. Anyone who knows me now would be SHOCKED at the quiet mini-me, if they could see her. I'm just so different. So what happened?

We moved from a small town to the suburb of a big city just a couple of weeks after I turned twelve, when I was in the middle of sixth grade. The move was a big change, and I was suddenly around a whole new set of kids who had no expectations about what I was like. I didn't transform all at once, but I was trying new things simply by having to meet new people and make new friends if I wanted any, and then over the next few years I was increasingly interested in boys, too. I had the inclination to be extraverted, but it took me a while to develop some of my social skills because I needed to be around more people to learn them. It worked well for me to learn the ways of introverts when I was younger, fitting in with my family, but as a teenager I found that I wanted to expand outward and understand how to interact with people better.

Then I went too far with that and became clingy and needy, which made people push me away. That was upsetting, so I turned to self-help books.

The best one, strangely, was called Intimate Connections, by David D. Burns, M.D. I say "strangely" because the premise of this book is that in order to develop good friendships and find love, you need to learn how to really enjoy being alone. How to treat yourself as well as someone you would date. So I was learning how to be social by learning how to be alone. It's odd that a person growing up with introverted parents would need to learn that being alone is good, given examples of people who craved alone time, but I did. This was a life-changing book for me at a time when I really needed it.

What I learned was that there's a reason for this phenomenon most people know about: when you're single and looking for someone to date, or you're lonely and looking for friends, it's often hard to find them because you have a needy vibe. People sense that you want them to fix your life, and this is off-putting. When you stop looking and start to enjoy being single and don't even want to date, instantly you meet people who want to date you. It's because you're happy with your life, and happiness is attractive. Therefore, depending on a relationship to make you happy, or friends to make you happy, will limit your ability to have relationships and friendships. It's important to find your own happiness. The trick is to like yourself.

Everything I've learned about being social since then has been layered on top of that principle. It's not about being selfish or putting myself first; it's about treating myself well, and maintaining my own stability so that I can give affection to others, and listen, and be helpful whenever possible. This means knowing my own limits so that I can say "no" when I need to. I can't help everyone all the time. I have to do my own stuff. But if I have some time and there's something I can give freely and without resentment, I give it.

Coming soon: Why Enjoying Solitude Helps Me Meet Conventions Full of People

Also coming soon: How to Say No When You Need To

Five Books for Leveling Up in Writing and Life

There are hundreds of beginner-level writing books available for someone just starting out, but it's harder to find books that help with ongoing improvement after that stage. I have a few recommendations. The nifty thing is that these books all have a lot to offer for developing general creativity. Anyone from beginner through advanced in writing could get something out of reading these. They contain useful stuff for the rest of life as well, in my opinion.

The Talent Code, by Daniel Coyle. This is the most generally applicable book on my little list, because it's about the kinds of practice that lead to mastery, and what's happening in the brain as that mastery is growing. It covers deep practice, ignition, and master coaching, each of which are important in reaching high levels of success in creative work and sports, especially. My favorite thing about this book is that it gave me ideas about how learning to be an excellent writer is more like high achievement in soccer than it's like mastering the violin, because the former relies on learning to flexibly access a wide range of options, while the latter is about perfecting the one correct way to play any given note. Anyone interested in developing any kind of talent should read this!

Around the Writer's Block: Using Brain Science to Solve Writer's Resistance, by Rosanne Bane. THIS BOOK IS SO GREAT. I've increased my productivity so much since I started to follow the practices suggested in this one. The great thing is that, although it's a book specifically about writing, the information is EASILY transferable to pretty much any area of life. It's about recognizing the ways in which stress prevents creative thinking, and how to establish easy, helpful habits that will prevent the stress response from taking over and blocking you from doing what you want to do. The book explains how to establish methods of process, product, and self-care to keep yourself in the right state of mind for creative thinking. This gets my highest recommendation.

Making a Good Writer Great: A Creativity Workbook for Screenwriters, by Linda Seger. Okay, I know the title says it's for screenwriters, but really it's for everyone. Who doesn't need more creativity? This book includes chapters like "Pushing Your Mind to Another Creative Level," "Exploring Your Themes and Ideas," and "Mining the Riches from Your Dreams," as well as chapters more specifically dedicated to improving writing skills. The examples are about screenwriting, but any writer can benefit from them. I like to read books about screenwriting to learn from a different angle. They tend to give me a better appreciation of movies, too.

Wired for Story: The Writer's Guide to Using Brain Science to Hook Readers from the Very First Sentence, by Lisa Cron. Why do people enjoy stories? Our brains get interested in stories for specific, explicable reasons which are covered here. Learning what makes people curious, and what holds their attention, is useful for writing fiction. It's also crucial for giving good presentations, getting along with others, and being an interesting person. In a time when social interactions online and in person are more important than ever before, as people become increasingly adept and sophisticated in the social realm, this is valuable information.

2k to 10k: How to write faster, write better, and write more of what you love, by Rachel Aaron, has a really self-explanatory title. All right, this one is strictly about writing. It's especially good for planning and outlining novels, so that you know what you intend to write on any given day. That helps with getting started and allowing the words to flow faster.

I am always looking for good books to read, so I hope you'll comment with your own recommendations!

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Disclosure of Material Connection: None! I have not gotten and will not get any financial compensation for mentioning these books. I don't do affiliate links.

Things I've Written and Edited

Here's a list of non-blog things I've written and where you can find them.

My Original Speculative Fiction Anthologies

• What Fates Impose - edited by Nayad Monroe
• Not Our Kind - edited by Nayad Monroe

My Fiction

• "An Assessment of the Incident at Camp Righteous", in Space Grunts: Full-Throttle Space Tales #3, edited by Dayton Ward: Science Fiction. During a militaristic theocracy's invasion of an alien planet full of harsh conditions, a young soldier tries to fulfill his mission while his mind deteriorates.
• "The Emperor Everlasting", in Steampunk World, edited by Sarah Hans. An alternate history story in which the Incas were much more successful in the world than they were in the actual past you may have learned about. Intrigue unfolds as a royal Deviser is thwarted in her every effort to complete the most important job in her nation's history. Features battle llamas!
• "Quintuple-A", in Sidekicks!, edited by Sarah Hans. Science Fiction, Humor. A low-budget academy that trains sidekicks for superheroes is suddenly up for review, and Daltona Doyle has just one day to prepare an athletics-challenged student for testing.
• "Running in Wonderland", in Space Tramps: Full-Throttle Space Tales #5, edited by Jennifer Brozek. Science Fiction. An unwanted homeless woman with medical problems, and no money, has 24 hours to get in and out of a space station full of trouble that's her best option for finding a permanent place to live.
• "Three Transformations", in The Crimson Pact: Volume Two, edited by Paul Genesse. Horror. The owner of a no-kill animal shelter has her worldview and self-image broken all at once when she must cope with an intruder and an invading demon.
• "Tipping Point", in Ghost in the Cogs, edited by Scott Gable and C. Dombrowski

My Non-Fiction

• "An Interview with Tim Powers" in Writers Workshop of Science Fiction and Fantasy, edited by Michael Knost. A conversation about writing with award-winning author Tim Powers, who has written many extremely awesome books that everyone should read.
• "A Thousand Words You Can Hear All at Once: An Interview with Todd Lockwood" in Clarkesworld Magazine. A conversation with award-winning artist Todd Lockwood about art and writing, because he does both!

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I am the author of these stories and articles, so purchasing some of the books listed above will result in me getting a tiny bit of money. They're not affiliate links, though! Use your best judgment. :)