I wonder why two Catholic versions of the Bible translate Exodus 20:3 as (this is the Catholic Public Domain version) "You shall not have strange gods before me."? Other versions have "other" rather than "strange", which seems to be the sense of the Hebrew. (Apropos of nothing, "before my face" sounds cool. This deity is watching.) The familiar "strange land" in Exodus 2:22 is a different Hebrew word again, and the Catholic Bibles at the ever-useful biblehub.com both have "foreign".
We went to the Greeley Stampede last night (our local fair and rodeo.) It can be kind of a rough crowd, but this year my husband and I both noticed something different about it–and not just that last year there was lots of MAGA stuff, and this year I saw hardly any red hats or in-your-face T-shirts. What we noticed was people’s attitudes–they were friendly and polite and smiling. Everyone talked to each other–the people at the table where we ate our corn dogs and cherry limeades were all talkative and cheerful, teenagers we were maneuvering around made way for us, and when I told a guy in the line waiting for tickets to get in that I liked his shirt, he gave us two free passes to the fair that he had. Everyone smiled. It was a sea change from last year’s tension and wariness, and it felt like the fever of divisiveness has broken, or at least is breaking.
A lot of people have been saying they’re despairing this Fourth of July, that they feel more like mourning than celebrating, but I find myself MUCH more hopeful than last year, when Trump and DOGE were running riot, colleges and businesses were caving, and watching 1776 on TV (which we do every Fourth of July, made me sick to my stomach. This year we’re in a much different place. The winds have shifted, and Trump is now struggling on multiple fronts, from his corruption (which was on the front page today) to the war he keeps losing over and over.
–The Epstein files won’t go away, more new victims keep coming forward, and the courts are demanding they be released. Half of what he and DOGE has been canceled by the courts, he keeps losing his appeals, even the Supreme Court has ruled against him (although not nearly enough), and he had to take his name down off the Kennedy Center.
–His cabinet has fucked up everything from our health to the military, the FBI, and the National Parks, everyone hates ICE and the Border Patrol, and nobody believes a thing any of them say. And nothing Trump tries is working, from his trying to fix the Reflecting Pool to his putting on a simple state fair.
–MAGA is falling apart, with Tucker Carlson and Marjorie Taylor Greene and Laura Loomer and Nazi Nick Fuentes at each other’s throats, and so are his White House aides.
–His health is failing–he is NOT blinking in those meetings and he gets crazier by the minute, clinging to fake polls and claiming he can talk to the dead. You can see him flailing. The feeling that he can get away with anything and everything forever has vanished, and you can feel the walls are closing in.
–And all over America people are fighting back, protesting against ICE and filing lawsuits and attending rallies and marches and speaking out.
Part of the reason for my hopefulness is people like these:
–Beatrice Brown, a Black retired public school teacher who drives other Black voters to the polls: “No matter what obstacles are in our way, we’re gonna just walk over those obstacles and we’re voting. A voteless people is a hopeless people. And we’re not hopeless.”
–Air Force Major Jason Watson, who went to the Capitol in his military uniform and said: “My name is Jason Watson. I’m an active-duty major in the United States Air Force. However, who I am is immaterial in the grand scheme of things. I’m just a nobody. What matters far more than who I am is what I have to say and the price I’m willing to pay to say it.”
–He then recited his military oath, swearing to support and defend the Constitution, and then said, “Our Constitution binds us all together as Americans. Like countless veterans before me, military members serving now, I’ve devoted my life in service to our Democratic Republic. Always doing my best to honor my oath and protect America against foreign threats. But the greatest threat to our Democratic Republic is not a foreign one. It is us, we the people, not just the left or just the right or just the center, all of us together define who we are as Americans, and like it or not, we have all played a part, myself included, in getting ourselves into this mess we are all in. The burden of that culpability is much heavier for some amongst us than others. Undeniably, and for those with a lion’s share of guilt, such as those currently running the executive branch of the government, the bill must come due.”
–He then listed the charges. Unconstitutional military action in Venezuela, Cuba, and Iran without congressional authorization, in violation of the War Powers Clause, resulting in the deaths of thirteen service members and injuries to hundreds more. The granting of sweeping authority to an unelected mega-donor (Elon Musk) to shut down federal agencies, access government databases, and terminate tens of thousands of civil servants. The denial of due process to hundreds of people before deporting them to a foreign prison notorious for human rights abuses. The sponsoring of violence against Americans exercising their constitutional right to protest.”
–After each charge he said, “For this, the president and vice-president must be impeached, convicted, and removed.” He is the first active-duty commissioned officer in American history to publicly call for the impeachment, conviction, and removal of a sitting president.
–After he spoke, he stood on the steps holding a sign that read, “Impeach. Convict. Remove.” He was arrested for demonstrating on the steps without a member of Congress present is against the law (even though Dem Rep Al Green had escorted him there and was there throughout his speech.) They handcuffed him and took him into custody.
–There is a fundraiser online for his legal defense. It has raised more than $93,000 in less than 24 hours.
–Major Watson: “I am calling on average Americans everywhere to peacefully exercise your First Amendment rights en masse every day until this administration is removed and our democratic republic is restored. If just a nobody like me can take a stand for our Constitution and our democratic republic, then you can, too. I hope you will join me in the defense of our republic.”
–Heather Cox Richardson: “There are moments in a democracy when the cost of silence becomes greater than the cost of speaking. Watson decided this was one of them…(He) is a true patriot. A real American hero. He is everything Donald Trump wishes he was.”
–Barbara: “The nobility and purpose of Major Watson, the dignity, the willingness to stand up to do the right thing, I imagine makes Trump livid with rage because it shows him up for what he is. And he will do everything in his power to make Major Watson pay for that.”
–Jack Smith, who spoke out yesterday, too:
–Smith: “I think we are facing an attack on the rule of law that is different in kind and scope to anything I’ve seen in my lifetime.”
–When he was asked if he thought Trump would come after him, he said, “There is no way in the world, if the thought was go go after me so that I wouldn’t speak up about the corruption that’s happening or speak up to defend these agents and prosecutors…that is a grave miscalculation. There is no way that I’m going to be intimidated.”
–Smith: “That is what the oath is for. Not for the easy days. Not for the moments when honoring it costs nothing. It exists for days like this one, when keeping it means risking a career, a reputation, friendships, power, or even freedom. It is the promise that no person stands above the Constitution, and that our loyalty belongs first to the republic, not to the people temporarily entrusted to lead it.”
–And the Ford Foundation, who just gave out $60 million dollars in immediately available funds to organizations defending democracy, particularly grants for increasing civic participation and for expanding opportunities for community leadership. Some of the organizations given grants are: Pillars of the Community, Veterans for All Voters, All Voting is Local, the Campaign Legal Center, and We the Veterans Military Foundation.
The number of people speaking out eloquently every day against Trump and his Nazi regime is another reason I find myself really hopeful:
–Heather Delaney Reese: “The people who honored their oath this week have shown us the way forward. Now it is our turn. We may not all have sworn the same words they did, but we can honor the same promise with our voices, our votes, our courage, and our refusal to surrender the country that generations before us fought to preserve. It is our turn to leave the next generation an America worthy of its next 250 years. Every time history has asked Americans whether democracy was worth defending, ordinary people have answered. We’re about to answer again. That is why we still have hope for America. And you should, too.”
–The Atlantic: “A love of country can co-exist with a fierce criticism of it, and peaceful protest is arguably the epitome of patriotism. It is the work of those who love a country strongly enough to insist on trying to close the gap between what it is and what it could be.”
–Daily Kos: “We are in our own weird chapter of the great experiment, fighting against a mad would-be king whose supporters consist now of red-hats and oligarchs instead of redcoats and an aristocracy. As always, the remake has some differences to the original, and the special effects are much improved, but the core of the story remains the same. In 1776, our side won. We need to win as well.”
–The Bulwark: “When you consider our strengths and our virtues, giving up on loving this country and working to steer it towards a better future would be a tragic dereliction.”
jaj: “Don’t give up. Hang your flag proudly. Reclaim it.”
Finally, I’m hopeful because of all the people who have helped create the America I love. Among them:
–John Adams and the rest of the writers and signers of the Declaration of Independence
–Harriet Tubman and all the other people who risked their lives to get slaves to freedom on the Underground Railroad
–Harriet Beecher Stowe, Mark Twain, Walt Whitman, Edna Ferber, Alice Walker, William Faulkner, James Baldwin, Robert Penn Warren, and all the other American writers who have written eloquently about the United States (and her failings)
–the people of Minnesota–and Chicago and LA and Portland and New Jersey–who fought and continue to fight against ICE and injustice.
–Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, and Alice Paul, and all the other suffragettes who fought for women’s right to vote
–Sam Ervin, Lowell Weicker, Daniel Inouye, Howard Baker, and all the other people who held the Watergate hearings
–Barbara Jordan, who spoke out eloquently for impeaching Richard Nixon
–Marsha P. Johnson, Sylvia Rivera, Bayard Rustin, Frank Kameny, and all the other people who fought for gay and trans rights and equality
–Joseph N. Welch, Arthur Miller, Margaret Chase Smith, Edward R.Murrow, and all the people who fought against McCarthyism and the Black List
–Abraham Lincoln
–Harvey Milk
–Rosa Parks
–Martin Luther King, Jr.
–John Lewis
–Eleanor Roosevelt
–Marion Anderson
–Barbara Jordan
–Jack Smith
—-the guy who threw the Subway sandwich at the Border Patrol
–Mr. Rogers
–Dolly Parton
–Renee Good
–Alex Pretti
–Frederick Douglass
–Mark Elias
–Julia Ward Howe
–Daniel Schor
–Ruth Bader Ginsburg
–Jackie Robinson and Branch Rickey
–Mark Twain
–Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel, and Seth Meyers
–Jesse Owens
–Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein
–the boys who fought and died at Lexington and Concord and Bunker Hill
–the Union soldiers who fought and died at Fredericksburg and Antietam and Shiloh and Gettysburg
–all the soldiers who fought and died at the Somme and in the nightmarish trenches of World War I
–all the soldiers who fought and died in North Africa and at Monte Cassino and on Omaha and Utah Beaches and at the Battle of the Bulge
–all the soldiers who fought and died at Pearl Harbor and Midway and on the beaches of Midway and Guadalcanal and Iwo Jima
–all the soldiers who fought and died in the frozen landscape of Korea and in the jungles of Vietnam and in the deserts of the Iraq War and Afghanistan
–all the people who supported them in the hospitals and the USO shows and on the home front
–And the countless millions who have worked through the years–and continue to work today–for America to be “the city on a shining hill” it can be. Who, like the signers of the Declaration of Independence, pledged their Lives, their Fortunes, and their Sacred Honor.
Be of good cheer! The tide has turned, the winds have shifted, and there is fresh air blowing in from somewhere…
We just got back from the 49th Williamson Lectureship at Eastern New Mexico University in Portales, New Mexico. This is something I’ve gone to for over 30 years now, and it’s my favorite event of the year. Jack Williamson was one of the founding fathers of science fiction, writing stories like “The Green Girl” and “Nonstop to Mars” in the early pulp days and then going on to write the thought-provoking “With Folded Hands” and DARKER THAN YOU THINK and inventing many of the classic ideas of science fiction, like androids and terraforming.
Jack spent most of his life in the Portales area and taught English (and science fiction) for many years at the university. The lectureship was established in his honor, and it has been bringing science fiction and fantasy authors to eastern New Mexico for nearly fifty years, writers like Harlan Ellison, Robert Silverberg, Nalo Hopkinson, Greg Bear, Greg Benford, Darcy Little Badger, Gardner Dozois, Greg Bear, Martha Wells, Joe Haldeman, and George R.R. Martin.
I was asked to be guest of honor one year, and I enjoyed it so much I asked if I could come back. I’ve been going ever since–and serving as the master of ceremonies for the Guest of Honor Luncheon. A few years later they recruited my daughter Cordelia to give a lecture on forensics to their forensics majors, either by zoom or in person, and so many of the lectureship people attended it that it became the official opening activity of the lectureship. This year she lectured on “Tracking Down the Culprits” and talked about how criminalists collect and analyze shoe prints (including O.J. Simpson and his notorious Bruno Mahli shoes), footprints, sockprints, and tire tracks.
This year’s guest of honor was Ursula Vernon, the Nebula and Hugo Award-winning author of children’s books like NINE GOBLINS and HAMSTER PRINCESS (under the name of T. Kingfisher), adult books like NETTLE AND BONE, A WIZARD’S GUIDE TO DEFENSIVE BAKING, and WHAT FEASTS AT NIGHT, and the webcomic “Digger.” She gave a reading and held a Q & A session with the students and lectureship guests, and then spoke at the luncheon, talking about her affinity for animals and her love of the novel WATERSHIP DOWN.
Other writers who came this year included Darynda Jones (the author of the Charley Davidson series and the BETWIXT AND BETWEEN series), Jeffe Kennedy (multi-award-winning author of epic fantasy romances like NEVER THE ROSES), Lauren Teffeau (writer of environmental fantasies like A HUNGER WITH NO NAME), Rebecca Roanhorse (the Nebula- and Hugo-award winning author of short stories like “Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience, (copyright)” and novels like THE SIXTH WORLD series), Arkad(y Martine (the Hugo award-winning author of A MEMORY CALLED EMPIRE and A DESOLATION CALLED PEACE), John Stith (long-time sf author of books like REDSHIFT RENDEZVOUS and THE TINY TIME MACHINE) and Vivian Shaw (author of classic horror literature, including the Dr. Greta Helsing series.)
After the luncheon, there was a tour of the Jack Williamson Special Collections in Golden Library, where you could see Jack’s manuscripts, his syndicated comic strip BEYOND MARS, his many awards, a portrait of Jack, and a mural of his life, from his arrival in New Mexico in a covered wagon to his visions of the future.
The rest of the afternoon was devoted to panels, and this year’s were great–really thought-provoking and fun. I was on a panel called “Digging Down: The Nitty Gritty of Writing” with John Stith and Jeffe Kennedy. It was great. We talked about all the different things that go into a story, how they mesh together, and where and how research and science fit into stories, plus internal consistency in both fantasy and science fiction, the physical process of putting stories together, authors’ routines, and oh, lots of things.
I was also on one called “The Nitty Gritty of Writing: What lies beneath the bones of a story? What lies at its heart?” with Ursula Vernon and Darynda Jones. We discussed a whole assortment of things, from where the story comes from to themes of stories to how stories grow out of the unique interests and unresolved issues of the writer, which is why nobody BUT that writer could have written that story. We covered lots of ground on that one, too, and managed to get thoroughly off-topic (my favorite kind of panel.)
Then we adjourned to Darynda Jones’s house for dinner and MORE talking–plus something you hardly ever see in southeastern New Mexico–a gullywasher. It rained all evening and through the night, and, since the drainage system in Portales is the streets themselves, everybody managed to step in a puddle at some point. When it started, the storm had lots of lightning, which apparently hit an old barn west of town–we could see huge clouds of smoke to the west as the sun set. Luckily, it didn’t spread too far. They evacuated a few people to the southwest of town but got the fire out pretty quickly. And the rain helped. But the sight of those billowing clouds reminded everybody of those grass fires in Westerns which could sweep through miles and miles of town and destroy everything in its path. (The Lectureship is always exciting, whether it’s wildfires or floods or exploding cows, decrying the idea of Portales as being a sleepy little town..)
On Saturday morning, I held a writer’s workshop. This year’s topic was “Take Two: Everything I Know About Writing I Learned at the Movies,” all about the stuff the movies can teach you, like framing, working the theme into the story in subtle ways, and, most of all, showing rather than telling. The workshops are really fun, because all the other writers at the lectureship (and some of the students and other attendees) contribute, adding examples and advice and making it a workshop like no other, after which we go to lunch and talk some more. In fact, the workshop is mostly eating, punctuated by other events, and some of the most important parts of the lectureship take place at the Do Drop Inn, Landell’s Ice Cream Parlor, and the Courthouse Cafe.
The best part of the conference is all the great conversations we have–over breakfast and dinner and ice cream. This year they ranged from talking about the Artemis II mission to the moon, adventures on the way to Portales, and the Epstein files, to discussions of how would you like to die, the best way to commit suicide and/or murder, what inspires people’s stories, why writers have such weird brains, and what our favorite flavor of ice cream at Landell’s was. (Believe it or not, cornbread was the top pick, with popcorn a close second.)
There was also excitement when we went out to eat. This year we were partway through breakfast at the Courthouse Cafe when we got thrown out because of a gas leak. We moved the breakfast down to the other end of the block, and a few minutes later, fire trucks and ambulances and police cars arrived to deal with it, and it was at that point that we realized we should have moved our car–my husband had to ask the fire truck to back up a little so he could get out (hopefully without causing a spark that would send the whole block up in flames.) The gas leak turned out to be a false alarm, so we asked if the whole group could come back for lunch after my writing workshop, but they said, no, the entire downtown was closed off because the governor was coming. (I told you Portales was exciting!)
Next year is the 50th Anniversary of the Lectureship, and they are planning some special activities for the lectureship and hope to have some people back who have come before. Publisher Steve Haffner wants to do a special commemorative volume of writings for the anniversary. I am already planning my speech for the occasion–it will give me a chance to tell all my favorite stories about the lectureship, like the one about me getting lost in Portales, even though it’s a really tiny town, and the one about nearly throttling Locus’s editor, Charlie Brown, and the one about the time the guests stayed at a bed and breakfast run by a VERY stern former English teacher, and the one about the cattle truck hitting the train…I can’t wait to share them with everybody.
You should really consider coming. Mark April on your calendar and head on out to Portales. All you have to do is turn left at Albuquerque and then drive till you’re nearly to Texas, and then head south and east. You can’t miss it. And as a bonus, you can go home via Roswell, which is only 90 miles away. See you there!
They say it never posted. I can't see that it posted. They waived the late fee and I paid it this time (and remembered to copy down the confirmation number which I usually do)
It was a day of me mostly working and feeling nauseous. I DID get the next scene in the slasher story done with a lot of help from FB friends (I was having a brain fart, couldn't think of all the skill sets you see at a renn fest)
Ah time for my Buffy verse Fannish 50 questions
Day 10: Least favourite episode
A couple years back Rolling Stone did their ranking for an anniversary. I'm not sure I agree with all of it.
Some of my least favorites are Doublemeat Palace most because it made me want to punch the Watchers for not taking care of the Slayers (which frankly makes ZERO sense which is why I don't like it)
R.S. said this was the worst Where the Wild Things Are - I don't even remember it so I'll say yes.
Empty Places - the episode where Buffy is pushed out of her house. You already know how much I hate this one
Title: they've got ears Fandom: no fandom Rating: G Content notes: None apply Summary: icons of mules and their big ears, made from images found on the interwebs
This is your check-in post for today. The poll will be open from midnight Universal or Zulu Time (8pm Eastern Time) on Tuesday, July 07, to midnight on Wednesday, July 08. (8pm Eastern Time).
(I was fucking around on my phone for the last few hours, while Kaylee slept on her blanket. The second I got my laptop out, Kaylee came over and started to purr aggressively next to me. You can't be on my lap right now, baby.)
These are probably going to be brief, as my memory isn't that strong six months later.
Searching for Serafim: The Life and Legacy of Serafim "Joe" Fortes by Ruby Smith Díaz (Local author, read before she gave a talk for Black History Month.)
Short biography and a poem about a Caribbean Black man working as a lifeguard in Vancouver, BC, in the early 20th century. The records of Serafim Fortes are pretty slight, and almost all from the perspective of white people—who treated him as a sort of mascot, and talked about how great he was despite his race—so Smith Díaz is mostly reading against the grain of the historical record, and speculating lot. I normally do not like history books that include this much speculation, however, Smith Díaz is very clear about when and why she's filling in ideas, and I think it works in this context. It introduced me to Marie-Claire Graham's concept of "speculative archiving" as a way of dealing with gaps in the record created by historical violence, which this book is more or less an example of. I appreciated that Smith Díaz did not shy away from or excuse records of Fortes behaving poorly. Very much worth a read as a local history, and as an example of navigating a fragmented and racist archive.
Everything Is Fine Here by Iryn Tushabe, narrated by Nneka Okoye (Canada Reads Longlist, which I wish had been on the shortlist.)
A coming of age novel about a young woman in western Uganda, who discovers that her beloved older sister is a lesbian. One's reaction to that premise might be, "Oh no!" but this novel was not a tragedy about queer bashing, though the setting and my knowledge of Ugandan politics made it a tense read.
(I also felt that my ((at this point rather hazy)) knowledge of Ugandan geography, culture and food helped me a lot, including having been in the same places described in the book. There's a lot of cultural detail and non-English terms dropped in without explanation, so remembering what most things were saved me a lot of looking stuff up.)
But most of the novel is about a teenager trying to figure out both the world and herself, in a family with a lot of internal conflict and pressures. There's a few cases of sixteen-year-olds making poor choices, but for the most part the novel offers its characters a lot of grace. It's about discovering the world can be a lot bigger than you're told it is, and offering and receiving second chances. Really loved this one.
Witch King by Martha Wells, narrated by Eric Mok (Reread before getting into the new one.)
I'm really glad I reread this, as I initially rushed through it to find out what happened, and as a result didn't remember several key plot points, which turned out to be essential to the second novel. There are a lot of moving parts!
Basically still love everyone in this band, and appreciate getting a novel about decentralising power, rather than building empires.
Queen Demon by Martha Wells, narrated by Eric Mok Really enjoyed this one, also, though it ends in a more obvious cliffhanger than the first one, which stands more or less on its own.
Mostly just like the characters and enjoy spending time with them. It's again nice to see people struggling with the work of consensus building, interspersed with battle scenes, lol. I like Kai slowly coming out of his shell in the first timeline, and how much the characters have changed over the centuries between the flashbacks and present day. It really nicely both shows the long-range consequences, and builds up tension as the plots weave towards each other. Bit bummed out by some of the casualties along the way.
So, that was a full day. I am encouraged by Lorie at Glendarragh Farm, who very carefully explained that lavender likes full sun, sandy soil, and a little lime for flavor. Also, on my walk around the farm, I was able to observe for myself that bumblebees love them some lavender. I'm back to thinking planting lavender in the place where the pool used to be, which is still stoopidly sandy. However! I did not buy a lavender plant today. Today I bought: a couple lavender sachets (one of which has found its forever home in the car, a t-shirt (I know, but! purple), a dark chocolate lavender bar, lavender-peppermint soap, a bunch of dried lavender destined to be placed in a vase and put in Steve's office, lavender lip balm, and lavender hand balm.
. . . I think I was quite conservative, really.
I walked in the gardens, and visited the lavender drying shed, which I would like to live in for the rest of my life. I had several in-depth chats with ZuZu, who is one of those little white dogs that everyone adopts immediately they retire and decide to travel. We talked about cats, ZuZu and I -- that cats, yes, do sleep a lot, and that she was just about as big as Rookie -- and also the fact that I had been raised by dogs, and that, yes, it was very very interesting and exciting to meet new people. I spoke for myself and ZuZu's owner translated for her, because -- you know this, right? -- I am one of those people who will talk to a dog for twenty minutes and never directly speak to the dog's owner.
Onward!
From Appleton, then, to Lincolnville Beach, where the tide was out and people were doing beach things, and thence to Belfast, where two full-color posters of kittens greet the traveler coming into town from Route One from the South, announcing the availability of Maine! Coon! Kittens! No, I didn't stop, and because I am an uncharitable person, I take leave to doubt that anyone with Maine! Coon! Kittens! needs to advertise their availability via street-corner posters.
Stopped at Nautilus for lunch on the covered patio, as reported elsewhere. The haddock Reuben was very tasty, though I admit I had some doubts.
After lunch, I went up the hill to the co-op and did some shopping -- fresh onions, cherries, three kinds of salads (curried chicken, potato, and pasta pea), local cheese, a bottle of alcohol-free wine, which -- I will, as it happens, quite happily drink alcohol-free wine, but it costs the earth, comparatively -- a loaf of Borealis rye bread for the freezer, bar shampoo and moisturizer.
After shopping -- ice cream! Homemade strawberry from Wild Cow, which I carried back to the public landing and ate while sitting on a bench overlooking the bay.
Then, it was time to come home, which is where I am now, and where I will be staying, rather than drag my weary self to the library.
Things that were missing from my day.
1 Crowds of tourists. It is now after July 4th and I was on Route One. Frequently the only car on Route One. Belfast was a little thin of people for even a off-season Tuesday, never mind a fine July afternoon, and there were ... less boats than I had anticipated in the harbor. There was no line at the restaurant during the Prime Hour for lunch. More! There were parking spaces available at the public landing.
2 Seagulls. There were no seagulls at Belfast. None. I'm trying to remember if there were any at Ducktrap -- sorry, Lincolnville -- and that probably tells the tale right there.
Well. Maybe the Seagull Militia is forming up elsewhere. Maybe that's where the missing tourists are, too.
Rookie was waiting for me when I came in, and! There was a drinker at the front-garden hummingbird bar. Score!
(This database is incredibly handy, and I'm so grateful to the unsung folks who put it together. It has much to offer beyond Bujold, I should point out.)
The action of writing does not require artistry, but the artistry of writing requires action. That action being sitting down and actually doing it, even if it is hard. Writing coach April Dávila is here today to introduce some new methods that are sure to get you focused and motivated so that you can, as her book is titled, Sit Write Here.
APRIL DÁVILA:
What Chopping Onions Taught Me About Writing
As a writing coach, I’ve spent the last several years working to convince writers that we can do hard things (like finish a novel) without all the agonizing. My conviction on this point stems from an experience I had many years ago with a big pile of onions, which sounds odd, I know, but allow me to explain.
In 2009, I attended my first week-long silent meditation retreat. The only respite from the unending quiet was a daily talk given by the instructors. One afternoon, the lecture was about how mindfulness can help us discern between pain and suffering and I was not getting it. Pain and suffering. One follows the other like day follows night. To be in pain is to suffer. I suffer when I’m in pain. End of story.
After the talk, I walked down to the kitchen for work duty. Every attendee at the retreat had a chore, and I’d volunteered, along with five other silent meditators, to help chop vegetables for dinner. The head cook poured out a box of onions and told us to start dicing.
I wasn’t done cutting the first onion when my eyes began to sting. As I started in on the second onion, tears streamed down my face. The woman beside me sniffled. The man across the table turned away, wiping his eyes with his sleeve. Pretty soon I could hardly see. My eyes burned and the discomfort edged into real pain, and yet I found myself giggling at the absurdity of us all standing there crying over our cutting boards.
One by one, the other choppers started to chuckle too. We stood there with tears streaming down our faces, laughing and turning away to catch our breath, to blink away the sting, to try and compose ourselves. With no success.
Then it struck me: the pain was real. My eyes genuinely hurt. But I was not suffering. I was, in fact, having fun.
Had I been in a different, less aware state of mind, I might have spun up a story about how I’m just not cut out for kitchen work. The tears could have confirmed that it was too hard, too painful. I might have quit. Instead, I kept right on dicing, tittering with my fellow yogis as we tried to cut onions we could barely see.
As a writer, I think about those onions a lot.
Because here’s the thing about writing: it is genuinely hard. And here’s the real kicker: writing only gets more challenging as you get better at it. Before I cared about diction and imagery and precision of language, I could slap together any few thousand words on instinct and call it a story.
These days I take the time to whittle away at ideas until the words on the page actually say what I mean. That requires deep focus, real effort, and sitting with a lot of uncertainty. It’s hard, and (especially when difficult feedback or rejection comes into the picture, as it inevitably will for all writers) it can even be painful.
You can tell yourself that the pain is a sign that you’re just not cut out to be a writer, that it’s too hard and maybe you should quit. You can bow down to that little voice in your head saying you’re not a real writer, this is going nowhere, you should be doing something useful. Or you can recognize those thoughts as your brain’s natural response to discomfort, then carry on and keep writing.
Learning to observe your thoughts without getting hijacked by them (which is essentially what meditation trains you to do) is tremendously helpful when it comes to sitting with a difficult scene, quieting the inner critic long enough to get a first draft down, and recognizing the difference between “I’m stuck” and “I’m anxious about what people will think if I put this idea on the page.”
My book, Sit Write Here, is a practical guide to using mindfulness meditation to write more and suffer less. Not to write more easily (necessarily) but to stop adding unnecessary anguish on top of an already demanding craft. In each chapter I pair a meditation practice with a stage in the writing process, from getting the first draft done, to surfing the waves of accolades and criticisms.
If you’ve ever struggled with writer’s block, if you tend to beat yourself up for not writing more, or if you want to write more compelling prose in fewer drafts, this book is for you. Agonizing over our writing is a habit. And like all habits, it can be changed.
You can do this hard, beautiful thing. Probably without crying.
Endlessly funny to me that in Economics/Finance/Fundraising we have a term, The Great Wealth Transfer, which is an accurate but wild way to say The Accelerating Boomer Die Off.
The webinar I was in when I posted this, which was about bequest giving, reminded me that August is National Make Your Will Month which does make me worried about what’s going to happen in September.
An additional perplexity to this moment of local politics high strangeness is that we get notifications of upcoming Community Meetings but they’re done in such a bizarrely roundabout fashion that I am considering actually bringing it up to my Alderman at some point.
The meetings are technically not “public” (don’t get me started). If you’re in the local community and on your Alderman’s radar, you get an email about the video meeting which includes an explanation of the meeting, a link to the meeting, and a blurb about who to contact for questions.
The problem is the email isn’t…text. There are visibly embedded links, there’s formatting, but it’s a .jpg image embedded in the body of the email. It’s just like…a screengrab. Nothing is clickable. So in order to attend the meeting you have to download the image and enlarge it (the text is very tiny) and then hand-type the URL for the video call into a browser. Which, it’s not like that’s an hours-long process, but it does seem to be a pretty unnecessary barrier to access.
I suspect it’s that the original message is coming from the BACP (Business Affairs and Consumer Protections) office, with an official City of Chicago seal and such, and someone in the Alderman’s office is just screenshotting it. But surely you could just copy-paste the text and attach the screenshot of the actual document.
Local politics are wild. My friend A jokingly suggested that I should run for Alderman myself, which led to an extended riff session on what specific bribes I would be most interested in, because it’s not IF a Chicago politician is corrupt, it’s just HOW.
(I actually really like my Alderman, it’s just, the joke is too good not to make.)
Endlessly funny to me that in Economics/Finance/Fundraising we have a term, The Great Wealth Transfer, which is an accurate but wild way to say The Accelerating Boomer Die Off.
Got down another 250 words last night and the story is finished. I'm going to give it a couple of days of rest then I'll go in and look for the usual grammar errors, perspective shifts, and repeated words.
Tonight is movie night with the GF so I may not get any words down but we'll see. Sometimes I can't go to bed right away after walking in the door. (But heaven help me if I open a bottle of wine. 2000 words later and I'm thinking, well if I go to bed now I can get four hours of sleep before my next meeting tomorrow...)
So. I have a new video cookie thingummy gadget that makes you agree to Youtube cookies, but it is not yet working everywhere... only on the main site. The blog with all its videos still needs a solution, and that either means some database roughhousing and then some code kicking, or finding a different plugin (meh), or maybe getting some solution from the blog software maker. For now, I will be waiting to see what said blog software maker will say; I also have a vague idea about how the kicking and roughhousing might be done, though I do prefer to, um, not do it. (All this because the Data Protection Smurf wants you to know that youtube, aka google, will get your data, and wants you to agree, and because I do not want to pester you with some "agree to these cookies" thing only - and only! ...
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Everything Is Fine Here by Iryn Tushabe, narrated by Nneka Okoye
