Folks here know it's been a struggle to find a stable forum for my work. I'm one of a small crew keeping the lights on during a management transition - & I have no idea if all the work I'm doing will yield stability or not.

Ditto with every other industry to date.

But hey, the whole world's precarious, you know?

On the + side, today precarity meant I didn't need to rush to publish something that wasn't ready. That's a gift.

While trying to find my place, there are still so many ways to grow.

Beauty comes in many forms. 🐛🐜

Don't forget to stop and appreciate yours.

#BugFriend #Nature

🙃 Good morning CoSo.

The world's priorities are still out of whack.

But hey! We're still here! Still in the hustle.

Happy Tuesday.

(I feel safe sharing the second part here, mind you, because I know many of you do, too.

There is shared frustration at the State of the World here, obviously. But I also daily see sincere striving to do the best one can where one can: to heal from personal wounds; to help where one can.

Neither perfection nor performance is the "game" here. It's always so lovely to live among fellow, messily striving humans instead.

Good night, CoSo. Thank you for being your fully human selves here--always.)

I shared this first on the bird, where my lit world sometimes lives in a bubble, but:

On my evening walk I learned a street friend is no longer begging. :) He finally got approved for a Venezuelan work ID here & is now able to seek real contracts to support his young kids. I will miss our nightly chats, but for the best possible reason.

I also shut off my fridge the other day. Not out of necessity. Just living with less. The work writers do is... very privileged, in the grand scheme of things.

This is a richly intersectional conversation, highly recommended to readers and writers for all the avenues it offers for thinking about extractivism in our SF as in our world - and also, around what hinders or propels us forward, in our quest to "human" far more constructively.

#SFF #Extractivism #StarTrek #Writers
http://strangehorizons.com/non-fiction/star-trek-and-extractivism-a-conversation-with-una-mccormack-and-manu-saadia/

I want to celebrate again the TREMENDOUS work done by @nnlightsbookheaven. I've used their promo service for the last 3 books, & though I don't know how many direct sales they've sent my way, I know how many *eyeballs* I've gained through their work.

This means *a lot*.

It means I have people following my work on YouTube & Substack. It means I'm building readers for the long term.

At a time when digital media's in free-fall?

This is the way.

Thank you, N.N. Light's team!

#WritingCommunity

Morning, CoSo! 👾

After a couple of "misses" this weekend, I've now popped up a BookTube that introduces my upcoming book review series (LIFE BEYOND US, an anthology of science fiction and science fact essays, will be first, up soon!), and offers two storytelling lessons from my current rewatch of ST:Voyager.

(No, they're not places where the show excelled. But #Writers can and should learn from everything! #WritersOfCoSo #SFF #StarTrek #Writing)

Happy Monday, all!
https://youtu.be/UGkquSEEFks

There are days when I almost think I understand the world.

And then there are days when I just want to play A Serious Man on repeat for all eternity.

What's your go-to filmic reminder of the fragility of knowledge behind humanity's persistent ache for fuller understanding?

(Ten bucks said TBL comes first to mind for the majority. 😉)

#CoSoFilms

(You folks haven't seen my lit fiction yet, but that's just because the world of SFF has submissions response times more conducive to publishing those works. I'll produce a collection of my lit stories one of these years, too.)

One joy of living in a given place for a long time is all the little details you accumulate, that outsiders would never think of. What a treat they allow our regional writing to become - if also sometimes a site for local contention. (Canada's Nobel lit winner, Alice Munro, famously/notoriously drew from Huron County for her stories.)

Today, e.g., I learned about gas stove advisories for folks in the region of an active volcano. What quotidian details would you consider distinct to your region?

Yesterday a well-intentioned local friend (who knows I've been struggling to find enough income to help me reach a critical long term stability goal) sent me a job posting for Spanish speakers...

to spy on Spanish-speaking populations for government.

Ah. No.

Not that I'd ever get the job if I were to apply for it (so my moral objection is moot) - but it's always fascinating to see what others don't even realize might run afoul of a friend's ethics.

Hope your own weekends are less narc-y! :)

(*I'm pretty sure I heard "segunda", not "segundo", which would be because we're talking about a set of people: "la segunda persona como Hitler". But it's always funny trying to figure out the referent that needs to be gendered in another language.)

😂 I told a friend on the street here that I'm writing a piece on Kissinger's century and he immediately perked up. "Ah, segunda Hitler!"

We did a quick poll of the average clients, everyday blue collars mostly. Almost everyone recognized the term as referring to Kissinger, save two younger men who thought we meant Putin.

When you're infamous in the developing world, it really sticks! 🙃