Well, lots of growing pains today with the A/V. After fixing video lag and mic issues, I recorded... a few times before there was minimal background.

But! Enough letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. The new workflow is now fully launched, and I'll just get better as I go.

Today's piece offers some reflection on #SFF industry, Clarkesworld, and its latest issue. Corporate monopoly is a bigger threat than "AI" to the future of short fiction. Investment is key!

https://youtu.be/Du8LA4KI8dg

I was hoping to finally record this morning - always have to do so bright and early before the highway gets worse - but OBS Studio is giving me guff, so I'm reinstalling it now.

HOWEVER, during re-installation a party bus came across the highway blasting vallenato at 5am, so... I guess I at least missed having my recording interrupted by that. 🙃

#Colombia A/V problems.

#War
#Humanism

Some of us still follow war news daily, which in the case of Israel-Gaza means noting the deranged things said by people gamifying human suffering, online & in leadership roles.

There's so little most of us can do to help--but plenty we can do to further dehumanize.

Whatever happens in the coming days, may we all ask ourselves if our own actions help or hinder.

We're not finished doing unconscionable harm to one another.

But we can always try for a world where we do so less.

(And for those of you just trying to enjoy your Saturdays, I'll answer the heaviness of this post the only way it deserves:

"Sir, this is a Wendy's." 🙃)

#RandomThoughts

Thinking today about DYING AT GRACE, a Canadian doc that follows five people in hospice. It's a beautiful meditation on how, if we're not taken out suddenly, we all pretty much die the same way, despite our diverse life paths.

But what always strikes me is the therapy sessions in it: how people facing the end of their lives still wrestle with old, old wounds.

IOW, we'll worry our story of self over and over 'til the body winds down... unless we can lay down the burden sooner.

I'm running a meeting today in which over half the attendees have cancelled in the last 24 hours. Everyone feels... very busy these days, so if that's you, too, please remember to take care of your health and wellness while hustling.

I will never get tired of these weirdos.

(Rosa de monte, Brownea macrophylla)
#Colombia #Nature

Today's a fiction-writing day, and my rule is simple:

Write with the feelings you've got.

Don't try to avoid them. Lean in, and let them inform the prose.

Today's opening feeling is "melancholy", with a touch of disappointment, so let's see what these do to the story I have in mind. 🤞

#MediaLiteracy

Here's a wonderful essay on an extremely important point often overlooked in discourse about so-called AI: the presumption that if it weren’t for this latest hype-cycle threat, we’d all be happily leaning into accurate data and otherwise pursuing honest discourse.

We are not passive actors even in deeply degraded information economies.

How can we prepare ourselves to assess new data with greater integrity?

https://open.substack.com/pub/robhorning/p/truth-and-consequences

Hey, Canada... Everything okay up there? 🤨

"A veteran wealth management executive says that unless Canada’s largest pension plans start investing more domestically, [the TSX] could one day fall by the wayside.

... The letter claims that Canada’s pension funds, which represent nearly 40 per cent of the country’s institutional savings, have ... reduced their holding of public Canadian companies from 28 per cent in 2000 to less than four per cent at the end of last year."

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/tsx-could-disappear-without-more-domestic-investment-from-canadian-pensions-letko-1.2044477

Today was kind of frivolous: a long trip across town to work for a few hours in another mall space, where I had an americano and overpriced cookie, & despite two coats of sunscreen *still* got burned on the metro back.

But... I needed to remember how to be a bit frivolous again.

(Not for long, mind you. Tomorrow I start a food plan that's a bit demanding.)

Just long enough to remember the life I've put on pause while trying to stabilize my living situation.

I'll press "play" again someday. 🤞🏻

Also, who's submitted to Grist's Imagine 2200 climate fiction contest with me this year? 👀

The submissions call goes live on March 28. Is that enough time to start writing a wee tale that features "creative climate solutions and community-centered resilience" and shows "what can happen as solutions take root" in the generations to come?

You darned tootin' it is. 💪

#SFF #WritersOfCoSo #WritingCommunity
#ClimateCrisis

This one is for Patrons only - and a strong part of the reason I prefer Substack for most materials, because there I can split a post between free-to-read and paid sections.

Every Friday, Patrons are again going to get extra or sneak-peek content from me. Today, that "content" is a preview of what to expect from the next two weeks of the YouTube channel, and some talk about the state of the #SFF industry.

Many thanks to everyone supporting the work, on any platform! 💛🌌

https://www.patreon.com/posts/returning-to-sff-99998188

😬 Jeepers creepers, I clearly haven't been to the movies for a while. When the heck did they get so expensive?!

I'm also foiled by a cancelled midday English language showing. Rats. If I stay for the 7:30pm, I would be walking home at a very dangerous hour in my 'hood.

Oh well. Still a great change of vista for working today. Phenomenal cowork space. Will try to get many sci-fi words out.*

*Quality TBD. 🙃

🙄 ¿Feliz día de la mujer?

The headline for today's El Colombiano reads:

"35% of women in Antioquia earn less than the monthly minimum salary."

That monthly minimum salary is 1'300.000COP.

Current exchange rate:
$447.74 CAD
$332.83 USD

Work to be done! #Colombia

Me, slathering on the first round of sunscreen for a day in city.

(And watching a quick episode of something while I wait another 20 before heading out.)

Eff it.

Today I'm going across town to work at one of Medellín's fanciest malls (it has an amusement park attached), watch DUNE 2 on IMAX, and get back to writing sci-fi, around a post talking shop for Patrons.

I hope you all knock the socks off your days.

👍🏻