And... Patrons now have access to three sample chapters of the audiobook!

Once all recordings are finished, there will be a little more audio refinement (it's just easier when I can clear plosive sounds and standardize volume across the whole).

But the one benefit of being fully freelance again is that I can set my own schedule, so I should be able to pull off the middle-of-the-night recordings necessary not to be afflicted by tooting trucks or INTERRUPTING PARROTS. 🙃

https://www.patreon.com/posts/audiobook-in-101411744

Parrots. 🙃 Parrots ruined my morning recordings.

Oh well. I have three audio chapters to share with Patrons shortly, at least.

But I really do need to record in the middle of the night, around 1-4am.

There's no other way to get this audiobook finished. Ah well. A challenge for April!

On today's BookTube, I explore the importance of not reading simply to decide if we're "for" or "against" something.

There's a new literary pub for essays, and even though I don't agree with facets of the argument in one piece about the future of SF, it's an excellent opportunity to reflect on how industry challenges are being perceived.

We contain multitudes!
Let's celebrate that, no?

[Please note the comment below the video, about one line that needed more clarity.]

https://youtu.be/0yeZquZxFbI

Early to bed, round two. 👌
Early morning recording boogaloo.

Sometimes I have to remind myself that it is, in fact, possible to let inaccurate things stand online. 🙃 Even if your love of history is screaming for an excuse to be let loose on the 'tubes.

Choose your engagements wisely.

Shore up that sanity!

(However little remains.)

#Old
#SoOld
#TurningToZardozianDustAsWeSpeak

😂 Conversation between me and a nine-year-old cousin:

I: I love my books, but sometimes I click through them so fast that the program tells me Stop! Too Fast! And then I have to go back and wait before I can do the quiz at the end which is my favourite part.

Me: Oh, neat, you're reading eBooks in school. Sometimes it's really hard not to rush through them. Do you have any other kinds of books?

I: Yeah, sometimes I read reality books, too, but then you can't just click them to get to the quiz.

Oh! And a friend's novel manuscript has shown up in my inbox. 🥳 I have been *so* looking forward to reading this one.

After any final tweaks from the beta read will come the crafting of agent pitch materials (an art form unto itself), so he can start the next part of a *very long* road to traditional publication.

I'm rooting for all my writer friends here, but just remember that finishing your manuscript is only one of *many* hurdles in this industry. It's a marathon, not a sprint!

And now... we write!

Well, that's two days in a row that my call with extended family has been cancelled due to family drama in the other household.

Oh well. My uncle's wife is chilena, so when he started to explain how the eldest daughter and her fiancé have upset the grandparents in a way his wife now has to spend the weekend mediating...

I laughed and reminded him that I live in Colombia. I know all about multi-generational telenovelas & hyper-involved family feuds. I wished him great luck navigating the chaos!

Still trying to wrap my head around the energy of going from

EFF YOU YOU EFFING SOCK SUCKER YOU DESERVE EVERYTHING YOU'RE GOING TO GET COMING TO YOU

(to paraphrase the gist of some of his comments)

to

Oh, yes, they really handled the ending of X beautifully. It's a shame it wasn't renewed.

and back again.

🙃

The internet is such a weird place.

Checking in with a few news sites today, I visited the profile of one particularly vile commenter, and unsurprisingly found that around 90% of their comments were similarly hateful drek... but sprinked with a few notes of genuine appreciation for a recent work of mainstream entertainment, and one really thoughtful comment drawn from personal experience, offering warm support for anyone suffering from a similar affliction.

We humans are WILD CHAOS ENGINES. 🙃

:) This is definitely getting easier as I go, though.

Tomorrow's piece is locked and loaded, baby! #Learning

Recorded tomorrow's BookTube video but wow is it background-noise-y, so I'm currently trying to clear out more of the highway junk.

I also hate that I lost track of a sentence... 34 minutes into a smooth 35 minute take, so now I'll need to add a pop-up to the video for clarity. But! It's all part of the learning curve. Should be an interesting piece on The State of the Genre all the same. 🤞🏻

I know @corlin will be reading this, but if anyone else wants to reflect on the philosophy of our intellectual moment, the latest by Smith-Ruiu is excellent (if partially behind paywall).

He occupies an interesting position: a scholar of history and #philosophy, and a Christian "anarchist". This background puts him outside fealty to a lot of today's orthodoxies, but with great interest in what people are trying to achieve with them--and what challenges they face. #Essays
https://open.substack.com/pub/hinternet/p/neo-utilitarians-are-utter-philistines

Early to bed.

I'm going to get back to recording the audiobook for Children of Doro, starting pre-dawn tomorrow.

I lost a lot of love for SF last year, and the state of the industry still leaves me feeling pretty ridiculous for ever caring as much as I once did about any of those life goals.

But the whole world's filled with shattered paradigms and lost hope and meaning, so...

We're going to try to rekindle joy in the work that once meant so much... one chapter at a time. 🤞

Night, beauties.

Oh FFS (flying fish sticks).

Is there any industry private equity *hasn't* ruined yet?

“'A large number of these funds are seeing veterinary medicine as a good profit center,' said Dr. Jacobson, an Iowa veterinarian who serves on the board of the IVPA. He said he’s seen corporate-owned chains in his region drive up prices for consumers, suppress market competition and skirt state laws that ostensibly prohibit veterinary practices from being owned by non-veterinarians."

https://www.newsfromthestates.com/article/vets-fret-private-equity-snaps-clinics-pet-care-companies

All right, back to work for another round of writing this evening. 🤗

A solemn Good Friday to those now in mourning and reflection.

All warmth and well-wishing to the rest of us weirdos, too.

Tangentially:

What's your favourite expression for describing someone's derangement?

We all know the classics...

"He's got a screw loose"
"She's off her rocker"
"They're unhinged"
"He's a few cards shy of a full deck" OR "She's not playing with a full deck"

But do you have a special variant you like to use? 👀

#RandomThoughts

*Before I get too glow-up-y, I should add that Substack still provides a platform for a lot of people doing our democracy no favours.

Naomi Wolf is still UNHINGED and doing very well for herself (see below).

For me, though, the problem is one of selective outrage. Major platforms are all filled with hateful humans, because *our cultures* are filled with the same. But we need to make a living while we're playing whack-a-mole with all our overly tolerant corporate platforms - and always will be.