Boy howdy, do *not* go into writing expecting to make money. 🙃

I always have multiple projects on the go for a reason: editing, translation, teaching, on top of fiction & nonfiction. Selling stories to magazines has *always* made more than any other category - but that's not saying much!

I am thankful for the time I've had to spend on creative practice. That alone makes me one of the rare, lucky few in our unjust cosmos.

May we always extend the table from whatever slender platform we have.

The work is never finished, only abandoned.

Okay, CoSo: Part 4 of 4 in my Israel and the West series for #OnlySky. Here I reflect on the challenge raised for global actors seeking a coherent theory of action around national extremism, when grappling with the deeply fraught crisis in Israel and Palestine.

Everyone deserves a home and safety in their home.

How we're moving globally to that great end, though, leaves much to be desired. ⬇️

#Humanism #Politics

https://onlysky.media/mclark/israel-and-the-west-the-global-fight-to-outgrow-national-strife/

Love, love, love when an article I'm writing challenges me.

I think I've rewritten this last one a few times now - but always for the better. It worries me when writers just look for evidence to serve their initial arguments; when I come across information that challenges a premise, I love nothing more than to sit with it, and see what more cohesive argument I can build that takes it into account as well.

Now to take a quick walk to percolate before final revisions. 👌 💫

Brains are funny and spiteful. Fire alarm went off before my regular alarm, so now my grouchy body wants its 10 minutes back before a run. What? Not ready to leap with full enthusiasm into a new week? 😅

Visiting the bird always makes me sadder.

I just saw an unhinged blue-splotched user advocate for hanging people to make her feel safer as a middle-class person in SF.

It's not just Florida, Texas, et al, & my heart goes out to US friends trying so hard to build better through mutual aid & robust social safety nets... while *this* kind of crap is emboldened in public discourse.

Forget trying to walk away from Omelas; just try getting people to stop dreaming up worse punishments for the child!

As Frederik Pohl famously said, “A good science fiction story should be able to predict not the automobile but the traffic jam.”

I... am not sure what genre was supposed to predict this.

One other plus side for the day: I've just done my accounting, and... if things continue to go okay, I *should* be recovered from January and February's surprise medical-and-housing-crisis for a local street family by year's end. (Sooner if things go REALLY well, but let's not bait the universe!)

I was really quite down on myself in March for losing everything in a flash, when I try to live *so* carefully & frugally.

But with health & life we press on. And you all still helped me save lives. ❤️

In public, I always tend to be louder and more animated, but when I'm inside, I am a soft-spoken weirdo by nature, and it's very difficult for me to raise my "indoor" voice.

Consequence of growing up in a household of constant bitter shouting matches? Maybe! But not always useful now that I'm trying to figure out how to make home recording a part of my self-promotional lifestyle. 🙃

#GrowingPains #PasoAPaso

And a bit of video to go with it. Umbrellas are a necessity in an equatorial country. With my vampire complexion, I probably burned from what little time I was out. :) Ah well. Still a nice day. All the spiritual folk are now on to midday mass, which will be followed by a hearty lunch out.

I'm off to a nibble, then revisions. 👌 #AmWriting

(Reposted the above because apparently I'd accidentally posted it to another thread? How odd!)

Happy Easter loves!

As promised, a reading of "The Grand Inquisitor" from The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky. It's a long one! But thanks to the brilliant support of @thewebrecluse, it should be very clear indeed.

First I discuss context: the book, the Christian backdrop, the choice of translation. 11:55 for the reading itself.

At its core, it's a story that wrestles with how to aspire to better when we're unable ever to achieve ideals in full. Enjoy.

#Books

https://youtu.be/7St-8_lfM5E

The Sunday procession at the church closest to my home. See if you can spot the old lady living her best life. 😅

#Colombia #Easter

I was going to write a nice long essay for the newsletter related to Dostoevsky & Children of Doro, with a deep dive into the struggle to live ethically when we haven't the capacity to properly save ourselves *from* ourselves - but after reviewing The Grand Inquisitor I had such a good chuckle that I'll just record a reading of it early in the morning, for Easter Sunday. How little has changed in fiction! So, that should offer a spot of fun in a few hours. :)

#SFF #Literature #CoSoBooks

In English, "people" takes a plural verb.
In Spanish, "gente" is singular.
Some languages waver between the two.

At our core, we struggle *so* much with the ideological difference between seeing each other as individuals, individuals united, and individuals made something new, a larger entity beyond the sum of our parts.

Sometimes the idea of this new entity inspires the best in us.

Sometimes it dehumanizes us.

Never are we more dangerous than when we forget it's all a construct, either way.

Oh #Colombia 😅

(They went to rob a house and were found fast asleep, having drunk too much first.)

Morning lovelies. 💫 Headed out for a run, then more writing.

What do you plan to do with this brilliant* day?

*Any day above ground** is brilliant.

**And any day below it, too, if you're a spelunker, miner, or just checking CoSo from your fallout shelter. ☢️🙃