The mantra this working weekend is "make the right thing easy and the wrong thing hard". I scrubbed down and set up everything last night in my apartment to do what I need with ease today. Like an adult Easter egg hunt this morning, my place now has everything laid out at its station for each project and rest window plotted into the schedule. 👌 Thank you, past-me.

And happy Friday, all - working or otherwise!

Woo! The notice just went up on Analog: the latest issue, with a story of mine in it, is now out.

"The Last Romantic on the Belliponte" is a tale of a rattled crew, each bringing their own ghosts & superstitions to a tense mission in the Oort Cloud. While trying to get data from an extrasolar object, is one crew member losing it--or will madness save them all?

#SFF #Analog #ScienceFiction #WritersOfCoSo #Writers

Is there a word for the sheepish feeling of having finally tackled a whole list of tasks that *seemed* Herculean when you first drew it up, and which you were dragging your feet on addressing because they seemed so difficult at the outset... only to realize that they were actually all pretty easy and didn't take much time at all? 🙃

Asking for a friend.

All right, CoSo. 💫

A threefer news brief today for #OnlySky, to get back in the saddle after last week's four-parter on Israel and the West.

Today I talk about the recent war crimes videos, Pentagon leaks, and US library bans. What's the binding concern? Oh, just the challenge to stay informed - a key component of more humanist action. But when is more intel a distraction, and when does it actually serve us well? ⬇️

#Humanism https://onlysky.media/mclark/too-little-too-much-this-week-in-war-crimes-leaked-intel-and-book-bans/

(For anyone curious, this is one fruit of the Guayabo Jaboticaba, which is a very funny tree here because "guayabo" is also the word used in Colombia for "hungover" - literally, from the idea of someone getting drunk and then being found passed out under one of these trees... but maybe also passed out from consuming too many of its [dangerous] low-hanging fruits! 🙃 )

I would like to nominate this tree for our inspiration-plant today. Be this tree! Share the fruits of your labour wherever the fudge you want. 👌

#CoSoNature #Colombia

Morning, team behind the scenes! 💪 💫

I have a deadline and I am not finished the project yet, so I've just hunkered down for an all-nighter*.

*Over-35 edition, so in bed by 2. 🙃

I have SO MANY NEWS STORIES to choose from for an OnlySky piece tomorrow, plus some BookTube I want to post after that's finished, but... that'll be the reward after finishing... oh, 6 hours of project work? So I have revved myself up and now I'm sitting down to get to it. WOO! Let's get it on! #AmWriting

Not rocket science. :) Protecting everyone's human rights is in the best interests of families of all types. Go #Colombia! 🥳

"Maternity leave should cover both women and other people with gestational capacity, such as trans men and non-binary gender individuals.

...

"The conclusion: it is necessary to guarantee the right to social security for all inhabitants of the national territory."

https://noticias.caracoltv.com/colombia/licencias-de-maternidad-en-colombia-deben-cobijar-a-hombres-trans-e-individuos-de-genero-no-binario-rg10

Who needs a fun historical trip through the world of book reading devices this afternoon?

#CoSoBooks #Reading
https://ebookfriendly.com/book-machines-before-kindle/

The story is sadly not new, or unique, but the presentation of this attempt to source the dead who showed up in Tobago two years ago, from a migration voyage gone horribly awry, is of a type of narrative journalism that really sits with the trauma underpinning migration in our hurting world. Thankful for the example in how to be more present with the dead, and the grief trails they leave behind.

#Humanism #Migration

https://apnews.com/article/adrift-investigation-migrants-mauritania-tobago-663a576e233cb4b363f5eda8d5969b5a

I still have six hours of work today (crunch time around classes) but I also just stumbled on photos and footage of recent war crimes in Bakhmut, so I'm going for a run before sitting down again.

(And no, I am not giving you more details: suffice it to say, there is sanctioned barbarity in this war as in every other. We could have been and done so much better as a species by now. Instead, there's just so much cruelty, and waste.)

Hug your loved ones.
Don't click on carelessly on wartime links.

(To be clear, I'm not going to monetize until I have a *very* clear sense of what the product will be, and how to provide it consistently with high quality amid all my other work. Right now all that other work is... a lot. But I'm getting less overwhelmed by how much goes into indie production as I go, so... maybe in a month or two. Just happy to have the option. 👌)

Well I'll be darned. I *might* be able to monetize Substack after all.

So that offers a neat option to chew over. I'm swamped right now, but as I get better at balancing BookTube, newsletter, two to three OnlySky pieces, and new fiction... maybe I can set up a split model, one free and one paywalled piece per week - with the second involving a deeper and more resource-heavy dive into its topic?

Something to consider! Learning #indie is scary, tough... & *filled* with interesting opportunities!

I genuinely wonder some days when US folks are going to rage and burn it all down. What a brutal episode about the offloading of municipal state responsibilities to little fiefdoms a.k.a. Home Owners' Associations, and the for-profit management firms that feed off them. https://youtu.be/qrizmAo17Os

🙃 And here I thought recent news would never make me laugh again.

Happy Tuesday, CoSo!

Good night, CoSo.

Remember--

The rules are made up, the points don't matter, and we'll all be on our way to stardust soon enough.

But while we're here, we've got rules rigged in the favour of a few, some folks making a point of worsening the world for others, and the dust of a dying civilization to shake off.

Be kind with yourselves.

And present with each other.

These might just be the two most radical things we'll ever do.