Last night I did my version of a hard mental reset, after a day of many fellows harassing me on the street & it just... getting to me. I felt super sad about not being able to get a hug from someone safe at day's end.

But! The reboot worked, and today I woke up feeling much calmer and better prepared to face the fray. I have some routines I'd like to rebuild for better wellness, but today's mainly a writing day. Hope your own brings you great joy and little to no harassment. ❤️

I'm not judging folks for not being bi or queer, honest.

But boy howdy.

Today someone sent a photo of a trans woman in a bikini who's been subject to heinous abuse by a hateful movement... as if that photo somehow justified the hatefulness against her and against trans and queer folk across the US.

And I'm fully aware this person was telling on themself by thinking this photo justified a thing!

But also, MY DUDES, wouldn't life be easier (& less hateful) if we were all just a *lil'* queer?

Tonight is a lonely one.

Person I care most for is a world away for a long while.

People I care for dearly are living their own wonderful lives, too.

I know this is a time for trucking on and making the most of what I've got (i.e. opportunities to do more).

But it's raining out and I just sorely want to touch earth & remember my place in things.

So--

Much love to others feeling a touch rootless tonight. The road is long, and beautiful even in its ruins.

#CoSoMusic

https://youtu.be/iWkNxcbPtbM

After two days of false starts, this novella is finally coming together the way it needs to. Still on a crunch deadline to have it submission-ready for month's end, but... baby steps. #AmWalking #ThenWritingSomeMore

*classicist. Sheesh. Always a typo somewhere. Anyway, back to work! Happy Saturday! #AmWriting

Imagine this song playing as we bear witness to various production processes - on space ships, in alien monasteries, on vineyards: all of it. All the elegance of Jean Luc Picard - explorer, classist, Frenchman in affectation if not in proper accent - taken stylishly into outer space (again)!

It's okay, though. I have new SFF work in progress that'll heal all my Trekkie wounds. 🙃

https://youtu.be/QeFf8CCh3Hw

And a taster - opening scene, episode one, with Rina Ketty's J'attendrai serving as a perfect blended intro that, in every episode, was to be paired with the visual depiction of a different process - most taking place in otherworldly settings, but this one of course starting on one special vineyard. :) I would have been a fun writer for Trek in another universe, I tell you what!

Proof of me losing my damned mind. :) The series was called JEAN LUC. I had art for it, as well as intro music picked out. (You like how I made the wine shelves look vaguely Borg? 🙃) I had four full scripts written before I remembered I could just pour my energy into my own SF projects instead. Last time I went this hard was a "fan-fix" for Prometheus, which drove me nuts for mucking with Alien. I rewrote that script in three days.

😂 I, ah... I get a little intense about the SF that made me.

Confession: Early in pandemic, while everyone was working on their sourdoughs, I lost my mind over how much I hated Picard S1. Literally spite-scripted screenplays for a series that used the same elements in service to something that felt more "Trek". (Hey, we all coped differently. 🙃)

I didn't watch S2 & S3, while my fellow #Trekkies hatewatched. I plan to pour my love of Trek into more new SF material, but... I think this review also neatly sums up the ongoing problem:
https://observer.com/2023/04/star-trek-picard-finale-review-to-not-so-boldly-go-backwards/

I was thinking of doing another YouTube tomorrow expressly about other sci-fi that draws from literature and philosophy... and now I find myself with a huge list of recs to whittle down to do them justice in a 15-20 minute piece. 🙃 SFF! Quit being so good at building on history!

We're coming up on El Día del Idioma here, a time of pride in the language and its roots, and I'm left chuckling at the difference between respective cultures' linguistic events.

In English? Spelling bees - necessary because our language has so many weird roots. But in Spanish? Poetic recitation, mi gente! 🔥 Like we used to have a century ago (if Anne of Green Gables hasn't steered me wrong). We've lost a lot of sharing in the joy of language as a form of artistic expression up North.

A bit ago, they shared a body of writing with me that I was deeply proud to read - and I told them as much - because in it is the maturity of voice and the thematic focus that I've been pushing them to own for some time. And I can't say a damned thing to anyone - nor would I want to, except that I'm *so* proud of them for taking this step, & I can't wait to see them apply this work in the years ahead.

So. I'm telling you. :) I will always be so proud of people finding & writing their truth. 2/2

I have a very close friend in SFF, with whom I keep quiet about our friendship because tons of people blow smoke up their behind or use them for token cred (which is very funny, when I see their name dropped by randoms on other SFF forums as if they know them). This person has always deserved better mentorship than they've received by people eager to use their name without doing proper uplift, and they value my honest thoughts on their work & reactions to big issues. The only downside? 1/2

😂 Neighbours are already blasting vallenato (it's 10 am), so it's officially the weekend friends. Celebrate wisely.

#CoSoMusic
https://youtu.be/I-cOD2x-qBs

(And now that I've been working straight through from 4 am, I'm looking at the clock and realizing I am almost 6 hours overdue for caffeine. Eesh. 🙃 Some writing and editing sprints, I tell ya!)

And... for your weekend perusal, fellow #writers and #WritersOfCoSo:

My latest #BookTube talks *worldbuilding*. For Children of Doro, I created a canonical text, The Sunmaster's Journey, which is integral to so much of what transpires in the novel.

Here, I use elements of that text to explore how giving your fictional civilizations their own lit cultures can enrich everything else about the world. Happy writing!

#SFF #IndiePublishing #WritingCommunity #Writing
https://youtu.be/cdPGiAA0HHU

Children of Doro will be out in paperback and eBook on May 4. Sadly, pre-orders for hard copies aren't available for indie work, but you can pre-order the eBook for sure.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BZ11RXG4

And if you do read it, please consider leaving a review! No hurt feelings, honest! Reviews are *for other readers*. When written honestly, they can help a book reach the people it's right for, without disappointing anyone else. :)

#SFF #IndiePublishing #Publishing #Books

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/123826116-children-of-doro

Morning, lovelies. 🌌

BookSirens lets me invite up to 20 readers to a copy of Children of Doro, alongside a possible 20 in-site reviewers. This is my Dostoevsky-in-space novel, a philosophical SF that also serves as a tonal counter to January's Soviet alt-history. (Both are humanist, but this one much more optimistically.)

Please feel free to read & review, if so inclined.

And may *whatever* you're reading this year reward. 💛

#WritersOfCoSo #WritingCommunity #SFF
https://booksirens.com/book/VWU1B4F/KKPS6UD

Good morning to all the lovers. 💫☕
And the grouches*, too - because day comes for us all. :|

---

*Scratch a grouch** and you'll find a lover who cared too deeply about the world, and look where that got 'em.

**Don't scratch the grouch, though. That will end badly. 🙃