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Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

I need a cool two-syllable word

Okay, here’s a random one for y’all.

I’m trying to name something for a story. It needs to be named with an English word, and for reasons of rhythm, that word has to be two syllables, with the accent on the first syllable. The thing in question is mystical, but don’t feel obliged to go for obviously mystical-sounding words; in fact, it’s probably better if I stay away from that (so no “shadow” or “dragon” or what have you). But it should be something that sounds cool — no “sofa” or “laundry” here. 😛

Bonus points if it has the same form as both a noun and a verb, but that’s icing on the cake.

Suggestions?

my publications in 2017

A fairly busy year for me, all things considered. And a reminder that I need to go through my bibliography page and clean up all the things that still say “forthcoming” when they’re already out.

Novels

Novellas

Short stories

Collections

Nonfiction

Gaming fiction

the eighth annual Yuletide Guessing Game

As has been my wont, I participated in the Yuletide fanfic exchange this year, and has been my habit, I wrote four fics for it — my assignment, and three treats. If any of you currently reading your way through the archive would care to guess at my offerings, I will give you the following clues:

  • I wrote for one book, one movie, one TV show, and one play.
  • Only one of those is a fandom I have written in before.
  • My assignment is in the 4000-5000 word range.
  • For some inexplicable reason, all three of my treats came in between 1600 and 1700 words.

Any guesses?

The Light Side and the Dark Side of the Force

Let’s talk about Star Wars and The Force.

Episode III, Revenge of the Sith, forever changed the way I think about the Force — in a fashion I’m still not convinced that George Lucas intended. You see, I walked out of the movie theatre convinced that this whole “light side” and “dark side” business is just Jedi propaganda. There are two sides . . . but they aren’t innately moral. There is simply the path of attachment, which gets called the dark side, and the path of detachment, which gets called the light side. And both of them can lead to good or to evil.

What persauded me of this? It’s been long enough since Episode III came out that I probably don’t need to put the answer behind a cut-tag, but just in case — and because I’m headed toward The Last Jedi spoilers, and because I’m about to get wordy again — I might as well.

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On Star Wars, Sacrifice, and Darkness

So I saw The Last Jedi, and I liked it. I have to agree with Scalzi that it’s a good thing we got Rogue One before this: not because there’s a direct narrative connection between them, but because that film established precedent both for Star Wars movies that don’t quite have the Joseph Campbell feel, and for Star Wars movies that are dark without being grimdark.

The purpose of this post is to unpack that last bit. Which I’ll mostly do behind a cut-tag, to avoid spoiling those who haven’t seen the film yet (and also because dear lord, self, wordy much?), but out here I’ll say that what I mean by “dark without being grimdark” is that there’s never a sense of cynicism about the whole thing. Trust is not folly; honor is not a lie; it is possible to win and not always regret it afterwards. What The Last Jedi does is acknowledge that war has a cost, and you can’t have a Rebellion or a Resistance without risking, and often suffering, real loss.

Ah, you say, but didn’t The Empire Strikes Back establish precedent for dark Star Wars movies, long before Rogue One came along?

Yes and no. Let’s go behind the cut-tag.

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New Worlds: Third Cousin Twice Removed + some news about Patreon

The most recent Patreon post is “Third Cousin Twice Removed”, about kinship terminology and which categories we differentiate or don’t.

For those who haven’t heard, Patreon is planning to institute some changes in how they handle the processing fees for pledges. Unfortunately, their plan for doing this involves charging the fees to patrons — which is especially bad for people who have made a lot of small pledges, since (for example) each $1 pledge will actually cost $1.38. Patreon creators are pretty united in saying this is a bad idea, since it’s already causing people to reduce their pledges or cancel them entirely; if you want to speak out against it, there’s a petition you can sign, or you can send a comment to Patreon directly via Zendesk (note that you’ll need to register at the end of the process for your message to go through). I encourage you to do this; the messages I’ve gotten from Patreon indicate that public pressure may already be having an effect, so let’s keep it up.

The world’s most scattershot progress

I haven’t said much here about my work on the current novel — the one that’s a followup to the Memoirs — in part because it is so unlike the process of writing any other novel so far, I’m too busy figuring out what I’m doing to spare much attention for reporting in.

But hey, it’s useful to talk about what happens when you write a Totally Different Kind of Book. So here goes.

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Photography for sale

If you’d like to order a photograph for someone on your holiday list (or for yourself! that’s okay, too!), my galleries are here! Aaaaaand, I have finally gotten off my duff and finished editing my pictures from the Okinawa trip this summer, so there are three new galleries: one for the trip as a whole, and then specific ones for the former royal estate of Shikina-en and one for Gyokusendo Cave.

Depending on where I order the print from, I can get it done on pretty much any medium you like: paper, glass, canvas, wood, aluminum, acrylic, etc. Sizes are flexible, too. If you’re interested, drop me a line!

Signed books for the holidays

Just a quick reminder: if you’d like to get one of my books signed for the holidays, Borderlands Books can help you out. Get in touch with them, place an order, and then they’ll let me know and I’ll go up there to take care of it.

But act fast! It’s a hike for me to visit the store, so it might take a week or so for me to arrange a time when I can swing by.

Light in the darkness

I’m a solar-powered creature and don’t much like the darkness of winter, but I love the symbolism of this season: the rekindling of light in the darkness. It is, in a sense, our yearly miracle, and the fact that it’s caused by the elliptical orbit of the earth around the sun doesn’t make it any less magical to me.

We are now one year into my monthly series of tikkun olam posts. (Linked to the DW mirror because that’s where the most responses have been happening.) The darkness, as always, seems like it will go on forever. But if we’re to turn the corner and head back toward a brighter world, it won’t happen automatically; it takes effort, and the more of us who try, the faster it will go.

Tikkun olam: repairing the world. Volunteering, donating, performing acts of kindness. Whatever you have done in the last month to make the world a better place, whatever you have planned for upcoming days, share it here. You don’t have to apologize for not doing more or deprecate what you’ve done. Sometimes we’ve got more in us; sometimes we’ve got less. But anything is greater than nothing, and so anything, however small, is worth counting.

New Worlds: Lineage

Over on the New Worlds Patreon, my theme for December is going to be kinship — the anthropological term for “family,” and a favorite subject in the field. We start with lineage, including a discussion of how people often misunderstand what matrilineality means. Comment over there!

Books read, uh, most of 2017?

Okay, so the last time I posted about what I’d been reading was in February, at which time I noted that I’d fallen out of the habit of book-blogging and wanted to get back into it. Welp, clearly I fell right back out again.

My log for 2017 is not complete, I know — I failed to log things in my file as well as write about them here. And it will be even less complete as I exclude various things like my own work (re-read for editing purposes), things I’ve read for review or critique, things I’ve blogged about already, and the pile of folkloric epics I’ve been reading for research (the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Mahabharata, the Popol Vuh, the Kalevala, the Táin Bó Cuailnge, and a very abbreviated rendition of Journey to the West). But it’s still a decent pile, so let’s get started.

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The past and the future

cover art for ARS HISTORICA by Marie BrennanThe past: Ars Historica is on sale now!

The past is prologue . . .

Kit Marlowe. Guy Fawkes. Ada Lovelace. Kings and sailors and sainted nuns populate these seven stories of historical fantasy by award-winning author Marie Brennan. They span the ages from the second century B.C.E. to the nineteenth century C.E., from ancient Persia to the London of the Onyx Court. Discover the secret histories, hear the stories that have never been told — until now.

The future: if you are able to vote today, please do.

New Worlds: Where Does the Food Come From?

The New Worlds Patreon launches into November with a discussion of where food comes from — and hint, the answer isn’t “the grocery store.”

If you’re NaNoWriMoing this year, check out the archives for fodder to feed your muse! And share it with any friends who might be interested. If you like what you see, consider becoming a patron: you a choice of rewards ranging from weekly photos to bonus essays to a chance to request posts, get feedback on your own work, and more.