Public Readings from A to Z – Part 3 – Preparing an Excerpt

Welcome to part three of my continuing series on how to do public readings of your work! You can find the video accompaniment to this post on Youtube.

 

Let’s talk about the art of excerpting, i.e. picking out just part of a longer text to read. (If you’ve chosen a short story and have enough time to read the whole thing, you get to skip this step.)

 

(more…)

Public Readings from A to Z – Part 2 – What Material Should You Read?

Welcome to part two of my continuing series on how to do public readings of your work! You can find the video accompaniment to this post on Youtube.

 

The next question to ask is what you should read.

Choosing your material can be the trickiest part of the process. Sometimes you may not have much of a choice: if you’re participating in a group reading for an anthology, then you’re almost certainly going to be reading your contribution (or a selection therefrom). If there’s a theme going on, like the whole convention is about women in science, you may want to pick from among the pieces you have that are relevant to that theme, assuming you have any. But if it’s an open field, there are several factors to consider.

 

(more…)

Public Readings from A to Z – Part 1 – How Much Should You Read

I’ve been asked more than once for advice about doing a public reading of your own work. This is something authors will frequently be encouraged to do as a promotional activity, and yet most of us get thrown into the deep end without a lot of guidance; small wonder that it can be a source of anxiety. If we wanted to be actors, we wouldn’t have chosen a profession that mostly involves sitting alone at the computer talking to the imaginary people in our heads!

Actually, I love doing readings. And judging by the responses I’ve gotten, I’m fairly good at it: not a professional performer by any means, but good enough that I feel comfortable giving some advice. So I thought, “self, you should write a blog post about this!”

. . . nine posts that are also videos later, it turns out I have a lot to say.

Welcome to my miniseries on public readings! Or maybe a not-so-mini-series — how many installments can you have before it isn’t mini any longer? But don’t worry. It isn’t nearly as intimidating and complicated as it sounds. I’m just verbose, digging into the rationale behind various decisions instead of simply dropping sound bites of advice on you. You can find the video accompaniment to this post on Youtube.

 

Let’s start with figuring out how much you’re going to read!

 

(more…)

The Advent of Scent, Week 5

Slightly late in posting this — but the explorations continue!

* Bubblegum & Rose (Haus of Gloi)
Described as “big round bubblegum bubbles with fruity tuberose blossoms.” Smells like exactly what it says on the tin . . . and much to my surprise, I think I kinda like it? It’s a little odd, because it’s sort of a rose perfume that intermittently gives off gusts of bubblegum smell (though those quiet down after a while), but I think whatever’s going on with the gum helps tamp down on the aspect of the rose that I usually find unappealing.

* Mama’s Porridge (Haus of Gloi)
Described as “brown sugar sweetened oatmeal with a spash of milk and a piece of buttery cinnamon sugar dusted toast.” I’m becoming fairly certain that I loathe the buttery/creamy corner of the scent spectrum. I’m fine with those things as food, but not on me. Eventually this fades to a decent cinnamon, but I do. not. like how it starts.

* Gnome
Described as “an explosive blend of effervescent golden ginger and black peppercorn with sarsaparilla, gurjum balsam, nutmeg, gear lubricant, and smoke.” Points for originality! And early on, there was a fresh, green scent I kind of liked. But then as it dried . . . they’re not joking about “gear lubricant.” I do not particularly want to smell like machine oil, thank you.

* Bliss
Described as “the serotonin-slathered scent of pure milk chocolate.” They aren’t kidding. And I presume there are people who want to smell like they spilled melted chocolate on themselves; I, however, am not one of them.

* Satyr (Haus of Gloi)
Described as “blood orange and vanilla.” Somehow those components manage to smell kind of like licorice early on. That fades, and this again wins some points for being different from most of what I have — but those points don’t make me like it.

* Old Cider Haus (Haus of Gloi)
Described as “old oak, sweet drying hay fields, crushed apple pulp and vanilla husks.” I think the vanilla might be what makes this come across initially as butterscotch. I don’t think I ever really picked up on the oak/hay elements, though; this was mostly just apple, and that faded.

* Horchata (Haus of Gloi)
Described as “vanilla kissed rice milk with a touch of cinnamon.” Further evidence that I do not like milky notes. But this one isn’t as off-putting as Mama’s Porridge was, and it mellows to quite a pleasant cinnamon vanilla. It’s going in the keeper pile for now.

* The Soft Lawn (Imaginary Authors)
Described as “linden blossom, laurel & ivy leaves, vetiver, oakmoss, fresh tennis balls, clay court.” My sister idiosyncratically declared this one “salad dressing,” apparently because it gave her a flashback to some kind of hoity-toity salad she had in the past; we wound up in the kitchen sniffing bottles from the spice cabinet to see if we could figure out what herb it was reminding her of. It’s very sharp and green and I’m not sure I actually like it . . . but I’m keeping it anyway, just because it’s very different from the majority of what I’ve tried, and if I come across anything else with one or more of those components, I’d like to be able to use this one for comparison.

And YOU get a book, and YOU get a book, and YOU get a book!

Y’all, there are so many giveaways right now for The Mask of Mirrors. In no particular order:

* Alyc and I are asking people to design a Rook and Rose cocktail and mocktail! (We want something celebratory to drink on the book’s release day.) You have until noon Pacific on Monday the 18th to send us a recipe for either one or both, with the only real restriction being that Alyc loathes all forms of gin, so probably best to avoid that. We’ll choose one winner in each category and send them a signed copy of The Mask of Mirrors, along with one of the gorgeous bookplates Orbit had made! (US only — our apologies to people overseas, though we still welcome recipe suggestions from you.) You can post your recipes here or on Twitter or Facebook, or send them via our site.

* Beneath Ceaseless Skies is running their own giveaway, ending Wednesday the 13th. All you have to do is respond to that post with your favorite caper/thief story published in BCS (and there’s a list of candidates to get you started). And in case you missed it, they have a Rook and Rose short story, too!

* And our publisher is running a giveaway, too! This one is open to both US residents and UK residents, with separate portals for each. That goes through the end of the month.

* Finally, you’ve got about two days left (as of this post going live) to enter a Booksweeps giveaway for fifty epic fantasy novels, The Mask of Mirrors included! That one ends in the wee hours of the morning for U.S. residents on Thursday the 14th.

Year 160 of the American Civil War

Today, armed terrorists waving the flag of the Confederate States of America attacked the United States government.

I said on Twitter, “I hope I see the end of the U.S. Civil War in my lifetime. It’s dragged on a century and a half already.” While that’s obviously crafted for the soundbite nature of Twitter, I’m not speaking tongue in cheek. I read a take some time ago (where, I cannot recall), which said that the Civil War had two phases. The first ended in 1865, with a victory by the Union; the second, which was called “Reconstruction,” ended in 1877 with a victory by the Confederacy. I think there’s a lot of truth in that . . . but I’m not sure it’s over even now. For a hundred and sixty years, people waving that flag have prosecuted their agenda of white supremacy with lethal violence. The intensity of the violence has ebbed and flowed, but it’s never stopped, and the flag has never truly fallen.

What happened today wasn’t a protest. It was an attempted coup by forces loyal to Confederate ideals, to overturn the results of a democratic election.

And it wasn’t unexpected. Nor was it just a few bad apples. For the terrorists to get inside the Capitol Building, one of two things has to be true: 1) the Capitol Police were shriekingly incompetent in their job of defense, or 2) they colluded with the terrorists. Since we have video of them removing the barriers, we know what the answer to that is. And even before that, twelve Republican senators — Marsha Blackburn (Tennessee), Mike Braun (Indiana), Ted Cruz (Texas), Steven Daines (Montana), Bill Hagerty (Tennessee), Josh Hawley (Missouri), Ron Johnson (Wisconsin), John Kennedy (Louisiana), James Lankford (Oklahoma), Kelly Loeffler (Georgia), Cynthia Lummis (Wyoming), Roger Marshall (Kansas), and Tommy Tuberville (Alabama) — had pledged to try to block the confirmation of Biden’s victory.

And what did Donald Trump do, when called upon to stop what he had incited?

He doubled down on saying the election had been stolen, and told his terrorist backers “We love you, you’re very special.”

The Republican Party has openly abandoned democracy in favor of white supremacy. I give no pass to those who aren’t in that list of twelve; anybody who is willing to stand up and be counted with the Republican cause is giving aid and comfort to this unprecedented attack on our system of government. There are a hundred examples of how peaceful protestors in movements like Black Lives Matter (but not remotely limited to that cause) were met with violence . . . but when white supremacists storm the Capitol, the police let them in and then try to talk them down nicely. Where are the tear gas canisters and the rubber bullets when terrorists break into congressional offices and get access to the computers and the files there? Saved for use against people of color, that’s where.

This is the result of the last four years, the last fifty years, the last hundred and sixty years, the last two hundred forty-five years, the last five hundred twenty-nine years. This is racism. This is white supremacy. This is an attack on the principles and practice of democracy, in favor of one ethnicity uber alles.

It has to stop.

The Advent of Scent, Week 4

No longer actually an advent calendar, unless I’m counting down to . . . some random time in February? But I might as well continue with that name for these posts.

* Cape Heartache (Imaginary Authors)
Described as “Douglas fir, pine resin, western hemlock, vanilla leaf, strawberry, old growth, and mountain fog.” Late in the process I get maaaaaybe a hint of vanilla leaf, but mostly I smell like HI I’M A FOREST. Which isn’t all that bad! (Though my nose misidentified that mix of trees as cedar, which I guess is nowhere in here.) Like O! Unknown, this has a very strong throw — I think I am using my new perfume terminology correctly? the tendency of the scent to kind of leap out and grab you? — which I’m starting to think is characteristic of Imaginary Authors’ woody scents in general, possibly aided and abetted by these being spray bottles instead of dipper sticks. I sort of wish I could just dab it on, rather than getting a big gust.

* Unmasking the Sambaso Dancer
Described as “king mandarin, passionfruit, Moroccan rose absolute, labdanum, and amber musk.” Sadly, the orange in this comes on strong, but fades very fast. When it was wet, I picked up something kind of . . . sharp? . . . which might have been the labdanum? (I haven’t encountered labdanum often enough to really know; it just doesn’t seem like it’s any of the other ingredients.) For a little while there was a floral overtone, but the whole thing didn’t really last.

* Liquid Gold Is [in] the Air
BPAL’s site and my bottle disagree on the exact name of this one. 😛 Described as “liquid gold cascading over parched earth: three glittering ambers, golden oud, golden apple, saffron, and orange blossom honey with vanilla husk and gilded cedar.” It’s deliciously apple-y in the bottle and wet, like you got the skins in there as well as the flesh, but as it started to dry the apples faded and I mostly got something sharp and kind of chemical-smelling that I think might be the oud (which I’ve seen described as “medicinal”). Not a fan.

* Pumpkin Peach [Patch? Queen?] (Haus of Gloi)
Haus of Gloi’s site does not list an oil called “Pumpkin Peach.” It has Pumpkin Patch, which is described as “dried leaves, twisted vines, orange pumpkins, golden amber and earth;” it also has Pumpkin Queen, described as “gentle hay pillows, pumpkin, ripe peaches dusted with clove and nutmeg, dried summer herbs and lastly, a lovely crown of amber.” Although Patch -> Peach is the more plausible typo, based on what I smelled, I’m more inclined to guess Queen: it started off as very buttery pumpkin, but as the butter note faded the spices came up, and something warm that I’m inclined to call amber. But what it really is doesn’t matter so much, because my reaction was, eh.

* HR2 Prototype
Still not sure what’s up with the bottles labeled “prototype,” as they are nowhere to be found on BPAL’s site or forum. This started off pretty nice, with eucalyptus and lemon and an undertone of what I suspect is champak, and for a little while the eucalyptus and champak balanced each other nicely . . . but as often happens with musk, the champak won that race, and left me with a fairly boring scent.

* Whispered Myths (Imaginary Authors)
Described as “natural Cambodian oud, cantaloupe, cedarwood, muskdana, honey, and salvaged shipwreck.” My notes for it start with “cantalOH THERE’S THE CEDAR.” Yeah, cedar pretty much beat up every other note in this perfume; it had a kind of spicy note for a while in the middle, but not for long. And again, this one was quite strong.

* Y’Ha-Nthlei
Described as “a swirling, lightless, effervescent scent: the deepest marine notes with bergamot, eucalyptus and foamy ambergris.” Dear god, in the bottle this straight-up smelled like soap. Interestingly — and in contrast with “A Cozy Sweater & an Apple Cider” — the soapiness actually faded with time; I started to pick up something else that might be the ambergris if I kind of sneaked up on it from the side. That lasted after the soap was gone, but only faintly, and not for long.

* Morocco
Described as “Arabian spices wind through a blend of warm musk, carnation, red sandalwood and cassia.” I think I quite enjoy this one! It had too much carnation for my sister’s taste, but I like how that lightens the sandalwood and spices. It’s going in the keeper pile.

A quick look back

Next year is going to involve more stuff of mine being published in the first two months than I had in the entirety of 2020, but sometimes that’s the way the publication schedule cookie crumbles.

I did, however, publish things this year! Two short stories:

  • “Cruel Sisters” at Daily Science Fiction (wherein I deal with a continuity error in a folksong), and
  • “The City of the Tree” at Uncanny Magazine (wherein I explore a different corner of the world of the Varekai novellas).

Book-wise, I put out Driftwood, which, if not one of the best things I’ve done (and it’s gotten enough rave reception in different places that it might well be up there), is certainly the most timely: this is, after all, the book Publishers Weekly described as “hope in the face of apocalypse.” May it continue to bring light where it is needed — as it likely will be for some time.

Come on, 2021. You will not solve all our woes on January 1st — one at least will need to wait for the 20th — but may you at least be a path up out of the underworld.

2020 in review; 2021 ahead

I’m not going to attempt to recap 2020 generally — we all know what it’s looked like, and mostly the answer is “on fire, literally and figuratively.” But last year I made a post about my writing resolution for the upcoming twelve months, and it’s got me thinking about the last several years.

In 2017 I wrote three short stories that weren’t for L5R, all three of them solicited for anthologies (though one of the three anthos folded after my story was drafted). That was . . . not super productive. So in 2018 I set myself the goal of writing six, one every two months — again, not counting L5R work, since the goal here was to start actually submitting short fiction again. I managed five, which was at least an increase over the previous year, though two of those five were for anthologies (one of which again folded). In 2019 I decided to aim for the same target again, and thanks to some unforeseen angst over whether I could let myself count flash — a thing I hadn’t written in ages, but apparently my brain found that gear again — I wound up with nine stories, six of them full-length, three of them flash.

But for 2020, I changed my goals. See, I had a feeling that politics was going to trash my ability to concentrate, so between that and the novel work I was contracted for, I felt it was better to scale my expectations down. Three short stories only, and hopefully three specific ones that would help me finish off some collections.

. . . I wrote twelve.

Nine full-length stories and three flash fell out of my head this year. Not because the world was in better shape than I expected, but because there appears to have been a huge split in how people responded to 2020: either it destroyed their ability to get anything creative done, or that became their refuge from the stress. (This also seems to have been true of reading.) I apparently fell into the latter camp, with the result that this has been my most productive short fiction year since . . . <checks records> . . . 2004. That year I wrote a whopping twenty-four pieces — but eighteen of those were flash; the total wordcount was nearly 8K less than this year’s.

(Oh, and also two novels. Admittedly Alyc and I wrote a quarter of the second Rook and Rose book last year — but even if I count only half of the part we wrote this year, that’s still 75K. Which is not all that much shorter than Night Parade in its entirety.)

(And also my Patreon, which is like 60K+ every single year.)

Weirdly, my productivity has actually become kind of a problem. I am literally writing short fiction faster than anybody’s buying it, and at this point the submissions pipeline is saturated. I’ve got three drafts I haven’t even tried to revise, because there’s nowhere for me to send them. Even if I thought I could top this year’s achievement, what would be the point?

So my goals for 2021 are winding up about the same as last year’s, only for totally different reasons. I owe a long short story or (more likely) a novelette to an anthology; I have those three drafts that need revision. There are two stories it would be nice to write, one of which is left over from my 2020 hit list (the other two got written), but I’m not going to push.

Of course, I didn’t mean to push this year, either. So who knows what will happen.

All the news that’s fit to link

First up: Book View Cafe is having a sale! From now through the end of the year, it’s half off on all our titles (with a $3.99 minimum purchase).

And speaking of sales, Rambo Academy for Wayward Writers is offering all of its on-demand courses for $5 each, also through the end of the year. (This is the venue through which I’ve taught “Writing Fight Scenes” a few times, and for which I intend to do an on-demand version, though it won’t be ready until next year.)

And speaking of teaching! On January 30th I will be doing a workshop on public readings through the Dream Foundry — register at that link. Attendance is free, though they gratefully accept donations to help defray the cost of paying their instructors.

And speaking of me being online! Because I’ve got The Mask of Mirrors coming out on January 19th and The Night Parade of 100 Demons coming out on February 2nd, it is Interview Season Ahoy around here. Alyc and I were interviewed about the former at Litcast of Doom, and I did one about the latter at Court Games (web link, Apple link, Spotify link).

And speaking of The Mask of Mirrors! Alyc and I have two cool events planned for January, which I’m giving you a heads-up for ahead of time: first, on book launch day (i.e. the 19th), at 7 p.m. Pacific we’ll be doing a live-streamed event at Mysterious Galaxy with Christopher Paolini. There will be signed books available! (Though it may take a while to get them to you, given the vagaries of shipping right now.) And we’re also doing an Orbit Live event on the 21st at 6 p.m. Pacific, this one with our fellow Orbiteer Andrea Stewart (author of The Bone Shard Daughter).

There will be more to come, I’m sure; in fact, we’ve already recorded several other podcasts that just aren’t up yet. But in the meanwhile, this should keep you busy!

The Advent of Scent, Week 3

This goes up through the 23rd. I decided not to test perfumes on the 24th and the 25th, because 1) BPAL’s Thieves’ Rosin smells like Christmas to me (pine resin, cinnamon, and other stuff I can’t ID), so I wanted to wear that instead, and 2) I really didn’t feel like playing roulette on the holidays, lest I wind up with something awful on me. <lol>

Lots of Haus of Gloi this time, but since my pattern has been to leave BPAL unmarked and mention the others, I’ll maintain that pattern.

* Black Fig, Oak Bark, and Brown Sugar
In the wet and early drydown stages this smelled distinctly like some kind of Yankee Candle — as in, I swear there was some kind of waxy element to it, like I was sniffing a candle with these scents in them. It eventually settled into fruity sweetness, but it’s not for me.

* Scarecrow (Haus of Gloi)
Described as “Dried corn husks, dust, straw, weathered wood and a ruffle of inky black feathers.” This actually legit smells like corn husks! There was briefly a delicate floral overtone, and later something that smelled like sandalwood to me, but the corn part stayed. It was unusual, and unlike a lot of the “unusual” combinations I’ve tried it wasn’t terrible, but I have a hard time imagining when I might say “this is what I want to smell like.”

* Kumbaya (Haus of Gloi)
The description says “Round the campfire with friends singing silly songs and making smores: chocolate, graham cracker, marshmallow, sandalwood, and woodsmoke.” I didn’t get pretty much any of that. It started out almost nauseatingly buttery, and resembled butterscotch quite strongly when the sugariness started to rise up. Very late in the game I could maaaaaaybe sniff out graham cracker and marshmallow, but on the whole, nope.

* ICD 17 Prototype
I have no idea what’s up with these “prototype” bottles, as I can’t find them listed on BPAL’s site, nor on the forum a friend linked me to. Anyhoo, this one launched very medicinally — my sister compared it to Vicks VapoRub — and while some resin came through later, it felt more like resin and cherries were having a duel on my wrist rather than anything particularly harmonious. Another nope.

* Garden of Earthly Delights (Haus of Gloi)
Described as “Soft amber bear musk, playful porcupine spike of pineapple, and crumbled leaves.” This one was sweet and fruity in the bottle, but with a bit of a sharpness that kept it from being cloying; on my wrist, the green “leaf” scent took prominence over the pineapple. Unfortunately, it faded rapidly to a boring musk. That seems to happen to me a lot . . .

* Springwater (Haus of Gloi)
Described as “Cool water, mossy river stones, and mineral rich silt.” This one actually worked fairly nicely! It was the second of three perfumes in a row to basically swap their balance from bottle to wet; it was floral and cucumber, then cucumber and floral. The balance of the two wound up being very nice and fresh, quite unlike what I expect of florals. This one I can imagine wearing as a spring or early summer kind of thing; I will certainly try it again, and possibly keep it.

* Sanctum (Haus of Gloi)
Described as “Muskmelon, coconut water infused with bergamot flower, kaffir lime, polished ho wood and sticky benzoin.” I don’t know what ho wood smells like, and I haven’t tried enough perfumes with benzoin to pick that one out either, so I don’t know what brought in the warmer scent along the way. But this did the same initial swap as the previous two, this time with melon and lime; then the lime sort of faded out, but the melon struck a nice balance with the coconut. (My sister, who hates the smell of coconut, didn’t make faces like she wanted to cut my arm off to make it go away.) I could see wearing this one at the beach! . . . as if I ever go to the beach, but you know what I mean.

* Fair Maiden Side-Eye
Can’t find this one on BPAL’s site, either, but the forum had people agreeing that it smells very . . . pink. In a bubblegum-ish way, at least to my nose, with some kind of spice like cinnamon early on. It very rapidly dried to vanilla musk, though, which is ever so slightly less boring than plain musk, but still not interesting.

The Advent of Scent, Week 2

(For values of an eight-day “week” again.)

All scents from BPAL unless otherwise specified.

* O, Unknown! (Imaginary Authors)
Probably the current leader in the “fascinating but also NO” sweepstakes. Described as “black tea, lapsang souchong tincture, orris butter, Kyoto moss, musk balsam, and sandalwood.” Because Imaginary Authors sell their samples in tiny spray bottles, I learned the valuable lesson that I should not sniff immediately after application; all I will get is a snootful of alcohol fumes. 😛 After a brief flirtation with spiciness, it settled down into something firmly earthy and smoky (I’m guessing that’s mostly the moss and the lapsang souchong) — and also OVERPOWERING. I tried taking it off with acetone, which didn’t work, and then with olive oil, which did, unlike my previous removal experiment with it. Seriously, though, after a couple of hours this had gone from “this is interestingly different but not for me” to “oh god is it actually getting stronger with time?”

* Caramel Apple Pops (House of Gloi)
Initially the sweetness of this was really reminiscent of maple more than caramel. Eventually it settled into exactly what it says on the tin, which was fine, but I don’t like it quite as much as BPAL’s Honeyed Apple.

* Flesh of My Flesh
Described as “bitter almond, amber, champak, labdanum, musk, black orchid, and vanilla.” I’ve got champak-based incense, so that part of the scent was very recognizable. Especially in the early stages, though . . . the only way I can describe it is that something smelled cold. I have no idea what that is!

* Où Sont les Jouets, S’il Vous Plait?
Exactly what the description says: strawberries, raspberries, and French vanilla. Didn’t change noticeably at any point in the process. In fact, y’all, I still smell like fruity vanilla on my right wrist FOUR DAYS LATER. What the &#@$!%? Is this normal???

* Shub-Niggurath
Described as “A blend of ritual herbs and dark resins, shot through with three gingers and aphrodisiacal spices.” In the bottle this had a faintly musty tinge, which fortunately didn’t come through in application. However, it was also strong enough that the traces I spilled on myself in opening the vial were sufficient. (Any advice for getting those tiny ampoules open without spilling them on yourself?) It starts out as ginger, transitions to spices, and then the resin comes through. It was vivid, but almost too strong for me.

* Cardamom Cream Pumpkin Cake
Starts out very buttery/creamy; the spices come through later, but at no point did I get much pumpkin from it. Overall it was nice, but not distinctive. Also, I still smelled like cardamom a day later — which, given that my other wrist still smelled of fruit from two days before this, meant that for the following day, I had to spray the inside of my forearm to avoid layering scents.

* Memoirs of a Trespasser (Imaginary Authors)
Described as “Madagascar vanilla, guaiacwood, myrrh, benzoin resin, ambrette seeds, and oak barrels.” Initially there was a sort of green note to it; I’m not familiar enough yet with perfume components to know if that was the guaiac or what. Over time the myrrh came out, along with something sort of warm that I think might be the benzoin, the ambrette, or both? I didn’t mind this one, though I don’t know if I’d wear it very often. Like O, Unknown!, it was quite strong.

* A Cozy Sweater & an Apple Cider
Started off promisingly enough with some faintly apple-y cider . . . but then it straight up turned into soap. Oh well.

Bonus coda: I mentioned before that I was curious how BPAL’s Wolf’s Heart (which on me was “horrific quantities of laundry detergent” followed by “baby powder”) would behave with different skin chemistry. My sister agreed to play guinea pig — and hey, on her we can actually pick up the lilac! It’s still definitely floral, and I can see how it gets from that to what happened on me, but on her it’s a much more tolerable scent (even if it’s not what either of us would choose). So, yes, skin chemistry: it’s a thing. Her skin also ate Memoirs of a Trespasser in about an hour flat; it wasn’t nearly as strong and lasting on her.

Ninety days of navel-gazing

For several years now I’ve been intermittently trying to get into the habit of meditating.

For the first time, I think I may be succeeding.

You’ll see all kinds of stuff online declaring that it takes twenty-one days to form a habit. Or thirty. Or sixty. I went digging on this, and unsurprisingly, the actual answer varies wildly — not to mention that I wonder how the researchers who study this can actually tell. How do you detect “a habit” versus something you’ve been doing daily but it isn’t really ingrained yet? I think I have genuinely developed one in my Duolingo Japanese practice; I managed to keep my nose to the grinder long enough to achieve a 365-day streak, and in the month plus since then, I still haven’t missed a day. There aren’t any more achievements for me to unlock in the program, but I keep doing it anyway.

I’m a little over ninety days into the meditation practice/habit/what have you. Ninety-two, I think, but there was one day around 75 where I didn’t get my sitting done until after midnight, which broke my streak in the app I’m using. I did still meditate that “day,” though (defining that as a span of time between me waking and going to sleep), so it counts. This is longer than I’ve ever managed before, and I think I know why.

See, in the past I’ve started small and tried to build. If I’m doing well with ten minutes, I try for fifteen, or twenty. (I don’t think I’ve ever shot for more than twenty.) There’s certainly a benefit to going for longer, but this time I decided to prioritize the habit over the duration — it’s easy to squeeze ten minutes from my day, and definitely saves my bacon when I realize that oh crap, it’s 11:45, I need to sit down right now. And I think that’s contributing very substantially to my success in keeping this up. I don’t know if it’s a genuine habit yet, in the way Duolingo is, but it’s getting there. When it’s realio trulio ingrained, I’ll think about adding five or ten minutes to my regimen. But that might not be until some time next year. One study said the time needed for habit formation could range as high as 254 days (again, how do they tell???), so if I’m still just doing ten minutes come next June, that’s fine. The important thing will be that I am still doing it.

Is it making a difference? I think so. I’m just doing basic mindfulness, and I do think it’s improved my concentration and memory a bit. I also credit the equanimity I managed to maintain through election season to the fact that I started back in on this in early September, specifically because I knew I was likely to need something to keep me from losing my shit.

But what I do know is that I (mostly) don’t mind doing this anymore. It’s becoming routine. I think it would be better if I could manage anything like consistency in when I sit down . . . but what matters is that I’m doing this.