May 2008 Archives

We got back from Cabo late last afternoon, mostly no worse for wear; Kate had a run in with a jellyfish (as did I to a much smaller degree) that left her less than a hundred percent, and I think we're both running a little low-energy, but otherwise, everything is good. The trip was a lot of fun, though it was more of, say, a "resort vacation" than a "Mexico vacation." In either case, it was a wonderful chunk of quality together time, interrupted at scheduled times with parasailing, snorkeling, and sunset sailing excursions.

While driving up the Pacific coastline in a rental car on Sunday, Kate and I discussed the different kinds of a vacation options a person really has. Those options we boiled down into a kind of grid on which "Things to Do" was one axis and "Things to See" was the other. Our Prague trip was very strongly on the "Things to See" end of things, which Cabo was definitely full of "Things to Do" (even when those things are "sit around the pool and read while people bring you margaritas").

Some vacations or vacation locations are more successful at blending the two basic types. Likewise, certain people might enjoy a mix, or at least can do one and then the other and enjoy both (we are two such people).

Trouble arises, however, when you try (for instance) to fill a day with Things to See in a locale that's entirely (and unapologetically) geared for Things to Do (or vice versa). Ironically, we were actually en route to make EXACTLY THAT MISTAKE on Sunday, while we were having this conversation. Lesson learned -- something to file away for the next grand adventure.

Right. We're home again, the little girl is wonderful, the dogs are exuberant, and Other Things are going on...

* The author of one of the games I'm editing is wilting in the face of unenthusiastic playtest reviews. I'm trying to shore up his resolve and enjoyment for the game he himself invented, but I don't know if I had much impact. It may be as he says -- that I am one of the game's biggest fans and truest member of its target audience. We'll see. For now, I'll work on other things.

* The little writing project I mentioned last week is ch-ch-chugging along. One person (of course) was told what it was, and was visibly nonplussed, but I'll keep at it at least for a little while, because I'm enjoying it, and I like it when I can entertain myself.

* Gregory Frost, best known and recognized for solid short story work, has turned that knack into a full length novel through the charming and engaging trick of making a storyteller his main character. That novel is Shadowbridge, the first in a two-part fantasy that I want to recommend. You'll find I don't recommend books nearly as much as I do movies or television, so take from that what you will. It's good. It's entertaining, and it often interrupted other good vacation activities (drinking, napping, sleeping) so that I could read a bit more. For those who don't like starting unfinished series, rest assured that the sequel is already out.

* My sister seems to think Kate and I should run a half-marathon. In the middle of summer. In South Dakota. She's absolutely, wall-bouncingly mad, but I love her. Family, you know...

In no particular order...

• Terry Pratchett is a funny, funny man. And wise; his commentary on change and how people react to it is worth a post all its own, at some point in the future when I'm not blogging via a ridiculously overpriced hotel connection.
• Ninjas -- successful ones, at any rate -- would never wear flip flops.
• I have a good book you should read, that I guarantee you've never read. More later.
• All sand is not created equal. The sand of Los Cabos, for example, reminds you rather constantly of its origin as pulverized, sharp rock; and that the pulverizing process itself was not particularly thorough.
• Respect riptides.

And finally, this bit of wisdom, as we walked along the fairly ironic Lover's Beach:

"They said they filmed part of Planet of the Apes here."
"Who did?"
"The people I was eavesdropping on."
"Huh. The first one, or the new one?"
"I don't know. There's only so much information you can get from eavesdropping."

See you all in a few days. In the meantime, expect radio silence -- my indulgences are reserved for somewhat more important things like local crafts, local food, and local beer.

It does not bode well for your activity level during the day when you resort to hitting "Random Entry" on Wikipedia in hopes of reading something interesting.

Particularly sad when, upon doing so for 10 minutes, the most interesting entry you get is on a former Real World star-turned-professional-wrestler, and the other random entries include three appearances of the same small township in Germany.

After all the hubbub surrounding the wedding/New York trip/sightseeing with the family/visiting with my agent, the last few weeks have been nigh on bucolic... complete with wolf-attacks*, granted, but still... It's been a lot of house-cleaning, donating of old stuff to charity, planting new things in the front yard and on the back deck.

In a few days, Kate and I head to Los Cabos for our honeymoon -- the sort of vacation that involves very little activity and a fair number of books and margaritas -- if anyone has any fun suggestions on things to do or see while lounging under the seaside sun**, please drop them in the comments.

Aside from that, I'd like to talk about this little writing project I started up, but not quite yet: I think I'm going to work on it a bit, first, and then reveal it once it picks up a bit more steam. This I will say: like Storyball, it's a kind of writing outlet (and game, of course also a kind of game), combined with my own dependable addiction to futzing around with new web technologies.

More later: in the meantime, I'll keep typing away and might have something fun to share in a few weeks.

* - There was no actual wolf attack, though my grandchildren might hear a far different story when and if they ever ask about the no-doubt handsome scar running along the side of my left thumb. And the back of my hand. And the ones on my feet. And big toe. Ouch.

** - Ahhh, sun. The dependable sun of a desert resort, not the inconstant and fickle Denver sun, which is blazingly uncomfortable one day, and hiding under a cloudy blanket of sleet and rain the next. The great irony of the phrase global warming is that the specific results are more shocking locally, and only involve extremes of heat about half the time.

Your friends are not playing the same game you are.

You friends are not reading the same book you are. (Hell, my friends aren't even reading the same book that I write.)

Your Friends Are Not Watching the Same Show You Are.

Your $x (whatever your reason for it) is not some fragile vase that is going to shatter the second you $y. It is as strong as you decide it is, and the boundaries are where you set them.

I’m sure that this is obvious to other people, but it is not obvious to me: it’s okay if I’m not perfect. Really, it is. My writing is not some fragile vase that is going to shatter the second I split an infinitive.

It's an interesting post -- the way I read it, it's about paralyzing yourself with the fear that you're going to fail.

Here's a post I wrote back in 2001.

Part of reason that I'm not more involved in 'traditional' creative writing is that I'm comfortable with what I'm doing already: I'm good at it. I'm starting to realize, though, that sometimes you need to do things you suck at.
Failing is the thing we fear, but failing the only way we change; it's absolutely natural. School teaches us to fear failure -- by extension, we learn to fear change.

I don't know that I have a whole lot to add to those two quoted passaged, even after this much time has passed.

I'm working my way down the road one dangerously comfortable rest area at a time, trying to reach places I've never been before, doing things that, if you'd asked me five years ago, I would have been entirely unsure about.

Things that I will, without down, fail at the first time.

I hate that, but at the same time, it's my favorite part.

The more new things we try — the more we step outside our comfort zone — the more inherently creative we become.

It's 1987, you're a child, and your family videotapes you dancing to a then-popular song.

What do you do, 20 years later?

You dance with your childself.

Watch all the way through. Guaranteed to make you smile, even if you're covered in bruises and lacerations from breaking up a dog fight a few days ago.

John Scalzi on why many adult science-fiction and fantasy authors are missing out on the best sci-fi and fantasy being written today.

Last week, the top 50 YA SF/F bestsellers outsold the top 100 adult SF/F bestsellers (adult SF and F are separate lists) by two to one. So 50 YA titles are selling twice as much as 100 adult SF/F titles. The bestselling YA fantasy book last week (not a Harry Potter book) outsold the bestselling adult fantasy book by nearly four to one; the bestselling YA science fiction title sold three copies for every two copies of the chart-topping adult SF title. And as a final kick in the teeth, YA SF/F is amply represented at top of the general bestselling charts of YA book sales, whereas adult SF/F struggles to get onto the general bestselling adult fiction charts at all.

That serious adult science fiction/fantasy readers don’t seem to know any of this is a) a feature of the opaque nature of book sales, in which no one publicly talks about actual units sold and b) a feature of the apparent short-sightedness of adult sf/f readers, who are missing a genuine literary revolution in their genre because the YA section is a blank spot on the map to them, if not to everyone else. “Here there be dragons” has been replaced by “Here there be pre-teens” or something of the sort. This attitude is especially puzzling when you consider how many SF/F readers got their start with books like the Heinlein juvies, the fantasies of Susan Cooper and John Christopher and Madeleine L’Engle and so on.

I’ve said it before and I’m sure I’ll say it again: The most significant SF writer right now is Scott Westerfeld, whom it seems most adult science fiction fans still have not read and indeed barely know exists. In a sane world, Westerfeld would be a hero to adult science fiction readers, because he’s pretty much single-handedly flown the flag for science fiction to teenagers, thus saving the genre’s bacon for another 20 years. But: He’s YA. So he doesn’t count.

In my local group of reading-friends, one of the most voracious of readers has few if any qualms about picked up, devouring, and sharing out many YA titles. Most, however, have probably never even looked twice at (or heard of) Pretties/Uglies -- I have heard of them only because Kate specializes in YA and middle-grade fiction, and adores the series... I'm ashamed to admit I haven't read them myself.

Yet.

Pretty sad, considering the kinds of stories I write.

Last night, for no particular reason, I moved from 'folding laundry and putting things away' to 'cleaning out the closets' mode, and ended up putting four bags of (clean, entirely serviceable) clothes out by the front door to be donated to charity. We'll probably drop them off tomorrow, since we're also dropping off some old computers for specialized recycling, and donating the chairs from an dining room set that we replaced during the wedding (the old table is going to meet a circular saw and become a couple of bookshelves in the kitchen area). In addition, we're replacing our suddenly-non-functional dishwasher this weekend, and need to figure out a way to get the old washing machine and a (regrettably) broken elliptical machine out of the basement. It's a spring cleaning extravaganza, and has me eyeing the rest of the house with a hungry, contemplative expression.

Time to get rid of a little clutter...

Now, to be fair, neither I (nor Kate) are generally predisposed to clutter in the first place, so it's not as though the house is that bad. Large stacks of papers don't last very long. Counter tops stay relatively clear. Rooms themselves aren't usually burdened with too much furniture: I've lived here for over half a decade and the front living room has gone entirely unfurnished for that entire time - until it came into service as a play room for my daughter. The wide, empty space suited me just fine -- it was one less thing that needed straightening or organizing when people came over.

I like open space in a house, and Kate's lived in New York apartments most of her adult life, where a walk-in closet is worth more than a bedroom the size of a walk-in closet -- I think she's still getting used to the idea that our living space has square feet measurements with four digits. (You should see her in the local supermarket; it's like Robin Williams in Moscow on the Hudson.)

And yet... what few knick knack shelves I have brim to overflowing with current and not-so photos of friends and family, and I definitely have problems with keeping things that I will never, ever, EVER use or interact with again in my life, but which carry some nearly-forgotten sentimental importance; while the open space in my house is pretty clear, closets and drawers often brim to overflowing.

Every so often, I give such things a stern look and start tossing.

That's how the closet clearing came about. By rights, I shouldn't have any more old clothes left to throw out -- I've dropped 60 pounds in the last five years and kept it off, and have long since donated any and all clothing that old-me needed around; well over a dozen trash bags of L, XL, XXL, and even some XXXL stuff over the last half-decade -- what I'm taking to Goodwill tomorrow are bags of t-shirts with logos I no longer find funny, shirts I still like but will never wear because they're four sizes too big, gifts that I never wore and never will, and even a couple old suits and sports jackets that I kept around 'just in case', even though they make me look like a dressed up scarecrow in a fat man's field. It was all just junk I didn't really need but didn't have the guts to throw out at the time.

Weeks like this are freeing and a bit traumatic at the same time. I really, truly, LOVE clearing junk out of the house -- I love the feeling that there's more air to breathe, thanks to the open space created -- at the same time, everything we own has a memory and emotion attached to it; we like the person who gave us that shirt, even though we'll never wear a doubleknit maroon macramé tank top. If I could look at a pile of stuff and know which things I'll need and which I'll never use again, things would be simple, but it almost never is.

It helps (tremendously) not to think about the STUFF itself, and focus on what you want to accomplish, but it's still hard.

Hopefully, the pay off (a clean, shiny, junk-free -reduced living space next week) will be worth it.

Edit to add: Kate wanted me to mention a book that came in for me via Amazon this morning: It's All Too Much, by TLC Clean Sweep guru Peter Walsh. Its arrival is a nice bit of synchronicity, but I didn't mention it in the post because (a) I've only read the marginally schmaltzy introduction and (b) the book was actually purchased as research for a "working smarter" training project I'm developing at the new job.

... cancel that: there's no need for alarm -- this is just what it's like to live in Colorado in the spring.