Popping in to say HI on a milestone birthday. I was born on Henry David Thoreau’s birthday, the same year Star Trek had its debut. I am happy to count them both as influences. This past year has been full of personal change, and the next promises to follow suit.

I’m ready to start the next half century. Big plans. I’ll clue you in on a later day. For now, I wish you candles and wonder and abundance and, for us all, tranquility as needed.

I don’t like to talk much about having systemic lupus. Illness is tedious enough living through; talking about it is boring. And if I’m well enough to write, I’d much prefer writing about something else! I’ve got some friends, though, new to dealing with serious health issues. I’ve got a couple of decades experience here, though, so when they ask me for coping mechanisms, I may have something useful to share.

Sometimes my chronic illness keeps me from writing. Or reading. Or, you know, walking. Or moving much at all. Cats and colored pencils are handy for those times when I’m achy and my brain doesn’t want to hold words. Unlike paint, they don’t wreak havoc if you lose energy unexpectedly. A colored pencil might drop and break, but it’s rare for them to damage your surroundings. A cat is likely to curl up companionably and take a nap, a furry heating pad that fends off feelings of isolation.

And for someone with memory issues, unlike writing a novel, stopping in the middle of a colored pencil piece won’t leave you scrambling to remember where you were going with it. In times when I’m physically fragile, I tend to be emotionally fragile, too. Carefully setting myself up to succeed is important. For some reason, my self-esteem is more likely to be tangled up with my writing outcome than my visual art outcome; your own sensitive areas may be different. I suspect that may be part of the reason for the surge in popularity of coloring books for adults: a creative outlet in which the ego is not so involved.

A cat and colored pencils, some kibble and a pencil sharpener handy, and those long challenging hours may turn into quiet creative time. Having a buddy and a simple occupation to engage the hand and mind can go a long way to staving off the mental funk that a chronic illness can carry with it.

And sometimes, you even end up with something you like. I don’t know that I’d have had the patience and commitment of time to make things like the above piece if I weren’t forced to stillness. Years after her passing, this colored pencil portrait of our cat summons warm memories of her, and our hours together with couch, pencil, blanket, pillow, peace.

 

Had fun this evening chatting with R.A. (Bertie) MacAvoy and the dapper Doc Coleman for the Balticon podcast. Of course, AS SOON as you’re off the phone, you think of all the interesting places to take the conversation. Still, I had a good time. (Remind me to take Doc and his wife out for a refreshing beverage next time I’m in Baltimore.)

Here’s hoping I didn’t hog the mic! Before meeting me in person, Bertie was afraid that, being a verbally expressive individual, she’d never give me an opportunity to get a word in edgewise. She learned pretty quickly that this wasn’t to be the case.

At least it wasn’t a video interview, so everyone’s spared my expressive gestures.

I think there was a very minimal amount of people talking over each other; impressive considering that we had an audio meeting of three people who, essentially, tell stories for a living.

Doc was very kind and entertaining. Should take a couple of weeks before the ‘cast is edited and available for download. I’ll keep you posted.  Meanwhile, give some of the back episodes a listen!

 

I recently read a fantastic novel that Bertie recommended. It’s Leah Bobet’s An Inheritance of Ashes. I don’t often review books, and I especially don’t usually rate books with stars or numbers or other things that can  be calculated coldly, but I wanted to make sure that my friends didn’t miss this one. Bertie and I have each written reviews over on Goodreads, and you can see them there. A review isn’t the point of this post.

What I came here to say is that many of us creative folks are strangely vulnerable to beauty and craftsmanship. When a work really strikes us, it can really strike us: a blow to the creative spirit. There’s a potential danger then of invidious comparisons to our own strivings. I found myself prey to this a couple of times during this reading: this thought, this emotion, so perfectly conveyed! And then the sneaking corollary: what could I ever say to equal that? I’ve never been a jealous writer. I have, however, been a despairing writer. And it’s important to train yourself to let that feeling go.

I’m just putting this out here so that if you’re that vulnerable creative, and you’ve been struck painfully by some drawing or painting or story or elegant mathematical explanation: know that you’re not alone in that momentary experience of pure inadequacy. And that while this piece of creation you’re observing is wonderful, true, please note that it is not only okay but essential that what you are creating is not the same. You are not Leah Bobet (unless you are Leah Bobet stopping by, in which case HI!), nor are you Michelangelo (unless you are, in which case WEIRD and please drop me an e-mail).

Similarly, the person who will be the observer of your work is not you. And you never know when the creation you release into the world will be just what resonates to that other person.

Somebody may be waiting for what you have to say.

 

It’s Saturday niiiiiight!

If you’re attending Balticon, Bertie has a reading tomorrow at 5. St. George room! Come find us! We’ve enjoyed meeting everyone… Thanks for all the support! 

Joe Haldeman is an artist, poet, teacher, and amateur astronomer who has also been writing science fiction for rather a significant number of years (his first Worldcon was 1963). He’s living in Gainesville now. I’m not sure why this startles me, to find him so relatively near, but I am unreasonably delighted by this, and to learn that he takes part in a weekly life drawing class. He works with ink, watercolor, pastels, and oils. In addition to, you know: writing. He’s got multiple projects in the works. Reading his blog revealed that he does this writing with a fountain pen. And not even a cartridge-filled fountain pen!

(No, I’m not even tempted. Open bottles of ink and I have a long history of … let’s call them mishaps.)

Why does this matter? Well, if you join me in reading his award-winning novella, The Hemingway Hoax, you’ll understand the hint I’m making about the nature of parallel universes, and the very faint question of if the ones in which I read that story might result in my attempting to forge create a pastiche of a Haldeman book, in which case I’d need to know about that fountain pen. The book is set in Key West, and quite captures the air of the place. Haldeman’s experience as a veteran wounded in action adds an intense realism, which is useful groundwork before playing fast and loose with the universe as we know it. It revolves around the proposed creation of counterfeit Hemingway texts, and the complex human motivations surrounding such an attempt.

The layering of multiple universes is complex; I’m not going to attempt a plot summary, as that’s not my job here, and I can’t do it without spoilers. There are Large Questions in this short book. It’s not a work to read without time to think. Characters both develop and become more fuzzy. The plot progresses, and doesn’t, and shatters, and what you think is happening is not what is happening. Sometimes, saving the world is not the desired outcome. Or even, perhaps, possible. This is a fascinating, sometimes dizzying, read. Please, nobody press me to describe it in three sentences, because that’s when someone surely will take a video of me gibbering for several minutes. Let me just point out that this book picked up both a Hugo and a Nebula. If you want to stretch your brain in interesting ways without pharmaceuticals, this book will do it. (Not one for the wee kids.)

While I chose to read an older book, Joe Haldeman is still an active writer. He keeps a daily diary, so you can keep up with his publications and other doings.

Cat status: undetermined, although his well-known Forever War includes a calico ship’s cat, initially hated by the dog-preferring protagonist (but dogs can’t adapt to free fall), that does end up purring in his lap at one point. Spoiler alert: don’t get too attached.

 

Jo Walton’s moving,

wrapped in grace,

wrapped in pain

down a flight of improbable stairs:

it has been an unlikely journey.

Jo Walton’s moving.

Words as lever,

thoughts as engine.

Down tumble ideas, improbable stones,

Flowing concepts: the pathways of legend.

Jo Walton’s moving,

understated grace,

understanding silence.

Tradition’s unexpected wild offspring:

fresh steps on a long winding spiral.

Next up in our Great Balticon Readathon is Jo Walton’s Just City, which she informs us we must read first before The Philosopher Kings (Book 2) and Necessity (Book 3). I am happy to note that Necessity has a release date of MY BIRTHDAY, July 12, 2016. Not that I’d do anything like be so crass as to drop a gift hint to my husband in my blog. Oh no. Not me.

Plato’s Republic is a sort of thought experiment on what the ideally just society could look like, written by a man with a great deal of genius, but perhaps not as much practical knowledge as such an undertaking might involve.  In this book, Jo Walton makes her own thought experiment, and places Plato’s theories into a version of our world. Overall concept of the book, or as far as I can go without spoilers: time-traveling goddess Athena actually tries this experiment with real 10-year-olds, and a comparatively small number of intellectuals and philosophers gathered from throughout time.

Other primary characters are Apollo, who chooses temporary mortality as a path to learning about volition, and a young female citizen of this ideal city. Excellent use of changing narrative views. Also strongly present: assorted Famous Personages from History whom you may recognize, robot servitors from the future, and a diverse cross section of young people handily poised to demonstrate a wide range of possible responses to living in such an environment.

I appreciated her deft hand with history, art, religion: informative, but not pedantic. Good characterization, interesting plot, but definitely a work of the mind. The space opera set may not find this to be their book, but it’s a genre-jumper for those interested in history, philosophy, mythology, or the many faces of love.

Just City was inspired by the reading of Plato’s Republic by then 15-year-old Jo Walton. (Wish I’d known her then. She and then 13-year-old-me could have had quite the conversation. I’d have insisted on dragging in Shakespeare, though, so maybe it’s better that it took this long for me to find her.)  30 years, 10 novels, and many awards later, she revisited her early idea and created an engrossing story of the pursuit of justice and excellence. I’m so glad she did.

Jo Walton writes lots and lots of poetry. Lots. She’s more proficient at it than I am. You can see more of it on her blog, as well as links to excerpts from some of her prose works on her author page. If I’m given the opportunity to talk to Jo Walton at Balticon, I’m not sure what we’ll discuss. Perhaps the works of Sandro Botticelli, and the stupidity of humans that makes them destroy art for ideology. Or, if she doesn’t want to engage in the mutual gnashing of teeth, perhaps I’ll introduce the subject of blackberry crumble.

Cat status: undetermined, but there’s a photo online of her comforting a stone lion.