Marie Brennan's Blog, page 53

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 . . . . . . 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.

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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!

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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.

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.

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New Worlds: Let’s Have a Parade!

This week on the New Worlds Patreon, not all holidays involve a parade, and not all parades are for holidays — but let’s take a look at them! Comment over there.

Merry Christmas to those of you celebrating it today, and may all of you have a lovely day regardless! Keep safe, keep healthy, and I will see you next year.

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Year Three is in print at last!

It took months longer than usual (for which I apologize), but you can finally get the New Worlds, Year Three collection in its print edition! And I promise I will get Year Four out in a more timely fashion . . .

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New Worlds: How to Celebrate

This week the New Worlds Patreon acknowledges that we observe holidays in many different ways. Wherever you are and whatever holiday you may be celebrating, please stay safe, so that we’ll still have you around next year.

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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.

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.

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New Worlds: Secular Holidays

From the sacred we turn to the secular, with the New Worlds Patreon taking on holidays from the Fourth of July to Mother’s Day to International Talk Like a Pirate Day. Comment over there!

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Books read, November 2020

Hall of Smoke, H.M. Long. (Disclosure: I was sent this book for blurbing purposes, though I didn’t manage to read it in time for that.) This is a single-volume epic fantasy that does some interesting things on the level of its cosmological worldbuilding, with layers of “what constitutes a god” and so forth that I can’t talk much about without spoiling things. I really enjoyed that aspect, but it took me a while to get into the story itself, simply for a structural reason: the plot setup means that for a very large chunk of the book, the only character you get real continuity with is the protagonist, and in a more distant sense, her goddess. Later on some of the characters you met in the early part come back, but there was a long stretch where there weren’t really any ongoing relationships (in any sense, not just the romantic) being explored and developed. It turns out that’s a major part of how I attach to a story, so it was a little frustrating that every time I started to get invested in a particular place and set of people, they went away and got replaced by other places and other people. The momentum very much picked up for me once that changed.

Elatsoe, Darcie Little Badger. I made an effort to tilt my reading in the direction of indigenous North American authors for November, aided and abetted by two recent releases I was really looking forward to. This is the first, from a Lipan Apache author, and IT’S SET IN TEXAS, Y’ALL. Admittedly in fictional towns, so that there wasn’t any specific recognition of place for me, but still! Texas! Ahem. More broadly, this is set in a world where magic is known, and there are some really well-done answers to how different kinds of supernatural stuff collide: European stories are talked about like an invasive species, with the indigenous monsters of the plains being driven out by monotonous fields of corn with haunted scarecrows in them. (And I loved a certain moment about vampires and what it means for them to enter someone’s home. If you’ve read the book, you know what I mean.) The antagonist setup was interestingly creepy, too. Very much recommended.

Black Sun, Rebecca Roanhorse. And this is the second of those releases. Epic fantasy, but first in a series, in a setting that draws on both Mesoamerica and the Tewa, from an author who’s Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo and Black. I found one of the protagonists a little frustrating because she is an amazingly bad leader — seriously, she tries to implement some major changes to her organization with no discernible base of political support, and then seems surprised when that goes poorly — and I wish one of the characters had been introduced sooner and developed more, because he appears to be much more central to the story than his page time would suggest. But I very much like the setting, both in its source material and its inventions, and I like the other main characters, so I will definitely read on when the next volume arrives.

The Dead Go to Seattle, Vivian Faith Prescott. Recommended to me online when I said I was looking for fantasy from indigenous authors. This is a collection of short stories centered on the community of Wrangell, which is a mix of Tlingit, Scandinavian, and other groups. The overall tone is more literary than my usual fare (let’s face it, I tend more toward things like Black Sun), but I liked the way it slid between different modes of storytelling and also different time periods — it is very much wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff in places.

The Midnight Bargain, C.L. Polk. Secondary-world Regency-styled fantasy with a premise that is very standard, which Polk then proceeds to execute in a much more interesting fashion. We’ve seen many stories with a setup where the heroine has to choose between marrying well to support her family, and chasing her true desire . . . but Polk skews that by giving her a potential husband who is handsome, accomplished, intelligent, wealthy, respectful of the heroine, and in love with her. So what’s on the other side of that stacked deck? What the heroine wants is magic, and the worldbuilding here is very deliberately crafted such that even a respectful husband who supports her dreams would mean she can’t achieve the goal she’s been aiming for her whole life. There was one spot where it started to feel to me like the magic system was a little too precisely machined so as to block off possible avenues of cake having + eating, but that didn’t stop this from being the first book in quite a while to make me stay up past even my egregiously late bedtime because I didn’t want to put it down. In the end, I think my only real complaint is that the grimoires wound up almost being macguffins. I half-expected there to be important answers and solutions hidden within their pages, but all the characters really used them for was that one ritual they wanted to carry out, and then the actual resolution of the “how do you have your cake and eat it, too?” question got resolved very much offstage. If this book had explored that aspect of things as thoroughly as the other elements, it would have been an absolute knockout.

The Radiant Lives of Animals, Linda Hogan. Nonfiction and poetry from a Chickasaw author, very much focused on nature and our relationship with it — which, hey, is a thing I’ve been trying to improve in my own writing! So this was quite relevant to my interests. It’s short and beautifully written, and illustrated with lovely stylized pen-and-ink imagery throughout.

Race to the Sun, Rebecca Roanhorse. I’ve gotten behind on the Rick Riordan Presents imprint, so this seemed like a good time to pick up a different Roanhorse title. This one explores Navajo mythology, and I really liked the communal aspect of it: not just the fact that the heroine goes on her adventure with several other people in tow, but that the Monsterslayer thing is part of a distinct tradition that plays a major role in how the story unfolds. I don’t know if there will be more, but I would gladly read a sequel.

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