Marie Brennan's Blog, page 67
January 27, 2020
Things they never teach you
Writing advice books tend to go into great detail on things like how to structure your plot, or develop character, or describe things, or whatever.
They do not — in my limited experience; hence this post — bother to say much about how to decide where to break chapters, scenes, or paragraphs, apart from telling you to start a new paragraph if you’re switching speakers in dialogue. Maybe a vague nod at “cliffhangers are exciting!,” but that’s about it. You’re just supposed to figure that stuff out as you go, apparently. Or else (and this is entirely possible) it never occurred to the writer of the writing advice book that there’s an actual skill buried in there.
But I haven’t read a huge number of writing advice books, so I’m perfectly willing to believe that someone out there has at some point unpacked this stuff for the reader. Any recs? Because it’s one of those things that I do instinctively, without much ability to articulate how the decision-making process goes — and since I enjoy teaching writing, being able to articulate it would be useful.
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January 24, 2020
New Worlds: Poison
As the New Worlds Patreon comes to the end of another month, we turn our attention to poison! Both the cause and the cure of suffering, depending on how it’s applied — as Paracelsus very wisely pointed out. Comment over there!
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January 22, 2020
I need noodle soup!
There is a sad lack of noodle soup in my cooking repertoire. What recipes do you guys recommend? The main requirement is that it be non-spicy, in the peppers/chili sense; other things are easy to leave out (cilantro) or substitute (eggplant for squash).
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January 21, 2020
Lightning in the Blood!
Following on the heels of the republication of Cold-Forged Flame, now Lightning in the Blood hits the shelves!
Once she had nothing: no name, no memory, no purpose beyond the one her master bound her to fulfill. Now the wandering archon known as Ree must walk an unseen path — one that will lead her toward the untold story of her origins. But the road to the truth is paved with blood . . .
It’s on sale now, at Book View Cafe, Barnes and Noble, Google Play, Kobo, Indigo (Canada), and Amazon US and UK.
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January 17, 2020
New Worlds: Other “Medicine”
Warning: this week’s New Worlds Patreon essay includes quite a lot that is squicky or horrifying. Not in a super-graphic way, but simply in the realization that the medical treatments of the past were often howlingly wrong at best — and lethal at worst.
Comment over there!
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January 16, 2020
Loving-kindness
One of the mediation apps on my phone (yes, I have several . . . I am the walking stereotype of “I really want to make a habit of this! Maybe if I find The Perfect Program, I’ll succeed!) is running a New Year’s Challenge, with a goal of meditating at least fifteen days in the first twenty-one, i.e. five days a week for three weeks. So far I’m 11 for 11 (it started on the 6th, not the 1st), which is good, and I sort of wish they’d launch another challenge after this one, because seeing that little gold medal does help with motivation and persistence.
But it’s gotten me thinking about a bunch of things. Like New Year’s resolutions, and the ways in which that whole concept tends to set us up for failure. One of the “ohhhhh” moments for me in trying to practice mindfulness meditation was when it finally got through my skull that those moments when I realize my attention has wandered away from my breath? That’s not me failing at meditation; that’s me succeeding. Because the point is not to achieve perfect tranquility from start to finish, but rather to be mindful: both to pay attention to a thing (my breath), and also to notice when my attention has strayed. “Begin again,” as several of the meditation teachers in this app have said — and as one of them pointed out, that applies to the practice of meditation in general as well as any individual session again. Missed a day? Begin again. Missed a week? Begin again. Missed six months? Notice that you’ve stopped. Be mindful of what you’re doing. And what you’re not doing.
I have a poster on my wall with the text of “An Invocation for Beginnings”. It’s one of the few “motivational” things that’s ever spoken to me on an emotional level. And to quote one pertinent bit: “Let me realize that my past failures at follow-through are no indications of my future performance, they’re just healthy little fires that are going to warm up my ass.” New Year’s resolutions, though . . . we treat them as rigid. If you resolve to do a thing, and then drop the ball, you’ve broken your resolution. Game over. Stop trying.
No. Begin again.
The app has been providing a meditation lesson for each day, which I recognize is so they can advertise the various series that require a paid account to use. But I’m still appreciating it as a tour of different things, like deep breathing techniques to reduce stress. Today’s was on “loving-kindness” meditation, which is about developing compassion toward yourself and other people. Chesed, maitrī, agape in its less-religious sense. What really struck me was the brief video beforehand, with Dan Harris (the guy behind the app) and Sharon Salzberg (the teacher for that session) discussing the concept of loving-kindness — and how we as a society tend to disparage the idea, as if compassion and kindness make us weak. The video was only a few minutes long, so I’m not surprised they didn’t attempt to unpack the gender dimension, but it’s there: loving-kindness is a trait associated with femininity, and therefore men are discouraged from developing it. Harris straight-up admitted that he was embarrassed to be seen reading Salzberg’s book — that he literally hid the cover when he was reading it on planes, etc. How messed-up is that? But he’s a white dude in America, which means he’s not supposed to be squishy and touchy-feely and nice.
Hello, toxic masculinity. And yet, so many of our religions praise this quality, not just for girls but for everybody. But it’s hardly news that we’re historically bad at actually practicing what we preach.
I don’t really have a point here that I’m trying to arrive at, except that getting back into meditation (begin again) is prompting a variety of thoughts in me. And that I’m hoping it will help me develop the internal equilibrium I’m going to need to survive 2020. Our whole society could use a mega-dose of loving-kindness, if only we had some way to inject it.
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I return to the teaching fold!
Temporarily, at least. 
January 14, 2020
belated Yuletide post
I never did post about Yuletide, did I? I blame the chaos that was the last several months of 2019 — I’m still picking myself off the floor.
I lucked into three (!) gifts this year. The first was “the three Chrestomancis,” the prompt for which was borne out of me realizing that Cat arrived at the castle before Gabriel passed away, meaning that for a while there were three nine-lived enchanters running around at once. (Not that any of them still had nine lives by that point, but it doesn’t affect their power.) Then I received “as wine pervades water,” which features exactly the kind of wedding I’d expect Rick O’Connell and Evy Carnahan (from the 1999 Mummy movie) to have, i.e. ad hoc and done at speed to save the world from a supernatural threat. I also got the Madness treat “When a Body Meets a Body,” and it amuses me how many Mummy fics I’ve seen involve bog bodies over the last few years; I credit Sovay and her comment that I quote in my Yuletide letter.
January 10, 2020
New Worlds: Herbalism
Before there were synthetic chemicals, there were medicines extracted from leaves, flowers, seeds, nuts, fruit, bark, wood, roots, and every other bit of plant matter you care to name. This week, the New Worlds Patreon discusses the ancient art of herbal medicine! Comment over there.
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January 7, 2020
Cold-Forged Flame at BVC!
The first of the Varekai novellas, Cold-Forged Flame, has just been republished in ebook! You can get it now from Book View Cafe, Barnes and Noble (Nook), Google Play, Kobo, Indigo (Canada), or Amazon US or UK. (No iTunes yet; I ran into a technical difficulty there which I haven’t resolved yet.)
The second novella, Lightning in the Blood, will be out again later this month!
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