Chuck Wendig's Blog, page 40

This Grievous Wound

What it is, I think, is this: Donald Trump has lost the presidency, and is fighting that obvious, irrefutable result because it is useful to him to do so. Yes, perhaps there is some buried splinter of certainty inside him that he is the president, or that he deserves to be president, and we have seen that this is a man who has long demonstrated the emotional security of a hangry, sleepless toddler. (No disrespect to toddlers.) But it is also very, very useful for him not to let go of the presidency in idea, if not in practice. He is a man on the verge of various investigations. He has a debt column longer than the Constitution, Declaration of Independence, and the script for Hamilton combined. And he has mounting legal debts. Further, he’s a man whose unnatural orange tan seems the result of a steady application of Fryolator grease, but it could very well be burned onto his flesh from the warm glow of himself — he is, in his mind, a self-illuminating creature, the center of a galaxy whose glow is all, and who thrives on the adoration of the planets he provides warmth to — or in vengeance, cold.

That’s part of the trick with him — it’s hard to know where his narcissism ends and where his grift begins, because a grift is more self-aware than the kind of bloated ego-fed solipsism that narcissism requires. A grift demands manipulation, and a manipulation suggests that while you may be the smartest guy in the room, you’re also not naturally so, and anything you get is something not given and earned but rather, taken and stolen from the rubes. He sees us as rubes, that much is clear, but he also sees himself as god, and a god doesn’t need to trick the rubes, does he? A god simply has command of them, because that is the nature of divinity. And therein lurks the a blurry, foggy landscape between how much of this is because of a cunning intelligence and how much of this is simply a reptilian mind mashing buttons in his brain in order for him to brute force attack every institution, every relationship, every norm around him.

But the reality is, it doesn’t matter.

Trump gains from chaos. Whether his understanding of this is granular and keen or whether it is in a hazy, almost feral way, matters little. What matters is, he doesn’t care about being president, because being president is work. He doesn’t care about you, because you aren’t he, and he is all that matters to him. He doesn’t care about his country because to him this country is just another company he can buy, bleed, gut, live in its carcass for a while, and then sell to the next asshole. For him, this is all transactional, and his refusal to not only concede the election (which we knew would happen) but to stop fighting the electoral outcome, is just another one of those transactions. He understands, again implicitly or explicitly, the buy-in, here: he can (and will) keep this going for the next four years. He will push the constant narrative that he is an aggrieved party, a strongman kept from his circus by the mean ol’ ringleader. He will say they cheated, you cheated, everyone cheated. He will demand now, and in six months, and in two years, that we hashtag OVERTURN this election.

And this is useful to him to do so.

It is useful because he can continue to fundraise. Never stop fundraising.

It is useful because he can try to grab the media spotlight by its privates, dragging it around with him wherever he walks on the stage because who doesn’t want to watch the big man making a racket over there? The media has only barely learned this, and it remains to be seen how long they will hold the lesson, and how soon they will return to covering every mouth-sound he makes.

It is useful because he can keep doing rallies, and a despot loves his rallies.

It is useful because he can bring people into his gaudy Trump properties, his hotels, his golf courses, because who wouldn’t want an audience with the Rogue King, the True Heir to the Red, White and Blue Throne? The man has his debts, after all, and he’s not going to pay them. You are.

And finally, it is useful because if he is less The Last President and more The Next President, it will be harder to investigate him, because investigating a political opponent is corruption, or so they’ll say — corruption he supports when it’s him doing it, but that’s true for everything. (We like to imagine that the Republicans are trapped by our identification of their myriad hypocrisies, but they are freed by that expectation — they know we think we’ve called GOTCHA on this, but haven’t got ’em. Their hypocrisies are part of the package, a feature and not a bug, and they will happily do all the things they said we couldn’t do and they’ll do it with a shit-eating grin on their faces.)

Trump has no moral center, here. He has no guiding principle. He is not a man holding onto power because he genuinely feels something, anything, about our democracy. He is not a man who grips the wheel of the vehicle because he thinks he’s the most responsible driver. He doesn’t care who the best driver is. He doesn’t care about the truck, or the road, he only cares that he likes the way this feels, and that he can drag us to wherever he wants to fucking go. He’s not here out of some devotion to democracy, to America, to us or even to his people. He doesn’t care about them, either. He just wants what he wants because — well, either because that’s enough, or because he can make hay from it.

Of course, it’s almost not his fault. Dracula is Dracula, of course, but one who is enabled by a world of Renfields — blood-bags, body-buriers, victim-procurers, glad-handing yes-men gleefully eating spiders and cockroaches to Please Their Master. And Trump, our rubbery American Vampire, is held aloft on a palanquin of bones by an unholy host of enablers, admirers, users, and cowards. Some, like Texas AG Ken Paxton, are like Trump — Paxton is currently under investigation by the FBI and likely angling for a pardon. Some are like Ted Cruz, humilation-kink aficionados who are happy to tongue-bathe the boot of the man who said his father killed JFK, who called his wife ugly, who suggested that any vote for Cruz in the primary was (here, a familiar refrain) voter fraud. Some are Mitch McConnell, the ur-vampire pretending to be a Renfield, using Trump as the battering ram to knock down the doors of democracy so that he could let slip the hounds who would eagerly fill all the roles he belligerently, shamelessly stopped Obama from filling. (Remember how the USPS is fucked right now? McConnell — with a little inadvertent help from Sanders, sadly — blocked Obama’s appointees to the USPS Board of Governors, which left the entire thing empty, which further let  the Trump Administration fill those roles from snout to tail. That board then chose LeJoy, and here we are.)

Trump is enabled by a world of dipshits and abusers, some who just want to be in his glow, some who want to avoid his ire, and others who happily crowd their hands up his asses, trying to puppet him around. And all of whom would, at the slightest provocation, be thrown under the wheels of the truck that Trump is driving, because Trump has all the loyalty of a rabid wolverine.

None of these people are acting on principle.

Not one of them.

They seek power both personal and political. They seek money. They seek escape from prosecution and consequence. They all want something, this Circle of Skeksis, from Trump, from us, from our democracy. But they don’t care about it.

And yet, their followers believe the opposite. They are told, by Fox, by Newsmax, by Breitbart and OANN and a thousand sock-puppet chodes on Twitter and Parler and Facebook, that these people are standing up for AMERICA, for YOU and ME, for our REPUBLIC (they’re hesitant to call it a democracy anymore). These people are heroes, painted into shirt-ripping beefcake Founding Fathers — if the Founding Fathers were John Rambo, a pack of flag-fucking warriors with a pair of AR-22s and a surfboard under their boots as they cross the Delaware River. And they are told again and again that these people deserve to be president. The votes against them are somehow both Real and also a Fraud, legitimate and yet, illegitimate because anything that insults these Hero Men must be the result of a grave unfairness — and if democracy allows this unfairness to occur, then it is perhaps democracy itself that is the enemy.

Because if democracy stops Trump from being president —

Well.

Then it is perhaps time to stop democracy.

We have long been deafened by this dueling banjo song of American Exceptionalism and Individual Liberty, where we are somehow both The Greatest Country on Earth and also a country full of Individuals Whose Personal Liberties Shall Not Be Infringed. Becoming only a country of disentangled individuals, we are no longer a nation of communities, of people, but rather, a series of one-person islands, and how dare you steal my fucking coconuts, and you better not cross these waters to even say hi or I’ll rap you on the head with a fucking rock, and what’s mine is mine and what’s yours is also mine because I fucking said so, that’s why. You’re not an individual, I’m an individual. I get what I want, and you get what I don’t. Communal responsibility? Community power? Fuck that. Me, me, me, oh say can you see.

But if we aren’t a place of communities, if all that matters is what I want, wah, then democracy doesn’t even matter. Because votes are a mechanism of community will, and if we have ceased to care about the will of the community and instead only care about the will of what we want personally to occur, then where do we go from there?

We are already a troubled, divided nation. Have we been more divided before? Perhaps. Probably. There was a Civil War, after all, and the Civil Rights era, and all the racist horror between those two periods (and after) (notice a pattern?). But this division feels strange, a shared cultic delusion, a Stockholm Syndrome as COVID-19 swirls around us.

Trump’s election in 2016 was already an injury to our norms — he stepped onto the national stage buoyed by lies. I said then it was an act of small petty men hacking at the roots of our democracy, hoping to fell the tree in order to sell its lumber, and they have continued to do so, and have nearly succeeded. Because now, these small petty men — selfish and without principle — have widened this chasm between us by what feels like an uncrossable distance.

That chasm is an injury.

And it may be a grievous, even fatal, one.

It’s not enough that Trump won’t be successful. And it’s likely he won’t be (though this is 2020, so who the fuck knows what hellshow could happen in the next three weeks). It’s that he’s convinced a not inconsiderable portion of this country that he’s right. He probably knows he won’t get back in the White House, at least in 2021. But they don’t know that. He probably knows he didn’t win. But they don’t. They’ve bought the lie. They’ve embraced their cognitive dissonance so hard it’s become a part of them — the only good way out of a hole is to quite digging and start climbing, but then you have to admit, oops, I fell into a hole of my own making, and that’s not something people like to admit. Easier instead to dig down, down, down, to make it look like, I know what I’m doing, I’ve been doing this all along, this is alllllll part of the plan, see you later, Surface-Dwellers, I’m King of the Hole, fuck you. 

So utterly complete is this violent attack on information, on truth, on fact, on process and democracy and science, on education and expertise that… some people are going to be really hard to bring back. They may not come back. We don’t have a National Deprogrammer. We don’t have fairness in media. We don’t have the gall or gumption to fight mis/disinformation the way the other side has fought actual information.

As it turns out, our democracy is held together by one thing, and one thing only:

A loose, flexible agreement of ideas.

In the air, it’s a tangle, and we fight over everything. But all the way down, below us, we always knew that there was a safety net of a few key principles that were braided together and that was strong enough to catch us if we fell. At the end of the day, we were a democracy, we thought. A nation of states, of communities, of a few shared principles and notions. We agreed on that.

Thing is, it was an illusion. A comforting one, as many illusions are, and maybe not useless. And hey, once upon a time there were some very real threads that held us together — the Voting Rights Act, the Fairness Doctrine, and their like. Laws and regulations which agreed that democracy was sacrosanct, and that truth mattered, even if everything else was debatable. But we cut those ropes. And now we’re in freefall, and there is no safety net. Because, oops, laws and regulations are just things we made up. They’re only there if we uphold them and keep signing our agreement to them. The garden needs tending. The fire needs tending. Vigilance was required. But now? Oof. Those laws and regulations have left us reaching for handholds that aren’t there, hoping for a safety net that has been cut to ribbons. And it’s not just the election. We’re mired in a pandemic with three thousand people dying every day, and yet there are still people who think it’s fake, who won’t wear a mask, who even in the hospital with the disease they cry it’s a hoax. And instead of a firm federal response — or any federal response — we have a piss-pants “president” whose only fight is the one to be coddled, bottle-fed, and glorified. He golfs, we go poor. He tweets, we get sick. He rallies, we die.

He doesn’t care about the injury he’s caused.

But the injury has hobbled us. And I don’t know how we heal it. It’s a sucking chest wound — it’s a compound fracture. Maybe it won’t kill us, but you don’t just heal that sort of wound the way you do a thorn-scratch or a bruise. It will take so much to heal it, so much. And we don’t know if the sepsis of fascism will settle in for good — a blood infection of autocracy, a poisoning of viral narcissism to compliment the global pandemic running through us like a chainsaw. And every GOP who signs on, every media member who trumpets this shit, they’re codifying it, they’re legitimizing it, and whatever results — whatever suffering, or starvation, or bigotry, or violence — becomes legitimate in the face of it. It becomes an act of lauding the infection, of pretending that the sickness in our political body is a natural part of us, rather than something forced into us. We accept and embrace the tick, the tapeworm, we name it and give it power. I’m King of the Hole, the tapeworm cries. Fuck you.

Trump doesn’t care. His enablers don’t care. They’ll kill the body and leap to the next one — parasites and scavengers, they hold no allegiance to you, me, or even the flag they claim to love so much. Their allegiance isn’t even to each other, though they put on a good show. Their allegiance is to them, to their own individual liberties, and that’s the ultimate liberty to stick you, bleed you, and leave you and our democracy for dead.

* * *

I don’t know what we do about it.

But if you can, donate to Jon Ossoff, Reverend Warnock, and Stacey Abrams’ Fair Fight. Our democracy may very well count on it. And while you’re at it, find a food bank, local or otherwise, and donate, okay? The way we push back on this is by being a community, as good to each other as we can. We must refuse to let the injury define us. We must hobble on in the hopes of healing.

Natania Barron: Five Things I Learned Writing Queen of None

When Anna Pendragon was born, Merlin prophesied: “Through all the ages, and in the hearts of men, you will be forgotten.”

Married at twelve, and a mother soon after, Anna – the famed King Arthur’s sister – did not live a young life full of promise, myth, and legend. She bore three strong sons and delivered the kingdom of Orkney to her brother by way of her marriage. She did as she was asked, invisible and useful for her name, her status, her dowry, and her womb.

Twenty years after she left her home, Anna returns to Carelon at Arthur’s bidding, carrying the crown of her now-dead husband, Lot of Orkney. Past her prime and confined to the castle itself, she finds herself yet again a pawn in greater machinations and seemingly helpless to do anything about it. Anna must once again face the demons of her childhood: her sister Morgen, Elaine, and Morgause; Merlin and his scheming Avillion priests; and Bedevere, the man she once loved. To say nothing of new court visitors, like Lanceloch, or the trouble concerning her own sons.

Carelon, and all of Braetan, is changing, though, and Anna must change along with it. New threats, inside and out, lurk in the shadows, and a strange power begins to awaken in her. As she learns to reconcile her dark gift, and struggles to keep the power to herself, she must bargain her own strength, and family, against her ambition and thirst for revenge.

***

Women Are Mostly Just Plot Points in Much of Medieval Literature

I mean, I get it. I’ve read enough Western literature to innately understand that, for the better part of the last few thousand years, women aren’t exactly portrayed as heroes, or really anything other than convenient stumbling blocks for the real heroes. There are a handful of exceptions, of course, but it’s far from the norm.

Now, I’ve got to preface this by saying, Queen of None came about shortly after I graduated from my MA program, where I studied Medieval literature and Arthuriana in general. I came into that program with a Just Because I’m a Woman Doesn’t Mean I’m a Feminist Scholar attitude and left with I Am a Feminist Scholar and I Will Burn Down the Patriarchy mentality.

But Arthuriana, and the romances of the Middle Ages, are particularly cringe-worthy in terms of the “strange women lying in ponds distributing swords” factor. Women show up all over the place: in ponds, in forests, in towers, and in beds (there are so many Elaines in the Arthurian legends it borders on ridiculous). Granted, there weren’t a whole lot of options in terms of adventuring for a woman, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. In fact, the more I learned about the expansive Middle Ages, the more I found women who were so much more than plot points: real women who wrote books, traveled the world, had visions, and chronicled history.

The whole idea for Queen of None came from a single passage I read during my undergraduate studies in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain. It simply said that Igraine and Uther had two children, Arthur and Anna. But while Arthur gets all the attention, Anna vanishes in the shadow of the king and her half-sisters.

I Can Write Books and Be a Mom

Motherhood and writing are inextricably connected for me. I’d always considered myself a writer. In fact, I don’t really remember when I started writing book-length things. I just always had stories that needed multiple pages. But I was very bad at finishing those stories, and I was mostly a copycat for the majority of my early writing life (no shade, that’s totally what most young writers do). Hell, I rewrote the better part of The Stand when I was 13 or so.

When my son was born, however, I understood that I needed to finish writing. I needed to start writing books, not just… book-shaped things that couldn’t be published. I didn’t want my son to ask me, “Mom, what did you want to be when you grew up?” and my answer be that I dreamed of being a writer someday. I wanted to be able to tell him that I worked damned hard at it, and made it happen.

Be warned though, writing with kids is not easy. When people ask me what it’s like to balance a writing career, a full-time career, and raising kids, I explain that it’s very much like wrestling a greasy owlbear. It is hard. It’s a lot of eking out words and edits at weird hours, a lot of not doing things (like watching television or hanging out). It’s, dare I say it, discipline.

And even more than that? Keeping a writing career going while raising a family means you constantly have to learn new ways to write. You have to be flexible. I have a special needs son. The only constant is change.

Trunk Novels Aren’t Always Trunk Novels

I started writing Queen of None as a NaNoWriMo project in 2009 or so. Then I spent a year or so revising it. I sent it out and it was rejected. Once. So I decided, naturally, that it was never meant to be and no one cared and it was, therefore, a trunk novel (i.e. a novel I would store in my virtual “trunk” with all the other not fit for publication books out there) and total hot garbage, and maybe I should consider quitting writing? Thankfully I didn’t go that far. But yeah. We writers can sure have some rollercoaster emotions.

Let me preface this with saying, I’ve recently been diagnosed with ADHD. And this kind of behavior is often called RSD, or rejection sensitive dysphoria. Generally, I have a thick skin about this stuff. But in the case of this book, I totally turtled.

I ended up coming back to Queen of None over and over again. I edited it more. I added new scenes. I changed the characters. I rewrote a big chunk of it. Then I did some more edits. Then, I was approached by Vernacular Books and I told them, “Hey, I have this Arthurian feminist romance that casts Arthur’s sister as a hero, but it’s kind of like Circe and maybe you’d like it?”

They did. And here we are.

Damnit, I Love the Editing Process So Much

I think I might like editing more than I like writing. And when you find the right editor? It’s just magic. Eric Bosarge, my editor on Queen of None, he told me that his favorite scene was Lanceloch’s fishing scene (you’ll have to read to understand). And what blew my mind was that in all the scenes — and far more exciting events — that was also my favorite.

Eric’s questions, like good editors should, helped me really burnish the manuscript to where you see it now. It was an intense month of editing for me (hello, hyper-focus), and I held the whole book in my head again, dreaming of it, pushing myself to make more connections and go deeper with language, with the theme, with character. All in all, even though the book is under 100,000 words, I tracked well over 10,000 changes between Eric’s edits and my own. My poor computer wanted to kill me. And it was almost euphoric for me. I love making things better.

But I’m so proud of what came out of it. The scenes I added, the edits I made, all really just enhance the story on another level. As writers, we need to be pushed out of our comfort zones in order to improve. It’s a scary business, walking outside your door, to quote Bilbo. But stasis isn’t just a creativity killer, it can be a career killer. Especially in this raucous, unpredictable, wild world of publishing in the digital era.

Heroes Don’t Always Carry Swords

In many ways, Queen of None is a quarantine novel.  No, there isn’t a pandemic in the book. But Anna, but dint of her status and relationships, doesn’t leave Carelon during the entirety of the narrative save for one instance. She lives in castles. She haunts the halls. She becomes a shadow. While the knights of the Table Round are out slaying beasts, hunting grails, bedding dames, and knocking skulls for the realm, she’s doing embroidery (albeit begrudgingly).

That doesn’t mean, however, that she can’t have power. Like the medieval women of my studies, she still exists. She still finds power, both from within and through her relationships. If there’s anything that defines Anna Pendragon, it’s her patience, her willingness to wait. Maybe she’s a little bit of Aaron Burr in that respect (there really are some parallels, now that I think about it). Time and again, she puts herself, her body, her mind, and her soul, on the line to fight for what she believes is true. That doesn’t always mean she gets it right, or that she’s a good mom or sister or wife in the process. But a complex heroine is a lot more fun to write than one who is the pinnacle of purity and sweetness.

And that resounds with me, as well. I’ve always loved epic fantasy, heroic tales, and swashbuckling adventures: but there aren’t a lot of women for me to look at. The tale of Arthur is not new, but Anna is. That meant she had to bring something different to the table (pardon the pun, or don’t). As a writer, that was such a satisfying experience. As a woman, a mother, and someone who’s had to stand up for what she believes in time and again, it was also a powerful experience.

***

Natania Barron has been traveling to other worlds from a very young age, and will be forever indebted to Lucy Pevensie and Meg Murry for inspiring her to go on her own adventures. She currently resides in North Carolina with her family, and is, at heart, a hobbit–albeit it one with a Tookish streak a mile wide.

Natania Barron: Website

Queen of None: Indiebound | Bookshop.org | Amazon

Excerpt And Cover Reveal: The Book of Accidents, July 2021

Hey, psst. Hey, kid. You wanna read a spooky book? Well, okay, you can’t, not right now, but coming in July, you can totally read my newest, The Book of Accidents. You can check out the cover and an excerpt, though, right damn now, over yonder hills at Polygon. (Thanks to Polygon for hosting the reveal!) And you can pre-order the hardcover right damn now, either by calling your local indie, or at these links: Indiebound | Bookshop.org | B&N | Amazon.

I do not know if I’ll be touring for this one or what — it comes out July 20th, and given that there’s a pesky global pandemic going on, it remains unclear what is to come. But, there’s also a not-pesky set of vaccines on the horizon — so maybe, just maybe, there will be some flexibility in being able to do in-person events.

More as I know it.

Go get spooky!

Gifts For Writers 2020 (Pandemic Edition?)

[image error]Once again, the HOLIDAYS are upon us, where we may GATHER WITH FRIENDS and RENEW OUR BONDS WITH FAMILY and SHARE AEROSOLIZED MIST between us and BREATHE IN EACH OTHER’S VARIOUS PATHOGENS INCLUDING THE HIGHLY CONTAGIOUS AND DELETERIOUS CORONAVIRUS and together we can merrily OVERWHELM HOSPITALS AND

*checks notes*

Wait no we’re not supposed to do any of that?

Shit! Shit. Never mind. Backspace all that.

What I’m trying to say is, it is the holidays, and you may find that during these holidays, a wild writer has appeared, and writers are a peculiar breed and can only be appeased with a select set of specific gifts. Give them the wrong gifts and they will haunt your home for a decade, and write nasty books about you. We are vengeful trickster gods, all of us.

As always, these are gifts that the writer in your life may or may not like or find useful.

But their mileage may vary.

Please to enjoy.

A pandemic stress relief buddy: early on, with our kiddo going virtual, we knew he was going to feel some level of frustration and we didn’t want that pressure building up in him like a rogue Instant Pot IED, and so we thought, okay, let’s buy him something for that. And we bought him this motherfucker right here. It’s a fighting/grappling dummy. And whenever our child finds himself angry or frustrated, and it’s not the kind of frustration that can be alleviated by merely doing good breathing techniques or incurring total Ego Death by drinking peyote tea, we say, “Go kick the shit out of your purple friend over there.” I mean, with less profanity. And less peyote. And he does and it’s great. Thing is? I do it too. I sneak into his room sometimes and… let’s just say, the dummy is incredibly punchable. And you feel better almost instantly, and it’s a great way to loosen up a writer’s block, too. If you want an even more punchable (and cheaper) dummy, this smiling bastard is just asking to have his block knocked off. Also seriously don’t feed your kids peyote. Jeez.

Literary ways to filter viruses from your face: Out of Print has a series of awesome book-themed masks, including a Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy facemask. Which says DON’T PANIC. Which is great. BookRiot has a good list here, too.

We All Live In Zoom Now: So maybe the writer in your life needs a ring light?

We’re All Birders Now, Too: I mean, seriously, I sit and write and then stop writing and look at birds. It’s a good distraction because birds don’t give a shit. So, a bird book like Sibley’s What It’s Like To Be A Bird is a wise choice. And here in the Wendighaus, we are super-big fans of Wingspan as a board game. Or maybe buy a witch spell that turns a writer into a bird because fuck it.

Distraction-free, irony-heavy writing device: The FreeWrite has a new device out, and it’s The Traveler — a writer can use this no-frills word processor and pretend like they’re traveling the world and writing in rare, sublime locales instead of sitting at the dining room table with a cat in their lap and a cat on their head and a dog farting in the corner and probably a child crying somewhere.

Shameless plug inserted in the middle so you hopefully don’t notice its shamelessness: I wrote a book, it’s called Damn Fine Story, I think it’s pretty good? Maybe? It’s all about the weave and weft of storytelling — the shape of narrative, the components, the patterns, the ways to break those patterns. It also features a story about an elk masturbating, which is clearly a value add. You can buy it in print or digital. And yes, Virginia, there is an audio version now.

Really any book from any indie bookstore. Writers love books. We eat them. Did you not know that? We no longer read them, we’ve ascended beyond that point and now require them as food. We still get the story! We just do it with our teeth instead of our eyes. Anyway. Indie bookstores are a vital part of our Book Ecosystem — and we want them to survive so that we can survive. So, if you’ve a writer in your life, just get them books from your local indie. Or checkout indiebound.org or bookshop.org. My two local stores also ship to you — Doylestown Bookshop and Let’s Play Books. If you need a book idea, get the writer in your life a copy of your favorite book. The one you cannot live without. That or a giftcard. Giftcards are great. Or a pony. Do bookstores sell ponies? No? Shit.

Narrative gaming: I always find games about storytelling do some work to sharpen my narrative muscles, though obviously not enough to tell me you don’t sharpen muscles, but whatever, I don’t have a lot of time, we’re gonna keep on forging ahead. Some new story games out there maybe worth a gander: Icarus (no central GM, tell collaborative tale of a rise and fall of a civilization); the Awkward Storyteller (funny, random); Tattered Tales (better for kids, families). If you like Magnetic Poetry, there’s MOIST, AND OTHER AWFUL WORDS. Or, a deck of writing prompts! Finally, the staggeringly good Dreyer’s English now has a game version!

Go to hell: if you want narrative video gaming, look no further than Hades. Buy this for the writer in your life. Every writer I know loves this fucking game and they should. It’s a rogue-lite, and I usually hate those (and rogue-likes) rill hard. Because they suck. This one does not suck. Dying is a pleasure because it advances the very good story of Zagreus, son of Hades, trying his damnedest to escape the Underworld. It’s fucking great. It’s beautiful. The story is the game and the game is the story. Get it. Storytelling lessons abound. Plus? An excellent distraction.

The Idea Toolset: I am a fan of Baron Fig’s notebooks and Squire pen, and they’ve combined that into a single deal with a carrying case: their Idea Toolset. Seriously, the Squire pen is my fave.

Contains no actual rockets: Rocketbook is a digital eternal-use notebook. Which makes it a bit more sustainable than the average authorial notebook hoard. I have a writer’s shed and as a point of trivia, we built it out of the thousands of notebooks I have accrued over the years. Buy here, or go here to see how it works. Or, for a different version of sustainable that requires no app-based anything: Karst notebooks are 100% tree free, and made of… stone? Like, stone-stone? Apparently so. Here’s their process. Here’s their notebooks.

A Controversial Choice: Virtual reality can allow you to travel, remotely, to other places. I’ve used the Wander app to literally go to places I’m writing about in lieu of being able to travel, and it’s honestly helped. We have the Oculus Quest, which is truly robust — but also be advised, it is Facebook, and Facebook is a nightmare company. Worth perhaps looking to tethered options, instead, but that will require a good computer to go with it.

Appyteasers: John August, ever the wise man, has created his own writing app — it’s for script-writing, but versatile enough you can use it in other ways. Highland 2, go grabby.

Get Them Some Learnin: Subscribe them to Dongwon Song’s PUBLISHING IS HARD Substack.

Give Them Some Oxygen: Seriously, we’re all trapped in our houses, buy a writer a plant.

Some Gods Damned Self-Care: I must recommend Maggie Smith’s Keep Moving? Print, digital. I’m also a sucker for anything lavender-smelling, and lavender from Maui at least can have you pretending like you traveled to Hawaii instead of standing hunched over in your kitchen doomscrolling your phone. A writer may also like booze and ice cream, and you can combine the two at Clementine’s. Is that the best combination that exists? Yes. Unless you’re a diabetic lactose-intolerant alcoholic in which case, uhh, sorry? Maybe stick with the lavender lotion?

ANYWAY, that’s it.

See last year’s Gifts For Writers (2019) here.

And if you wanna check older lists, here are links to 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014.

Essa Hansen: Five Things I Learned Writing Nophek Gloss

In Essa Hansen’s space opera debut NOPHEK GLOSS, Caiden’s planet is destroyed and his family is killed. He is taken in by a mismatched crew of aliens and a mysterious ship that has a soul and a universe of its own. Together they show Caiden that the multiverse is much bigger than he ever imagined, but Caiden has vowed to do anything it takes to get revenge on the slavers who murdered his family, or die trying. Alastair Reynolds said NOPHEK GLOSS is “a delicious and delirious head-trip into an intricate, vivid and psychedelic cosmos of nested universes, exotic tech and gorgeously strange characters … wrapped around a killer story with real heart and soul.” Library Journal gave the book a starred review and said “Hansen’s marvelous debut is a fast-paced, action-filled ride through the multiverse, introducing a complex found family of gender- and neurodiverse characters.”

My way of thinking is stranger than I realized.

When my book entered the hands of readers and early feedback trickled in, I quickly realized that they were all saying the same things: my ideas and word choices are so unusual, my world so sensory and immersive, how did I craft this?

At first, I was surprised, because these aspects of my writing feel unremarkable to me. I’m neurodivergent and have synesthesia to boot, so the fact that I can bring an unusual angle to my storytelling shouldn’t have come as a surprise! In a good way, it made me think more about how I process my senses and how I translate abstract things into cool concepts on the page.

I also realized that I have the opposite sort of challenge than readers assumed. Rather than working hard to seek out and craft these surreal ideas and evocative words, I have too many of both and must actively work to clarify my meaning. The challenge feels steep—at worst, my readers will be overwhelmed and confused—but at best, my neurotype and sensory reality are a strength that could bring fresh experiences to the genre.

Re-articulating my own ideas is challenging.

While feedback to my writing taught me how my thinking is unique, trying to navigate interviews has taught me why I find it so difficult to articulate my own ideas to others.

This may be a shared truth that I’m slow to catch on to, but I find that my brain works unusually well with abstract concepts. I can store a huge amount of research or worldbuilding in abstraction, then discard the concrete language of it. I can then deploy these ideas automatically as I write. But! When I’m asked questions about things like my world, themes, or process, I’m prone to freeze up because I must re-congeal my answers from the abstract and re-find the language to express them. How frustrating to know the science of a thing but not recall the correct terms to talk about it!

As with anything we learn about ourselves, this has been an opportunity to find new ways to make my challenges easier, and to capitalize on strengths I might not have recognized.

Sometimes you find the science after the fact.

While I adore quantum mechanics and astrophysics, I didn’t try to research accurate science when I created my bubble multiverse. I drew from years of existing studies on all kinds of topics, and focused on evoking a sense of wonder and imagination in my fiction rather than accurate science.

Toward the end of edits on this book, I binged a bunch of World Science Festival lectures and discovered ideas that sounded very similar to my own multiverse structure. Astrophysicist Andrei Linde’s inflationary multiverse theory posits—instead of a single spherically symmetric balloon universe—a multiverse that is “a collection of many different exponentially large balloons with different laws of physics operating in each.”

A separate talk by physicist Raphael Bousso explained how more information is stored on surface area than in volume, making me rethink the nature of the “rind” membranes that separate universes in my world. Might the rind itself contain all the information to project the interior contents in holographic spacetime? My mind also looped around the 11-dimension arena posited by string theorist Michio Kaku, a space inhabited by many bubble universes where the content is on the skin of the expanding bubble rather than inside it. These bubbles can split, pop, or combine.

As I jumped through theories that were new to me, I kept finding more and more bits that made my multiverse sound more plausible than I ever thought it could be.

There is no end to the work.

I’ve always felt that my imagination and the stories and messages I wish to explore are boundless and would easily consume years of steady work. But pursuing this passion at a leisurely pace is much different than viewing boundless work while on a tight deadline.

As a newer author, I have so much to keep improving at. As a newer author with a series, I realized that Book One is not the end, and I can and should be working on the sequels when I have time—leveling-up my craft all the while. This isn’t bad in itself, but add in deadlines and you have a cocktail that any workaholic type will find challenging. I can let myself keep analyzing and sculpting the novel until “pencils down,” and still doubt if I’ve learned enough or had time to do my best. Rather than perfectionism, it’s an intersection between imposter syndrome and recognition of how (wonderfully) far there is still to grow, how much potential the story still has.

I find writing and worldbuilding genuinely energizing, and will happily spend hours at. But in finalizing this novel I’ve learned for myself where that seemingly boundless energy can and will burn out!

We can be more mindful when comparing books.

The stage of a “debut” author sounds like a level playing field, an entry point, but as I make new friends and share journeys, I’ve learned how multifarious this stage truly is.

Everything varies, from the number of manuscripts the author has produced leading up to their deal, the scope of their revisions and length of their deadlines, to the support or burdens they field at home. The knowledge that we cannot compare ourselves to other authors may not diminish doubt or imposter syndrome, but it will make me personally far more mindful of how I assess novels from here on.

This is not a level playing field, but we can make it a compassionate one—toward ourselves as much as others.

***

Essa Hansen is an author, swordswoman, and falconer. She is a sound designer for science fiction and fantasy films at Skywalker Sound, with credits in movies such as Dr. Strange and Avengers: Endgame.

Essa Hansen: Website | Twitter

Nophek Gloss: Indiebound | Bookshop.org | Amazon | B&N

Thoughts On An Election

Before I do anything resembling a deep-dive on this election — or, at least, a drunken flail to try to contextualize events — I figure it’s worth saying up front that fuck yeah FUCK YEAH fuuuuuuck yeah F U C K Y E A H.

Listen, Biden was not my guy in the Main Event, but he got there. And I was wrong to think he couldn’t bring it home. I feared the worst (in part because it’s hard after 2016 not to be a little defensively cynical), and was wrong. He was the guy. He ran a great campaign and showed up with compassion and science and books that had plans in them instead of blank pages and bullshit, and he won. And I know there are some remnants in this country that still want to make a deal of, WELL, IT’S NOT OVER YET, but it really is. There’s not an expert in the house that has found any evidence of fraud or fuckery. In fact, such fuckery helped elect a lot of Republicans down-ballot, soooo — are those not legitimate, either? You can’t have it both ways. You can’t say that somehow the election is fair for the GOP wins on each ballot but false for the Biden ones? C’mon. Shut up. Be better, do better. ANYWAY. Biden won. I am ecstatic. I’m not saying I got misty-eyed, but I will say there was definitely mist in my eyes. Harris wasn’t my top pick either but I always liked her, and I look forward to her joy and her bringing the hammer down on all manner of shenanigans. I think they’re both deserving and gracious and their speeches the other night as Pres- and VP-elect were great — and maybe I’m grading on a curve, but it was nice to hear full-throated endorsements of all manner of American, of inclusiveness, of compassion, of science. All done in complete sentences that are not sauced with lies. Who knew that was an option? After the last four years, we needed the reminder.

Anyway.

Let’s get our teeth around this election. Not in a way that suggests any expertise on my part — hardly, since I’m mostly a dipshit and can stand to be educated on a lot of things, and please don’t hesitate to head to the comments to course correct on any points I make here. These are just some thoughts, some ideas, some bloggy grappling with what happened then and what happens next.

We can’t not talk about the Four Seasons Total Landscaping.

We can’t not. We can’t! Because it’s hilarious. It’s fucking amazing. Sometimes, in a story of fiction, there’s a thing called on-the-nose, where stuff lines up too nice, too neat, and you disbelieve it because of its perfection — it’s a narrative version of the Uncanny Valley, right? But sometimes reality actually does it, and when it does? It’s glitter and starshine. It’s Skittles and ponies. In case you don’t know what I’m talking about: I don’t know how, but instead of lining up the Four Seasons Luxury Hotel for Giuliani’s big “press conference,” they instead secured the lot behind Four Seasons Total Landscaping? Next to a dildo shop and across the street from a crematorium? (“Our neighbors got you coming and going!”) And then Giuliani held the conference and that’s when all the media called the race for Biden? Oh my god it was sublime.

Like I said on Twitter, it’s the perfect capper to all of this. Like a balloon squeak-farting out its air as it does an erratic orbit around the room before finally falling to the floor, limp and airless. It was like a vurp, a little splash of diarrhea, a sad trombone, it’s Bill Murray stepping off the curb in Groundhog Day into a crater of cold slush. It’s so inept! So absurd! So emblematic of this bare-assed clown-show that in order to defend the highest office in all the land, they got Rudy “America’s Mayor Turned Renfield Bat-Boy” Giuliani to stand out back of a landscaping company next to a sex shop to pitch his asinine conspiracy. It’s like you took Veep, Arrested Development, It’s Always Sunny, and Curb Your Enthusiasm and blended them up and then dumped it all over reality’s head. It’s the pinnacle of embarrassment comedy, the zenith of douchechills, it’s sighs and winces all the way down. And laughs. I laughed so hard at this. I’m still laughing. I think about it every, I dunno, 30-45 minutes and everything feels like sunshine. It may be proof we’re living in a Simulation, and

I

don’t

care.

Those Numbers Were A Real Good News / Bad News Situation

Biden won, and he won Bigly. Bigly Biden Bulwark of votes. Record-setting votes, and what will likely pan out to 306 electoral college votes. A landslide? No. A strong hand? Yes.

Trump also secured a lotta votes. A whole lot. A big-ass sack of votes, improving on his numbers in many places, and overall. I confess, I’m pretty pessimistic in general, but even I didn’t see that coming — not because of polls, but because I just couldn’t believe he would’ve improved after 2016. Like, four years ago, as much as I hate it, I think there were some voters who didn’t mind the racism and thought that all his bullshit was just part of the show. That he’d still be a capable leader in some capacity and get shit done, even if the shit he got done was horrible. And then in the last four years he didn’t do shit, and was by most sane accounts a huge embarrassment — a shame stain on the ass of America’s underpants. I didn’t think he’d lose many people.

But I was surprised that he gained them.

Not at the same rate that Biden did, obviously — Biden walked away with the popular vote and blessedly the Electoral College, too. But Trump had a strong showing, and you really have to reckon with that.

How? Why? What’s the situation there?

My guess is that we’re dealing with the problem of that side of the electorate narrowing their access to information and education to only a handful of sources: Fox, OANN, Breitbart, Facebook, and the like. Not to mention the empire that is Sinclair Broadcasting (and we’re really not talking about that enough these days). And I know, I know, that liberals are certainly capable of building their own echo chambers, too, but in my anecdotal experience liberals have a more diverse, diffuse media diet. (Cue the eye-rolling from conservatives.) And any time you argue with a conservative on, say, Facebook, they make some outlandish claim, you present them with a goddamn Trapper Keeper full of factual refutation, and then they basically say “nuh-uh, do your own research,” as if that’s not exactly what you just did. The Internet has only made this easier, offering a prismatic shattering of the early-era Limbaugh radio-show style — each broken fragment of that became an analog seed that landed in fertile digital soil, growing its own poisonous plant with a long, deep shadow.

That, and of course, all the racism. Lots and lots of racism. That comes from a place, too — both from the legacy of a country built on the literal backs of African slaves and in house to house, family to family, in people driven by lies and fear. If there’s one characteristic I see the most in conservatives, it’s fear. I remember one time, driving with my father somewhere when I was a kid, and there were what he was sure were a “couple of Mexicans” driving behind us, and they were driving a bit close, which freaked my father out — never mind the fact he was the King of Tail-gaters, always driving up somebody’s ass. But he was sure, sure they were coming for us. Why? Why would they? Who the fuck knows. But he formulated this insane plan — he’d forgotten (!) to put a gun in the car (!!) that day, so the answer was to drive home, and when they followed us into the driveway, he’d take the antlers that were in the back of the truck and use the antlers to fight the two guys while I ran into the house and grabbed the shotgun behind the front door. Of course, minutes after formulating this plan, the guys behind us turned off on a different road. Because they weren’t hunting us.

But he sure thought they were.

That kinda fear comes from some dark place, some intense vulnerability that grows out of whatever his parents taught him, and what all the rich bosses who exploited him told him (while they pointed at The Other, they were picking his pockets), and what he heard and read, and from a place of hamstrung education, and, and, and. They’re scared and ignorant and that bores holes in people’s souls, and it’s easy to fill those holes with blame, and eventually, with hate.

It’s why so many of the narratives about Black Lives Matter are about the fear of that movement and who comprises it — ironically it’s not about the police abuse, which is off-the-charts scary, ohh no. It’s about how Black people might… loot your Wal-Mart? It’s insane, but it’s a fear that can be harnessed by malefactors and ginned up. And then it uses the conservative media pipeline to pump it into people’s brains. Fear, fear, fear. Other, Other, Other. Gonna take your guns, gonna defund your police, gonna take your homes, you’ll have nothing, you’ll be unprotected. And meanwhile the ones saying that are the richie-riches who have grown fat on a legacy of hate.

(It’s not a joke when I say the only people stealing from my father were his rich friends. They used him to do all kinds of work, and they were glad to help point his blame elsewhere.)

Point is, these people? They show up. They vote.

Good news is, we showed up, too. And we got it done. And we got it done in places like PA (home state woo) and Georgia and Arizona. Texas became competitive, holy shit. We’ve seen places like Virginia go from red to purple to bonafide blue, and it’s all proof we can keep doing that if we try. More to the point, if we listen to folks like Stacey Abrams and Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez. And if we continue to center the concerns of the whole electorate — not just rich white landowners, not just men, but the breadth and depth of America. It’s common sense: if you work to serve everybody, we all get something out of it. It’s candy shared with the whole class. But some assholes just want the bag of candy to themselves, and those people need to learn to fucking share.

On The Trap That Is Forgiveness And Civility

The “lol, die mad, libtard snowflakes gonna cry more, fuck your feelings” crowd is now upset, I guess, because their feelings are hurt by us libs? I don’t really understand it. What I do know is that there’s this sudden demand for civility, and it’s the same kind of thing like where the conservatives don’t give one hot shit about the national debt until a Democrat president steps in, and then it’s time to fix it. They make a mess, then hand us the broom. They’ve spent four years with some of the most vile shit around, and supporting policies that codify those vile insults into law. So without some kind of reckoning, without some manner of them stepping forward and saying they were wrong, there’s really no civility or forgiveness that will fix anything. It’s just a ruse: a way for evil to keep on doing evil, by asking for your complicity. I’m not saying we can’t be forgiving people, but forgiveness is a thing you work for. Bare minimum, you say you’re sorry, and then you go beyond that and do work to overcome the harm you caused. Without that, there’s no reason to even talk about this.

What I mean to say is, shut up, Megyn Kelly.

On Empathy Vs. Sympathy

Empathy’s good, because it helps us understand people. Right or wrong, good or bad, we need to know who a person is and how they got there — and that’s strategic, because it helps us figure out how to maybe help that person be better, or at the very least, stop other people from going down that path. Sympathy is where you go wrong. Sympathy means feeling bad for them. Empathy just means understanding it. We can’t fight it if we can’t understand it. And it’s not simple. It’s a many-headed beast — it’s not just, well, they’re racist, or bad, or uneducated. That can be true, but how that all happens, and what fosters that kind of outlook, what kind of poison gets in them, that doesn’t happen in a vacuum. So it’s important to figure out that path and cut it off. It’s systemic, not individual. I mean, yes, clearly it’s individual as well, but a system is what made that person the way they are. And that’s where we need to shine a light.

Dems In Disarray

I don’t really worry about the Dems-In-Disarray talk. It’s a popular headline, but never really tells the whole story, nor does it understand that the left is strengthened by its variegated nature — it’s a polyculture, not a monoculture, both in the people that fill its ranks as voters, but also in its points-of-view. The GOP is a monoculture — an aging base of white folks who stand, locking arms, even when it doesn’t actually suit them or their needs. They just line up. We don’t just line up and that’s gotta be okay. It does mean we have to do better at the time of voting and getting behind candidates, maybe, but in the run-up to that it should be messy, it should be a lot of jagged edges and mixed ideas and divergent priorities. Progress isn’t in a straight line but in a lot of directions.

That’s not to say we shouldn’t push the party leftward. We should, and must. This AOC interview is an essential read — and not just about a leftward push but also a push for competency and best practices inside the Democratic party. Also a good interview here with Stacey Abrams.

One Lesson: Politics Is Local

The reason we all had to wait like a buncha assholes for PA to tally votes was because the local PA GOP voted to delay counting until Election Day and, in some counties, until after Election Day. They did this to buy time for Trump to mount a challenge, but mostly I think it just irritated people — but it’s a good lesson that what we do locally has huge, national ramifications (in addition to obviously local ones, as well).

With Democrats, I think it’s important too to see that local matters — different races are going to highlight different challenges, and Pelosi can harp on all she wants about trying to stem some leftward tide, but in a lot of places, in more places than you’d think, leftward policies are surprisingly popular. Green New Deal, Medicare-for-All, these are things the GOP hates, but also things some rank-and-file Democrats also push back against. But that favors special interests and ignores, I think, the local people on the ground. Working class people are helped by these policies. Better health? Better world? More jobs? Rich people don’t fucking care. They’re going to the moon or some shit. We’re stuck with Earth, and that means we need to start saving it, and getting our asses some sweet sweet universal healthcare. Like, y’know, the rest of the developed world?

One lesson that didn’t occur to me either until far too late was that, nationally, we get involved in and invested in local races too early, and to the detriment of local choice. We see a candidate like Amy McGrath and right out of the gate are like, YEAH COOL PLEASE KICK THE TURTLE OVER ONTO HIS BACK HERE IS MY MONEY. But that gives her unearned advantage — and when a better candidate like Booker comes along, it’s maybe too late. Better to support these races when their primaries are decided. And also to embrace a holistic view of that support: don’t just support a candidate but their community. A healthy community has more voters and more ability to vote. Even something simple like supporting a food bank in an area where you want to support a candidate can have value. It’s just stuff I wouldn’t have thought about.

Sidenote, don’t forget you can donate to Fair Fight, Stacey Abram’s organization. And look for ways to get involved in the GA Senate run-offs in January — which means empowering Georgia and their voters, not just the candidates.

No Answers, Just Thoughts

Most of this is just me rambling, and I don’t have any real conclusions here of note — nothing firm, certainly nothing that can go unchallenged. Time will reveal more information to us. I think it’s fair to distrust any gory, elbows-deep autopsy of the election this early. Certainty is thin on the ground. I do feel good, not just because Biden won, but the races held surprising strides for LGBT Americans, Native Americans, the Black community, and so on — and I think as always we need to serve those communities, because they show up, get shit done, and then we continue to underserve them as a result. And I think it’s smart too to see that these underserved communities, when strengthened, strengthen us all in return. I think if anything this is all a clear sign that we mustn’t be complacent, the fight goes on. Take a breather today, but get back in it tomorrow. Let’s get control of the Senate and let’s push for holistic policies that serve everybody, not just the few. Let’s get big money out of politics. Let’s protect vulnerable populations. Let’s retrain police and focus on mental health. Let’s keep the fight up for Medicare-for-All, for the Green New Deal, for all of it. Gonna be hard, but nothing worth doing is every easy. Except eating cheesecake. Eating cheesecake is easy, and worth doing. Now I want cheesecake. Fuck.

ANYWAY, see you guys at the Four Seasons Dildo Crematorium And Lawnmower Rodeo.

p.s. buy my book or I die

I Don’t Know What’s Going On And You Don’t Know Either

[image error]Nobody knows what the fuck is happening. Or how it happened or didn’t happen or why it’s happening or isn’t happening or anything. Nobody knows shit. Is Biden winning? Maybe. Is Trump winning? I dunno, it’s 2020, any fucked up shit is possible. I’ve had four hours of sleep and each of those four hours was fraught with night sweats and fuckery, so, at this point I’m expecting the walls to melt. I’m not even sure I’m writing in a human tongue right now — it might just be beetle clicks and bird chirps. Who the fuck knows?

What I do know is this: I’m seeing a lot of newly baptized experts this morning, people who are SURE they know why Biden lost (or won) or why Trump lost (or won) or wasn’t buried in a landslide of votes or why PA did this or why this House race or that Senate race went sideways. This person didn’t go left enough. Not enough ground game. They went too far left. Masks, no masks. They didn’t sacrifice the right goat. They did this bullshit or that bullshit or, or, or.

I dunno.

Nobody knows what’s going on.

Or why it’s going on.

Exit polls are nonsense in this pandemic election.

The electoral college is wildly, inanely mis-representative.

It’s chaos! CHAOS.

This shit? The shit all around us? It’s going to take months, years to unpack — that, of course, coming after the mighty work of counting votes and holding off dictatorial legal challenges from our Menace-in-Chief. And that unpacking isn’t worth the 1s and 0s if it doesn’t first reckon with an unholy host of challenges that have long been stacking the deck. We have to grapple with conservative news media (Sinclair, OANN, Fox, radio) that plugs right into people’s brains and pumps them full of informational sewage and fear; with social media like Facebook; with active, malevolent racism that has a throughline all the way back to slavery; with gerrymandering; with voter suppression and disenfranchisement and intimidation; with USPS bullshit; and with all of the hobbling and harm and heavy anchors around our waists that makes it harder and harder to swim up to the light. Certainly the Democratic party has a lot of reckoning to do, then and now and going forward, but that reckoning isn’t on its own, and cannot be considered without all these other factors. Without the deck stacking — let’s remember there’s no more Voter Rights Act, for fuck’s sake — who knows where we’d be? If we got to run a race at the starting line instead of ten feet back, could you imagine? A lot of red states wouldn’t be red, for one. (And here it’s worth reminding that those red states are even now full of progressive voters busting their ass to change the temperature of their home states, just like what happened in Virginia, Arizona, and more.) Democrats wouldn’t be constantly facing the “won the popular vote, lost the electoral college” problem. We’re a messy, fucked-up country but one side has gamed the system to their advantage, and it’s really difficult to reckon with the weaknesses of the Democrats without first addressing the inequities spawned by those on the right, full stop. I wish that weren’t the case, but it is. Of course they swim faster and reach the surface more often — they’re not wearing the same cement shoes. Shoes they made for us and forced us to wear!

I’ve no idea what happens now or next or in five days or five weeks. Biden may pull this out and I’m sure we’ll endure challenges from that other motherfucker, because, of course he will. Beyond that, the how and what and why are chaos. I don’t know the answers and you don’t, either. Beware anybody who falls for the fallacy of the single cause here, as if ALL WOULD’VE BEEN WELL IF WE JUST DID THAT ONE THING DIFFERENTLY. Yes, different choices can lead to different outcomes good and bad, but until we build a time machine, we’ve no way of testing that. Be slow with accepting narratives right now. Be cautious with sharing information. Be sure-footed about your research. It’s difficult, and I feel it too, because you just wanna share share share all the things that feel like answers. But we must be better than that. We can’t just pretend gut-checks are gonna save us. We have a lot of reckoning to do but that reckoning isn’t coming overnight. And it must happen even if Biden wins at the end of this. The fight goes on. The fight for the soul of not just one party or the other, but the whole country —

This whole, messy, broken, busted-ass atlas of fiefdoms we call a nation.

What we do next is what must happen next regardless of who is in the Oval Office: we must aid our communities and lift them up, offering a hand especially to those who are most vulnerable; we must practice radical self-care; we must be ever-vigilant about changing this country in a game of inches and not necessarily of miles; we must push back against misinformation and disinformation; we must do what we can do to untangle the aforementioned deck-stacking limitations that plague free voting in the first place. I’m not alone, you’re not alone. Even if it feels like it.

You’re great.

We’ll get through this, whatever this shall be.

Even if we don’t know why it’s all happening yet or what the hell happened at all.

Stay frosty.

Be kind.

Be smart.

Sorry about the bird chirps and beetle clicks.

Chirp chirp. Click click.

Half-Digested Thought Gruel, Ladled Into Your Blog Bowl

[image error]Been a while since I came here and just sorta painted the walls with a erratic spatter of thoughts and news musk, so here we go, let’s do it.

Hey, you can find me talking about writing in a couple places this week. First, The James Altucher show had me on, and it’s always fun to do a podcast like this where the curiosity level is off-the-charts and you get such good, brain-chewing questions. Then! I got to sit down with good buddy and writer extraordinaire Delilah S. Dawson for Gotham Writers and get into crunchy process questions about writing across both genre and medium and we even dig into some business-related writing stuff. Bonus: on both shows I talk about Star Wars, too, which leads me to…

The Mandalorian Has [SPOILER] In It?! I created the character for the Aftermath trilogy and now I guess that character is in the show, played by Timothy Olyphant of all people. I always envisioned the character with a bit of Raylan Givens in him, so this is a damn fine fit. It’s funny, the news about this had been percolating for months, but I truly, truly disbelieved it; it’s very rare in my experience that something makes the jump from the pages of a Star Wars book to the Star Wars screen. The reverse is a constant flow, but the content doesn’t usually swim upstream, so to speak. So, that’s very cool. It’s admittedly also… you know, a bummer, and I sorta wish that I could be just 100% all YAY about it. I have a lot of complicated feelings about it, ranging from harassment and death threats and then how you just sorta get left out there to deal with it, and soon you realize that it maybe exacerbates anxiety and depression and — you know, this isn’t fun to hear. Star Wars is supposed to be fun, not fuckin’ bummertown, so I’ll just say, yay, this is exciting, even if I don’t really get anything for it besides the Cool Points. It’s nice too because the Aftermath trilogy was always at the top of a ladder of really wonderful storytelling and character-building throughout the franchise’s legacy, and part of that ladder includes a lot of references to Clone Wars and Rebels, so to come full-circle and to have something from Aftermath then feed back in, as it were, is pretty rad. I’m excited to see the episode later today with the fam. (Some have suggested the story in the show for him is somewhat different, so I can’t speak to that. But I know despite people demanding canon be a rigid act of historicity, it’s generally far more flexible than that, and must be for any of it to exist at all without exploding.) If you want the spoiler character, here’s the sentence — just plug it into ROT13. Pboo Inagu vf va Gur Znaqbybevna. And actually PBOO INAGU sounds like a great Star Wars name, doesn’t it?

And in case anyone wants to be mad at me about this, for some reason: hey just fuckin’ relax, I’m not in the sandbox anymore, I don’t think I’m even allowed in the sandbox anymore, I’m not breaking your toys, calm down. I’m doing my own thing and you can go on not giving a shit about that and being cranky about space wizard social justice or something.

Let’s talk about writing advice for a second, by the way. There’s been a thing recently where people have been going through my writing advice and, I dunno, fisking it, taking it to task, ripping it apart — and please let me be the first to say, that’s good! Do that. I try to be very clear up front about writing advice that it’s all nonsense. As I’m wont to say, it’s bullshit, but for some people, bullshit fertilizes. Both of my writing books open with me pretty clearly saying, hey, don’t take this stuff too seriously. It’s why I write it in a way that’s absurd and obscene, so nobody reads it like I’m telling you WHAT MUST BE DONE LEST YOU DIE IN THE ABYSS. This is a lawless place and art is re-invented by the artist every time they choose to make something new, and I like to think I’ve been clear again and again that we need to constantly question the Sacred Cows of Writing Advice, because for every thing you MUST DO or CAN’T DO, there are countless authors who have gone the opposite way to great success. Shit, I don’t even agree with half my writing advice anymore — as I write more, I know less, and I’m good with that. Every book I write reminds me that I don’t know how to write a book. It’s as designed, I suspect. And the writing advice is always just a toolbox full of random tools; maybe you need that weird screwdriver, or maybe you don’t. Throw it away if it doesn’t help you. Stomp on it like it’s a baby. Wait no don’t stomp on babies. That is also bad advice. Unless you hate babies. In which case, ennnh, yanno.

Who doesn’t like scary stories? Been watching a handful of horror movies recently, some favorites, and some new stuff. The Autopsy of Jane Doe is the standout, I think — astonishingly creepy fucking movie, though I’d also argue it maybe wavers a little in the third act. (Though the third act waver is a horror movie problem in general, and probably deserves a blog post unpacking that problem at better length.) I won’t spoil, but I had NO idea what it was about going in, and it threw me for a couple good loops. Apostle on Netflix was great, if utterly brutal and dour. Ready or Not is a fave, and I’ve watched it a buncha times now — serves really well in a two-fer with Knives Out (which is not a horror movie, I know). Scare Me on Shudder was so fucking great — it’s hard to know if it’s even a horror movie or a movie about horror, but it’s funny and weird and twisted and entirely relies on the performances of its capable actors. It’s arguably better than any of the movies I watched, but I also wonder if it’s really even a horror movie at all. I feel like there’s something else I watched, too, but now I don’t know what the hell it was. WHATEVER. Yay horror movies. It’s weird that right now they’re comfort food? That, too, demands a greater unpacking — during times of stress and upheaval, horror stories do well. Again, I’m surprised Wanderers has sold as well as it has through the pandemic. It’s sales have been, up until the last couple weeks, ridiculously steady. Which boggled my bits, but hey, cool. Thank you for reading.

Oh oh wait, I remember! The last movie was One Cut of the Dead. Again, no spoilers because — well, I just can’t spoil it. You need to see it to know what I’m talking about.

Let’s talk fun horror stories. Let’s say I’m still in the mood for a fun horror movie — what’s your favorite? By fun, I mean, not a movie that crushes your soul. Not something that wrecks you after, but something that’s a blast to watch, even if it’s gross or scary or whatever. Also, was the most recent Halloween any good? Thinking on checking that out today.

You got your vote plan in place, right? Too late to mail a ballot if you haven’t, so go to a drop-box, or your polling place on the day of, or the electoral office nearest to you — get it done. Get those ballots out. Vote! Vote for your democracy, vote for your friends, for the kids of this country and the world, for the people at the border in cages, for climate change refugees, for those sick from COVID and those locked down trying not to catch it and those forced into more dangerous situations because there is no safety net to help them, vote for Senate and local and president and every initiative you think can help people and not hurt them. Vote, vote, vote. Have a plan. Talk to friends and family. Make your case, plead your POV, get it done. Love you all, whatever happens. We’ll figure it out.

And that’s it, I think.

BYE.

With One Week To Go, Here’s My Prediction Of What Happens On Election Day

[image error]We are at the hinge point — the door is opening, or the door is closing. We are seven days away from Election Day, and millions of people have already voted. The Senate is up for grabs. The presidency is up for grabs. Our current president thinks women’s body parts are up for grabs. It’s a lot. So, I figured, why not offer my thoughts? Why not dig into the polls, do some nitty-gritty, examine the possible outcomes, and lay out what I think will be the likeliest course of action on that day.

Ready?

Here it is:

I HAVE NO FUCKING IDEA

AHHHHHHHHH

I am a wildly vacillating ping-pong ball in a table tennis game played by angels and devils — my heart goes from table side to table side, from WANTON FOOLISH OPTIMISM to GUT-CHURNING SOUL-CRUSHING PESSIMISM, with little chance to settle on either. My hope is Schroedinger’s Cat in the goddamn box: it is dead and alive at the same time, its fate unknown until the box is finally opened and the cat is revealed. I have literally no idea what is to come. How could you? This is 2020. This is the year of CHAOS INCARNATE. Come Wednesday we might’ve elected a hive of giant hornets to the highest office in the land, and honestly, it’d be an improvement on what we got.

I mean, in a logical year, I see how this goes, right? The polls are strong for Biden, stronger than they were for Clinton, and more stable across vital districts and states. None of the shit they’ve tried to stick to Biden has stuck, and Trump appears, from my window at least, to be flailing — and I don’t say that as a Triumphant Liberal, because generally liberals are the first to be like OH GOD MY CANDIDATE IS DROWNING IN THE ABYSS THE OTHER GUY IS GONNA WIN. There’s a stink around Trump that’s like what you get off a car-struck raccoon — a rotten, bloated odor. Doesn’t help that he’s incredibly unlikable, and has accomplished almost nothing in his four years. Certainly nothing good. Oh, rich people are getting richer, that’s nice, if you’re mega-rich. Otherwise, where’s his health care plan? Where’s his COVID plan? Where’s Infrastructure Week? Anything?

His priorities have been:

a) rich people

b) bigotry

c) judges

All in equal proportions.

Beyond that, he’s got nothing. He’s proposed no agenda for 2020, and the GOP’s agenda for 2020 is, “uhhh, what’d Trump say?” and round and round we go.

So, in a normal year, in a normal country, the writing is on the wall.

But this is America in 2020. The writing is centipedes. The wall is a glitching TV screen. There’s no stability. No sense to what’s going on. Part of that is intentional — it’s not that 2020 is some kind of CURSED YEAR (except it totally is), but that the Grand Ole Party has committed a violent psychological assault on our brains. They are hypocrites at every turn, they are liars, they question expertise, they lie, they turn their face from basic facts — the ground beneath us is unstable because they have committed to its instability. If we are unstable, they can get away with more bullshit. If we’re trying to catch a bunch of falling plates and cups from rattled cabinets, they can steal our money and jewels and pets while we flail. We’re constantly on the defense because they’re constantly on the offense. All we can do is block punches because it’s INFINITE PUNCHES.

Could Trump win? I didn’t think he could win the first time. Hell, one could argue that he didn’t — between losing the popular vote and a bevy of inference, it remains unclear how “legitimate” that election even was. Do I think it’s possible he’s built on his coalition from 2020? That he’s gained voters instead of lost them? It’s hard to envision, because I’ve seen anecdotally (local and nationwide) a number of Republicans who have bailed — they saw a “businessman,” wanted some change, and got nothing for the bet. He’s withered on the vine and spends his time just shit-barfing on Twitter all day, and meanwhile farms and factories and small businesses are kicked to the curb. So it’s really hard to imagine people getting onboard a hayride full of manure as it totters drunkenly toward a cliff.

But, it’s 2020. And white supremacy is a helluva drug.

Further, they’ve created a pipeline that pumps shit into people’s heads while convincing them it’s caviar. Fox and OANN are just a steady parade of lies, lies, lies, there to lube up King Dump and keep him slick and gooey. People have built for themselves not so much an echo chamber as a Jonestown enclave with all the “””definitely unpoisoned””” Flavor-Aid you require. I mean, you try to tell people “hey that’s not a true thing you just said” and they snap back with WELL DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH despite the fact they did literally no research at all except reading an e-mail from Old Uncle Dave who said that the Democrats are aborting babies in Brooklyn pizza ovens in order to appease the Demonic Socialist Treaties. “Someone on Facebook said that masks don’t work so I believe them unreservedly and that is my idea of ‘research,’ please and thank you. COVID is a hoax and it’ll disappear on November 4th like magic!”

So, in a normal time, he couldn’t win.

But this ain’t normal.

Could Biden win? I didn’t think he could back in the primaries. I was wrong. He’s run a far better campaign than I expected. He’s taken serious steps to actually bring onboard a diverse coalition of voices, and he actually did move in a more progressive direction in places it counts. He’s made it clear he’s the guy who embraces compassion and science and while normally I’d hope those would be obvious picks for campaign planks, it’s 2020 and we’ve got a president who jerks off to Q-Anon propaganda and who lacks basic competency in nearly everything. (God, I really wish for a journalist who would simply ask him to explain basic facts about our government. A journalist who plays dumb and who asks for his explanation, and then you watch him just stammer through some gibberish answer like an 8th grader who didn’t read the book he’s currently giving a report on.) So, Biden could win too. The numbers favor him. Sanity favors him. Basic humanity favors him.

But the Cursed Year 2020 may have other things in store.

And part of that is down to the fact that this binary outcome is by no means the only, or even likely outcome. We have far greater shenanigans that could occur, friendos. Biden could win, and Trump could contest it, and now that he’s got Supreme Court Justice Handmaid’s Tale in the seat, she could throw the election to him. Especially if Biden doesn’t win in a landslide, the kind that ends up decided on Election Night, even though no election is ever actually decided on election night. If we have anything approaching Bush V. Gore, they’ve packed the courts so hard with corrupt bastards, that fate is written. They’re glad to do the devil’s work on this one.

Then there’s all the extra fun add-ons — protest! General strike! Civil war! Shit, if I woke up on Wednesday and the news said, “Both presidential candidates were eaten by starving polar bears, which throws the election to Kanye West,” I’d be like, yeah, that tracks. Because I don’t know! I don’t know what’s happening! I don’t know what’s coming down the pike! It’s probably not going to be great. Shit’s on fire! We’re under the boots of a burgeoning theocratic kleptocracy, and even just saying those words makes me feel like I’ve lost my marbles. It sounds too extreme, too fearful — it can’t be that bad, right? Except the majority is ruled by a minority who is increasingly pushing religion over science, who urges white supremacy and misogyny over inclusion, who is continually working to undermine the vote rather than get the vote out, who is expecting grand overtures of gratitude for doing literally nothing except hurting people, who supports a president that routinely makes comments about being president for an extra four years, or eight, or for life, or demanding his children become president next, or, or, or. It’s seeing a house and saying, “Well, that house is clearly fine, it’s a house, it’s just standing there,” while simultaneously realizing the whole thing is riddled with termites and will fall down in a stiff breeze. It looks okay from the outside, but it’s rotten to the core.

I don’t know what happens! I have no prediction! Revolution! Coup! Evangelical pogroms! Trump eats babies while accusing Democrats of eating babies! Democrats treating all this as normal until they’re thrown into jail! Boogaloo-slash-Proud Boy TV network! Fire bees! Laser bears! Holes! Holes opening up underneath all of his, holes from whence goblins crawl, holes that stink of sulfur and moan and gibber! Aaaah! HAhahahaahAHAHA AAHHH WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING WHAT THE SHIT IS GOING TO HAPPEN ARE WE GOING TO BE OKAY ARE WE NOT GOING TO BE OKAY JESUS EFFING CHRIST ON A CRAPWAGON THERE’S STILL THE PANDEMIC AND STILL THE RISING BOIL-TIDE OF CLIMATE CHANGE AND AAAAAAAH PLEASE MAKE THE SHITTY PRESIDENT SHUT UP AND GO AWAY I NEVER WANT TO HEAR HIM OR SEE HIM OR LAY EYES ON HIS MAGGOTY FUCKING TWEETS EVERY AGAIN AAAAAAAAEEHhhghghhhrrble

Ahem.

I got nothing.

What I got is this:

The one place I have some hope — some persistent, steady hope — is in each other. I’ve seen that in the last four years a lot, where people — a lot of people — come together and stand for one another, and who have stood up for what matters most, which is a democracy that benefits not only the few, not even the many, but a democracy that serves everyone. And I know that if the shit hits the fan, we can count on the people to get on some comfortable shoes and a jacket and hit the streets, particularly for those who can’t. And I think we need to be ready for that. To raise a ruckus. To cause that good trouble. To disobey non-violently and to choke the gears of the machine until it shudders and breaks. I hope it doesn’t come to that, but I know it could. Anything could happen now. This is the final run-up and the chaos will continue. The chaos will worsen. We must be there for each other and for our democracy, in the voting booths, on the streets, in the charities that need us, for everyone who is reaching out and will be hurt by four more years of this venomous, inept administration.

You’re not alone.

I’m not alone.

I have hope in you.

Also, the laser bears.

I have hope in laser bears.

Because, I mean, at this point, why the fuck not?

LASER BEARS 2024

pyoo pyoo

*bear noises*

James S. Murray And Darren Wearmouth: Five Things We Learned Writing Don’t Move

Megan Forrester has barely survived the unthinkable. Six months ago, she witnessed a horrific accident that killed her husband and son, and lives with the guilt of knowing she could have done more to save them. Now, Megan hopes to mend the pieces of her broken spirit by attending a local church group’s annual camping trip. But the church group members—riddled with dark secrets of their own—make a catastrophic navigational mistake, leaving them stranded in an untouched canyon in the West Virginian national forest.

Isolated from any chance of help or rescue, Megan and the others quickly realize why this side of the canyon has never been surveyed by humankind: it’s home to a terrifying prehistoric arachnid that patiently stalks its prey through even the slightest movement or vibration in the forest. And it’s desperate for a meal.

Grief-stricken and haunted by her tragic loss, Megan now faces her ultimate test of endurance. Can she outwit a bloodthirsty creature hellbent on ensuring that no one gets out of alive? When a single wrong turn can mean death, she only has one option: DON’T MOVE.

***

Nothing Beats Terror in the Woods

There’s something uniquely spine-chilling about forests. When night falls, the enclosed space of the trees mixes with an infinite chorus of sounds: creaking, crackling, buzzing, unexplained echoes, you name it. It’s almost otherworldly. Darren and I wanted to capture that deep sense of uncertainty—that feeling of being preyed upon. And of course, we aren’t the only ones who’ve used the woods as our setting. I grew up on classic movies like Friday the 13th and The Evil Dead, and even more recent films like Cabin in the Woods. All of them remind us that forests are a perfect playground for bloody, nightmarish mayhem. I think what makes it so personal is that we’ve all been on camping trips. We’ve all been hiking. Culturally, we use the woods as a place to escape, to get away from the lights of the city. But it’s also a place that’s far away from any potential help. It’s a lot like being willingly stranded. And if we’ve done our job right with this book, you might think twice about your next woodland getaway!

Grab Them From The First Chapter and Don’t Let Go

Creators must compete. Whether we like to admit it or not, our work and the things that we create need to capture an audience. Why would someone read your book when there is a lifetime of amazing shows on Netflix or cute puppy videos on YouTube? Your story needs to start strong, stay strong, and end strong. Make it so the reader can’t put the book down. You need to end each chapter with something that scares the hell out of you. Thrillers are called thrillers for a reason. Because if you’ve written a good one, that’s exactly what it should do. It should thrill you even as you write it. If it’s boring to write, it’s damn sure going to be boring to read.

Zoom Call? Turn Your Camera On

Like most authors, this was our first experience writing and working through a pandemic. With Darren living in Toronto and me in New Jersey, the physical distance alone was enough to drive us crazy. When the whole world is shut down, your creative process can either go one of two ways. The first is that you finally feel like you have all the time in the world to write and get stuff done. The other is that with the whirlwind of stress and other factors going on, all of that can blend into your work and bring the writing process to a complete stand still. My advice for those trying to create in a virtual, socially distanced world is to always turn your Zoom, Skype, FaceTime, whatever camera on. Whatever method you use to communicate, make sure you’re getting the most out of it. Coordinating with our publisher, editors, managers, agents, and each other was almost entirely virtual on this book. Working on a novel is such a personal project and being able to connect with each other in that way (even during a pandemic) was crucial. Not to mention that it helps us stay focused. Plus, it’s always nice to see Darren face-to-face. What can I say? His smile lights up a room.

We’re Never Really In Control

In a similar vein—if this pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that no matter what goals we’ve set for ourselves or how we expect certain years to go, the world has a way of slapping us in the face. Mother Nature, especially, has her own methods of making us feel small. I think that’s part of what makes DON’T MOVE feel so relevant. It plays on that idea of helplessness. How do you build yourself back up after senseless tragedy strikes? Our lead character is forced to ask herself these questions. When you’ve seemingly lost everything, how do you gather the courage to face something potentially even scarier? Or more specifically, how do you outsmart a gigantic prehistoric arachnid that has survived for thousands of years as an evolutionary apex predator when it wants to eat you for lunch?

Every Character Deserves A Second Chance

Darren and I started this novel with a clear idea of our protagonist. We went into it knowing Megan Forrester would be a master problem solver—someone with a highly logical and methodical mind who faces enormous challenges every day as a part of her job. (She was inspired by the real-life people I met while touring the Hunts Point Food Distribution Center about a decade ago.) But in a moment when her family needs her to make a life-or-death decision, she freezes. It’s an instant that will haunt her for the rest of her life. She becomes riddled with grief and for the first time in her life, she’s uncertain about everything. Her foil is Ricky Vargas, a streetwise, tattoo-covered man who’s always been alone and as a result, hasn’t always made the best decisions along the way. That’s why the church-sponsored camping trip Megan and Vargas embark on seems like a perfect chance for a fresh start for both characters. But throw a murderous beast into the mix, and what do you have? You’re left with two flawed characters who both need to overcome their demons and their pasts while simultaneously fighting for their lives. That begs the question: Are we destined to repeat history? Or is it possible to override fate by working together?

***

James S. Murray is a writer, executive producer, and actor, best known as ”Murr” on the hit television show Impractical Jokers along with his comedy troupe, the Tenderloins. He has worked as the Senior Vice President of Development for NorthSouth Productions for a decade and is the owner of Impractical Productions, LLC. He recently starred in Impractical Jokers: The Movie, and also appears alongside the rest of the Tenderloins, and Jameela Jamil, in the television series The Misery Index on TBS. James is author of the internationally bestselling novels Awakened, The Brink, and Obliteration.

Darren Wearmouth spent six years in the British Army before pursuing a career in corporate technology. After fifteen years working for multinational firms and a start-up, he decided to follow his passion for writing. He is the author of numerous internationally bestselling novels, including Awakened, The Brink, First Activation, and Critical Dawn. He lives in Hamilton, Ontario.

Don’t Move: Blackstone | Indiebound | Bookshop | Amazon

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