Sarah A. Hoyt's Blog, page 262

Belonging

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Sorry this is so late.  I woke up dead.  Okay, okay, not really dead.  Though Dan has argued that my drive to write is so great I’ll become a natural zombie, it’s not that bad yet.  However, I’ve been up for two hours and struggling to stay awake.

This is a problem because I’m trying to finish an overdue short story.  It’s a difficult convoluted story because it’s a noir mystery, as well as a fantasy.  I know every step, but because of the nature of the beast I have to mind every word.  Whic...

Something to Live For

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Everyone is talking about suicide and the increase of suicide rates.

As everyone who reads here regularly knows, I suffer from — usually not severe — depressive episodes.  Most of my depressive episodes are not suicidal and have no suicidal ideation.  They just, for lack of a better term “disable the doing switch”.  So when I’m depressed I sit and stare at wars.  The kids used to rather like it when I was mildly depressed.  Partly because they could tell me all the things they’d been doing t...

Vignettes by Luke, Mary Catelli and ‘Nother Mike

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Vignettes by Luke, Mary Catelli and ‘Nother Mike

So what’s a vignette? You might know them as flash fiction, or even just sketches. We will provide a prompt each Sunday that you can use directly (including it in your work) or just as an inspiration. You, in turn, will write about 50 words (yes, we are going for short shorts! Not even a Drabble 100 words, just half that!). Then post it! For an additional challenge, you can aim to make it exactly 50 words, if you like.

We recommend that if you...

Unfalsifiable

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Yesterday on the net there was a kerfuffle with one of the snowflakes trying to ban Baen authors from conventions.

In it, one of them insisted that Larry is an evil man (and Ringo too) and when confronted by real life people saying that “No, I met them, they’re nice people”she said that’s how you know they are bad men.  She then unrolled a litany of “life experiences” that proves that anyone acting nice is a monster.

Um….

I fully believe some of her friends were monsters.  There is a type of...

Escape Hatches

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Yesterday, driving around, we noticed a street named after a telecom company.  We’re not extremely familiar with where the telecoms were, partly because we lived in the Springs at the time (yeah, there were a few there too, including MCI that Dan worked for) but we suspect the (tiny) road was built to accommodate headquarters for the company, like, you know, Walmart being on Sam Walton’s rd. if they can get away with it.

The company, which was never one of the big players is long gone and in...

Trekonomics 4 – And the fiction continues – by Amanda S. Green

[image error] Trekonomics  4 – And the fiction continues – by Amanda S. Green

The more I read of Trekonomics, the more I wonder how the author managed to write it with a straight face. Perhaps Saadia didn’t. Perhaps this is yet another situation where an author had tongue firmly planted in cheek and saw only dollar signs at the end of the rainbow. Unfortunately, I have a feeling Saadia really feels the book is a serious study of the economics of the Star Trek franchise and is fully onboard with the social...

Awards, Money and Writing, oh, My

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Sometimes I’m thick like two four by fours nailed together.

It’s a very specialized form of stupidity, mind you.  There is only one category of things I can’t seem to get easily.  However that category is “Stupid sh*t people believe and do” which means it affects an awful lot of things in all areas of life.

This particular bit of “wait, what?” came in an epic facebook subthread on a David Weber post.

Oh, it was the usual we’ve seen over the years with a troll accusing Sad Puppies of racism,...

We Were Never the Scintilla

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Recently, in varying forums on recent events, I’ve come across something I thought was dead and buried in my young days. Something I even fell for until I became much older.

It’s the whole “after the mess you made of the world.”  The bizarre thing is that they were aiming it at people like me: we came after the boomers, and really our generation is known for what on the world stage?  Cutting our hair and going to work? Oh, yes, I know, we are a “Material” generation who doesn’t care about so...

A Fundamental Lack of Trust

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I’ve come to the conclusion I’m a very suspicious person.  I don’t trust anyone absolutely, myself included. And that’s — mostly — a good thing.

The part where it’s not a good thing is the part where my back brain is convinced I’m a lazy shirker.  So I often miss the first few days (weeks, months, okay for the hypothyroidism years) of illness because I think I’m just malingering.  “Oh look, I just want to sleep and can’t think straight.  Must be because I don’t want to do work, lazy bitch th...

Books by Sarah, Vignettes by Luke, Mary Catelli and ‘Nother Mike, a Thousand Elephants, The Greatest Show On Earth

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*For those who caught on I was ill (yes, again.)  The problem with my illnesses is that I always try to persuade myself I’m just malingering, and ear infections are tailor made for this, because they just make you feel very tired and not particularly coherent.  I fought with ending a short story for the best part of a week.  Those who know me know how atypical that is but I was sure I was just blocked or lazy or something.  Then the pain in my ears got so bad I was humming to balance the pre...