Sarah A. Hoyt's Blog, page 297

Usaians

Yeah, I’m back on the future history and the Usaian faith.  I know it starts somewhere in the 21st century.  Way too meta, but my name ain’t Hubbard, so ignore that.

I took yesterday off to write, and because I’m actually cursed (right?) I immediately came down with a severe ear infection.  This is not unusual when tapering on prednisone. It’s just… normally not ears.  Anyway, I did the thing I usually do and tried to ignore it, but when I was sweating and crying with pain, I got dragged to t...

Letter from a Minotaur: “Only Human” – by Orvan Ox

*I’m okay, guys.  Actually better today than yesterday when I felt so tired I had to talk myself into taking a shower, and pretty much did nothing in work the rest of the day.  It might have been reaction to life-stuff or it might have been the side effect of prednisone (but hey, as of yesterday no open sores) who knows.  Whatever it is, it’s better now, but I have to catch up on work.  Thank you Orvan for filling in. – SAH*

Letter from a Minotaur: “Only Human” – by Orvan Ox

“I’m only human....

Super Human!

This is where I confess both in my science fiction and in other people’s writing I have a problem with “super humans!” tm.

Oh, most of the super-powers in comics and books and movies are just weird, and not really super powers that could develop. But once I settle in to “oh, fantasy,” I can watch most of them.  I just quickly get tired and mostly watch them because the guys (husband & sons) are watching, not because it’s something that naturally attracts me.  Given several different blurbs fo...

But What Is Man

So, there are themes that run through people’s work, sometimes without the author realizing.

Now, I’m not the sharpest spoon in the drawer, but I can read print when it’s six feet tall and printed in letters of fire.

I’ve long ago realized that “what is being human” and “how to be human” is one of the main themes of my work.

Not that I set out to do it, mind you.  It just sort of happens.

Perhaps it is part of being an Odd, an Outlier, not a joiner, but one who stands out.

One of my earliest...

Future Histories

I’m supposed to be doing a future history for my publisher at Baen, to go into the new edition of Darkship Thieves (I HOPE as an afterword, otherwise there will be spoilers.)

No, correction, I’m supposed to be writing down the future history in a  coherent form.

It has existed as a chart on my office wall, and scribbles in a notebook for twenty one years.  I’m just now trying to collate and correlate it and make it coherent with all the hints that sort of fell out in Darkships.

The problem, o...

Vignettes by Luke, Mary Catelli and ‘Nother Mike & Da Promo by Freerange Oyster

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...

Holding Pattern

I have not yet got the promo post.  And I lost the vignette one.

I haven’t written Grant yet (I need an assistant.  Administrivia is eating my life.)

Until that time, and in honor of father’s day, some pictures of me (and the last one of younger son, aka the clone) with my dad who is still and always the most awesome man in the world after my husband.  (My kids will get there.  They have to grow into the sheer awesome.  They show good signs of it.)  Oh, yeah, the mug with me and dad on the th...

I’m working

I’ll have Grant for you hopefully before midnight, but right now I’m working on Guardian, because I need to send the first fifth or so to Larry, before he thinks I’m a total bum.  The autoimmune delayed things REALLY badly.

Better now, though of course my hair is thin and limp and I gained ten lbs so far on the prednisone.  (Yes, most of it is probably water.  Still looks bloody awful.)

The eczema is sort of still there, but just as a rash and a look of a burn, not open sores (a couple, but t...

Black Tulips

 

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Humans are built on a great Ape frame.  Whether you believe a creator fashioned us from the all-too-lumpy clay of reality, infusing us with a bit of His self; whether you believe we climbed, wrung by wrung [intentional] from the frame of great apes, figured out our own mortality and were so scared we invented consciousness to while away the knowledge, the underlying framework to that voice behind the ears is a great ape.

The form imposes certain limitations.  One of them is that great apes...

I Was Going To Write A Post

Except I REALLY need to get back to my real job.  Yesterday kind of took it out of me, leaving me drained, and exhausted.

There was … stuff before, including a potentially lethal situation for one of the kids (it wasn’t but it looked like it, and I’m proud to say my sons seem to have listened to my stories of living in unstable times, because before I texted the instructions to “Collect your things; get out of there; keep situational awareness on the way out” he was already doing it, and text...