Sarah A. Hoyt's Blog, page 323

Staying Alive

I’ll try to do a Dark Fate later today, but I’m about running out the door, to spend most of the day in a waiting room.

I’d like to make several points, though, before I go, partly to explain what yesterday’s post was about.

First of all I made the post yesterday because I HAD TO. The other alternative was walking away and shuttering the blog. I was going to bed depressed every night, which interferes with what I do to earn a living.

Now some of you are going to say I can’t stand contrary vie...

The Tocsin is Sounding

I’m not in a good mood. This happens. Partly this is because I was caught by a cold in the middle of a downward spiral (downward spirals happen. They’re fairly normal, I know how to correct for them, and most people can’t tell I’m in one. It’s just human interaction becomes a little more difficult and I become more of an hermit. Also, at a party, you might notice me in a corner, more. I’ve been dealing with this since I was seven or eight. I manage it so that chemicals don’t need to manage it...

Controlled Burns – Out of the Darkness

Controlled Burns – Out of the Darkness

There are times in life where you just have to call it quits, burn everything down, and rebuild from the ashes like some kind of mythical phoenix. You just need a clean slate, with as little baggage weighing you down as possible. I can understand that, having done it in my own life several times now. I am rather annoyed with those who think that this is the path we need to take for the country. Put the damned matches down for a hot minute.

The country c...

2016 – The Show

Chris Chupik first said it about two weeks ago: 2016, bad writing, implausible premises, and why are we even still watching this?

Now, as most of you know, I’m not a big one for TV. Mostly, if I get captured by a tv show, or two, it means that I was sitting around, spending time with my husband while he watches, and the show was so good, it caught me.

I got caught by 2016 for various reasons. To begin with I’ve enjoyed some of the predecessor shows. Even 2001 with its nail-biting climax three...

Creepy Clowns

I’m getting really tired of the creepy clowns.

No, I don’t mean the ones everyone keeps seeing around schools, though that fad interested me enough because it resounds with visions of strange things in times of trouble, like seeing UFOs in the seventies. In fact I went so far as to look up the sightings, but couldn’t determine if, as when one sees UFOs (or in the olden days fairies) there were the after effects of burning eyes and what seemed to be a mild cold. Years ago, in a summer of insan...

Belated Promo by Free Range Oyster And Sunday Vignettes by by Luke, Mary Catelli and ‘Nother Mike

*Vignettes at the bottom.* J.M. Ney-Grimm Devouring Light

Mischievous Mercurio guards the planet Mercury – his sacred charge – with quirky devotion. He loves the oddball chunk of rock, with its illusion of retrograde motion and its out-of-sync orbit and spin.

Almost as much as he loves playing pranks.

But when Earth’s guardian Gaia bids Mercurio to organize a circus act for Sol’s birthday celebration, the joke’s on him.

While Mercurio wangles his way around the captious refusals of his would...

Research

So, as some of you know, I’ve been reading a lot of (mostly regency) romance. I have kept it to a certain type of formulaic offering, because this is stuff I’m reading in 20 free minutes, between writing chapters. I also read cozies, but I’ve run out of cozies that balance on the fine edge of “not throwing against the wall” and “Not so riveting I’ll loose hours to finishing the book.”

My favorite regency romance authors are really historical mystery authors, just with the romance hyped a litt...

Breaking and Buying

I think the first time I came across a sign that said “you break it, you bought it” was when I went with grandma to the potters. She used to buy me little miniature jars and pots and pans, which had been made for so long in the region that an amphora was still part of the set. This was my normal reward for behaving, but it wasn’t enough incentive. I liked walking around looking at everything and I was maybe five, and things would get swept from shelves by arms that weren’t entirely under my c...

No It’s Not About Good Manners – Kate Paulk

No It’s Not About Good Manners – Kate Paulk

I recently ran across a blog post on something of next to no interest in this crowd (it’s a software testing blog, okay) where, in the context of a brouhaha that’s currently roiling through the testing blogverse, the poster mentioned that he didn’t see why people opposed political correctness because it’s really just about being polite and respectful of the other person.

I didn’t respond to that post for a number of reasons, but the assumption that...

Roles

Where do our ideas of how the world works come from?

I recently re-read The Moving Finger by Agatha Christie and realized that the reason it was one of my very favorites growing up is that I could have stood in for the main character, Megan Hunter, at that age.

She’s a rather unfortunate girl caught between childhood and womanhood, and in a way both being refused the right to advance into womanhood (her family seems to think she’s about 10) and refusing to advance to womanhood (she refuses to...