Carrie Vaughn's Blog, page 2

Update: December 2024

(Reminder that this post is mirrored on my Patreon page!)

Wait what day is it?

I don’t even care, I’m taking the rest of the month off. Ha!

State of the desk:  I finished the first draft of The Glass Slide World. It’s a book! The next step: the editor reads it and sends me notes and feedback. We’ll likely go through a couple of rounds of that. Meanwhile, I’m trying not to think of the book at all. The darn thing needs to sit a while. Settle. Think about what it’s done. Ferment. Sprout fungus. I don’t know.

On that note, for this month’s lesson I’ll write a bit about what happens to my brain after finishing an entire novel. Because there’s a… let’s call it a recovery phase. Oof.

Hey, I went to the movies! To see a movie! The Wild Robot. The best part was getting to see it with my brother, sister-in-law, and niece and buy them all movie snacks. The movie itself was fine, kinda sweet. I mean, it’s halfway about a bird, so of course I’m there for it. I admit, I was a bit surprised that there was a big Avengers-style laser gun fight in the third act. Wasn’t expecting that and it seemed tonally off. But this kind of movie also reminds me that I’m a huge cynic who’s seen way too many movies like this and may be a bit judgmental as a result.

The other one I saw was streaming:  Matrix Resurrections. I’d been avoiding it because the other Matrix sequels are…well, they’re not great. They took the philosophy of the first one and undermined it with a videogame aesthetic. Which means I went into this fourth film with lowered expectations… and let me tell you, it was NOT what I was expecting, because this one goes full meta. With a double layer of meta. It’s basically Lana Wachowski’s giant middle finger to The Matrix’s toxic fandom that took entirely the wrong messages from the first film. I am so here for it. It’s great. “Nothing comforts anxiety like a little nostalgia.” YES, BRING IT. I think middle-aged Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Ann Moss have more chemistry than they did as young goths.

TV:  I’ve watched all of Star Trek Prodigy (on Netflix rather than Paramount because of rights issues, I think?) and I think it’s a more cohesive, compelling story than anything Star Trek Discovery did. Mind you, I didn’t make it through the second season of Discovery because I got fed up. Ostensibly a kids show (kind of like how Star Wars Rebels is a kids show) Prodigy has a big found family element, a big galaxy-spanning ongoing plot, lots of callbacks, and a story I’ve been waiting for in Star Trek:  what does life look like outside Starfleet? Outside the Federation? This gives us a taste. I liked it a lot.

Next up: Sorting my yarn stash into new projects, starting some other new projects. The Holidays? Yeah, we’ll do some of that, too. Happy December!

The Naturalist Society is here!

It’s here! Today is the official release day for THE NATURALIST SOCIETY! Thank you to all of you who’ve already picked it up, read it, left reviews, and all that good stuff. The response so far has been wonderful!

And now, onward! Saturday, November 2 at 1 pm I’ll be at Beastly Books in Santa Fe, NM, along with Daniel Abraham, talking books and writing and whatever else we feel like! The shop is also taking orders for signed copies, if you want to get one for yourself.

I’ve been working on this for so long, it’s so nice to finally have it out in the world. It never gets old.

October 2024 Update!

Not gonna lie, I’m a little frazzled this month. Without going into details, a family emergency is occupying most of my time right now.

I’d say this month’s Patreon lesson is going to be on how to keep writing during a crisis, but this is really my first time experiencing this particular lesson, so I’m not sure how useful my advice is since I’m still figuring it out. This may be one of those things you can’t learn until you go through it yourself. We’ll see how I feel about it next week.

Meanwhile, I recruited some friends to help me make a video to promote The Naturalist Society. It’s very simple but I’m quite proud of it. I was inspired by Florence Merriam Bailey’s 1896 book Birds Through an Opera-Glass. When you read The Naturalist Society, you’ll see why. My treat to myself when I sold the book was acquiring an actual vintage pair of opera glasses to try it for myself. It’s definitely one of the nerdier things I’ve ever done.

Speaking of The Naturalist Society, the novel is an Amazon First Reads pick this month. What this means: you can read the ebook on Kindle RIGHT NOW. And if you have Prime, you can read it for free, a whole month before the official release date. Check it out!

Whew. A lot going on. Honestly, I think I need a nap right now. I’m hanging in there.

One more note for the month:

A couple months ago I made an impulse buy at a locally-owned craft store (Maker General in Longmont, a very cool place where I always find new treasures): a pocket flower press. I’ve been compulsively pressing flowers ever since. I have no idea what I’m going to do with all these pressed flowers, but I’ll think of something. Meanwhile, it’s much like yarn and beads and colored pens and other craft supplies. It’s cool having them around. They’ll come in handy soon, I’m sure. Also, I think I can use my book press to press flowers? This could get out of hand. I may have to plant more flowers next spring.

Onward, my friends.

Semi-scattered September Update!

I made a graphic to promote The Naturalist Society. I’ve seen these around, the cover of the book with a bunch of tropes included in the story, so I wanted to do one myself. Did I do it right?

The tropes:  BIRBS. Women in Science! Disaster Bisexual. More Birbs. Love Tangle. Nature is Magic! So Many Birbs. Binomial Nomenclature! This is a Painted Bunting, Passerina ciris.

I’ve never seen a painted bunting. I’m gonna have to change that.

The book’s out November 1. Less than a couple months now. Whew!

I’m trying a new thing on Patreon:  Is the idea of a monthly subscription too much commitment? I get it! Now you can get bundles of selected posts for a one-time charge. Check it out here!

This month’s lesson:  Novel drafting, the early stages. I’ve started a new novel. (Yes, another one. Yes, I know. It’s chronic, I’m afraid.) I’ll talk about how it’s going and what approaches I’m taking. Give you a bit of a snapshot of what this stage of novel writing looks like.

Other stuff, let’s see.

Media consumption:

I finished The Decameron. It’s fabulous. Warning, it’s not a family show. It’s dark, violent, but also absurd and hilarious, and just really well paced and plotted. And maybe the best use of a New Wave 80’s soundtrack in the last decade. It’s about grief and faith and the upending of the social order, which any story about the Black Death needs to be. It’s heavily influenced by Commedia dell’arte, a form of theater that’s all about stock characters, clever servants versus shallow lords and ladies, lovers overcoming obstacles, con games and lots of shtick. The Decameron has all of it, and so well done.

Went to the theater for the first time since, I think, Dune 2? Deadpool & Wolverine, naturally. It’s…what it says on the tin. It’s fine. I think it’s too long and I’m a little tired of overlong fight scenes where the same thing happens over and over again. Only slightly amusingly, Deadpool makes an aside about long movie run times. That doesn’t excuse a long runtime, you know? The brutally psychopathic villain was exhausting, and I kept thinking of alternatives. Like, we’ve got all these cameos, what if they’d brought in James Macavoy for a confrontation? I know the rights to Professor X are a mess, but that’s the beauty of it, they’d never have to name the character. Just…have a moment between them. See what happens. See if we can do something other than ultra-violence. I guess that’s what gets me, these films always go for violence and I think that ends up taking the place of story. It was my biggest complaint with Logan, this film’s nominal predecessor. See my review of that for more.

I think I may not be the target audience for these movies. See my reviews of the first two Deadpool movies, here and here.

I’ve been asking the MCU for the last 4 years:  Are we building toward something? Is this part of one storyline, or are we just spilling all the toys out on the floor to see what happens? Deadpool & Wolverine leaves us with the unsettling answer that this, this film, is actually what we’ve been building toward, with all the cameos and a heavy reliance on the Loki TV show – does the film even make sense to anyone who hasn’t seen Loki?

And Deadpool’s statement:  This Multiverse thing, I’m not sure it’s working.

God yes please, let it go. Just let it go. Thank you.

August 2024

Find more on my Patreon page!

A short update this month. I’m going on an adventure!!!

This month’s lesson:  A post on what I’ve learned about public speaking.

New story out!  “Between Above and Below” is up on Lightspeed. This is one that came out of a really nice hike in Rocky Mountain National Park awhile back. (This is my own response to a prompt I posted a couple of years ago.) Speaking of, I should get up there before the summer is out.

Working on:  I’ve finished a very rough draft of the surprise! novel from December. It still needs a lot of work. I have a whole list of work that it needs. But I’m setting it aside, because I have another novel I need to get started on, with an actual deadline.

I’m also taking a bit of a break to write one, maybe two short stories that have been cooking in my back brain. Can’t stop won’t stop!

I’ve mentioned the podcast If Books Could Kill before. They have an episode on J.D. Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy that’s worth a listen.   Just because I don’t often talk politics doesn’t mean I’m not paying attention. Harris in 2024! Let’s do it!

Media consumption:

Did I watch any of the serious, award-nominated movies that have hit streaming over the last couple of months? The Holdovers, American Fiction, all movies I’ve told myself I want to watch? No, I did not. Instead, I watched The Great Wall, a big dumb action movie noteworthy mostly for having nearly incomprehensible trailers when it came out. It’s swarms and swarms of indistinguishable CGI lizard monsters versus swarms and swarms of indistinguishable CGI soldiers. My reward for turning on the big dumb action movie is the surprise that Pedro Pascal is in it as Matt Damon’s ethnic comic sidekick. If you consider Spanish to be ethnic. He keeps saying “amigo” so I think we’re supposed to. Anyway, it’s about how the white European is better at fighting the monsters than the thousands of Chinese soldiers who’ve trained to fight them for generations. Whatever.

I also watched Butterfly in the Sky, a Netflix documentary about the long-running PBS show Reading Rainbow hosted by the beloved LeVar Burton. It made me cry. I’m working up to watching the documentary about Jim Henson, which I know will make me cry. Oof.

And… I started The Decameron, an adaption of Boccaccio’s 14th century collection of stories about the Black Death. Y’all, I have a lot to say about it. It’s unhinged. It’s absurd. It’s Commedia dell’arte. Can’t wait to finish it.

But right now:  Olympics! I’m watching the Olympics! Yes!

Have a good August, folks. Summer’s rolling on.

Update July 2024

The year is half over. Cue wailing and hair pulling.

(To read more, follow me on Patreon!)

This month’s lesson:  I’m taking a bit of a break and letting other people talk for me as I pass along some tidbits about writing, creativity, life, and so on, drawn from the notes I took during my self help and memoir binge read from about 2021 and 2023.  

It’ll give me an excuse to review everything.

I’m gearing up for my couple of big trips this summer. Staying out of the heat, trying to get work done in the meantime. I know this is the point where summer’s going to be over before I know it and I’ll wonder why I didn’t get done any of the stuff I thought I was going to do.

Craft Challenge #4. I don’t actually have Craft Challenge #4 yet, but I’m considering a “30 day challenge” for one of the many crafts/skills I never seem to have time to practice. (Sketching? Watercolor? Embroidery? Hmm.) I’ve heard good things about the idea of this kind of challenge, mindfully doing a thing every day for 30 days, to get in the habit, to develop skills, to commit to the practice. We’ll see. Maybe not in the same month I’m heading to Scotland…. Have you ever done a 30-day challenge for, well, anything? How did it go?

Media Consumption:

I’ve been dabbling in lots of things. I’ve seen a few movies. Under Paris:  sharks invade the Seine and the inevitable sequence of events destroys the city. I’m pretty sure it’s meant to be rather ridiculous. Innovations this time around include scuba divers wearing full-face regulator masks with comm abilities so we can hear their agonized screams as they’re devoured alive.

Divergent. (Seriously, so much of the stuff I’ve been watching is just because it comes up on the preview and my curiosity gets the better of me.) This is the unholy love child of Harry Potter and The Hunger Games. Very long voice over explains the whole thing. The “smart people” faction turns out to be the bad guys and I’m giving that detail a bit of a side-eye. Is this the film that killed the YA dystopia genre? Who knows. I’m assuming the book is better, I haven’t read it. Has anyone here read it?

Oppenheimer. Yeah, finally caught that one. It’s long, and about three movies squashed together. The more interesting one is in the second half, the scrutiny of Oppenheimer during the Red Scare and battle of wills between him, his supporters, and Strauss. But there’s a lot of other stuff going on. I’m once again grappling with the thread of misogyny that shows up in a lot of Nolan’s work (the women characters aren’t just props or accessories, they’re often obstacles, though they have little agency for themselves). (See my review of Inception for another example of this.)   And yet, as frustrating as they are, I keep watching his movies.

What the movie did do is bring back a lot of memories from that one summer my dad spent working at Los Alamos. We moved to the town for a couple of months, renting one of the original houses (not one of the original quickly-built plank board shacks, but one of those built when the lab was made permanent). That was a weird summer for me, 14, no friends, traveling around sight-seeing with the family while dad worked. I spent a lot of time at the library, and that was the summer I read Dune and Sherlock Holmes for the first time.

We never talked about Dad’s work back then. I mean, he couldn’t really talk about it. But I asked him about it now and got a lot of stories from him that I hadn’t heard before, and that was good. Dad said he liked the film.

Welcome to June 2024!

Welcome to June!

Reminder to visit me on Patreon.

Summer is upon us. I went camping last weekend, at a site in the Roosevelt National Forest. Absolutely gorgeous. Mountains and pine forests and so many stars at night. And while it might be summer, nights at 8,000 feet are still mucking cold. (Low 40’s F) The fun part about that was I’m currently reading Into the Silence, by Wade Davis, about the British expeditions to Mt. Everest in the early 1920’s. However cold I was at night wasn’t nearly as cold as those guys put up with.

This month’s lesson:  Traditional Publishing vs. Indie Publishing. That’s right, I’m gonna go there. Come read what I have to say about this eternal debate.

Work:  My story “Himalia” is up on Clarkesworld this month. This came out of analyzing the plot structures of the films A River Runs Through It and The Eight Mountains, and asking questions about what nature writing will look like on places not Earth. It’s a quiet and atmospheric story. And if you like seeing new science fiction every month, consider subscribing to the magazine!

Other work:  I have two stories still needing to be revised and sent off. After almost a month away from the current novel in progress because of all the other stuff that happened in May, I’m back to it and just crossed 60,000 words. It’s going to need a lot of work, but as is often said, it’s easier to revise words that are already written. I’ve got a lot to work with and I’m excited.

The calendar is filling up:  I’ll be at the Englewood Public Library Author Festival this Saturday, June 8.

Some other events coming up:  I’ll be at Worldcon in Glasgow, and I’m going to try to be at Bubonicon in Albuquerque right after that.

July 13 I’ll be in Dallas teaching a program on plot and character as part of the DFWWW Writers Bloc program.   More info on that when I have it.

Also this weekend:  the Estes Park Wool Market. My favorite thing about it is meeting the animals that produce the fiber we all work with. Like angora bunnies. SO FLUFFY. Maybe I’ll get some angora to spin…

This brings me to my Craft Challenge #3: I entered two skeins of my handspun yarn in the handspinning contest. Whew. Blame the spinners at the yarn shop for talking me into it. Peer pressure, man. We’ll see how THAT goes.

And one last item: I watched a lovely movie, Catherine Called Birdy, based on the Newbery Honor book by Karen Cushman. Great cast – Bella Ramsey plays the title character. It’s about friends and family, and it’s cheeky and silly and heartfelt, with all the movie-medieval trappings one could hope for.

And that Wade Davis Everest book is like 900 pages long and due back at the library in a couple of days so I’d better get back to it…

Update May 2024 – The Naturalist Society

(Mirrored on my Patreon.)

The Naturalist Society has a cover! That’s my big deal to show off for the month. The novel is due out October 8, available in paperback, ebook, and audio, from all the usual places. (Bookshop, Amazon, Barnes and Noble) Let the self-promotion begin in earnest! I’ve been talking about this book for so long, I’m getting itchy for it to be out in the world. A few more months…

This month’s lesson: How to write a synopsis. Or at least how *I* write a synopsis.

Craft Challenge 2:  Last night, I taught a small SCA group how to use a drop spindle. I’ve been using a drop spindle for a dozen years or so, but this was my first time teaching about it. I did this because teaching is a good way to study my own process and learn more about the craft (much like teaching writing!) and also to get more people in the SCA spinning wool, because it adds to the historical atmosphere and is pretty awesome. I love that people have been using spindles for something like 20,000 years, and the technology hasn’t changed that much in that time. It’s a direct link from the present to the past. Getting the confidence to teach this craft forced me to admit that maybe I do know what I’m doing, and that it’s okay if I don’t, because I can point people to places where they can get answers.

Media:  I’m so behind on books and movies and TV shows it’s a little embarrassing.

In better news, I have a whole summer of fun and work and travel planned, sometimes all three at once. I’ll be at Worldcon in Glasgow in August, and a couple of friends and I are planning a big Scotland travel odyssey in the weeks before and after. We’ll even be in Edinburgh for part of the Fringe Festival. I’m so excited I wanna scream! In the meantime, work. I’m headed to a writing workshop in a couple of weeks. Technically, it’s work – we’ll be critiquing each other’s stories – but I plan on kicking back and making a vacation of it as well.

And on that note, I gotta get some stuff done before then, so away I go —

Update! April 2024

This is mirrored on my Patreon page, which has a lot more info on it!

A bit belatedly, I realized I’ve entered the third year of keeping my Patreon. Thank you to my supporters, especially those who have been here from the start. Your presence here is immensely helpful. This format is working well because it gives me incentive and structure that I had lost on my old regular blog. I’m planning ahead better and reflecting on my own process more. Thank you! I hope it’s been useful for you as well! I especially love talking about writing hacks and doing long-form overly analytical reviews. (When my family saw The Lion King back in the day, I walked out of the theater gushing about how it was basically Hamlet, and my brother yelled at me, “Stop it! You’re ruining it!” I shouted back, “No, I’m making it BETTER!”)

This month’s lesson:  Note taking! Organizing! There’s no “one size fits all” on the issue of how to collect and use all the information and notes you gather. I can talk a little about what I do, and other organizing methods I’ve come across.

Meanwhile, it’s spring! The ospreys are back. So are the killdeers and meadowlarks. Waiting for warblers, wrens and swallows, and all the rest of the migrators.

A big chunk of the U.S. will experience a total solar eclipse on Monday. Yes, I have a plan, that involves friends and a road trip. We’ll see how that goes! If you’re in the path of totality, do you have a plan? I experienced the 2017 eclipse that happened just a few hours drive from my house, and it was astonishing and wonderful enough that I want to do it again.

Writing work is progressing slowly, but it is progressing. I should have a cover for The Naturalist Society to show off soon. The unexpected novel is at 50,000 words. I’ve signed up for a workshop in May, which means I need to actually write a short story to take. I’ve got two outlined.

This is turning into a year of Crafting Challenges. I’m liking it because some of this stuff is outside my wheelhouse. It’s a nice distraction, and I’m feeling productive.

Challenge One:  I entered the Masquerade at Costume Con 42 with my Hieronymus Bosch bird creature. The con was here in Denver so it was a low bar for me to get my ass there and do the thing. It was a good experience, I learned some things. There’s a very high level of costuming here – this is the one convention that has more Master level entries than Novice or Journeyman. (I enter at Journeyman – I haven’t done much competing, but my twenty years of experience mean I’m not exactly a beginner, so…) There are people who’ve been doing this for decades and it shows. So much creativity and skill on display!

Here’s my costume on stage:

(The creature is from Hieronymus Bosch’s “The Temptations of St. Anthony.” Bird Guy is in the lower left corner.)

I’m a dilettante by comparison. And I think that’s okay.  My mastery comes in other areas.  I can do a thing without being the best at a thing, as long as I’m having fun. I need to remember that.

But then…why show off? Attention. I’ll be forever grateful to Ada Calhoun for saying the quiet part out loud – anyone who puts their art out there is, at least partly, doing it for attention. And that’s also okay. From Also a Poet:  “A part of me is writing this because I want people to know more about Frank O’Hara. But maybe, if I’m honest, what I also really want is for people to know about me, so I can feel like I left some mark on the world, however slight.”

What I’m watching/reading/etc. A scattering of stuff. I’m bouncing around between a few different shows. I enjoyed the new Percy Jackson on Disney. I’ve watched the first couple of episodes of Constellation on Apple TV and Three Body Problem on Netflix and jury’s still out, we’ll see if I can actually finish them. I’m curious that we now have a couple of shows messing with time, space, reality and disorientation. (I might stick Monarch, which I loved for many reasons, in there as well. Also Bodies, the time traveling murder mystery from last year.) I need to see where they end up to decide what they’re trying to say. I like Three Body Problem, because it’s setting up some delightful twists and turns and I want to see how they turn out – and see if my guesses are right. I also really love seeing Rosalind Chao in a meatier role than she ever got to do as long-suffering Keiko on Star Trek.

No spoilers please! No, I haven’t read the novel, but I kind of want to now.

Onward, to April!

March 2024: Building Steam

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The new year hangover has worn off, we’ve gotten used to thinking of 2023 as “last year,” and we’re pretty much at cruising altitude. My travel schedule for the year is shaking itself out pretty quickly, and a couple of interesting projects and challenges have presented themselves. Like, I’m being encouraged to enter some of my drop spindle-spun yarn at the Estes Park Wool Market show? Huh. Might just do that. I’m also planning on entering the Masquerade at Costume Con in Denver at the end of the month.

This almost feels like the Before Times, scheduling too much and being excited about it. Let’s do it!

This month’s lesson: I’ve launched a research project for a potential new novel, so I thought it was time to talk about a favorite topic of mine: research for writers. How do I do it and why?

Other stuff.

Uhhh…. Let’s see. I wrote a whole new short story, the first since last May. I’m pleased.

I sorted out my yarn stash and put together like eight new knitting projects, so I’m knitting a bunch right now.

The house finches in my yard are singing up a storm and going through the seed in the feeder at record speed. All sure signs of spring. The juncos are still here, but will probably be gone in a couple of weeks, headed for their summer home in the mountains.

I’m going to Worldcon in Glasgow and planning an epic Scotland tour. I’m very excited!

And the movie everyone’s talking about: Yes, I saw Dune 2.

So I’m a bit of a Dune curmudgeon. I’ve read the book a couple of times but I didn’t find it life changing or anything. In fact, it’s a bit dense and pretentious, I think. But hey, what do I know. I love the David Lynch film because it’s super weird and aesthetically fun. I saw the mini series but don’t remember it very well, except that Matt Keeslar of The Middleman played Feyd Rautha.

Anyway. I thought Part 1 was long and droning and frustrating and sleep inducing. I found no emotional engagement in it. I felt nothing. It was pretty, but the rest of it was characters standing around saying, “Oh, this thing is going to happen.” And then it happens. No tension at all. (Here’s my review of it.)

I enjoyed Part 2 a lot more. It was still too long, but it had a lot going on. I appreciated how much time it spends with the Fremen, portraying their culture in a more nuanced way than we’ve seen. And this is going to sound weird but I really liked what the film did with the women characters. Chani has agency – she’s not going to blindly follow Paul, and she’s not going to keep quiet. Jessica is wickedly manipulative. Alia somehow comes across as even creepier than other versions. And Princess Irulan – I have a confession, she’s my favorite character in the book, which is weird because she’s hardly in the book. But she’s the author of the snippets of history at the start of each chapter, and that was my takeaway: asking questions about whose voice is telling the story and what their motivations are. Which is, really, the whole subtext of Dune. Irulan is this fascinating figure because she’s both part of and outside the whole thing. Florence Pugh is awesome in the role, and Irulan plays exactly that part in the film, and there are a couple of moments when the Emperor just… stops. Becomes frozen with inaction and indecision, and Irulan is there to pick up and carry on in his place. I love it.

The film is totally set up for Part 3. We’ll see what happens.

And now, I’m thinking about space feudalism and why so many SF fans are obsessed with it and what can I do with that.