October Update! Just a quick word

Come visit me at Patreon if you want to read more!

This month’s lesson: A different way of looking at genre categories. Writers and readers sometimes spend a lot of time defining and worrying about various genres. I take a different approach.

I have a couple of autumn conventions coming up:

 MileHi Con, my local stomping grounds.  I’m an Author Guest of Honor at the very first GalactiCon, here in Denver over Thanksgiving weekend. 

I did a difficult thing a couple of weeks ago: I pulled out all my SCA/medieval garb that no longer fits and started the process of giving it away. It’s tough because I have a lot of memories connected to these outfits. Not to mention, I made most of them myself. Making them taught me about costuming. It needed to happen – I wasn’t going to wear them anymore, and they should be out in the world instead of stuffed in my closet. Bonus: more closet space. Also, I picked a couple of pieces that I’m going to try to alter/rehab, which will be a good challenge.

TV: The show Britannia has been on my list for awhile and I finally started on it. Y’all, I love it. Really love it. It’s violent and bloody and over the top. It’s also gonzo and has some interesting things to say about mythology and faith. It’s full-on fantasy. A lot of historical-adjacent shows will play cagey with the supernatural and religious beliefs – maybe it was a curse, or maybe it was just bad luck, maybe the prayer worked, maybe it was just good luck, we don’t know, it’s all fuzzy! Britannia is all in with the magic – it’s all real, it works, it’s doing crazy stuff, the Druid king takes you to the underworld you really go to the underworld, your rite-of-passage has you going into the sacred pond to turn into a fish you really turn into a fish. It’s GREAT! And it pushes the consequences of all that. It’s also doing this thing with a big epic story of prophecy and several different religious practices and cultures converging, but at the same time telling several really individual, personal stories, and the individual stories are their own things but they’re also weaving seamlessly in and out of the epic story. It’s a neat trick that I’m going to be thinking about. I still have season 3 to watch, we’ll see where the show takes us.

Ahsoka: I’m just letting it all wash over me. The live-action versions of the characters are the ones in my mind now.

It’s autumn. It’s October. The nights are cool, the leaves are turning, and for me, this is all coming with a sense of relief, of rest. I’m not a huge fan of autumn like some people, but my instincts are telling me I need to slow down a bit, clean up my house, reset my brain, and the changing season is a good excuse to do that.

I hope you’re finding some restful moments.