Ducks and peas

“We heard you like silly puppies & golden leaves! It’s time for Seattle Arboretum walkies!” 🧵

Clarion West was clearing out archives and offered scanned copies of materials of mine. This is application letter I wrote when I was 19. It is dry as old boots. No wonder I was waitlisted twice 😆 Clarion truism: the best writers at Clarion aren't always the ones who build writing careers after

Ducks in the snow

This is a classic blunder in a whole host of industries and professions. What you find is that having a small number of rabid evangelists is a far better route to success than having a bunch of people who give your work 2.5 stars.

100% this. If you can't find joy in the act of writing, and feel euphoria after editing several drafts into exactly what your thoughts had in mind (or close to it), then I really suggest you don't become a writer. The idea, the thoughts, are nothing without execution. The work is the thing.

Reading a craft book written by an MFA guy and it's become extremely clear very quickly that he was not taught a lot of basic storytelling principles.

It's currently 36 degrees and it's supposed to SNOW soon, and I'm very excited. The climbing climate temps mean there have been many years recently where winter only shows up around January. Mild winters mean more fucking garden bugs. I'm ready for the hard freezing to start

Unnecessary roughness. With the sound on, the true seriousness of the conflict is extremely clear. Sprocket sounds like a hippo 😆

yes, yes: Lucy is likewise enjoying the sun (since it’s nice and cool)

We are gonna find beauty everywhere....even in the trash and we are going to be extra about it.

The book I finished last year won't be out until January 2027 (because, publishing), but I do love that that gives me a luxurious amount of time to work on this new one without thinking about publishing. Turns out I always liked the writing; it was the business I didn't like. But that's capitalism.

Had a moment yesterday where I almost threw out the #wip. Then finished reading God's War and reminded myself how many passes it took to layer all that in. Went back to the #wip, did some world building layering, and felt much better about it. It's the first half that's always the hardest.

The latest 20 minute special

Don't be so focused on the few bad humans that you forget to celebrate the majority of the good ones.

Pure enemies to lovers trope #romancelandia

Fierce

Here’s the first photo I found of Hobo. The video really reminded me of him

Voting! It matters! 😆 And then everyone who didn't vote will complain about the tax increase and the Evils of Big Government 🙃

Here’s my look-a-like Hobbes!

A play in two acts

If my dog was a big dog, 15 lbs of pure fluffy love

Found out public hospital levy that just passed in my city (yay!) is for hospital that has no actual plot yet, no plans drawn up, and is still short on actual $ to make happen. Reminded me what conservatives have long known: you can get any old thing on the ballot and passed with 15% voter turnout 😆

Exactly this. When I looked deeply at what we were going to accomplish with this particular new and expensive tool, the cost/benefit of embedding videos where sales person says prospect's name vs regular Loom video where they don't was looking grim. It's fun toy, but is it really what will convert?

Today I got to figure out how to incorporate Sendspark videos into Hubspot workflows, and it was one of those days where I realized that to people not deeply embedded in marketing, my Zoom calls must sound nonsensical. "After they exit this TOF workflow we'll dump them into a future MOF campaign." 🤷‍♀️

Still waiting for the tacos trucks on every corner. I was promised taco trucks.

Up next: more cliff work. From above, landscapes are just patches of color. But even knowing that, intellectually, it's a real trip to try and get yourself to splotch it in that way. One thing I love about painting is how it forces me to see the world differently.

Fierce

Third time was the charm! docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

There are 136,000 people listed as living in my city, and about 100k estimated to be over 18. Yet this was turnout for our mayor race. And in the end, determiend by about 500 votes (these are both progressive candidates. I voted for Mims because he's done fine by me, but either way we win)

FINALLY!! I'm a REAL HUMAN!! I was never a real human at the bad place.

Snug

A play in two acts

Ducks

Adding in some celestial fun to the #wip tonight. Daily eclipses! Planet rings! A nebula shaped like a wheel!

Reminder

#NeverForget 😆

Looking up events and there's this series of events at a place where the doors don't open until 10:30 pm, and now that I'm old I realize this is done to reduce the number of old people who show up 😆

Spouse and I were just talking about this, about how adults assume younger people will just "know" tech. So much tech is designed as plug and play now. You know base, surface level stuff. It just works and you go Ok, that's how it works. Doesn't mean you know how to customize your desktop icons.

With the release today of THE NAMELESS LAND, my grimsweet fantasy road trip w/ a humble deputy courier forced to guide uppity court officials + bonus ravenous fungal ghost plague, court intrigue, & a mysterious haunt is a complete duology (The Witch Roads). us.macmillan.com/books/978125...

We saved a whole AC repair call once with a $20 part and a YouTube video! I was so delighted. I signed up for YouTube premium

.......

This style of underpainting is always wild because it looks nonsensical close up, and then you stand back and your brain does the Magic Eye thing.

I admit I cherish this a lot more these days. You never know when it'll be your last one. You don't take it for granted anymore.

So many times, still, I'm asked "How did you know how to do that?" And my answer is "I looked it up." 25 years of Google, and there are still people who don't look up how to do things, and just wait around to be told. It's wild to me.

"We all wait in life for it to get easier. It will never get easier. What happens is you handle hard better. " Big mood. www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFkX...

The work communication hack that's made the biggest difference for me the last two years is dead simple: Instead of saying, "You should..." or "You need to.." I say, "I suggest..." Seriously, I suggest you try it. 😆 It's wild, how differently people respond.

I have done my civic duty in researching and then preparing my ballot for tomorrow for the boring but necessary things like the #*@(#)*! school board.

Among other things, what gets me about this book is free of genre convention it is, while also being recognisably of genre. We talk occasionally about SF that starts from the world as it is today rather than SF's conventional assumptions; this for me is one version of what that can look like.