When you know you’ve made it – this is a question that I get a lot at various panels and workshops that I do. I know that it’s also something that several of my colleagues get asked often.
So how DO you know when you’ve “made it” in your chosen field or genre? This, just like the majority of the writing advice you’ll encounter online and offline is subjective. It depends on who you are asking and what they’re using as their goalposts.
It could be awards or recognition of your works at a national/international level, it could be when you’re invited to a convention or conference as a guest instead of program participant. Those are fairly common ones. So is making one of the NY Bestselling Lists. These goalposts can be huge or small – it all depends on the person(s) involved.
For me, personally, I grew up with fandom during the late 90’s/early 2000’s. The earliest LiveJournal posts I have were back in 2004 and I remember an Internet where finding fanfic meant toggling between locked Yahoo Groups, Fanfiction.net, Fiction Alley, and a thousand other Geocities or Angelfire websites. All of it depending on the fandoms you were in and the easiest way to find good fic was rec lists on Live Journal rec comms. Some fandoms had hundreds of thousands of fansites; others had two (maybe).
I am never-endingly thankful that Archive of Our Own (A03) exists is what I’m getting at here. And it ties into my own “made it” milestone. I will officially consider myself to have “made it” when there’s an A03 fandom tag for my works and it’s Yuletide eligible.
Everything else mentioned before would be awesome, don’t get me wrong. Winning a Hugo or Nebula would just blow my socks off, I wouldn’t know what to do with myself. Hitting a bestseller list would make me squee (high pitched dolphin noises) for weeks, if not months. Someone cosplaying as one of the characters in my stories would have me blinding people with the sunshiny smile on my face.
But to be Yuletide eligible and have an A03 fandom tag created for fanworks of my writing? That’s my gold standard right there.
So if you’re a writer/creator, what’s your “made it” moment? Share it in the comments if you like. I love hearing about them from other creatives.
It’s been a interesting weekend. Hypericon was this weekend and even though I technically wasn’t a formal guest, I wound up moderating three panels anyways. Occupational hazard, especially when you’re also staff at the con.
On one of them, the topic of beta-readers and alpha-readers came up and I learned something interesting. Not everyone treats them the same way or as the same thing.
I grew up in fandom and my understanding has always been that a beta-reader is someone that helps you during your developmental phase before you hit the copy-edits and proofreading. Alpha-readers on the other hand are people that help you catch whatever last typos and kind of serve as a preliminary ARC reader.
Some of the people on the panel don’t have both or what they call a beta-reader is more like my understanding of an alpha-reader. Some of them will use betas during the copy-edit phase. Some people don’t use them at all, just working with their editor.
Please don’t misunderstand me, editors are fundamentally crucial to the writing for publication process. However, I have also found it helpful in a lot of cases with some of my writing to also use beta-readers – I find them really helpful.
So I thought I’d open up this question to any of the other creatives out there. What about you? Do you use beta-readers or alpha-readers? Some of them, both of them, or none? Leave your answers in the comments and let’s chat about this.
So last month was kind of a hell of a month for several reasons. I had found out that I was being laid off from my job at the beginning of April and so was the rest of my department. The next three weeks were taken up with interviews, applications, and making sure everything at my day job didn’t suffer from my highly distracted focus. It’s important in customer service to make sure of things like that.
As luck and a whole lot of prayers and well wishes would have it, I landed a great job at the end of April and I started it May 13th. Training went amazing and now I’m deep into the thick of and loving every minute. I miss my old coworkers but we’d been seeing this coming for a while. We just didn’t know when. The adjustment period has been better and certainly shorter than the last time I switched jobs. However, between that and some other family shenanigans going down, it’s left me pretty drained and kind of brainless. Exhaustion is the eater of creativity and weakener of walls against depression. So it’s been recuperationville for me a lot the past month.
This month, however, I’m working to get back in the swing of things. So there will be more frequent posting and some actual reviews from the media I’ve seen recently and also some of the books I’ve been reading.
Today is Phantom Menace day. 20 years ago today is when the first of the prequel trilogy of Star Wars was released and a whole new wave of Star Wars fervor swept the world. It was the first new Star Wars movie since 1983. The excitement was beyond huge.
It was also the movie that saved me.
Let me set the stage for you. In May of 1999, I was 12 years old, an undiagnosed autistic kid dealing with a whole lot of sensory overload as well as mental overload because I was in a foreign country trying to figure which way was up. I had help with it, but there was also a lot I couldn’t get help with yet because I simply did not know how to ask for it or even verbalize what was going on in my head. It was the late 90’s and literally no person would have looked at me and known that I was on the ASD spectrum. I was female and what they called high-functioning and no one who didn’t see me in the middle of a full-on sensory meltdown would have even guessed that’s what was up with me.
I was also a former army brat who was extremely resentful that after having started to put down roots and double checked that we weren’t planning on moving and that I could quite possibly not actually have to be the new kid for once, that I could go to middle school with all of the rest of my friends and yearmates…and then before I could even blink, we were in the process of moving again. And not just across the US but to a completely foreign country on the other side of the equator.
Because of all of that, I retreated inward a lot. Stuck to my books and my games and what internet access I was allowed to have. Talked when I was spoken to mostly or when I knew it would be expected of me. Didn’t bother otherwise.
The one thing I did know was that I loved science fiction. I’d been raised on Star Trek and Babylon 5 but hadn’t been introduced to Star Wars until I’d asked my dad a question after hearing some boys on the bus talk about it. He realized that no, he hadn’t shown us that, and that day went out to buy the trilogy on VHS. We spent the weekend watching them and it was the gateway to this fabulous new world full of adventures and terrifying villains and where the smartest hero was the girl and it was pretty brilliant all around. My tiny 9 year old self was blown away. It wasn’t long before I was asking to rewatch them or if they knew anything more after the end of Return of the Jedi?
At 10, I found and proceeded to beg and plead and bargain for my mother to buy me this book I found that was all Star Wars in the book section of Kroger. It was Vonda N. McIntyre’s The Crystal Star and my mind was blown open again by the fact that here were my heroes 10 years on, still alive and thriving, and OMG they had kids!!
Fast forward back to 1999, the only real thing that to use my parents’ term, “brought me out of my shell” was the fact that there was a new Star Wars movie coming out and I HAD to see it. Any thoughts I’d had on running away and calling my grandmother to please come get me (I had an international calling card in my possession) because I didn’t want to be here or doing something else drastic completely faded away because there was a new Star Wars movie coming out and I had to see it. Which meant I had to stay where the money and the transportation were. I also had to be GOOD so that they’d take me to it. The desire to see the movie overrode every other thing in my brain.
Even better was the fact that at my local theater there, it wasn’t dubbed. It was subtitled instead and that meant that I could go to see it and not miss anything because my language skills still weren’t super great.
And it was exactly what I needed and more. It gave me the Jedi and Anakin as a small thing and podracing and complicated political measures and a Queen and her handmaidens who were close to my age and being the most incredible capable awesome GIRLS ever. It gave me new depths to the universe I was already in love with and new characters to fall in love with or hate desperately from the bottom of my heart (Darth Maul killing Qui-Gon had me seething in my seat). I saw it four times in theaters and only one of those times was with my parents. I totally wrangled movie funds out of them for doing all manner of chores and homework and whatever. There were a bunch of kids in the neighborhood we were living in at the time and I’m pretty sure we all convinced their parents at one time or another to drop us off at the theater to go see the movie again and again.
By Source (WP:NFCC#4), Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=40390381
Best of all, it was part one and that meant there were more coming and that meant I had to do whatever I needed to so that I could be there to watch them.
Later on, I went through that phase where everyone hated on it and disparaged it and made jokes about it and I ceded to the peer pressure then but deep down I never forgot that before I had antidepressants, before I even knew about sensory overload and major depression disorder and generalized anxiety disorder…I had Star Wars. And that was enough at the time.
Without The Phantom Menace coming out in theaters today 20 years ago, I don’t honestly know if I would still be here or not. Because of it and Star Wars, I have met some of the absolute best people in the world, I have friendships that I wouldn’t have had without it, and life is super awesome being the Star Wars nerd that I am.
There are certain books that, for lack of a better term, leave a mark on you after you finish them. They become demarcation points in your life, in that there was you before you read it and then the you after you read it is different. Maybe it’s the way you see yourself or the way the sky seems a bit bluer, but that book changed you in some way.
The Three-Body Problem did this for me, as you all probably know, I read a lot. And I read across multiple disciplines and genres because I like learning and I adore stuff that really makes me think. This year, I’m making a concerted effort to go through all the rec lists and my ever-growing To Be Read pile and that’s where the 2019 Reading Challenge came from. Someone in the Books-A-Million where my Darling Roommate works had bought it and recommended it to me and so when my library had a copy, I picked it up (All Hail the person/people who came up with Overdrive). Once I started it, I couldn’t put it down. It pulled me in and wouldn’t let go, almost mesmerizing me with the beauty and the starkness it conveys.
To know that this book is also a translation makes me breathless because having lived part of my life overseas from my native country, I know exactly how hard that is and how much can get lost in translation, if you’re not careful. It makes this book doubly wonderful for me.
The Three-Body Problem is set against the backdrop of China’s Cultural Revolution , a secret military base sends out signals in order to establish contact with aliens. An alien civilization receives the signal and plots to invade Earth. What happens next is predictable to a point – different camps start forming. Those in favor of the invasion and those that are not. That’s where any and all predictability ends. The way that the story is told unfolds the tale of what has happened and how the different camps came to be in such a masterful way. This book, which is book one of three, which is something I didn’t realize until I’d finished it, is one that makes you really stop and think and it blew me away.
I’ll be sitting with this one for a while. If you have the opportunity, I highly recommend this book.
In cleaning out my bookmarks folders (something that I occasionally do in order to prune out all the dead links) I happened upon several things that I had been meaning to actually do a blog post on, but life intervened and for one reason or another, it never happened.
Given that 2019 is my year for kindness (radical, reckless kindness for both others and myself) and acknowledging that my life is no less crazy than it was back then, so the likelihood of each of these getting said blog post is slim to none. I resolved instead to put them some of them here as a kind of link roundup ( to put all of them would make this post long in all the bad ways so I’m breaking them up into chunks).
Hunger Makes Me – this piece threw me for a loop when I first read it. My emotional response to it was overwhelming and complicated. Overall, it was an excellent piece. CW: does lightly reference eating disorders and dieting.
It is always interesting to watch action movies when you are a child of the military-industrial complex. Growing up on military bases and in and around the DC-Metro area makes its mark on you. It’s a little weird to describe sometimes, but by both deliberate training and general osmosis, you become a little more sensitive to a whole host of things. You tend to notice different things that civilians don’t always pick up on.
So you pick up on a lot really quickly, because that’s a thing that keeps you alive in the real world, but those skills also transfer over to movie watching.
Especially action/adventure/spy movies (or shows). Which all of us have love/hate relationships with and none of us can actually stop watching them. It’s almost a game to spot the mole or spot that one flaw that is going to be SUPER critical in 5,4,3,2, now.
It gets even creepier when the thing takes place somewhere you know well. Winter Soldier is one of the finest pieces of action cinema that I’ve seen and it’s also one of the most chilling simply because I know that city and that terrain pretty intimately.
Olympus Has Fallen was literally breathtaking, not just because of the premise (which was terrifying on its own) but because of the response times. The little details in that film had some family members dissecting it and how it couldn’t work like that in real life for their own peace of mind.
MI-5/Spooks had some episodes that were similar in nature. The ones that were just a little too realistic and had us squirming uncomfortably on the couch because “there but for the Grace of God go I.”
The reason this thought came about was because my AR (Awesome Roomie) and I were watching an action movie (Stratton on Amazon Prime, I definitely recommend it) because I love action movies and she loves Tyler Hoechlin and we were both having audible reactions to some of it for really different reasons.
So which action movies/shows are your favorite? Let me know in the comments!
So this is a thing I love a lot. Sound The Bells by Dessa set to PacRim clips, telling a gorgeous story conveyed through exquisite craftsmanship.
In the past couple of weeks, my day job has been rather more intense than normal, which was expected (there’s a reason we refer to it as the year end deathmarch) so I’ve been laying low in my off hours. It was not exactly a stellar year and I’m closer to actual burnout than I want to be. So it’s time to read and rest and refresh myself. Part of that is going back to some of my favorite things. Things that make me happy. I’ve been kicking around fandom for longer than I care to admit and one of the things that I love the most is the boundless creativity that springs up from it.
One of my friends linked the above video ages ago and I had to click on it – a fanvid set to one of my favorite songs using one of my favorite movies? It was a gift. I keep coming back to it too. The transitions are beautiful and the song pairs so well with the movie clips and even if you know nothing about the movie, you still get a great experience out of watching this video. It’s delightful artwork and it reminds me that fandom is supposed to be fun and it’s supposed to bring you joy in what you love.
Yep, you read that right. The 2019 Reading Challenge.
After talking to one of my tribe members and doing a little bit of research here and there, I’ve decided to start a year long challenge and chronicle it here. I’m going to see exactly how many books I can read over the course of the year. There’ll be monthly check-ins and a few reviews where and when I can do them.
I’m starting with with my TBR pile which is about as tall as I am (I am exactly 5ft tall) for physical books. I am also counting my Audible list and the EBooks I have that I haven’t read yet. Comics and Graphic Novels also count. Basically I want to read more this year than I did last year and reading has always been my first and best passion. If you want to join in on the fun, I’m using the hashtag #UBC19/#ubc19 to keep track of my reading on the various social media platforms. Feel free to ask me about any or all of what I’m reading if you catch me in person. There’s nothing I love more than getting to nerd out with other book enthusiasts.
I’ll put the titles of the ones I’ve finished here:
To Make Monsters Out Of Girls – Amanda Lovelace
Limetown – Cote Smith (created by Zack Akers and Skip Bronkie)
Milk and Honey – Rupi Kaur
The Princess Saves Herself In This One – Amanda Lovelace
The Witch Doesn’t Burn In This One – Amanda Lovelace
Fierce Fairytales – Nikita Gill
T-Rex Trying – Hugh Murphy
Inspired – Rachel Held Smith
Ad Eternum – Elizabeth Bear
Seven for a Secret – Elizabeth Bear
The White City – Elizabeth Bear
GMorning Gnight: little pep talks for me and you – Lin-Manuel Miranda & Jonny Sun
Folklore and Symbolism of Flowers, Plants, and Trees – Ernst and Johanna Lehner
Secrets of the Nile – Carolyn Keene
Batman #50
Batman #51
Batman #52
Batman #53
Batman #54
Batman #55
Batman #56
Batman #56
The Wicked + The Divine #38
The Wicked + The Divine #39
The Wicked + The Divine Special 1373
Dead on Target – Franklin W. Dixon
Night Train to Memphis – Elizabeth Peters
A Study in Emerald – Neil Gaiman
Tiger! Tiger! – Elizabeth Bear
The Case of The Wavy Black Dagger – Steve Perry
A Case of Royal Blood – Steven-Elliot Altman
The Weeping Masks – James Lowder
Art in the Blood – Brian Stableford
The Curious Case of Miss Violet Stone – Poppy Z. Brite and David Ferguson
Legion versus Phalanx – Myke Cole.
Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys – Super Mystery: Mystery Train – Carolyn Keene
The Mermaid’s Voice Returns In This One – Amanda Lovelace
Alexander Hamilton’s Guide To Life – Jeff Wilser
The Adventure of The Antiquarian’s Niece- Barbara Hambly
The Mystery of The Worm- John Pelan
The Mystery of The Hanged Man’s Puzzle – Paul Finch
The Horror of The Many Faces -Tim Lebbon
The Adventure of The Arab’s Manuscript- M+ichael Reeves
The Drowned Geologist – Caitlin R. Kiernan
A Case of Insomnia – John P. Vourlis
The Adventure of The Voorish Sign – Richard A. Lupoff
The Adventure of Exham Priory- F. Gwynplaine MacIntyre
Death Did Not Become Him – David Niall Wilson and Patricia Lee Macomber
Nightmare In Wax- Simon Clark
Sunshine – Robin McKinley
Down Among The Sticks and Bones – Seanan McGuire
Beneath The Sugar Sky- Seanan McGuire
Sparrow Hill Road -Seanan McGuire
The Girl in the Green Silk Gown – Seanan McGuire
Good Society RPG sourcebook
The Wicked + The Divine – #40
The Wicked + The Divine – #41
The Wicked + The Divine- #42
Princesses Behaving Badly – Linda Rodriguez McRobbie
Leia Princess of Alderaan – Claudia Gray
The Three-Body Problem – Cixin Liu, trans, by Ken Liu
P.S. I Still Love You – Jenny Han
In an Absent Dream – Seanan McGuire
Always and Forever, Lara Jean – Jenny Han
The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making – Catherynne M. Valente
Shadow Unit 1
Batman #57
Batman #58
Batman# 59
Batman #60
Batman #61
Batman #62
Batman #63
Batman #64
Batman#65
Batman Annual 3
Werewolf the Apocalypse – 20th Anniversary Edition RPG sourcebook
Kingdom of Needle and Bone – Mira Grant
The Fifth Season – N.K. Jemisin
The Wicked + The Divine #43
Batman#66
Batman#67
Batman#68
Batman#69
Batman#70
Star Wars: Age of Republic: Padme Amidala
Star Wars: Age of Rebellion: Special
Berlin – Jason Lutes
Barrier – Brian K Vaughn
James Bond 007 – Warren Ellis
H1 Ignition – Mark Waid + Team
Malika Fire and Frost – Roye Okupe
Worlds of Aspen 2016 – Joshua Hale Fialkov & J.T. Krul
The Looking Glass Wars: Crossfire – Frank Beddor
Star Wars: Republic Commando: Triple Zero – Karen Traviss
Hawkeye: My Life as A Weapon – Matt Fraction/David Aja
Hawkeye: Little Hits – Matt Fraction/David Aja
The Obelisk Gate – N.K. Jemisin
The Language and Writing System of MS408 (Voynich) Explained – Dr. Gerard Cheshire
The Stone Sky – N.K. Jemisin
Master and Apprentice – Claudia Gray
Final Girls – Mira Grant
Midway Relics and Dying Breeds – Seanan McGuire
No Flight Without the Shatter – Brooke Bolander
The Seventh Bride – T. Kingfisher
Leviathan Wakes – James S.A. Corey
The Long Con Volume 1 – Dylan Meconis/Ben Coleman
A Discovery of Witches – Deborah Harkness
Red Hood Outlaw: Requiem For An Archer- Lobdell/Woods/Loomis
Zen and the Art of Starship Maintenance – Tobias S. Buckell
Waiting Out the End of the World at Patty’s Place Cafe – Naomi Kritzer
I Met a Traveller in an Antique Land – Connie Willis
This Is How You Lose The Time War – Amal Al-Mohtar & Max Gladstone – Hardcover
This Is How You Lose The Time War – Amal Al-Mohtar & Max Gladstone -Audiobook
This Is How You Lose The Time War – Amal Al-Mohtar & Max Gladstone – Ebook
Vegas Heist – Van Allen Plexico
Don’t Press Charges and I Won’t Sue – Charlie Jane Anders
Confessions of a Con Girl – Nick Wolven
Utopia, LOL – Jamie Wahls
The Scholast in the Low Waters Kingdom – Max Gladstone
Paradox – Naomi Kritzer
Angel of the Blockade – Alex Acks
The Fisher of Bones – Sarah Galley
Crispin’s Model – Max Gladstone
The Dark Birds – Ursula Vernon
Waiting on A Bright Moon – JYYang
Pan-Humanism: Hope and Pragmatism – Jess Barber and Sara Saab
A Human Stain – Kelly Robson
Storm of Locusts – Rebecca Roanhorse
The Moscow Rules – Antonio and Jonna Mendez (with Matt Baglio)
The Long Con #6 – Dylan Meconis/Ben Coleman
The Long Con #7 – Dylan Meconis/Ben Coleman
The Long Con #8 – Dylan Meconis/Ben Coleman
The Long Con #9 – Dylan Meconis/Ben Coleman
The Long Con #10 – Dylan Meconis/Ben Coleman
The Wicked + The Divine #44
Middlegrade- Seanan McGuire
The Queen of Life – Ysabeau S. Wilce
Twelve Sisters- Y.S. Lee
The Bull Dancers – Jay Lake
Confessor – Elizabeth Bear
Water to Wine – Mary Robinette Kowal
Byways – Tobias S. Buckell
Deodand – Karl Schroeder
A Symmetry of Serpents and Doves – Ken Scholes
Rock of Ages – Jay Lake
Green and Dying – Elizabeth Bear
The Desire Lines, by Karl Schroeder
Midway Bells & Dying Breeds, by Seanan McGuire (audiobook)
Tensegrity, by Tobias S. Buckell
Forest of Memories, by Mary Robinette Kowal
Let Me Hide Myself in Thee, by Ken Scholes
Introduction (METAtropolis) essay by John Scalzi
In the Forests of the Night – novella by Jay Lake
Stochasti-city – novella by Tobias S. Buckell
The Red in the Sky Is Our Blood – novelette by Elizabeth Bear
Utere Nihil Non Extra Quiritationem Suis – novella by John Scalzi
To Hie from Far Cilenia – novella by Karl Schroeder
Searching for Sunday – Rachel Held Evans
If At First You Don’t Succeed, Try, Try Again – Zen Cho
Empress of Forever – Max Gladstone
Still Star-Crossed- Melinda Taub
Bookburners Episode One – Max Gladstone
The Cold Equations – Tom Godwin
Penhallow Amid Passing Things – Iona Datt Sharma
Nancy Drew and the Hardy boys, Super Sleuths! Volume 2 – Carolyn Keene and Franklin W. Dixon
Evil Has A Name – Paul Holes and others
Mermaids, Singing – Tiffany Trent
A Brand New Thing – Jenny Moss
Batman #71
Batman#72
Batman # 73
Batman #74
Batman#75
Batman#76
A People’s Future of a United States Introduction – Victor LaValle
The Bookstore at the End of America – Charlie Jane Anders
Our Aim is Not To Die – A. Marc Rustad
The Wall – Lizz Huerta
Read After Burning — Maria Dahvana Headley
Chapter 5: Disruption and Continuity [excerpted] — Malka Older
Four Revelations From the Rusalka Ball – Cassandra Khaw
Spellswept – Stephanie Burgis
The River Always Wins – Laura Ann Gilman
The Amethyst Deciever -Shveta Thakrar
A Spy in the Deep – Patrick Samphire
Any Way The Wind Blows – Seanan McGuire
The Thing About Shapes To Come – Adam-Troy Castro
Estranged Children of Storybook Houses – Julian K. Jarboe
For Darkness Shows The Stars – Diana Peterfreund
To Say Nothing of The Dog – Connie Willis
The Christmas Bride- Grace Livingston Hill
Letter Excerpt: Lorenzo de Medici, The Magnificent concerning finances and the death of his father
The Levy of a Forced Loan, Quarter of S. Maria Novella; April 1378 Florence
Two Marriages in the Valori Family, 1452 and 1476
Marriage Negotiations: The Del Bene 1381
Hero with A Thousand Faces- Joseph Campbell
The Highwayman- Alfred Noyes
Jackdaws – KJ Charles
All You Can Do Is Breathe – Kaaron Warren
Needles- Elizabeth Bear
Baskerville’s Midgets – Reggie Oliver
Blood Yesterday Blood Tomorrow – Richard Bowes
X for Demetrious – Steve Duffy
Keeping Corky – Melanie Tem
Shelf-Life – Lisa Tuttle
Caius – Bill Pronzini and Barry N. Malzberg
Sweet Sorrow – Barbara Roden
First Breath – Nicole J. LeBoeuf
The Witch Who Came In From The Cold – Season Two Episode One – Max Gladstone & Lindsey Ellis
The Witch Who Came In From The Cold – Season Two Episode Two – Max Gladstone & Lindsey Ellis
Hounded by Kevin Hearne
To Drink Coffee With a Ghost – Amanda Lovelace
Bite Me ! – Dylan Meconis
Mockingbird Trade 1- Chelsea Cain
Mockingbird Trade 2 – Chelsea Cain
The Perfect Assassin – K.A. Doore
Ninth House- Leigh Bardugo
One-Eyed Jack – Elizabeth Bear
The Witch Who Came In From The Cold – Season Two Episode Three – Max Gladstone & Lindsey Ellis
The Witch Who Came In From The Cold – Season Two Episode Four – Max Gladstone & Lindsey Ellis
The Witch Who Came In From The Cold – Season Two Episode Five – Max Gladstone & Lindsey Ellis
Bookburners Season One Episode Two – Max Gladstone
It Was Saturday Night, I Guess That Makes It All Right by Sam J. Miller
Attachment Disorder – Tananarive Due
By His Bootstraps – Ashok K. Banker
The Omega’s Day Off – Dessa Lux
Blowout – Rachel Maddow
Red Hood and the Outlaws Rebirth #1 – Lobdell, Soy, Gandini
Red Hood and the Outlaws Rebirth#2 – Lobdell, Soy, Gandini
Red Hood and the Outlaws Rebirth #3 – Lobdell, Soy, Gandini
Red Hood and the Outlaws Rebirth #4 – Lobdell, Soy, Gandini
Red Hood and the Outlaws Rebirth #5 – Lobdell, Soy, Gandini
Red Hood and the Outlaws Rebirth #6 – Lobdell, Soy, Gandini
Red Hood and the Outlaws Rebirth #7 – Lobdell, Soy, Gandini
Red Hood and the Outlaws Rebirth #8 – Lobdell, Soy, Gandini
Red Hood and the Outlaws Rebirth #9 – Lobdell, Soy, Gandini
Red Hood and the Outlaws Rebirth #10 – Lobdell, Soy, Gandini
Red Hood and the Outlaws Rebirth #11 – Lobdell, Soy, Gandini
Red Hood and the Outlaws Rebirth #12 – Lobdell, Soy, Gandini
Red Hood and the Outlaws Rebirth #13 – Lobdell, Soy, Gandini
Red Hood and the Outlaws Rebirth #14 – Lobdell, Soy, Gandini
Red Hood and the Outlaws Rebirth #15 – Lobdell, Soy, Gandini
Red Hood and the Outlaws Rebirth #16 – Lobdell, Soy, Gandini
Red Hood and the Outlaws Rebirth #17 – Lobdell, Soy, Gandini
Red Hood and the Outlaws Rebirth Annual #1 – Lobdell, Soy, Gandini
Red Hood and the Outlaws Rebirth #18 – Lobdell, Soy, Gandini
Red Hood and the Outlaws Rebirth #19 – Lobdell, Soy, Gandini
Red Hood and the Outlaws Rebirth #20 – Lobdell, Soy, Gandini
Red Hood and the Outlaws Rebirth #21 – Lobdell, Soy, Gandini
Red Hood and the Outlaws Rebirth #22 – Lobdell, Soy, Gandini
Red Hood and the Outlaws Rebirth #23 – Lobdell, Soy, Gandini
Red Hood and the Outlaws Rebirth #24 – Lobdell, Soy, Gandini
Red Hood and the Outlaws Rebirth #25 – Lobdell, Soy, Gandini
Die #1 – Gillen, Hans, Cowles
Die #2 – Gillen, Hans, Cowles
Die#3- Gillen, Hans, Cowles
Die#4- Gillen, Hans, Cowles
Die#5 – Gillen, Hans, Cowles
Die Worldbuilding Essays – Gillen, Hans
The Wicked + The Divine #45- Gillen, McKelvie, Wilson, Cowles
House of X #1- Hickman,Larraz, Silva, Gracia
House of X#2 – Hickman,Larraz, Silva, Gracia
House of X#3 – Hickman,Larraz, Silva, Gracia
House of X#4 – Hickman,Larraz, Silva, Gracia
House of X #5- Hickman,Larraz, Silva, Gracia
House of X #6- Hickman,Larraz, Silva, Gracia
Powers of X#1 – Hickman, Larraz, Silva, Gracia
Powers of X#2 – Hickman, Larraz, Silva, Gracia
Powers of X#3 – Hickman, Larraz, Silva, Gracia
Powers of X#4 – Hickman, Larraz, Silva, Gracia
Powers of X#5 – Hickman, Larraz, Silva, Gracia
Powers of X#6 – Hickman, Larraz, Silva, Gracia
Batman #77
Batman#78
Batman#79
Batman #80
Batman #81
Batman #82
Batman #83
Batman #84
The Author of the Acacia Seeds. And Other Extracts from the Journal of the Association of Therolinguistics – Ursula K. LeGuin
Die RPG Beta Manual 1.1 – Kieron Gillen
Die RPG Arcana – Kieron Gillen
The Gentry’s Guide to Mixing Swordsmanship and Magic – Good Society RPG
Falcon’s Apprentice – Jody Lynn Nye
She Remembered – Lee French
Thorn Girl – Connie J Jasperson
The Princess and the Dragon – Robyn Bennis
Alive – Raven Oak
The Magpie Lord – KJ Charles
Interlude with Tattooes – KJ Charles
To The Girls Afraid of Dying – Ashe Vernon
Self-Portrait Dressed As A Self-Help Program – Ashe Vernon
To The Boys Afraid of Dying – Ashe Vernon
Last Call – Ashe Vernon
Rafe – Rebekah Weatherspoon
The Future As An Exercise In Hope – Ashe Vernon
New Names for Old Heartaches – Ashe Vernon
Delicate Things – Ashe Vernon
Inventing New Ways To Call You Beautiful – Ashe Vernon
The Q&A and Slush Prompt Pot posts for the 5$ and up patrons are now live on Patreon. There’s also a neat DVD extra about the song that Seven for A Seal, the third installment of Happiness is A Warm Sealskin, was written to.
And as ever, if you only care about the short stories, then 1$ gets you access to the current month’s story and all the previous months.
I’m working on getting caught up on the stuff that got shoved to the wayside during the month of November, which turned out to be a much crazier month than anticipated. Including family funeral drama, 2 ER trips, 1 Vet Trip, a Tornado, the Hobbit House Flooding, Baby’s First (eventually denied) Homeowners Insurance Claim, Day Job Drama, Clearing up Flood damage, weekend trip to MD, and of course, NaNoWriMo.
I have told my parents that all I want for my birthday this year is everyone to be healthy. He muttered something about how buying something would be easier.
A longer update to follow later, for now the cats are attempting to attack our bowls of mac ‘n’ cheese.
