deejgray, Author at Writing from Neverland

January 7, 2019January 1, 2020

The 2019 Reading Challenge

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
Bad Habits – Ashe Vernon
Swamp – Clementine von Radics
I Wish I Wrote The Way I Thought – Benedict Smith
Halfway House – Ashe Vernon

December 6, 2018

Patreon Post and an Update!

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.

https://www.patreon.com/DJGray is the link in case you want to check it out. There is one free story already up there.

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.

November 11, 2018

Armistice Day: 100 Years Ago…Today

“I will come to a time in my backwards trip when November eleventh, accidentally my birthday, was a sacred day called Armistice Day. When I was a boy, all the people of all the nations which had fought in the First World War were silent during the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour of Armistice Day, which was the eleventh day of the eleventh month.

“It was during that minute in nineteen hundred and eighteen, that millions upon millions of human beings stopped butchering one and another. I have talked to old men who were on battlefields during that minute. They have told me in one way or another that the sudden silence was the voice of God. So we still have among us some men who can remember when God spoke clearly to mankind” – Kurt Vonnegut

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted;
They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them. – For The Fallen, Laurence Binyon

November 7, 2018November 7, 2018

The Books That Made Me Part Two: Little Women

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott.

Can I tell you a secret? Out of all the books that I have read and loved, one of the dearest to me will always be Little Women.

Because I was ever a Jo and my sister was ever an Amy. This book was the first book to show me that you could actually be different and succeed. You could be a girl/woman and a writer. You could have short hair and madcap adventures and fall in love and still be a writer. Jo was everything to me. She worked and she wrote and failed and triumphed and suffered and won. But she was above everything else, a SHE and SHE WROTE.

Narnia gave me the endless possibilities of different worlds and times and a special kind of magic. Little Women taught me that it was okay to be eccentric and strange in my actual life. That it was appropriate to want to have writing as a passion and a career. That I could want more than being a wife and mother married to an officer and leading that kind of life. Please don’t get me wrong, I am not denigrating those choices and those who make them. The Megs and the Marmees of the world are incredibly important. I know quite a few people who would be utterly lost without them.

I only mean that, for me, who was born a kind of Beth with multiple illnesses and a certain kind of medical fragility, who was raised by a Marmee who was so wonderful and so patient as I grew into Jo. As the eldest in the family, I was trained and expected to handle the duties of a Meg and in our family, the joke was that you either became military or you married it. So I was, in a way, brought up to be Meg. It never really fit correctly, like a dress that doesn’t quite fit. I could perform all the functions of a Meg but it didn’t bring me the inner happiness that I saw in several of my relatives. Jo and her everything showed me that there was another way. That I wasn’t broken because Meg just didn’t fit me.

I could be Jo. Wild and wonderful and creative and passionate and messy. I could have my happily ever after, if I wanted one, without sacrificing the words that bubbled up from within.

Jo was a lifeline when I desperately needed one and for that, Little Women will always be one of the books that made me. The latest adaptation was quite good and it’s definitely worth watching if you haven’t already seen it.

November 7, 2018

Election Day 2018

Election Day 2018. Despite the PTSD from past elections, my housemate and I are settled into the couch with the returns on the tv as we work on our laptops. We both look kind of bad at the moment because Tuesday started very early for us. We live in TN and Monday had some very severe weather which lead to some pretty massive flooding in our hobbit house.

We estimate that we took about 96 gallons of water out of the study and downstairs bedroom before we quit for the night er morning.

Luckily my day job has weather emergencies built into the PTO plans so I could call out and spend most of the day today assessing the damage, cleaning up the mess, and also plotting out what to do about it in both the short term and the long term.

So tonight we are hoping and praying and watching. Turnout has been good, but the stories of voter suppression have also been way more blatant and prevalent than normal.

Here’s to hope and to all those who voted and called and canvassed and texted and acted.

No matter what, tomorrow is another day, and we still have to pick ourselves up and carry on.

October 11, 2018

World Mental Health Day: Shine The Light

Today is World Mental Health Day.

And this is not the post I thought I’d be making, honestly. However, today has been been a little brutal when it comes to personal stuff. In case you didn’t know, I have anxiety and depression and pretty much have had them for a long time. A lot of it comes from the fact that I have several chronic illnesses as well as being on the autistic spectrum. The rest of it, well, the state of the world and it’s people, I’m sure you see my point. There’s a lot out there lately and it’s overwhelming.

I’m on two different antidepressants to help me manage my mental illnesses as well as monthly therapy sessions. It helps.

I also have a pretty damn good support system. The people who make up my tribe and family are really astounding and they’re always there when I need them. I really can’t overstate the importance of that. They’re the people who make it all worth it.

They’re the people you stick around for. And on days like today, when you’re backsliding into despair and hopelessness and the fear is choking off your air, they’re the people with spare oxygen and lamps and reminders that living and living well is the most radical thing you can do.

They’re the people who warm up your leftovers and turn on the comfort movie. The people who immediately check in with you and ask if they can do anything. They’re the light when all else goes out.

They’re the world and they’re so important. And I wouldn’t be here without them.

So here’s to all of us with mental health issues and the people who love us and anchor us. It’s going to get better. As one of my favorite characters says, Faith manages.

We’re going to get through this.

October 3, 2018

Dragon Con 2018 Recap

This was definitely an undertaking and a half. I joke that preparing for DragonCon is similar to preparing for a major military offensive. With the size of the con + my health issues and the needs of my roommates…that analogy is not wrong.

This year had several challenges that came with it. The loss of an amazing director and second for a track that I dearly loved. The loss of a good friend who I shared so many amazing memories at this con with. A loss that actually proved harder to deal with than the loss of two of my mentors.

I got sexually harassed again, but not in the hamstertubes for once, it was actually when I had stepped into a corner to tie my shoe so that I wouldn’t be in anyone’s way. While I was doing that, someone came up and smacked me on the butt hard enough to almost send me face first into the carpet. To prevent breaking my face on the carpet, I put out my hands to stop myself, but the person had already disappeared back into the crowds so I never got a great look at anything but the black sneakers.

So yeah.

On the other side, I had amazing panels and got to network and meet people and see other people and show what’s awesome about DCON to someone who’d never been before. It got to see and hug and highfive so many of my nerd family, it was awesome. I got to talk about stuff I’m passionate about and nerd out with people who share that passion.

I also got to learn a hell of a lot from other people. It’s one of my favorite things about the convention. That I can learn from so many people and hear about so many things that I wouldn’t ordinarily be able to hear.

If you ever get a chance to hear Myke Cole speak, take it cause you won’t be sorry. He’s kind of spellbinding when he teaches. A human version of Orphan Black, can’t take your eyes off him or let your brain wander.

The American Sci Fi Media track is consistently some of the absolute best programming that you will ever see at a con. A lot of that is due to all the hard work that the track director, Kellen puts into the programming and the logistics. She’s an absolute joy to work with and so are the rest of her team. There were cookies that were divine and literally there is nothing but awesome here.

The Sci Fi Classics track offered me an opportunity this year to be on a panel with Cecil Baldwin and that was just amazing. He’s even better in person y’all. Gary and Joe and the rest of the staff there are more family then friends. I super appreciate all the love and latitude they offer.

I got to do my first panel with the High Fantasy track, which used to be the Tolkien Track and it was on WOT and that was blissful nerddom.

The Apocalypse Rising track with Shannon and the crew there are fabulous and I thoroughly enjoy each and every panel I get to do with them.

Working with Mike Stackpole and the Hourly Writing Workshops is always amazing and I greatly appreciate the privilege and honor it is to be able to teach with him. It’s exhilarating to be able to do this, to also know that he trusts me to do this, and it’s so much fun to teach and see all our seminar people and answer their questions and I really love doing it.

There, however, is a lot of controversy over the con and I would be lying if I didn’t say that it has me worried about continuing to attend. I worry about my safety as a disabled attending professional, I worry about my safety as a woman, I worry about the safety of my friends and family at the convention. Not just from the attendees, but also from some of the other guests.

There was a white supremacist table at the Sheraton, I believe, advertising for KekCon. Granted they were asked to leave once people realized what they were about, but they should NOT have been allowed to be there in the first place.

It massively sticks in my craw to hand over the con that I love so much to people as despicable as the actual Nazis and those stuck in the past who can’t seem to move forward. I love the progressive panels that talk about real things, representation, and mental health and why diversity matters.

I just wonder how long it’s going to continue to be safe for me to attend.

September 15, 2018

Eulogy for a Creator

We met early in 03, as the crow flies, it doesn’t seem that long ago, but the calendar doesn’t lie and 15 years is a long time by any metric.

We weren’t friends at first, just casual acquaintances who shared space on a message board now defunct (and while good times were had there, I am not sorry it’s gone because the owner was three kinds a predator and no one cottoned on until much later on. We were kids still and broken ones at that with nothing to go on but a small feeling that X was weird). I had no idea that you’d become such a central focal piece of my world – at the beginning you were a screenname and a signature that always made me laugh (something that would come up years later when I finally read the book the quote was from – evil bathrobes were always a joyful thing for us, my dear).

You had magical words and fascinating theories and even if I didn’t agree with them all of the time, they were always well thought out and articulated. You had original fiction that I couldn’t get enough of. My only disappointment was that none of them were ever finished. I never did get to find out what happened to some of them.

It did not take long, even in internet years, before we’d gone from casual acquaintances to friends to best friends. We went from talking here and there on message board threads to having each other’s personal emails, instant messenger usernames (AIM, Yahoo!, and the old MSN Messsenger), and skype numbers, talking in some way, every single day.

We fell into a pattern. And one day, discussing fandom characters wasn’t enough so we started our own version of an online RPG. We played in other people’s sandboxes for a while before starting to build our own.

And oh darling, that was where you shone. All the theory discussions and what if’s and might have been’s came home to roost in the wondrous maelstrom that was the worlds we built together, taking pieces from things we’d written before, little bits of worldbuilding that hadn’t belonged anywhere else.

We took pebbles and made them into galaxies.

It saved me more often than once, during the hard days when there was more than just a time zone between us. When there were oceans and an equator that separated us. The worlds and the words and the ideas pulled me back from the black time and time again.

It is a debt that I could never repay and I loved you for that. For the ability you had to never judge me, even when the words came out wrong, even as I stumbled and stuggled through issues. You were always there with a listening ear and a shoulder and advice. You were a pillar when I desperately needed one when the foundation under me started crumbling.

You were my safe space and my anchor and my co-creator of so many words and worlds and characters. You took the stars in my eyes and breathed life into them.

We hit the first million words of shared worlds and decided that we still had so much more to explore so we kept going.

Through your graduation and college and then my move back and college. The first time we met was when you came to visit family and met me in DC.
You were everything I’d thought of and more and it just deepened the love and affection I had for you. I didn’t know that’s what it was then, I was still digging all the parts of myself out from under masks and out of the tiny corners they were shoved. Making a cohesive person out of so many fragments is hard and slow work, but you never minded it.

You were one of the few that didn’t push or require anything but myself. No masks required. I tried to be the same for you, it was only fair after all.

DC was only the beginning. Then came your college graduation and the Portland trip and you gave me Powells and the coast and Moe’s and a thousand wonderful moments. You gave me Dragon Con and panels and learning our way around the larger parts of the genre we both loved so much.

We traded books and movies and music, boxes shipped coast to coast. Things we found, things we read that we loved and had to share. Things we didn’t love but needed to yell about. Everything was possible fodder for inspiration for the worlds we’d built, the stories we wanted to tell, the situations we wanted to write out.

We started to measure our characters by how detailed their family trees had gotten.

It was the thing that made everything else worth it. I had this to look forward to and that thought alone got me through so many different situations and trials.

You were the sun I orbited around and it was love, even if it wasn’t the kind of love I thought you wanted. I was so confused and terrified and we were still friends even after that one disasterous conversation.

You never had a problem with me being myself and shining as bright as I could. Or even giving me a boost to shine farther if I needed one. You were seven times a miracle and I always felt bad that I didn’t feel I could give you everything you deserved. Everytime you reminded me that relationships aren’t transactions and this is what whole people who weren’t complete dicks were supposed to do for each other.

I never had to hide around you and I never felt ashamed of myself around you until closer to the end. The perfect storm of miscommunications and personality clashes and the hard intersections of disabilities clashing with each other broke a lot of things. We worked hard to repair it but you could see the cracks and the patches. If I had a time machine, I’d have gone back and done what I could to make a lot of that period better. It wouldn’t have fixed everything but it might take out a lot of the poison from some of the thoughtless barbs and insinuations.

I never wanted to hurt you, on purpose or inadvertently. I was a mess and you helped make it better, helped me learn to want to be better, that it was okay to ask for help.

We got through that period though and though it was more awkward sometimes, we still were there, we still had our worlds. All the wonderful millions of words littered across the internet at large.

At least we did until that day I woke up and you were gone. I couldn’t find you anywhere and then I looked for you in our words and found so many of the shared documents gone as well.

That’s when I knew you weren’t coming back. That’s when I knew the extent of the loss.

I wish I had been better all around. For both of us. I wish I could found some way to keep you here with us. The space you’ve left in my life and my heart is overwhelming sometimes. I keep turning to tell you something and you’re not there and the loss crashes into me again. I know eventually this open would will at least scab over, but for now, it’s so fresh and raw. It’s hard to go from talking to you every single day to a couple of times a week to this.

It’s been two months since that day and I can only just now put my feelings into words. Even still it’s taken me three days to write this much and there’s so much more I haven’t even touched on, the inner light of your smile and the amazing way you never needed words when a look would do and how I always knew I was safe with you.

I miss you. I hope wherever you are, you’re happy and loved.

September 8, 2018

Review: The Scorch Trials (film)

This is a middle movie and it’s a great one. Because the plot thickens and deepens and it tries to prepare you for the huge finale that is coming up. We get characterization and plot and backstory and the stakes get higher and higher. There aren’t many slow spots in this film at all.

The cold opening here where we see Thomas as a kid and then him dreaming about the Box and then Minho shaking him awake. The disorientation as they go from the copter to the base and it’s jarring for you, the viewer, to make you sympathize more with the kids. We also get some very valuable information here – that Thomas was given up to WKCD by his mother when he was very young, presumably because WKCD promised that whatever Immunes were given up to them would be safe, would be cared for and protected. Given that we see him and Ava Paige on a train with several other children, we can extrapolate that this is how WKCD got most of their subjects and that this program, whatever it is, has been going on for a long time. That’s important to know. This was not a hasty slapdash operation slung together from whatever was left of the infrastructure after the Scorch. This operation has taken money and personnel and above all else, *time.*

So the ‘copter lands and they have to go right now because there’s a swarm and they are all rushed into something that looks a hell of a lot like an old oil drilling platform, only there’s no water around it. Another visual clue for just how different the world has become for the audience if they are paying attention.

Enter Jansen.

Jansen is the boss of this set up here and he encourages them to think of it as a “waystation” just a stop over place before they get them over to the safe haven.

And it’s some of the only time that Jansen tells the whole truth, when he tells them that the world outside is hanging on by a very thin thread and that the fact that “you kids” can survive the Flare virus is humanity’s best hope.

Jansen separates Thomas out from the rest of them for a private chat that really consists of Jansen asking him what he (Thomas) remembers about WKCD and straight out asks him who’s side is he on. It’s highly suspicious and it makes you really wonder about how much Jansen already knows and what he’s really after. This is where we first hear about this “refuge.”

Teresa is also separated out from the group. There are red flags going up all over the place. This place seems too good to be true. The voice over the speakers “always being monitored” which is a direct contrast to the Maze where they didn’t know until the end that they were being surveilled.

We meet Aris who has similar spidey senses. He’s the catalyst for Thomas finding out about the real purpose behind the so-called waystation. The harvesting room is terrifying and you see exactly what’s happening to the kids that have “gone to the farm.”

Thomas has a moment where he thinks Teresa’s there but it’s not her, it’s Rachel who got taken the first night, so Aris says and that he’d told her it was going to be okay. The biggest shock comes from seeing Jansen come in and have a discussion with Dr. Paige.

Thomas and Aris witness this and the conversation that gives us the information that these Immunes are being harvested for something in them that can provide clues towards a cure. The progress isn’t fast enough for Dr. Paige and she wants all the rest of the Immunes sedated and prepped for Harvest by the time she arrives there. She wants to be able to guarantee their safety and despite Jansen’s protests, she points out that he still hasn’t found the Right Arm and that they had hit two of their facilities. Jansen says he’s going to start with the newest arrivals.

From that point on, things happen very quickly. Thomas and Aris make it back to the room and inbetween the panic and Thomas’ frantic action to block the door from the inside, Newt and the rest of the Gladers get the information out of the two of them and after some quick thinking and daring stunts, they rescue Theresa and make it out of the base and into the Scorch.

Their saving grace is that it’s nighttime during what could be called a light sandstorm. So their footprints are almost immediately covered up behind them. They get to what the audience would realize is a parking structure and Theresa demands to know what’s going on and Newt demands to know what the plan is. Thomas doesn’t have one really until Aris mentions the Right Arm up in the mountains again.

So that’s their goal. Reach the Right Arm.

The imagery of the shopping mall and the parking stucture covered in sand and semi-destroyed by the elements. They decide to explore their surroundings some, see what resources they can scrounge up, and that’s when they’re more closely introduced to the Cranks. There’s also a bit where Minho and Thomas are looking together at a circuit board and Minho straight up tells Thomas that he doesn’t want to end up like those kids that they left back there. Newt making sure Frypan doesn’t watch as Teresa changes. Newt is truly the best of them.

The guy with the bag over his head, the shrine at the chain link fence, all of these are amazing details that give us a better idea of just what this enviroment is actually like.

The ONE Raven/Crow as foreshadowing. If you’re at all familiar with the counting crows rhyme, you know that’s bad. One’s for sorrow after all and we don’t have to wait long for it. Winston was attacked and hurt pretty badly.

The first daylight looks at the Scorch and the sheer amount of rubble and devastation steals your breath away. They have to scatter at one point because of the transport (“berg”) that is carrying Ava Paige over to the waystation.

They come over this dune and you see the SF Bay Bridge and all of a sudden you know exactly where they are in real space and it is bonechillingly terrifying.

Theresa reveals to Thomas that she’s getting all her memories back and how she remembers why they were there and what Thomas was like as a small kid when he was first brought in. She wants them to go back and Thomas refutes that wholesale. Thomas knows that Theresa isn’t telling him everything but before he can press her on it further, they have to run back to the group.

It’s Winston and he’s in bad shape. He doesn’t want to turn into one of those things and it gives us the first inkling that maybe not all of the Gladers ARE Immune. Winston is the first to die in the Scorch and it’s his own choice.

The Scorch is very much a desert and the weather there behaves like it, hot during the day and freezing at night. And the lightning storms are beyond terrifying.

Especially when there is little to no safe shelter. They wind up taking shelter in a building after Minho gets struck by lightning. It looks like a factory and then they notice that there are Cranks chained up in seemingly random places.

Enter Brenda who walks right up to them with no fear whatsoever and she takes them to Jorge. She and Jorge are curious because no one else has come out of the Scorch in a long time.

Jorge has three questions for them, where are they going, where did they come from, and how can he profit. It’s fascinating to see the interplay between Jorge and Thomas. We also find out that Thomas and the other Gladers are tagged as being property of WKCD which makes them highly valuable.

Jorge plays it like he’s going to sell them back to WKCD, however secretly he wants to use them as his and Brenda’s ticket into The Right Arm. Barkley, one of the men in the gang has sold them out to WKCD already. So there’s a WKCD team already infiltrating the place to get the kids back.

The part where Jorge tells Brenda that he’s going to play them his favorite song and her reaction to that is one of my absolute favorite parts of this movie. I really love the relationship between Jorge and Brenda.

Jorge helps them escape, but Brenda and Thomas get separated from the group and have to find their own way out…before the song finishes and the place blows up.

It’s during these scenes that more information is revealed to us, that supposedly the Right Arm has been taking Immunes to the safe haven for years and that it’s a paradise free from the sun, free from infection. Helping the Gladers is going to be their ticket to it, so Jorge thinks. Brenda is more skeptical.

She’s got a great line about how hope has killed more of her friends that the Flare and Scorch combined. Hope is dangerous. We also get to see what full term Cranks look like and it’s appropriately terrifying.

There’s an important moment here as Brenda is revealed to have been bitten and shrugs it off for the moment because she’s got a job to do. She’s got to get Thomas to Marcus because that’s where Jorge will be headed.

Also the prop work here is stunningly amazing – the only way that I know that it’s not real concrete and wood is that Thomas and Brenda’s palms aren’t all scraped up and bloody.

The price of admission to the party being a liquid that no one knows what’s in it is definitely suspect but they go along with it because that’s what they have to do in order to get in and see if they can find Jorge and the Gladers. It’s definitely some of drug, given the effects on Brenda and Thomas. Brings to mind the island of the lotus-eaters in the Odyssey.

Thomas has a vision while he’s under and it’s here where we find out more about our favorite Runner. Thomas telling Teresa that he had to do it before getting pulled away by security guards.

Fade back into reality and Jorge is interrogating Marcus about the Right Arm. It’s revealed that Marcus has been funneling kids to WKCD all these years, however last he knew the Right Arm had an outpost up in the mountains.

They steal a car and drive up as far as they can, Brenda is looking worse and worse but still plugging on. They start out on foot but can’t get far before they’re being shot at.

It turns out to be a misunderstanding. The people shooting at them are The Right Arm. They’ve found them.

Everything is great, except there’s forty minutes left in the movie, so you know this isn’t nearly the happy ending it initially appears to be. They’ve accomplished one objective, but they’re not out of the woods yet.

Brenda collapses and that’s when Mary shows up and drops a hell of a lot of revelations. We get all this information about Thomas and Immunes and the science behind why WKCD does what they do. The Immunes produce an enyzme that can’t be manufactured, it can only be harvested from an Immune. She mixes up something from Thomas’ blood that puts the symptoms Brenda was having to rest. However, Mary cautions that it won’t save her, it’s not a cure, and that she’ll always need more.

Mary mentions that WKCD started out with the best of intentions, but degenerated into what they currently are and if they had their way, they wouldn’t hesitate to sacrifice an entire generation just to get more of that enzyme. Let that sink in for a moment.

One whole generation.

It’ll make your blood run cold, thinking about how far WKCD was willing to go.

The conversation between Thomas and Theresa on the rock gives us some insight into her characterization and it’s an odd parellel between Thomas’ actions that kicked off the whole series of events and hers now. Theresa was used to help flush out the rest of The Right Arm and WKCD attacks the camp.

The battle scenes and the score are amazing here in how they’re composed and executed. They managed to get free, but they lost a lot of people and Minho in the process. Vince wants to stick to the plan, but Thomas has other ideas.

He’s not going with them. Remember, the talk that Thomas and Minho at the beginning? It comes into play here. Thomas gives this great speech about how it’s never going to stop and that it’s time to take the fight to WKCD.

He’s going to kill Ava Paige. He’s going to get Minho back.

Vince has the best closing line. “That’s a great speech, kid, but what’s your plan?”

The looks on everyone’s faces as it flashes on the survivors before fading out on Thomas’ face.

Like I said in the first installment of this series, it starts off small and then slowly unfolds more and more so we get this ever-expanding view of the setting and world. The Scorch Trials gave us a lot of new information about the world and how the characters all fit into it.

We also learn that not everyone in the Glade was an Immune, which makes sense. There would need to be a control group after all, right? For the experiment to be valid, you would always need your control group to contrast against your test group. So just like with the movie before it, it’s setting things up for the next installment of the franchise. Leaving us wondering exactly what’s going to happen with all of the characters we’ve come to know and love.

August 23, 2018

Dragon*Con 2018

Dragon Con 2018 is almost here! As the con approaches next weekend (someone please tell me where the month of August went), here’s the schedule for where I’ll be/where you can find me. Please check the app/Daily Dragon for any updated room assignments or times!

Friday:

11:30AM: Urban Fantasy Remixes: Fairytales, Folklore, &You – this is a paid workshop (10.00 at the door) that I do as part of Michael Stackpole and Aaron Allston’s Hourly Writing Workshops. This year I’m doing one on how to fracture a fairytale and introduce fairytale/folklore elements into your worldbuilding for fun and profit. Hyatt Hanover A & B

1PM: River of Souls: Beowulf in the Wheel of Time – River of Souls is Brandon Sanderson’s “officially unofficial” WOT short story. The panel’s experts will explore the events of the story, how it possibly fits into the timeline and its roots in mythology. Marriott L401-M105

2:30PM: Classic Sci-Fi Remakes: Westworld, Lost In Space, Planet of the Apes – Remakes of classic Sci-Fi can be incredible, terrible, or terribly incredible. We discuss which is which when we look at recent remakes such as Westworld, Lost in Space, and more! Marriott M103-M105

7PM: After-Hours Writing Sprints – also part of the Hourly Writing Workshops – however this one is FREE and OPEN TO ALL. Come join me and fellow author Alison Sky Richards as we host writing sprints, genre mixer, and so much more. Hyatt Hanover A&B

10pm: We Have Always Been Here: LGBTQ Legends in Classic Sci-Fi – so funny story about this panel…a large portion of it is kind of my fault. So come see me and a whole host of other truly amazing people as we talk about the LGBTQ legends that have been woven into the tapestry of classic science-fiction.

Saturday:

Amazingly I am only actually on one panel right now – which hasn’t happened to me in YEARS.

5:30PM: Killjoys Season 4: Life in the Green Lane – After some shocking revelations about Dutch’s past and the faceoff with Aneela since S3 ended with a weird weird bang, we look at what we know so far and possibly where we think the show might be heading. Marriott M302-303

Sunday:

11AM: 200 Years of Women in SF – I am so jazzed for this panel. It’s a 90 minute panel pretty much nerding out over women in SF, the culture we have to deal with, and some of the barriers still in our way. Also pimping out so many awesome writers you may never have heard of. It’s going to be a delight! Hyatt embassy AB

1PM: Classic Sci-Fi Fandom Her-Story: Women in Fan Culture – Women have always been at the forefront of SF, from the beginning of ‘zines and conventions up through now. A celebration of that history and a discussion about how we can honor them by following in their example. Marriott M103-M105