2021-Dec Updates

Happy Friday everyone!  November was a pretty exciting month — I did not "win" National Novel Writing Month (I never do), but I did beat my previous record. I wrote 36,531 words and didn't burn out until the 23rd, which is pretty good. Hopefully I'll get a chance to post a reflection over on my website sometime this month, but honestly December will be pretty intense.

Tomorrow is my birthday, then we're taking my son on his first vacation, then I'll be attending Worldcon in Washington D.C. (if you're planning to be there, shoot me an email), then it's Christmas. My publication schedule shouldn't change, but I'm not sure I'll manage to fit in another longform piece of writing, especially since I've got a great book due back at the library soon.

I picked up Against the Grain by James C. Scott and am slowly making my way through it, along with the ebook for the Dawn of Everything by David Graeber & David Wengrow. Both offer a fascinating perspective about the history of humanity and our relationship with civilization. The Dawn of Everything has been getting a lot of great press, but my favorite review comes from r/AskHistorians, which probably won't surprise anyone.

I also read a bunch of great articles and took all kinds of notes about stuff like locusts, botulism, and sea monsters.

Now seems as good a time as any to mention that I have a tip jar, for folks who would like to help me save up for publication costs like copyeditors and covers. I wound up with a bunch of stories from National Novel Writing Month that are too long for this newsletter, but that I would like to share with y'all, and doing it well can get expensive.

In the meantime, I just swapped out the free sample for the premium edition of this newsletter. The Impossible Knife from early November is now available (this month only!) for anyone to read, if you'd like to check it out or share it with friends. It follows Marianne on her escape from powerful mages eager to use her blood to fuel their rituals. There's also a bonus afterword featuring my love of snowshoeing.