It seems weird that the end of August is here. How does time? What is present? So, OK, I didn’t get nearly as much done this month as I had planned. In anything. But I do have another review to put up, so I will do that right now.

Very minor spoilers, but I don’t think I give very much away. I read it knowing nothing about it but the cover copy and the piece the authors wrote on Scalzi’s “Big Idea” post, though, and I liked it a lot.

Continuing in my random and not entirely well-thought-out series of sort-of reviews of books I’ve read recently and liked, I thought I’d talk about another space opera. “Linesman,” by S.K. Dunstall.

I didn’t realize until I started writing this sort-of review that S.K. Dunstall is (are?) two people – Sherylyn and Karen Dunstall. So there’s that for a little trivia about the book. This is a book, at its heart, about what happens when we forget the wisdom and ways of the past, in pursuit of the future and modernity. It’s also about being open to things working in a different way than you thought. Have an open mind. Try new things. Try old things. Be open. Don’t be a jerk. (I feel like the last bit is a great message that shows up in a lot of books, but it bears repeating, doesn’t it?)

Ean is our protagonist, and he’s one of the few people who can fix all of the “lines” on a spaceship. The lines are a way of running a ship that are cloned from an alien technology that humans do not truly understand, but figured out from a derelict alien craft that they (the lines) can be used to travel light years in moments. (Line 1 = crew, 2&3 are mechanics, 4 is gravity, etc up to 9&10 which moves the ship through space/time.) It’s been 500 years since humans first started using the technology, and some of what people originally learned from using it has been lost. The basics of how to use them are there, but not everyone knows how they work, or how to fix them if they break.

There are 10 lines, but only someone who can feel all 10 of them can fix all of them if they go out of true. If the lines go out of true, a ship can’t travel safely. The linesmen (line workers? I forget if they used that) are a pretty prestigious group. Ean is a little different from most linesmen. He comes from a poor background, and got a late start into the program that trains line workers. He’s largely self-taught, and sings to the lines. No one who learned in school sings to them. They can either feel them or they can’t but they don’t listen to them. They don’t meld with them the way Ean does. Most other line workers think he’s at least a little insane. They don’t respect him. (He does tend to get lost in communication with the lines, and that does make him someone who appears very odd to others.) When a strange phenomenon that shows up in deep space called the “confluence” pulls almost all of the high-level line workers to investigate it, he is not invited to attend. Which means he’s one of the only “tens” available to be drafted to fix a spaceship that belongs to one of the leaders of a large alliance of planets that is on the brink of interplanetary war.

I don’t know if I can describe this book adequately without rereading it all and going chapter by chapter. It’s intricate and has a lot of political shenanigans as well as interpersonal ones, and things get pretty sticky for our underdog hero. But I can tell you that I truly enjoyed it. It’s extremely well written, with a lot of fantastic characters and some very broad philosophy. I found myself very invested in Ean’s fate, and I was impressed with the level of background and world/universe-building the authors were able to squeeze in without it feeling burdensome. The action is nearly non-stop, but it still feels very thoughtful and deep. And I find the whole idea of the lines and the semi-(if not outright) sentience of the ships really fascinating. I was rooting for the ships almost as much as the heroes. And the ships who had bad crews, or lost crew, I really felt emotionally invested in making them happy. So my childhood of generally anthropomorphizing anything and everything (including toast) came in super handy here, but I think it makes for compelling reading. If you like your space opera with intrigue and shades of gray with an ill-used and misunderstood main character, and a feeling of alien sentience surrounding everything, then you will love this story. The 2^nd book comes out in February, and I am very much looking forward to it.

OK, that was a pretty short review, but the shorter version is: Really like it, will probably read again, and I’m excited for the series.

Next up: Fall. I’m going to get a few more of these reviews done, maybe do a Worldcon report, talk about the state of my own books, and more. Hey September, lookin good autumn baby, hey.

Blog, blog, what is blog? I have been neglectful, poor thing. It’s been a difficult month and more, but not very interesting to write about, so I’ve fallen behind. I don’t really have any new or fun information regarding my own writing to impart to you, other than that things are still, er, fluid, and evolving, and I will tell you what I can when I can. In the meantime, should anyone like to buy my book, please do contact me at Lindsey@lindseysjohnson.com, and we can work something out.

To make up for not blogging lately, I’ve decided I should write sort-of reviews of books I’ve been reading and enjoying. It seems only fair, to anyone who bothers to check in on this space, to have something going on in it. Hi blog, how ya doin?

Today I’m going to start with “Ancillary Justice” and “Ancillary Sword”, by Ann Leckie. I’m doing them both at once, because since I’ve read them both I think it starts to get tangled up in my head what happened when, and what’s revealed at what time. So, uh, spoilers, is what I’m saying. If you haven’t read them and you’re interested in just my vague, non-spoilery general opinion, here it is: I like these books a lot, and I can highly recommend the series as a sweeping space opera that explores some issues of colonialism and oppression, and also, sort of just by the way, gender. I think it’s the gender part that makes some people angry these books exist, but while the gender part is kind of constant and makes you think, it’s almost by-the-way. Or so it feels to me.

AHOY, SPOILERS BELOW MATEY, READ AT YER OWN RISK, SAYS I.

I will try to keep the spoilers more general than specific, but some things I feel I can’t help but spoil, if I want to mention the books at all. So here goes.

I heard about “Ancillary Sword” from all the buzz of all the awards it was winning. It took me awhile to pick it up, because my TBR pile is ginormous and I just wasn’t in the mood for space opera for awhile. I still managed to keep spoiler-free, so I knew only that it generated a lot of talk, and that some people were mad because, and I think I’m quoting here, “Ew, girls.” So I thought, well, I’ll have to check that out at some point, won’t I? But I have to admit that when I started reading it, although I found it interesting and well written, it wasn’t grabbing me right away. It wasn’t until the third or fourth chapter that I started to get hooked. And then more hooked. And soon after that, I couldn’t put it down.

This is a small spoiler, but it’s set out pretty early in “Justice.” The protagonist, Breq, used to be a spaceship. And the way she used to be a spaceship, is that this space colonial society called the Radch takes people from planets they enslave (that they don’t just flat out murder) and erases their personality and memories and hooks their consciousness’ together into a whole and hooks them up to the AI of a spaceship. So they aren’t single people. They are units, or ancillaries, of a spaceship. Breq is the only remaining unit of an entire ship when the ship was destroyed. The why we find out later, through flashbacks. But she can’t remember her life before she became ship, which was thousands of years ago. She’s only had 19 years of being a single person, although she does not think of herself as human. And she doesn’t really know how to behave as one, even as she has to pretend.

Bigger spoiler: The driving reasons for what Breq does is because of a sprawling conspiracy by the ultimate ruler of the Radch against what turns out to be another cloned copy (multiple copies?) of herself (the ruler), on how Radchaai society should continue. To continue to colonize, or not. To continue the horrific practice of making ancillaries, to continue to spread and conquer and fight, or to change as a society. The ruler of the Radch is also, through use of cloning and ancillaries, thousands of years old. And as a consequence, not entirely sane.

This is all revealed slowly through the first half of the book. I think it didn’t really start to feel unputdownable until I started to understand the full horror of the situation – both the worlds-wide situation as well as Breq’s personal one. I’m not sure if the flashback-forward approach worked in the beginning, because I definitely felt put at a distance from our protagonist. But once I understood some of the full disaster that brought about Breq’s current plan (or vague lack thereof), I was hooked, and I connected fully with the character. Breq is not a usual protagonist, she’s not a usual hero, and she was kind of hard to connect to when I was reading her as this mystery cipher who seemed detached. But as I started to get why she acted and seemed detached, all the while underneath all that detachment is a seething mass of unexpressed pain and rage, I started to identify with her, to love her, and to love her evolving if unclear plans to try to make a wrong right. And her sometimes frustrated attempts to right wrongs she just stumbled across, as well.

I know some people who are not of the “Ew, girls” type who didn’t care for this book, just because it didn’t interest them. To each their own taste, after all. But now I absolutely love Breq. I love how she’s broken, I love how she knows she’s broken, she was made broken, the process that made her broke her and the disaster that caused her to be alone broke her more, and she’s decided the only thing to do is to try to right wrongs. I love her unexplored moral center, that just exists and she doesn’t question it too much. I love how she knows her society is horrible but she also sees the good in people who exist within it, and the rotten core, and tries to do what she can to help the rebellion/conspiracy on the side she thinks is in the right. I love how she acknowledges her brokenness is a mirror of the brokenness of the empire, even though she doesn’t really talk to anyone about it.

Man, I love these books. Because I always love protagonists who keep going even when it all seems futile, and whose moral centers, even when they are lost and confused, land on “help people and make wrongs right”. Also I love a seething mass of undeclared and unacknowledged rage. I just do. I love how it builds tension, and I love when it breaks free.

The gender part that has some people very upset, is the use of “she” as the default pronoun. Which is the one area of Radch society I can completely get behind. Gender makes no difference to them, and the default pronoun is “she.” So everyone is referred to with the “she” pronoun, no matter their gender. Which can get Breq into trouble with societies that aren’t Radchaai, where gender does matter. And it can make for confusing moments for readers – one of the first characters we meet, we’re told offhand is a male, but Breq uses the “she/her” pronoun to refer to … him. See, it’s hard to discuss. Because I feel like I should use the she/her pronoun, too. But English does make distinctions, and this character is male. And of course, that means that you don’t know whether or not a character we meet, whose gender is not specified to us, is male or female. And since the default pronoun is “she” then I just decided to go ahead and make the assumption that pretty much all the characters were female unless told otherwise. And I have to tell you, that is a pretty revolutionary way to read. So many space operas I’ve read – even those written by women – have the default character assumption as male for anyone who isn’t specifically spelled out as a woman. So all those space opera extras, just walking around doing odd jobs and not really discussed in specific terms, read as male. How many space opera societies are almost entirely peopled by men this way? Most of them. Hell, most books in general that I’ve read are written that way. To have it be the opposite blew my mind regularly. It did push me out of the narrative from time to time, but in a good way. In a “Holy cats this is weird and awesome” way.

Of course, that is why those whose response to feminism is “Ew, girls” are so angry. How dare we consider the default pronoun to be female, instead of male? How dare anyone change these understood (but arbitrary) rules we have imposed on our world? How dare we explore what it means to define gender as beside the point? Because that’s what the narrative does – gender is meaningless, only the mind matters. I think if this book had been written with a protagonist whose body was male, or if the default pronoun was “they” or “It”, or if the book had been written by a man, I think those who so railed against it would not have been very upset. Which I think proves a point, really. The point it proves is the default male that we live and read by is sexist, and it does change how we think about the world, and that representation really, truly matters. If it didn’t, then this series existing, and winning awards, would not have set people off.

Another thing that is just kind of by the way, is that most of the Radch have dark skin, and dark skin is “fashionable” for the upper classes. So your default well-off character is female, dark skinned, with no obvious (to the reader) gender expression. It’s pretty revolutionary, and I had to recalibrate to read it the way it was written.

Something else this series explores is oppression by colonial powers, and the ramifications for the societies that have to live under it, as well as the colonial society itself. The reach of Radch controlled space is pretty vast, and the way they take over worlds is called “annexation,” and there is no resistance allowed, of course, which seems entirely reasonable to the Radchaai. To anyone outside of their society, the constant expansion and death, the idea that these ancillaries exist is horrific – they’ve taken people and basically killed them without killing their bodies, making undead slaves to the Radch who will do what is ordered.

Probably. (uh, spoiler)

But what is pointed out early on in the first book, is that the fully human, non-ancillary humans who are Radch are somehow even more horrifying – in that they look at the annexation of worlds as their right. They don’t see anything wrong with creating ancillaries. Or rather, they didn’t used to – now making them is supposed to be illegal and they don’t do it anymore. But since all of these ancillaries are just leftover, we may as well use them as long as they exist, right? The ancillaries work with their AIs and obey orders and are horrifying, undead tools who (probably) can’t think for themselves. But the humans are still human, in that they act in horrible, inhumane ways to one another due to desire for power, or a thrill, or money, or some combination of all three. The Radch do not consider anyone who is not a citizen to have rights. And they control who is a citizen and who isn’t. And of course, being these people who think their rules and wars and ways of life are entirely reasonable, they see nothing wrong with any of this.

And it is truly, awfully, horrifying. And it is us. Or a certain funhouse mirror of us, but here we are. We are so reasonable. And so horrifying. Those awful things we used to do don’t count, do they? We’re super sorry we did them, but that was a long time ago. And now it’s all better, see? What? It’s not better? How dare you! We are the reasonable people.

It’s so easy to be reasonable when you get to define what reasonable means.

And THAT’S why I love these books, and I think why they’re up for, and keep winning, awards. I’ve heard some people don’t think the second book is as strong as the first, but I disagree. I think it’s dealing with consequences set up in the first book, and the consequences of Breq getting some of her questions answered, and some of her quest finished, and what does she do now? And of course, the ever-present, justified if not dealt-with, seething mass of unimaginable grief and rage. There’s that, too. And I think “Sword” makes its case that while others have to start to face the horror that is their society, Breq has to face the rage and grief she suppresses and ignores and doesn’t know how to process. She doesn’t know how to process it because she doesn’t know how to be just one person, and she keeps having to learn that lesson. I think going on this journey is fascinating and heartbreaking, and I can’t wait to see how the next book goes.

All opinions are purely my own, and may or may not be what the author was going for anyway. But I get to have my opinion as a reader, and these are mine.

Title is from “Simple Joys” from the musical “Pippin,” which I GET TO SEE ON SUNDAY BECAUSE MY PARENTS LOVE ME SO THERE. HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME.

Hello all my lovelies! I am remiss on the blog once again. It’s a common theme, but I’m trying for 3 posts per month. This month it’s two. Well, I still have a week for a third post, right? It could happen. And I have many things I’d like to say, but these are the quick updates.

I have some news regarding A Ragged Magic, and what’s going on, publishing-wise. Since I’m changing publishers, or rather, my original publisher (Per Aspera) became part of another publisher (Ragnarok) and Ragnarok is going to reissue ARM, that means that the book will be unavailable for purchase from retailers starting July 1^st. If you want to buy the book and you haven’t yet, you’ll have to contact me here (Lindsey@lindseysjohnson.com) to set that up, or wait for the reissue, which will most likely be sometime in November. When I know the exact date I will be sure to let you know. SO … if you want a permanent and beautiful piece of THIS AWESOME ARTWORK:

Be sure to order ASAP and get yourself a copy now at your favorite retailer. Because once that is off the market, and I am out of books, that truly lovely cover by Angie Abler will be a collector’s item. I do love that cover, but I am fairly certain that new artwork will be ordered for the new issue, to go with new marketing, to go with the new publisher. Which is all in service to new, shiny books, that will be ready for your reading pleasure in just a few months. And THEN! Onto the sequel! Which I am furiously writing right now. (Note re: furiously – there’s some swearing going on, coming from me, as I shove some plot around that I came up with that is TOTALLY AWESOME but changes stuff I already wrote, but I swear I am working Very Hard.)

In other life news, the eXit SPACE 10^th anniversary dance performance went wonderfully well. We had a blast, we kicked ass, we performed the hell out of all of our pieces, and we had a blast. Did I mention we had a blast? We were very, very sparkly, and very, very silly, and I love all my dancer peeps and I’m still going through withdrawals, even though I’ve been to classes since. Some days when I get to the studio I just want to awkwardly hug everyone a lot. I don’t, because I try really hard not to be too creepy with everyone. It’s a trial.

But here are some photos to prove how much fun we were having.

80s makeup for A Chorus Line. Because Duran Duran eyes. That’s why. Bonus sweat from just getting off stage. I aim to make these experiences realistic. PS sweatbands are only sort of helpful. Must be why they went out of style.

JAZZ IT! Most of the Jazz cast. We’re so proud.

Modern backstage selfie. Aww, dancer love.

Now I’m back to my regularly over-scheduled summer. I keep thinking I don’t have that much going on, and then suddenly I realize that I have something scheduled for every weekend for the next forever and how did that happen, anyway? I’m naturally a homebody and an introvert. I really like people (most people) but I also really need time to sit and process and not do. And by not do, I mean NOT DO. NOTHING DOING. SITTING ON MY BUTT THINKING SOME BUT SORT OF JUST STARING AT ZIPPO WHILE I LET MY MIND WANDER. That’s how I manage my buzzing brain, anyway. Lately I’ve spent too much time on twitter and stuff instead, but I really benefit from staring into space. I come up with plot and character that way, I come up with words that way, I let go of things that are bothering me that way, I keep my keel relatively even that way. So pardon me if sometimes, if I’m over-scheduled, I don’t talk to people too much. My keel is getting uneven and I have to shift sails and look for calmer waters in the ship of my head. Or something. (Sailors, stop laughing.) (Or keep laughing, I live to entertain.)

This is my life. It’s weird, but it’s good. Working on evening out my keel, keeping on dancing, keeping on writing, keeping on keeping on. Happy Summer!

Title is from “Like Real People Do” by Hozier, which I am completely obsessed with at the moment.

Well hello, June is busting out all over. In that it is now June, and May went away, and I’m behind and exhausted and sore but GETTING SO STRONG, so that’s gotta be worth something, right?

I spent the whole of May either working out, taking dance class, rehearsing for the upcoming show, working, writing, or recovering from those things. And more the physical stuff than anything else, and oh, how sore I am. But my guns are looking really gunny these days, which has been awhile since I’ve seen those, so I’m stoked about that. Also my legs are stronger, my stamina is better, and I’m feeling pretty good about most of the choreography. All from lifting other dancers, lifting myself, doing pushups, doing situps, doing leg lifts, plies, the elliptical, walking, and just boogie, boogie, boogie all the live-long day.

I’m very tired.

All of this is to explain why I haven’t blogged – I haven’t had the bandwidth for the blogging. Brain brain what is brain? It’s that thing that I use for work, some writing on the sequel, choreography and NOTHING ELSE because it just gives up and shuts down when I try. It makes it really hard when people bring me stuff at work that I’m not ready for, because I can feel my thought process ka-chunk ka-chunk into a new gear and I have to blink and stutter for a few minutes until I can focus on the new thing. And I’m only in 5 dance pieces – I don’t know how certain others who are in 9 or so pieces are even handling their lives. Possibly they take naps. Or they’re just way more badass than I am.

But the show! The show is coming up in under two weeks and we’re pushing to be so kick ass, y’all! If you didn’t get your tickets, you’re about to be super sad, because Saturday’s show is sold out, and Friday’s is almost so. But if you did get yours, hey presto, we are going to entertain the heck out of you. Be ready. June 12^th and 13^th are the evening shows, and there are 4 matinees with the kids on the 13^th and 14^th. I’m in at least one dance in each matinee, so I’m going to show up with my fancy new costume suitcase and live at the theater, starting the night of the 9^th, which is the first tech rehearsal. (10^th, other tech rehearsal, 11^th, dress rehearsal, and then shows starting the 12^th. There is a reason I’ve been pushing myself on the stamina front.) If I can, I will post pictures. If you follow me on Facebook or Twitter, you’ll see some there. SO MUCH BOOGIE AND JAZZ HANDS. Yay! (If you still want to try to see it, go to brownpapertickets.com and look up takePAUSE 2015.)

In writing news, I am chugging away at the sequel to A Ragged Magic, and changing my mind about a few things I thought were set, but maybe they aren’t, and then chugging away again. Uh. In the middle, is what I am. The messy, messy middle where I start to panic and throw plotlines about and hope some kind of coherency shows up to help me out. I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH THESE PEOPLE, HOW DO I FIX THIS, I NEED THEM TO GET OVER HERE BUT THEY’RE JUST MILLING AROUND TALKING ABOUT CRAP AND IGNORING ME. That’s where I am. So I’m about to rocks fall, buncha people die on it, because why plot holes why ya gotta do me like this, is why. I do feel that I have some really cool awesome plot in there, but the issue is making it hang together, and not get too bogged down in either explanations or side plots. And to not lose sight of the important character growth. I like where the plot is ultimately going, but I’m not always sure I know what I’m doing to get it there. I feel certain I am not the only writer in the world to struggle with this.

Other writing news is going on but I feel like I can’t really talk about it until I have official stuff to tell you, so it’s all kind of not-a-secret-but-I-have-no-information-so-just-hold-please. Annoying, I know, but I don’t have any control over that. Other people have all the control over that and I shall try not to be too anxious about that but probably fail. Anxious-R-Us, but that is hardly news to anyone, now, is it?

So, to sum up – ALL THE DANCING is happening, and I’m super tired and sore. WRITING IS HARD and I’m working on it. WORK IS, well, it’s just work. I go there a lot. They pay me, so that’s good.

LIFE: The Cliffsnotes version. Hope all your summers are shaping up to be loverly.

Title is from “Dance Apocalytic” by Janelle Monáe

Actually, I’ll be dancing with a lot of other people. Yay! It’s that time of year again – takePAUSE time! Come see the show!

Those of you who know me at all, know I love to dance. I adore it. It’s a passion and a life-giving force. I take classes several times a week at my home away from home, eXit SPACE dance studio here in Seattle – a wonderful dance studio for dancers of any ability or age. I’ve been dancing with Marlo Martin (director) since before she opened eXit SPACE, and I can tell you she’s created one of the most welcoming, friendly, uplifting places I have ever danced. It’s a great community full of wonderful people, and I’m so happy to spend time with them. I’ve made friends and found a place that I can be my weird and wild self and embrace the weird wildness of others and revel in it. Dance is something I feel like I can love without judgment. Even when I’m feeling judgey about myself, or my ability, or my body, I know that dance isn’t judging me, and no one else in class is judging me, and I can work out my feelings on the floor and the floor will catch me every time. (Sometimes harder than others, but it’s always there.) If I need my fellow dancers to catch me, they will be there to lift me up and toss me back on my feet, and I am there for them, too. I am by no means a professional, but Marlo and the other instructors have helped me become a much better dancer than I would be without them. I’m an enthusiastic amateur, and they help me to improve and conquer fears and doubts and push myself without hurting myself. They’ve helped me explore what I can do, and learn how to look good doing it. In short, to embody joy, and to share that joy with other dancers.

And now you can share in it, too, if you want to come see us dance! The studio puts on a show every year, and I haven’t missed one yet. This is our 10^th takePAUSE and I’m so excited to be a part of it again. If you are local, and you want to share in our joy and exultations, the dates are June 12^th and 13^th at 8pm, (Friday night and Saturday night) at 8 pm. We’d be so happy to have you! Tickets are on sale NOW – go to brownpapertickets.com to get some. But GET YOUR TICKETS RIGHT AWAY, because we WILL SELL OUT. We’ve already sold a startling number, and they’ve only been available for 4 days. If you don’t get them soon, you will miss out, and then you will be sad. You don’t want to be sad, do you? Those of you who’ve said you were sad to miss it in the past – now’s your chance! Grab some ticky-tickets!

I’m in 5 pieces this year – which is a lot. It’s more than I’ve ever been in for one show. I know we’re technically counting the Broadway stuff as one piece for certain class rehearsal reasons, but come on, it’s not one piece; it’s three. Two of them are on the short side, but it’s still  completely different chunks of choreography, different costumes, and it’s split up into different parts of the show. So there. The pieces are the audition dance from “A Chorus Line,” (slightly changed) (that choreo looks cheesy, but it’s pretty difficult, and cheese makes it more fun) (If you make it too pretty, you lose the cheese, is our motto), “All That Jazz,” from “Chicago”, and “Too Darn Hot,” from “Kiss Me Kate.” The modern piece I’m in is not quite finished, but it’s getting very, uh, let’s just say we’re jumping up and down a lot. A Lot. The fact that I’ve been working on my stamina and wind is a very good idea, is what I’m saying. The same could be said for the jazz, which is mostly finished and so much fun. If nothing else convinces you to show up to this show, the jazz piece would – we are gonna knock some socks off, and I’m not afraid to say it.

Rehearsals are going well, the studio is full up with the cries of “6, 7, 8!” and “let’s do that again, right?” and “Wait, wait, what was that again?” and “YES!” There are some dancers who are there 6 days out of 7 and I think they should get a little cot in the back for naps between rehearsals. (I am not one of them, but I do feel like I might need to punch a time card some weeks.) All the jumping up and down is getting my butt into literal shape (not kidding, I need to get some new pants), the muscles in my arms are standing out with all the lifting of dancers (and extra pushups and planks), and I think I have better flexibility this year, because I’ve been working on that. Go go gadget dancer! I’m being very careful of my older-than-the-rest-of-me knees, but all in all I’m feeling really good.

takePAUSE will have many dance types on display to enjoy, as per usual– tap, hip-hop, ballet, Broadway, jazz, and modern pieces from dancers of all ability levels. Marlo’s company badmarmar will have a piece in the show, as well. We aim to misbehave and entertain, and we aim to do so with a lot of style. So there you have it. Come to the show! We are awesome and fun and you’ll have a good time. Time for all the boogie!

Title is from “Dancing With Myself” by Billy Idol, but I expect you knew that.

Writing can reveal your inner fears to yourself. Sometimes it’s your deepest fears and worries and heartaches, that you wring out and put into your story. That’s a good thing, and should be explored. I don’t always know I’m doing it, until it’s there. It can be hard to continue, once I recognize it, hard to really face. But of course, that’s where the meat of the matter is, in dreams and hopes and fears. That’s why we write story, why we read it. That’s how story resonates with other people.

Sometimes, however, the fear that is revealed is the fear of Doing It Wrong – being wrong, or bad at it, or failing – that shows up, and you (I) don’t get any writing done at all. That’s not a good thing. It’s a battle that I know many, many writers fight. If you don’t write, of course you fail (at writing). But if you do write, and fail anyway, then you know it’s because you (I) just didn’t do it very well. The writing wasn’t good enough. And that thought can be paralyzing.

The answer to that, so everyone says, and I believe them, is to write *more*, to become better. But the human psyche is a capricious jerk, and likes to tell us to give up. Persistence is key, persistence is how you succeed, but persistence is freaking nerve wracking and you have to continue on down echoing corridors of doubt that send you spiraling. How does one persist when one’s own brain is throwing monsters up in the air to fight? Monsters of air and shadow and whispers, monsters we make in our deep, scaredy hearts. Monsters that creep down those twisty corridors, waiting to spring, with their suggestions of claws, and claws of suggestions.

This is just the personal struggle, of course. This does not speak to the wider struggle everyone faces, to one degree or another: to be noticed, to be read, to be recommended or reviewed. And those struggles are different for everyone, for different reasons. There is no one way to become a published author. But we all struggle to get there. Sometimes we (I) struggle to write at all.

I have known people who don’t struggle when they write. They just … write. They have stories and they write those stories down and they deal with the problems therein later. They keep going until it’s done, and then it’s done, and they hand it over. I wish I could be so sanguine, so confident. I’m working to train myself closer to this model, but so far I’m only somewhat successful. I run into roadblocks that I set up myself. I run off onto paths I set up but didn’t think through. I pull back from the story to mull, and research, and mulling and research turn into more mulling and research, and then sullenly staring at pages and thinking I should just scrap it all, it all is terrible, none of it works and I should never have started writing to begin with, why didn’t I want to be something reasonable, like anything else at all: a wizard, or a hippopotamus. Equally attainable goals.

Which is where I find myself now with this sequel. The muddle in the middle, it’s been called. I know the shape of the overall arch of the story, I know much of what happens, but in writing the details and scenes and making it interesting other than in my own head, I find I’m … stuck. Irritated with myself, sitting in this muck of a mess I have made, staring at the squiggly lines of plot and thinking, this sucks. All of it sucks. I did not make a story, I made a mess. How am I going to make this mess into a story? It’s full of inconsistencies and random fragmentations and plot holes, and I’m pretty sure a wizard or a hippopotamus could fix it but I can’t. (The wizard would magic it better or turn it into a lovely figurine. The hippo would just eat it, or trample it, which might be a mercy.)

My plan, such as it is, is to make a list of all the scenes I have, what scenes I need, and where I’m missing plot, or where the plot holes are, to find out how to fix my mess. If I can’t do anything with that, I may just turn (whimpering) to my editor, to find out what he thinks. Because my progress for the last several weeks has consisted of me writing myself notes, asking myself questions, but not, so far, answering those questions. I’ve gone so far as to write the questions down, and then write “No but actually answer these questions” to myself, but as of yet I have not been able to do that. Pretty pathetic, when you think that all of these questions and answers really are just coming out of my own head. I feel like my own child, answering all my questions with “I dunno,” equally irritated with each version of myself, both for asking and not answering. Nope. Nope. Not coping. A hippo is the better choice, really. Hippos are mean. They would just destroy it all and revel in the destruction. I could really get into that. Wizards have to interact with other wizards and people are always asking them for things. Hippos just exist and no one messes with them. Best to be a hippo. I’ll get right on that.

As soon as I finish this damn story.

Title is from “Like Real People Do,” by Hozier

I have a guest blog up over at the Leasspell website today – it went up a couple of days ago, actually, but I was a bit busy over the weekend and didn’t get the message. So go read! Enjoy! Pull up a chair and check out the website! As usual, I used song lyrics for the title, which may confuse Leasspell’s viewers, but to know me is to be baffled by me, so I guess that’s fair. Go have a look at “They Preach that I Should Save the World, They Pray That I Won’t Do a Better Job of it”

Jennifer from Leasspell contacted me a few months ago and asked if I’d like to do a guest blog, and I said yes. It was going to happen earlier, but then the month of being sick plus all the things happened, and Jennifer was away on vacation, so it’s happening now. Happy blog guesting! It’s all about how I like teenagers, and I like to write for them. Enjoy!

(Of course, this title is from Indigo Girls “Welcome Me”)

March has marched on out, and here is April, letting me know that it’s farther along in the season than I think, and I’d better get my literal butt into literal shape and push myself more in the working out department, and the writing department, and the spring cleaning department – all the departments.

I am a tad behind in blogging, due to, well, everything, and so this will be a State of the Lindsey post to get my mind in order.

At the beginning of March I was down in the Bay area. I went to FogCon, which is a small, fun little con, and I was on the radio on KPFA, with my aunt Kris Welch. She has a radio program on Fridays and Saturdays, and you can check out the interview in the archive if you go to https://kpfa.org/ and look up the date, which was March 6^th at 1230 pm or so. Kris interviewed me, and also Lori Ann White, who is a local writer and my friend. (I stayed with her while I was there, because I love my Lori.) We talk about SF/F conventions in general, and A Ragged Magic in specific. Yay! It was so much fun. I was a bit nervous, and worried I was talking too fast, but I was told it went well.

The convention itself was fun, although it felt a bit disjointed to me, which was mostly because we weren’t staying there at the hotel, so we were on the road a lot. Lori was kind enough to drive me all over the Bay area and back so I could visit her, and go to this con, and see fambly. (Lori is kind of fambly, so I was with fambly all that weekend and it was great.) (Except for the plugged-up ear that would not unplug, due to the tail end of the month of teh sick, and teh crud, and teh bleah. That part sucked.) We hung out with friends new and known, and on Saturday night we played a game called Slash, which is kind of like Apples to Apples but with making up OTPs (One True Pairings) (i.e. romantic relationships) with the names on the cards. The names were real people as well as fictional characters, and it is a blast to play. I love it more than all the other versions of that kind of game I have played, and I want to get it. Thanks to our new friends and our already known friends for inviting us to play. And thanks to Gary for letting us more social types drag him along, because he was hilarious.

On Sunday evening Lori and I went back to KPFA and watched the honoring of some of KPFA’s notable women for International Women’s Day, and then had dinner with some more notable women, notably my aunt Kris and cousin Nicolas, and Nicolas’ notable baby Mandela (who is cute enough to melt your face, I am not kidding, this kid is working it). Then on Monday Lori drove me back north (again!) to Kris’ and Nicolas’ house, and my parents came over from Davis, too, and it was just a Welchy time. So much Welch, I’m telling you. My dad is used to it, but I hope Lori was amused and entertained.

Moving ahead in time, Norwescon was here in the Seattle area (Seatac, but it counts) this past weekend. I did not officially attend, but I did go Friday night to have dinner with my editor/publisher, and some of the other authors/artists in our house. We are a fun, silly group, and I like hanging out with us. There are some interesting things going on, publishing-wise, that I will reveal at a later date.

We (Scott and I, along with the Per Aspera crew) then headed over to the convention, and went to parties. Scott and I were there as unofficial “hey these people know us enough to just let us in” people. Not really ghosting, but not really attending, either. Good times were had. Saturday I attended the con as a bar-con attendee; which means I spent most of my time in the bar. But I did go to Julie McGalliard’s book launch party, where we celebrated her book coming out, “Waking Up Naked in Strange Places,” which is fantastic and you should totally check it out. http://gothhouse.com/ Julie and I work together at our day jobs (well, we work for the same place, near one another) and sometimes we have lunch or snack breaks and brainstorm story. I’m so excited to see the story in book form, which I had her sign her very own self. She sold out of books this weekend, and people had to place orders. So exciting! Go Julie!

I spent the rest of Saturday hanging with various and sundry wonderful people, meeting some new wonderful people, reconnecting with wonderful people I haven’t seen in a long time, and laughing myself silly. Well, sillier. Good times. Even though I couldn’t afford to officially attend, and I didn’t get see everyone I would have liked to, and I had to drive the long drive home both nights, I’m so glad I went.

Sunday was a day of not going to the con. I had modern rehearsal in the afternoon, and since I didn’t get back to my apartment until after 2am, I didn’t get out of bed until 11. And then I laid about in a stupor for a good long time, feeling old and logy. I am old, Father William. It is very hard on me to stay up until 2 anymore. Plus the sugar-drunk is probably not great for me, either. But it was worth it. (For those all six of you who read this who might not already know, I do not get actually drunk, because alcohol tastes icky, but I usually have way too much sugar at a party.)

Rehearsals for this year’s dance performance are in full swing and I’m hanging in there, even with the 2+ weeks of dancing I missed in Feb due to being sick, and the month+ of other workouts I didn’t have. But it does mean that I’m not in the shape I wanted to be in at this point, and the rehearsals are harder on my body than I’d like. So – this means more workouts, and pushing myself (carefully) and maybe even (bleah!) lifting weights. (BLEAH!) (Hate weights. Hates them. So boring.) I would rather do thousands of crunches and pushups (to pumping fun music) than lift weights. But if I want to get the muscles stronger faster, I might have to. Stupid sickness, making me behind where I want to be. Also I need to get back on track with my knee PT exercises, because ow, old knees.

On the GOOD side of all of that, the dances are So Much Fun and we are SO DAMN AWESOME so if you are local to Seattle, and like to watch fun dancers kicking All The Ass, you should be ready to buy your tickets for the show. The show – TAKE||PAUSE – will be June 12-13, tickets on sale May 1^st, and there will be jazz, modern, Broadway, ballet, hip-hop, and tap dancing in it. I’m in 3 pieces – well, 5. Well, 3. Well, it depends on how you count. I’m in one jazz, one modern, and one Broadway jazz, but that Broadway is really 3 pieces, that were going to be a medley, but due to costume changes and other constraints, are now spread throughout the show. So it’s kind of 3 pieces, although for rehearsal purposes it’s 1. We’re dancing the Chorus Line audition piece, part of All That Jazz, and Too Darn Hot – and we are so very Broadway, with All The Cheese. (Our upcoming t-shirt: “If it gets too pretty, it loses the cheese.”) You will love it. The modern piece has started rehearsing now, and there’s going to be some fun partnering in it (I need stronger quads right now, holy shmolies), and the jazz is going very well, lots of Charleston type moves and spins. My knees hate me, but I’m working on them.

Writing-wise, this past month was partially a bust. I blame being sick for so long. I did get some done, and I had a breakthrough of some pretty cool proportions. I spoke with Fabulous Editor Jak ™ about all of it over the weekend, and I’m going to go ahead with my breakthrough and follow the story. It’s a little nerve-wracking, but I’m still working, and still plugging away on it. If I think too hard about how much further there is to go, I get overwhelmed and it all stops. So I have to just keep working on groups of scenes and hope it all strings together into some kind of coherent whole in the end. I feel like I sort of almost kind of know what I might be doing. Ish. Which is about par for the course for writing, so I guess it’s going well.

So that’s the rather long State of the Lindsey wrap-up report for the month of March and beginning of April. I’d better get back to it – it being All the Things. Get to writing, people, and take your dance breaks, and Rock On.

Title is from “Cloudy” by Simon and Garfunkel

It’s another rantypants post, aren’t you lucky. I’m feeling all the ranty feels about this one, so enjoy.

There’s a particular meme going around social media at the moment that infuriates me, because it is sexist and ageist and so very palpably trying to pretend to be intellectually vigorous, but it’s a giant lie.

The meme goes like this: there’s a picture of Einstein, with a quote attributed to him, that says something about how when technology overtakes human interaction, that we’ll have a generation of idiots. First problem – Einstein never said that. Not once. Not ever. EINSTEIN NEVER SAID THAT. That is a misattribution from the movie “Powder.” Yes, the 90s movie about a paranormal teen said that Einstein said that, but he never did. So there’s your first problem.

Second problem – the picture below that picture shows a group of five young, likely teenage girls, wearing summer clothes, outside, all looking at their smartphones. As if to say – Hah! Look at that! Because these are teenagers, and they’re looking at their phones, and most of all, because they’re GUUURRRRRLLS, they are idiots! Haha! Isn’t that clever? See! Kids these days! Einstein (who never said that) was right!

It’s so disingenuous. You don’t know what those girls are looking at, on those phones. They could be looking up historical facts about a nearby monument. They could be coordinating a protest, or a workshop, or a study group. They could be helping out a friend who is in trouble and needs somewhere safe to go, and they’re trying to figure out where that would be. They might be texting each other about someone’s outfit, or how cute the guys in One Direction are, or looking at facebook (which is where YOU (general you) got this stupid meme anyway, so who are you to judge), or laughing at a joke, or making a comment on the political situation in the local school board. YOU DON’T KNOW. AND WHY DO  YOU CARE? Plus deciding that what these GUUUURRRLLLS are doing with their smart phones is idiotic, when it is the EXACT SAME THING that YOU (again, general you) do with your smartphone every damn day, is … well, I’m just saying those girls aren’t the idiots in this situation. Take off your judgey McJudgeypants and also dismount your very judgey high horse and maybe you should remember that judging kids that way is a pretty crappy thing to do. So stop it.

Our society very much enjoys putting girls down and laughing at them. This attitude continues and follows women into adulthood, but it starts, and is particularly virulent and violent, with teen girls. What girls listen to, what they talk about, what they do, what they read – all of it is regarded as stupid, vapid, slutty, gross, frivolous, ridiculous, worthless. It has to be proven otherwise, before people will believe it. We have to put up example after example of young women and teen girls doing amazing things, and those young women or teen girls are always seen as an anomaly, not as par for the course. We are dismissive of evidence because we’re used to dismissing women, girls, and teenagers overall.

Why, you ask? Sexism, ageism, and the general jerkiness of humanity as it ages. Shake your canes all damn day, people who say “kids these days.” Girls organize protests, create art, are inventers, are scientists, are poets, are dancers, are artists, are political, are smart and funny and awesome. They look at their smartphones, and so do you. They interact with people all over the world all at once, and find it normal. They are marching into the future to be the next generation of people running things, and everyone moans and groans because oh noes, those girls, they are so vapid! But they aren’t vapid, you just have decided they are. Maybe you’re the vapid ones, and it’s driving you crazy. Maybe you should look up from your social media once in awhile. Or actually look at the social media that girls are creating and participating in, and interacting with humanity in, and realize how fully amazing they are.

PS “It might behoove you to look up quotes before forwarding them on. Sometimes, quotes on the internet are misattributed.” – Jane Austen.

PPS Jane Austen didn’t say that. But I did.

Title is from “Run the World (Girls)” by Beyoncé. Oh yes I did.

Hi everyone – guess what? I’m still sick. Whee! Going on antibiotics today to kill off the rest of this bug.

BUT – guess what ELSE? I’m a-gonna be on the radio! My auntie, Kris Welch, has a radio program on KPFA on Fridays at noon, and I’m going down to the bay area to be on her show, and to go to FogCon, and to hang out with the fantabulous Lori Ann White, who is awesome. So if you have a hankerin to hear Lori and me talk about conventions in general, and listen to me talk about A Ragged Magic in specific, I’ll be on Kris’ show at about 1240 pm this Friday, 3/6. It’s going to be fun. You can stream it or whatever works for you – the info is on the website.

And if my voice is back to normal, you can all play the game of “Who said that, Linz or Kris?” Because my voice sounds a lot like my aunt’s. (And my mother’s. And a little like my other aunt. Get us all in a room, and then everyone can play the game! Hours of family fun!) (But seriously Kris has a good program and you should listen.

Other than that, I’m still recovering from the crud, which knocked me out of commission for the past two weeks. Our washing machine is broken and our rental company is unresponsive, so who knows how long that will last. Medea, the older kitty, is acting grumpy and upset, and we’re a little worried about her. I’ve missed 2 rehearsals already from being sick, so I’m not only sick of being sick, it’s starting to really piss me off. But! I will be better soon. Onward, marching into March, and I hope everyone is feeling a bit of hope with spring blowing on in.

Title is from that Donna Summers song, “On the Radio,” or something obvious like that.