Love your rage, not your cage

Since mankind's dawn, a handful of oppressors have accepted the responsibility over our lives that we should have accepted for ourselves. By doing so, they took our power. By doing nothing, we gave it away. We've seen where their way leads, through camps and wars, towards the slaughterhouse.

From the graphic novel V for Vendetta, written by Alan Moore, illustrated by David Lloyd

🤎

Thursday, a good day to read Chocolat, watch Chocolat, or eat chocolat while reading/watching Chocolat. Because you will start craving it. So prepare accordingly. And quality over quantity, please. We're pampering ourselves, not punishing our gastrointestinal bits.

Did you get my SOS? Excellent.

I like big books (and I cannot lie)

Some books I've enjoyed this summer (in English and in no particular order):

Przewalski’s Horse by Maja Lunde

The History of Magic: From Alchemy to Witchcraft, From the Ice Age to the Present by Chris Gosden

Figuring by Maria Popova

Summerland by Hannu Rajaniemi

The Seven Sisters series by Lucinda Riley

Upheaval How Nations Cope with Crisis and Change by Jared Diamond

The Education of an Idealist by Samantha Power

But what have you been reading, sweetie darlings? I’d love to exchange recommendations! Doesn’t have to be a big book. A thought-provoking essay or article? ✔️ A beautifully illustrated children's book? ✔️ Something that made your brain sprain? ✔️

Happy International Literacy Day!

Summer moved on

Temperature: a crispy but sunny 10/50 degrees

Eating: a cheese and onion omelette.

Drinking: less and less of the proofed stuff, actually. Less has become more. Which is just as well.

Watching: Spent two hours in the soothing company of good friends and the good people of Downton Abbey just the other night! Now youngest son wants to go see Ad Astra. Why do I feel it won’t be as gentle on me?

Listening: to new music from Keane.

Reading: Saw the trailer so gobbled up Where’d You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple over the weekend. Which most likely ruined the movie. But the trailer kinda ruined the book; I kept seeing Cate Blanchett, you see. But, hello, it’s Cate Blanchett, so why am I complaining? Excellent book for friends of the epistolary form. Or just good clean fun writing.

Writing: Yup. Wondering why? So am I.

Thinking: It’s fall equinox today, isn’t it? How I wish the UN Climate Summit could find a balance, come to an understanding, have the wisdom and wherewithal to do something, anything to accelerate a change for the better.

Hindsight 2020

Temperature: a windy but sunny 5/41 degrees

Eating: in a minute

Drinking: Can't. Working. Maybe later? A Guinness to ring in the weekend? Hadn’t had one in ages, then had one on St. Patrick’s, and goodness is was gooood.

Watching: my TBR lists grow at an alarming pace. (The problem? A) I read in more than one language, B) I only have one brain, and C) 24 hours a day to spare.) This isn’t working. I need a year off. A year to go off and read.

Listening: to new music from Dido

Reading: As fast as I can. But it’s an epidemic! A cornucopia of fantastic fiction and non-fiction sprouting all over the planet. Could you please give me some time to catch up? Sit on it for a bit? Postpone publication, maybe? I might not get to you if you don’t, you know, and I know you want to be read. This isn’t working. Not for me, and not in your favor.

Thinking: Why don’t we all take 2020 off to read and reflect, and start 2021 in a new and improved state of mind. No? Why not? Because the world doesn’t stop for anyone? Who said anything about stopping?! Your brain doesn’t stop until it shuts down for good. And we have months to plan this, so what’s the problem?

Feeling: I may have gone overboard with the exclamation marks. Totally exceeded my quota for 2019, actually. Like three posts ago. Sorry about that. Can’t promise it won’t happen again.

Have I got news for you

And as soon as everything is signed, sealed and delivered, I'll tell you more!

Guess the consonant, buy a vowel, today's word puzzle is... 

NE_  B_ _K

My belly cramps just thinking about it. Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Frickin'-Dah, sweetie darlings!

Purge

Oi, New Yorkers! Go see this play. Right away.

Oh, and read the book. Wherever you are.

The Brothers Grim

Once upon a time, in a galaxy not that far away, there will be a very serious man and a very serious woman. So serious about what they're doing that when my life got very serious indeed, I seriously doubted my ability to see to their HEA for a while. 

It was really not that bad of a situation. It was worse. You see, it's not them I started writing about when I first paid a visit to their particular place and time, or it paid me one, it was another serious dude. Serious about his life and his duties, and committed to a woman he had never met but knew he would one day have by his side. His problem: He didn't know when and where. Mine: I didn't either. 

But: I did know the world and people around him. I saw his family much more clearly than I saw him, but when two more serious men stepped into the story, I said get outta here. Literally, go and get your own story, which was of course the wrong thing to say because that was exactly what they wanted. 

They argued a strong case. Presented me with their given circumstances (what I talked about in my last post, remember? What do you mean "No"?), promised to be worth my time and effort, lured me with the individual quandaries they were in knowing full well I would not be able to resist coming to their rescue. 

I told you it gets worse before it gets better. But come on. Three brothers. Really? What is it with these unholy trinities? All that was missing was bosoms a-heaving, mighty shafts a-swinging and the foul stench of Eau de Sequel and I'd be all set. I told them to get lost and let me concentrate on the serious gentleman in search of the woman of his dreams. 

It gets worse. These two guys knew that story wasn't ripe yet, that Mr. Serious and I needed some more time, but, as I was informed, they would be happy to keep me company. It's not as if anything bad could happen, right? As in, I set things in stone I can't change later even if I wanted to. As in, the aroma of those other stories gets too strong and I don't notice it even while I detest that smell. As in, I invest time in three stories without any guarantee Ellora's Cave or anyone else for that matter wants a single one of them.

It gets worse still. I like writing genre with a touch of humor; I like my characters to have a sense of humor, to see the lighter side of maybe a not so ha-ha funny situation. But during a winter when life became less about ha-ha and more about sad smiles, these men, these men who were by no means boring or uninteresting, only...serious... Their company became too much to bear.

I knew I was in trouble when I started calling them The Brothers Grim. I was being harsh, I was being unfair, and I was absolutely evading my responsibilities to my characters the moment I started writing something lighter, something shorter, something with a touch of funny just to get away from them for a while.

I've sent out that Quickie. I'm about to send out the first story of my Brothers Grim, the youngest of them, who I thought might go last and who ended up going first. No bosoms a-heaving, no mighty shafts a-swinging and, I hope, with such a faint odor of that Eau de Sequel you'll agree, if and when those stories come out, they're not sequels but equals. That's how I'm treating and writing those Righteous Brothers. Distinct and able to stand alone.

If you know you will not be coming back, don't step out in the middle of a story. If time is precious and publication the only goal, maybe it's wiser to tackle your stories one at a time. If you need to know the whole arc and every aspect of whatever you're planning on writing, don't do what I did. 

But if those worlds and characters fascinate you enough, call to you so loud and clear and unrelenting that you can't wait to find out how it plays out; that you know a breather is just a breather, things will only get better with some time and distance; that you're not leaving them for good and never would... Ah, you know what to do.

You've come a long way, baby

Dear Alex,

I'm writing to you on this 4th of July to wish you happy birthday and to tell you how proud I am of you and how you've fared these last twelve months. I sent you out into the world a year ago to the date, remember, and for a while you made no contact. You had me worried for a while, you know, but you did tell me as you headed out not to wait up, only leave a light on for you.

That I did, and you found your way back with good news. Remember how happy I was, how utterly speechless, but with something that big, that good, that wonderful, how could I have done anything but fought for my breath? But you couldn't stay, could you; you only came back to pick up the rest of your things and to tell me I would have to stay on alert for just a while longer.

Honey, if the first stretch was a nail-biter, the second was nothing short of the screaming mimis. And screech I believe I did, if I remember correctly, not that I do, happy day, fuzzy day, when you mailed to tell me you wouldn't be coming back and not because you didn't want to but because someone wouldn't let you. You had some work to do and you needed my help. You had someone to help you out and someone for me to work with, and boy have you been a handful, but a sweet, rewarding, educating one. One-year-olds usually are.

They get all the attention and they know how to demand it. The expectations are high but probability of survival uncertain until you learn to trust your skills. They get to pave the way, make all the mistakes later written under 'learning the stupid-ass way', enchant with their novelty and enrage with their unpredictability.

And I'm telling you now, sweetie, start misbehaving and you'll find yourself on your way back to me. You truly want that? Didn't get your fill of being my toy boy to order around and use mercilessly any which way I could think of? Twisting you this way; never knowing what I wanted from you next; turning you that way; demanding and then pushing for more? Do you truly want to risk the chance I may not have evolved enough in your absence to handle you with more care and subtlety? No, you can't talk to your successors; they're all under house arrest until they do my bidding.

The whip is still cracking as the stories are spinning, so stay put and enjoy the hands and treatment of someone who knows what they are doing and is willing to teach me the ropes, too. No, you can't complain or you'll be dealing with Mommy Dearest. And neither of us wants that, do we? Alex? Baby? Are you listening? Stop acting like a one-year-old and give me a big sloppy one. I promised no favorites, but you always remember your first one. I can promise you that.

With love and Mavala Stop,

Your Tenacious D