Paper Fruit

The end of the year is fast approaching, and as usual it has inspired me to make a fruitcake and do a little housekeeping, taking stock of what this year has meant for me as a writer, a reader, and just a person, too.

I confess that 2014 has been a difficult year for me. Sort of like Longfellow’s little girl with a curl right in the center of her forehead, when this year was good, it was very good indeed, and when it was bad it was horrid.

I struggled with personal relationships this year, with both friends and with my family, but I also reconnected with several old friends, and was privileged to witness a truly amazing event in my immediate family—my uncle surviving a bone marrow transplant from my mother.

After enjoying performing lion dance over Chinese New Year I decided to take a leave of absence from my kung fu studio for personal reasons both physical and mental. And while I felt less fit overall this year since 2011 (the year I committed myself to taking time for fitness) I ran my first triathlon and achieved the times I wanted.

I wrote a novel that is a total mess, that I may trunk forever, but I also wrote one that I believe may be my best yet.

As is apparent from that last point, I struggled with my writing this year, aesthetically and emotionally, but I also sold a handful more short stories than usual, ones that I like more than usual, even, and I also sold my first novel, my second novel, and a novella.

Though I struggled with feelings of career stagnation, I achieved some other firsts this year. I edited my first ever magazine edition (in spite of being Managing Editor/Assistant Editor of several magazines over the years, I was never invited to take part in actual fiction-selection), and was invited to edit two more projects, an issue of another magazine, due out next year, and another project which has not yet been announced.

Though I did not have a book come out this year, I saw seven short stories published, one of which earned me my first-ever mention in Publishers Weekly, and I sold seven more. I also began (and completed, more impressively for me) a blog series for Pornokitsch, where I am now a regular contributor.

For the first time since 2009 I did not attend a single con, but I was invited to be a guest—an actual guest, not just a participant—at a con next year, a first for me. I turned down cons for good and bad reasons this year, a learning experience, but I also traveled to Japan, which was an amazing experience.

I read more this year than I have in many, many years, in part due to a concerted effort to do so. I kept track of my adventures on Goodreads, which was enlightening. After beginning the year at a good clip I had hoped to read 75 books this year. I’m currently at 65 and I’m not sure I’ll be able to squeeze in ten before the new year, but I’ll try–and whatever I achieve will be extremely rewarding, I’m sure.

I also played video games for the first time in years—Dragon Age 2, and I just started Dragon Age: Origins. As this was also a rewarding experience, I hope to play more games in future, as I am woefully ignorant of the state of gaming, having never owned a video game system that wasn’t Nintendo. Onward to Skyrim, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Mass Effect, and more!

2015 should be an exiting year. Having my first novel come out, and my second, is already a thrilling but intimidating prospect. I’ll be doing two other blog series for Pornokitch, which I hope to complete with the same or greater level of success as the last. I’m enthusiastic to do more races, to have new adventures (didn’t get to my annual 14er this year), and to begin new writing projects with more confidence and self-assuredness in what I do best, rather in what I wished I did better.

I hope you all had wonderful years, and if you didn’t I hope your 2015 is better. Cheers!

I’m back from my Florida semi-vacation. Some medical stuff in the family, as usual, so I went down to help out my mom. She’s fine—she pulled through her end of things like a champ! She’s one tough lady.

Let’s see…

I realized the other day that I’ve sold over twenty short stories in the last five years. Given how slowly I write, that’s a really exciting figure! Some of those short stories have been sold but not announced—at least two, maybe three? I’m terrible at keeping track of that stuff. Anyways, announcements on things as I can, obviously. Whee!

A week ago last Sunday (meaning September 21st) I completed my first sprint triathlon! It was pretty much the greatest thing in the world, I’ll definitely be doing more in future. And not only did I complete it, I got the times I wanted.

My goal for this was first and foremost to finish, but I also wanted to do it under two hours. That meant, knowing my athletic ability, I needed to finish the swim in under 20 minutes, the ride in under an hour, and the run in under 40 minutes. I did all of it! And I wasn’t totally wiped out, after, nor was I particularly sore. My hips were stiff, and my knees complained a little but that’s to be expected for me. All in all, it was a great experience, and I’ll definitely do another tri with Without Limits, and maybe some others. I’d be curious to do an Olympic some day.

Sprint Triathlons are:

1/2 mile swim

12.something mile ride (mine was 12.9)

5k run

Olympic/Standard Tris are:

.93mi swim

25mi bike ride

1ok run

So, a nice increase in my best event, swimming, but also an increase in my worst event, running. But, my plan is to keep up on running this winter and increasing gradually to see if I (meaning, my knees) can take that distance. But, I must say, the sprint distance was so fun and exhilarating, I have no problem sticking with that. I enjoyed it so much I’m considering looking for a used wetsuit so I can do earlier-season triathlons. The water in Union Reservoir was 69 the day I swam, which is totally fine without a wetsuit, but maybe 4 degrees colder and it would have been pretty terrible. Given how cold the reservoirs around here get during the winter, anything before July would probably be a struggle without one.

I have really been into sewing my own clothes. Down in Florida I completed a new long-sleeved tunic and a sleeveless tunic dress thing. Pics whenever I wear them, probably.

Other than that, I’ve just been working on my WiP, which is finally (FINALLY) chugging along nicely. I had some early-novel struggles with this, for whatever reason, but now I’m enjoying myself greatly. The reduced speculative element in this has been very refreshing for me… we’ll have to see how it flies with my readership! At least anyone who picks it up because they know I can be counted upon to write about terrible fuckers fucking up will be happy. I gotta be me!

I made mandu/mandoo for the first time a few weeks back. They’re time-consuming but super-delicious! So far I’ve only cooked up the steamed kind. Tonight, I’ll be frying up the pan-fried kind for dinner. I also used my leftover mandu-pi to make tortellini with some home-fermented cashew-almond gruyere, which was pretty righteous.

In two weeks I’ll be headed to Japan, which is super-exciting.

Okay… that’s it, I think. Back to work!

I have A Thing due in November (two things, actually, but one of them is a little scarier than the other), and it’s now September. I’ve been working well on it, sometimes, but now I need to be working well on it… all the time.

This is at odds with my desire to blog more, as I find it rewarding, my desire to exercise more (and more diversely) which I have to do as my first triathlon is officially twenty (NO! 19, shit) days away, somehow, and my desire to start sewing my own clothes more, as my mother and I made a dress together on her most recent trip out here and it was super fun. Oh well! This kind of busyness is what I’ve been desiring since day one of deciding to try this whole writing thang.

Speaking of…

I use that little “stickies” program for Mac to keep my monthly biz straight on my dashboard. Hours for my various freelance gigs, HTML code I use to do stuff, etc. I also had been keeping a running list of publishers who were looking at Vermilion since my agent put it out in the world. It occurred to me today I could clear that. The top left of my dashboard now looks strangely empty, but thrillingly so.

I was the Lovecraftian/Weird Author of the Week over at the Lovecraft eZine. Recently, Mike Davis has begun posting short interviews every week with “a Weird Fiction and/or Lovecraftian author that I feel deserves more attention.” I was very flattered he offered me a spot. But I got a little, I dunno, introspective… so be warned.

What is it about Lovecraftian horror and Weird Fiction that appeals to you?

[….] In Weird, and especially Lovecraftian Weird, the world doesn’t make sense to begin with, so all you can do when things go really wrong is… go crazy, or (better) stay sane and learn to cope with the knowledge that everything you believed or knew is garbage. The older I get, the more that… realism, I suppose, appeals to me. I already mentioned my dad passing away… maybe this is obvious, but that really affected me, when he was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Not just because I was suddenly confronted with the terrible knowledge that he was going to die sooner than I’d ever expected, but because my dad was always the healthiest guy. He cooked low-fat and low-sugar, walked and cycled and worked out with weights… and yet, earlier than most people are even diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, he died of it. What the fuck is that shit? How is that fair? Well, it’s not. It’s just terrible.

Whee! Fun!

Uhhh, in other news, September’s issue of The Big Click went up today.

Here at The Big Click, we have pretty wide tastes in noir. We’ll publish stories about criminals, about psychopaths, barely reformed lowlifes, and the like. But only rarely will we do cops or private investigators. Partially because most of what is sent to us involving the police or PIs just isn’t noir: it’s hard-boiled, or a mystery with sex in it, or a procedural with booze in it. The rare cop-themed noir we do get tend to ultimately choose sides in a way that sends the story screaming into the hell of moral instruction. Trust us, we already know that doing drugs and killing people and hurting women is bad. (And if we didn’t think so, these stories would not persuade us.)

I think that’s it. My Dahl blog got pushed back from August into September, in part because the book came in late,  so if I actually get that in to Pornokitch it should go up this week. It’ll be on Over to You, his RAF stories. Since the book I finally received also contains what should have been September’s stories, I should be able to get that in on time! Novel!

With one thing and another, I’ve been neglecting this space. So, here’s what’s up:

I guest-edited this month’s issue of The Big Click. It’s a themed Bizarro/Crime mashup issue, featuring work from Cameron Pierce, Stephen Graham Jones, and J David Osborne. I’d really appreciate it if you picked up an issue or linked to it if you enjoy what you read for free online. This is my first solo editorial project and your support means a lot to me, and to us as a magazine!

I’ve published two more in my series about reading Roald Dahl since I last blogged. Here’s one on The Gremlins, a children’s book that was a failed Disney project. The next is also about Gremlins, but it’s on Dahl’s first novel for adults, Sometime Never. Spoiler: it kind of sucks. Another spoiler: I get to debunk a Cracked.com theory that Snozzberries are dicks. Anyways!

I have a story in The Children of Old Leech, a Laird Barron tribute anthology. It’s beautiful (Matthew Revert, who did my cover for A Pretty Mouth) and full of lots of cool people, homies if you will. My story has gotten some good buzz, including this writeup from Publishers Weekly, which specifically mentions “Good Lord, Show Me The Way.” I think this might be the first time my name has appeared in PW, which is pretty exciting!

Hm, what else? I signed up for a sprint triathlon, so I’ve been training for that. Running still sucks, but at least this is giving me a good excuse to swim. And bike more!

This space is going to have some exciting news soon (what could it be??) so maybe it would behoove me to blog more. I’ll try to be more enthralling in future.

Oh, who am I kidding? Hahaha. I’m never enthralling.

This month for my Roald Dahl series for Pornokitch I tackled Rhyme Stew and Dirty Beasts. Both were… sub-par. Well, they can’t all be hidden gems.

April flew by in a haze of work. I was busier than I’ve been in a long time. But, I’ve made significant headway on my WiP, turned in two short stories, only one of which was unprofessionally late, and did quite a lot of work for my various freelance jobs. I also performed with my lion dance friends twice, both at CU.

The weather is changing, but slowly. It’s sunny… most of the time. And warmer, most of the time. But the wind is still cruel and ferocious. It’s been blowing around the blooming tulips and plum trees and cherry trees. Even so, the beauty of spring been inspiring me to get outside more, which is good. I got my bike its annual tune-up and have been riding around more.

What else… well, I discovered that Boulder has its very own Kombucha tap house… I mean, I guess I should have assumed that was the case. It’s called Rowdy Mermaid (!). I tried their kombucha at the farmer’s market and it’s really good! They had it in a kegerator. It’s 2014 in Boulder!

First—I totally forgot to link my latest Dahl post, the March edition. Mostly it’s about Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, but I also read The Vicar of Nibbleswicke. Fun times!

***

So, I went to Utah for the first time! It was amazing. My mom had heard about a place called Red Mountain Spa from a friend, and we decided to spend a few days out there, girls-style. Basically, it’s a retreat where there’s plenty of exercise classes of all types, including tabata (new to me!), TRX, yoga, etc. There’s also a spa, where you can be pampered, if you so choose. They also have amazing food, with plenty of vegan options, so I ate really well. I mean… they had vegan prickly pear/coconut/lime sorbet one night. Who knew about prickly pear syrup? I mean, other than everyone who lives in/has visited desert climes. It’s so good!

Maybe most exciting to me, however, was that Red Mountain backs up to Snow Canyon  State Park, which is… well:

Omg, right? I was awed by the vistas the first morning, when my mom and I took their “Nature Walk” where we learned all about  plants and animals native to Snow Canyon. Really interesting stuff. I got to rub my hands in sagebrush and sniff creosote. I also got to learn that apparently ephedra grows in the desert, and people will just like, chew on it, coca-leaf style, on long hikes. I declined.

Hiking on sand and sandstone was a new experience for me. Colorado is all about granite, which is super-slippery. I’ve fallen more than once, not just because I’m a klutz, either. But sandstone… you can Spider-man right up it! It’s amazingly sticky. Also, in Snow Canyon, the sand (and the sandstone) are a glorious red-orange, as you can see.

I got to experience a lot of that sand, as the first major hike I took was called Fern Gully, which has like, an ocean of sand in the middle of it. We tore ass through it, though, like true badasses. Actually, that’s what I loved most about Red Mountain—all the guides were so hardcore, but also so encouraging, you always felt like a barbarian hero tramping through the wilds no matter the level like you were taking. And I do love feeling like a barbarian hero.

For example… the second day, I took a hike called Joan’s Bones, which takes you up to a summit—and while usually I’m all about summits, this hike impressed me because the descent took you down the side of a cinder cone. Yes, can now say I’ve hiked down a volcano! What!

But, as the volcano was less scenic, the summit is to the left.

My final day, I saw some thousand-year-old Anasazi petroglyphs. I mean, really. That is just too awesome.

My mom and I had a great time. She enjoyed the hikes she took, including one where she hiked with shelter dogs (so adorable!), and took her first TRX class. We also attended  a seminar on mediation, which was fun! We both agreed they had great staff, everyone was extremely encouraging,  positive, and enthusiastic about hydration.

I mean, what more could you want?

After departing from Red Mountain, we took the St. George Shuttle back to Las Vegas, where we spent the weekend. I’d never been to Vegas before… I’m not a gambler, and I also hate crowds. But I have to say, I had an unexpectedly great time! Part of that was undoubtedly the quality of the cocktails that you can (apparently) get in Vegas—some of the best I’ve had. Part was discovering that recently, Vegas has added a surprising quantity and quality of vegan food to their menus.

But mostly it was spending time with my mom and my husband (who flew in for the weekend), laughing at people and being simultaneously impressed and skeptical of the entertainments. I mean, John and I saw an animatronic frog in a cowboy hat rise up from behind an artificial waterfall to sing Garth Brooks at us. I… what?

Also, we ate beneath this friggin’ dragon!

Good times. Now I’m back, and peace and quiet is most welcome. Though honestly, I’m already missing the serenity of Snow Canyon! I hope to get back there some day.

the drunken lion team shakes their stuff!

Lunar New Year is over! It was a privilege and an honor to perform quite a bit over the last three weekends for various organizations, restaurants, communities, and businesses. As a tail in the lion, I didn’t see most of the people who came out to see us, except for a brief glimpse when we bowed at the end, but that’s fine with me. I heard through the fabric of the tail the level of enthusiasm our audiences expressed for what we were doing, and that was amazing in a way I’ve never really experienced before.

Promoting Chinese culture is part of the mission of our school, and helping with that, being a part of it by getting into the lion going out there in front of people was terrifying, exciting, and awesome. And on a more personal level, I’ve performed before, in choirs and bands and in plays and musicals, but mostly when I was much younger. Readings are a kind of performance, but it’s within my comfort zone. Going in among crowds of people, scooting between tables in restaurants, inhaling gunpowder from fireworks and then going up on enormous stages in front of a thousand or more people, using my body to animate  a giant puppet… it was an amazing, unforgettable experience. It was so special, for example, to parade through the kitchen of a restaurant where my school typically eats during the New Year season, and then eat there! How cool is that?

basically my job is to twerk like miley inside of that thing

I think what made the experience so different from my other performance experiences was relying—and depending—on my body in a more intensely physical way than I ever have before. And someone else’s body—lion dance is a partner exercise, after all. Working closely with my head, developing our trust and understanding of one another, keeping our enthusiasm going when we were both tired, was another amazing part of the overall challenge, and something I’ve never experienced before.

While admittedly the drunken lion routine was more about character and story than risky tricks, for me as a relative newcomer to lion dance it was still excitingly demanding work. After the first performance weekend, which included I think 11 performances in 24 hours, I was more tired than after climbing a 14er. But it was exhilarating learning and now knowing my that my body and will can work together like that.

It’s said that lion dance is an expression of one’s overall kung fu, and moving forward into the Year of the Horse as I continue my practice, it’s really exciting knowing I’m becoming more able to make my body do what I want it to. I’ve never been particularly powerful, graceful, fast, or strong, and I continue to struggle with all of those aspects of athleticism each time I practice. But the great thing is… lion and kung fu are a journey. I have no idea where it will take me, but getting there is tremendous fun!

A few weeks ago, Jesse and I climbed Quandary Peak, one of the 14ers closer to Boulder. I never put the pictures up as Quandary was a break from all the increasingly frantic getting together of my collection. But as of yesterday Rumbullion is off to my editor, and that means my brain can rest a little, and blogging can happen! Yay!

Quandary is one of those 14ers Colorado people tell visiting sea-level friends is totally easy. We ran into a few of those on the trail—they all made it! But were swearing a lot by the end. By contrast, a seasoned Colorado badass parked it at a false summit and waited for his family to finish up. So, no yeah, no predicting. Anyways, because of Quandary’s reputation, this was at trailhead:

It’s true! Both the “easy” part and the “there are no shortcuts.”

Anyways, before we even got to trailhead, the adventure began. It was a glorious morning, and by morning I mean middle of the night practically. 14ers are a popular passtime in the summer, so we met up at 4 AM on a Tuesday to make tracks for the mountain. Woof. (And we weren’t the first cars there.) It was almost worth it, though, as there was a beautiful full moon up. Once the sky got a bit lighter, it was even prettier:

Quandary, unlike some 14ers, starts below treeline. Thus you get a nice, cool, shady ascent at first. Then comes some serious ascending, made less arduous by awesome views into some old mines (Quandary is “close” to Bross), dams, and wildernesses.

Soon enough, however, you get into… the talus.

Quandary is like… all talus, all the time. Frankly, it kind of sucks. My feet were more sore after this 7ish mile hike than they’ve been, in friggin Vibrams, after a 15 miler. Woof, with knobs on. Let’s say woof with double knobs on actually–see that incline? Yeah, that’s not the summit above me. Not even close. Quandary has nearly as many false summits as it does talus.

Quandary is also infested with goats:

We kept seeing big chunks of shed hair everywhere, and wondering if someone had brought up a pack of huskies or something. Nope, goats. Lots of them. Mean ones, too. This fellow in particular was a prime jerk, literally (in the pre-Google sense) running up on us to stand smack dab in the middle of the trail and eat grass for 20 minutes. They tell dudes—and ladies, I guess—not to pee on the side of trails for exactly this reason: pee is full of salt, goats like salt, turning the sides of trails into a big salt lick attracts ornery old fuckers like this dude. He was still feasting when one foolish hiker who had bottlenecked behind us tried to scare him, waving his arms and shouting, “Go on, goat, git!” The goat promptly became angry, lowered his head, and began to paw the earth. Bad news! People have died from mountain goat gorings, you know. Anyways, Jesse redirected the goat with the use of his magic staff, carved for him by our friend David Ardanuy. All were impressed. There was applause! Jesse got to be King of the Goats for the day.

He had me take probably 15 pictures until he was satisfied by this one.

All hardships aside, if you keep your spirits up, Quandary’s summit is actually really awesome. You reach almost-the-top after some brutal talus-strewn switchbacking, and then you traverse along to the spike. I may have gotten a bit of “summit fever” and left Jesse behind at that point, making a break for the summit at full tilt, hooting gleefully, as Jesse hung back, “playing it safe” and scolding me like a chicken about altitude sickness and whatever and blah blah blah.

But eventually, he caught up!

My absolute favorite thing about 14er culture is the taking—and leaving—of signs proclaiming You Made It!! There were maybe ten under a rock for us to choose from. More people came up behind us, carrying their own and leaving them for others. People are thrilled to take your picture with the signs. It’s such a great feeling of “we’re all in this together!” as you all sit and rest at the summit. You see people who passed you on the way up, and they wave and smile; you cheer on all the people you passed. When we saw the aforementioned cheerful-but-skeptical out of towners who had been convinced Quandary was “easy” we huzzahed them and took their pictures. It’s awesome.

And then… it’s time go down.

Double woof with double knobs on. See that road at the bottom? Yeah. Even so… man, I love 14ering!

Next time: pictures from my recent trip to San Francisco!

Refrigerator pickling! I’m super-into it these days. I’ve been eating a lot more veggies this way, as they’re already prepped and ready in my fridge. I’ve been a little busier than normal, which means I get tempted to give up nutrition for convenience. But my mom’s been on a healthy eating kick and I’ve been inspired to make sure I don’t fall into unhealthy habits just because I’m strapped for time.

Here’s what I made yesterday. From left to right, there’s do chua (pickled carrots and daikons, like you’d get on a banh mi), dubujangajji (pickled tofu and onions), and mediterranean pickled beets and turnips. It all took about two hours, including cleanup. And now I have plenty of fresh veggies for the week, plus a weeknight meal (the dubujangajji can be thrown over noodles with some of the kimchi I have fermenting in my fridge. But kimchi is its own post!).

Not that this is news to those who are always super-domestic/into heritage kinds of activities, but I have discovered that it is kind of awesome spending just a few bucks on whatever’s cheap at the grocery store and ensuring it doesn’t rot in my fridge if I get lazy some night during the week. Vinegar, salt, and sugar are all cheap, and Ball jars are a one-time purchase (the two shown cost me not four bucks). So anyways, I figured I’d share because these pickles have all turned out awesome. Frankly, I’m not all that into cucumber/dill pickles, but a pickled daikon, or green bean, or cauliflower, that’s good stuff right there. Plus yeah, if cauliflower is cheap, but I don’t feel like cauliflower that week, I can preserve it so that it’s around even after the price has gone up. Pretty tight! Who knew? Except everyone who already does this, I guess.

I need to do a kimchi post because I found THE RECIPE, but that’s fermenting, so maybe next week.

This weekend, I should mention, I’ll be at the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival, in Portland. Here’s the schedule! The only thing I’m doing, I think, is a reading on Sunday (“Reading 4”) and otherwise I’ll be trotting around to the various films (stoked about Night Breed and Beyond Re-Animator), hanging out, and going around eating myself sick. Should be a good time, and plenty of cool people are attending/participating! If you’re in the area, you should come.

Eden Foods makes that soymilk you see everywhere, the one with the pastoral landscape on it:

(Credit: Photo treatment by Salon)

They also make a ton of other natural foods products, like beans and oil and vinegar and flour and cereal and all kinds of shit. Anyways, they are suing the Obama administration because they don’t want to cover birth control for their employees.

Fuck them. Fuck that shit!

Here’s the Salon.com article where I initially found out about Eden Foods’ conservative agenda. It’s awful:

Eden Foods … says in its filing that the company believes of birth control that “these procedures almost always involve immoral and unnatural practices.” The complaint also says that “Plaintiffs believe that Plan B and ‘ella’ can cause the death of the embryo, which is a person.” (Studies show that neither Plan B nor Ella interfere with fertilization, which is the Catholic definition of the beginning of life, if not the medical one. In other words, not the death of an embryo. Also, at that stage, it’s a zygote, not an embryo — let alone a “person.”) The filing also said that “Plaintiff Eden Foods’ products, methods, and accomplishments are described by critics as: tasteful, nutritious, wholesome, principled, unrivaled, nurturing, pure.”

As if the above wasn’t awful enough, Eden Foods’ CEO is just so goddamn enthusiastic about their taking a wholesome, principled, nurturing stand against women’s health that he called Salon to respond to their article! And comes off as a fundamentalist asshole!

I floated by him the fact that contraceptive coverage is cheaper to pay for than, say, maternity coverage.

Potter replied, “One’s got a little more warmth and fuzziness to it than the other, for crying out loud.”

For crying out loud!

…he opposes “using abortion as birth control, definitely.” But the mandate doesn’t cover abortion, I reminded him, only contraception, and emergency contraception is not abortion.

“It’s a morass,” Potter said. “I’m not an expert in anything. I’m not the pope. I’m in the food business. I’m qualified to have opinions about that and not issues that are purely women’s issues. I am qualified to have an opinion about what health insurance I pay for.”

Morass indeed. Read the whole thing here.

So, yeah, fuck them! Don’t buy their shit, and even more importantly, write them a letter or go say something on their FB page or something.

Obviously lots of natural foods companies are owned by parent corporations that suck, or are shitty in some way, but when they sue to make this country even more goddamn backwards, and then come right out and enthuse about their fundamentalist, religious, conservative ideologies, well. As I said: Fuck them.