According To Hoyt

My fellow obsessives: I’m not asking that you stop trying to improve. Or that you not try to be better. Or even that you don’t keep a vigilant eye on your faults and defects with an eye to minimizing them.

I wouldn’t dare.

But I’m going to ask you to set aside the flagellum just a second, let the stripes on your back heal a little and consider this: What if it isn’t your fault?

No, I’m serious here. Hear me out.

What if that thing that bedevils you, that you seemingly can’t get over is organic? Something you can’t just use will power to pull yourself out of?

Not saying that you shouldn’t still fight it, but perhaps you need to assume there’s something physical/physiological causing it and you’re going to have to give yourself grace and work around it, instead of keeping hitting your head against the glass like a heat-dazed fly.

See, my assistant — hi Holly — is face blind. During a conversation yesterday, she said it was a great relief to find out she was face blind. As in there was a reason she couldn’t remember anyone’s face, and therefore couldn’t recognize people. And it wasn’t just that she was evil or just didn’t care enough.

Now if you’re me, you’re scratching your head going “How can not remembering faces mean you’re evil and don’t care enough?” But I can almost see how one would get there. Sort of. Through a glass, darkly.

You see, it never occurred to me when I was face blind: from birth till about 40, when I fell and hit my head so hard it rewired a lot of things. I just thought I was an alien, and it was very important that the people around me not find out. No, I’m serious. This was the central assumption of my childhood, because people around me seemed to do/think/be able to accomplish things that to me were utterly opaque. So, I must be an alien, and I’d best be very quiet about it, so they didn’t realize it.

I had tricks to get around it. One of them was to memorize the clothes someone was wearing before we left the house. (I still do it, out of habit.) Which is why I almost went away with a completely different woman from the cemetery on All Saints Day when I was 6. Everyone was wearing a black dress; she was about mom’s height and had the same hairstyle. More importantly, she was wearing the same perfume. Because until I was 41 or so and the thyroid issues kicked in, I had a nose that would rival a scent dog’s. And so I identified people PRIMARILY by smell.

First thing I noticed, after the concussion is that all of a sudden I could remember actors. I still don’t bother to remember their names — why would I? — but faces are sometimes familiar. And at this point all that remains of the face blindness years is a frantic fear when I’m going to meet someone I’ve only seen pictures of or haven’t seen in a few years that I just won’t recognize them. I do, though, so that’s fine. Also people still don’t have faces in my dreams. Just little clouds. BUT I know who they are, so that’s okay.

BUT the point is, as a kid, I knew I was different, but I didn’t think it was something I’d done. I guess because no one ever figured out how utterly face-blind I was, so they couldn’t blame me for it.

They did however blame me for transposing digits. Which I do unless I’m being very careful about it. Which is why, when wood working, I cut a paper template of the wood piece I need, before I go out and cut the piece. (I buy scratch paper by the truck load, yes) because 243 432 and 324 are really the same number. That is, if I’m trying to transcribe one of those and look away for a minute, I’ll transcribe it wrong.

Now, since I liked math, and was always fairly advanced, imagine my bewilderment when I hit the more complex equations. I completely understood the mechanics of the operations. And I enjoyed it. But the result I got defied description. And teachers and adults told me I was stupid, lazy and just not paying attention.

It was the most frustrating thing. Because I tried very hard to beat myself into not doing the stupid. BUT IT STILL HAPPENED.

The problem started with the fact you had to copy the original problem from the blackboard to the paper. Or the book to the paper. It was very rare for the digits to be in the same order once I copied them.

Look, I understand the adults. In a kid who was smart and did understand the operations, to make that kind of error must mean she was just being a spazz because she didn’t care. Or maybe she was sullenly defying you. Meanwhile there was me, endlessly flogging myself over not being able to do this very SIMPLE thing.

I never had that with directions, because mom was there before me. Directions… How do I explain this. You can tell me “Go North” till you’re blue in the face. I don’t “sense” north. I also don’t know what direction I just walked in from. This is endlessly amusing to the nurses at my labyrinthine doctors’ offices, as I try to walk in the completely wrong direction, barge into the blood lab trying to fine the waiting room, or other ill-advised adventures. Now they know me, the question starts as soon as I leave the exam room. “Where are you trying to go, Sarah?” And then someone points. But as I said, I kind of knew that was a disability, because mom had it, and SHE WAS WORSE THAN I WAS. After 50 years of living in the village, mom could still get lost, if she wasn’t very careful. I’m not that bad. Close, but not that bad. But anyway, the family knew it was a brain glitch and it was inherited, so I used work arounds. I wrote myself lists of directions, because words work for me. (Maps don’t.) The only problem I had with this was that husband, who has a precise and unswerving sense of direction, truly couldn’t understand why I “insisted” on going the wrong way for about 10 years. After ten years, he assumed that I wasn’t actually doing it on purpose. (Sometimes he still slips up and yells things like “learn” while I kind of gape at him in confusion. This is usually when he’s handed me a map and asked which way we should go. I don’t know WHY he does it, since it always ends up with him having to pull into a parking lot to look at the map himself, but I guess hope springs eternal.)

Anyway, it was the greatest and weirdest relief when, at a writing workshop 30 years ago, the lady leading it said “Oh, yeah, I’m digit dyslexic” and explained what it was. And I went “Oh. I’m not stupid and lazy. I have a brain glitch.” After which I watched out for and compensated for it, and I was fine. This was also timely, as both the boys inherited the glitch. But since they know what it is, and were forewarned, they just learned the work arounds. And both did fine.

But I do this with all sorts of things. Most recently with having a weird infection (yes, that’s all it is, diagnosed and horse-pill antibiotics brought home, with an appointment in ten days to check and make sure it’s gone. And yes, it’s apparently sequella to the massive ear infection. (Ain’t this year been a barrel of laughs?))

I’ve been beating myself up for not even keeping up with this blog, much less trying to make any progress on the novels, or even attempting to post on my substack. (Whose subscribers probably think I died!) Because it must be laziness, right?

Um…. No. Apparently it was a very, very, very bad infection, whose side effects meant I was ready to fall asleep at six pm and really didn’t even want to do dishes, much less anything more demanding.

Oh, and the weight problem might not be my fault either. I mean, of course I assumed it was. My weight has trended upwards since I got married, and I have to make immense efforts to avoid being gravity-distorting heavy. At one point I lived on 800 calories a day for years. The weight still crept up.

Turns out in addition to the thyroid deciding not to work, which only kicked in at 40, I have apparently been celiac my whole life. (Short form: apparently what I thought was eczema was celiac rash? WHO KNEW? Not me.) and the inflamation has weight-gaining side effects. (Or to be fair, weight loss. But I’ve said I never lose weight when I’m sick, haven’t I? Only gain.) Which explains why the only time I got thin was when I cut ALL carbs. Like, extreme carb reduction. It wasn’t the carbs. it was the bread. And crackers. (I can take or leave the bread, but I love matzo crackers. Better than cookies.)

So you know, when I kept trying harsher and harsher diet and exercise regimes, and hating myself because they didn’t work, it might have been a wee bit insane. Because it was organic. (Yes, it’s creeping off. VERY slowly. Not aided by the fact the thyroid is being stupid, and…. well, the usual, right. If it’s weird, it’s what I have. Have we considered I might actually have been right as a kid? That I am an alien?) Not something I could power through with will power.

So, other than a long whine about my issues — it really isn’t. Other than the digit transposing and the weight, the rest doesn’t bother me. And at this point those only minorly bother me. Except I’d like not to be so heavy because I like pretty clothes. — what is this all about?

Well, fellow obsessives: I KNOW YOU. I am you. We are kin.

So…. That thing you’ve been punishing yourself for, where you’re doing everything right and it refuses to work? That thing you can’t defeat?

Consider the cause is not merely psychological, not something you can power through by beating yourself harder.

Consider it NOT so that you stop trying, but so that you can try more effectively, with workarounds and compensating for what nature didn’t give you or is trying to keep away.

I know it’s very hard for people like us to remember we’re not just minds, but bodies as well.

The truth is that the body — like the enemy (which it often is) — gets a vote. You can’t just override it.

Stop beating yourself, and try more sneakily.

And — this is very hard — learn to live with what you can’t change.

Note, I’m still working very hard on all of this. This is not so much “do as I do” but “Do as I’m trying to do.”

And honestly, I wish you all the luck in the world. It has to be better than beating yourself endlessly.

My grandmother had a saying “some ills come for good” which could be the old polyannish “every cloud has a silver lining.” And “Everything happens for the best in the best of all possible worlds.”

While those are broadly true, it wasn’t ever — I think from knowing her — what grandma meant. What she meant would probably better translated as “That kick in the *ss life just gave you has you flat on the ground. Now, how can you make it the incentive for the best thing that ever happened to you?”

My husband believes “everything happens for a reason” and he might be right but it might also be survivorship bias, of course.

Like, for instance, we wanted eleven kids, but we had two. “Oh, maybe if we had eleven, we’d not have been able to keep up, and they’d all have gone seriously bad,” is a good way to cope. Is it true? Who knows? But having grown up with BFF’s friend’s family of 13 kids, I’m inclined to say no. Your genetics are still the same, your parenting is still the same, and the truth is you become better at parenting as you go. So…. Probably not true, but a great way to cope.

OTOH…. OTOH there are times when the worst thing that we thought could happen to us at the time, was in retrospect the best thing, either because it gave us a much needed wake up call, or because what we wanted at the time could be used as a poster for “be careful what you wish for, you might get it.”

Like, my entire life pre-college, I was aiming to become a journalist. Stop laughing. It was Portugal, and it was the only way I could imagine to make a life from writing. (No, seriously, unless everyone in the country buys your book, you’re not making a decent or even indecent living from writing there.) In my first year of college, I took a test for employment with the second largest newspaper in town. I failed. (I probably failed the political section with intent and malice.) I was devastated.

However if I had got that job, it would have made it much harder to come to the US when I got married. I mean, I still would have married Dan, but if I had a well-paying job, in addition to a degree I was finishing I probably would have demanded he move there. And over all? I am happy I’m here. I’m happy the boys were raised here.

When I got that rejection, it was the worst thing ever, but it was an ill that came for good, by leaving me free to take the best thing ever offered to me, and deciding to raise my kids in the US.

More recently, in 2018, not to dwell on it, but I was holding down two jobs, fiction and non fiction, and was let go (it’s more complicated than that, but it’s the short hand description) from both the same week. At the time we were still paying for younger son’s college (well, half the tuition, plus do to Colorado’s infernal highway construction, living expenses, because he couldn’t make it from our house to class in under 2 hours (it was supposed to be 45 minutes.)) This was what my income was supporting. And all of a sudden I was looking at that big a hole in our finances.

I’m not going to say it was the best thing that ever happened to me. At the time, it was like suddenly having a hole open under your feet. It sent me into such a tailspin of worry that I couldn’t work at all, and to be fair, I’m amazed anyone, from family to friends, stuck with me, as I can be pretty impossible to live with while spiraling.

In retrospect? Sigh. Best thing that happened to me is not far off. I mean, I’d have preferred that gentle opportunities had been offered rather than a two by four to the back of the head, but all the same…

It’s not like I didn’t know the opportunity for indie and for monetizing this blog was there. I’d known for 7 years then. I just had trouble lifting my head from the three columns a week and book due that year to find time for anything else. Much less to write anything else. Here it must be said that I also was at the time very ill due to altitude, but all the same.

Exploring indie (as opposed to Indy exploring, which just means he made off with another cabinet child lock and is probably face-deep in the sugar again.) has given me not only better income but a greater peace of mind and enjoyment of my work I hadn’t experienced…. well, in my entire traditional career.

Living in fear that, due to a lot of things you can’t control (like the fact my first book came out a year after 9/11) your books will tank badly and no one will ever buy you, ever, is not conducive to enjoying a career in writing.

Having the ability to write what you want to write NOW and not be scared that it will never see the life of day? That, weirdly does help, and I’m back to where I was as a kid, getting up excited to work on the book I’m writing right now.

And yes, the money is actually better. Not AMAZINGLY better, but better. To the point that if — G-d forbid — something happened to Dan, I’m sure I could stay afloat on my income, and not have to live in a hut in the woods. (Though that remains an option because hut in the woods with three unearthly smart cats is such a stereotype.)

More importantly, my stress levels are way way way down, which allows me to be more creative and write more, and more importantly, enjoy life more.

BUT it only came about because the worst thing ever improbably hit all in one week, possibly the worst week of my life.

— I’m underslept, mostly because I seem to have developed a weird chronic cough, (yes, it’s being looked into) so I can’t think of other instances, though I know there have been other instances.

However, let this stand: When the worst thing happens to you, look at it and see if you are now free to try an opportunity you’d never have considered otherwise.

Like… if something happened to my husband’s job, he has about 10 projects he’s been dying to work on, but hasn’t for lack of time and brain space. At least one of those has the possibility to be worth millions of dollars, but it’s hard to let go of the regular salary to try the “maybe, with luck” wild hope. Unless the job is yanked away first.

If instead of moping you — even if poliannish and probably survivor bias inspired saying — tell yourself “There are ills that come for good. What good can come of this?” and pivot into trying those things, it will at least save you the oh 5 years of moping I indulged in, and wasted. (Though again, health might have been a factor.)

And even if you see no opportunities from it, consider that maybe in the long run you’ll look back and say “Whew, I escaped a bullet.” And “this was definitely for the best.”

Do we live in the best of all possible worlds? Debatable.

But assuming we do will enhance your ability to cope with misfortune and probably allow you to pivot faster and better and enhance your quality of life.

So I suggest you take that line, anyway. Even if the back of your brain scoffs. Straighten your back, look up and tell yourself. “There are ills that come for good.”

And then find the good. And keep going.

If you wish to send us books for next week’s promo, please email to bookpimping at outlook dot com. If you feel a need to re-promo the same book do so no more than once every six months (unless you’re me or my relative. Deal.) One book per author per week. Amazon links only. Oh, yeah, as an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. By clicking through and buying (anything book-related, actually) through one of the links below, you will at no cost to you be giving a portion of your purchase to support ATH through our associates number. A COMMISSION IS EARNED FROM EACH PURCHASE.*Note that I haven’t read most of these books (my reading is eclectic and “craving led”,) and apply the usual cautions to buying. I reserve the right not to run any submission, if cover, blurb or anything else made me decide not to, at my sole discretion. Remember though all of these submissions are from people willing to be associated with this blog. So if you’re trying to buy from people who don’t hate you, this is a good place to start.– SAH

I want to ask, as a favor, that if you liked Witch’s Daughter you leave a review. Amazon is still showing nothing but one non-review rating! I figure they’re playing games. AGAIN.

FROM SARAH A. HOYT: Witch’s Daughter (Empires of Magic Book 2)

Some letters come from the living. Some come from the dead. This one comes with a formula that turns a rowboat into a miracle.

Seventeen-year-old Lord Michael Ainsling — youngest brother of the Duke of Darkwater, builder of mechanical marvels, survivor of fairyland — receives a letter from a man sixteen years dead. The inventor Tristram Blakley has not perished; he has been imprisoned by his own genius and begs the one mind in all of Avalon brilliant enough to understand his work to set him free. All Michael has to do is find seven missing brothers first and walk a magical path..

Fifteen-year-old Albinia Blakley has spent her whole life under her mother’s iron thumb — and her mother is a witch. The day Al finally escapes down a rope of knotted sheets, she lands in a world she doesn’t recognize, with no money, no magic kit, and no idea that the stranger who catches her is about to become her greatest ally.

Together, a girl with more secrets than she knows and a boy who builds machines that try to murder him must outwit a sorceress, navigate the treacherous courts of Fairyland, and unravel an enchantment years in the making — before a family is lost for good.

Witch’s Daughter is a gaslamp fantasy brimming with wit, warmth, and wonder, for readers who love their magic wrapped in velvet and their adventures served with morning tea.

FROM BETH HOMICZ: Some Guy Wants to Buy the Fourth of July: A rollicking, lighthearted, timeless story for Americans of all ages

Imagine: Charlotte’s Web and The Pushcart War meet National Treasure!

SOME THINGS SHOULD NEVER BE BOUGHT — OR SOLD.
When ten-year-old Allie Campion wins a finalist slot in the Friendly Family Freedom Franks national Fourth of July essay contest, she and her dad, Dan, depart their small Virginia town, embarking upon a zany whirlwind adventure in the nation’s capital. During their week in Washington, Allie and her spirited fellow finalists discover a conspiracy of crony corruption in high places, and – inspired in part by a curmudgeonly American bald eagle – gallantly set about revealing the truth and righting the wrongs, all while navigating betrayal, defamation, and their own growing desire for independence.

Intelligently and charmingly written by a former licensed D.C. tour guide, Some Guy Wants to Buy the Fourth of July™ offers readers a heartwarming, wholesome, laugh-out-loud tale of the indefatigable American spirit.

“A bedazzling book! A fun read for all freedom-lovers… Former D.C. tour guide, Beth Homicz, takes readers on a rousing ‘tour’ of the capital that includes political chicanery, vile villains, an eloquent eagle, and some very smart, determined children.”
— Claire Wolfe, author of Hardyville Tales and other books

Children’s / Middle Grades / Young Adult
American patriotic adventure fiction
Suitable for independent reading by ages 8 and up. Family-friendly, educational, enjoyable entertainment.
Highly recommended for helping young readers to build vocabulary and civic knowledge.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Beth Homicz is a national award-winning former local reporter and a co-author of AMC’s Best Day Hikes near Washington, D.C. (Appalachian Mountain Club Books: 2011, 2017, and 2023). As a licensed professional tour guide based in the nation’s capital for many years, Beth hosted more than 15,000 travelers from all walks of life – primarily student groups – on their own memorable Washington adventures. She now lives in the mountains of Virginia, where she is at work on several other stories. Some Guy Wants to Buy the Fourth of July is her first novel.

FROM MAX COSSACK: Deep Fakery (The Wilder Bunch)

When the State of Minnesota arrests and charges Ojibwa City local Aaron Fishel with murder, his defense lawyers Sam Lapidos and Jacob Laghdaf face an impossible task—the single security camera video shows Fishel murdering his victim in gruesome detail. As trial approaches and his lawyers try and fail to protect Fishel, they recruit help, and everyone involved begins to ask tough questions.

What is a crime?
What is justice?
What is reality?

Will this ripping suspense tale answer any of these questions? Only the reader will find out

FROM J. MANFRED WEICHSEL: Action Girls: Triple Threat

The Action Girls are a trio of wannabe Hollywood starlets whose failed movie shoots send them on absurdist pulp adventures. This omnibus collects all three novels (Jungle Jitters, Into the Bush, and Space Escapades) into a single volume, allowing new and returning readers to experience the complete Action Girls saga.

Jungle Jitters: The Action Girls are trafficked into the Congo by a cult of mad scientists who want to create a new race of hybrids by mating humans with apes.

Into the Bush: The Action Girls try to shoot a movie on the body of a 300-mile-tall giantess whose pubic hair forms a jungle ecosystem teeming with monstrous mites, crab-like beasts, and human-sized bacteria.

Space Escapades: A space witch teleports the Action Girls across the galaxy and into a fight for survival on hostile planets, lawless space stations, and worlds beyond imagination.

FROM MACKEY CHANDLER: Another Word for Magic (Family Law Book 6)

Fleeing the Solar System after an attack by North America, the three Home habitats now have to seek their own fortunes. Heather, Sovereign of Central on the Moon saved them but now has to make certain the USNA can never threaten them again.
What was a tentative research partnership with the Red Tree Clan of Derfhome becomes a full alliance of equals. Lee finds she has to grasp authority and act for the Red Tree Mothers and herself to repossess the planet Providence she and Gordon discovered. The Claims Commission on Earth has collapsed without the leadership of North America. Explorers like her are cut off from their payments and the colonists on Providence are left in the lurch too. To do that she needs these powerful new allies.

FROM GIULLIANA LOCAY: Pemberley and Pastelitos

A Hot, Laugh-Out-Loud Pride and Prejudice Inspired Story in Sunny Miami
Lizzie Benitez is Miami’s undisputed queen of efficiency. She’s this close to landing the career-defining project that will finally give her the financial security she’s worked her entire life for… until the infuriating, far-too-handsome Mr. Pemberley shows up to see if she’s really worth it. He’s rude, condescending, and seems determined to undermine her at every turn. Lizzie’s confidence is unshakable—except now she’s counting down the days until she can escape his judgmental stares without causing her to lose the project or her mind.
Enter her chaotic Cuban family: her influencer sister who thinks every crisis needs a TikTok, her no-filter Abuela dropping truth bombs over cafecito, and the sudden appearance of charming Mr. Wick with his easy smile and confusing signals. As deadlines tighten, family meddling intensifies, and the holiday season arrives just in time to cause maximum mayhem, Lizzie begins to wonder if the biggest obstacle to her perfect life isn’t Pemberley at all… but her own stubborn heart. A modern, multicultural enemies-to-lovers romance packed with Spanglish banter, pastelitos-fueled chaos, workplace tension, over-the-top Cuban family love, and enough sazón to thaw the coldest professional pride with one bite.
Tropes: Enemies to lovers • Workplace romance • Big, loud Cuban family • Holiday chaos • Pride and Prejudice retelling
Heat level: Spicy
Setting: Vibrant Miami

BY ANTHONY GILMORE, HARRY BATES AND DESMOND W. HALL, REVIVED BY D. JASON FLEMING : Space Hawk: The COMPLETE Hawk Carse Stories: The Retro Pulp Space Opera Non-Classics!

In 1931, Harry Bates, the editor of Astounding Stories, was dissatisfied with the quality of the fiction he was getting from writers. So he, along with his assistant Desmond W. Hall, rolled up their sleeves and created a protagonist, and antagonist, and wrote four stories to show the other writers “how to do it right”.

The result, Hawk Carse, and his nemesis, the diabolical Ku Sui, are certainly memorable. As critic Schuyler P. Miller put it, “Hawk Carse was so bad, he was almost good.”

This iktaPOP Media collection of the original stories includes, for the first time, the fifth and last Hawk Carse story, “The Return of Hawk Carse”, written by Harry Bates alone, and published in 1942 in Amazing Stories rather than Astounding.

• This iktaPOP Media edition includes a new introduction giving the stories genre and historical context.

EDITED BY DAVID BADURINA: Crashed Landings: Stories of First Contact, Strange Arrivals & Cosmic Adventure (Raconteur Press Anthologies)

Ten writers. Ten crashed landings. Zero warnings.
In Crashed Landings, editor David Badurina has assembled ten all-new stories inspired by the group-adventure films of the 1980s and ’90s —The Goonies, Explorers, Stand by Me, The Sandlot–where a strange event throws mismatched kids together and nothing is ever quite the same afterward.
A boy and his bully chase a fallen meteorite through the woods — only to find out it belongs to someone else. Three friends on prom night stumble onto a robot that fell out of the sky, and have to put it back together before the town pays the price. A fungal alien heart crash-lands in the forest and starts rewriting the wildlife. A teen grief camp gets an unexpected visitor from a crashing seed-pod. A space trucker with a time-traveling rig and a trunk full of contraband coffee recruits a girl with a slingshot and a very good reason to disappear. A boy in Kansas realizes the thing living in his skin isn’t quite him anymore. Bird-like aliens help a crash-landed human pilot evade an enemy patrol on a planet that isn’t Earth. And more.
These stories share a DNA: emotion, banter, wide-eyed wonder, and the kind of friendship that only happens when the world gets weird enough to need it. Good guys and bad situations. Stakes that feel real. Characters you’ll root for. Endings you’ll remember.
If you grew up watching kids on bikes outrun something impossible, and you’ve been waiting for that feeling in prose, Crashed Landings is for you.
Ten stories. One anthology. Infinite crash sites.

FROM PATRICK K. MARTIN: Threads

Science tells us that there are an infinite number of possible universes and nearly as many versions of you. Imagine if you had to be all of those lives. Imagine all the things you could ever be, good, bad, lover, fighter, benevolent or evil. Imagine if all the possible threads of your life became roads you had to walk. . .

FROM NATHAN C. BRINDLE: All Precious Stones and Peoples (Timelines Universe Book 11)

Once, a million years ago, a water world populated with dolphin-like beings, the product of gene-alteration by their Progenitors on the Earth-like world one orbit closer to the sun, was flung into the cold and dark of interstellar space by the passage of a rogue star.

And four thousand years ago, its engineers were awakened from suspended animation to bring the world into a new orbit around a giant, blue-white star, where the waters of the World Ocean could thaw and life could continue to flourish.

This is the story of the A’ka’pa’i’ka’ti, and their Foretold Saintess, Speaker to the Dry Ones, born to communicate with the Progenitors when they finally arrived to reclaim the lost . . .

FROM LEIGH KIMMEL: Starlight Running

Eight lives depend on Kyle’s desperate trek across the Moon to get help. But someone — or something — intends for him to fail. Can he defeat it in time?

FROM JOHN BAILEY: THE AFFAIR OF THE SILENT TERRAFORMER (The Detective Stories)

On a world where machines breathe for an entire planet, one silent failure could mean catastrophe.

When Chief Atmospheric Engineer Dr. Lucien Korda is found dead inside a sealed control tower at the Helios Atmospheric Control Complex, the case appears straightforward: a disgruntled technician, a history of safety complaints, and a system breach that triggered a dangerous storm over the colony’s capital.

But Inspector Matthias Veyron does not believe in obvious answers.

As he walks the towering machinery that governs the air itself, Veyron uncovers a deeper and more unsettling truth. The terraforming network—designed with perfect redundancy to prevent failure—has been quietly drifting from its intended balance. Calibration shortcuts, corporate pressures, and buried decisions have created a system no longer entirely understood by those who operate it.

And someone knows.

Someone with intimate knowledge of the system.
Someone who staged a failure precise enough to alarm—but not destroy.
Someone who needed a scapegoat.

As political pressure mounts and the colony demands answers, Veyron must unravel a mystery where the weapon is not a blade or a gun, but a planetary machine—and the motive may be buried in years of compromise.

Because on Rigel 5, the greatest danger is not that the system will fail…

…but that it already has.

AND JUST IN CASE YOU’VE BEEN LIVING UNDER A ROCK: FROM SARAH A. HOYT: NO MAN’S LAND

Sufficiently advanced science is indistinguishable from magic.

On a lost colony world, mad geneticists thought they could eliminate inequality by making everyone hermaphrodite. They were wrong. Catastrophically wrong.
Now technology indistinguishable from magic courses through the veins of the inhabitants, making their barbaric civilization survivable—and Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus Kayel Hayden, Viscount Webson, Envoy of the Star Empire—Skip to his friends— has just crash-landed through a time-space rift into the middle of it all.
Dodging assassins and plummeting from high windows was just the beginning. With a desperate king and an archmagician as his only allies, Scipio must outrun death itself while battling beasts, traitors, and infiltrators bent on finishing what the founders started: total destruction.
Two worlds. One chance. No time to lose.

Vignettes by Luke, Mary Catelli and ‘Nother Mike.

So what’s a vignette? You might know them as flash fiction, or even just sketches. We will provide a prompt each Sunday that you can use directly (including it in your work) or just as an inspiration. You, in turn, will write about 50 words (yes, we are going for short shorts! Not even a Drabble 100 words, just half that!). Then post it! For an additional challenge, you can aim to make it exactly 50 words, if you like.

We recommend that if you have an original vignette, you post that as a new reply. If you are commenting on someone’s vignette, then post that as a reply to the vignette. Comments — this is writing practice, so comments should be aimed at helping someone be a better writer, not at crushing them. And since these are likely to be drafts, don’t jump up and down too hard on typos and grammar.

If you have questions, feel free to ask.

Your writing prompt this week is: FRIGHTENING

The problem with the left right now — no, I know they have many, but hear me out — is that they don’t acknowledge their shadow. In this sense, they’re not fully adults, and they do the most bizarre things because they think of themselves as “the good people” as though being good were bestowed by assignment at birth. In fact you could say all their other problems come from being unable to acknowledge their shadow.

What I mean by shadow is… well, it’s not like Peter Pan when he lost his shadow.

I do not know if it’s a term of art, or just something that I picked up somewhere and liked. It’s entirely possible it’s Jungian, since I read a lot of Jung as a young (eh) woman.

But it’s like this: All of us have the virtues of our vices. And vice versa. If you’re a naturally loud, expansive extrovert, it’s likely you sometimes run over people with talk or whatever you’re doing without even noticing. Also, you might be prone to run over other people’s concerns and thoughts, and know it, but think something like “Well, if it were important to them, they should say something.” And if you’re someone who is passionate about defending the powerless, this can overspill into chasing down people you think are unrighteous, to prevent them doing harm to the powerless, whether or not they ever even thought about doing anything. A love for the truth can and often does become corrupted into not wanting to listen to anyone else, or wanting our opponents to shut up because “they lie.”

This is in fact the shadow self, by which good becomes corrupted.

Heinlein, in The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress said that adulthood was defined by knowing you’d one day die. This was never as difficult for me as for most people, for the simple reason that I was a very sickly child and every year I survived was a minor miracle of sorts. As such, I had picked up I might be gone at any time, and often while going to cemetery on All Saints Days and lighting candles on the grave of the little cousin just about my age who died when I was almost three and she was three, I looked at it like other kids might look around a business that is within their “When I grow up.” I just knew it was likely as not to be my permanent residence in the short term. This wasn’t difficult to accept, because it was the way it was. (That I’ve had a long and wonderful run is just something to be grateful for, always.)

To me, though, at some point, the idea that accepting that you — yes, you — are capable of most of the evils and atrocities of mankind became my “bar” to adulthood.

Look, being good is not something you’re given. It’s not in your DNA. You can’t say “He’s blond, blue eyed and good” or “she’s dark skinned, has black hair and is good” from the minute a baby is born. They don’t stamp “archvillain” in your birth certificate. (Though a story is trying to land, and I’d like it to go away, as I’m already full up.)

Grandmother used to say “you don’t paint yourself” meaning that we are born with certain innate characteristics. And she was right. I’m never going to be a graceful dancer. And at some point when I was twelve I realized I was never going to be tall and willowy. Psychological tendencies are there too. I’m never going to be calm in the fact of trouble — though I’m calmer now than even ten years ago. I’m never going to enjoy social functions. I’m never going to have the sort of concentration that doesn’t get squirreled by everything and anything.

BUT to an extent you do make yourself. I worked hard and no longer fall over both my feet while standing still. (Okay fine. I RARELY fall over both my feet.) I no longer spaz at the slightest thing. I’ve moved to the next level of spazing bait. And I no longer squirrel so much nothing gets done. (I defeated those with mind-tricks when I was 14.)

And despite the fact I can get very angry, and I am a very emphatic person, I have never tried to kill anyone in cold blood. And I certainly don’t run around advocating anyone kill anyone else, unless in self defense.

But I know what I am. I know what I’m capable of. I know that given just a little more weakness in front of temptation, I’d already have taken to the hills with a Kalashnikov. Which would be bad, and not only because I’m no longer of an age and was never of a sex for such adventures but also because if it got to that point I’d not exactly be discriminating as to who is a target. And that’s bad, because other people are people too, not just mental constructs I can dispose of as I please.

So I watch myself all the time, and I actively work on being good. Not NICE. Nice isn’t necessarily good, and in fact you can fool yourself that you’re so nice, you must also be good.

The left does not know they can be bad. No, seriously, they have no clue. They became leftists partly because they thought that made them good, on the side of the “good” people and inevitably winning the arrow of history stuff.

I’m not talking out my behind. Studies have been done. People who vote “progressive” are more likely to commit minor acts of dishonesty, be nasty to someone, or behave in ways that are detrimental to others.

Because, you see, they think they’re the good people by the way they vote. No other work required.

But humans are humans. All of us have the potential to be very evil indeed. The incentives vary and what would get us there, but all of us are evil.

It is the fact that the left denies their shadow that doesn’t allow them to realize that being concerned over over-population should NEVER cross over to wanting to kill everything and everyone living. Being concerned over children being mistreated shouldn’t bleed over into abortion is better than not being perfectly loved at every moment. Thinking the other guy governs stupidly should never bleed over into wanting to kill everyone who votes the way you don’t like.

In fact, if you look above the left falls into murdery desires a lot, because they don’t admit the shadow.

The shadow likes death. After all, death is so clean and permanent.

And those who deny the existence of the shadow leave the door wide open to falling into its mode of thought.

Forever.

How do we fix it? Pointing out that no one is good by fiat is a good beginning. If you’re a writer, show your characters struggling with their shadow selves.

And keep pointing out when the left crosses over to just wanting everyone dead. Which is a lot. Really a lot.

Keep pointing out the evil inherent in wanting everything and everyone you think opposes you dead.

And keep doing it.

Will it work? For the future maybe. For the present? I don’t know.

All we can do is hold up the mirror. And hope they catch a glimpse.

I am going to finish out the extraordinary promo, I promise, but things have been weirder than normal.

On the good side, my brother’s condition is better than I thought (I’d misunderstood some things.) Still serious though. So if you’re of the praying kind.

Anyway, see you here tomorrow. I’ll try to do insty tonight, but I’m so tired.

By Holly the Assistant

Sarah says to post something fun, while she’s off doing necessary and unfun appointments. I’m not sure about fun, but shocking?

This is the most recent four-footed addition to the family, Hyrokken. She’s an in-family rescue who joined us the end of January, my uncle’s dog (his health is declining), a five-year-old ninety-five pound red and white Malamute, who is exactly as shocking as she looks when she hops up to look in the window in the dusk.

She was raised by cats, and is bullyable by cats. Watching her cringe away from five pounds of hissing black Gertrude will always be funny.

So chaos increases here, as do dog food bills. How are your fuzzy four-footed family members this fine spring day?

*I want to apologize for ALSO not doing the promo last night. I’m working through some health stuff, some … extended family bad news stuff. I’m also trying to figure out if it would be better as a permanent page. But still, sorry. – SAH*

My older son had a saying that always cracked me up when he was a teen: “Avoid being badly written.”

What did he mean by that?

Kind of what I mean by “avoid drinking your own ink” crossed with “Don’t make yourself into the kind of character who only wins because the Author is on his side. Because that’s not real life.”

It was an enormously wise and amazingly insightful view for a kid whose hormones were riding him hard, and though he often flung it at public figures’ antics, or his little brother’s more dramatic moments (This is from the time he nicknamed his brother Fidel Comix, so….) I think it was mostly self talk. The kind of talk we all try to do for ourselves and that the left seems to be unaware is even a possibility which is why we read their flounces and flinging about on X and scratch our heads and wonder if the sky is made of cheese in their world.

What brought this to mind today after a spectacularly bad night (Probably allergies, but if you are Catholic and want to pray to St. Jude on behalf of my brother, it would be much appreciated) was seeing the pictures the latest attempted presidential shooter took of himself before going on his “mission.”

My first reaction was to look at that smug, slightly smirking face and think: WTF? What kind of human being has that face before engaging in what they think/hope will be mass murder?

Guys, heaven help me, I can envision a time when I might need to kill people. We all can. We’re normal human beings. If it was the only way to save my husband, say, or one (or both) of the boys or their spouses, I would cheerfully (given the means to do so) mow down any number of people. BUT if I knew in advance I was going to have to do that, I can’t imagine taking posed pictures, much less posed pictures with that kind of smirk.

I’m not a good person — I’m working on it — and there are obituaries (ARAFT’S) I’ve read with distinct pleasure. But if I thought I had to kill a bunch of people, no matter how RIGHTEOUS the reason, I would be horrified, sombre. Because even among the worst kind of humans there’s usually one or two who are if not in there by accident and stupidity, at the very least redeemable. And every human being is “someone’s son, someone’s brother, someone’s father.” At least one of those, and often all three.

But this guy was going into a room filled with hundreds of people some of whom were “just” members of the press. Inevitably, if he had got in, some of the men and maybe a few of the crazier women would be trying to jump him, even supposing he’d got automagically rid of all of the secret service, or thought they were somehow on his side. (I mean, in the situation as it happened, I’d have shut up and moved aside while the experts cleared the room. But if an active shooter had come in, that’s the time I’d grab one of the chairs and charge, trying to smash him. And yes, it’s insane, but I know how I work, and I wouldn’t have been thinking in any sense of the word. I can’t be the only woman who runs with intent and malice towards what terrifies her, either.) So he’d not only be killing his “kill list” however much he thought they deserved it, but also a lot of innocent people.

And he’s POSING, in the style of “the assassin before he undertakes the dangerous mission” even I know, even though I rarely watch movies. And there’s that idiotic smug smirk on his face.

This made me very angry, but then I noticed the knives.

KNIVES, PEOPLE. He’s going into a room where he KNOWS a few of the people are veterans; probably a lot more of them than he knows for sure. And where at least a few of the secret service guys might object to his antics, and yet he’s taking KNIVES. A lot of knives.

What in the name of drunken goats does he think he’d do with those? Okay, yeah, you can run out of ammo (Rolls eyes) and then you take out a knife and…. what? Even if everyone left in the room is disarmed, a knife is a melee weapon that only works if there are a lot of you with knives against a few people who don’t have them. For a lone attacker, he’d be stomped flat under a bunch of boots in no time. He might be able to stab ONE person. he certainly wouldn’t have time to draw a second knife. But he has four, like he’s going to draw knife after knife.

It was then that my son’s phrase went through my mind, and I thought “He’s badly written.”

No wonder he fell for the propaganda about exploding children (which must be Iranian propaganda, yes? Because it makes no sense) and “pedophile and rapist.” This man lived in a mental fictional universe.

I recognized the pose and the stupid name he gave himself in signing his banal and pathetically deluded “manifesto” as “He’s watched a lot of stupid assassin and spy movies.” Where you know, the lone wolf goes on and kills all the bad guys and doesn’t get a scratch, or dies gloriously and “everyone claps.” He missed that in most such cases the “righteous anti-hero” wins because he has super powers, or because he’s trained for an entire lifetime or ultimately “Because the author is on his side and makes it so.” (Which is REALLY bad writing. Occasionally satisfying, but still bad.)

Apparently I was missing a whole other dimension because I’m definitely not a gamer.

Some things my friends said:

In many video games, knife kills are one-shots, while guns can take multiple hits unless you get head shots. Even against armor.
The notion being that the super skilled fighters and warriors, if they are skilled enough to get close enough to the enemy to USE the knife, are skilled enough to get past any hands thrown etc, and take out the enemy in one hit.

He said call of duty works that way. Another said that:

Also in movies. I.e. Jason Statham’s character in The Expendables series.

Others:

Hell’s bells, look at the Marvel movies. Cap and Bucky both use knives a time or two.

A thrown knife never impacts sideways or hilt first in movies or games

And it ALWAYS hits with enough force to sink the entire blade in

In reality, a thrown knife is a discarded knife.

Not quite that but notable examples, Krauser in Resident Evil 4’s Mercenaries mode is exceptionally dangerous with his knife, letting him set up his most powerful attack easily. It’s also the best weapon Leon can use to fight him in the main game. You can make quick work of The Fury in Metal Gear Solid 3 with one as well; it takes quite a bit longer to shoot him to death (including knocking him out with a tranquilizer gun).

As the hits (there was more) accummulated, I realized he is REALLY badly written. That’s why he went in Leeroy Jenkinsing it, in classical video game manner where you run past the low level NPCs to get at the important players, which apparently (WHO MADE THAT DECISION?) are more easily disposed of with knives than with guns.

And this guy, despite being trained in engineering which involves a certain amount of PHYSICS, despite having lived in the real world for thirty one years, despite EVERYTHING thought he was a game character and things would work as they do in games.

I keep thinking that people are surrounded by story, drunk with it, to the point they can’t see reality, and even I am shocked at this level of insanity.

It would be hilarious if not for what he was intending to do when he posed.

The worst part? It’s not technically insanity because there’s a lot of them like him. A lot of people who never LEARNED reality because they can’t see it past propaganda and games.

If you’re a writer, or a media creator, try not to write badly. Try not to have your characters win just because you say so.

And if you are a consumer of entertainment, remember that many things work in movies and games, and yes, even books, because the creators said so. NOT because it would happen that way in real life.

Above all you must avoid being badly written.

We have been looking at houses for about two months. No, don’t cringe back in horror, this is actually with a view to making me more productive. And there are “family economy” reasons behind it. Not in the sense of saving money (though true to an extent, if you consider the whole extended family) but in the sense of “making life easier.”

At any rate I will confess the main reason we’re looking is that all of us have a feeling of a move-in-haste at around September. We don’t know why, but we’d like to be prepared. And if it’s “trauma” and nothing happens, that’s fine. Mostly the looking involves us going to open houses. We found a house we REALLY want, but you know, lottery insists on picking the wrong numbers. (No, it’s not…. How do I put this? The house looks and feels like it was designed by Robert A. Heinlein, including the naval engineer touches, and the labor saving. And SO MUCH STORAGE and organization space. But you know…. ain’t got half a mil. If any of you finds it on the street, please send it in. Pleaz and Thanx.)

Anyway, this is in the service of: I finally figured out why I’m uncomfortable in suburbs.

I’ve always felt a little guilty about this, because the left hates suburbs so much. And because so many of you love them. But me? I’ve always felt most comfortable in older urban neighborhoods, usually the ones that never fell or were re-rehabilitated. My touch stones used to be “Can walk to at least two bookstores and a coffee shop. Walk to library can be slightly longer, provided the library is good.” That’s not true now. At least two of thos are inoperable. I still like coffee shops.

But this means most of my neighbors are liberal, so why? And why was the only suburb that was endurable (though I was still not that fond of it — the reason there being that walking was difficult as it was all uphill) the really expensive one. (Too expensive for us, to be fair. Strapped us down for years.)

Well–

I figured it out. Or actually Dan did. As we were driving away from a perfectly decent neighborhood, I said “that was nice, but I don’t think we’d be happy there.” And he said “Uh… you know, they look like a nice, close knit neighborhood. They’d resent us within six months. They’d try to have conversations that confuse us, interpret our responses as talking down to them, and then start low level acts of spitefullness.”

AND it hit me: I like urban neighborhoods because NO ONE expects me to be sociable. My neighborhood (then of a year) got to know me because I was part of the effort to trap and neuter Greebo and his brothers and sister (we couldn’t catch mom, which is why we had D’Artagnan and other cats.) And then we went to not talking to each other for three years, until the neighbor across the street accosted Dan and asked if I’d autograph her books. It wasn’t UNFRIENDLY. It was just “at a distance.” We smiled and waved, and when there was an emergency, like someone getting ill people helped. We’re still Americans. We just didn’t live in each other’s pockets.

Also, the neighborhood was very mixed ages, which means… well, at our age, buying in a suburb with lots of little kids will get us strange looks, at least until we have grandkids who can visit.

Anyway, that’s when I figured out it wasn’t the suburbs. It was us. We suck at lawn care. Mostly because I’m the one who does it, and I’m likely to suddenly disappear inside my head for three months, while the weeds grow chest-high. And we’re introverts. DUH. So having people try to talk to us all the time (ALL THE TIME the two times we lived in normal level suburbs) is exhausting. And on top of that, people often take our conversational style (“She sounds like she swallowed a thesaurus” — from a former neighbor) as PERSONALLY offensive, and like we’re doing it SOMEHOW on purpose. So we end up withdrawing and not talking to anyone, which is viewed as an act of hostility.

The problem, friends and blog-neighbors, is that we’re weirdos. Just straight up weirdos. You try to ask Dan how the game was last weekend, and he’ll cheerfully inform you he doesn’t follow. If you’re lucky. If you’re unlucky, he watched it for some bizarre reason, and will start going into probability and statistical analysis until you run screaming into the night. (I’ve seen it.)

A normal conversation about the yard or movies around me, particularly if I’m trying very hard not to go political, will take sudden right (or left. Or kumquat most likely) veering turns into a book I just read, or my opinions on narrative construction or the history of archetypes.

I don’t do it on PURPOSE. The stuff is in my head, and it comes out, you know?

“Well, have you tried stopping being weird?” Sure. I have made great efforts since I was six or so, but weirdness keeps breaking through.

Look, I can hold it together for the space of the occasional party or social function. But people who live around us start noticing the oddness, and if they’re the kind that cares, it all goes downhill.

So what is this in the name of? I was talking to a friend who like me doesn’t write … as you’d expect from someone on the right.

Like me she gets afflicted with characters with weird sexualities (in her defense, she’s better than I. A lot of hers are alien.) Or characters that have other characteristics the left claims as theirs. Because this thing isn’t PRECISELY under my control. And if I try to control it completely, the life coursing through the writing dies, and it becomes a just so story. A slightly saner just so story than the left tells, but still blah and meh.

I mean, my arguably most Catholic work (Other than the Vampire series, because that was supposed to be the third book and…. oh, another thing to finish. I mean the reveal is in the third book and it turns the whole thing on its head) is Deep Pink, which is about…. satanic metal bands going to the pink. And the hero going to hell with holy water filled super-soakers.

Because I can’t just be normal. Doesn’t work for me. And my levels of pretending are lower and lower every year.

So, if we move are we going to end up in another urban neighborhood? There’s a high-ish likelihood, though right now my priority is being within walking distance of the church, for a bunch of reasons. (Will I horrify the other elderly church ladies? Likely, but you know what? I’ll volunteer for the cleaning and maintenance committee and they’ll shut up because I’m good at THAT.)

More importantly, talking it out with Dan made me less guilty about going into places — real and virtual — that are dominated by the left.

Because, honestly? We can’t let them claim the weirdos. Part of the problem was we let them do that. Which means they are squelching the leavening of society right at the source and turning all misfits bitter and full of hate.

They can’t have my people. Not anymore. Because I’m not retreating. Not from urban spaces. Not from weird fiction.

As I told my friend: We will march right on into their spaces and reclaim them. And if our reach is small (it is for both of us, relatively speaking) let it be so. Our presence will allow others like us to break out of the stultifying assumption they MUST be leftists. And they’ll have a little further reach.

Putting weirdos into straight jackets of thought breaks them. Which is what we’re seeing happen in real time, everywhere.

They’re not even of us, these leftists. They’re like Terry Pratchett’s auditors, trying to make everything fit into their mental categories. They just view our people as easy meat, because we’ve been weird since we’ve been aware of being alive, and are used to getting kicked around.

So, Weirdos, Misfits, Huns, follow me. Weirdness is ours, and they can’t drive us off.

Let’s go into the spaces we enjoy — or are called to — even if they are left-claimed or left infested.

Lift the light high. Claim our right to exist. And be weird.

For no extraordinary promo tonight. Younger son and the Little Pickle (younger DIL) came by bearing board game, and…. it took much longer than I expected.

I’m so sorry.