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Dang, it's been a season since my last update... at least it's my favorite one now! I love autumn, the time of cozy. It's a great time for reading and writing as well - moods turn reflective and pensive as nature turns inward as well.
Laura and I hosted a Harvest Festival on the Equinox with our friends - homemade (and homebrewed) potluck, and importantly, everyone's favorite fall renditions read and performed around the firepit in the cool night air late into the night. (I read Robert Frost's "My November Guest"). I loved that it celebrated the season; and I also loved that reminded everyone of the healing and moving power of poem, story, and song.
"The veils are thin" in the autumn, as Laura likes to say. Perfect for writing.
-- Nalin.

Writing Update

Since my last update, The Karma of Ponds has been rejected by both Haven Spec and Strange Horizons, and is currently at Metaphorosis for review. Just keep grinding! Thanks to the half dozen of you that sent back comments and feedback on the excerpt I included last time! I made several minor revisions based on those.

I've completed the short story The Beyul, and sent it out to beta readers. Currently in the process of digesting the comments and will likely make one more revision before beginning to circulate it.

I've also completed a very short (<1000-word>
Rassam's Eye has unfortunately seen zero word count progress since my last update, but things have been percolating. I hope to get back to that novel soon, but I'm also trying to keep the promise I made to myself to only work on what I feel like working on, and RE hasn't floated to the top lately. NaNoWriMo is coming up... maybe a good excuse to hack away at word count for something. We'll see.

Content Consumed

Fiction.
  • Finished: The Fifth Season, by N.K. Jemison. WOW. I was blown away by the worldbuilding, attention to character development (she's a psychologist by training!), very unique "magic" system, and the audacity to take on huge social ideas through a lens not typically celebrated in the genre. Jemisin recognizes, as speculative fiction writers like Ursula K. LeGuin did a generation ago, that dire problems in most need of our imagination's attention are not technological, but sociological in nature. Self-labeled as "science fantasy", this novel is neither classic science fiction nor fantasy, but intentionally blends elements of both. It's impossible to explain many of the reasons I love the book without spoilers -- so you'll have to take my word that this is easily one of the best speculative fiction novels I've ever read, and go check it out! Heads up, SFF fans -- it's different. And that's one of many reasons it's amazing.
  • Started: The Word for World is Forest, by Ursula K. LeGuin. She never pulls punches does she? About halfway through and enjoying it so far, though I can't say it's my favorite of her writing. Lots of great appreciation for nature and native cultures, and some rather frank criticism of her favorite nemeses: materialism, racism, industrial capitalism, male chauvinism, and technological arrogance. Only about halfway through, more later.
Nonfiction:
  • Finished: What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, by Haruki Murakami. This one's been on my list awhile. When I realized that one of the great novelists of recent times wrote a memoir about his (and my) favorite pastimes (running and writing), I knew I had to get to it at some point. My conclusion is that I don't think I could either run or write like Murakami (not simply from a product point of view in that he is obviously quite globally accomplished in both, but also in terms of his process). However, I was interested to peer behind the curtain and see his approach. No profound insights for me from this one, but a renewed appreciation of the connection between mind, body, and purpose, and yet another reminded that a focus on process is more important (and yields more and better results in the long run) than a focus on product.
  • Finished: When Breath Becomes Air, by Paul Kalanithi. It's been on a lot of book club lists -- worth the hype. I listened to the audiobook on the way up to a wedding in Ohio and found it incredibly inspirational. Literature PhD, neurosurgeon, and neuroscientist Dr. Paul Kalanithi receives a terminal cancer diagnosis in the final year of his residency, and documents his journey seeking the meaning of life and a means of grappling with his own mortality. Not a spoiler: he dies - as we all will - and his wife finished the book for him. Very moving.
  • Started: Draft No. 4: On the Writing Process, by John McPhee. Much-awarded journalist, four-time finalist for the Pulitzer, and considered inventor of "creative nonfiction" reflects on his career and the evolution of his writing process. Only one chapter in... more reaction next time.
What have you been reading or watching? Any recommendations for me?
I do love getting your feedback and comments, so please continue to reach out. Thanks for reading, and see you in the next issue!
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