I Read Four Books Today

They were short and gripping. Django Wexler's YA series The Forbidden Library is remarkably adept and thoughtful. I admired the craftsmanship even as I rushed to see what happened next. I recommend these.

Not everyone can read four books in a day, even if the rest of the day's activities are limited, of course. Speed reading is a very high leverage skill. I recommend it as well.

I borrowed all four volumes from the library. I am very thankful for the library. The first two I had in ebook, then Doug and I went downtown to pick up the remaining two in print.

I couldn't bring myself to work today. Tomorrow I hope will be better. I did walk some, drink water, and eat decent food. I am starting my daily cooldown after this post, and that will help me have more will tomorrow.

Alma-individuality

I enjoy English's word creation features. We have a powerful, adaptable language. When I look to the future, I imagine that someday we'll have a language that holds more reflection of the world, more easily. That process already happens – for example, "fractal" is in the lyrics of "Let It Go" from the Disney movie Frozen. It captures in one word the branching and rebranching at smaller levels of Elsa's ice forms.

The book I'm currently working on helps overwhelmed environmentalists find actions they can take to reduce carbon emissions. One of the concepts I explore is that different solutions suit different people, due to their circumstances, passions, budget, and so on. My first draft called such a unique set of personal traits "alma-individuality." It's a parallel coinage from "bio-individuality," the well-observed uniqueness of physical traits that influence how medical treatments work. One dose doesn't fit all, due to differences in weight, activity level, sensitivities, and many more aspects of human bodies. "Bio" comes from the Greek word for life. I knew "alma" from the phrase "alma mater" used to describe one's university, which I'd seen defined as "mother of the soul." So I used alma-individuality to mean "soul uniqueness." However, taking a quick look now, it seems "alma" actually derives from Latin for "nourishing" or "kind." Drat.

Well, it was quite a mouthful, and I admit I was fond of it. It rolls nicely off my tongue: alma-individuality, alma-individuality. Looks like "nous-individuality" or "psyche-individuality" would have correct roots. I do not take to either of them as well.

Oddly, I suspect other authors have made this same confusion about "alma" meaning "soul." Seems like William Morris or some symbolist fantasist used Alma to name a character who represented the soul.

Now I need to fix this in the rewrite. A couple of my beta readers tagged "alma-individuality" as cumbersome, which is fair. This is one of those cases where a writer, in this case me, needs to let go of bits she is fond of that aren't truly serving the work. I'm considering "soulprint." Possibly individuality, as is, or uniqueness would work. They will all require some reworking of sentences, which will probably be for the best, eventually.

Good new terms, like fractal, make us smarter. Alma-individuality, alas, probably only complicates something that could be clearer and shorter, no matter how much I like to say it.

Alma-individuality, alma-individuality.

Musings for Myself

One of the reasons I started blogging again is that Rohan Rajiv, at alearningaday.blog, divided blogs into ones for oneself and ones for the world. I found a lot of freedom in deciding to blog for myself. I let go of sticking to a single topic, worrying about what other people would think, trying for good SEO, and other aspects of writing a blog intended to grab the world's attention.

Of course, I am still respectful in public. I have a care for saying only what I wouldn't mind if the world heard about. Words on the Internet are permanent, to some degree, anyway. And I have principles – I prefer not to use a private forum to be meaner than I'd be in public, anyway.

Another reason I began blogging is that moving thoughts from my head to somewhere more visible heals me. Writers save ourselves, too.

It's an interesting tension, between speaking and being kind, sometimes. I think the world is full of such tensions, and the middle ground between them is the most creative section of the common garden. That's one reason why my name is Paradox.

I can even let go of crafting well-formed essays in each posting.

Here's another day. In no particular order, I've recently been thinking about:

Seanan McGuire, and how Charlaine Harris called her intelligent, and it surprised me, because I think of all authors as intelligent, generally, so what about Seanan McGuire brought that up in particular? She certainly has a strong grasp of science. Her worlds are congruent – the world-building in Every Heart a Doorway, for example, shows attention to the second and third order effects of the laws of that universe. She also is willing to question tropes. And reuse them in fresh ways. And her writing continues to improve – her prose is more graceful, her stories seem more individual, she says new things about her worlds and lets her characters grow. Continuous improvement suggests self-reflection and attention to her work as well as the vast amount of practice she puts in. Yes, all of that could call another writer to remark upon her intelligence. I would have remarked on her passion and sheer volume of work first.

Doug has been reading to me out of Atomic Habits. James Clear creates some memorable sentences that recapsulate existing knowledge to make it more actionable. That is good writing.

I do like the more even day/night lengths of living closer to the equator. Somewhat less humidity serves me, too. Yet this climate is more inviting to walk outside in – yes, even in the rain, which I find soft – and that may outweigh those benefits. We shall see.

Bellingham

Doug and I are finding Bellingham nurturing and beautiful. We've been warned that people who come here often don't want to leave. Like Eugene, Oregon, where we first went to college, many graduates want to stay. This fills up the entry-level jobs and then... they start looking for other creative contributions to make to the economy. The result is lots of restaurants and funky handcrafted businesses. Bellingham is in full flower with breweries and brewpubs -- more than 30 in a town of about 80,000. Midland had zero, probably because local law didn't encourage them. Or maybe because the brewpub culture had never taken hold. 

Doug likes hearing seagulls here. There are fir and birch trees growing thickly along the road. The birch, especially, gives me the strange sensation of nostalgia for that one short vacation we took in Finland. Because we expected to find work in Seattle, our storage unit is in Lynnwood, a northern suburb of Seattle, about an hour and fifteen minutes from here. We like being close to our family here, and we like the town. We now look at job opportunities here as well as in Seattle. 

We are on the third floor of a condo complex. The stairs feel less of a stretch to me every day. I make a point of reaching the ground at least once a day. Our two cats have been surprisingly mellow about no longer going out – when we lived in Midland, Banichi moped if he couldn't go outside. So far, the balcony plus the hallway a small ways outside the condo have been enough for him. 

The water is very good here. Doug has a glass teakettle. It has remained pristinely clear for multiple weeks here. In Midland, the water would leave a deposit every single boil. And that's after we ran it through a reverse osmosis system. 

All in all, it is good to be here. With our own place, a new network of friends, and our work systems rebuilt, we'd be better off here than in Midland, for sure. 

Writers Save Each Other

I borrowed No Time to Spare, Ursula LeGuin's collection of essays from her blog, from the library. This helped me, too. In it, I found she had gained the desire to blog from another writer, José Scaramago, with whom I was previously unacquainted. His work did her good.

I've lost track of how many writers appreciate Stephen King for On Writing. We bless Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird, for showing how to take writing one step at a time. We read each other's blogs – Neil Gaiman and Wil Wheaton kept my soul alive through dark days – and tweets – Laurell K. Hamilton is constantly showing in public that the work is what you do, day after day. I revere Lawrence Block's Telling Lies for Fun and Profit for the grace of the words and the deep, kind acceptance in it. John Scalzi and Steven Barnes teach us to respect others – and in the end, that lets us respect ourselves, too.

Writers save each other. I particularly know the science fiction community, where I first felt at home, and where there is a long history of gathering and fandom and helping each other out. I am the most minor shade of "pro" yet that peer group has shaped me substantially in directions that I value. The breathing community of shared words is profound and transformative.

If a writer's word reach someone who isn't a writer, they may help, and they are less likely to come back. Sometimes the reflection from another writer is exactly what I need. And yes, I am a writer.

Better Today

Today felt lighter when I woke up. I've had a productive morning, taken a couple steps that loomed too massive to attempt on the last few days. It's good to get some things done.

I don't really know how much of feeling better comes from the ways I worked to take care of myself and how much comes from time passing. I wouldn't try the experiment of not taking care of myself by choice. I don't recommend anyone else volunteer for it, either. Sounds unethical to me.

I am still tired earlier than say, in August. Continuing the self-care. Hope to take more useful steps tomorrow.

Be kind to yourself. Whatever you can do is a victory.

Another Day

I had hopes for today. Then, a fairly small emotional blow hit me, and I couldn't get started on my work again.

I'm trying to take the self-care steps that mean I will be able to work tomorrow. A little exercise, some decent food, plenty of water, kind thoughts about myself. There's an abyss where my slip leads to horribly unkind thoughts about myself. That doesn't help.

We did some housework, always useful. I read the blogs of a couple writers, which do show that the work is hard and if you want to succeed, you keep at it. I'm thinking about resilience, which is the ability to step up again after a setback. There it is again, the temptation to be unkind to myself that I wasn't as resilient as I'd like to be. Onward.

Tomorrow is another day. I do hope that I will complete more work and contribute to the world more tomorrow. I hope I will be kind to myself and the people around me. I hope good news and gentle weather will come my way.

Meanwhile, tonight I'll work to get a good night's sleep in my safe and warm lodgings, and rise tomorrow and try again.