Best Stand Alone Book (That is Technically Part of a Series) [Results and Some Meta]

[This blog is about to go on vacation until July 6th. There will be one post next week to make up for yesterday, and there might be a surprise or two along the way. Plus, I'll be doing a little bit of work each day behind the scenes, so you may notice some edits happening to some of my "ever growing lists," and Patrons will likely get some updates. Social media posting will also be sporadic and light, and mostly but for already-mentioned exceptions, I'll be posting reruns and enjoy my vacation.]

The results of our book recommendations are in, and it was a REALLY good list of really amazing books. I even got a few for my own TBR pile.  Thank you to SO many people for participating and making this our best book recommendation post yet. Results will go onto our massive compilation post in the next few days.

On to the results…

Favorites (Remember, there was no voting, so the only "order" I've put them in is how many seconds they've gotten.)

Dune - F. Herbert, 5

Annihilation - Vandermeer 3

Startide Rising, D. Brin 2

Consider Phlebas - I. M. Banks 2

The Forever War - J. Haldeman 2

All Systems Red - M. Wells 2

Hyperion - D Simmons 2

Oryx and Crake, M. Atwood 2

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - D. Adams 2

Small Gods - T. Pratchett

Heroes Die - M. Woodring Stover

Neuromancer - W. Gibson

The Quantum Thief - Hannu Rajaniemi

Vurt - J. Noon

This Alien Shore - C. S. Friedman

Foundation - I. Asimov

Robot Dreams - I. Asimov

The Warrior's Apprentice - L. M. Bujold

The Three-Body Problem - L. Cixin

The Sparrow - M. D. Russell

Emergence - David R. Palmer

This Alien Shore - C. S. Friedman

Who Fears Death - N. Okorafor

Crescent City - Sarah J. Maas.

Undersung Heroes (not the "best" but books folks think everyone really ought to read):

The Stainless Steel Rat, H. Harrison, 2

Emergence, D. R. Palmer

That Irresistible Poison, A. Hazard

Not Your Sidekick, C. B. Lee

Go sit in the corner

Incredibly problematic author is incredibly problematic, but I will report the results of our nominations as they were written: Ender's Game - O. S. Card 5

"This Time I Will Absolutely Positively Without Fail Turn It All Around And—" Explosion Sounds (Personal/Meta)

[Quick reminder that I will be taking a vacation next week and there will be NO official blog entries (though I'll be working, so Patrons might see some stuff going on behind the scenes). Social media posting will also be sporadic and light. Any posts that go up will be reruns.]

New schedules, upset tummies, and love. Is it possible to keep writing through all of it? Last week was a massive upheaval that broke a fragile new writing schedule I'd JUST established, and as always, I will take the woeful tale of my massive failure and spin it into some plainspoken advice—both from a working writer and someone who's been doing this a LONG time.

No matter how much writers post "hashtag accountability" or have writing friends or groups, get pestered by hardass agents or editors willing to take on the drill sergeant aspects of encouraging them, or maybe even ask our good friends to show up in leather gear, holding a riding crop, and telling us that we've been bad for not writing enough (um….even though that's not exactly a deterrent to procrastination and…you know what, let's move on), ultimately every writer has to develop an internal locus of motivation. And the reason that so much of many writers' frustrations are because they cannot find the magical way to simply….make themselves sit and write (and also the reason a suggestion as wild as "practice daily both for discipline and the craft on this thing you want to be great at" is met with such virulent hostility) is because this is incredibly difficult.  

Most people have bosses. They have clients. They have folks who will ride them (and not in the fun way) if they stop doing their jobs. They have external loci of motivation. They will get immediate feedback if they don't fill out their TPS reports. Most people have someone who arches an eyebrow even if they spend too long around the water cooler. And even a lot of people who are self-employed or work in some kind of situation where they don't have a bossy boss, have some sort of direct feedback

Artists don't get this. Even the ones who will eventually stop getting paid if they stop making art have to find ways to be their own boss and….um….ride themselves. 

No. No. No.
I said NOT the fun kind.
I was very clear about that.

We reinvent ourselves a lot. We try out a new schedule. ("Now I'm going to write at nights!") We recommit a lot ("From now on more shenanigans, no more tomfoolery, no more ballyhoo!") We change the goals a lot. ("Okay I'm just checking FB too much, so I'm switching from six hours per day to ten pages…no matter how long that takes.") If you think we land on one answer and that just never needs tweaking….excuse me while I laugh like I'm watching a first season episode of New Girl.

So we must pause here for a moment just for background. Your intrepid (and devastatingly cute) blogger is in love. The kind of "in love" where you dewy eyed run into walls and you have a pavlovian reaction that you are going to burst from emotion even when they send you a selfie….even if they're asking if they have anything in their teeth. But also the kind of love where you look up from a pleasant mind wander and it's three hours later or you catch yourself saying "I miss you already. I know we have plans Saturday, but what are you doing later?" The kind where it's just a little hard to focus on….um….ANYTHING ELSE and even though it's delightful and usually met by giggles by everyone around you, you kind of find yourself dropping the ball on at least a couple of things that matter. 

Because you know…your mind is kind of on other things.

You people have filthy minds!

Okay, now let's ALSO realize that I made some bad habits over the pandemic that I'm still working on cleaning up. A serious case of not taking my own advice. My "scheduling hygiene" grew incredibly slovenly during the pandemic. I could just put things off until a weekend (when I only had one four-hour time commitment) or until an evening when I was always home alone anyway. Because that was the lonely reality of my pandemic—I had nothing else going on. 

This is like a metaphor, see?
For my time management. 

So my writing time oozed out and took over the whole week. Sure, I could stay up until 3am the night before and spend two hours lounging around in bed the next morning because I could just work until seven or eight that night. I could let my writing sessions dribble in with too much Facebook because I'd just go longer on the other end. I would say yes to every Facetime call, social Zoom meeting, and online game because what else was I going to do?

You can already see these two trains accelerating towards each other, right? Now if one leaves Tampa travelling at 70mph……

It's been a tough transition getting back. I think it's been tough for all of us because we don't really know the full extent of the collective social trauma we just endured, and way too many people think it's just going to be an "everything's back to normal" reset button. (Complete with being entitled dillwankers with folks who are showing the slightest reluctance.) But I've had some extra tough dynamics. Not only am I sixteen months behind on some serious rest (working 60-80 hour weeks during the pandemic), but the phase-in of the other nanny took some time, and my "eyes are bigger than my stomach" when it comes to realistically projecting what I'm going to be able to get done when I'm working 15 hours a week at my other job instead of 25. For some reason, I think that gives me an extra 20 hours. 

Probably because I took math for liberal arts and my final project, for said math class, was an oral presentation on fractals.  

Aren't they pretty? 
I got an A.

The end result is that, while things are quite a bit better than—say—last November (right smack in the middle of the full fury of the pandemic), it's still going to be a while before we're back to pre-pandemic productivity. And the kids I nanny for might have to be back to school in fall before I can think about pre 2016 output.

No, that's love enter.
Where do you FIND this stuff?
                                                                                     

Enter love. No wait….that part is absolutely spectacular and breathtaking in all the right ways. Enter love's impact on a schedule I'm holding together with spit and bailing wire and trying to make accomplish way more than is possible, especially considering that I'm letting my work ooze out all over the place.

So then I started dropping balls and missing deadlines (self imposed, but for a perfectionist like me, it still stung), and realizing that the whole thing was going to implode if I didn't do something quick. So I did something quick. I puffed a cigar like Hannibal from the A-team and loved it when a plan came together (preferably a plan that doesn't involve biscuit grenades). 

And so I came up with a plan. I could have it all—dates, time to myself, even a robust writing career—if I started treating my writing time with the utmost integrity. If I started waking up at a proper "dayjob hours," knocked out a workday by four or five, and kept evenings to myself. It could all be mine!

Thus began my new schedule. 

On day two of my new schedule, I got sick. Technically I got overmedicated for a minor gastrointestinal issue but the end result is about the same. I was very sick for a couple of days and you do NOT want details.

I don't know about you, but there's almost nothing I hate more than when something legit uncontrollable goes wrong in that first moment right as you're getting your shit together. It's like when you finally realize you're not leaving for work on time and that's why you're always late, then you leave ten minutes earlier and this is going to be the start of a new chapter, but there really IS an accident. And your boss is like "It's. always something," and gives you that LOOK. And you're like "BUT THIS TIME I REALLY DID LEAVE ON TIME!" 

Um…this is a really specific example. I may have some baggage around that job at Magic Mountain.

Han gets it.

Back now (although it's just this week, and then I'm on vacation), but the new schedule really IS working. It's just a matter of pushing through bullshit. It's not a sign to give up. It's just a little bit of lost momentum at a dreadfully inconvenient time.

The "lessons":

1- The first thing I want you to notice is that professional writers screw up. Often we manage to hit external deadlines and OVER TIME, we accumulate enormous bodies of work because we don't make excuses day after day for not doing anything, but we are not machines. Not every week, month, even year (as this last 16 months have shown us) are created equal. 

2- Writers are constantly reinventing themselves and their writing time. "Okay, this time, I'm really really gonna be the productive dynamo I want to be." Constantly. We do not simply pull this shit magically out of our asses and ride the unicorn jizz rainbow to 2500 word days. We have slumps. We start over. If you catch yourself doing this, it's not because you're not "really" a writer or that it would just….WORK if you really wanted this. It's absolutely normal, and for many of us, part of the process. We don't have bosses or clients, so sometimes we have to find a constant stream of novel ways to fight our inclination to be lazy when it's not all pixie orgasms and furious, late-night, Adderall-fueled benders.

3- Shit happens. Shit MIGHT even happen the day after you boldly reinvent yourself because you notice you're fucking up, and make you feel like a complete failure. And you just have to stand up and dust off and keep going because there's no one outside of you who is going to say, "Hey pal. What's happening? Yeeeeeeaaaaaaaah. Listen. We're going to need you to kind of….bring it up a notch if this is going to stay a good fit. Let's circle back to this in a bit and synergize some solutions, okay? Yeeeeaaaah. Thanks a bunch!" It's on you. But don't worry. A writing career is like your oral hygiene: it's how often you remember to floss OVER ALL, not the one missed day that you should be worrying about.

4- It's okay to fall in love. In fact, I kind of recommend it. You'll be able to at least get a day of work done again in just a few weeks…even if the pleasantly running into walls part lasts for a while.

Best Stand Alone Sci-Fi That is Technically Part of a Series (Absolutely Last Chance to Vote or Second)

Folks following us through the Writing About Writing page will get another rerun of the original call for books (which is where you should go if you have a nomination or want to make seconds) but for everyone who gets updates from other places, directly, or through email, I wanted to make sure that you knew that this is really really the last chance to nominate for our current category.

I'll be making and posting my compilation of our lists on Thursday.

Don't forget to head over to the original page to check the rules, make a nomination, or second any of the nominations that are already there.

Also, just a quick reminder that I will be taking a vacation next week and there will be NO official blog entries (though I'll be working, so Patrons might see some stuff going on behind the scenes). Social media posting will also be sporadic and light. Any posts that go up will be reruns.

Meta Schedule Tetris

Quick reminder that I will be taking a vacation next week and there will be NO official blog entries (though I'll be working, so Patrons might see some stuff going on behind the scenes). Social media posting will also be sporadic and light, and everything you see go up in those places will be reruns.

I think because of the HEAVY nanny hours last week and the fact that I was QUITE ill for a couple of days and fell behind. PLUS I have a vacation coming up and a light week this week, so I can burn the engines a little hotter since not only do I not have a lot of nanny shifts, but I will also be able to relax once it's over. All that combined, we're going to go mix up my update schedule this week. Instead of taking Thursday off, I will POST on Thursday, but I need an extra day (today) to kind of do the things I normally would have done last week, but didn't get to because I was nannying about double my normal hours during the hours I wasn't sick.

And yeah, I know no one REALLY cares about this except me as long as I eventually post something. But it's important to me to keep showing you how gloriously messy the whole thing is. Working writers work hard (and a lot) but we are hardly machines. What comes out our productive output tube is less a "smooth pour" and more globs and drizzles and gushes and drips. 

Bottom of April (Facebook Compilation)

I was sick this week on top of about twice as much nannying as normal so that clients could actually leave the house and do an anniversary celebration for a couple of nights, so I'm going to catch up on another compilation post. 

For years, I didn't count all the bite-sized chunks of writing I was doing on Facebook as "writing." But it's a post here and a post there, and sometimes I spend hours a day working on that writing, so it's high time I acknowledge that fact that it "counts."

Here is a collection of the best statuses (and a few of the most popular memes) from my public Facebook page over the period of April 16st through April-30th. (You're welcome to follow me there but read up in the Facebook FAQ [last question] if you want to send me a friend request.) 

Do you ever write a status, and it's totally getting love-bombed with heart reacts by like.....everyone.

And then you get that one just plain ol' LIKE react. Like it broke your perfect streak even though it doesn't really matter at all and you try to imagine you don't care about FB reacts.

And you don't REALLY think this because you're not a horrible, self-absorbed person, and you would never ever ever EVER say it out loud (unless you're some weird writer type), but there's still this teeny tiny, mostly-joking part of you that is like:

"HOW DARE YOU MERELY **LIKE** MY STATUS!"

2020 Memory

My doctor to me: "Good job getting out of your client's place as soon as you knew you were sick. In the zombie apocalypse, you wouldn't hide the bite."

You're goddamn right.

Chris's Pass/Agg of the day:

To be absolutely honest, I wish you WOULD treat it like it's some sort of sacred martial art knowledge, because at least that I could work with:

“You have failed to see class in the context of race, Grasshopper. Return when you have learned about intersections of privilege and oppression, of which class is certainly one, but race is another. Without all, one will always be incomplete.

“Your travels will take you to the Garden of Another Tab where you will train under Master Google, who will spend “a good afternoon” training you in the Ways of the Intersects. Only then can you unlock level three knowledge and understand why your life may be financially hard—and the wealthy are oppressors—but it is not financially hard BECAUSE you are white...nor because you are cishet...nor....

THEN, Grasshopper, you will have learned

Next two are in relation to the Derek Chauvin case.

Remember the world we live in. 

An agent of the state extrajudicially murdered an unarmed, cuffed, human who was begging for their life, ON FILM, and because of the races of the parties involved, the fact that he suffered a consequence was literally an absolute shock to almost everyone (especially HIM) and a "major moment in history." It was a shock to the people who wanted him to be found guilty and it was a shock to the people who didn’t. All that evidence of a plain as day murder, and it was a SHOCK.

That’s the world we live in. 

Fellow white people, we have an obligation to dismantle this world we've built, and not hold this up as some laughable and ludicrous "proof" that the system works, that it's time to rest, or that this moment is some sort of turning point.

Isn't it amazing watching the "Just let the justice system do its work," crowd suddenly have an intimate knowledge of all its shortcomings. 

It's almost like—bear with me here—there might be something else at work.

#RhymesWithShmaycism

If you want to play that game where a stone-cold racist takes advantage of your good faith and walks you around the block five or six times with that "you can't prove I DON'T believe it" shit…..because you can't absolutely look into their soul of souls and prove their constellation of just-happens-to-have-totally-racist-outcomes race adjacent positions isn't TWUUUUUUUWY forged in the fires of racial animus, you go right ahead. 

I've done that walk a few hundred times and I know the whole neighborhood and I'm getting too old for this shit. I just call them racists and watch their face turn that delightful shade of purple.

Memory from 2020

You know, I've had "really hard jobs" before but they all involved consequences for my failures. I cannot think of a single job I've had where if I failed so badly that I actually broke the law, I would then be protected from the consequence of even having to be arrested, charged, and tried––never mind not being fired on the spot.

Today a major chunk of the police force of Atlanta is basically saying that none of them will do their jobs if ANY of them should ever face so much as due process for extrajudicial murder....ever. (Also a classic echo of the "Fine, I'll just leave" abusive response to having bad behavior so much as pointed out.)

With a few exceptions, the. ENTIRE. Force.

But sure, let's talk about how these bad apples are so, so few.

CN: Abuse

My younger years were marked by a number of emotionally abusive relationships, and one of the things I noticed as I was getting therapy and getting better is that people on the outside who were enabling that abuse would often deconstruct a moment that had happened at the height of my frustration and anger and desperation.

When I was younger, it was a slammed door or raging tears, but as I learned that my emotions would be used against me, and that I had to shut them down, it might only be a raised voice or a badly chosen word. But the point was, it was always something. THERE WAS ALWAYS SOMETHING I HAD DONE IMPERFECTLY.  

These people would ask why I had done that, ignore the entire context leading up to the moment and say, "Well, no WONDER they were upset," and use that moment to disregard the entirety of the abuse. To their minds, unless I was the perfect victim (which I could never ever ever EVER be by their rubric), I had to go back to the abuse and further endure it.

I think about this a lot when I see white people arbitrating that civil unrest means the entire struggle for equality is nullified. White supremacy is abusive, but white complacency enables that abuse.

It's time to kill the interns. 
It's time for death and strife
It's time for conflicts of interest 
On Grey's Anatomy tonight

It's time to be all sexy
That's what doctors do right
It's time to die from hiccups 
On Grey's anatomy tonight.

Why do we always come here? I guess I'll never know. 
There's a non cursed hospital down the street where I would like to go.

It's time to get things started
On the most sensational, confrontational, operational, anti-educational
This is what we call McDreamy SHOOOOOOW!

I like this but it doesn't go far enough.
Also no:
Silence
Reluctant yes
"I guess" 
"I should probably go."
"I really can't stay."
Cajoled capitulation
A yield after begging
Acquiescence to avoid a fight about it
Being in a power differential that could make a no difficult/uncomfortable/knotty
If it's not a "HELL YES," it's a no.

The Writer is Sick

Hi folks.

I'll spare you the details—and believe me, you WANT me to spare you the details—but I'm going to be down for the count for at least a couple of days. I usually take Thursday's off anyway, so no change there. Depending on how fast I recover and get back to writing, Friday will either be the smaller post that I was planning for today or the bigger post that I actually WAS planning for Friday. It'll be a slower-than-normal day on my various social media as well. 

Also, a bit of unsolicited advice…

If you're taking medicine for gastrointestinal issues, start with the lower dose on the label and work your way up if it doesn't work. That's not stuff you want to overcorrect for. 

The Best of Jan/Feb and March/April

Since I've forgotten to do this for a couple of months running, you get a double dose today. FOUR months worth of our best posts (with the book recommendation posts filtered out). 

As a reminder, we just haven't been able to hit our pre-pandemic posting schedule with all the extra nanny hours that have been happening, and as a result, instead of dropping the best three for each month, for the past 16 months or so, we've been doing the best three for every TWO-MONTH PERIOD.  Likely July will be the first month we have enough posts on a regular enough basis to get back to our old way of doing things. 

Jan/Feb

Dealing With the Inevitable

I'm not sure when my appeals post became the most popular posts I write, but I guess I'm getting good at titling and preview text that piques interest.

A New Disclaimer: Capitalism Ableism and "Making It" as a Writer

Prescribing daily writing can be ableist. But it's also the best way to hit the goals so many writers speak of wanting to achieve. 

Facebook Compilation (Top of December)

My Facebook compilations are a nod to the fact that I do, in fact, spend an awful lot of time writing smaller posts on Facebook and making a "bundle" of all the best writings and memes. 

Special Mention

That Which Will Never Come Again

A special nod to a post that actually did better than many others even though it was just a small announcement of a terrible situation that would mean many of my posts went unedited for a while.

March/April

Facebook Ban

For some reason me just getting pissed off that I couldn't post and that I wasn't going to bother trying was the most popular thing I've written in months.

Facebook Compilation (Bottom of February) 

My Facebook compilations are a nod to the fact that I do, in fact, spend an awful lot of time writing smaller posts on Facebook and making a "bundle" of all the best writings and memes. 

"I Shall Return" (Personal/Meta/Damned Good News)

We're AAAAAAAAALMOST to the point where the nanny hours come back to the writing schedule and we can start posting at our old pace again.