The Situation

Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, was assassinated. Some pictures of the killer were released. Gun casings found at the scene had the words “deny”, “defend”, and “depose” written on them. UnitedHealthcare is evil. Large parts of The Internet are celebrating the murder of Brian Thompson, either with memes or with tales about the evil of managed healthcare and insurance companies.

Regarding Managed Healthcare and Insurance Companies

I am not going to defend health or life insurance. It’s one of the great evils. Indefensible.

They make profit by denying care to people that need it. It’s a middleman system that makes healthcare more expensive without adding benefits to either the patients or the caregivers. It’s an industry worth many billions of dollars that preys on people when they’re at their most vulnerable. It causes unnecessary death and suffering.

I have worked for a company as a software developer, writing tools for managed healthcare. I have worked for a company, writing software for life insurance. These were dark times for me. I am not a fan of managed health care, health insurance, or life insurance. Anything I say after this section is not in defense of that industry.

Brian Thompson was Probably Just a Guy

Unlike some other rich and terrible CEOs, I never heard of Brian Thompson before he was murdered. I know that UnitedHealthcare is evil, but I don’t know how much of that is because of Brian Thompson specifically. Did he make some pivotal decisions to turn the industry into what it is today? Maybe, but I doubt it.

He was probably just a guy.

Please be patient with me while I try to explain.

I have talked about my faith in humanity and how it has been damaged lately. The election is part of it. Reality television is another.

If you watch enough Survivor, or pretty much any other reality TV show where regular people are put into a situation where there is a cash prize at the end, these regular people will do terrible things to each other for the prize. The money is worth more than the humanity.

Let’s use our imaginations and test our morality.

Imagine you’re in one of these game shows. In your first challenge, you’re brought to a cliff. At the bottom of the cliff, there are some people, safe and dry for now, but the tide is coming and they may not be safe in a few hours. At the top of the cliff, there is a bag of money. You have the choice: take the bag of money, or let down a little bit of rope. You cannot do both. There are other contestants given the same choice. Some of you will need to let down the rope to save the people at the bottom. Do you take the cash, or let down the rope?

You don’t know the people at the bottom of the cliff. You’re never going to meet these people. How much cash needs to be in the bag for you to take it and jeopardize the lives below?

Take the money, or help a stranger. How much is a stranger’s life worth to you?

The Money is the Problem

The right thing to do is let down the rope. We can know this because if the choices were do nothing or let down some rope, it is easier to see people choosing to help a stranger. When it costs nothing to do the right thing, most people will do it.

The reality is that there are people hoarding all the wealth at the expense of workers, and we want justice. Musk paid people to vote for Trump. Amazon has not made the world a better place, and Bezos won’t pay his workers a fair wage. CEO wages, on average, have grown beyond reason, while the workers underneath are struggling. Where is the justice?

Someone stepped out of the shadows, shot, and killed a CEO that was in charge of one of the evil corporations. I understand why people want to celebrate, but I think murdering people is the wrong answer because really, Brian Thompson isn’t much different than any of the people that chose money over helping people. He was just a guy like so many people around us that would make the wrong choice if put in the same position.

What is the Answer, Then?

If you want to get back at the people hoarding all the money, make their money worthless. Do not accept it.

If someone like Brian Thompson tries to come to your restaurant and buy your food, don’t seat them.

If Jeff Bezos offers to buy your book, don’t sell it to him.

If Elon Musk wants to buy fuel from you for one of his portable flame throwers, deny him the service.

Is what I am suggesting practical? No. But it’s the right answer. Money is the problem, so take money out of the equation.

To do it, you have to be willing to let down the rope instead of taking the bag of cash. You have to value human life more than money.

And the only reason this plan won’t work is because the person next to you will take the villain’s money, because the money is still more valuable to them than any principled stand. The person next to you, your coworker, maybe your friend, has the same principles as Brian Thompson. If someone were to assassinate your coworker, would you celebrate the same way people have celebrated the murder of Brian Thompson?

I rest my case.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Normally, Melissa and I would be at home, overeating on a day like this. I would have prepared a ham with a fantastic glaze, a sweet potato puff that is basically heaven in a glass pan, and there would have been some other sides that are pretty good but not nearly as good as the things I just mentioned. Maybe there’d be some stuffing, I don’t know.

Tonight, we had a couple of greasy cheeseburgers from the bistro near the lobby of the Hilton at LAX. They were honestly pretty good. Probably because it was the first real food we’ve had all day.

We woke at 5AM this morning so we could catch our 6:30AM train. Melissa never traveled by train before, and this was going to be a real treat.

The train was nice, but we were a little bit unlucky. We had to share our table with someone who wasn’t quite all there. He didn’t follow social queues, he mumbled a lot, and he wanted to talk about Tennessee, God, Hell, and giraffes. He said some very provocative things, either because he was crazy, or because he was trying to get a reaction from me.

With the train full and bringing in more passengers with every stop, Melissa and I didn’t have an opportunity to change seats. I was a captive audience, and I listened to this weird guy with as much understanding and compassion as I could. He really did try to get some kind of negative reaction out of me, and I did not take any of the bait.

I wanted to write and focus on other things. Our weird travel companion foiled me on that front.

At Bakersfield, the end of the line, we transferred to a bus. By 3PM, we were checking into the hotel. Not a bad travel day. Better than flying, for sure.

Now that we’re here, checked in, and have the lay of the land, let’s talk about my Loscon schedule. My schedule list will include my thoughts on the panels and the ways in which I can contribute. If you want the abbreviated details, you can click this link and click my name.

Name	When	Where	About
Autograph Session	Friday, 5PM	Dealer’s Room	I love doing these! I have reasonable expectations for how this will go, though. We won’t have very many of my books on stock until Sunday, so there won’t be much for me to do. But I’ll enjoy doing it, just the same.
Not Lazarus Long? Things You Need to do Before Dying	Friday, 8PM	La Jolla A	The description of his panel is pretty sobering. What do you need to do to make sure your loved ones are taken care of when you’re gone? I was excited to see this panel because I’ve read tons of Heinlein, and Lazarus Long was one of my favorite characters. What I actually have to offer on this panel is that I’ve worked in Life Insurance, and I’ve survived the loss of parents.
Urban Fantasy: Magic in the Modern World	Saturday, 10AM	Los Angeles C	I’m excited for this one. Given that I write urban fantasy, I can talk about this and the various considerations and thoughts that go into blending fantasy with a contemporary setting.
Villains in SF and Fantasy: Crafting Compelling Antagonists	Saturday, 2:30PM	Los Angeles C	I have lots of thoughts about villains and antagonists. The reality is that none of the antagonists in the stories I’ve released are particularly exemplary. This is the first panel I’ll be moderating this weekend.
Stephen King’s On Writing, 20 Years Later	Sunday, 1PM	Los Angeles B	On Writing has helped and inspired writers for over 20 years. I’m one of them. During this panel, we’ll talk about the advice, how it holds up, and maybe what is missing. I suggested this panel, I’m moderating it, and it’s the one I’ve been preparing for it for days.
The Greatest Writing Advice I’ve Ever Received	Sunday, 4PM	La Jolla B	This one should be relatively light and fun. Since it’s towards the end of the convention, I’m not sure how seriously people will take it. Again, I’m moderating, and I hope it is well attended and received.

When I’m not in panels, I’ll most likely be in the dealer’s room. Unfortunately, most of my books won’t be here until Sunday, which is a tremendous bummer. I have some copies of The Repossessed Ghost and hardbacks of One for the Road, but none of The Psychic on the Jury.

So far, I like what I see of this event. If you’re in Los Angeles this weekend, consider coming to visit me at the Hilton near LAX.

I keep getting asked how I’m holding up. I keep giving honest non-answers like, “As good as can be expected” or “I’m hanging in there.”

I’m not good. I’m not fine. I’m upset, sad, disappointed, hopeless, uninspired, tired, and pessimistic. But I don’t think anyone wants to hear that. Not from me.

I’m not gay or trans. I’m straight, white, male, and financially stable. I’m not an immigrant. I’m not a professional working for the government. I live in California. I am, in a word, safe.

I project enough arrogance that Trump would probably like me if he met me in person. I look like the kind of person he likes, and I’d stare him down just like the kind of people he aspires to be.

If I kept my mouth shut and didn’t write anything political here, if I chose to stay in my lane, I could probably cruise on to my death bed without any conflict. That’s a pretty wild choice, isn’t it? How luxurious it is to be in my position. How lucky I am to have all of these properties and privileges I never asked for, and that I’m not proud of because I didn’t earn them.

I will not be choosing silence or meekness. If you are one of the very large targeted demographics, I will defend you. I will continue to criticize those in power, even if that makes me “an enemy within.” I will live my life with integrity and kindness and as much love as I can muster, and I will not stand by as people are bullied.

I am still not a Democrat. I went back through my old posts. Here’s some stuff I wrote in July:

I will still vote for the Democratic candidate. I’ll do my part. But the Dems have fucked us.

They’ve thrown away the incumbency.

They’ve set up a situation where they have 100 days to come behind a single candidate, hopefully without bloodying each other and allowing Trump to cruise unscathed.

They’ve set up a situation where the focus will be on the electability of the Democratic candidate, rather than highlighting how the Republican wanna-be despot is unelectable.

They’ve set up a situation where they are not highlighting their own plan for the future, which would be a great contrast to Project 2025.

They’re most likely going to get behind Kamala Harris, which means that the American voters will have to overcome racism and sexism. This, during a time where social media is commonly joking/complaining/spreading memes about DEI hires.

Democrats, why did you have to make it so much harder than it needed to be?

If Trump is re-elected, this is why.

Right after I wrote that, the Democrats — the people in my sphere — appeared to be energized for Harris. I thought, “Well… maybe we’re going to be okay, after all.”

Some people didn’t vote for Harris because she “didn’t provide a plan.” Trump’s plans, Project 2025 plus tariffs, is a shit plan, but it is a plan. Harris talked about some of the things she wanted to do, but that’s not the same thing as a plan. And if she did put out a plan, enough people didn’t see it that it didn’t matter.

Some people didn’t vote for Harris because she didn’t come out strongly enough against Israel.

Some people didn’t vote for Harris because they saw her as being selected, rather than going through the primary. “Why should I vote for someone I didn’t get to choose?”

And, unfortunately, there are a lot of people that didn’t vote for her because of her gender and the color of her skin.

For the first time in his life, Trump won the popular vote. A felon. A rapist. A twice impeached, former president with an absolutely terrible record. Someone that told us to inject bleach. Someone that promoted an insurrection when he lost in 2020.

In a time when we have existential crisis in the form of climate change, we elected the guy that tried to pull us out of the Paris Agreement. The guy that hates windmills.

This election, I learned something. Maybe I relearned something. You can’t win a race based on the faults of the other guy. You have to win on the merits of your own words, record, and intentions.

Let me tell you what I would run on, if I were to run for President.

I would introduce legislation which overturned Citizens United. Corporations are not people. We need to pull that money from our political system. We need to keep Big Business away from all three branches of our government.

I would introduce legislation which applies reasonable term limits to members of Congress.

I would work with Congress to apply some sort of term limit on the Supreme Court. Lifetime appointments without any guard rails has proven to be unacceptable.

I would introduce legislation to actually limit money that sitting members of Congress receive. Part of this would be establishing an independent funding for election spending. Once a candidate reaches a certain threshold, they can no longer accept funds from anyone else to pay for their campaign. Once elected, their estate goes into a trust, just as the President’s estate is supposed to be put in trust, and the only paycheck they’re allowed to take is the one from Uncle Sam.

No one working in any of the three branches of government should be allowed to trade stocks.

It will be hard to push through, but I will remove the electoral college. Every person’s vote should count, whether they live in the city or they live on a farm. No one should be disenfranchised. This will also help eliminate some of the problems we have with gerrymandering.

It will be hard to push through, but I will push for a change in our voting. Rather than first-past-the-post, we’ll use a weighted system. This will make third party candidates viable. My intention is to destroy our so-called two-party system.

I need to shut up about this, now.

This is all purely fantasy. It’s something I can think about as a distraction from the reality we’re living in. We have elected a monster and doomed our country and our planet. We may not have another fair election again. And even though I’m certain I know what’s wrong with our system — it’s the money — I’m never running for office.

So how am I doing?

Shitty.

But I’ll survive, and I will write, and I vow to defend those that the elected felon and all his cronies mean to target.

If we can summon the courage to do what is right, act with integrity, and protect each other, we will be fine. Maybe the 74 million people that voted for Trump will see the error in their decision and stand with us.

I still want to have faith in humanity. Please don’t let me down.

When I got home, the house was quiet and dark. I found Melissa on our bed, looking as sad as I’ve seen her in a long time.

It was around 7:30PM, and she had been following the election news. This year is different for her. This is the first year she has been motivated enough to read up on all the items on the ballot and vote. Voting for Harris to avoid another Trump disaster is paramount to both of us.

It’s 8:40PM, and the electoral map does not look good. I glanced at BlueSky and the mood there is also not good. Some folks are desperately trying to keep hope alive, because this is what the electoral map looked like 4 years ago. It took days for the blue shift to settle in.

Rural, less populated counties are — for some stupid reason — more inclined to vote for Trump, and those smaller areas report sooner. It takes longer to count the urban votes and the places where people actually live. Some states are getting called for Trump that haven’t actually tallied the votes of their cites. It’s stupid, demoralizing, and depressing.

It’s probably also important to remember that the news organizations that are declaring for Trump at this stage are the same people that have been carrying water for Trump for weeks.

I still think Harris has a shot. But even if the blue wave fully materializes and delivers us a Harris presidency, we still have millions and millions of people that voted for a racist, rapist, fascist, felon in physical and mental decline.

We still have millions of people that wanted to choose Trump because they think he loves America. They apparently never listened to him, because every other word out of his mouth disparages our great nation. Even his motto implies that we’re somehow less than we are. Trump doesn’t love America. He only loves himself.

We still have millions of people that wanted to choose Trump because they think he promotes Christianity. The guy that sold Bibles made in China to pay for his court fees, which were incurred at least partly from his extramarital affair with a porn star. Trump is an anti-Christ. He doesn’t love God. He only loves himself.

We still have millions of people that wanted to choose Trump because they thought he’d be good for the economy. The guy that couldn’t make a casino profitable. How many failed businesses have Trump’s name on them? Under Trump, the economy tanked, and unemployment was up to just under 15%. Trump has never been good for the economy. The only person Trump wants to enrich is himself.

Harris could still win. She ran a great campaign. Her plans make sense, unlike Trump’s insane tariff plan.

The man stood in front of crowds and talked about how he would be a dictator if elected, and millions of people showed up on election day and tried to put him back in office. These people have no memory.

On top of that, at this point in the evening, the senate races aren’t looking great. I was really hoping Cruz would get sent packing, but that weaselly scumbag will remain in office. Texas, you disappoint me again.

I’m going to go to bed early tonight, I think. This whole year has been exhausting. I’m so sick of seeing that asshole’s face, and hearing his whiny voice. Trump exists mostly to make me doubt the existence of justice in this world.

Maybe I’ll drink a bit before going to bed. Just to be sure.

Good morning, friends and frenemies! It’s time for me to talk about this show that has had me buzzing for days. I’m at a Shut up and Write, and ostensibly, I should be working on The Psychic Out of Time, but I don’t have my glasses, OneDrive is taking forever to sync, and I feel a little bit distracted because I really, really want to talk about Agatha All Along.

If you haven’t watched it yet, let me say two things.

1. It’s very good. You should watch it. Watch WandaVision first to get context, then watch Agatha All Along. It really is better to go into it without spoiliers.
2. Stop reading this and go watch the show.

Spoilers beyond this point. You have been warned.

When they first started promoting the show, they did it with all the actors coming out on stage, singing the Ballad of the Witches Road. When I first saw this, I thought, “Well, that’s weird. Is this supposed to be a musical?” But it all makes sense in retrospect. The song is the throughline of the show. All of the threads are woven out of that song. It is the inciting incident that we get to witness in the epilogue.

Let’s pull on some of these threads and see where they take us.

We start the story with Agatha still under the spell Wanda used to trap her in Westview. Agatha imagines herself as a hard-boiled detective trying to solve a strange murder, but it’s all layers of metaphor symbolizing Agatha’s struggle to be reborn from her past life. The dead body looks like Wanda, but the toe tag tells us that it’s really The Darkhold, which weighed Agatha down as much as Wanda’s spell. The Darkhold is destroyed, Wanda’s spell is broken, and Agatha emerges from all of it, stripped down and free to start over.

But, this isn’t a redemption story, and Agatha is still a monster. We may sympathize with her, but she hasn’t changed. The only think that’s changed is her circumstances. She still chooses to do what she has always done, which is trick witches into giving her their power so that she can survive.

Let’s talk about some relationships and parallels in this story.

Agatha and Teen is obvious and sweet. Teen reminds her of the son she lost. In that way, Teen occasionally inspires Agatha to be a better version of herself, right up to the end where she finally takes the kiss of death, dying so that Teen can live.

Agatha and Lilia is a bit less obvious. They both see Death. Agatha has a tumultuous relationship with Death, and spends much of her life fleeing her, steeling power so that she can survive, and hating Death for taking her son. Lilia’s power forces her to see death, so she spends much of her life fleeing her power so that she no longer is tormented by the things that she sees. In the end, Lilia realizes that she loves herself, her power, being a witch, and she chooses to fall and embrace death. They both embraced death, for different reasons, and it’s beautiful in both cases.

Agatha and Jen are both witches that have lost their power and in both cases, Agatha is the one responsible. Jen lost her power because Agatha was paid to bind her, and didn’t even think about it. Agatha lost her power because she tangled with The Scarlet Witch. They are both restored, but Agatha lays down on the ground and becomes one with it, turning to soil and flowers, while Jen emerges from the dirt into the light, free to take flight and lift off into the sky.

Agatha and Alice are essentially opposites, and we have to include Alice’s mother Lorna to see the complete picture. Agatha is the witch that lost her child in spite her best efforts. Alice is the child of a witch that survived because of her mother’s best efforts. Agatha and her son made up the song as a kind of game, and when Nicholas Scratch died, Agatha used the song as a kind of weapon to take the powers of other witches. Lorna Wu adapted the same song and sang it to her fans, which she thought of as her coven, so the song itself became a kind of shield always there to protect Alice. In both cases, it’s a mother’s love. Agatha’s love twisted by grief into something dark, and Lorna’s love uplifted in hope to provide a light for her daughter.

That brings us back to Teen, Billy Kaplan, reincarnated son of Wanda Maximoff, because a mother’s love persisted.

I think I could go on, but that’s probably enough. I love this show. I’m looking forward to watching it again.

It’s good, clever writing, executed on a tight budget and punching way above its weight class. Consider the scene where Billy Maximoff takes over the body of Billy Kaplan. There aren’t any huge special effects in this scene. There is the sound of a slowing heartbeat, a subtle push-in with the camera, and then Billy shouts for his brother. It’s a flawless execution which tells the story as efficiently as possible. It’s perfect.

I hope you enjoyed the show as much as I did. Let me know if there’s some nuance that really speaks to you that I may have missed.

The sun has been down for a little while and a few trick-or-treaters have blessed our doorstep. We still give away full size candy bars, but we don’t give cans of soda anymore. It seems like getting a can of soda during Halloween was something cool that happened when I was young, but now it’s just this heavy thing that takes up a bunch of room in the bag. I think kids have more access to soda than we did when I was a kid, so it’s not special anymore.

They love CapriSun, though, so I’ve been offering those with the candy bars. Every visitor has taken one with glee. So, the Buhl house is still the house to visit in our neighborhood on Halloween.

I want to say something heartfelt tonight while I’m waiting for kids to come knock on our door. I want to say something real.

Politics have been on my mind. I look at the polls and the news and I see this ridiculously imbalanced race that is somehow down to a coin flip. I don’t know how it can be this close.

I don’t want to talk about politics, to be honest. I don’t want to talk about Harris or Trump or project 2025 or the Supreme Court or any of those things that bother me so much. I don’t think you want me to talk about those things. You either disagree with me fundamentally, in which case I’m wasting your time, or you and I are already on the same page, in which case, I’m wasting your time.

This is not a place that is going to change hearts and minds. This is a place where I talk about my writer’s journey, which includes my experiences through this life. Sometimes this will include politics and my opinions on elections, but it doesn’t have to tonight.

Instead, maybe I’ll talk a little bit about something that is closely related to politics. I’m going to talk about faith.

I want to love people. I want to love humanity, and believe that we are capable of incredible beauty and grace and love, and I want to celebrate our ingenuity and compassion and art. I want to love people. Some people might say I’m describing the message of Christ, to love as He loved, unconditionally, but I’m not going to mix up what I’m talking about with Christianity right now. We may be called to love as Christ loved, to be willing to put down our lives for people that probably don’t deserve it, but I’m not there yet.

I want to believe that most people are like me. They’re just going through their lives, trying to do the best they can. I want to believe that they will help people in need. They need love and forgiveness and grace, just like I do.

This is a core part of who I am. My faith is that people are mostly good. I try to be kind, and though I fail sometimes, I keep trying. For my faith to be real, I cannot be particularly special in that regard.

So why am I talking about this? What does this have to do with anything?

We’re living through unprecedented times, when we are measured and tested, and as I look around me, it’s hard for me to maintain my faith in humanity.

The other day, we went to Mel’s for brunch, and as we were waiting for food, I saw some sort of political commercial playing on television that was clearly anti-trans bullshit. Just two or three minutes of unnecessary hate on the screen, on a sports channel. No one else seemed to notice it. I couldn’t look away.

I don’t claim to be a trans ally, but I acknowledge their humanity and their right to live as they want to live. They do not need to be made a public enemy. They’re not doing anything wrong. They’re just people. But there is an entire political campaign using them as some sort of bogeyman in order to drum up their hateful base.

Do you spend much time on social media? Have you thrown out your sense of self-preservation and wandered through YouTube comments? In every corner of the Internet, the most vile, hateful messages can be found. Some may be the work of bots, but the truth is that there are a lot of people out there with enough time on their hands and malice in their hearts that they’re willing to take time out of their day to post nastiness, where everyone can see it.

Again, why am I dwelling on this? There will always be terrible people. Right?

I can’t get over how many people seem to be so different from me in their fundamental alignment. It damages my core belief, that most people are good, decent folks, just doing the best they can.

I’m not saying that anyone that disagrees with me is a terrible person. We can have differences in taste and still be friends. We can have different approaches in life, and we don’t have to be friends, but I’ll still respect your humanity. It’s issues of morality where I start to get upset.

All people should have rights over their own body, regardless of their gender or sexuality. Women’s right to choose is fundamental. Women have died already because of the Dobbs decision overturning Roe. It has not made the world better for children. It has not reduced infant mortality, or improved the lives of any babies out there at all.

We are all born from immigrants. Immigrants are not evil. They’re people. But there is an entire political movement that thinks mass deporting of immigrants — legal or otherwise — is a Good Thing. If you are on that side of the political isle, I implore you: Put away the racism, honor your heritage, and leave the immigrants alone. Let them work. Let them live. Quit sacrificing their livelihood for political capital.

The Earth is not flat. Vaccines are not dangerous. Science is a process for learning, not a rival of faith. Racism is stupid. Homophobia is stupid. Transphobia is stupid. Misogyny is stupid. Ableism is stupid.

Nothing I’ve said feels difficult or controversial. At the heart of what I’m saying, it’s The Golden Rule. It is “do unto others as you would have them do to you.” It is also Love They Neighbor. When I look around the Internet, it seems like what I think of as The Golden Rule, bad actors call “wokeness.”

Maybe I should clarify that last point a little, since it may seem like an overstatement. Most of the time I see something being criticized for being “woke,” it’s in regards to a character in a movie or book being gay or a person of color. “The MCU was great before they started pushing all that woke shit down our throat.” What they are saying is that the presence of people that look different than they do is offensive, or part of some kind of agenda. The reality is that the world is full of people that shouldn’t have to hide, and their presence in stories is a more accurate representation of the world we live in.

I’m getting preachy, so maybe I should close this out. It’s already too long.

It won’t be much longer before I’ll turn off the light out front and put away the rest of the candy. We didn’t get a ton of trick-or-treaters this year. I feel fortunate that I can give away candy and make some kids happy every year.

Happy Halloween, everyone. And for those of you getting ready to write a whole bunch in November, good luck!

Hello, everyone. It’s me, your friend Brian.

Many Octobers, I enter the month with the plan of writing a blog post every day. I enjoy it, and from the stats, some of you enjoy it, too. Unfortunately, I got really sick right after the cruise. I’m okay now. A bit of a lingering cough, but I’m fine. And it didn’t seem like it was Covid, since I tested a couple of times and no one else around me got sick. But it took the wind out of my sails, and I’m just now feeling up to facing this particular blank page.

Will I participate in Nanowrimo?

There are two answers to that. The first is: I’m no longer associating with the organization itself. The people in this area, I’ll happily hang out and write with, but the organization that hosts nanowrimo.org has lost the Buhl Seal of Approval.

I still like the idea of writing 50,000 words in November every year. The task itself is rewarding to me, even on the years that I don’t succeed. November is still Novel Month, to me. Nomo, if we’re feeling fancy. But will I try to do that this year?

Maybe. I haven’t been doing any writing lately. I haven’t felt well. I’ve been a bit depressed. I didn’t even get any real writing done while on the cruise.

I enjoyed the cruise quite a bit, and I don’t feel like my time was wasted there. I reconnected with community, and aside from getting ridiculously sunburned on my legs and feet again, I relaxed. I needed a vacation, and that’s what the writing retreat became. I attended the classes and I enjoyed everyone there. I just didn’t get any writing accomplished.

Work continues to extract more from me than what I’m capable of replenishing during the week. The days are long, starting before the sun rises and continuing long after the sun has gone to bed. The last few weeks, all I’ve done is work and sleep.

October is almost over. I have a lot on my mind, and I haven’t felt up to expressing it here. I haven’t felt comfortable hanging out with friends, because when I get into this kind of slump, I do not want to bring my friends down. I don’t want to be a burden.

The election is upon us, but I’m not going to write about that today. Maybe this weekend. For now, I just wanted to check in and say, “I’m okay! Hanging in there. We’ll see what tomorrow brings.”

Melissa and I are sitting in a bar at the Embassy Suites, not far from LAX. We have a giant Blue Moon between us. She’s looking through submissions sent to Cupid’s Arrow. I’m thinking about the next Mel Walker novel.

In a few hours, we’ll meet up and mingle with others in the Writing Excuses Retreat community. Tomorrow, we’ll board the Navigator of the Seas and enjoy a 7 day cruise.

What did it take to get here? I have a lot of ways to answer that question.

Physically, we drove here. Melissa, Mike Baltar, and I got up very early in the morning. Melissa and I took an Uber to the airport, grabbed a Ford Expedition from Dollar rental at 6AM, and we picked up Mike on the way. We dropped the car off at LAX and then joked about how much taxiing we endured before arriving at our destination. As Mike said, our stewardess did a great job.

Financially, Melissa and I spent some money several months ago, because this is our one big vacation we like to take in the year. Since so much is covered by the up front cost, it feels like a bargain. I consider us extremely fortunate to be able to afford taking the week off from our respective jobs and spending the tuition that allows us to take part.

With regards to our responsibilities, we both had a bit of extra work we needed to do with our day jobs in order to make this trip possible. Melissa had to wrap up as much of her work as possible, then prepare her other assistants to take up her slack while she is away. I had to work some insane hours in order to get the development to a point where it would go on without me for a week and a half. Monday this week, I worked from 6AM to 11:30PM. It didn’t feel great doing it, but the work was necessary.

As a writer, it took a lot of hard work and dedication to my craft, though that’s not strictly necessary to join the Writing Excuses community. They take people at all skill levels, and there is no expectation of me to perform as a writer. However, this is our sixth year attending, and I feel like if I hadn’t done something to advance as a writer, I would have a hard time justifying the cost of the trip.

We have the opportunity to learn quite a bit during these events, but it really is the community that is the true treasure. These are my friends. These are my people. It feels like coming home when we get together.

For the last several weeks, I’ve had this trip coming up, and I’ve had to put it out of my mind to keep the anticipation and excitement from distracting me from all the things I needed to do in order to make the trip acceptable. I’m here now, and it’s almost time to board the ship, and I’m having a hard time suppressing the instinct to suppress my emotions. It’s a barrier I’m going to need to topple pretty soon, so I can enjoy this trip to its fullest.

I’m a little afraid of getting Covid again during this trip. Everyone’s been getting it lately. It’s everywhere. Bryanna just had it. A few weeks ago, Mary Robinette picked it up during one of the events she attended. DongWon Song isn’t able to join us this year because they picked it up recently. If you’ve been looking around and seeing it spread like it was 2020 all over again, it’s not your imagination. The question is, what are we going to do about it?

Sitting at this bar, Melissa and I are both masked up. We didn’t mask in the car, but we’ve been masking while we’ve been around people. We also both got our vaccinations, just a couple of days after the new vaccine became available. We’re taking all appropriate cautions, but it still seems like some of our group are going to get sick this cruise, and we have to hope it won’t be us.

I think that brings me to the real trick with this whole trip. I need to relax and let down my guard, so that I can connect with other people and really enjoy myself. At the same time, I can’t stop worrying about a highly contagious virus floating around, a virus that almost killed me two years ago. And, as much as I love this community, there’s a part of me that feels like I have to perform, to meet their expectations.

First world problems, I guess.

I’m here. I’m glad to be here. I’m here to work the job I wish I had, so let the vacation begin.

As someone on Twitter put it:

Obviously, this is going to be one of my political opinion posts, so if you’re not into that, skip along.

Trump said some truly outrageous things tonight. He talked about illegal immigrants eating dogs, cats, and pets. He claimed that Harris wants to perform transgender operations on illegal immigrants. Trump had a lot of unsubstantiated things to say about immigrants. Harris rightly called Trump weak to his face, but in such a way that she still maintained Presidential poise.

Trump’s Gish gallop didn’t work that well tonight. The moderators fact checked him occasionally, though not all the time. As usual, Harris had to work harder and was under higher scrutiny and pressure, but she did it with dignity. She came across as the candidate of hope and the future, while Trump… couldn’t complete a sentence as the crazy voices in his head compelled him to say outlandish, foolish things.

I’m relieved to see Harris do well in this debate. It’s still going to be a close fight, but it’s not because Harris is the weaker candidate. It’s close because too many people in this country are unwilling to put country over party. It’s this close because too many people aren’t listening to the words coming out of their chosen candidates intolerant mouth.

Listening to Trump speak for so long gave me an outrageous headache. When the debate ended, I sat back, sweating and nauseous from the head pain, and I mused over how we as a country arrived at this point. There is a clear candidate that is actually decent and good. There is another that is a clear and present danger. And yet, the race is close.

Brace yourselves, because I’m going to say something controversial: I think our country is teetering on the precipice because Bill Clinton couldn’t keep it in his pants.

I will explain.

As President, Bill Clinton did some amazing things for the US economy. For the first time in ages, we had an economic surplus. We were enjoying peace, to the point where our military shrank to its lowest size since the 40s. His legacy should have been impeccable, and it should have been easy for Gore to succeed him, based on record alone.

But, Clinton abused his power and position, took advantage of a White House intern, marring her reputation and destroying her privacy and her name. Clinton’s horniness created a public spectacle. This empowered people like Grinch and Star, and it distracted us from his actual policy wins. It led to the 2000 election, in which the Supreme Court handed the election to George W. Bush, a man that has publicly stated that he believes humans and fish can coexist together.

George W. Bush looked at this incredible economy and budget he inherited and thought, “You know what? Instead of using this money to keep advancing America’s interests, and maybe investing in health care, how about I give it all away and screw around with tax breaks, setting us up for future financial ruin?” So that’s what he did. And very briefly, his policies received scrutiny for being stupid, short-sighted, and not in America’s best interests.

Then September 11th, 2001 rolled around and we lost our damn minds. Republicans shifted harder into patriotism as religion. Low-brow red voters put a giant flag in the back of their truck and drove through the streets, because the way we were going to get to the other side of this national tragedy that killed just over 2000 people was by putting up flags. This is also when we had folks like Toby Keith sing about America putting boots in asses, conflating racism with patriotism in ways that I’m not sure we ever really cleared up.

Patriot Act, War on Terror, a newly created Homeland Security agency, and racism pretty much stayed in fashion throughout Bush’s presidency. Kerry was a relatively weak candidate that Bush narrowly beat. But during Kerry’s run, at the DMC, we caught our first glimpse of Obama. He spoke, people listened, and Democrats started wondering how he would do as a candidate.

Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton, after weathering the embarrassment of her husband’s behavior in the White House, after becoming a senator and continuing her service to her country, looks at returning to the White House as President instead of as First Lady. She runs a good campaign, but sexism gets in the way. Also… she’s a huge nerd, and comes across as a huge nerd when she speaks. This detracts from her presence. Whenever Obama speaks, people claim their acne is cleared up, their posture is better, and they keep finding loose change in the couch cushions.

The fight to become the Democratic candidate could go the distance. It could be Clinton, or it could be Obama. If one does not relinquish, though, McCain the war hero could take the presidency.

So, Obama goes to Clinton and makes a deal. Drop out of the race, and Clinton can become Secretary of State and get setup for 2016. Biden is in on this deal, and doesn’t run in 2016. Clinton agrees, McCain’s VP candidate turns out to be a crazy woman with “good foreign policy experience” because she can see Russian from her house, and Obama wins.

Fox News becomes the mouth piece of a conservative movement. We had Rush Limbaugh for forever, but Fox News stepped up their game and fomented the Tea Party, which gives us fart smellers like Ted Cruz. People willing to shut down the government from a minority position in order to force issues. Obama takes Romney’s state medical plan, tweaks it a little bit, puts it forth as the Affordable Care Act, and even with a Democratic majority in the House and Senate, it barely passes. It does some good things, but it is not a great plan. It remains as the law of the land, to this day.

Obama inherited a tanked economy, and he turned it around. After 8 years, it’s booming. And it’s now Hillary Clinton’s turn.

But, there are other contenders. Bernie is buoyed by his Bros, which forces Clinton into positions she is not entirely comfortable. Obama endorses Clinton, but there’s only so much he can do. Bernie keeps his campaign going long past its viability, which does irreparable damage to Clinton’s campaign.

Trump, after tricking the Genie into giving him another wish, is the Republican candidate, running as a hateful, ruthless, businessman. He’s a bigot and a monster, but he’s not a politician like anyone has seen before. He gets billions in free advertising from the news media, because he’s good for ratings. At that point in time, I don’t think people really thought he’d do as well as he did.

Clinton, still a big damn nerd, tells people to Pokémon Go to the polls. She is absolutely correct in her assessments of Trump and his basket of deplorables, but she had a weird affectation that put people off. Clinton wins the popular vote, but loses in the electoral college.

And so, we get Trump, the worst president this country has ever endured. He loses to Biden, incites an insurrection, and continues to pollute the air with his terrible voice and his terrible lies. Biden and Trump were our oldest candidates in 2020, and then they were our oldest candidates in 2024. We nominated Biden in 2020 because he was the “safe” choice. And we kept ridin’ with Biden because of the power of the incumbency and his very effective results, but because of a remarkably terrible debate performance, combined with the courage to put country over party, Biden dropped out, delivering us into this Harris versus Trump world.

All this history lesson was to say that if Bill Clinton had kept his Little Willy under control, George W. Bush might not have become president. Even if Bush did win over Gore, Gingrich wouldn’t have been empowered, and Gingrich’s political stylings wouldn’t be in play today, which is where much of Trump’s playbook comes from.

If Gore had been president instead of Bush, we probably wouldn’t have invaded Afghanistan or Iraq. Hell, the tragedy of September 11th might not have happened at all. We might have focused more on climate change. We might have even expanded Medicare so that we have a single-payer option and better healthcare for everyone.

Without Kerry running in 2004, we wouldn’t have had the introduction to Obama. If Obama did not run when he did, then Trump wouldn’t have been carried up in the news media with all of his birtherism bullshit.

Anyway, the game of what-if is fun, but it focuses on the past while the present is where it’s at. In this moment, this timeline, we have a clear speaking candidate in Kamala Harris, and we have an incoherent buffoon in Donald Trump, a monster that in tonight’s debate, said he’d be fine with going door-to-door with the National Guard and local police to deport 3% of our population. Maybe let’s not do that.

Recently, I went to my friend’s house to play some board games. I love board games, almost as much as I love tabletop roleplaying games. However, heading out and trying to be social might not have been a great idea. I was still dealing with the wave of emotions from Chris’s accident, and when I’m feeling that raw, I’m not always the best person to be around.

I did my best. I told everyone what was up, and we did a little bit of a vibe check on the games. I said I was hoping for something cooperative, or at least, not exceedingly cutthroat. They all got it, though I could tell there was this one Dune game they all really wanted to play which was counter to my stated needs.

For those that don’t know me that well, I can be exceedingly competitive. I think it’s a trait I picked up from my mother. We’d play scrabble and she would absolutely trounce me. I was in my early to mid teens and she had forty years of experience on me. She could have chosen to keep it a friendly game but instead she cackled over her immaculately recorded score.

Sometimes when I play games, I become my Mom. It’s not an entirely bad thing, but there’s a time and a place.

I knew on game day that the competitive asshole inside me was just beneath the surface, and I really didn’t want to let him out. That’s why I requested we go light on the competition and avoid some of the cutthroat. My competitive edge can be razor sharp, and I didn’t want it to cut any bonds of friendship.

Unfortunately, there was one guy at the table that was absolutely the competitive asshole I was trying not to be. By the end of the evening, I “won” but maybe at the expense of getting invited back, and I feel bad about that.

I’m not going to name names. I’ll refer to the other asshole at the table as My Rival. The first hint that things were going to go hard in the paint was during the first game, Scythe, when every time My Rival’s turn came up, he’d salivate and take on this tone of, “Now watch THIS” and then do some weird mechanic in the game to give himself advantage. He won the first game, and while we mostly had fun, it felt kind of icky to me, like I just watched this guy jack off on the table while he made us watch.

The next game was Codewords, and I was thankful because I see it as a very light and fun game. Our host had to step out for a little bit, so the four of us that remained paired off in teams of 2. There was a mechanic in the game I forgot, so I blundered a little during the first round, but I didn’t see it as a big deal. At one point when I was on the guessing side, the other team missed a clue, and in the course of talking about it, I gave him the answer. My Rival said that’s what “cost me the game,” which hit me as weird because until he said something, I hadn’t felt like I’d “lost.” We were just playing.

“What do you get for winning that game?” I asked.

“What do you mean?” My Rival replied.

“I mean, is there some prize for winning a game of Codewords?”

“Well, no, but–“

“You say I lost, but I felt smart for catching the clue, and it felt good to talk about it. I don’t feel like I lost at all.”

He didn’t like my response. I was getting the impression from him that the only reason he saw to play a game was to win.

The final game was Dune. It wasn’t Dune: Imperium. I don’t know the exact name of this Dune game, but it had a big map that unrolled onto the table, and it reminded me strongly of Cosmic Encounter. Each player takes on a faction which breaks the game in a unique way. This was the competitive game that they all wanted to play from the beginning. I went along with it because I didn’t want to get in the way of the group having fun.

After about a half hour of setup and rules explanation, we started the first round. Because I had never played the game before, I did not play optimally. As the Space Truckers, I should have been able to go last, or whenever I wanted. My Rival took advantage of this. My Rival sat back while everyone kind of floundered. Then he declared, “I win” and explained how he won by taking advantage of our ignorance.

After most of a day of build up and anticipation of playing this game, then thirty minutes of setup, it was truly unsatisfying. No one had fun at the table, except My Rival, because the only thing he was interested in was winning.

We agreed to run it back so that we could actually play the game, and I replayed my turn more in accordance with how it should have been played, which kept My Rival from winning on turn one. We continued playing, but My Rival kept repeating how he won the first game, and this was sort of a victory lap for him.

After the second or third time he said something like that, I broke bad. I didn’t shave my head or start a meth lab. Instead, I unchained the competitive asshole within me. It was time to live up to my terrifying potential.

I looked at the game, the board, and My Rival. There was no path to victory for me through regular game play. My Rival, who knew the game, had picked an imbalanced faction from the beginning and it really wasn’t possible for anyone to win but him. Unless I played a little bit differently. If, instead of going for a victory of my own, I played every turn to minimize his gains, I wouldn’t technically win the game, but he would never be able to get ahead of the other people at the table.

I said, “I know my win condition.”

“What do you mean?” My Rival said.

“I know what my win condition is now.”

“The rules are the rules. You either win or you don’t.”

“I’ll follow the rules, but we always get to choose our own win condition.”

He did not like me saying that.

The game continued, and I kept playing to prevent him from advancing. When an event happened that allowed alliances to be formed or broken, I revealed my strategy. My Rival did not like it, and thought I was an idiot for playing in such a way.

“You can’t win playing that way, and I already won the first game–“

“Did you win the first game, or did we have a mulligan? It can’t be both.”

He really did not like me saying that.

A few turns went by, and My Rival finally saw the merit in my gameplay. As the Space Truckers, I had passive income, and it was cheaper for me to deploy troops. I would always have money to deploy and create fights. Since I kept deploying in such a way as to keep him from getting income, he could never gain any advantage. He would win every single battle with his broken faction, but he could never win the war as long as I kept impeding him.

He rage quit. He got up and left.

“Okay, see ya!” I said. “I’m never playing with you again!”

“You’re an asshole!” he said, in the same tone. He might have added some other expletives.

I talked to the host and the remainder of the group. I apologized. They said it was okay, and laughed a little bit.

“If you never invite me back, I completely understand.”

“No way, man. You’re crew.”

Still.

As always, there are some lessons that can be taken from this. We can talk about “Know thyself,” which I did, but chose to go the dark path anyway. We can talk about doing things too soon after a trauma. We can talk about the pros and cons of a competitive nature.

I mostly want to focus on this: You can always choose your own win conditions.

It’s taken me a while to learn this, and even though I applied the idea in a semi-destructive way in this story, there are positive applications in other areas of our life. Let’s talk about how it can help a writer.

The typical “win” condition for a writer is to get published, quit their day job, and live off their labor of love. That’s the dream. Unfortunately, there are a lot of moving pieces that the writer has no control over, so they really have no way of guaranteeing such a “win.” Statistically speaking, almost no one wins that game.

Here are things a writer can do that can constitute a win:

• Write 2000 words a day in the month of November (I’ll talk about NaNoWriMo in another post)
• Attend 4 conventions or retreats in a year
• Submit 1 query or submission every 6 weeks
• Read 1 book a month outside your typical genre

Pick any or all of these things, do them, and consider it a win. Or pick something else that’s in your control that positively leads towards the dream.

When you choose something to focus and make that your win condition, there is nothing outside your control to keep you from winning. This works everywhere.

• Maintain your diet for 4 days in a row
• Get all of your work tasks logged by the end of the day
• Spend 15 minutes a day researching that project you’ve always wanted to do

Anything can be a win condition if you need it to be.

Finally, if you set yourself up some goals as win conditions and you fall short, it’s okay. Don’t beat yourself up, because you can go again. And the next time, you can win.