I’m in the Salt Lake City airport, near Gate A, across from Roosters Bar where I just had pulled pork sandwich and a beer. I probably ate too much, but it’s okay. I have a long evening and morning of travel in front of me.

I’m headed to Boston for Arisia. I believe One For the Road debuted at Arisia 2024, and I would have attended Arisia 2025 if they hadn’t canceled our table in the dealer’s room. A couple of months ago, I received an invitation to be a panel participant at Arisia, and at this point in my career, if you want me to attend your conference, an invite is all it takes.

Only one panel this weekend, though, on Monday at 10AM, about the intersectionality of SFF and mainstream and literary fiction. Last day of the con, and in the morning. I expect it to be lightly attended.

That is the positive news. My first SFF convention of 2026. I wanted to get that out of the way first, because now I want to talk about real life and politics, which is definitely not positive, and if you’re not into that, here is where you can bail.

In 2016, when Trump was first elected, I remember sitting at work, holding my head, breathing slowly, and forcing myself to be calm and relax. I even went so far as to say, “Okay, maybe he’ll be a different person once he’s in office. Let’s give him a chance.”

I did my best, and Trump proved himself to be as terrible as I expected. Probably worse, actually. But I didn’t have a problem working or writing through most of those years. It was during that time that I finished Spin City and Synthetic Dreams. Lots of work, lots of writing, and while the news around The White House was bad, it didn’t cripple me.

Then the pandemic hit, and something inside me broke and never recovered. My filter at work disappeared. I went feral. And it became more and more difficult for me to compartmentalize.

My writing slowed to a crawl. I’ve produced some short stories since 2020, but writing is harder. Focusing is harder. Programming is harder.

I find myself thinking of the musicians playing on the deck of the Titanic after it hit the iceberg. I don’t think I could have done it, myself. Knowing that there is an impending doom, and being powerless to do anything about it… I just don’t think I could find the focus to make something beautiful.

It’s not really a matter of freezing in the face of danger. It’s more a matter of problem solving. I keep thinking about the problem of Trump and Vance and RJK Jr and the dog killer and all of the incompetent idiots and ICE and… it’s too much. The problem is too big, and it was all avoidable.

During Trump’s first term, there were people with a shred of dignity in positions where they could stop him. Even Bill Barr resisted some of Trump’s wildest urges. The current batch of monsters just fan the flames and lie.

ICE has killed multiple people, with Renee Good being the most visible, and perhaps the most jarring. I have watched the videos. Contrary to what Trump and his idiot monsters will tell you, she was not a domestic terrorist. She didn’t try to run over the ICE asshole that murdered her. Her last words to her murderer were, “I’m not mad at you.” His words, after shooting her three times in the head, “Fucking bitch.”

This particular murder hurts in ways I can’t ignore, and I don’t really have anyone to talk to about it. Since her murder, I have had a hard time focusing. I couldn’t work at all on Monday, and took a sick day. I did my best on Tuesday, Wednesday, and today, but I couldn’t really move the needle on any of my projects.

After hours, I’ve been playing a bunch of Kerbal Space Program. It’s a game that is simultaneously difficult and gentle, if that makes sense. I’m building space planes and flying rockets and saving wayward astronauts. There are no weapons in my Kerbal world. Just people enthusiastic about science and exploring. A game with low conflict and high complexity is exactly what I needed.

I haven’t been able to write. Not even this blog. Until tonight.

My expectations for this weekend are low. I suspect that I’m going to spend a lot of time in my room, sleeping. I will try to meet people and make friends, but to be honest, I don’t know that I have much to offer anyone, at the moment. There is a profound sadness inside me that I do not want to share. I doubt I will have it fully resolved before I have to fly home on Monday.

Well. I mean. There is one thing that could happen that would probably brighten my outlook. When it happens, there will be dancing in the street, and I will be one of the dancers.

But that’s probably too much to hope for, at this point.

If you’ve made it this far and it isn’t abundantly clear where I stand on the issues, here is a bullet point to close:

• Abolish ICE and prosecute everyone in that organization for their many, heinous crimes.
• Vote out everyone that has supported Trump and his regime.
• Primary the Democrats that have been weak and mealy mouthed around these catastrophes.
• Black lives matter.
• Trans rights are human rights.
• If you call yourself a Christian but you associate yourself with MAGA, take a step back and look at the teachings of Christ, and realize that you’ve lost the message, which is: Christ died for our sins as an act of love, which is incongruent with the MAGA movement, which is entirely built on hate.

I can’t write fiction when real-life is impossible to look away from.

Trump ordered a strike in Venezuela, arrested their leader and their leader’s wife, and declared that we would run Venezuela.

This was all avoidable. But we can’t change the past. We can learn from it and do better in the future. So let’s look at what comes next.

Congress needs to impeach and remove Trump from office.

If Congress fails to act, then we have to do something. Voting isn’t enough. This isn’t just an attack on Venezuela. This is authoritarian overreach, a violation of the Constitution, and a stupid act that endangers all of us.

Some of us swore to uphold the Constitution. If we love our country, it’s what we should be doing now. No one else is going to save us from this. No one else can step in and set things right. It’s up to us.

I’m not trying to incite insurrection yet. I’m saying we need to protest. We need to continue to remind our troops that it is their duty not to follow illegal orders. We need to call our representatives and make our displeasure known.

When they ignore us, then we walk into the White House, which Trump has already half torn down, and show Trump what it means to reach for a crown in this country.

Second Amendment freaks out there… this is what you’ve been salivating for all these years. Your whole argument about hoarding arms in case the government goes bad? Here’s your chance, asshole. A pedophile, rapist just seized another country in order to take their oil, and he’s talking about invading Cuba and Mexico next.

I have enough good sense to know I shouldn’t be writing this, publicly. I also have enough integrity to know that if I don’t write this and post it publicly, I’m a coward and a weakling, like those currently occupying seats in Congress.

There is one clear path that is legal and bloodless that we should be following at this point. And I have zero confidence that we’ll follow that path, because the people in Congress are complicit, weak, or both.

I’m so angry right now. If you’re not, you should be.

Get angry enough to act. Or roll over and be a victim the rest of your life. Those are the choices in front of you.

I’m not going to lie. I’ve cruised through the end of this year in a bit of a slump. I’m ending this year with a little bit of melancholy, and not feeling a ton of hope for the new year.

There are quite a few things I could talk about. A lot of it is political, and I don’t really want to waste my time or yours going into it. There are reasons to be hopeful in that area, too, but things are hard for a lot of people, and I don’t think my views, whether pessimistic or saccharine, will really help.

Has this been a good year?

I didn’t get as much writing done as I wanted to. I made some break throughs on the next Mel Walker novel, and while I think I will finish it and it will be a good story, I’m not blazing through the word count. It’s hard to focus on that kind of escapism when things beyond my power are so far out of control. It’s like focusing on finishing a Sudoku puzzle while the airplane is nosediving towards a mountain.

I attended more events this year than any previous year. I participated on panels at The Nebulas and Worldcon for the first time in my life. I spoke to more writers, interviewed more people for the Small Publishing in a Big Universe podcast, and put myself out there more than any previous time in my life. In that way, it’s been a good year.

On the other hand, my blood pressure has been out of control, I broke a tooth, and I can’t seem to lose weight like I used to. Another year older, fatter, more out-of-shape, and my mental health has been at an all-time low, which is saying something.

And again, there are a ton of things I could talk about with regards to politics, but that’s not where I want to focus my thoughts right now.

Of all the things I could talk about, I’m choosing this. In a Discord server, in a memes channel, someone posted this:

Someone responded to it: “All meaning is subjective.”

I want to respond to that.

January 1st, with regards to our position around The Sun, isn’t special. A few days before, The Winter Solstice was more significant. That might have been a good place to mark the beginning of the rotation. But we’re going with this date, and in that regard, it’s subjective and arbitrary.

The celebration itself, though, is a reflection of life, and I think it’s important.

We’re born, we learn to stand on our own, some of us procreate, grow old, and then die. Our bodies return to the Earth, our presence on this plane resolves to memories and our creations, and hopefully our essence goes on to something in the afterlife.

The life cycle is reflected over and over. We start a project, maybe it’s crafting a new book. It gets off the ground, the project going through its own Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter. The project ends, sometimes in celebration, sometimes in tears, and then we start again.

Endless circles, big and small. Moments beginning and ending. Friendships, beginning and ending, sometimes spanning decades, and sometimes lasting just in those brief moments between panels at a convention.

Plants and pets. Movies and marathons. Jobs and games. Beginning, middle, and end. We fill our lives and enrich ourselves through this cycle of cycles. It is not the meaning of life, but it is a meaning of life.

So, whether January 1st is arbitrary or not, it signifies another circle. The calendar number goes up. Some of us watch a ball drop in New York City. Some of us stay up late, go to parties, find our significant others and give them a smooch right when the clock hits 12. Some of us to go to bed early.

All of us will wake up tomorrow and start the next cycle. A new beginning, with all of the sparkly potential you can pack into a fresh start. Out with the old, in with the new, and it really is an opportunity — maybe only an excuse — to make something better of ourselves.

It can be enough.

I’ll talk about resolutions tomorrow. New Year’s is a good day to look forward. New Year’s Eve, I’m looking back briefly, wiping a tear from my eye, and closing this chapter on this note. This year is done.

May the next be so much greater.

I loved Knives Out, and I really liked Glass Onion. Wake Up Dead Man is the third in this series, and I’ve already watched it twice.

I wish I caught it during its brief time in theaters, but my system at home is fine.

Spoilers will be below, with an appropriate warning. If you haven’t seen it yet and you’re looking for encouragement, here it is! Rian Johnson once again wrote a wonderfully intricate story, then invited incredible actors to do what they do best. It’s well shot, well executed, and economical in its storytelling.

Glenn Close, Daniel Craig, and Josh Brolin give amazing performances, as you might expect. The stand out for me is Josh O’Connor, though. I don’t remember seeing him in anything else before this, but he absolutely knocked this role out of the park. The whole movie comfortably rests on his shoulders.

The rest of the supporting cast are excellent, too. I really like Jeremy Renner and Andrew Scott, so I was excited to see them in this movie.

I think that’s all I can say without spoilers. How do I rank it against the other Knives Out movies? That’s a tough question, since I like them all. I think I like this one better than Glass Onion. The first might still be my favorite, but it’s close.

Watch this movie. If you’ve already seen it, watch it again.

Spoiler Section

I mentioned “economical storytelling” in the first section. Let’s start this with a specific example.

Our introduction to the groundskeeper, Sampson, gives us about two sentences. One, he’s a recovering alcoholic that looks to Wicks for the strength to keep him out of the bottle. Two, he would do anything for Martha.

All of the introductions are like this. There is no fat on these scenes, but they feel light and natural. That kind of writing and storytelling is both powerful and succinct, and pulling it off at this level is the work of a master.

Like I said, I’ve watched this twice already, and the second watch is even better than the first. I found myself leaning forward, watching for things I missed the first time. This is one of those movies where knowing how everything unfolds doesn’t detract from the enjoyment of watching it, because the movie plays fair.

Now I want to focus on the character of Father Jud. Your enjoyment of this movie may be dependent on how handle the depiction of a man of faith. For me, this is one of my favorite types of characters. An imperfect man, sustained by his faith, trying to do good when the world is trying to convince him to do something else. I didn’t find it preachy, though I can see how some might.

The climax of this movie hangs on forgiveness, which as I’ve said in another post, I believe the world needs.

The whole movie tilts and balances on the goodness of our protagonist in Father Jud. It’s not unlike the first movie, really. Marta is a good person that thinks she’s done something terrible, but it’s her goodness and her dedication to doing the right thing that keeps her from actually screwing up. So it is with Father Jud.

After Thoughts

We’re living through dark times. This last weekend, we had more mass shootings, and Rob Reiner and his wife were murdered in their home, presumably by their son. Dark, and terrible times.

Movies like this and Knives Out are balms. We need to see good people going through hard times and coming out on top so that maybe we can see ourselves in these movies and find hope that we, too, will get through to the other side and be okay.

Also, this is the holiday season. This time of year can be pretty tough. If you’re going through it the way I am, I encourage you to get into a good story. Watch the Knives Out movies, including this last one. Watch KPop Demon Hunters again. You could even read one of my stories, if you’re feeling generous.

I probably have one or two more posts left in me for 2025, but if not, I hope you all have a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Months ago, some good friends told me to watch this movie, but I dragged my feet. I wasn’t sure it was my thing.

I shouldn’t have waited so long.

A few minutes ago, Melissa and I got back from a walk where I talked her ear off about this movie. She watched it months ago, in the theater with a bunch of screaming kids running around singing all the songs, and she didn’t enjoy the movie. I watched it last night on my couch, all by myself, drinking it in and nourishing my soul.

It’s been out long enough that I’m going to get right into spoilers, so this is the brief warning. Also, this is where I’ll strongly suggest you go watch it if you haven’t seen it yet. It’s as good as they say. From this writer’s perspective, maybe better.

I’m going to break this into four sections: Music, Character, Plot and Themes, and my Conclusions.

The Music is Very Good

There are some technical things which Andrew Huang breaks down in this video

It’s catchy. It’s thematically appropriate.

I don’t routinely listen to KPop, but when it comes on, I don’t rush to switch it off.

There’s not much else I can say about the music, honestly. Each song hits, and just when I think I have a favorite, another one comes along and takes its place.

Golden is probably my favorite, but What It Sounds Like is my favorite in the context of the movie, and it has themes from Golden woven into it, so it’s not like I have to choose.

If they hadn’t nailed the music, I don’t think this movie would have landed as hard as it did. All of the other things I have to say about the movie are supported by the music, which is stellar.

The Characters Were Deeper than I Expected

Stories can get by painting background and side characters with a light brush. Sometimes, main characters leave no room for anyone else to have depth. This movie didn’t really do that.

Let’s start with Bobby. He’s a complete side character, in over his head trying to manage things for this group of secret demon hunters, and the amount to which he is out of his depth is played for laughs. But, he has insecurities and feels like he’s struggling to hold the group together. We don’t see it most of the time because he keeps a smile on his face and praises the group for their energy, but his fears and self-doubt are revealed towards the end.

How about Celine? She has barely any time on screen, but we know that she was part of the previous group of demon hunters, and she’s still torn up over losing Rumi’s mother. She adopts Rumi, loves her, but can’t bring herself to fully see past Rumi’s demon-side. Celine passes her trauma and problems on to Rumi, which is what ultimately creates one of the main problems the characters have to overcome: self-acceptance.

Zoey is the bright, soft-hearted lyricist and rapper in the group that used her wits and her voice to fight her fights while growing up in the US. She yearns for acceptance that she ultimately has a difficult time receiving. She has all that, and at the same time, is the most capable of living in the moment and just jamming to a good song.

Mira rejected the expectations of her family, making herself an outcast until she grouped up with her found family in HUNTR/X. She’s walled off, hard-edged, and draws strength from her trauma rather than let it control her. Though, in that respect, her trauma shaped her anyway, didn’t it? When her trust is broken, she’s first to reach for a weapon.

Then there is Rumi. Holy shit.

She was born part demon. There’s a story there that we don’t get any part of. She’s adopted, and she battles the belief that her very existence is a mistake.

If you don’t know, I am adopted, and I’ve spent a great deal of my life feeling like my own existence is a mistake.

I related to Rumi. I saw myself in her. We all have demons within us, but some of us have trouble accepting it.

Plot and Themes

I’ve touched on some of the themes already while talking about the characters. There is a love story at the forefront, which is perfectly serviceable. But there is also found family, overcoming evil through self-acceptance, and the transformative power of love.

HUNTR/X is close to achieving the goals they inherited, turning the barrier between the human world and the demon world golden, which would lock them out forever. It’s at this point that Rumi is unable to sing.

She couldn’t bring herself to telling her friends about her demon side. It’s not until she opens up to Ji-noo that she finds her voice again. Hiding your pain and your trauma only gives them more weight, but opening up and letting other people in gives us our voice again and sets us Free.

This is a world where demons are… us. When we become enslaved to our shame, that shame marks us, twists us into something else, and we allow the intrusive thoughts to win. Even if we resist going that far, our souls can still be consumed, taking our light away and leaving us in darkness. That sure sounds like depression, to me.

We see all of that through Ji-noo and his backstory. But more than that, we see that, as far gone as we might think we are, all is not lost. It just takes a little bit of hope, a moment of trust, and love. That’s when we can become our true selves once again. Even if only for a moment.

Okay, Brian, But How Do You Really Feel?

The stories I love telling involve the same themes I saw in this movie.

It hit just right. It wasn’t too heavy-handed. It gave us characters we can relate to and cheer for, painted in bright colors and beautiful music, and it masterfully delivered a good story with powerful themes.

It moved me.

I don’t cry very often. There are lots of times I want to cry, but I’m not entirely well, and I should probably talk to someone about that. Art, especially music, closes that gap and gives me access to my tears. Sometimes.

I’ve talked before about how Les Mis cracks me like a coconut, mostly because of two lyrics. They’re both towards the end, and the first is Fantine singing to Valjean: “Come with me where chains will never bind you.” Such a description of heaven breaks my heart, every time.

If that didn’t release my tears, then this lyric will: “To love another person is to see the face of God.”

There wasn’t anything in KPop Demon Hunters that hit me quite the same, and yet, I found myself tearing up throughout the movie. Maybe it’s because of how much I related to Rumi. Maybe I’ve just been going through it lately, and the music gave me permission to feel something. I don’t know.

I wish I’d watched this movie months ago. It’s very, very good. I’ll watch it again soon.

Loscon 51 ended about 6 days ago, so I’ve had most of a week to get back to my normal routine and process.

It was a good time! I’m glad I went, and I want to go again next year.

I feel like my energy was a bit off the whole weekend, though. I probably came across as awkward and distant, and there were a few reasons for that, some of which I’ll talk about in a moment. I had a good time, but if you hung out with me this weekend, I’m sure I was a bit off.

The convention was great, but the hotel sucked. I’ll talk about that in a moment, too.

Getting to LA was a breeze this year. Bryanna traveled with us, and we took the train, which meant train from Sacramento to Bakersfield, bus from Bakersfield down to Union Station in LA, and then Uber to the Hilton near LAX. The train was great! Melissa and I didn’t have a crazy person sitting with us, trying to start a fight with me. My family sat together, and we talked, read, or played on our phones. It was sublime.

I finished Building Baby Brother by Steven Radecki while on the train. I’ll post a review for that book soon®.

The train and the bus were fine, but that Uber trip was insane. I told people that we made it from Union Station to the LAX Hilton in 20 minutes, and people kept saying, “But that’s a 30 minute trip.” It may be a 30 minute trip for mere mortals, but our Uber driver does not drive by the same rules you or I may honor. They made their own lane when they had to. They blatantly, flagrantly, ran a red light. They got us to the hotel safe, which is all that should matter I suppose, but if I didn’t have gray hair before, the time in that man’s car would have done it.

Now let’s talk about the hotel. The Uber driver tried to scare me (and succeeded multiple times) but the hotel tried to kill me.

It begins with some basic inconveniences. Bryanna is nearly 30 years old, so I knew she should have her own room. That meant when I set up the reservation, I reserved 2 rooms. The convention ended on the 30th, though, and we were flying out on the 1st, so the hotel wouldn’t let me reserve for the entire time we were staying there. I had to set up 4 reservations, 2 for each room, and they took an eye-watering $300 deposit on each reservation.

Fortunately, they didn’t make us change rooms between the 30th and the 1st. They win a very small point there.

The first night, Melissa and I tried to sleep while the mini-fridge growled and churned all night. I described it to someone at the con and they said we didn’t have an appliance, we had a mimic. I would have unplugged it and been done with it, but Melissa is taking her newly diagnosed diabetes seriously, so we had things in the fridge that needed to stay cool.

Bleary eyed and choking down Tylenol to deal with my burgeoning headache, I went to the front desk and told them about the monster in our room. They sent someone to replace the fridge, and sure enough, it was silent as a grave. It also didn’t work, and all of the things Melissa needed to remain refrigerated were ruined by the next morning. Yuck.

Replacing the growling refrigerator for a dead one didn’t help our sleep situation, by the way. We removed the excessive sounds from within our room, but that didn’t stop the incessant banging coming from the walls. I think there was something going on with the water pipes, and anytime someone flushed a toilet or turned on their sink, we’d hear knocking.

Why do I think it was the plumbing? Because by the last night, water (we hope it was water) gushed up in the sink. It pushed out the stopper and flooded the counter. Black, ashen flecks soiled the bowl of the sink. The extra towels were soaked. A roll of toilet paper bloated on the shelf with waste water. The sink flood filled Melissa’s bathroom tote and ruined some of her stuff. Not ideal.

We flew back relatively early on Monday and I took the day to recover. It mostly worked, but I felt sluggish all week. I’m still behind on a lot of things, and I wonder if I’ll catch up before the year is out.

Those were a lot of words spent complaining about the accommodations, but I haven’t really talked much about the convention itself.

The first day, I helped set up the Water Dragon and Small Publishing in a Big Universe tables. I spent the whole time in the dealer’s room that day, and I helped drum up sales, making our first day this year much more profitable than our first day last year. If we kept up that kind of pace, it would have been a very good event for the publisher.

The next two days, I was booked for panels and interviews. It started with an autograph session, which was just some time for me to sit aside and relax. I think I sold and signed one book during that session. I met a couple of cool folks. It wasn’t a bad time at all.

After that, I participated on a couple of panels, and I interviewed people for the SPBU podcast’s “Live From Loscon 51” episode. Lots of fun, but it kept me away from the table the entire day. By the end of the weekend, the table did just a little bit more than break even. There just weren’t as many customers this year as there were last year.

One of the panels I attended on Saturday was not tightly moderated, so the panel went off the rails a bit. The panelists had a good time, and the people attending did as well, but we definitely veered off topic within the first 30 minutes and never returned.

The next day went much the same. I had interviews to start the day, then panels. I moderated the first, which was pretty heady. I’m not sure if this was the name or the description: “How Science Fiction themes of AI, near-future dystopias, and the intersection of technology and humanity affect plot lines.” Woof. But I came in prepared, and I think everyone had a good time with it. We wound up ending about 15 minutes early, and I didn’t drag it out unnecessarily.

The next panel I participated on was as fascinating as a train wreck. It was on post-scarcity, and we stayed on topic most of the time, but it was another one where the moderator let things get away from him, and by the end, the audience was talking more than the panelists. Brandon Case was on that panel with me, and we both kind of laughed our way through it.

I got to meet up with and hang out with some really cool people during the convention. Again, I felt a bit off. I was tired, often fighting a headache, and I had a hard time opening up.

Bryanna had a great time. It was a full vacation for her, and her first real con-going experience. I tried to spoil her as much as I could. I think she’ll be interested in attending more conventions in the future.

Melissa had a good time, but like me, came out of the experience tired. She’s got her blood sugar well under control, and she did great all weekend. I did my best to keep her from spending all her time at the table, because she shouldn’t stand for that long, and we really need to get her healthy.

There is one other thing that bothered me the whole weekend, which I don’t really want to talk about specifically. It’s dumb, and personal, and it didn’t need to be a thing.

I’ll put it this way. I, a frog, befriended a scorpion a long time ago. It was only a matter of time before he would sting me, and I should have remained vigilant in order to keep from getting hurt. But after enough time, I somehow became convinced that he was a different person than he is. When the sting finally came, I wasn’t ready for it.

It hurt in a way that it has affected my sleep. The noise in the hotel room wasn’t the only thing keeping me awake.

I’m not going to make it a big, public beef, even though he has earned it. I’ll just say the same thing I said in the last message I sent to him: I loved him unconditionally and was loyal to a fault. If he keeps throwing away people that truly love him, he will end up alone, and it will be well deserved.

With that said, we’re already a fifth of the way through December, and I have a lot of writing to do if I’m going to get The Psychic Out of Time finished for next year.

Wish me luck!

It’s Sunday, just before Thanksgiving and the start of the 51st Loscon!

Loscon is a science fiction and fantasy convention taking place in Los Angels, starting on Black Friday and going through to Sunday. This year, the theme is “Tell Me a Story” and the guests of honor are:

• Writer — Ursula Vernon/T. Kingfisher
• Arts — Benton Jew
• Music — Lynn Gold
• Fan — Tadao Tomomatsu

This will be the second year I’ve attended. Melissa and I had a really great time last year. This year, our daughter Bryanna will be joining us.

Here is my schedule:

Name	Date	Time	Location
Autograph Session	29 November	11:30AM – 12:45PM	Dealer’s Room
Sci-Fi Crime Stories	29 November	1:00PM – 2:15PM	Newport C
Time Travel	29 November	4:00PM – 5:15PM	Newport C
AI & Science Fiction (M)	30 November	11:30AM – 12:45PM	Newport A
The Post-Scarcity Society	30 November	1:00PM – 2:15PM	Carmel
Spirituality in SFF	30 November	2:30PM – 3:45PM	Catalina B

Like last year, we’ll be taking the train down, traveling during Thanksgiving. The train doesn’t go all the way to LA, so it’s bus from Bakersfield, then Uber to the hotel.

When I’m not on panels, I’ll be in the Dealer’s Room, attending the Water Dragon and Small Publishing in a Big Universe tables.

We fly back on December 1st, and hopefully I’ll be able to spend part of that Monday recovering at home.

If you’re in LA, stop by! The event is held at the Hilton Los Angeles Airport.

There’s been a whole lot of political news this month, and I haven’t really talked about any of it. I’ve been reading it, following it, gasping at some things, and shaking my head at others. Tonight, I’m going to mention Marjorie Taylor Greene in order to talk about forgiveness. Later this weekend, I’ll talk Loscon and my schedule next week.

Marjorie Taylor Greene is a cook. I don’t think I’ve ever spoken of her favorably, and I’m not about to start now. She ran unchallenged for her seat and she has been an absolute nuisance the entire time she’s been in office.

Remember when she faced some backlash for promoting antisemitic, QAnon conspiracy theories about Jewish space lasers starting wildfires? Remember when she said the government wants to surveil us constantly and make us eat Bill Gates’s fake meat, grown in a “peach tree” dish?

I don’t know if she ever tried to make amends for the fake meat thing, but she did try to walk back and even apologize for the space laser thing. I don’t think it got a lot of coverage. I think she went to a Holocaust museum and apologized on camera, or something to that effect.

Here’s what I think of her: she’s a misinformed idiot that is not afraid to open her mouth and spew whatever is rattling around in her head, even when she ought to stop and think before speaking.

Is she a bad person? Yes and no. She fell for QAnon which led to her joining the Trump cult. Like I said before, she’s a misinformed idiot. I think there should be consequences for her many, many terrible actions. But she’s a person, capable of changing, and if she were to break away from the cult and become better informed… maybe she’s not terrible.

She stood with the Epstein victims. That’s something. She resisted pressure to cave to Trump’s wishes that she change her vote in the House on releasing the Epstein files. That’s also something.

Then Trump turned on her. They feuded publicly, and some of the worst people in Trump’s cult started sending death threats to Greene, to the point that today, she announced she’s quitting congress, as of January 5th.

It should be noted that Greene has been in office since 2020, and Democrats have been upset with Greene the entire time, but it only took about a week of MAGA ire to drive her off. I think that says something.

All of that is background to what I really want to talk about, which is forgiveness.

Does Greene deserve forgiveness? Not yet. She seems to have come to a realization that she’s been worshipping a false god, a golden calf. I don’t know that she’s actually sought forgiveness, or tried to make up for any of the damage she’s caused while in office. She’s resigning, so maybe it doesn’t matter.

Forgiveness is itself a foreign concept in this day and age. It takes strength to forgive. It takes courage to take a chance on people that you have actively fought.

I’m not saying I’m any better than anyone else on this subject. I know there are people that might still love me, that I should forgive and find room for in my life, but it’s easier to close my heart and remain distant, rather than make myself vulnerable to more pain.

We need forgiveness, and we need to forgive. Otherwise, we will continue to fracture and bounce off each other, until we’re all isolated and alone.

I’m the son of Evajean Buhl, which means I’ve seen some shit, and I’m well trained to say the worst possible thing to the people that care about me. As I’ve grown older, I’ve tried to silence that part of me, because I want to be kind, rather than cruel.

I want to be forgiving. It’s just really, really hard, sometimes.

About 24 years ago, I went to the theater and watched Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. I don’t remember that much about the movie, other than it had some imagery that disturbed me. One thing I do remember is that the experience of watching that movie taught me something about villainy that I’ll never forget. That is, my favorite villains are the ones that seem like they could be a real person.

Mustache-twirling figures in dark robes, cackling as lightning crashes above in a starless night sky… there’s a time and a place for those characters, but they’ve never been my favorite. I like villains that are more like Macbeth. You can see their motivations, and maybe even imagine doing what they did, if you were in their position.

To a certain point, Killmonger in the Black Panther movie was another good example of a well crafted villain. Until he burned the heart-shaped flowers, one could just about imagine him as the hero. He did some terrible things, but he was fighting for something and his motivations were clear.

Today’s villains in real life are, unfortunately, not so well written. Masked men pulling teachers out of schools and disappearing them in vans. A president standing by, looking bored and annoyed as someone visiting him lays on the floor needing medical attention. A Speaker of the House putting the House of Representatives on paid vacation while the administration denies food funding for the elderly and children. An entire political party using starvation as a bargaining tactic in order to revoke health care subsidies and maybe sneak some anti-abortion legislation in, as a special treat.

I couldn’t put any of these people in my stories and have it be an enjoyable story. It’s cartoonish villainy, and one-note motivation: greed. There’s a bit of racism involved, too, but that’s only for selecting the targets to go through the for-profit incarceration system.

To write a modern day villain, you have to depict them as valuing money more than any human life. I don’t really think the GOP is entirely filled with Nazis, though there are definitely some. To be a Nazi is to believe in a race-based worldview, an ideology that there is one race greater than all the others. When I look at what’s going with the bowing and scraping to oligarchs, I’m seeing a belief system around money, not people.

It’s all about the money. Maybe it has always been that way, but things under Trump are more clear and obvious.

The current Mel Walker story I’m working on takes place in the summer of 2024, well before the election. I have thoughts for a third and final Mel Walker novel, but I really don’t think I want to write it. The Mel Walker stories take place in what is recognizably our world. There is magic and ghosts and people with psychic gifts, but the geography and history and feel of the world is ours.

The Repossessed Ghost takes place in November 2013. The Psychic on the Jury takes place sometime between 2016 and 2019, though it could be any year. It’s a small story very much local to Sacramento. In a sense, I skipped Trump’s first term, and I try to keep the Mel Walker stories apolitical. Reading my blog, I’m quite obviously politically opinionated, and anti-Trump, but Mel Walker isn’t me, and I really do try to make my stories a break from reality.

The same holds for The Psychic Out of Time. It’s not a political screed. I’m not writing Animal Farm, and I have no interest in doing so. I want to entertain and provide escapism.

Truth be told, I want to focus on the good people can do. I want to talk about the transformative power of love. I want to feel and make other people feel hope and triumph after overcoming tragedy. I want to depict heroes overcoming their flaws in order to stand up and do what’s right. I want to paint pictures of justice with my words.

I don’t much like living in Trump’s world, and I don’t have a lot of interest in writing about it. So, I’m not sure there will be another Mel Walker story after The Psychic Out of Time, because it’s supposed to be about The End of the World, and I don’t know how I’m going to be able to capture that when The End of Our World is this cyberpunk dystopia, in which an oligarch can arrange a trillion dollar payout while regular folks struggle to pay rent and put food on the table.

It’s November 3rd, and I promise I’m not going to write a blog post every day in November. That’s not how you finish a novel, though it is a good way to prepare for finishing a novel. Maybe I should write a blog post every day, and then in December, finish my next book around Christmas.

In the mean time, I’m showing up again to do some writing, and this feels like a good way to warm up. It’s also a good excuse for me to talk a little bit about the struggles of my current story, hopefully without giving any spoilers.

Before I talk about The Psychic Out of Time, though… I’ve noticed an uptick in traffic here lately, and according to Jetpack, about half of the new traffic is from China.

Are you or someone you know maintaining a blog, and are you also seeing a lot of traffic from China? I’m guessing it’s a bot or something technical, like maybe someone training an AI. But why blogs? My posts are rife with typos and incorrect words (homonyms are my Kryptonite — I really do need an editor), so if they’re training on me, they’re poisoning their well.

It’s fun to fantasize that I somehow have fans in China, but since none of my work has ever been translated out of English, that seems unlikely.

At this point, it doesn’t seem to matter. It piques my curiosity. Maybe there’s a thread there that will lead to a fun story.

Speaking of stories, allow me to talk broadly about The Psychic Out of Time. No spoilers. Just things that will probably show up in the blurb.

Mel Walker is a psychic that can see the past. With that in mind, The Repossessed Ghost and The Psychic on the Jury are stories involving time displacement, but it’s safe and it kind of makes sense. Mel isn’t going back to the past and making changes. While his feet are firmly planted in the present, he looks at the past and sees things that he wasn’t present for. We can understand this because we do this all the time with cameras.

In The Psychic Out of Time, Mel meets Holly, a psychic that sees the future. Mel looks backward, she looks forward, and when they first meet, they converse across the span of time. In fact, the first time Mel meets Holly is not the first time Holly meets Mel.

I like time travel stories, and I have to write this like one, even though none of the characters actually travel through time. I have to consider causality, free will, and where each character is on their journey through the narrative. It needs to make sense, be easy to follow, and avoid some of the things time travel stories get wrong without being obvious about it.

It’s fun, but it’s hard. I keep hitting these points where I have to stop and really think. The characters can’t travel through time, but through their interactions, information is able to move forwards and backwards, which is just as bad or worse.

I’m trying to write the next Mel Walker story. Not the next Tenet, as much as I loved that movie.

That’s where I’m at, anyway. The work day went okay, but I’m a little bit behind on some stuff, and that sucks. I may need to work late tomorrow. If that’s the case, you probably won’t hear from me until Thursday, as I already have plans for Wednesday evening.

Maybe I’ll sneak some writing/blogging time in earlier in the day. Who knows? Maybe Holly knows, but she hasn’t told me yet.