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.