New name. Let’s meet again, for the first time. If you could introduce yourself to strangers by another name for just one day, what would it be and why?
As always, I am Germ, Destroyer of Worlds, The One Whose Coming Was Foretold in Prophecy.
My name just isn’t epic enough. I need an epic name of epicness. Thus, the above.
Failing the above, I’ll go by Max Powers.
Travel. How did you travel in 2010? How and/or where would you like to travel next year?
Mostly on foot, but sometimes by car, and rarely by plane. For a short period of time at Disneyland, by boat! In 2011, I hope to travel by FLYING CAR. IT’S 2011 FOR GOD’S SAKE, WHERE THE FUCK IS MY FLYING CAR?
More seriously, I traveled quite a bit in 2010. I spent most of a week in Florida with Sarah’s family reminding myself that amusement parks are the opiates of the masses but also seeing a space shuttle launch and some beautiful wildlife habitat. I spent about a week exploring the splendor of Yellowstone National Park, tent camping for the first time since I was in Africa. I drove cross-country to Columbus, Ohio to attend World Fantasy Convention. And now, I’m back in Kansas for another great holiday with family. A good chunk of my travel has been to be with family, which seems right and good.
In 2011, Sarah and I are tentatively considering a long month stay somewhere overseas in the summer between her graduating from school and getting a job. I would continue to work remotely, of course, but would take a little time off to see whatever the sights are wherever we end up. I’m leaning heavily towards Paris, but London could be pretty amazing as well. Or perhaps Prague. It’s too soon to say.
It’s also a safe bet that I will travel to some national or state park for a photo expedition. I’m thinking Zion and Bryce might be at the top of the list right now, before they build a giant effing cold mine right next door. That will probably be just when it warms up enough there to do tent camping so I can keep the cost of going low.
Travel remains one of my favorite things to do, and thanks to living a remote working lifestyle, I can do so much more of it than I ever did salaried. Another thing I am very thankful for as the year wraps up.
We left our hotel room at about 4:30 AM and am only just now sitting down on the couch at the parents house. Our day was spent running errands in Kansas City with my Mom, helping both parents pick out new glasses, and trying not to get killed in Kansas City traffic. Today is going to be a blogfail sort of day, due to extreme travel exhaustion. We shall return to regularly scheduled blog programming tomorrow.
December 18 – Try. What do you want to try next year? Is there something you wanted to try in 2010? What happened when you did / didn’t go for it? (Author: Kaileen Elise)
I want to try to write my first novel. We’ve been over that already. I want to build my first WordPress plugin and my first commercial theme for sale on theme markets. In 2010, I mostly just wanted to give my first full year of freelancing a try, and it succeeded beyond my expectations. Gobsmacked, was I, at how well business has been. Let’s hope it keeps up in 2011.
December 19 – Healing. What healed you this year? Was it sudden, or a drip-by-drip evolution? How would you like to be healed in 2011? (Author: Leonie Allan)
This year, unlike previous years, saw the healing of my body with my newly developed mutant healing factor gene. It’s been a real boon. Just the other day I cut off my finger while sawing through some really tough french bread, but it grew back in a matter of hours. It came on very suddenly.
In 2011, I would like to be healed by magic potions.
December 20 – Beyond Avoidance What should you have done this year but didn’t because you were too scared, worried, unsure, busy or otherwise deterred from doing? (Bonus: Will you do it?) (Author: Jake Nickell)
I really should have used my newfound healing powers to do some good in the world. Fight crime, maybe. Also, I really should have written more, but I’m pretty happy with the pace of writing as I get back into the swing of things. 2011 is going to be a good year for all six of you who are fans of my stories. Well, might be 2012 when it all comes out.
I should have learned more HTML 5. I will definitely be doing that in 2011.
There, all caught up. Now back to preparing for my trip to Kansas to see the family for a few days.
Friendship. How has a friend changed you or your perspective on the world this year? Was this change gradual, or a sudden burst? (Author: Martha Mihalick)
I suppose the friend who has had the biggest impact on me in the last year would have to be Paul Hummer. Paul’s a great guy—kind, talented, hilarious. We have a blast playing games, meeting for lunch or breakfast, and generally just hashing out tech stuff.
But I suppose the impact that Paul has had on my perspective is that he’s altered my attitudes about religion a bit. Prior to Paul, I had grown very intolerant of Christian religious beliefs. I’m not going to make a case for why or anything—but suffice to say, Mormons in particular were a people who I avoided. Any proselytizing religion is one that I had a strong distaste for, and in my experience, Mormons were kings of that.
So I kind of wrote off the whole group, in that typical asshole human way that we do, but Paul made me realize that not all Mormons are bad. Really, when religious discussion is avoided, I find them all to be quite fantastic people.
It seems like a small thing to describe, for someone to give you a bit more tolerance about something you were intolerant towards by being a great living counterexample to your misconceptions. But it’s been a pretty big impact on my attitudes.
I’m still pretty down on the whole religion thing, but I definitely come at discussions about it with more respect towards people with beliefs that I don’t personally hold.
Lesson learned. What was the best thing you learned about yourself this past year? And how will you apply that lesson going forward?
I learned that I am actually capable of running a business on my own and the world won’t end and I won’t end up living in a cardboard box from trying. My application moving forward is to keep doing that, and to keep out of that cardboard box. I have more motivation to succeed than I sometimes give myself credit for.
P.S.: Thanks all for the birthday wishes. It was the best birthday I’ve had in a long while. Sarah knitted me a Yeti to sit behind me!! It is so awesome, I cannot tell you. Pictures next week.
I will get back to blogging the Reverb10 prompts tomorrow. Today, I am 33 years old and I am going to do old man stuff, like eat lots of fiber and yell at kids to keep off my lawn.
Come back tomorrow!
Appreciate. What’s the one thing you have come to appreciate most in the past year? How do you express gratitude for it?
I don’t know how quite to express the gratitude—I’m still sorting that out—but I am most grateful for the clients who give me their business. I am not employed by any one person. Dozens of amazing people take a chance with me and their money to provide them with what I hope is a very valuable service. There are so many people they could choose, but they’ve chosen me. It really means everything to me. Without them, I have no idea where I would be.
I’m deeply appreciative in today’s world that I have a salable skill on the current job market. This won’t last forever, and I will need to work hard to stay ahead of the curve, but my life could have gone very differently. I feel so much sympathy for the folks out of work around the country. But for this one little skill set, I would be on perpetual unemployment, wondering what the hell to do with my life.
I don’t know how long this ride can last, but I’m excited to see what twists and turns it takes in 2011. And I’m so grateful for the opportunity to be along.
I should probably point out where I am getting these writing prompts. It’s a neat project over here called Reverb10—I’m not sure who I picked it up from, probably Caligater. Anyway, on with the prompts. Play along at home if you like.
December 3 – Moment.
Pick one moment during which you felt most alive this year. Describe it in vivid detail (texture, smells, voices, noises, colors).
(Author: Ali Edwards)
June, early spring in Yellowstone National Park. It’s 4:30 in the morning, and Mike and I are driving in his truck up to the North loop where we are told we’ll see plenty of wildlife photography opportunities. It’s still dark outside, but as we climb the mountain pass, the landscape seems to glow under the light snow and frost that has accumulated over night. We drive slowly as the eastern sky begins to glow as if the biggest city in the world lies just over the horizon. The truck smells strongly of Mike’s coffee and the wet wool of my heavy overcoat.
We reach the peak of the pass and begin coming down a steep road into a valley dotted with pine trees. The road up ahead is momentarily blocked by a herd of elk. We slow, and I roll down the window, aiming my camera at the animals.
A low booming sound comes from the grass nearby. We squint, wondering what is making the sound. A sage grouse is booming, inflating its bright red throat pouch, right there on the side of the road. Up the slope, we can just make out the shapes of a bison herd, and in the growing dawn light, we can now see the elk herd has dozens of newborn calves, huddled close to their mothers. The light spatters across the valley, it’s warmth making a fog from the frost here and there. The animals breath hang in wreathed clouds around their heads, moist halos. This is sacred to me, I realize. Being here, now—the camera and the pictures don’t really matter. It’s deeply, primitively about getting close.
Anyway, experiences like that, throughout the year, remind me that I am alive. That the world is alive and teeming with amazing things.
December 4 – Wonder.
How did you cultivate a sense of wonder in your life this year?
(Author: Jeffrey Davis)
I read science news. I read speculative fiction. I travel to breathtaking places. I cultivate a sense of wonder by putting myself in front of wonderful things. By getting to know wonderful people.
Truth is, the older I get the harder wonder gets. Biology and nature consistently hit me with a sense of wonder, so it’s the travel that probably helps me keep that sense cultivated more than anything else. Sometimes, being around something truly ancient, like Stonehenge evokes that deep sense of wonder as well.
As much as I love fiction, it’s the real world that astonishes me. All the things right here around me, under the proper circumstances, can fill me with awe.
Like you, dear reader. That you devote any of your precious time to reading my work fills me with wonder and awe. This is an amazing place that we live in. I wish I could stay here forever.
Word has leaked that today’s press conference is about bacteria with DNA that uses arsenic in place of phosphorus in the structure of its DNA. NASA is framing this has having broad implications for the search for extraterrestrial life, but I am wondering about the evolutionary history of such a critter.
Is there an entire parallel evolutionary history, entire groups of species, that have evolved for billions of years to utilize arsenic? Or is this a more relatively modern technique. Because it’s not as Earth-shattering if these guys turn out to be descendants of regular DNA structure critters (I’m at a loss for good terminology here. They’re not arsenic-“based”—they’re still using carbon as far as I know.) The implications on the search for extraterrestrial life is not so great if they still had to evolve under similar circumstances, and this is just a case of regular, store-brand life adapting to toxic environments like Mono Lake. By which I mean, if the conditions were always toxic, it’s possible that these bacteria would have never had a chance to evolve in the first place.
Of course, there’s another option to them having evolved from regular DNA-based life or even in conjunction over millions and billions of years. That is, they’re not earth-based in origin. Alien invaders, living among us! I suspect the early buzz would have an entirely different tone if that were conclusively the case however.
We’ll learn more at the press conference today, I’m sure, and I’m sure they’ve thought through everything I’ve just went over. I look forward to more details. It’s pretty damned exciting stuff, but for me it’s just a confirmation of a general suspicion, which is that if it’s chemically possible and condusive to self-replication, organisms will find a way. The process of evolution is like opening 10,000 doors simultaneously—I suppose it’s inevitable that some of those doors, when not fatally trapped, will lead to some odd places.
I’ve been reading a lot of YA fiction lately. I recently finished Shipbreaker and I’m now on Behemoth. Obviously, one of the main things that identifies a YA novel is the young adult protagonist. But there seems to be something else going on that doesn’t happen in adult fiction.
Are problems more concrete, and less “of the mind?” Is there more of a sense of adventure? What are adult readers getting out of YA fiction that they’re not getting from more adult novels? Sometimes it just feels like they’re the most fun, joyful books around. Is that an illusion, or is it true, and why?
What do you think? I’m really curious about this as a reader and a writer.
My story “Groob’s Stupid Grubs,” a story of a goblin’s hopes for his idiot children, is available in Black Gate 15.
I recently finished the first draft of a YA novel called Takedown Notice set in the net-mage universe of my stories “Captain Blood’s B00ty” and “One Click Banishment.” What happens when the Magical Association of Atlantis finally gets the upper hand against the net mages in the spell program copyfight?