2014 in review

What New Year's Eve would be complete without a retrospective? In quasi-order of significance on my life:

Resolutions, 2014. Unlike previous years, I'm not even going to bother looking up what my resolutions were back on January 1. This year has been so disrupted, any resolution goals I did achieve would have been by random chance, not intentionality.

About my day job...

Work. I started a new day job in January. It came with more responsibility and more stress, but more of the good stuff, too. However, what struck me most after I started was how several of my new peers said the same thing: what the hell were you thinking, taking a horrible job like this? (Such prognostications of doom were usually said soto voce in hallways and elevators, with significant head shakes and sidelong glances). As the year went on and things were going pretty well in my world, I'd get repeated warnings about how awful the job could be, with repeated variations of "do you regret it yet?".

Curiously, though, my year was fine. Better than fine, it was pretty good. At each major turning point of the year, I half-expected the impending horrors to show themselves, but they never did. My experience in the new job wasn't just "absence of bad"... it was "I rather like this". Thanks to the welcome I got, I spent the last twelve months waiting for the other shoe to drop, but based on everything I've seen, experienced, and heard (and been able to sniff out via a carefully cultivated spy network) is that there is no boogieman under the bed. Probably.

Writing. Ugh, don't even go there. In the spring, I finished the first round of deep edits on my next novel, and have figured out a) why my MC wasn't compelling, and b) what to do about it. However, I've not really done anything more with it since then. I just haven't had the mental energy to tackle it (see "Work", above). It doesn't help that the deeply horrible second draft is the point where it takes a tremendous effort of will and/or self-delusion to believe that the book a'borning is worth salvaging. The temptation to chuck the wretched thing and work on something more productive is way, way too strong.

Exercise. Started running in February. This was a great thing, as exercise is a wonderful way to deal with stress (see "Work", above). Using the Couch To 5K app, I started couch-potato slow. Over the course of months, I worked up to ~5K training runs several mornings a week. When I ran in my first official 5K this summer, it was no more challenging than a normal Tuesday. Go me!

Alas, I pulled a hamstring in July, which sidelined me for a while, but then I was back on the pavement, working my way back up to 5K eye-openers. Go me again!

Alas (again), in late October, I tore a tendon in my left foot while doing some rough trial hiking in the Poconos. That meant constant pain for weeks. As of this writing, it's slowly healing. I walked 2 miles yesterday, and my foot let me know it. However, that sensation of "someone is stubbing out a lit cigarette on the bottom of my foot" wasn't terribly pronounced, so that's a good thing. I'm still casting around for an aerobic activity that doesn't involve stress on my foot. Maybe weights? Yoga?

Resolutions, 2015. I'm not sure yet what my resolutions for 2015 will be. Now that things have settled down a bit, I might just recycle the 2014 ones.

I hope the coming year is an interesting and enjoyable one for you!

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Alan Turing

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A short, snappy post on the philosophy of self-valuation

I just spent some time writing a long, introspective blog post full of rhetorical questions about how our enthusiasms feed into how we define ourselves, and what happens to that self-definition (and self-valuation) when those enthusiasms change, run their course, and, ultimately, fade away.

But really, screw that. Nobody wants to read that kind of year-end philosophical didacticism, especially with a set of Grand Questions arranged in a bullet point list.

So here's a cool version of "White Christmas" instead.



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New Year's Resolutions: what worked?

Each year, I take the turning of the calender as an opportunity to reflect on the year past and consider the year ahead. Since an unexamined life gathers no moss, I ask myself the following questions:

• What worked? What didn't?
• What happened with the goals I set a year ago? If I achieved them, what came of that success? And if I didn't achieve them, why not?
• What new goals should I set for the coming year? Do I need to make a major change of direction? Or do I just need to set waypoints farther down the road I'm on?
• Of all the people I interacted with this year, how many will be glad I was in the room? How many will wish I hadn't been? How many won't even recall I was part of the conversation?
• Is my part of the world a better place for what I did this year?
• What parts of my world still need to be better? And what can I do about it?
• Am I happy? Am I satisfied with my life? With myself? If not, what can I do about it?

Questions like these are best asked in the midst of quiet and warmth. The answers can be tricky to live with, but they are always good to learn.

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Book launch: "Trails Through the Fault Lines"

Today, I'm pleased to interview April Brown, a twitter pal of mine (@UncoveredMyths), in connection with the launch of her new book, Trails Through the Fault Lines. It's an adventure set in the earthquake-prone deserts of New Mexico.

TN: April, give me your elevator pitch for this novel. What's the hook?

AB: Amber and Alex track expanding quakes and volcanic eruptions across New Mexico. The Rio Grande Rift begins re-opening the inland sea that once covered much of this region. Together, with guides Livia and Corbo, they gather information to attempt to save as many lives as possible. Amber and Alex grapple with losing best friends and family. Their world tumbles faster than the Rio Grande swirls.

TN: It sounds like it's drawing on several genres. Do you have a specific writing style?

AB: A story idea will appear, and I'll make a few notes, maybe research a bit. At this point, I have no idea if the story will occur, or stay in the notes folder.

A few weeks, or months later, I make a few more notes, and research more. A few names may appear, maybe some background notes, some of which will change.

A few months after that, I make a one page general outline (that never stays the same). I also start a background and name list. Then, I research all I can before I start, making a labelled list of sites to find more specifics if needed. Usually, I write half the novel, then set it aside for a month or so. At that point, I re-read, as a first edit pass, and finish the rest of the novel, before moving into editing stages. This often involves more intense specific fact verification. There are several edit passes based on the needs of the novel. From the basic story, down to the nitty gritty sentence structure, and then the formatting issues.

TN: If you had to do it all over again, would you change anything in your latest book?

AB: I would have skipped the agent search, and created my book cover, rather than waiting on others. During the five year agent search, I managed to write 3.5 of the sequels, with 1.5 to go. Also, I waited on the cover design and had to change the publication order. By doing so, I may have missed a major marketing technique, as a series of such quakes were in the news at the original publication time.

TN: You've put a lot of time into this story arc. Do you recall how your interest in writing originated?

AB: I was always interested in writing. I enjoyed newspaper reporting, and yearbook recording. Then, I moved on to poetry. Writing is my way to connect with my past, present, and future. It's my only legacy to leave for others.

TN: What were the challenges (research, literary, psychological, and logistical) in bringing it to life?

AB: For this story, there were many challenges! Conflicting evidence in science reports means many scientists will not believe the Rio Grande will spilt up to Yellowstone. However, the evidence that it is occurring is there. There are traces in the rocks, the mountains, and the scientific reports on the area. How fast it will occur is anyone's guess!

Making the science entertaining for the non-scientist while not making it too fluffy for the scientific readers? That was difficult. I tried not to use too many technical scientific terms, which is one reason the characters are closer to twenty, when they would still be used to speaking to friends and acquaintances in less scientific terms about their work.

A third difficulty was that people expect romance in books, no matter how unlikely it would be in real life. So, allowing it to develop lightly, and naturally, was difficult. There are two very different relationships in this book: one almost cold and scientific, and the other, a more forced romance, based on social need of a culture that soon will not be. How these lead to the problems between later cultures created by the characters in these novels can only be discovered in the sequels. One point that unintentionally appeared in this novel is another social construct that has been in the news of late. One character, Corbo, always thought he was born in the US. That turns out to be not quite true, and it makes all the difference. He never had a birth certificate, and was really born a mile or so across the Mexican border. The US government, and the Mexican government say he doesn't exist. This thread wound it's way into the story five years ago, long before it was news.


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 "Trails Through the Fault Lines" by April Brown is available in ebook and paperback at Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and Smashwords. You can follow April on Twitter as @UncoveredMyths and at her website, Uncovered Myths.

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