Life Updates
On writing, schedules, Diablo, and project updates
“The years keep coming and they don’t stop coming” - ancient 20th century philosopher/Smashmouth
I write to you from the year of the fire horse. Where it’s still you know, bad.
But I come bearing some cool personal news: I got into the Clarion workshop! I’m very excited to go, and even if the idea of being a student in a dorm once again is distressing, I am excited to spend 6 weeks doing nothing but discussing writing, craft, and all things sci-fi and fantasy. Some of the writers I admire most have gone there: Ted Chiang, Octavia Butler, Kelly Link, Tamsyn Muir, Jeff Vandermeer and more. It’s daunting, honestly. I’ve trying to prepare for it, but I’ll be honest, I also leveled up my sorcerer to torment 12 in Diablo. (The new season has been excellent.) So we’ll see how far I get.
I’ve recently been back to taking improv classes. I often joke that improv for me is a gateway drug. I think what’s the harm in one little class, and the next thing I knew, help, I’ve fallen into a pit and am once again asking audiences for a suggestion to help get us started. So far, I have taken classes at UCB and WGIS. The latter is a bit more Chicago forward if that helps. Groundlings is somewhere on my list to do, but I also need to fish to 100% in Diablo. So I’m sure it’ll happen when it happens.
I’m working on a horror short! I finished with edits, and now I’m trying to figure out how I’m going to fund this thing. I spoke to a producer friend of mine in New York who gave me a run down on how expensive it might be. And the conversation was basically me becoming a suburban father as I kept muttering “how much? For ONE DAY?” I’ll try to keep updates on this light because it’s annoying, and things change so quickly, but I’ll make something separate for y’alls to follow. Opt in/opt out. (Please imagine I said this in the Mr Miyagi voice).
The first two months of this year felt like an unbearable slog. With Clarion, the rest of my year is much more locked in, and I’m scrambling to try and figure out how to fit in all my projects. I made some real ambitious plans the beginning of the year, and now that I’m coming up on the 2nd half, I will need to redo a few plans/all of it. If last year was my year of toiling in silence, this is my year of traveling around, toiling in airports and packing and repacking. (Watch as I say this, and poof I break both legs and no more travel or something.) But there are worse things than being busy. So I’m grateful for it, really, truly, yes.
Ok, small updates in no particular order:
Novel: it… goes. Laura, don’t be mad. I’m working on it.
Play: Finished 1st draft, still need edits.
Stuff I’ve Been Watching Recently: honestly, I’ve really been enjoying a lot of the anime titles that have come out this year. Dorohedoro s2, Witch Hat Atelier, Daemons of the Shadow Realm have been delightful. I also finished up Gachiakuta and will now need some shoujo to soothe the soul.
Stuff I’ve been Reading lately: I’ve been deep in the genre world this year. This week, I finished Becky Chamber’s Monk and Robot series and picked up some Octavia Butler. I’ve also treated myself to several short story anthologies. I am trying to branch out from my sad literary fiction into things with plot. Also maybe less nature essays. (I love the idea of being outside.)
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