A lot of the best stuff in my life this quarter has been specific to my location and situation. Pandemic-related restrictions have been loosened in my area, and I’m fortunate that the people I’m close to have access to vaccines. But I didn’t want to fill this entry with the…
(Missed Part I? It’s here.) Would this still be my blog if I didn’t ramble on about Sherlock Holmes adaptations? Probably not. As in the previous entry, I’m reading a bunch of Sherlock Holmes adaptations/re-imaginings/subversions that change the gender of the Holmes/detective character. Here are my thoughts on the second…
This quarter included the transition between the end of semester and summer writing time and ever-changing pandemic protocol where I live. Here are a few things that helped me stay balanced. Foot powder (note: product name NSFW) No, the one I use isn’t marketed as foot powder, but that’s what…
I can’t speak for every writer, but for me, at least, when I’m working on a manuscript, the mention of another work that shares some of the key elements of my story gives me super mixed feelings. On one hand, I’m writing this story because, damn, I love those elements!…
As I’ve mentioned before, the first quarter of the year is my worst quarter. I get sad and listless during during short winter days, we “spring forward” into exhaustion, Winter semester is somehow more difficult than Fall, and, oh, hey, it’s still a pandemic and we’ve been under full lockdown…
As a writer, I love how Tamsyn Muir’s Harrow the Ninth (Locked Tomb Trilogy #2) is a genius masterclass in writing stories with heavy elements of grief. (There were a lot of other things I love about that book/series, of course, but that’s not what I’m rambling about today.) (no…
I’ve decided that finding out my idols have feet of clay is a good thing. In part, I’m deciding this out of necessity. With the direct contact between celebrities and fans facilitated by the Internet and 24-hour entertainment news, it’s easy to learn that J. K. Rowling is transphobic, that…
In the prelude to my last blog entry, I raised some questions about diversity and taste: how do we evaluate the equity of our personal taste? Does that question even make sense? How much of what we call our taste is malleable, the result of environment and choice, and how…
Looking over this list, I see there are still a lot of places for me to reconsider my media intake. Few of the artists I’ve mentioned here are Black, and, although I’m allowed to like the artists I like, the fact that this list doesn’t reflect the diversity of the…
Note: I wrote this, like, the day before everything in Toronto went strict social distancing. I’m glad we’re taking such precautions as a community to flatten the curve and protect our vulnerable community members. I think most of this still stands though. An additional few things that are shaping up…