Life in Level 3

On April 28th, NZ moved down to Alert Level 3. Businesses are allowed to open, if they can maintain social distancing of employees and do contact-less delivery to customers. Schools are open only for those children whose parents must return to work and have no one else to care for them. (My son, like most of his classmates, remains at home doing remote learning.) Travel within our local region is allowed, as are "small" expansions of household bubbles to include nearby relatives. (We don't have any relatives nearby, sadly, so our bubble remains the same.)

At least we can take our very small bubble to a very big lake

Everyone's excited we now have the option of eating take-away food ("take-away" is the Kiwi term for take-out). On day 1 of Level 3, the queues in the cities for fast food drive-throughs were apparently epic. Wanaka doesn't have any drive-throughs, but plenty of local restaurants opened for contact-less take-away. We decided to make Fridays a take-away dinner night, to support local businesses and give me a night off cooking (yay!).

Sadly, our first Friday wasn't quite the success I'd hoped. At my son's request, we ordered from his favorite burger place in Wanaka...but turns out that the 20 minute drive back to Hawea is long enough for the burgers to cool down and get less appetizing. Mine was okay--it had balsamic mushrooms and feta, which I'll happily eat at any temperature. But my husband didn't like his, and my son said sadly, "This isn't as good as I remember."

Ah well! Other attempts have gone better. When I went to Wanaka for groceries, my son begged me to stop by Yohei Sushi and pick up some tuna onigiri. Onigiri is one of my son's favorite snacks ever: it's a triangle of pressed, salted rice with a ball of filling inside (tuna, in this case). Seriously, the kiddo says he likes tuna onigiri even better than ice cream. What. I mean, I like them too, but I wouldn't go that far. Anyway, onigiri travels just fine. When I brought home a big bag, the kiddo fell upon those tuna triangles like a starving wolf and declared himself in seventh heaven.

My own "seventh heaven" moment came when I checked with our local Department of Conservation and discovered that mountain trails are open for hiking in Level 3, so long as you can pass other hikers with 2m distance and you keep your hike to 3 hours or less. We promptly raced out to enjoy a family outing on the upper Timaru River track ("track" is what Kiwis call trails). Oh my goodness, it was so nice to go walking somewhere different than our local lakeshore trail. I'm still staying away from my favorite "advanced" hikes, because those trails are steep and tricky enough it'd be near impossible to pass anyone at 2m distance. But it's lovely to have the chance for proper dayhiking again.

Family hike, hooray!

The upper river track is an old 4WD road, so very easy to keep 2m away while passing. (Not that you have to pass often...as you can see, there aren't exactly crowds.) The lower river track, in case you are wondering, goes along the creekbed and involves a lot of wading. The day was pretty chilly for getting wet in a glacial stream, so we kept to the nice dry upper track.

The best news is that daily new cases of COVID-19 have remained in the low single digits, and recently we've even had a few days with zero new cases. NZ's government has used the weeks of Level 4 & 3 lockdown well; they've enormously ramped up testing, contact tracing, and all the apparatus of public health required to stay on top of the virus.

(That last part is what the US seems to be completely neglecting, to my astonishment and deep sorrow. The purpose of a lockdown is not to stay in stasis for ages until a vaccine is ready. It's to give a country the time needed to build up their public health system to the point any viral spread can be swiftly detected and controlled. Maybe some individual US states are doing this--I hope some are!-- but at the federal level, all I see is idiots throwing up their hands and saying, "Welp, this is all just too hard. Time to give up the fight and get back to work. It's sad that over 100,000 Americans will die, but gosh, there's no way to prevent it." While they ignore all the countries like Germany and South Korea and Taiwan and Australia and New Zealand proving that there IS a way, and no, you don't have to completely destroy your economy to manage it.)

Anyway. On Monday, the government decides if NZ will take another step out of lockdown, down to Level 2. For me, Level 2 is the holy grail, because SCHOOLS RE-OPEN, hallelujah! After so many weeks of homeschooling and entertaining and providing all the kiddo's in-person social interaction, I can't even imagine what it'll be like to have weekdays to myself again.

I need that time more than ever, because I recently returned to engineering work. This year, one of my goals was to find some way I could use my engineering/aerospace skills to contribute toward addressing climate change. To my delight, the opportunity came up to do some work on a science grant using radar data to evaluate changes in Greenland glaciers. I've started the work, and I'm really excited about it, but gosh, it sure will be easier to fit into the day if the kiddo is back in school.

Physical education for the day: a bike ride along the lakeshore trail. The kiddo tells me this is not as fun as schoolyard cricket.

Ha, and it will also be easier to fit in writing, though I'm not waiting for Level 2 for that. I'm still plugging along despite the current challenges. My daily goal is 500 words or one hour, whichever comes first. That isn't much, I know. I heave a sigh when I look at other authors tweeting, "I've written 7,000 words today!" But, eyes on my own paper. Even 500 measly words a day adds up to a full book in less than a year. The trick is to keep going. (Just keep swimming, just keep swimming...)

Did anybody else ever watch the 80s PBS educational drawing show called Secret City? As a kid I loved it. The host, Commander Mark, was obviously a big science fiction fan. Each episode, he'd teach you to draw something cool by working on a new bit of this huge mural with aliens and temples and spaceships and fantastical plants and creatures. The best part was that Mark had so much fun when he drew; his love for drawing and comics and art just blazed through the screen. I was looking for something arty to do with the kiddo, since art would've been one of his subjects this term, and discovered that Mark Kistler, a.k.a. Commander Mark, has been making "how to draw" TV shows and books all these decades since, and continues to teach kids to draw today via web lessons. He hasn't lost an ounce of his old enthusiasm and joy, either. During COVID-19, he's offering free webcast lessons every day at noon CST. How cool is that? Also, if you've got Amazon Prime, you can watch his Imagination Station episodes.

Reading Corner: my recent reading has mostly been various scientific papers and other technical non-fiction, as I come up to speed for my consulting project. (At bedtime, the kiddo and I are now reading Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson series, which he is hugely enjoying.) When I return to adult fiction, I've got two new-ish releases waiting for me on the Kindle:

The Girl and the Stars, Mark Lawrence. I've been impressed by pretty much everything I've read from Lawrence so far, thanks to his excellent prose and memorable characters. This is the start of a new series set in the same world as his previous Book of the Ancestor trilogy. (You don't have to read the prior series first, though I have.) Reviews have been great, so I'm eager to dive in. Besides, a story set on an ice world seems just the thing to read as NZ heads into winter.

Network Effect, Martha Wells. The first full length Murderbot novel! If you haven't read the preceding novellas, you are so missing out. Especially if you like stories about prickly, wary, sarcastic introverts with good hearts who slowly learn trust and build friendships, even as they outsmart clever enemies. This kind of SF is my comfort food. Perfect reading in the midst of a pandemic.

Life In Isolation, Report #3

Only a few days left of the original 4-week lockdown! Wednesday is the end date. Tomorrow (Monday) the government will make a decision as to what happens after that. Will we stay at Level 4 for longer, or drop down to Level 3? New case numbers have declined from a high of 89 per day early in the lockdown, to a low of 8 two days ago. (It went back up a little yesterday to 13 new cases, but all 13 were directly linked to prior cases and not community spread, so that's still good news.) The past few days, the Ministry of Health ordered random sample testing at supermarkets around the country, to check if they're missing any silent community spread from asymptomatic carriers. So far all that testing has come back negative, which is the best news of all.

A glimpse of hope

NZ's lockdown is clearly working. We really might be able to eliminate the virus within the country. So do we extend the Level 4 restrictions a bit longer to try and get new cases all the way down to zero? Or loosen up a little to Level 3, in which some businesses can re-open, and trust in comprehensive testing and contact tracing to continue controlling the spread? The PM and her cabinet have waited for the last minute to make an official decision because they want to see and evaluate the very latest data--a precaution I applaud. (I have been so impressed by NZ's handling of the crisis. Let's hear it for competent, compassionate, science-based government!)

For us personally, it won't make too much of a difference to our daily lives if we go to Level 3. Schools won't open to anyone but the children of essential workers unable to arrange other childcare, so the kiddo will still be at home, needing my help with his schooling. His break finished up after Easter, which was a gray rainy day but at least we managed an egg hunt in our backyard.

Easter egg dying station

The result of our labors. After the egg hunt, I made them into deviled eggs, but accidentally put in too much mustard. Google informed me it's possible to solve a mustard problem by adding some brown sugar. This actually worked. So it's not just the kiddo who's learning things in lockdown! 

School at home is going fine, the kiddo is enjoying the lack of uniforms and long bus rides and he's learning plenty. (Thanks to our online Japanese lessons, now both he and I know how to ask politely for English tea or green tea at a Japanese teahouse. Sadly, I do not like any type of tea. I will have to find out if there's some other Japanese drink I might like instead.)

Home schooling does make it awfully hard for me to get much else done during the day. The kiddo won't be going back to school until Level 2, and God knows when that'll be, so I just have to make my peace with the new normal.

Practical maths: using decimal measurements to make gluten-free cinnamon sugar baked donuts. Except I don't have a donut pan. Google claimed we could use a muffin pan and put little balls of crumpled up baking paper in the center of each tin to make the result donut-shaped. This was a lie. They did not come out looking anything like donuts. More like weird little cake things with jagged gaps in the middle.

Still tasty, though, especially with some salted caramel ice cream covering the chasm in the middle.

If we go to Level 3, everyone's still supposed to stay home and in their "bubble" if at all possible, i.e. no socializing in person. ("No playdates?" wails the kiddo, bereft.) Restaurants will remain closed. Drive-throughs are allowed to open, but our little town doesn't have any of those. (The nearest McDonalds is an hour away in Queenstown!) Maybe we'd be able to get take-away fish & chips from the local cafe, which would actually be exciting, since it's been ages since I last ate a meal I didn't have to make.

Businesses will be allowed to open if they can sell products online with contact-less delivery, which means we could maybe order more stain for our house. (We've run out, and we still have lots and lots of staining left to go, ugh.) No motorized or open-water hobbies allowed, meaning no boating or kayaking on the lake, but we'd be allowed to go swimming or fishing from shore, and maybe hiking on a real trail, woo hoooooo! We're heading into winter now, and the weather's getting iffy, but I'll take any mountain exercise opportunities I can get. (Oh goodness I am hoping we get to Level 2 by ski season, though!) 

Woke up this morning to lovely lavender and rose light, with fresh snow on the mountains. 

Anyway, life goes on. I'm still trying for an hour of writing every day, and still saving my sanity with Revolution Yoga. But I still struggle with worries about the world's future, and anger at people who still refuse to take the virus seriously. 

When I read accounts from doctors in COVID-swamped ERs (like this one, and this one), I often wish our news wasn't so sanitized. I know they're not filming much in affected hospitals because of privacy and safety reasons. Yet I feel like all of us who are healthy should witness the truth of the lives lost. We don't see the patients gasping desperately for air, dying of viral-damaged lungs and hearts and kidneys, so it's easy to dismiss the deaths as dry statistics. A comment I saw on twitter really struck me: imagine if we had a zombie outbreak, but we never get to see the zombies, only healthy people talking about them. That's what it's like now. We see the global death toll steadily rising, but we don't see the dying. Only doctors and nurses do, and it's shattering them. Also killing them, even as many are asked to work without proper protective equipment. Calling them heroes does nothing to make up for that.

So yeah, when it's a cloudy freezing miserable day and we're all stuck in the house together getting snappish and mopey, I read r/medicine and r/residency and r/nursing to get a stark reminder of the reasons for the rules. If staying in Level 4 longer ensures NZ's doctors and nurses never have to fight such battles, I am all for it.

Reading report: I finished Weave the Lightning, which lived up to my hopes. The magic system is quite intricate and complex, which I enjoyed but (fair warning!) might put off some readers. I took Russian all through high school and university, so I enjoyed the Russia-inspired feel of the secondary world, and the circus setting gave me fond memories of HBO's Carnivale. As will surprise nobody who's read my own books, I particularly enjoyed the two main characters' gradual transition from suspicion/animosity to tentative respect/friendship and eventually to a deeper relationship. I often feel like YA novels rush the character relationships, but Weave the Lightning does not, hooray. The story does end on a fairly cliffhangery note, but of course I don't mind that either--I look forward to seeing what happens in the next book.

I haven't yet decided what to read next. At bedtime, the kiddo and I are together reading one of my long-time favorites, Patricia McKillip's Cygnet duology. We're on the 2nd book now, The Cygnet and the Firebird, which I love best of the two, and it's so cool that the kiddo is loving it also. Oooh, this part of parenthood is the best. Wish I could go back to my younger stressed-out, sleep-deprived self during the difficult screaming baby days, and assure her that everything will be okay, the kiddo will be fine and the coming joys will more than make up for the exhaustion and tears. Alas for my lack of a time machine. Instead I shall soak up every instant of joy I can, to save against future challenges.     

Life in Isolation, Report #1

Welp, we're on day 3 of national lockdown. NZ is up to 451 cases. The majority of them are still associated with overseas travel, but a few "clusters" of transmission have happened within NZ. One such cluster was an international cattle conference that took place in Queenstown 2 weeks ago; several infected people from the conference then attended Wanaka's agricultural & pastoral show, one of the biggest local events of the year, which had a crowd of 40,000. (Doh!)

So far only a dozen people are in hospital, but that's certain to change. The government's best modeling indicates we'll reach several thousand cases in the next week or two. After that, if the lockdown is working to stop community transmission, we'll hopefully start seeing a decrease.

Boy do we all hope for that. This has led to some community arguments over what is and isn't allowed in lockdown. What is the definition of "going out for exercise" in a town full of climbers, marathon runners, mountaineers, and other outdoor enthusiasts? The local coast guard has asked people not to kayak and boat on the lake, to spare volunteers from having to mount rescues in case of trouble. But what about mountain biking the multitude of trails accessed from town? Or driving to more remote but still "local" trailheads? Or surfing the Hawea wave? The debate rages in local Facebook groups, with some arguing we should all stick to neighborhood walks, others insisting mental health is important, and so long as distancing is kept, other activities should be fair game.

Our household is playing it safe and keeping to short walks down to the lakeshore. Well, plus a lot of time bouncing on our backyard trampoline, and occasional games in the empty lot next door.

For my own sanity, I worked out a daily school schedule for my son, and we've settled into a reasonable routine.

We get up, have breakfast, I shower and do a 20-30min yoga workout using free youtube videos. (I just finished "30 days of Yoga with Adriene", which I really liked, so now I'm on to another 31-day set of her videos called Revolution. I can't recommend these enough. Adriene is a terrific instructor, very practical/pragmatic with a nice sense of humor, and she's great at explaining different options for beginner/intermediate/expert in each pose. For me it's been a total sanity saver.)

9am: My husband heads into his home office for work. (His company has always worked remotely, so his routine hasn't really changed!) For me and the kiddo, the "school day" starts. From 9-10, my son works on a range of activities assigned by his classroom teacher. His school has done a spectacular job of setting up tons of online learning, for which I am tremendously grateful. While the kiddo works, I write.

10am: Free time, with the caveat of no screens. I play with him if he wants.

11am: The kiddo does another block of schoolwork, and I work on my algorithm project.

12pm: Lunchtime! And chores.

1pm: Music lesson: I'm teaching him piano, since that's the instrument I play best. I wish I had been smart enough to buy some beginner piano books before the lockdown, but oh well. Instead I print off beginner exercises and music I find online.

1:30pm: Japanese lesson! The kiddo and I decided to learn Japanese together, in hopes we can visit Japan someday post-pandemic. Our Kiwi friends tell us the powder and tree skiing there are epic. We're using Rocket Japanese, which I like so far. We have a lot of fun trying to beat each other's scores on the various games & quizzes.

2pm: "Physical education"...aka, get active for an hour. We trampoline, practice cricket bowling, run sprints, dance to music, whatever the kiddo wants to do that is active.

3pm: School day is done, now the kiddo gets screen time. He plays video games and Skypes with his friends or watches favorite shows. I catch up on news, email friends, do more chores (we are still trying to stain the outside of the house!).

530pm: My husband's usually done with work, so we make dinner and then go for a family walk to the lake, or watch a movie together, or something family-oriented.

Evening on the lakeshore

All good so far, but the lockdown is yet young. I keep thinking about how hard it must be for parents of very young children or rebellious teenagers, especially if both parents are also trying to work from home. It's been a touch exhausting trying to keep my energetic 11 year old from climbing the walls, and replacing all his in-person social interaction; yet I know I'm lucky compared to so many others. Hugs to everyone out there struggling to make it through another day.

This will all be worth it if NZ can stop this virus. In my dreams, the lockdown works and thousands of lives are saved. Domestic restrictions get lifted after a month or so, and within NZ we can return to socializing and domestic travel and tramping/climbing/kayaking/etc, even if our borders have to stay closed to stop new cases. This is perhaps too optimistic a dream, but hey. Hope is a nice thing to have.

In the meantime, for anyone looking for distraction, I've got books to recommend. I've been re-reading Sangu Mandanna's A Spark of White Fire, an engaging YA space opera that I've mentioned here before, in preparation for reading the sequel, A House of Rage and Sorrow. The first book definitely holds up the second time through; I'm just as captivated as I was before, and really looking forward to seeing how the story continues. If you want to escape the world for a while, definitely try this SF adventure with sentient space ships and difficult family relationships plus magic and meddling gods.

Alert Level 2

In the 2 days since my last post, NZ is up to 52 cases of COVID-19. Two of them aren't related to overseas travel: we now have the dreaded first sign of community spread. NZ's PM addressed the nation today to unveil a 4-level alert system; we're currently at level 2. This means schools stay open, but every adult who can work remotely should start doing so. We're asked to stop all non-essential domestic travel, and those people in high risk groups (elderly, immunocompromised, underlying conditions), should limit contacts by staying at home.

As I watched the PM's announcement, my son was downstairs playing with a friend. Another little friend is supposed to come over tomorrow, and I already agonize: should I cancel that? It's probably safest to do so. Yet so long as my son's school remains open, he's exposed to some risk anyway, and this may be one of his last chances to enjoy ordinary playtime. I don't think we have long before the alert level rises and we all go into true isolation, for who knows how long. 

Looking at social media posts from friends all around the world, I can't help but recall the parts in Stephen King's masterwork of viral apocalypse The Stand where characters mourn the world that was. All the simple conveniences of life, but most of all the shared rituals of community, from baseball games and summer fireworks to crowded movie theaters. We're not anywhere near as bad off as survivors in The Stand, of course. Our favorite acts of community aren't forever gone for us, just gone for a while. We still have the internet to keep us together and build new rituals of connection despite physical isolation. But it's still a time to mourn, because when we come out of this crucible, the whole world will be different in ways we're not yet sure of. 

PM Jacinda Ardern finished her speech to the nation by calling on people to "be strong; be kind." Oh, how I hope we can live up to that. (For my part, I'm registering with the local volunteer network which will organize help for local community members.) 

In the meantime, if you're stuck at home and looking for a read that celebrates kindness and friendship in difficult times, I've got a rec for you:

Emma Bull's Finder is old-school elfpunk urban fantasy, a murder mystery set in a town straddling the magical border between human and elven lands. The protagonist, Orient, is a human runaway with a psychic knack for finding things. His best friend is an elven woman named Tick Tick who's a talented mechanic. When Orient is forced into helping the local police solve a string of murders, Tick Tick and his other friends aren't going to let him face trouble alone. Bull's typical excellence with character work makes the story really shine. Fair warning, it does involve a deadly plague and contains a heartbreaking death scene, so if you don't want that reminder of reality in your reads right now, keep it for another time. Me, I plan to curl up with it tonight. 

State of the Schafer, Vol 3

Writing Progress:

Between my son's school holidays, a skating camp I attended for my birthday, and a family trip to Invercargill, I didn't get a whole lot of new words onto the page--but I got some. The White Serpent (Cara novella) is sitting at just over 20,000 words, and better yet, I've got outlines for most of the remaining scenes all laid out, ready to write.

I don't like to outline a story completely ahead of time, but I do like to outline scenes ahead of writing them, especially the parts with dialogue between the characters. I find dialogue the hardest to write, so working out the conversations without worrying about internals and descriptions and body-language tags and all the rest of a finished scene can be a big help to me. That way I don' t waste time agonizing over words that would get deleted and rewritten anyway as I adjust the conversational flow. Once I have the conversation feeling "right", the rest is relatively easy to add.

The kiddo heads back to school today, so it's my hope I can buckle down and use those outlines to make some serious progress this week. We shall see...

Skating update:

As mentioned, I went to an adult skating camp that happened to take place on my birthday--talk about perfect timing. The camp was held at one of the few year-round rinks on the South Island, about 3 hours away in a town called Gore. (The town thankfully does not live up to its name. It's a perfectly pleasant country town with an excellent athletic center, including multiple indoor pools, basketball/netball courts, ice rink, and more. Someone on the town council must have really liked playing sports.)

The camp was short, only a few hours, but a lot of fun. About 20 adult skaters from Dunedin, Invercargill, Queenstown, and Wanaka came to participate. Everyone I met was so friendly and welcoming, it was lovely. As an introvert, I find it so much easier to meet new people when you all share a common interest/passion! We did a bunch of stroking drills together, then split up into groups based on ability levels to work on jumps and spins, and finished off by doing freeform interpretation to different styles of music. I've always been better at the athletic side of skating than the graceful artistry, so I'm terrible at making up interpretive moves on the spot, but hey, it's fun to try.

The adult camp gang

But speaking of athletics, I confess I totally chickened out when the coach handling the advanced group asked us to do axel jumps. I have not tried an axel yet since returning to the ice, and I wasn't wearing the gel pads I use to protect hips, tailbone, and knees when working on more difficult jumps.  The axel is notorious for having the most terrifying of take-offs--if you blow the jump, you'll take a nasty fall. Every time I started the push into the take-off, my brain was all, NOPE NOPE NOPE, and my body stopped dead before I could even get into the air. It's okay, though. Next time I skate, I'll put on all my padding and see about reclaiming my axel. For now, I was just delighted that my back didn't have any trouble with everything else I did.

New Zealand Life:

After the skating camp, my husband and kiddo and I headed down to Invercargill, the southernmost city in New Zealand. Invercargill has great cafes, tasty oysters, and all the big homewares, furniture, hardware, and electronics stores not available in our tiny little rural town. We needed to buy a bunch of stuff relating to staining our house, but since none of us enjoy shopping, we livened up the day with a trip to a boat factory.

Stabicraft manufactures aluminium-hulled power boats in a small factory just outside of Invercargill, doing everything from initial design through to final touches. In classic friendly Kiwi fashion, they're happy to take you through the factory and explain the whole process. They still build boats the relatively old-school way, with human workers using ordinary tools and standard machines, no fancy automated assembly lines or robots. As an engineer, I always love seeing how stuff gets made, and this was no exception. Apparently it takes about two weeks to manufacture a single boat, and about 40 are in various stages of progress at any given time.

Hulls being shaped

Bending the aluminium in a press

Ready for welding

Waiting for paint and other final touches

We then took a trip out along the southern coast of NZ to Gemstone Beach, which friends had told us is a neat place to visit. The beach is aptly named; the black sand is dotted with shoals of colorful rocks. You can apparently find real gems there, like jasper and even sapphires. I doubt we bought back any actual gems, but our son lugged home an entire bag of ocean-smoothed pebbles in all shades of the rainbow. The largest ones are streaked and striped and look like they could be dragon eggs. The rocks weren't the only attraction; the wild waves were amazing to watch as well.

Windswept bluffs and wild waves

Pebbles on Gemstone Beach

Black sand and blue sky

On our way back to Invercargill from Gemstone Beach, we stopped past Colac Bay, a famous surf spot (although you need a thick wetsuit! The southern ocean is frigid). The contrast of the gentle waves in the sandy, sheltered bay with the wild breakers at Gemstone Beach, only a few minutes' drive away, was fascinating.

Colac Bay

Standing at the southern edge of New Zealand, looking toward Antarctica (it's still 3,000 miles away...there's a lot of ocean in between)

Reading Corner:

I'm partway through The Bone People, which is...interesting, so far. Very artsy and literary in style, not just the prose itself but the physical spacing on the page, and intriguing in its character work. I'm not sure how I feel about the protagonist being a semi-idealized self-insert for the author, though. (The author makes no bones about this; the similarities between herself and her character are evident, right down to the names.) Guess I'll see how the story plays out. I hear it's quite dark, focusing on child abuse, so I'm braced for that.

I didn't take my physical library copy of The Bone People with me to Invercargill, so instead I read on Kindle a recent SFF release, K. Chess's Famous Men Who Never Lived. It's a quiet, melancholy, thoughtful SF novel about refugees from a parallel-universe New York struggling to adjust to life in our world and accept the tremendous loss of what they've left behind. If you like literary SFF like Emily Mandel's Station Eleven, E.J. Swift's Osiris, or Helene Wecker's The Golem and the Jinni, definitely pick this up. Heh, and it made me want to rewatch Fringe, although that will have to wait until I finish catching up on Arrow. (I'm slowly working my way through season 5. Why did nobody tell me S5 is nearly as absorbing as the excellent S2? It's getting awfully hard to stop after one episode.)

2017 in Retrospect: Writing and Books

After yesterday's big announcement, I thought it was time to take a break from huge angsty life decisions and instead share some more mundane highlights of my 2017.

Writing-wise, I'm gonna be honest: this was not my most productive year. Moving overseas is a ton of work, both before and after the move happens. I will spare you from a giant list of logistical and bureaucratic tasks accomplished. Suffice it to say that even now, I'm still working on a thousand things related to making our move permanent, and I feel like the end of the task list will never arrive.

As always, it's really a matter of priorities. A lot of time I could have spent writing, I was skiing and hiking and biking and exploring various cool New Zealand places with my husband and son. I have zero regrets about that. Life is for living.

Yet I did write! Just at the speed of an aged sloth. Still, I've got some accomplishments to celebrate:

1) I finished a rough half-outline, half-horribly-messy-draft of a new fantasy novel, tentatively titled The Dreaming Sea. Right now I'm working on turning the mess of words and ideas into an actual readable draft. I just sent the first chapter to my former critique group. Onward ho...

2) I finished a Shattered Sigil novella, The Outrider's Challenge, that tells the story of Dev's first (and near-disastrous) convoy trip. This was one of the stories I owed to a kickstarter backer who got my "Ultimate Fan" reward. The backer says he intends to share the novella with everyone via his blog sometime in the next few months. I'm really excited for that! I had a lot of fun writing the story, and I think those of you who loved the Shattered Sigil books will thoroughly enjoy the read.

3) I finished a draft of another Shattered Sigil novella, The White Serpent, that tells the story of Cara's attempt to climb the highest peak in the Whitefires. But after getting feedback on the first two parts from my critique group, I had an idea for how to make the story a whole lot better--but it requires rewriting most of the novella. I decided I wanted to finish my brand new book before diving into the novella rewrite. (Publishing is slooooooow. Once I finish a decent draft of The Dreaming Sea, while my agent tries selling it I'll have tons of time to work on the Cara novella and the two other Shattered Sigil short stories I had planned out.)

4) My Lizaveta short story "A Game of Mages" was published in Adrian Collins's Evil is a Matter of Perspective anthology, and got some very nice mentions in reviews. Hooray!

As for reading, I had a really weird year. Usually I have no trouble finding tons of new books to love. This year, many of my reads never got beyond the "meh" level, and some of my most anticipated books I found disappointing. I've never quite had this kind of reading slump before. It was extra frustrating because reading has always been my great comfort in times of stress, and boy was 2017 a time of stress. My difficulty in finding good reads did ensure I treasured all the more the few books that fully captured my heart, standing out like brilliant mountain peaks above a sea of gloomy cloud. I already talked in an earlier post about Curt Craddock's wonderful An Alchemy of Masques and Mirrors, which I was so delighted to see hit the shelves at last. Here's the rest of the books I loved this year:

All Systems Red, by Martha Wells

Terrific novella about a cranky, snarky cyborg/AI who's sneakily subverted its corporate programming yet just wants to be left alone so it can watch entertainment videos. If only its new crew would stop treating it like an actual perosn! Wells nails the narrator's voice, infuses the story with lovely dry humor, and pulls off some beautiful affecting moments. I can't wait for the second installment of the Murderbot Diaries.

All the Crooked Saints, by Maggie Stiefvater

This is magical realism set in 1960s desert southeastern Colorado, in a tiny community founded by a Mexican family with the power to work miracles. The prose was so powerful and lyrical and beautiful it made me despair of my own authorial abilities. (Some books you read and think, "Maybe one day I'll write a story as good as this!" Some books you read and think, "Holy shit, I could never in a million years write like that.") I see from reviews not everybody feels like I do about the book; some people couldn't get into it. Maybe it worked so well for me because I love the high desert. All I can say is that while I've liked some of Stiefvater's previous work, particularly the Scorpio Races, this book is the first of hers I've loved.

Guns of the Dawn, by Adrian Tchaikovsky

This one starts off feeling like a Jane Austen novel, but then transitions into a grimly realistic battlefield war story somewhat reminiscent of the better Vietnam novels I've read (albeit in a Napoleonic-era secondary world setting, and with a female protagonist). I loved the practical determination of the protagonist, and thought her emotional journey was handled quite well. If all Tchaikovsky's many novels are this good, I need to read them.

Weave a Circle Round, by Kari Maaren

I bought this YA fantasy after seeing a review recommending it particularly to fans of Diana Wynne Jones, and oh gosh yes yes YES! This book was quirky and warm-hearted and wildly imaginative and wonderful in all the best Jonesian ways. Complex time travel shenanigans, Norse legends, prickly family dynamics, dryly humorous juxtaposition of the mundane with the magical, oooh, this is just the sort of YA novel I love best to read.

Every Heart a Doorway, by Seanan McGuire

This novella had intrigued me ever since I heard its premise. A school for children who've been kicked out of the magical worlds they once found? As someone who always found the idea of outgrowing Neverland monstrously unfair, I wanted to see how McGuire would tackle this. Yet the hefty ebook price for a novella made me hesitate, albeit guiltily. I know how much time and heart authors put into their stories. Yet as a fast reader, I do have to watch my book budget, lest I put us out on the streets. Happily, the novella eventually went on sale. I snatched it up, and loved the dark fairy-tale feel of the story so much that I immediately bought the sequel, hell with the price. So yes, publishers, nice low sale prices on a first book do work to increase your profits.

The Eternal Kingdom, Ben Peek

A worthy finish to Peek's dark and excellently unique epic fantasy trilogy. This is literary-style fantasy, with a focus on theme as much as character or plot, but still with plenty of awe-inspiring magic and bloody battles to go with the questions of power and religion. It's the sort of read that leaves you chewing over thoughts and implications for quite some time afterward. One of Peek's great strengths is the realism he brings to the complex tapestry of his world's cultures and political relations. But what I loved best about the trilogy was the sheer glorious variety of characters, all of whom feel like real people struggling to navigate a world as messy and difficult as our own.

Winter of Ice and Iron, Rachel Neumeier

Ever since I read and adored Neumeier's House of Shadows, I've been buying everything she puts out. Yet while I have enjoyed her other novels, they didn't quite reach similar heights for me...until this one. The weird part is that I can't quite put my finger on why the story so captivated me. Winter of Ice and Iron contains story elements that I usually don't like (for instance, a romance where a woman's calm "goodness" is lauded as the key to controlling a man's savage impulses).  Yet I enjoyed the character conflict and intriguing magic so much that I didn't care one bit about tropes or flaws. Fair warning: this book is darker than Neumeier's other work. She's never graphic, but the story does include sexual abuse and torture. It's not grimdark at all, though; the main characters are honorable people working for the good of their respective peoples.

Red Sister, by Mark Lawrence

Red Sister surely hits the sweet spot for a whole lot of fantasy readers. I've seen it described as Arya Stark (a badass yet likable/sympathetic character) gets to go to magic school and make interesting friends and grow up into even more of a stone-cold badass. All of this told with Lawrence's gift for sharply poetic turns of phrase, with some hints of intriguing worldbuilding added in to spice things up. Anyway, if you're allergic to school stories and training sequences, steer clear and try one of Lawrence's other series instead. But if you're like me and enjoy some classic fantasy tropes with a bit of a modern twist, jump on in.

 

Destiny's Conflict, by Janny Wurts

I haven't actually read this one yet, although I bought the book the instant it released in late 2017. It's the conclusion to the fourth arc of Janny's beautifully rich and complex Wars of Light and Shadow series (only one more book to go to complete her 12-book magnum opus!). These are dense, layered, ornate books that beg to be read when I have a proper swath of time to savor them. I use them as rewards for completing writing milestones; this one, I'll read (along with a re-read of its predecessor) once I reach the halfway point of my current draft. I highlight it here anyway in my 2017 post because the series is such a monumental achievement, it's a shame so few fantasy fans have heard about it.

I make no further promises for 2018. I don't have any lofty lists of goals for writing or reading. I plan to take the year as it comes, achieving whatever I can, enjoying as much as I can.

Shattered Sigil short story "A Game of Mages" now available

Only six more days until I leave Boulder for 9 months in New Zealand, and holy hell do I still have a mountain of tasks to accomplish! Yet I just had to take a break to share some cool writing-related news. You might remember I wrote a Lizaveta story for Grimdark Magazine's Evil is a Matter of Perspective anthology, which was funded through Kickstarter last year. I'm delighted to say the anthology is complete! Backers already have their ebooks, and print editions are in the process of shipping. If you missed out on the kickstarter, the ebook is currently available to buy on Amazon, and you can preorder the beautiful illustrated print edition, which releases to the public on June 16. This book contains the first new fiction of mine to come out since Labyrinth of Flame, so I'm pretty excited!

I just read the ebook last week, so I can confirm the anthology has some great stories. Not only did I enjoy the insight into antagonists from series familiar to me (Teresa Frohock's Los Nefilim, Mazarkis Williams's Tower and Knife, Janny Wurts's Wars of Light and Shadow, Jeff Salyards's Bloodsounder's Arc, Bradley Beaulieu's Song of the Shattered Sands), I found some new-to-me authors whose work intrigued me, which is always lovely. (Especially when I'm about to do some marathon plane flights. Time to load up that Kindle!)

Anyway, to celebrate the anthology's release, I thought I'd share a little excerpt from my story, "A Game of Mages". This snippet is from a scene partway through the story, and takes place about ten years before The Whitefire Crossing. You'll see a familiar face...

*****
Lizaveta stood beside the warded window of her study, gripping the jeweled silver band of a message charm. Outside, the sun slowly sank behind the serrated ridgeline of the Whitefire Mountains. Ninavel’s soaring white stone towers stood out sharp against a sky ablaze with crimson and orange.

The sunset’s beauty did little to assuage Lizaveta’s frustration.

Three years. Three long years, and no spell she and Ruslan cast revealed the least trace of Simon. That surely meant Simon remained in Alathia, concealed by the border wards, but the spies she sent to search Alathian cities and countryside had no better luck.

Ruslan was content to lie in wait and train his akhelyshen. Lizaveta was not.

She frowned at the message charm. She detested the need to depend on nathahlen spies, who were irritatingly limited and fallible. Before ciphered missives could be charm-sent to Ninavel, they had to be couriered across the border, a laborious process subject to all manner of delays. The message she expected today was already late. Perhaps it would only be another litany of failure, but she had particular hopes for this spy, more determined and methodical than most. His last message had said he intended to hunt deep into Alathia’s rugged northern wildlands, after discovering in some crude little village that two of the area’s most experienced trappers had never returned from a scouting trip. Lizaveta knew the trappers’ disappearance was probably the result of the wild’s many natural perils, rather than murder by a fugitive akheli intent on remaining hidden, yet she could not help but hope...

A tentative young voice spoke. “Khanum Liza?”

Kiran stood in the study’s arched doorway. His small face and hands were scrubbed to alabaster perfection, though chalk smudges and magefire burns still marred his clothes.

“What is it, little one?” She had to admit that so far he’d proved a better akhelysh to Ruslan than she imagined. That was in no small part thanks to Ruslan’s scrupulous adherence to Lizaveta’s advice in preparing Kiran’s relationship with Mikail. Once introduced, the boys had quickly settled into the ideal pattern to mold Kiran’s character: Mikail fiercely protective of his younger mage-brother, and Kiran idolizing him in return, doing his utmost to follow Mikail’s lead in their training.

Kiran bowed low. “I did well with my spell designs today, so Ruslan said I might ask you for a story.”

At first, she had been a touch exasperated that Ruslan kept finding excuses for the children to interact with her. Yet his desire for them to win her love had been so evident, she had not the heart to deny him. Besides, she found the boys more entertaining than expected. Kiran, shyly adoring and endlessly curious, listened rapt to tales of her travels and shared her appreciation for nature’s myriad wonders. Even stiff, serious Mikail begged her to share stories of legendary mage-battles and cuddled up to her with kittenish eagerness when she offered affection. The boys worshiped and feared Ruslan in equal measure, as they should. But since Lizaveta had no need to worry over their training or mete out punishments for their mistakes, her, they simply loved.

“Not tonight,” she said gently to Kiran, and showed him the message charm. “I am waiting for news of some importance. Tomorrow, perhaps.”

“If you’re too busy for a story, might I at least read the star book again?” Kiran peered up at her, his blue eyes wide and winsome.

She relented. “You may come in and read, so long as you are quiet.”

“I’ll be so quiet you won’t even notice me,” he promised, tiptoeing for the shelves lining the study’s marble walls. As he passed her, he paused and said in a rush, “I hope the news you wait for is good. So you won’t have to worry anymore.”

His sensitivity to her mood was a sign of the empathy she still feared would cause trouble in years to come. Akheli needed steel in their souls, not kindness. But that was Ruslan’s problem and not hers.

Unlike Simon. Lizaveta ran a finger over the jeweled band, willing her spy to hurry up and send his report. “My worries are not yours, little one. Read if you wish, but no more talking.”

Kiran made straight for the “star book”—a treatise she had written on the movements and nature of celestial objects. The treatise had been born of his eager questions when she first showed him the patterns of the stars. What is the sky made of? Are the stars magelights? Can you cast to bring one down for me to see? 

She did not need polished lenses such as the scholars of the great cities of eastern Arkennland used to magnify and study the sky. She cast with all the power of the confluence to scry the distant stars, and discovered to her wonder their immense size and the improbable distances between them. Nor were those distances wholly empty. Globes of rock and gas circled the stars, though none she had yet scried were rich with magic and life like the world beneath her feet. Countless smaller chunks of sky-stone hurtled through the silent darkness like shrapnel from some immense concussion.

She wrote the treatise to record her findings for her own future use—and because Kiran was still too young and untrained to cast spells that would let him experience such wonders directly. But oh, how he loved to read of them. Already, he had settled into a cushioned chair, clutching the slender leather-bound volume like he held the most precious of treasures.

 The glory of the sunset outside faded. Magelights glimmered and sparkled like a rainbow of gemstones in Ninavel’s twilit towers. Finally, finally, the message charm warmed in her hand, signaling the spy’s missive had come.

Lizaveta sent an eager spark of her ikilhia into the charm to trigger the waiting message. A vision of hastily scrawled words appeared in her mind’s eye: The man you seek is living amid ruins in the Greenward Hills. I know not what he does in the ruins. I did not dare get close enough for him to discover me. He has been there long enough to build a cabin, and he shows no sign of leaving. I believe no other shadow man has yet located him.

Lizaveta sucked in a sharp, delighted breath. Kiran looked up from the star treatise, the azure blaze of his ikilhia flaring with curiosity, but she ignored his unspoken questions.

Simon found, at last!

*****

Those of you who backed my Labyrinth of Flame kickstarter might be wondering, "Hey, what about the short stories for us?" Fear not, friends! One short story is complete and will be available to all in the near future. The Cara novella The White Serpent still needs a bit more work, but once I get to New Zealand, I should have the time I need to finish not only the novella but the Ruslan story and Lena story I have in progress.

Now back to packing (and panicking over packing)...

2016 in review

Well, it was a hell of a year. But right now I don't want to focus on the dark parts of 2016, whether personal or global. I've spent more than enough time thinking about those. I want to remember the bright spots, so I can go into 2017 with some joy in my heart. As Edward Abbey once said, "Where there is no joy there can be no courage; and without courage all other virtues are useless."

And really, I had many wonderful moments in 2016. It's funny how hard it can be to remember the good things, sometimes. Thank goodness for pictures (and friends and loved ones) to remind us. So what'd I find, looking back through the year?

Writing-wise, not only did I finish all the mailing for The Labyrinth of Flame's Kickstarter, and work out a deal with the printing company to make the illustrated edition available to the general public, but the book won an award! The denizens of r/Fantasy voted Labyrinth of Flame the Best Self-Published/Independent novel of 2015, and I got this very cool dagger as a result:

Oh, how I wish I could say I'd finished the Shattered Sigil short stories as well. Yet here it is, 2017, and I'm still only 20,000 words and 2/3 of the way into the Cara novella The White Serpent, 1/3 of the way through the story of Dev escaping an assassin on his first convoy trip (this one's for one of the Ultimate Fan backers), and I have the Ruslan story and a Lena story plotted out but not yet written.

I did complete and turn in a 8,000-word Lizaveta story called A Game of Mages for the forthcoming Evil is a Matter of Perspective anthology--and boy was that completion a struggle, as the story required three rewrites. On the non-fiction side, I wrote three pieces for Lady Business's Readers of the Lost Arc feature, covering under-read books of the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s (that last post is turned in but not yet up on the blog). Still, I'm terribly ashamed to admit A Game of Mages is the only piece of fiction I finished all year.

The simple truth is that I didn't make writing a priority in 2016 the way I did in previous years. Some of that was by design: I wanted to put my husband and son first for a while, and reduce stress by enjoying more of the activities I'd put on hold while trying to finish The Labyrinth of Flame and run the kickstarter. But I think I let the pendulum swing a little too far over to the non-writing side.

For 2017 I'm resolving to adjust yet again and find a better balance: one that lets me finish all the Shattered Sigil short stories and finally start work on the new fantasy novel I'd like to write. (Still untitled, but this is the one with deadly sea magic, tropical islands and coral reefs, freediving, and a team of spies.) My ultimate goal would be to finish all the stories by summer and complete a rough draft of the new book by the end of the year. That may be too ambitious for a slow writer like me. We'll see.

So what did I do in 2016 instead of writing? Apart from the usual day jobbing...

1) I skied many excellent runs with my kiddo, who just this year got skilled enough to handle black diamonds and trees (woo hoo!):

Powder day at Winter Park

The snow's always best in the trees

Winter wonderland at Steamboat

2) I spent more glorious days hiking in Colorado's mountains. In the words of John Muir, "Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul alike."

Lovely day at Andrews Tarn in Rocky Mountain National Park

Rocky Mountain panorama

Nothing like climbing a nice cold glacier on a hot summer day

Indian Peaks wilderness

Pointing the way toward 14,309-ft Uncompahgre Peak, highest in the San Juans

On top of Uncompahgre--my first new 14er in many years!

3) We returned to our favorite haunts around Moab and the San Rafael Swell and explored some new-to-us areas, like Behind the Rocks, Medieval Chamber and Morning Glory Arch, the Goblin's Lair, and some off-the-beaten-ranger-path parts of the Fiery Furnace. One thing I love about canyon country is how you can visit the same areas again and again and discover new amazing things every time. (As Mary Hunter Austin said, "This is the sense of the desert hills, that there is room enough and time enough.")

"Behind the Rocks" wilderness area

Desert flowers

The kiddo tackles his first major rappel (into Medieval Chamber)

On rappel beside Morning Glory Arch (technically a natural bridge rather than an arch, but hey)

Exploring the hoodoo canyons of Goblin Valley

At the entrance to the Goblin's Lair (a.k.a. the Chamber of the Basilisk)

Inside the Goblin's Lair

The Fiery Furnace: so many enticing routes to explore

4) I smile every time I think of our June trip to visit family in Australia. We had plenty of fun in and around Sydney and the Blue Mountains, and enjoyed a 3-day sailing adventure in the gorgeous Whitsunday Islands (our first time there, but hopefully not our last!).

The Vivid festival lived up to its name: constantly changing projections of color decorated the Opera House and many other buildings near Sydney Harbour

Avast me hearties, yo ho! The Schafers sail the Whitsundays

Catseye Beach on Hamilton Island

Hiking in the Blue Mountains

Rainbow view from the Ruined Castle

4) I didn't go to many cons this year apart from WorldCon in Kansas City, which was awesome. Yet I was lucky enough to spend time with some wonderful authors and SFF folk:

In May I got to hang out with Janny Wurts for a few days: definitely a highlight of my year!

Another highlight was getting to meet New Zealand author Helen Lowe while I was in Sydney

And having a lovely lunch with Pellinor author Alison Croggon while in Melbourne

Yet another was a summer hike with blogger/reviewer/all-around awesome guy Paul Weimer and author Alex Acks in the Indian Peaks

5) I read a lot of excellent books. I had plans to do a whole big long "reading review" post with cover pics and mini-reviews, but in all honesty I prefer to focus on short-story writing right now. So instead I'll do a quick list of the reads that stood out most to me this year:

• Janny Wurts's Wars of Light and Shadow series--I just recently finished book 8, Stormed Fortress, and I continue to be hugely impressed with the careful plotting and layered reveals
• Helen Lowe's Daughter of Blood--book 3 in her excellent Wall of Night epic fantasy series. Her world is rich and fascinating, and I love what she's doing with the story and characters.
• Mark Lawrence's Wheel of Osheim--final book of his Red Queen's War trilogy. Mark really knows how to stick a landing. Tons of great action, character work, and sly humor.
• Teresa Frohock's Los Nefilim--her three excellent dark fantasy novellas featuring half-daimon, half-angel Diago, all collected into one volume. My God, these are good. Terrific characters and atmosphere.
• Jeff Salyards's Chains of the Heretic--another great trilogy-ender. If you love military fantasy, you've got to read this series.
• Kate Elliott's Poisoned Blade--2nd in her YA Court of Fives series. I'd liked the first one well enough, but this one I thought took the series to a whole new level.
• Laura Ruby's Bone Gap--magical realism done right. Powerful and beautiful.
• Frances Hardinge's The Lie Tree and Cuckoo Song--I'd seen lots of people raving about Hardinge but the first book I tried by her (A Face Like Glass) didn't entirely work for me. These two did, big time, and I'm now a convert. Her imagination is amazing.
• Megan O'Keefe's Steal the Sky and Break the Chains--oh, how I loved these, because they pushed a lot of my personal buttons as a reader. Addictive yet dangerous psychic-power-style magic, strong bonds of friendship, scoundrels with hidden depths...yes, please. 
• Alison Croggon's The Bone Queen--a haunting, lovely prequel to her epic Pellinor series. Tied for my favorite Pellinor book with the 3rd of the main series, The Crow.
• Ben Peek's The Godless and Leviathan's blood--beautifully written literary epic fantasy, thoughtful and weird and unique in all the best ways
• Scott Hawkins's The Library at Mount Char--dark and imaginative and compelling. 

So, yeah. 2016 definitely wasn't all suck, by a long shot. I hope 2017 will likewise have some victories and joys, not just for me, but for everyone who fears the path the world is taking. Hope and kindness and courage and compassion still matter, now more than ever, and it's not all darkness out there. So many people are trying in whatever ways they can to make the world just that little bit better. For one small example, check out this currently running charity fundraiser from Booknest.eu, where 100 SFF authors (including me) donated signed books for a prize lottery; all money raised through ticket sales will be given to Doctors Without Borders.

Sometimes everything we do, whether donating or writing letters or volunteering or simply offering kindness to a stranger, feels negligible in impact. But as Mark Helprin wrote in his sublime fantasy Winter's Tale, "No one ever said that you would live to see the repercussions of everything you do, or that you have guarantees, or that you are not obliged to wander in the dark, or that everything will be proved to you and neatly verified like something in science. Nothing is: at least nothing that is worthwhile."

In 2017, my biggest goal is to focus on what's worthwhile, no matter how unimportant my actions may feel.