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.

Podcast fun: discussing worldbuilding, characters and craft with Kate Elliott, Helen Lowe, and Paul Weimer

So you might remember me mentioning a while back that I'd recorded a podcast with fellow fantasy authors Kate Elliott and Helen Lowe, hosted by the always-awesome Paul Weimer for the Skiffy and Fanty show. The podcast is now live, and you can listen to the four of us discuss all manner of things relating to our books and the craft of fantasy writing, from characters to magic systems to geography to plot. (Kate, a veteran of the genre, has many fascinating things to say--as does Helen, who has the added bonus of a lovely New Zealand accent!)

This was the most fun I've ever had with a podcast, I think because of the group discussion setting. As with panels and signings, I find sharing the limelight (so to speak) always significantly lessens my nerves and helps me relax and enjoy myself. Recording this felt to me more like sharing in the sort of interesting dinner conversation you might have with friends at a convention (my favorite part of cons!), as opposed to a live interview where I'm always worried I'm about to say something stupid (I tend to babble when I'm nervous).

In other news, in case you missed it, I put up my February reading round-up over on tumblr...though arrgh, I got the name of Catherine Fisher's book wrong (it was The Speed of Darkness, not Obsidian Mirror--the latter is the 1st in the series instead of the last). If it's possible to edit tumblr posts, I haven't yet figured out how. Maybe next time I'll just post the roundup here and link to it there, instead of the other way around. (The one thing I do like about Tumblr is it feels more casual, somehow...I don't feel pressure to make a post all beautiful with pics of the books I'm talking about. Instead I can just whip out a quick "here are my reactions" post, which takes far less time and therefore is more likely to happen.)

And because this blog has been sadly lacking in wilderness pictures lately--my main computer with all my photos on it died, and we're still working to recover them off the hard drive--I'll end with a couple pics I found on my laptop of our last trip to Utah. Because Utah pictures make every Monday better.

Klondike Bluffs in Arches National Park

Slickrock bowl and Delicate Arch

Classic Utah: red rock, blue sky

Goblin Valley

Utah has the best sunsets

Thursday Adventure: Moab, Utah

In the Schafer household, Thanksgiving is not a holiday for gorging on food and joining the hordes at the shopping malls (shudder!).  No, a four-day break means we head out of town for a proper adventure.  This year, we took our son to Moab, Utah, for his first experiences biking and hiking on slickrock. This was my first time back to Moab since he was born, and damn, it was awesome to play in Utah's red-rock desert again.  (As an added bonus, the trip served as extra inspiration for working on The Labyrinth of Flame, since Dev and Kiran will be traveling some similar scenery.)

Me under one of Double Arch's massive spans, in Arches National Park

Honestly, landscape doesn't get much more incredible than that found around the Moab area.  The town sits right next to Arches National Park.  Arches is one of those parks that's deceptively small in area; if you look at the little map the rangers give you, you might think it's hardly worth a stop.  The official trails are all quite short, and most visitors devote less than a day to sightseeing.

Yet Arches is full of secrets.  Awesome secrets.  We learned long ago via word of mouth from canyoneering friends that if you prove you know what you're doing to the park rangers, they'll give you a permit and let you explore some absolutely incredible areas that most people never see.  Of course, this time we had our three-year-old in tow, so we couldn't venture off into the remote areas of the park.  But even the official hikes get you to some amazing places.                

Delicate Arch, with the La Sal Mountains in the background

Another view of Delicate Arch, this time with me and my son under it for scale.

Phantasmal rock fins in the Devil's Garden area of the park

You don't even have to go into the national park to find terrific slickrock hiking.  Drive along one of the various roads leading out of Moab's canyon, pick a spot, and start exploring.

My husband wandering the slickrock

Slickrock domes with the La Sal Mountains in the background

Cliffs along the Colorado River, just outside of Moab

Hiking isn't even Moab's biggest claim to fame.  If every skier must one day make a pilgrimage to Alta's famous powder, so must every mountain biker go to Moab, irresistably drawn by the lure of the Slickrock Trail: 11 miles of insanely steep, technical riding over sandstone so grippy it lets bikers seemingly defy gravity.

Mountain bikers riding the Slickrock Trail

I myself am a total weenie on a mountain bike, not being fond of faceplanting into rock.  (My husband, an avid mountain biker, laughs at me, pointing out that I think nothing of skiing down couloirs that make him turn pale.  I say, yeah, but snow is soft.  I can take a tumbling fall in powder and walk away with nothing more than my dignity sprained.  You should see the injuries my husband sports after his more adventurous mountain biking escapades.)

But even I enjoy biking on slickrock, for the awe-inspiring views if nothing else - I just leap off my bike at the slightest provocation, rather than risk injury.  Our three-year-old had a blast giving it a try on his balance bike:

Zooming along a slickrock slope. 

We look forward to the day we can do some real Moab bike trails as a family.  And the day when we can rock climb together.  We sat eating lunch one day in Kane Springs Canyon watching this guy:

Climber in Kane Springs Canyon

My husband and I sighed enviously, watching the guy ascend.  The three-year-old said, "Mommy, when can I climb that?"  "Soon," we answered.  "Soon..."  (The kiddo is already climbing indoors at the gym.)

While serious family climbs might be a ways off, we had a great time hiking up to watch the sunset and explore the slickrock by moonlight.  Quality time with a preschooler doesn't get much better than that.

Slickrock before sunset

Slickrock by moonlight

Thursday Adventure: Leprechaun Canyon (North Wash, Utah)

Since last week's adventure was among the heights, this week I thought I'd plunge into the depths...of a slot canyon, that is.  My husband and I love canyoneering, because it combines climbing, hiking, orienteering, adventure, and problem-solving in a way few other sports do. Plus, you get to visit some seriously remote areas - it's pretty neat to stand looking out over a vast panorama of slickrock desert and see not a single sign of human habitation (no trails, nada).  And yes, I'm happy to report there are still plenty of places in the US with zero cell phone coverage, where it is impossible for even the smartest of phones to check email or access the internet.  (Even satellite phones don't work in deep canyons!)

Leprechaun Canyon (the slot is so skinny and deep you can't actually see it in the photo, only the more gently sloped upper walls of the canyon)

Of course, that means when we go canyoneering, we are never, ever blase about safety.  Neither of us ever attempts a canyon alone - in fact, we prefer a team of 4 or more people; that way if someone gets injured, one person can stay with injured party while others go for help.  (4+ people also means you can use "human pyramid" techniques to escape particularly nasty potholes or other obstacles in the canyon.)  We carry a bolt kit (only for use in emergencies, since we agree with the "no bolt" ethic favored by most U.S. canyoneers), and we always arrange a "drop dead" time with a friend back home - if we don't contact the friend by this time, they call the local search and rescue.  (Much as I admire Aron Ralston for his guts in sawing his own arm off, the whole ordeal would never have been necessary if he'd taken any of the basic precautions most canyoneers do.  For a story of how experienced canyoneers get out of a sticky situation, check out this tale from an attempted descent of Sandthrax, an extremely dangerous/difficult canyon not far from Leprechaun.) 

Leprechaun Canyon is a relatively short but strenuous little slot adventure in the remote North Wash area of southeastern Utah.  You drive out to the middle of nowhere and car-camp in a sandy wash:



Car-camping near Leprechaun. (We had 5 people on this trip: myself, my husband Robert, and our friends Khurrum, Catherine, and Jason)

Then you hike across trail-less slickrock up to the canyon's head:

Robert and Khurrum navigating across slickrock to Leprechaun's head

Once at the head, you scramble down into the canyon.  Sometimes by rappelling, sometimes via simple "stemming" - a climbing technique where you brace opposite feet & hands against the canyons walls, as shown in the picture below:

Khurrum shows off his stemming skills near Leprechaun's head

From there you squeeze and wriggle and squirm through the canyon:

Khurrum and Catherine squeezing through the slot

And occasionally rappel drops that can't be downclimbed:

Catherine rappeling a drop

(The rappeling is where the problem-solving part most often comes in: you need to figure out a way to anchor the rope safely without using bolts (which don't hold well in soft sandstone anyway). Looping the rope around chockstones, rock protrusions, etc, works best; or in a pinch, you can even bury a pack deep in the sand to use as an anchor, or use body-anchor techniques).

And as a reward, you get to see cool stuff like this:

Sculpted narrows in lower Leprechaun

Standing in Leprechaun's "subway" section: Catherine, Khurrum, Robert, me

And to top it off, once back at camp you get to see sunsets like this:

Sunset after a long day canyoneering

I tell you, I can't wait for our son to be old enough to travel technical canyons with us.  (He's already old enough for us to hike through non-technical canyons...we're hoping to do a family trip out to Little Wild Horse canyon in the San Rafael Swell this fall.)