State of the Schafer, Vol 4

Writing Progress:

With the kiddo back in school, this week was a bit more productive than last week, though my dreams of "serious progress" didn't quite pay off. The White Serpent is sitting now at 22,388 words, which doesn't seem like much increase from last week, but that's because I ended up rewriting one scene a bunch of times before I felt happy with what's in the draft.

You'd think outlining scenes would prevent this, and in many cases I believe it does. Yet I sometimes find I have to actually write a scene in full before I realize it isn't working the way I hoped. And then rewrite it, rinse, repeat. Argh, this is why I am not a fast writer. Oh well, onward ho! My motto at times like this comes from Dory in Finding Nemo: "Just keep swimming, just keep swimming..." So long as I don't stop, I will finish the draft.

Skating Update:

I drove over to Queenstown for another practice session, this time carpooling with another adult skater from Wanaka, which was a lot of fun. The trip over the Crown Range doesn't seem half so long when you can chat to a friend on the way!

At the rink, I had my first lesson with a local coach, and she was great. She worked on cleaning up my take-offs for my singles, which have gotten awfully sloppy after all these years. On a single jump, you can do all kinds of things wrong and still haul yourself around in the air and land okay. Not so with double jumps, which are a lot less forgiving.

Even in the short half-hour of the lesson, I could really feel the difference in height and flow for my singles with the corrected take-offs. Now I'm all excited that maybe with this kind of work, I could not only regain a double or two, but make them consistent enough to land in competition. But first I've got to put in the time to cement the newer, better habits, so they become reflex, in advance of trying any axels or doubles. Doubtless my back will be grateful.

I'm also excited at the idea of competing, period. There's an old program of mine from 2006 that I always wished I had skated better; I'm thinking I'll use that program again, so I don't have to spend precious ice and lesson time on learning a new one. Ha, though to remember all the footwork and everything, I had to dig up an old VHS tape of me skating the program at Adult Midwestern Sectionals back in the day, pull the video off the tape to a computer, and watch it a whole bunch of times. It's always kind of cringey, watching yourself skate. Every little error and moment of awkwardness seems tremendously magnified. But now I'm all the more motivated to achieve my goal of skating that program clean, with no mistakes.

New Zealand Life:

The house staining continues. My goodness our house has a lot of exterior wall. At this rate the job may take us all winter. Perhaps I can make it a race: what will become a beautifully polished, completed project first? The outside of our house, or my novella?

In parenting news, I've been fascinated by how many toys, TV shows, etc, from my own childhood in the '80s are still a thing today, albeit sometimes in updated form. My son has loved the modern versions of My Little Pony and Voltron and Pokemon. And now, for a real '80s classic, he and his best little buddy at school are super into Rubik's cubes. I guess in this modern era it's a heck of a lot easier to solve them, thanks to the internet. After mastering the original cube, now he's on to the Rubik's Tower. (I myself spent a fair chunk of time yesterday working through the solution to that one. Even with some internet help, it's not always easy the first time through.)

Pic of the Week:

Moody autumn day on the bank of the Clutha River

Reading Corner:

I'm not yet done with The Bone People, since I didn't have time for more than a scant few moments of reading this week. But I know what will be up next once I finish: Gabriel's Road, the brand new Devil's West novella from L.A. Gilman. Gabriel was my favorite character in the original Devil's West trilogy, which are weird westerns with a fascinating premise and some really cool nature-based magic. I loved Gabriel's struggle to confront and accept his ties to the Territory, and I'm hoping this novella will provide the satisfying resolution to his arc that we didn't get in the main books, where he wasn't the protagonist. I'm really looking forward to reading his story.

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.)

State of the Schafer, Vol 2

Writing Progress:

I managed to keep to my 500-word per weekday goal, despite a 3-day trip to Queenstown, plus scrubbing and prepping one side of our house for staining. My draft of The White Serpent is up to 18,503 words, including some very hard-won words on one troublesome argument scene which I had to rewrite a couple times before I felt happy with the interactions between Cara and the other characters. Onward to the next scene, which I hope will be a bit less tricky to get right.

My son, however, is quite miffed that I haven't done any work on HIS book, the middle-grade science fiction adventure with magic and lasers, since finishing the first chapter a while back. I told him I'm not good at working on multiple projects at once; he pointed out sternly that I managed it with my engineering job, so why can't I learn to multi-task with writing?

Kids, man. They cut you no slack. Maybe I can try adding in a 100 word goal for the magic-and-lasers on top of my 500-word goal for The White Serpent.

Skating update:

While visiting Queenstown, I spent another hour practicing on a public session. This time the kiddo came with me to skate, which is always extra fun. Best of all, I had no back soreness afterward: hooray! I think low sit spins are the riskiest move for my back, even more so than jumping, so I avoided those and I think it paid off. I haven't yet dared to try an axel or any doubles yet, but I sure had a good time.

The kiddo snapped this picture of me enjoying life on the ice

New Zealand Life:

As mentioned above, we're working on staining the house. It's actually not so much the staining that's hard, as all the prep work. Mix up a tank of moldkiller, spray on, wait 48 hours, pray for a sunny day, mix up washing fluid, spray on, scrub until arms fall off. Plus our house is two stories, with a funky steeply slanting metal roof in between the lower and upper level, which means we'll have to get creative with our climbing gear to safely work on the upper portion. Oh well, I always love a challenge.

It's Easter this weekend, and Kiwis seem hugely into Easter in a way they aren't with other holidays. Not so much the religious aspects, but the CHOCOLATE. Every grocery store (or should I say, supermarket), is absolutely buried in displays of every type of bunny-shaped and egg-shaped chocolate you could possibly imagine. White chocolate and mango eggs. Passionfruit and kiwifruit bunnies. Marshmallow eggs covered in sprinkles. Chocolate bars as long and thick as my arm, containing the same goo inside as Cadbury's creme eggs. (The Kiwis turn up their noses at Cadbury, by the way. Whittaker's is where it's at. Having tried their white chocolate flavors, I must agree.)

Yet the one Easter treat NZ doesn't have is the one my son always loved best: PEEPS. I had to look it up for him: apparently they're only sold in the US and Canada. It doesn't entirely surprise me they haven't caught on here. They always tasted pretty darn nasty to me, like a mouthful of Styrofoam coated in stale sugar and pumped full of preservatives. I think my son loved them because he can't eat gluten and doesn't like chocolate, and they're pretty much the one GF non-choc treat readily available in America for Easter. He plans to stock up the next time we visit the US. Assuming the biohazard folks at NZ customs let him bring peeps into the country, I look forward to watching his Kiwi friends' faces when they try one.

U.S. Politics (the horrorshow continues)

Welp. The Mueller report is finally out. While I'm genuinely glad to find that the more far-fetched theories about Trump's relationship to Russia aren't true, even the redacted version of the report is pretty savage in its portrayal of the President's corruption, lies, and disregard for laws. To quote from the report's conclusion, "The President's efforts to influence the investigation were mostly unsuccessful, but that is largely because the persons who surrounded the President declined to carry out orders or accede to his requests." But honestly, anybody who didn't already know Trump doesn't give a damn for laws or country or anything beyond his own personal gain, is either willfully blind or has been living under a rock.

The worrying part is that most of the aides and appointees who refused to carry out Trump's illegal orders have resigned or been fired. Since Republican voters continue to signal that they'll excuse or ignore absolutely any horrible or even criminal behavior on Trump's part, I don't hold out hope the Republicans in Congress will exercise their constitutional duties and hold him to account.

Prior to now, I'd shared the pragmatic view expressed by Democrats like Pelosi. If the Senate will refuse to act on any impeachment, why waste time and effort on a fight you can't win? Why not focus effort on one you can: the next elections. But since reading the report and seeing Mueller spell out very clearly his reasoning why Congress should be the ones to act on the evidence he collected, I've come to feel differently. Even if impeachment doesn't result in removal, it's still worthwhile to take a stand. To show voters and the world that at least some Americans aren't turning a blind eye to corruption; that speaking up for what is right is more important than worrying about political cost. I hope the Democrats of the House have enough courage to take that stand (which, realistically, will only happen if enough voters call or email them to say as much. So hey, if you feel as I do, call your representative.)

Pic of the Week:

Autumn colors in Queenstown

Reading Corner:

I finished The Luminaries, which I found absorbing but sometimes frustrating. (I thought the author prioritized cleverness of structure over depth of characterization.)

I then tried The Gutter Prayer, but stalled out about 30% into the book--I think I'm just not in the right mood. The worldbuilding was wonderfully imaginative, but I wasn't connecting with the characters in the way I wanted.

So now I'm continuing my investigation of New Zealand authors with Keri Hulme's The Bone People, which I've heard is powerfully memorable.

State of the Schafer, Vol 1

They say nobody reads blogs anymore, and in a weird way I find that freeing. I haven't posted here in ages because I thought I should preserve all my time and effort for working on my actual book drafts. Yet recently I've been hankering to keep some sort of journal, a way to record progress and the small events of life without all the dismaying downsides of Facebook and other social media platforms. Ha, and then I remembered personal journaling used to be the entire point of a blog, once upon a time, before so much of the internet became about clicks and likes and pageviews and ways to monetize.

So, I'm going to try a little experiment for myself. A weekly update, about writing and life and whatever I feel like recording, mostly for my own benefit. Something I can look back on to trigger all the deeper memories, plus a way for distant friends and family to check in and see how our lives are going.

Writing Progress:

I'm still revising and reworking my Shattered Sigil novella, The White Serpent (this is the one from Cara's point of view). The revised draft currently sits at 15,973 words (out of an estimated 30-40K). I recently set a goal that every weekday, I want to end up with 500 more words than the day before.

500 words may not sound like much, but I find I work best with small goals that aren't hard to reach. Setting a small goal means I don't stress out about reaching it; I feel good when I make it, and better yet if I surpass it. If I have a day where getting words on the page feels like ripping out teeth, or else a day where a ton of unexpected tasks/issues eat up all my usual writing time, well...500 additional words isn't too hard to manage. I can still get that much done on a difficult day, even if the words are a terrible mess that will get deleted and rewritten the moment I have proper time and brainpower.

But the real test approaches...can I keep adding at least 500 words a day to the draft during the next 2 weeks when my son is on holiday from school? Fingers crossed.

Sad book news:

A little while ago I got an email from Thomson-Shore, the company who prints and sells the physical editions of The Labyrinth of Flame, saying the company is ceasing all print & distribution operations immediately and filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Gosh, doesn't this seem familiar. At least Thomson-Shore doesn't hold any of my rights. Sadly, it does mean the illustrated physical editions of Labyrinth of Flame will no longer be available. I guess the few boxes I have leftover from the Kickstarter print run have become rare collectibles!

Skating: The Return

It's been years since I last skated regularly, thanks to injury recovery and then moving to NZ. The nearest rink is in Queenstown, an hour away over a mountain pass, and only opens for half the year. But upon seeing the rink open for the season this past Monday, and reading all the happy posts on Facebook from US skater friends celebrating at Adult Nationals, I could not deny how deeply I still miss the sport. My lumbar spine has been doing pretty well these days, so I contacted the Queenstown Ice Skating Club to ask about freestyle sessions and coaching, and headed over the pass for a trial hour of practice on a public session.

I tried to be very, very careful of my back. No axels, no double jump attempts, no layback spins, only a few low sit spins and change-foot camel spins. I concentrated on easy single jumps, upright spins, and footwork, and I stopped as soon as my back felt tired. The outcome: no sciatic pain (yay!), although my low back muscles were a bit sore the next day. There's just no other type of exercise that works the back in quite the same ways as skating. Yet my soreness didn't feel like squished nerves, more like, "oh gosh I haven't used these muscles like this in ages."

So I am...tentatively hopeful. It was lovely to be back on the ice, and yet also frustrating to see how rusty all my old skills have become after so long away. Oh well, lots of room for improvement, if I can keep my back healthy!

The good news about the rink being so far away is that it'll stop me from pushing too hard. I'm diligently working through core & back strengthening exercises from my old conditioning manuals, and I'll try another skating session next week. The Queenstown club secretary, who's also an adult skater, put me in touch with a bunch of friendly and very helpful skaters--the adult skating community here seems just as close-knit and supportive as the one I left behind, which has me all the more excited about returning to the sport. Fingers crossed my back can hold up to it.

New Zealand Life:

After a very warm start to autumn, cooler temps have definitely arrived. I'm wearing my super thick hoodie-footie pajamas at night again. I look like a giant Ewok, but I'm WARM, darn it.  (Seriously, those pjs are the single most useful thing I brought to NZ.) We've had to use our woodburner for heat in morning/evening, and we've glimpsed fresh snow on the highest peaks. Ski season is coming, albeit slowly. The resorts here don't usually open until late June.

Yesterday was the final day of Term 1 of my son's school year. In addition to all the usual reading and writing and maths, my son's class learned knitting and swing dancing, both of which he hugely enjoyed. I have to say, so far NZ seems to have way fewer hangups over gendered expectations for kids. The little girls here play just as roughly as the boys (which is, um, pretty rough...much rougher than was ever allowed at my son's Colorado school), while the boys are happy to learn knitting, dancing, cooking, etc. It's refreshing to see. As for me, I've never knitted or sewn anything in my life, so my son is quite excited that he can teach me how.

We should have some time for knitting instruction, since the kiddo is on holiday for the next 2 weeks, until the second term of his school year begins. My husband is too busy with his work to take a long break, but we've got some fun short excursions planned.

Less fun is the looming chore of staining the house. Without much of an ozone layer over NZ, the sun here is insanely powerful. Wooden siding will quickly warp and crack if you don't slather protective stain onto it every few years. Our house is in desperate need of restaining; probably we ought to cough up the massive amount of money required for professionals to mold-spray and scrub and stain, but with me not earning much income at the moment, it seems a good time to learn some good old hands-on skills. Besides, that's the Kiwi way: they're very big on self-sufficiency.

Pic of the week:

Glorious sunset viewed from our upper balcony

Currently Reading:

The Luminaries (Eleanor Catton)--award-winning literary historical novel by NZ author, set in the coastal town of Hokitika during the 19th century gold rush days

2018 in Retrospect: settling in and sea changes

So, 2018. What a year. I'm typing this in mid-January because it's taken me this long to even figure out what to say. On a global and political level...yeah, let's not even go there. I don't have much to say that doesn't sound terribly pessimistic, and I don't think pessimism is helpful at all. Instead I'll just keep this a personal recounting, which is a happier tale. 2018 was far kinder to me than to many, and I'm aware of how fortunate I am in that regard.

I do think of 2018 as the Year of the Never-ending Move, because so much time and effort was devoted to completing our transition from Colorado to New Zealand. Obtaining my resident visa, selling one house long distance, buying another one here, ugh, I don't want to talk about all that either. I'm just glad all the stress and work involved with those tasks is over. The final step on the path came in November, when our household goods arrived and I was at last reunited with my book collection (hooray!):

So it turns out I have a lot of books

Unpacking and sorting through all our boxes (and selling/donating what we no longer needed) felt like a second job for a while! The hardest part was figuring out where to put all my books in a house that doesn't have any bookshelves (ack). I'm currently using some tool shelves in the garage, combined with creative stacking in various closets.

Our garage has become my library

Speaking of jobs, another big change for me came just before Christmas, when I said farewell to the company where I've worked for nearly 21 years. That's my whole adult life since leaving grad school! I knew when we decided to stay in NZ that I might need to leave my job--I'd originally assumed I'd be resigning when we visited Colorado back in April. My department thought they had found a way to keep me on as a remote employee, but alas, it couldn't be maintained long term. I can't stay working as a remote but regular employee for reasons related to NZ tax law, and since I'm now a resident of a foreign country, I can't easily be hired as a contractor or incorporated company, thanks to US technology export regulations.

Though I had plenty of time to prepare for my exit, the final day when I delivered my last project and said goodbye to my co-workers brought me a whole tangled mess of emotions. On the one hand, I'm not sure I'll ever work for a better company. The projects were always super cool and challenging, my co-workers were amazing, the work environment was flexible and friendly, and the company treated me well. I mean, heck, not only did they support me working part time ever since the birth of my son, I still had a full pension plus a 401(k). How many US companies even offer pensions anymore?

Yet after so many years spent working in one corner of the aerospace industry, it's also exciting to contemplate seeking out some new horizons. New Zealand has a young but rapidly growing space and technology sector, with some creative applications and approaches. What I'd love best is to contribute to climate change mitigation technologies, since at this point I feel it's our best hope for any kind of reasonable future. That kind of work is happily a lot easier in a country like NZ where the government is 100% on board with the need.

This is the view outside my window as I type. What I'd love most is to ensure sights like this never disappear from our planet

So despite my sadness at leaving a great workplace, I'm excited about what new opportunities I might find. The happy news for those of you who enjoy my books is that I don't intend to jump into another job straight away. As part of moving to NZ, we downsized our spending so we can live on one salary. Since my husband has secured a good full-time job, that gives me a gift of time which I'm terribly grateful to have.

For so long now I've been juggling engineering, parenting, marriage, and writing, and feeling like I'm constantly dropping the ball on one role or the other. In these last few years, the casualty has mostly been writing. As demonstrated by the fact it's been an embarrassing number of years now since I put out Labyrinth of Flame, and I haven't yet finished a new novel, or even the short stories-turned-into-novellas I still owe as a bonus for Kickstarter backers. I wince every time I think about it.

Well, no more. While I take time to consider the future direction of my engineering career, now is my chance to finish the writing projects that have been languishing on my hard drive for so long. Well, okay, first I mean to seize the opportunity to spend the last few weeks of my son's summer vacation focused wholly on having fun with him, without ever having to say, "Sorry, I can't play, I've got to finish this code." If 2018 has made me aware of anything in life, it's how swiftly time slips past, especially as kids grow older. My beloved kiddo isn't little anymore, but he's still young enough to love spending time with me. I don't know how much longer that will last, and my first goal of 2019 is to make the most of it.

Already working on priority #1: silly faces and smiles

But summer breaks, like childhood itself, don't last long. When my son returns to school in a few short weeks, it'll be time for my next goal of 2019: Finishing All The Drafts. Yes, allllllllllll the drafts! In addition to the Shattered Sigil short story collection, and my still-in-progress adult fantasy novel The Dreaming Sea, my son also asked me to write him a middle-grade SFF book that has "both magic and lasers." I've got my work cut out for me, I think!

I suspect that even without a day job to juggle, I'm not and never will be a fast writer. But I'm curious to see what I can do when I have the chance to really buckle down without as much interruption and division of focus. Fingers crossed for a far more interesting list of personal accomplishments by the end of 2019!

In the meantime, I'll leave you with some pics from our recent trip to Australia over the holidays, since one of my favorite ways to herald the new year is by enjoying some of nature's beauty. Best wishes for 2019, everyone. May we all end up in a better place by the year's end.

Sea cliffs and sunlight

Roiling waves

The coastal bush, echoing with the deafening lovesongs of a million cicadas 

Hungry lorikeets

This is my husband's preferred amount of crowd at a beach

I found the sea's stony heart...

Cormorant or sea-dragon? You decide

Sand and fun

A different kind of beauty: Sydney's Darling Harbour on a rainy night

Last chance on a stairway

We've been living in New Zealand over a year now. A year and about four months, in fact, and at long last we're starting to feel settled. I've got my New Zealand residency (whew!). We sold our house in Colorado and survived the stressful NZ auction process to buy one in Lake Hawea. My husband has a job at a cool new NZ company focused on practical uses of geospatial remote sensing data. Our nine year old has made new friends and discovered a passion for trampolining.

Enjoying the new Casa Schafer

The view from my computer desk. I'm looking forward to finally making progress again on new novel The Dreaming Sea and also my Shattered Sigil novellas/stories now that all the real estate drama is over. 

We're not quite done replanting our lives yet, even after all this time. Our household goods, which were in storage for so long in Colorado, are currently on a container ship taking a slow tour of the southern Pacific. It'll be another month or more before our boxes arrive at our door and I am finally reunited with my beloved book collection. (Oh happy day!) Plus we're still figuring out how to handle our suddenly far more complicated tax situation. Taxes, I've learned, are the bane of ex-pat living. So long as we remain U.S. citizens, we have to file tax returns in both the US and NZ, and the tax treaty between the two countries doesn't prevent all forms of double taxation. Remote work such as I am doing throws in a whole host of additional complications.

But I don't mind one bit that I still pay U.S. taxes, because it means I still get to vote in U.S. elections. We may live far away, but I could never, will never turn my back on what's happening in the country of my birth. I've watched in dismay and sadness and sometimes fury as those in power make one terrible choice after another. Forcibly separating children from parents seeking asylum, despite the lasting psychological damage caused to those children, without any system in place to allow reunification. Repealing environmental regulations on air and water quality, because who cares if cancer rates skyrocket so long as companies make bigger profits?

Oh, the list goes on and on. Fawning over dictators while insulting and antagonizing our staunchest allies. Ballooning the deficit while wages remain stagnant. Gutting health care options while people are dying because they can't afford vital medicines like insulin. Ignoring the desperate pleas of climate scientists trying to warn the world of oncoming disaster. And all of this, ALL of it, simply out of greed. The love of money, as the Bible says, is the root of all evil. As was pointed out in a cogent Atlantic article, Trump's many scandals all come down to one: corruption.

Maybe you think all politicians are corrupt. If you are okay with corruption and constant lying, if you're willing to turn a blind eye to the disastrous consequences of current policies in the name of "owning the libs"...well. I don't know how to explain to you that you should care about other people. But if you're apathetic because you can't imagine that things could ever change, so why even bother trying...please listen.

Living in New Zealand, I've experienced a taste of the kind of happier future that America could have. One where nobody has to worry about affording life-saving drugs, or fear that serious illness will bankrupt their family. Seriously, it's amazing to see what a difference that makes. Nobody's afraid to start their own business or work part time or switch jobs; people seem so much less stressed and happier in their work because of it. Nor is there the constant fear of litigation, because nobody has to worry about being sued to pay massive medical bills in the case of an accident. (Even tourists are covered here for accidental injuries, thanks to NZ's ACC scheme.)

It's not just the universal health care that makes life in NZ feel brighter. Here, politicians from opposing parties work together to combat climate change. Leaders emphasize compassion and integrity in government, rather than depending on cruelty and crudity. In 2017, NZ police fired their guns just 10 times while responding to 3.5 million incidents throughout the country.

America could have this kind of future. We don't have to succumb to fear and hatred and greed. But if you want that brighter future, you have to get off your ass and vote. We have to stop the current slide into ruin before it's possible to take a better path. 

The midterm elections are in a scant few days. Maybe it's not America's absolute last chance--as Alex Steffen said on Twitter in a thread about climate change, "At no point on this trajectory will it be too late to work to make things better." But the longer people wait, the harder the climb back toward the light will become, and the smaller the chances of success.

The recent NYT article "How to Make America America again" sums up my feelings:

"One day I hope the truth will be enough again. One day I hope great journalism will be enough again. But today only a lever of power — the House or the Senate — will make it so. Facts, science and truth — without power — are just leaves floating through the air in the age of Trump, scattering aimlessly without impact.

So, this year: No third party, no Green Party, no throwing up our hands and saying, “They’re all bad.” All of that’s for another day. For today, in these midterm elections, vote for a Democrat, canvass for a Democrat, raise money for a Democrat, drive someone else to a voting station to vote for a Democrat. It’s the only hope to make America America again."

Let me be clear: I am not and have never been a registered Democrat. I have plenty of issues with the party. But like the author of the NYT article, I believe that right now they are America's best and possibly only hope. So, please. If you're a U.S. citizen who feels anything like I do, vote. I already have. All I can do now is hope that Nov 6th will bring a glimpse of light.

Storm clearing to let in the day's last light

Not dead, just buried

On the one hand, I can't believe we're almost halfway through the year already. On the other hand, it feels like the last 6 months have had a decade's worth of happenings crammed into them, and not just in terms of dismaying politics. If you're wondering why I've not only been silent here, but also pretty quiet on my more regular haunts of twitter and r/Fantasy, it's because I've had a lot going on. In the past 6 months, I've:

1) Applied for New Zealand residency (which required a mountain of further paperwork)

2) Organized repairs and other preparations for selling our house in Boulder. Everything to do with selling a house is stressful at the best of times, but my husband and I have found the stress increases exponentially when you have to deal with contractors, real estate agents, etc, while not living in the same country. I currently hate everything to do with houses.

3) Returned to Colorado in April to resign from my job in the space industry. Except at the last minute I was offered the chance to work remotely on a cool new project at the company, so I ended up NOT resigning. Heh, of course this change of plan came after I'd already sent my "Farewell, dear colleagues..." email out to all my coworkers. Cue a lot of telling people, "Um, about that? Never mind..." (My coworkers didn't blink an eye. The joke at our company is that it's the Hotel California. Nobody ever really leaves. Go ahead and try. You'll be back, we all know it.) Anyway, so I still have my job, which I'm quite happy about! But starting a new project does mean more time working and less time doing everything else.

4) Said a wistful farewell to my beloved literary agent of 8 years, Becca Stumpf, who is leaving agenting to take up freelance editing. It's not farewell for long, I'm sure, because if I ever need an editor, I will hire her in a heartbeat. (Becca is amazing, and I don't say that lightly. She's one of the best and most professional people I've worked with in publishing.)

5) Continued working on draft 2 of my new fantasy book The Dreaming Sea. It's going slowly, thanks to all the other demands on my time, but it's going, at least. Once our house in Boulder is sold, I'm hoping to also squeeze in some more work on the Shattered Sigil novella, The White Serpent. Oh, for more hours in the day!

6) And occasionally I've been trying to get outside. What's the point of living in a stunningly beautiful country if you don't take time to enjoy that beauty?

The famous Wanaka tree. It's an old fencepost, apparently, that wasn't quite dead yet when the lake inundated it. Since then it's blossomed into one of NZ's most photographed trees. Cue labored metaphors about life...

View from the Rob Roy Glacier Track, one of my favorite local hikes

Coast south of Dunedin, about 3 hours away from Wanaka (but worth the drive)

I expect the infrequent posting will continue for the near future. But I'm still alive and checking emails and twitter and r/Fantasy threads, even if I haven't much time to contribute. Can't wait for the day I can say I've got a new book or novella all polished and ready! Until then, it's nose to grindstone.