Wildlife
Mar. 5th, 2026 10:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ysabetwordsmithEven in the world’s driest desert, tiny worms are proving that life finds remarkable ways to endure.
Even in the ultra-dry Atacama Desert, tiny soil-dwelling nematodes are thriving in surprising diversity. Scientists found that biodiversity increases with moisture and altitude shapes which species survive. In the most extreme zones, many nematodes reproduce asexually — a possible survival advantage. The discovery suggests that life in arid regions may be far richer, and more fragile, than once believed.
Poem: "The Express Bus to Crazy-ass Death Land"
Mar. 5th, 2026 10:13 pmysabetwordsmithWarning: Here there be monsters.
( Read more... )
Daily Happiness
Mar. 5th, 2026 08:19 pmtorachan2. Yet another Santa Ana is blowing through and the weather is suuuuuper dry. I do prefer dry to humid, but I wish we would get more of something in between. The high temps for this weekend's accompanying hot spell are not supposed to be as high as last weekend's, though, so that's good.
3. Carla got the most amazing picture of Ollie yesterday. Look at that little mouth!!
The Big Idea: Randee Dawn
Mar. 5th, 2026 09:21 pm![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png){kind=small}
scalziwhatever_feed
If everyone only wrote what they knew, how many books would we be deprived of? Author Randee Dawn has some concerns about the age-old advice, and suggests writers should get out of their comfort zone in the Big Idea for her newest novel, We Interrupt This Program.
RANDEE DAWN:
There are many phrases writers long to hear: Your book is a best-seller! Your book changed my life! Your book is getting a Netflix adaptation! Your book props open my screen door!
Maybe not that last one.
But if there’s one phrase writers are a little tired of hearing is this: Write what you know.
What does that even mean? For years, I thought it was reductionist and stupid. I write speculative fiction. Spec fic is about dragons or distant planets or zombies or dragons and zombies on distant planets. I have yet to encounter any of those things. But isn’t that what imagination is for? Make stuff up!
Write what you know is a rhetorical piece of advice that sends young writers off on the wrong path, and often confuses older ones. It explains why twenty-two year olds write memoirs. They don’t know anything but their own lives!
But it can have value. My first useful encounter with understanding write what you know came when I plumbed my entertainment journalism past – including time at a soap opera magazine – to write a goofy first novel, Tune in Tomorrow (helpfully given its own discussion in The Big Idea in 2022). I knew what backstage on TV and film sets looked like. I’d spoken to thousands of actors, producers, and directors. It wasn’t so far a leap to imagine how things might be different if magical creatures were running things.
Then it came time to write the next story in the Tune-iverse. I’d used up a lot of Stuff I Knew. So what could come next to keep things interesting?
That was when I discovered that the advice isn’t stupid. It’s just not the only advice that matters. Writing what you know can – pick your metaphor – give you a frame, a recipe, or a direction to follow.
But writing what hurts gives you substance. Writing what hurts gets you into the subcutaneous zone.
With We Interrupt this Program (the next, also standalone, novel in my Tune-iverse), I tried to picture what the rest of the fae entertainment universe – run by the Seelie Court Network, of course – would look like. I imagined whole villages run by fae, populated by humans full-time, whose lives fit into neat little tropey stories. What if all the Hallmark movies were shot in the cutest, sweetest, village ever? What if there was a whole burg populated with humans who’d pissed the fae off and were being punished? What if a seaside town existed where a gray-haired older lady author solved cozy mysteries?
The latter one gave me Winnie, an older woman whose cozy mysteries about her TROPE Town neighbors were turned into movies for SCN. But Seaview Haven is in trouble when we meet Winnie, and she discovers she’ll have to write a really good story to fix matters. So she writes about a love affair with the town’s Seelie Showrunner/Mayor/Director.
But those who vet it say it isn’t good enough. It’s nice. She wrote what she knew. Then she’s told to write what’s hard.
The novel took me by surprise here. I hadn’t planned to make her write two important stories. The love story should be enough. But it was only good. It wasn’t great. Despite being supernatural, it felt mundane. Tropey.
In going deeper to find Winnie a hard story, I discovered I already had one based on events in my real life. I gave them to her. Sure, it’s about love. But it’s also about betrayal and writerly jealousy, the kind delivered with a stiletto and not a butcher knife. Frankly, I’m a little embarrassed it’s in there. It’s not an epic awfulness. I didn’t commit a crime.
Probably.
And in giving it to Winnie, the story worked for me. When she unveils her personal, painful moment, it folds into the story as if I’d planned it. We Interrupt remains slapsticky, punny, and full of lunatic moments. Hopefully, though, that’s why this moment – the hurtful story – hits the hardest.
Readers can sense when we’ve gone deep, and when we skate the surface. A writer always has to find a way to squint at their latest creation and ask if they’ve gone deep enough to make it hurt, no matter what the genre is. That’s what – if I’ve done it right – it means to stick the landing.
So let’s look at that old hoary advice once more. Yes, write what you know.
But don’t stop there.
After you figure out what you know, figure out what’s hard. What hurts. Pull out the stiletto, not the butcher knife … and get cutting.
We Interrupt This Program: Amazon|Barnes & Noble|Bookshop
Me-and-media update
Mar. 6th, 2026 04:41 pmchina_shopIn the spam SPAM spam poll, 52% of respondents only check their spam folder when they're looking for a specific thing, 30% check it maybe once a month, 10% weekly, and 8% daily. (This question was inspired by gmail sending multiple emails in the middle of threads to spam, wtf.)
In ticky-boxes, blanket cocoons and comfort food came second to hugs, 62% to 74%. Judgy koalas came third with 56%. Thank you for your votes! ♥
Reading
I read Courtney Milan's The Earl Who Isn't, which was just as enjoyable at the others in the series. Her kissing and UST are excellent, and I love everyone in Wedgeford.
Bounced off Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfield, with prejudice. (That was one of my library books.) The first "chapter" (of three in the entire book) was a blow-by-blow account of working backstage at SNL; the second "chapter" (which I flicked through) was lockdown correspondence. I didn't like either of the characters.
I don't know what I'm reading next. Or listening to on my own. But Andrew and I have about 2.5 hours left in Barrayar.
Kdramas
Oh no, I finished One Spring Night and kind of... went back to the beginning and started it again. With occasional diversions into Something in the Rain (which ha, is by the same writer, as well as having vast numbers of cast members in common, so that explains that). At some point I'll emerge from this Jung Hae In fever dream and start something else.
Pru and I finished Family by Choice (I LOVE IT SO MUCH), and next week we're starting Love Scout (\o/).
Other TV
We're on the final disk of extras for Return of the King, and that'll be it. It's stressful seeing the last-minute absolute chaos behind the scenes, but also kind of magical. Still going on The Pitt, and we've watched a couple of episodes of Dinosaur, a UK sitcom about two sisters, one of whom is autistic. I like it!
Got a few things lined up: new seasons of The Lincoln Lawyer and Dark Winds, more Scavengers Reign, there were probably some other things, idk.
Audio entertainment
Writing Excuses, some Better Offline, some What Matters Most (chatty general life psychology/advice), Cross Party Lines (local politics), Letters from an American (just a few /o\), Heaving Bosoms (chatty recaps of romance novels, just for something relaxing to put in my ears), Movie Briefs (lawyers talk about law movies, ditto).
Online life
*hugs you all, so much*
...
Writing/making things
My Yuletide treat is at beta at last. \o/ Now I've started in on my Yuletide assignment fic, unfinished at 7k words. I'm imposing a new structure on it to see if that might make it more finishable. No drawing practice.
Life/health/mental state things
Idk, I'm okay. Getting some things done, at least. Getting a fair amount of sleep and exercise. Doing righteous battle with my health insurer. Spending too much time tweaking my new phone to make it behave how I want.
Goals
This week: make a batch of vegetarian dumplings, make a mini quiche in the air fryer. All my goals are food, hi!
Good things
Sunshine. Helpful, supportive people. The 520 Day Guardian Reverse Exchange is coming soon! Kitty. New phone is mostly behaving itself. We went to a delightfully geeky talk about dragonflies.
In the last six months, I've been (in person) to
cinema
4 (44.4%)
theatre
2 (22.2%)
live music gig
2 (22.2%)
ballet
0 (0.0%)
opera
0 (0.0%)
sports game
0 (0.0%)
other
0 (0.0%)
ticky-box full of bakery treats
6 (66.7%)
ticky-box full of keeping a paper appointment diary
2 (22.2%)
ticky-box full of rambling around the podcast 'verse getting your ears dirty
2 (22.2%)
ticky-box full of softly squishable snow puppies snuggling in a heap
4 (44.4%)
ticky-box full of hugs to you all <3 <3 <3
6 (66.7%)
Take it in their eyes.
Mar. 5th, 2026 10:01 pmhannahI put in three bids for this year's Fandom Trumps Hate, two for beta readers and one for a vid. Whether they'll end up getting outbid remains to be seen. I've got at least a day to figure out what my absolute maximum collective bid should be and which ones to prioritize. Not something to think about for the rest of the night, at least.
Read "ICE Out" by Charles de Lint
Mar. 5th, 2026 08:50 pmysabetwordsmithICE came to Newford. Big mistake.
For:
Luis Gustavo Núñez Cáceres
Geraldo Lunas Campos
Víctor Manuel Díaz
Parady La
Renee Nicole Good
Luis Beltrán Yáñez–Cruz
Heber Sánchez Domínguez
Alex Pretti
murdered by ICE
I've been an activist for decades. I've done marches and letter campaigns and all the usual stuff. The technique I've found with the highest throughput of people saying, "I did the thing!" is plain old storytelling. Stories are part of what makes us human. Stories bind the past, explain the present, and imagine the future.
For bards, this is our fight. This is how we fight. Pass it on.
EDIT 3/5/26 -- My contribution is "The Express Bus to Crazy-ass Death Land."
Daily Check-In
Mar. 5th, 2026 08:23 pmmecurtin posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
fandom_checkinHow are you doing?
I am OK
9 (69.2%)
I am not OK, but don't need help right now
4 (30.8%)
I could use some help
0 (0.0%)
How many other humans live with you?
I am living single
4 (30.8%)
One other person
6 (46.2%)
More than one other person
3 (23.1%)
Please, talk about how things are going for you in the comments, ask for advice or help if you need it, or just discuss whatever you feel like.
dahlia day!
Mar. 5th, 2026 06:14 pmstarandreaLast year I put them straight into large containers that they lived in all summer. They grew taller than me and had to have supports constructed around them so they wouldn't fall over. I put a freeze cloth over them to keep them blooming late into the fall, and between them and a few pots of cannas they transformed our back deck into an amazing jungle.
This year I have too many overwintering plants already, plus more dahila tubers than last year, and I do not have space for giant containers indoors, let alone indoors under high-powered grow lights. So the dahlias went into little containers from which they will be transplanted to a garden in... two months. Which surely will not be enough time for them to turn into beanstalks that I regret starting early!
( pictures )
Nature
Mar. 5th, 2026 04:50 pmysabetwordsmithPeople often say a walk in nature clears the mind. Scientists have long suspected the effect is real, but exactly what happens inside the brain has been harder to pin down.
A sweeping synthesis of 108 brain-imaging experiments now shows that natural environments consistently quiet neural stress circuits and shift the brain toward a calmer, more integrated state.
( Read more... )
passing me by
Mar. 6th, 2026 08:42 amtielanStill haven't watched K-Pop Demon Hunters, or Heated Rivalry, or even Bridgerton S4...
I'm not bothering with Marvel (they're dead to me, like all the best characters in the franchise) and there's not much else that particularly interests me.
As usual, I mostly lack someone to watch things with. I'll watch movies that I'm only marginally interested in with friends, but I've never been a 'rewatch' kind of person - even in the background. Too many things to do.
--
Actually, I'm just not managing to stay on top of ANYTHING right now.
Happy World Book Day!
Mar. 5th, 2026 02:14 pmblogcutterhttps://literacytrust.org.uk/about-us/world-book-day-national-literacy-trust/
And here's another U.K. site, Goldsboro Books, in which their staff weigh in on the books that have had the greatest impact on their lives:
https://goldsborobooks.com/blogs/news/world-book-day-the-books-that-made-us-readers?mc_cid=702d996c97&mc_eid=47fc6ebfe4
Closer to home, we're also blessed with a strong network of libraries and bookshops. While most residents are likely aware of the location of their nearest or most convenient public library branch, there are also numerous libraries supporting educational institutions, government offices, law firms, and more. Their resources are often available to anyone who needs them, whether for consultation on site or borrowing directly through an alumni connection or otherwise via interlibrary loan.
There are also libraries geared to specific groups within our community, for example the Ottawa Trans Library:
https://ottawatranslibrary.ca
That said, there's something about book ownership too, especially with classics and other books that you anticipate re-reading or referring to on a regular basis.
Getting kids reading and enjoying books early in life is important too, and that's the philosophy behind Twice Upon A Time, which provides free books (of their own choosing) to children up to age 12:
https://twiceuponatime.ca
For leisure reading, I'm a big fan of in-person browsing, the serendipity of discovering something you weren't specifically looking for, but looks like it might be right up your alley. I love second-hand bookshops and fund-raising book sales but when I buy new, I try where possible to shop the independents.
One of my favourites is The Spaniel's Tale, located in Ottawa's Hintonburg neighbourhood. Their current space is really too small, although they've been making good use of the space they do have, highlighting local authors at the front of the store and devoting plenty of space to mystery and crime fiction, other genre fiction, gender studies, indigenous studies ... all the stuff I typically gravitate towards, anyway.
And the good news is ... they'll soon be moving a few doors along Wellington Street to more spacious digs!
https://thespanielstale.ca/our-new-location
If you shop there or think you would like to, you can even help with their expansion by becoming a Bookstore Builder at whatever level you're comfortable with (details at the above-listed website). They even maintain a gift registry for the aforementioned Ottawa Trans Library:
https://thespanielstale.ca/gift-registry/yHVwG-HlRiI
Not all independents do well here. Collected Works, which was located near Wellington and Holland, was in a cosy little space, accessible via a number of bus routes, and offered coffee too. They expanded their space, but sadly were unable to make a go of it after that.
Perfect Books, on the other hand, quite recently doubled their existing space and appear to be thriving. I'm sure it helps that they are in a central downtown location but they are also great community builders and have partnered with, for example, the Writers Festival to be their official book vendor. During pandemic lockdowns, staff would often hand-deliver orders free of charge and not only to downtown locations.
This one goes back a ways, but I also want to highlight the creative solution that Books on Beechwood came up with, when facing almost certain closure back in 2013:
https://www.newedinburgh.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/2013_FebNEN_web.pdf
Way to go!
Birdfeeding
Mar. 5th, 2026 01:10 pmysabetwordsmithI fed the birds. I've seen a small mixed flock of sparrows and house finches.
I put out water for the birds.
More crocuses are blooming -- lavender, purple, white, and pale yellow. :D The grass, which in recent years has retained bits of green through the winter, is suddenly much more green with growing tips visible.
EDIT 3/5/26 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.
It's mizzling rain again.
EDIT 3/5/26 -- I did a bit of work around the yard.
Many more flowers are blooming! :D There are buds of purple-and-white crocus in the rain garden and orange in the goddess garden. The first miniature irises are blooming periwinkle and red-violet in the tulip bed.
EDIT 3/5/26 -- I did more work around the patio.
I've seen a female cardinal at the hopper feeder.
I am done for the night.
Fancake's Theme for March: Siblings
Mar. 5th, 2026 09:21 amrunpunkrun
fancake's theme for March is Siblings! Assigned, chosen, other, it doesn't matter what kind of siblings they are as long as they're wearing matching dinosaur sweaters. jkIf you have any questions about this theme, or the comm, come talk to me!