In which the Bible gives pretty clear and unequivocal advice to Christians about what to do with poor people, the sick, immigrants and criminals. This was our Bible reading in church today and I repeat it here because I think there are some Christians and some people in power who could stand to hear it more often.
Matthew 25:31-46New International Version (NIV)
The Sheep and the Goats
31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne.32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.33 He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.
34 “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in,36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink?38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you?39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’
41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.42 For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink,43 I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’
44 “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’
45 “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’
46 “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”
I’m not a DC fan, but I’m not not a DC fan, if you see what I mean. I’ve watched both Superman and Batman films before, though not recently – they had begun to be a little too po-faced for me. But I enjoyed Wonder Woman a lot, so I thought I’d go and see if Justice League was my cup of tea. (We have a new cinema recently built near my house, so now I don’t have to plan a day trip around a visit.)
What to say? I enjoyed Justice League perhaps more than I enjoyed Thor: Ragnarok. The story was very thin, and the villain was sooooooooo predictable and overdone. Blah blah, generic ugly semi-supernatural bad guy with the frankly ridiculous name of Steppenwolf.
Every time someone said Steppenwolf, I thought of this:
Blah blah, generic horned evil dude with his legion of undead minions wants to take over the world. Almost 100% of the time spent on the bad guy was wasted time. We have seen this exact same thing in every film for the past ten years, and I could predict his every line of dialog from start to finish. Blergh.
Surprisingly, though, what this succeeded in doing was to make me interested in the heroes. Me, a confirmed villain fan, rooting for the good guys! See, all you have to do is to give your heroes more personality than the villain and even I will come around to the cause.
I think that was this film’s great strength in contrast to Thor: Ragnarok. It actually took the time to build the relationships between the team, and between each hero and the people who were important to them. Or at least, it did this for Cyborg and The Flash, who were – probably not coincidentally – my favourites. I didn’t honestly care about them saving the world, Batman and Aquaman were too po-faced for me to feel particulaly engaged with, but these two young men just coming into their powers were the heart of the film for me and I will admit to welling up at their scenes with their dads.
There was a great subplot where the audience was invited to regard a Russian family as their civilian Everymen.
I also welled up at some of the bits with Superman, though that was balanced out by the fact that he seemed a bit ridiculously overpowered. Isn’t Wonder Woman a goddess? I feel like she should have beaten him, or at least fought him to a standstill.
(I had to laugh at yet another appearance of the random fanservice of “lets make all our heroes fight!” “Who would win in a fight?” is the fanboy equivalent of “Who do you ship?” It made no sense, and they had to strong-arm the plot to get it, but by God they wanted it and so it was there.)
tl/dr: A solid movie with good heroes and a bad baddy. Now let’s please give Cyborg and the Flash their own film!
It’s come to my attention that people are just not finding Lioness of Cygnus Five. That is, the people who have read it have liked it enough to seek me out in order to tell me so and hassle me about when the next one is coming out. So I know the book itself is okay. But it’s not selling, which means that people are not picking it out of a lineup and going “that looks like something I want to read.”
This is not a new problem. Initially I thought it might be because its first cover was kind of amateurish and offputting. Eg
This time, while I am much much happier with the professionalism of the cover, I’m beginning to think that it says “Hard SF” rather than “fun Space Opera/Pulp Science Fiction.” Eg
I think people must be looking at that and expecting a science heavy tale of deep space exploration, only to be disappointed when they read a blurb that promises something closer to Stargate meets Honor Harrington.
So I have re-made the cover yet again, and I need your advice on it. I like the pictures but I can’t decide on the fonts. Given that we’re thinking Space Adventure with Aliens, which one do you prefer, A or B?
We’re half way through November now, which must mean that we’re also half way through NaNoWriMo – the National Novel Writing Month. I’ll come clean, I’ve only ever ‘won’ Nanowrimo once, and that was with a book that I had already started beforehand and had stalled on. I used NaNo to write the final 50,000 words and finish the thing. That was the novel that (after another 8 months of editing) became False Colors.
Even that probably doesn’t count, because you’re supposed to go into Nano having written none of your novel beforehand. So technically that was a fail.
However – and I think it’s an important however – I have now finished and published fifteen novels and eight novellas. So one thing I can claim I know about is how to get to the end of a story.
While writing all those stories, I’ve noticed an interesting thing – I have a regular emotional cycle which I go through without fail every time and with every book. Identifying this cycle has made the emotional journey of novel writing a little easier to cope with. Now when I absolutely cannot get myself to the page and I am considering offering to scrub my neighbours’ toilets rather than write, I at least have the comfort of knowing that feeling like this is part of my regular process.
Talking a thirty chapter novel, here’s how writing a novel goes for me, in terms of emotion and enjoyment:
1. Chapters One to Five
Ooh, this is fun! I really like my protag. There’s so much about this idea which is intriguing. I can’t wait to learn more. This is fantastic, and – you know what – I think I’m actually writing fairly well too. I love being a writer! I can’t wait to be back at the keyboard.
2. Chapters Five to Ten
I don’t know. Maybe I should have started with a different plot. Maybe this secondary character would have been better as the protag? I’ve written all the scenes from the wrong points of view, haven’t I? And no one wants to read a [whatever this novel is] I’d do a lot better to write that [guaranteed bestseller] instead.
This is your first point of danger. At this point, many writers do start again, reworking the book with a different protag, different plot points and/or different points of view. They may even decide to abandon this book and start a different one which will, of course, go better. If you do any of these things, the real result is that you end up back at step 1. And you will inevitably get to step 2 again with that project too.
What to do at this stage? Make a note of the ideas generated. If some are really good, incorporate them into this book from this point onwards. You can change the first few chapters to match after you’ve finished the book. But this is the first point where you have to deploy your mantra – which in my case is “you can’t stop until you’ve finished this book” – and push on regardless.
3. Chapters Ten to Twenty
Ugh. This is a lot like hard work, isn’t it? I have no motivation. I’m not exactly bored, but chewing my way through this is like being a woodworm having to chew their way through a church pew. There’s a certain satisfaction in having got the daily word-count done, but getting my butt in the chair to do it is like wrangling a reluctant mule. Work, work work. I thought being a writer was supposed to be more glamourous than this. Also I’m pretty sure I’m a hack. My writing is as dull as I feel. I really don’t want to do this any more.
This is the famous ‘slump in the middle.’ Your motivation’s gone, procrastination is through the roof. Nothing you’re writing seems really interesting any more. You can see all the ways in which your characters’ motivations don’t make sense, your story is a cliche, your sentences are ugly and there is nothing worthwhile about any of it.
It’s so hard not to believe this feeling. You don’t really want to write the book any more, so it’s almost a relief to allow yourself to believe you’re a terrible writer and you should just stop. But fortunately – if you’ve already finished a few novels, or if you take the word of someone who has – you know that this feeling is a lie. If you finish the book, you will find that it’s actually pretty good. You’ve just got to finish first.
What to do at this stage? This is the ‘nobody said it was going to be easy’ stage. Why should writing be less like work than digging a garden or making a road? No one lets a gardener or a road builder quit half way through because they’re bored and discouraged, so why should you? Deploy the mantra again – “You can’t stop until you’ve finished.” You might hate it, but go and do your daily wordcount anyway.
4. Chapters Twenty to Twenty five
Oh, I’m nearly at the end! Past the middle, at least. I can see the end from here. And, you know what? This is not bad, actually. A bit of sprucing up in the editing stage and it’ll be a good book. I’m totally glad I didn’t do that re-write in chapter five, because this is fine as it is! Exciting, isn’t it? I’m nearly there!
What to do at this stage? Enjoy it. But don’t be too disappointed when along comes…
5. Chapters Twenty Five to Thirty
I can’t do it. I just can’t. I don’t know why I’m sitting here obsessively refreshing Tumblr but I can’t get up and write. I don’t even know why not. I just can’t.
The end of novel road-block. Son of Slump. The mid book slump is back and he’s meaner than ever. I call this a road-block because it is very much like running into a wall. Sometimes, unlike the middle, there aren’t even any discouraging thoughts or emotions attached. You know you could finish it in two or three days. You know that a completed book is within your grasp, and that it’s not even going to be a bad one. But the will to write is just not there.
My theory is that your subconscious does not want to let go of this world in which you have spent so much time and energy. At a deep and inaccessible level, some part of you wants to keep these people you’ve come to love – and this expression of your own character – private, safe, all to yourself, and it knows that getting to the end is like the guillotine coming down. You will have to say goodbye, and you don’t want to.
What to do at this stage? It helps if you’ve established a regular writing routine. If you have a time of day where you always write, the habit can drive you into sitting down and writing anyway. I find that at this stage I’m often late to turn up. I’ll say ‘oh, I just don’t want to do it today,’ and then an hour into my writing time I’ll think, ‘I’ve only got an hour left! I should go and do something at least.”
It also helps – if you’re really struggling – to reduce your daily word count. ‘Oh, I’ll just go and do a thousand words,’ or ‘I’ll feel less crap about myself if I manage five hundred words, so let’s do that.’ As long as you don’t reduce your daily word count to zero, you’ll get there in the end.
If you absolutely cannot write, then you can take a day off. But make sure it’s only one! After your one day off, go into the next one determined that you’re refreshed and ready to do this, and write.
Writing is work. Sometimes it’s hard work. But we all suffer through parts of our work that we don’t like. We put our heads down, shoulder through and get there, weary but accomplished. At least we’re not out in the rain as we would be if we were building a road instead of a book. Soldier on through the rough parts until you get there, which you inevitably will. Because the real secret to finishing a book is genuinely as simple as this: If you don’t stop until you’ve finished it, you will finish it.
On Thursday, we had a meeting of one of my morris dancing sides to discuss a fraught question. This particular side is an all male side (with a bunch of musicians who they insist on calling “our terrific lady musicians.” ) The question on the table was: should we allow female dancers into the side?
I don’t mind the fact that it’s an all male side. That’s not really my issue. As long as there are morris sides that women can join–mixed sides, or all female sides or whatever–I think it’s all fine and dandy that some sides choose to be all male.
During the discussion it became totally clear that if they chose to let women in, it would be on the understanding that women don’t and can’t – by virtue of biology – dance the same way men can, and therefore the side’s entire culture and reputation as hard men of the dance circuit would be on the line. That’s just plain sexism and biological determinism, old as the dinosaurs, but still kicking in terms of offensiveness. I may not like to be classified as a woman, but sexism still makes me flip my lid.
My specifically non-gender-binary problem came up when they decided that perhaps it would be better to have all these hypothetical female recruits form an all female branch of the side, so that all male dancing could continue unmixed.
The only morris side that would take me when we moved into the area was an all female side, and I feel – on and off – profoundly uncomfortable there, even though I have adapted the kit so that I’m now wearing a man’s kilt rather than the uniform skirt. (Don’t say anything. I think I’ve got away with it, if only because no one has noticed.)
I am now a member of a mixed side, which is a profound relief, because in a mixed side it doesn’t matter that you’re neither a man nor a woman, because the variety of human that you are shouldn’t need to come up.
Yet even in the mixed side there are continual calls for the re-establishment of the binary. “Let’s do this dance with all the women on one side and all the men on the other!” “Why don’t we do this one with all the women in one set and all the men in another, then it could be a fun competition!” “Maybe we could adjust the kit so the the women could all wear matching skirts,” etc. These calls are not just coming from the men; they’re coming from the women too. Many of the women have made attempts to make their kit more feminine, adding appropriate jewellery and leggings rather than trousers, some with skirts on top.
I recognize the impulse. It’s like the kilt thing in reverse. People need to have a way to express their gender or lack thereof. But the trouble for me is that cis people’s continuing desire to separate themselves into two genders leaves me standing in the middle on my own.
I generally go to the side that I pass for, but being forced to make that choice is deeply uncomfortable, and it’s a choice that is forced on me over and over again by well meaning cis people who are trying to make me feel that my (non-existant) womanhood is being respected. I don’t have one, thanks. Leave me out of this.
This rant was prompted by getting an email from QueerTheology.com about “Simple Steps to Love Trans People (or Your Trans Self)” And all of them are about accepting yourself–learning to love and value yourself and how to silence the inner voices that tell you you’re wrong for being who you are.
But I don’t have that inner voice. I may have spent my whole life going “what the hell am I?” until I finally decided to give up on figuring out gender altogether and settled on non-binary about five years ago. But I never felt my gender identity was wrong. I felt the rest of the world was wrong.
I think I was in my late teens when I decided “I was made like this to be a bridge between men and women, to help them understand each other.” And when I found out about the concept of two spirit people and how they were considered to be holy, I thought “that sounds about right.”
So self-acceptance has never been my problem. My problem has always been the rest of the world.
What I can do about that, I’m not sure. I dread the idea of trying to explain any of this to the kind of people who still think that women are biologically predetermined to dance daintily and without aggression. There were gentlemen in that discussion who deserve the following image.
But I suppose that making posts like this where anyone can see them can be considered a first step.
Just got home from seeing Thor: Ragnarok and processing my reaction by writing it down in a sort of stream of consciousness. Mostly I find that I am a little disappointed. Or perhaps that’s stating it too strongly. I was ever so slightly bored.
I kept waiting for the story to kick in. By which I mean, I was waiting for them to get off the planet of junk and back to something more interesting. And it kept not happening, and then it was over. However, it’s very like the Thor comics in the sense that I always used to skim the stories in those, waiting for the bits with Loki in them. Bits with Loki in tended to have talking and subtle manipulation and cleverness, and that I think is what was missing here.
It was a very macho “the ability to Hulk smash things is the only source of true power” kind of film, and I got bored with the smashing really before the titles rolled.
On the other hand, I loved Valkyrie, and I loved the little earnest family moments between Thor, Odin and Loki – it’s nice that everyone is now accepting Loki for what he is. The continued outrage at him for being something other than what he was wasn’t productive for anyone. Hiddles still does a very good job with him, and perhaps it’s part of the character’s charm that he’s never allowed to move center stage. I don’t like heroes, after all, so he’s better off from my pov as a side character.
I loved Hela, and naturally I want her to return. Give her her realm back, you cowards! Why, why would anyone choose to bring Skurge out of the comics and not Amora the Enchantress? Amora would have added a nice touch of not-solving-all-your-problems-by-hitting-things, and Skurge is her executioner, not Hela’s. (Hela doesn’t need one.)
I loved whatshisname, Jeff Goldblum’s character, and most of all I loved his un-named sidekick, the woman with the melty stick. If I was to cosplay a character suitable for my build and age, I think it would be her.
The movie was very pretty–lots of colours and action. Heimdall fans will be very happy as he got a strong subplot as Asgardian Robin Hood. I very much enjoyed the rock guy, who undoubtedly had a name, but I’m not good at remembering names. He was a comedy character, but also surprisingly relatable for a rock monster.
Would I recommend it? I would say that it was worth going to see once. You would probably get the occasional giggle, and there are some nice action sequences, but if you couldn’t get to see it, you would not be missing anything of deep emotional weight. Which is an ambivalent reaction, I think, to a movie in which Asgard is destroyed and its population send out as refugees into the universe. I think I would have preferred it to deal with that subject with a little more seriousness.
After finishing many other projects first, finally the sequel to Lioness of Cygnus Five is out! I had so much fun with this series, fleshing out the alien civilisation and exploring lots of characters who were barely more than names in book one.
Now Felix Mboge and Nori Nakano find a lot more than they bargained for when they travel to a pirate world to try to buy food. Morwen Crouch and Lali Citlali run into some serious trouble when they try to kidnap Aurora’s baby from its father on her command. And Aurora and Bryant are kept busy at home, thwarting an invasion by awakening forces on the planet that perhaps should have been left to sleep.
Print is not yet available because I’m still waiting to recieve a proof to make sure it’s okay. I’ll let you know the URL for that when it is.
In this sequel to Lioness of Cygnus Five the survival of the colony teeters on the edge. The alien city in which they have taken refuge turns out to be not so abandoned as they’d thought, and Bryant finds himself torn between his love for Aurora and his driving need to restore some of the ancient defences before the Kingdom attacks.Starvation is beginning to bite as the Kingdom forces tighten their stranglehold around the colonists, forcing them to turn to treasure-hunters and pirates for aid. Needed on site to spearhead the military resistance to Kingdom invasion, Aurora must send her most trusted people into the heart of enemy territory to beg for supplies and to rescue her baby, with no guarantee that when they return there will be anyone left alive to come home to.
Yet survival may come at too great a cost if Bryant cannot control the secret he is awakening at the heart of Cygnus Five.
After a massive anxiety attack, Sam Atkins left his high-powered job in the City and committed himself to life on the road in a small van. Six months in, he’s running out of savings and coming to the conclusion that he might have to go home to his emotionally abusive family.
Needing time to think, he takes a walk through a copse by the Cornish roadside, only to stumble upon the body of a ritualistically killed sheep. As he’s trying to work out what the symbols around the animal mean, the sheep’s owner, Jennifer, and her nephew, Ruan Gwynn, come upon him.
Ruan is a kind-hearted young man with a large supportive clan, and since he and Sam feel almost instant attraction, he doesn’t want to believe Sam is a sheep-killing cultist. In fact, the moment he lays eyes on Sam’s miserable solitary life, he wants to rescue the man. But as the killings escalate, he and Sam need to stop whoever is actually to blame before they can concentrate on saving each other.
(The link is to the Riptide store because it’s a dollar cheaper there than it is on Amazon)
This is my first book in the shared-world series of books set in the (fictional) town of Porthkennack in Cornwall. Although it’s the fifth book in the series, it’s a standalone – you don’t have to have read them to be able to follow and enjoy this. A lightly Gothic tale of curses and Christmas cheer, it’s a contemporary m/m romance, with a side order of (sheep) murder mystery. I personally think of it as optimistic with a side order of fluffy, but reviewers seem to be finding the sheep mutilation a bit dark for them.
Beecroft (Angels of Istanbul) expertly characterizes Sam’s panic, Ruan’s calming presence, human evil, and sustaining love. This is an appealing, heartfelt tale. (Sept.)
Like busses, no matter how much I try to schedule releases so they’re regular, it always ends up with a long time of nothing and then a glut, so coming soon we have: Foxglove Copse and Heart of Cygnus Five, followed at a distance by Pride of Cygnus Five and Contraband Hearts.
However, today is the release day for Waters of the Deep
Charles and Jasper are brought in to investigate a fatal stabbing in (the cotton-mill town of) Paradise. But this time the only troublesome ghost in the case is their own adopted child Lily. So what’s leaving the glistening trail in the woods? Why did the vicar’s daughter suddenly kill herself? And what is happening to the extra cow?
This is the second novella length story in my Unquiet Spirits series:
Buried With Him – short story,
The Wages of Sin – novella
Communion – short story
Waters of the Deep – novella
Charles and Jasper have been living together for a while, having moved in to Jasper’s house and adopted the ghost girl, Lily. They’ve made a name for themselves as the people you call in to investigate when disasters happen that seem to have supernatural elements. But domesticity has been wearing on Charles, especially when he is ridiculed in the public papers for it, and it may take a murder or two to save their relationship.
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B. 
