Thoughts

Last week, while the Husband and I walked around the neighborhood, a flash of red against black and white caught my eye. It was so unusual that I had to stop and get a better look at the bird. It turned out to be a woodpecker. Not just any woodpecker… It was a “Woody the Woodpecker” kind of woodpecker.

I had never seen this type of bird in the wild before and I was thrilled. It’s been a while since I’ve encountered new-to-me wildlife. This was so unexpected. Of course, I could not remember what kind of woodpecker it was. Thus, when I got home, I googled it.

Normally, I use udm14.com. I don’t like AI in my searches. I find UDM14 to be a lot cleaner and more correct. I forgot this time. What popped up for me when I asked Google?

A northern flicker (See below).

Once again, AI reared its ugly head and was wrong. Now, I know what a northern flicker looks like, and it does not look like Woody the Woodpecker. But, if I hadn’t already known, I could’ve walked away with incorrect information and been none the wiser.

Look, in certain circumstances, the pattern recognition of a LLMs is amazing. Especially in medical fields, and I imagine, in programming. However, you need to have a good foundation of knowledge before you can trust whatever AI comes up with.

As it stands now, in everyday life, AI is a travesty. Too many times, it is wrong—as in it guessed wrong. There’s no hallucinating going on. It would not get a passing grade in school. Yet, people trust its answers all the time. I wish to goodness AI was actually trustworthy. It’s not.

BTW, the correct answer is: Woody the Woodpecker is based on the Pileated Woodpecker.

I guess this is your old woman yells at clouds moment for the day.

The world is a scary place right now for a lot of people. Me included. I fear for friends, family, and other loved ones. Hell, I fear for myself, my gender, and the erosion of my rights, not to mention the loss of my bodily autonomy. Every single time I look up from my work—focused writing or editing—to look at social media or the news, I regret it.

So, I have a couple of words for you to noodle over. I collect new-to-me, interesting words. I’ve been saving these since the beginning of the year for the right time to trot them out. I think now is as good of a time as any.

The first is: Weltschmerz (translated as something like world-sadness). It is a German word that means the feeling of melancholy and pessimism that comes from being aware of the contrast between the way things are and the way you wish they were.

The second is: Sisu. It is a Finnish word that means a special strength and determination to continue on in moments of adversity; having grit, bravery, and resilience; refusing to give up.

These days, I live between these two words. The world feels like a trash fire right now—and my state is actually on fire, literally—and, sometimes, I wonder how we are going to survive as a people, much less a nation.

The only saving grace I have is the fact that every single generation believes they are in the end times, that men aren’t masculine enough, women aren’t feminine enough, and no one wants to work…along with a litany of other societal woes, as seen in letters to the editor, essays, journal entries, and the like for over 2500 years, and we’re still here.

We all feel weltschmerz at some point in our lives. Then, we feel sisu. And life goes on. We hope. I hope.

There. A couple of words for you to ponder in the coming days.

Two years ago, I contacted Rem from Rem Alternis and asked her if we could meet at Gen Con to talk about having her company run the Kickstarter for a passion project I wanted to create. We met. We agreed to everything. And ran the Kickstarter in March of 2024. It funded and as of July 27, 2025, that Kickstarter is over, done, and things involving it mailed/fulfilled.

Dear Penpal, Belgium 1980 was quite the endeavor—telling a MG horror story over a year in 24 physical letters. Yep. If I’m gonna do a Kickstarter, let’s do it on Hard Mode. Next time, if there is one, I’ll do something easy like a novella series. I don’t regret doing Dear Penpal, but I won’t do it this way again.

Here’s some fun facts the Husband put together for the celebration party. I thought they were too good not to share.

So, the final question that has been asked of me… “Will there be any more Dear Penpal stories?”

The answer is maybe. I’ve got an idea for a series of novellas around it. 3-4 more in the series, jumping years in-between each one. Each one would still be in letters. Probably 2 each month, but put together as a novella. This is a nascent idea, kicking around the different places I’ve moved to and interesting things that could’ve happened to fictional Jennifer who can see ghosts: Pennsylvania 1984 (teen), California 1989 (senior in HS), Oregon 1992 (college), Washington 2004 (adult).

Yeah. Maybe. If the idea still calls to me next year, I might chase it down. We’ll see.

The 2025 Hugo Award voting closes in 36 days (July 23).

I debated on whether or not I would post this because of reasons (everything going on in the world and more), but as an editor/seminar instructor, I frequently instruct my students/authors not to self-reject. Their job is to do the thing. My job (and the job of all editors out there) is to see if the thing fits what they need. “Don’t do my job for me,” I say.

“Physician, heal thyself.” Or, in other words, “Editor, take your own counsel.” Thus, here I am.

What would a Hugo win mean to me and for my career?

Career: I have not (yet) won a Hugo award. I would really like to. For many reasons. But, I think, most of all, it would help my publishing career. Already the second nomination has allowed me to land a freelance job I wanted at a per hour rate my skills are worth. This is huge for me.

The Husband no longer works in tech. In fact, he’s just been accepted into UW’s graduate program for a Masters in Library and Information Sciences (MLIS). I am so proud of him. However, this means he has school for the next two years, and money will be tight. I need/want my publishing career to continue to level up.

Personal: As an editor, I have been nominated for the Bram Stoker, the British Fantasy, and multiple Hugo awards. While it is an honor (no, really, it really-really is), I would love to win one. Much like qualifying for HWA, IAMTW, and SFWA, it is one of those publishing career goals/milestones. For those in the know, it is an immediate reputation boost. Even outside the publishing industry, many people know what a Hugo is.

Emotional: In my blog post, The Second Nomination is the Best, I mentioned that I burst into tears when I read the email telling me that I was a finalist again. There was relief in knowing the first time wasn’t a mistake. It’s been a joy to hear from people that they were glad to see me on the ballot again.

I think winning a Hugo at a Seattle Worldcon would be the best. It would make me feel like “Hometown Girl Does Good.” There would be relief in finally winning one of the “big ones.” It wouldn’t matter if I was never nominated again. (Of course it would matter, but maybe not as much…)

Is a Hugo win a guarantee to a better publishing career? No. But it can’t hurt. (Unless someone stabs me with it—and what a way to go out!) Do I want to give an awards speech? Absolutely. Do I want to hold the Hugo trophy in my hot little hands and flush like I’ve been drinking all night? You betcha. Do I want to let Seanan put mantises on my head? I’m a little iffy on this one, but I did promise to let her do it if I won (a promise made before I was nominated, and I’m a woman who keeps her promises). Besides, Paul said he’d take pictures, and he takes a really good picture.

I am so pleased to see that I have been nominated for the Best Editor, Short Form Hugo award. It is such an honor to be nominated. This is my second time for the Hugo award, and I have to say, at least in my eyes, the second nomination for any award is the best nomination. Not gonna lie: I burst into tears when I read the email telling me that I was a finalist again.

Like many creatives, I sometimes have imposter syndrome that can be hard on the ego and the creative soul (for example, in this last week I had 3 short story rejections). The first time I was a finalist for an award, I was shocked. I wondered if someone had made a mistake. The first time I was nominated for one of the big awards, the Hugo, I had all kinds of feelings. The next time I was nominated for another big award, the Bram Stoker, I had even more feelings.

But, the second time I was a finalist for the Scribe, the Bram Stoker, and the ENnie, there was a sense of “it’s not a mistake/I’m not a hack/I know what I’m doing/let me enjoy this moment.” Complicated feelings to say the least. Now, after ten years, I am a finalist for the Best Editor, Short Form Hugo award again. I have a certain sense of terror and relief. Relief because I was nominated again. Terror because, maybe, just maybe, I might win.

At this point in my publishing career, I have edited (or co-edited) 25 published anthologies, 2 magazines (including the currently ongoing Augment magazine), become an editor-at-large for Catalyst Game Labs, edited numerous short stories, novellas, and novels for CGL, owned my own small press, Apocalypse Ink Productions, that produced a dozen+ novels for myself and other authors, and the list goes on. Being a decent editor in the publishing industry is one that has kept my kitties in kibble.

I think I have earned some of my professional confidence. My editing has earned me nominations for the British Fantasy Award, the Bram Stoker Award, and the Hugo Award—now multiple Hugo Awards. Also, I’m the only American (that I know of) who has won the Australian Shadows Award for Best Edited Publication for the Grants Pass anthology that I co-edited with the ever-talented Aussie, Amanda Pillar.

Thank you to everyone who has already wished me congratulations. I sincerely appreciate it. I’m so chuffed at who my competition is. I mean, look at them: Scott H. Andrews, Neil Clarke, Jonathan Strahan, Lynne M. Thomas & Michael Damian Thomas, and Sheila Williams! It makes me so proud to be in such good company.

There you go. I’m a Hugo Award finalist again. I’m honored and pleased beyond words. I won’t lie. I want to win. If you have any questions about my work, please let me know.

Here is a list of ALL the finalists.

Back at the beginning of the year, I set three specific desires for 2025: Decluttering, less time online, and to finish reading a bunch of unfinished books. We’ve just completed the first quarter of the year, and it’s been interesting.

On the decluttering front, things are going well. Slow and steady. We aren’t getting to a project a week like I had hoped, but we are getting enough things decluttered that I’m not stressing about it. On the Year of Unfinished Books, again, slow and steady. Books read for work: 4. New books read: 3 (I’m not going to not read new books—I get arcs from some of my favorite authors). Unfinished books finished: 4. A pretty good chunk of reading, all things considered. I think this is because of my goal: less time online.

I also decided that I would not work on Sundays (caveat1*), if I could help it. More than that, I was not going to be online at all (caveat2*). As soon as I made that decision, I told the people that I worked with most that this new boundary was in place. If it wasn’t on literal fire, and if I wasn’t the only one who could put it out, I wasn’t available on Sundays. No one pushed back. As a long-time full-time freelancer, this was nice.

Caveat1: Two Sundays a month, I need to be on a recorded zoom call for Dear Penpal, Belgium 1980 to read letters to the audience and answer questions. That is about a 30 minute event. I do not do anything else computer-wise while it is happening. I close and lock my computer as soon as it is done.

Caveat2: I have Discord on my phone. If I am messaged directly, I look to see if it is something that needs immediate attention. If it does not, I dismiss the notification “unread” and continue on. I’ll get to it on Monday. My friends can still contact me as needed. Also, I have YouTube on my TV. I can watch videos if I want.

I think the most interesting thing about taking Sundays off-off (not just sorta-off) is that I can really feel my brain relax and my shoulders untense. I have no schedule or requirements. I read. I do puzzles. I play with kittens. I play PokemonGO. I sit and do nothing, staring out at the backyard. I need this rest. I am so busy these days, that the mental rest is vital to my wellbeing and to the quality of my work.

An offshoot to doing this is that I feel refreshed on Monday. Actually ready to work. Also, despite my daily workload being (currently) heavier than I’d like, I can look at it and think, One task at a time, Jenn. Pick the task. Work on it alone. The rest will follow. Do not worry about them right now.

Y’all have no idea just how freeing it is to be able to think that and mean it. I haven’t always said “multitasking is doing many things badly.” I say it now. Unequivocally. Over time, I have learned to trust myself when I schedule things. I have my systems in place if tasks need to be pushed.

I think about my mortality these days. Dad died at 73. Mom died just before her 75th birthday. I am 54. If statistics are right, I have about 20 decent years left. How do I want to spend that time? I still have stories to tell. I have a husband I adore above all. I value my time. More to the point, I respect my time. I want others to respect it, too. If they do not, well, I’ll keep that in mind for all future interactions.

These boundaries and respect started with me. It’s a lesson I’ve had to learn. I’m glad I’ve learned that I am worthy of that kind of love and respect from myself. It tells me I am still growing as a person. I think that’s all I can ask for right now.

Here’s the numbers. We all love numbers so much.

• Books published: 2, Shadowrun: Auditions and Shadowrun: The Mosaic Run
• Anthologies published: 3, 99 Fleeting Fantasies, Shadowrun: Magic, Machines, and Mayhem (co-edited with John Helfers), and Shadowrun: Through the Decades (co-edited with John Helfers)
• Short stories published: 4, “Eye of the Beholder” (co-written with Raven Oak), “Hella AFK”, “A Tale for Munchausen’s Merriment”, and “Dueling Minstrels” (co-written with Marie Bilodeau)

• New words written: 105,830
• Words edited: 441,00+

• Awards nominated for: 2 (both Scribe awards)
• Awards won: 1 (Won the Scribe award for Shadowrun: Auditions)

• Stories submitted: 12
• Stories sold: 6 (50%)
• Stories rejected: 4 (33%)
• Stories outstanding: 2 (17%)

Thoughts about the numbers:

• I’m pleased with the number of things that were published. It’s nice to have new novels and stories out in the wild.
• You’ll note that I did a LOT more editing this year. Gotta pay the bills. The Husband has retired from tech.
• The Scribe award nominations and win were very nice. I appreciate being acknowledged by my peers.
• As for the stories submitted and sold/rejected…I really am on target with that one. My acceptance rate hovers around 50%. This year I made my 100+ short story sale. That was cool.

I don’t really have a lot to say about the metrics for this year. I’m fine with them. They’re respectable for a full time publishing professional. With the Shadowrun magazine coming out next year and being an editor-at-large for CGL, my editing numbers will not be going down. That does cut into the writing schedule. But I’ve got my plans for next year—which I will talk about in the next blog. In the meantime, enjoy some pictures of my cats.

I hope you have had a very good holiday season!

I have finished the rough draft of the current novel-in-progress. It’s not done by any means, but now I have the whole of the story in my head and I can see so many places that need fixing. However, I haven’t started fixing the novel yet. I’m in that in-between phase that few authors ever speak of.

It’s the “Flailing About” Phase.

My experience is that I have just spent the last 4-6 weeks on “deadline mode.” This mode includes things like “no internet before word count” and “2000 words a day” and “hard core focus on the novel” and nothing else. Lots of creative people know what that’s like.

But, just like post-con blues are a thing, so is the post-novel flap. You’ve known what you were to do everyday for a month without exception. You’ve gotten into the groove. But now the groove is gone. It’s almost like discovering you have hands and discovering your pants have no pockets. What the heck to you do with your hands now?

If you are a regular writer, I recommend a quick once-over, adding all the things you know you need to add RIGHT NOW. Then putting the manuscript away for three months while you write something (anything) else. But, as I am a media tie-in writer, too, I don’t have time for that. I need to turn in the polished manuscript within 3 weeks. That’s my deadline.

But I don’t wanna. I don’t wanna work on the novel. I don’t wanna do the work I know I need to do. What do I want to do? I don’t know and I don’t wanna figure it out. See: flailing about.

Usually I have a bunch of interviews lined up to work on. Which I did this time, too. But they are done. And I polish-edited a short story and turned it in already. I have 3 more short stories to write but I’m not anywhere near doing them. I haven’t even outlined them on paper. Maybe I have in my head, but I don’t want to face the tyranny of the blank page. It is so much easier to fix what’s on the page than to create it wholesale.

Which leads me back to…start the next pass on the novel…and I don’t wanna.

Thus, I’m writing a blog post about the situation. I’m sure other authors have written about this phase of the novel writing process, but I figured it couldn’t hurt if other authors (and readers) understood a little more of what some authors (at least me) sometimes go through. The process of writing and editing novels is always changing, but I think the general phases of the process remain the same.

See? That’s about 500 words of verbal flailing and “productive procrastination” to help me avoid the edits I will begin next. Or tomorrow. It all depends on whether or not I figure out something else to do to avoid what I don’t want to do now.

But still, by tomorrow, I will roll up my sleeves and dive into fixing the novel because this is the “post” part of my mantra of “fix it in post.”

Have a cat picture. Here’s Mena in her tower.

Being in my fifties now, I thought it would be a good thing to think about some thoughts I’ve learned that I’ve incorporated into my life—or try to. I’m not perfect. I’ve broken these 50 things in to five groups: Emotions, Habits, Love, Career, and Perspective. I will post one section a week for five weeks. This week’s section is: Perspective.

The thing about perspective is that its wisdom only comes in retrospect. It is experience from the past that allows you to manage the present and mitigate future problems before they can become problems. It is this ability to compare and contrast situations while extrapolating the possible outcomes before they happen. At the same time, it is an ability to think and act instead of merely reacting.

Perspective is when a younger person goes to an older person for advice and there is a look of recognition in that older person’s eyes, but their words are tempered with the knowledge that how it happened to them, the details of how it could happen for another are different. The devil is in the details, but human nature has its commonalities.

These bits of perspective are based on my experiences, but I think they hold wisdom for those who recognize the situations.

1. Perspective: When someone tells you who they are by their jokes, actions, or words…believe them. It will be better for you in the long run. Especially if their “jokes” are mean or punch down. This is what they will do to you when they no longer feel the need to impress.
2. Perspective: When I learned to lose (or fail) with grace, life got a lot more pleasant. A non-success is not the end of the world. Sometimes, it’s the only way we learn.
3. Perspective: Food is weirdly personal. Don’t tell anyone about the diet you follow unless you want to hear (from mostly non-professionals) why you are wrong. I mean both diet as in “what you eat on a regular basis” and “what you eat for X health reason.”
4. Perspective: There is nothing more enticing that belonging to an exclusive group; to be chosen. Be sure that the group you are joining is worthy of you and your values before you join. If you discover they are not after you have joined, do everything in your power to leave.
5. Perspective: If someone gossips about everyone around them to you, you can bet they are gossiping about you to everyone else.
6. Perspective: Once you figure out ultimatums are all about what you control, the better you will be at drawing lines in the sand—personally and professionally. If they do X, you will do Y. You cannot control what other people do. All you can do is inform them how you will act if they cross your line. Sometimes, they don’t deserve even that much information.
7. Perspective: You are never too old to learn (or relearn) the basics. I finally learned how to properly blow-dry my hair at the age of fifty. I had my hairdresser show me how she would do it.
8. Perspective: If you can travel, do it. Get out of your comfort zone. Experience a different culture. It will expand your world in more ways than one.
9. Perspective: When you learn how to say “no” your life will be so much better for it.
10. Perspective: When things get rough, ask yourself “Will this matter in a day, a week, a month, a year, 5 years from now?” It helps you get perspective on what is happening in the immediate. If that is too abstract, think about where you were 1, 5, 10 years ago and how your life has changed.

Being in my fifties now, I thought it would be a good thing to think about some thoughts I’ve learned that I’ve incorporated into my life—or try to. I’m not perfect. I’ve broken these 50 things in to five groups: Emotions, Habits, Love, Career, and Perspective. I will post one section a week for five weeks. This week’s section is: Career.

A “career” is officially defined as “an occupation undertaken for a significant period of a person’s life and with opportunities for progress.” This used to mean you picked a job and a company and you did the same thing for the same company, progressing up a defined ladder of success for the rest of your life. It does not mean this anymore. A career is what you make of it. A career now means (to me) a general topic of industry you work in for yourself and others that changes over time.

I, myself, am in the third part of my third career. The first was everything I did before and during college to support myself (retail, server, TA, computer center tech). The second was as a Software QA engineer (Game tester, black box tester, Test lead, QA Manager). The third is as a publishing industry professional. First as solely an author, then author and editor, then author, editor, and publisher. The rest (twitch streaming, podcasting, blogging, etc…) are incidentals in my publishing career. They are not the mainstay. Nor do they pay the bills. But they enhance my publishing career and give me other opportunities.

These lessons are just ten of the many lessons I have learned over time. I think the more I learn about my chosen career, the more I understand what I don’t actually know about it. That realization, in and of itself, is priceless.

1. Career: Learn when you work best, then build your schedule around that.
2. Career: You get determine what equals “Success” for you. No one else. Don’t compare your success to another because they have not lived the life you have lived nor have the same values you have.
3. Career: Learning to use the word “No” is both vital and a privilege. Sometimes you cannot say “no” when you want to. Sometimes you must say “no” in order to protect yourself, your time, your (chosen) family, and your sanity. “No, thank you.” is such a powerful phrase.
4. Career: It is important to volunteer to teach your expert knowledge to schools and libraries. The more you teach, the more you learn. More importantly, you impart your knowledge to people who have a different perspective than you and can use that information in their future.
5. Career: Never be afraid to ask an expert about something. Experts usually love to talk about the thing they are good at. They have a wealth of knowledge and are happy to share.
6. Career: Knowing what you are worth is everything. Figure out what your time is worth then charge that much plus 10%. If the person hiring you is an asshole, add 30%.
7. Career: Be willing to let jobs go. Figure out what your time is worth. At the same time, figure out how much you will actually accept for that job based on the circumstances. Set that boundary and don’t move it for anyone.
8. Career: Never be the smartest person in the room. You always want to be learning from someone.
9. Career: Leveling up to a “better class of problem” doesn’t mean it is any less of a problem to be dealt with.
10. Career: Remember, unsolicited advice is always a critique. This goes both ways—offering or receiving unsolicited advice.