Good afternoon, o friends of the newsletter: today I bring you an an oldstyle blog-type meme: the First Sentences Game, in which I tell you about all my current projects via sharing their first sentences … and I also bring you an open thread, in which you can ask me anything you like, and I will provide oracular — or possibly straightforward, but usually oracular — advice.
This open thread is for everyone on the email list. Reply with your questions! If you’d like some exceptionally oracular advice, reply without a question, but provide three words of your choice that suggest the nature of your question. And if you’d like some traditional oracular advice, ask a question and ask for a Tarot spread — I’ll do three-card draws for a bit.
This is the last free-to-everyone weekly newsletter. Starting next week there will be a bimonthly post for free subscribers, and a weekly one for paid subscribers. Thank you to all of you who have subscribed so far!
CURRENT PROJECTS: FIRST LINE (of first chapter) FORMAT
A Desolation Called Peace (Teixcalaan #2, handed in and waiting for edits.)
Nine Hibiscus watched the cartograph cycle through its last week of recorded developments for a third time, and then switched it off. Without its pinpoint stargleams and fleet-movement arcs inscribed in light, the strategy table on the bridge of Weight for the Wheel was a flat black expanse, dull-matte, as impatient as its captain for new information.
Valaros (cowritten with Vivian Shaw, drafting).
In the thick dust that coated the abandoned plastic shacks, the discarded tools and tarps, the single bright gleam of metal was crystal-flare bright until Keriyen picked it up. In his hand the glow went to nothing; he was holding a twisted bit of aluminum, torn off some piece of offworlder equipment and left to glitter, a ghost-reflection of dead industry.
Prescribed Burn (the new arson/drought/water rights/climate change/cyberpunk option novel, researching/sketching).
Char: carbon smoke and chemical foam. Detective Hyacinthe Walker took a lungful, tight inhale around the mouthpiece of her filtersuit, and tasted the shape of the fire all the way down her throat.
“One Free Marriage To The Raven King” (short story, drafting).
The jackdaws, as if I’d summoned them by researching their medieval ancestors, are shrieking outside my window.
“A Being Together Amongst Strangers” (short story, on submission).
The Miner’s Union got here first, in 1903, when they blasted the tunnel through the schist.
“The Flowers of Heliogabalus” (novelette, outlining/drafting)
Eduard Severin’s greatest architectural triumph is the house he died in. It lies in the desert, curled like the petals of a gypsum crystal in the shadow of a dune, all hardened glass and stucco walls curving, curving, turning in on themselves. A labyrinthine heart, beating an endless electric pulse. He was not the first person to die there. Now he is also not the last.
***
I look forward to your questions! I’ll be back to start answering them in a few hours.
dear oracle: how do i feel better about moving out of the state i love, where i’ve lived for my whole life, to follow my partner? a tarot spread would be lovely <3
How do I write a ghost story that takes place in bright sunlight?
O Oracle: how does one keep one's eyes on the long-term goals without getting tangled in the minutia of every passing day?
dear oracle: how do i feel better about moving out of the state i love, where i’ve lived for my whole life, to follow my partner? a tarot spread would be lovely <3
Heat, sour, thorns.
O Oracle, I’m looking for a new job after 7 years in one organization; how do I figure out what I want to do for the next 7 years?
a question for the oracle: how many times should one allow a person to disappoint one before giving up entirely?