Category: Blog

If I never see another cgi animated story about how a boy’s daddy doesn’t understand him because he’s [insert stand-in for animator here], but by the end… he does! It’ll still be too soon.

Where are my stories about how a girl’s daddy doesn’t understand her, and then he never does — because there aren’t cliche happy ends for women — and she totally destroys him (or just leaves him behind & he’s sad forever) and goes on to be great and powerful in spite of him? Continue reading “Too Many Redeemed Dads in CGI”

Me, helping w/a tricky word: Warranty.‬
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6-yr-old: I’ve heard that word! (Runs off. Returns.) I can’t find the guy who said it.‬
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Me: …‬
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6: His hand broke off.‬ Continue reading “Warranty”

I figured out what’s wrong with the League of Magical Cats novel I keep failing to write!

It’s not X-Men with cats. It’s Diablo with cats!

The cats don’t have different powers because they’re mutants; they’re different Diablo classes! Continue reading “Plans for a Novel About Cats”

When someone says something you know to be blatantly wrong, there are different ways to react…

—roll your eyes
—smile politely and move on
—explain your own position

Or if you really respect them…

—stop and wonder, have I missed something? could I be the one who’s wrong?

Continue reading “Disagreement and Respect”

That feeling when you open up Diablo 3 for the first time in several years, and all of your characters’ names are variants of the name of your dog that died eleven months ago.

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To top it off, I was planning on making a necromancer… so… uh… I’ll just give her the actual name of the dog who died, because that won’t be at all weird…

When someone says something you know to be blatantly wrong, there are different ways to react…

—roll your eyes
—smile politely and move on
—explain your own position

Or if you really respect them… Continue reading “Actual Respect”

It’s hard to get any writing done while the kids have a five day weekend.‬

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The twelve-year-old, talking about Ian Madison Keller’s books: Continue reading “Tidbits from a Five-Day Weekend”

“I agreed to spaceships and aliens and the possible end of life on Earth. I did not agree to tolerate talking cats. This is too much. It’s too mad. It’s out of genre. Undo it immediately!””
— Space Opera by Catherynne M. Valente

That’s right, people. This is not a drill. SPACE OPERA by Catherynne M. Valente is FURRY. Continue reading “Space Opera”

‪Me: It’s your turn…‬

‪6-yr-old: Where’s my shoe? (disappears under table)‬

‪Me: Did you want to take your turn?‬

‪6: I want all my money in ones (takes a ridiculous stack of poker chips & promptly spills them all over the board, knocking over everything)‬

The six-year-old has a real knack for losing teeth right as we’re sending them to bed, on nights when we’ve already let them stay up unusually late, and then insisting on elaborately decorating the envelope we put the tooth in.

Tonight, as he started to write “I love the money and stickers” on the envelope, he realized that since he didn’t have them yet, it would make more sense to change it to “I’d like $500.”

Ambitious little thing.