Sep 3, 2023·edited Sep 3, 2023Liked by C. S. E. Cooney
for me, arriving at some kind of peace with how I look at any old time--any of the things that are bugbears for how we look--has been about finding visual role models. I hope you find good visual role models for your hair transition <3
... your tatterdemalion dream: I once had a dream I passed a queen, or some high nobility, anyway, of faery in the woods near here. She was an older woman, with white hair. She did not look ailing or bent over, but she was older, clearly older. A faery queen of a certain age.
I love that your mom wanted crows' feet laugh lines.
In whatever seemingly random order my brain tossed them out in:
1) Space Opera doesn't need to have anything near 'hard' science, or even any science at all really, it just needs conviction. It can even be explicitly nonsensical, as long as you make sure you have a convincing grasp on the outlines, stick within the rules you set for your world(s) and fake it convincingly. Look at Yoon Ha Lee's *excellent* Machineries of Empire series.
Hell, you don't even need to explain how or why things work at all, as long as you have a good grasp on the characters/people, and write like you know what's going on. Pretty sure you have THAT covered blindfolded and/or in your sleep. ;D
Star Wars supplies us with both good examples of how to do it right (the OG trilogy) and also so very how not to, as well as what happens when you Do It Wrong. (The entire prequel trilogy and especially episode 8/The Last Jedi, IMHO.)
2) Ahh, Ilona Andrews, their work will always have it's own special place in my heart, though I first discovered their work with The Edge series, and it's very much still my favourite. That said, I haven't read the Innkeeper books yet, and wasn't even aware of the Hidden Legacy world, so that's something I have to get hold of as soon as I finish my current book. Um, and then the latest T. Kingfisher release, Thornhedge.
..yes, after those two, definitely. :sweatsmile:
Oh, and Translation State after that, because I adored the Imperial Radch trilogy and really enjoyed Provenance too, if a touch wistfully.
3) Ahh, where was I again? Oh! yes, Tardigrades! If you appreciate tardigrades, and/or want to learn all kinds of stuff about similarly-sized things, in a calm and relaxed way, check out Journey to the Microcosmos on the ewe toobs. It's cool, fascinating, weird and often really cool. https://www.youtube.com/@journeytomicro
4) Coming to terms with Entropy, and especially how it is/has/will be affecting our fleshy, all too hard-wearing suits. Or at least, trying to/starting on doing so. AMAB here and mostly male-presenting as the path of least effort, so I'm not going to be able to grasp all the aspects of how that feels or works for AFAB/female-presenting folks, but a lot of that section resonated with my own experiences and attempts to reach that acceptance. (Pale nerd redhead here, BTW) I had a silver patch show up at one of* my temples when I was 15 or so, and have a couplefew others on my head these days, but it was working at accepting my own growing male-pattern baldness a decade or so back that most resonated to your descriptions. These days I have plenty of silver in my beard as well. I mostly miss having enough hair that dyeing it wouldn't be a waste of effort and/or A Bad Idea these days, even if I didn't necessarily do so all that often.
And so it goes.
Also, you clearly have a mama that is both Wise and Cool. ^_^
Aaaand I think that's all that's going to come out today. *rattles noggin a bit, just in case*
Yup, I think that's it. Looking forward to hearing from you next time, and I REALLY need to squeeze Saint Death's Daughter and Dark Breakers into the TBR Ranges somewhere near the summit, but yeah, :sweatdrop:
Thanks for all your beautiful, very Claire-like thoughts! All the agreement in the world on *Translation State*, which was amazing. (And I think you'll love *Mimicking of Known Successes!)
lady, the things your newsletter does to my hold list at the library ....
In my journey from pink hair to purple hair, I spent 2 months seeing my natural hair color (except for the Dreaded Pink Band of who knows WHAT my EX hair stylist put in, that resisted even straight bleach). If it were mostly white, I think I would've just cut off 18 inches of hair and grown that back out. (On my dad's side of they family they all had beautiful white hair by the time they were 35! Alas. Not I.) But despite being able to acknowledge that my natural hair color is FINE, I had such a negative reaction to living under it. I dyed my hair (fuschia) for the very first time the day my divorce from my first husband was finalized. I was so surprised to get out of that relationship alive that I wanted to demarcate the reborn, living me - and I guess 25 years aren't enough to have worked back around to the other side of that. Weird, right? A thing ostensibly "shallow" that remained untouched by all that therapy & work. It's just hair! I still believe that I believe that!
for me, arriving at some kind of peace with how I look at any old time--any of the things that are bugbears for how we look--has been about finding visual role models. I hope you find good visual role models for your hair transition <3
... your tatterdemalion dream: I once had a dream I passed a queen, or some high nobility, anyway, of faery in the woods near here. She was an older woman, with white hair. She did not look ailing or bent over, but she was older, clearly older. A faery queen of a certain age.
I love that your mom wanted crows' feet laugh lines.
So many thoughts and feels, reading this.
In whatever seemingly random order my brain tossed them out in:
1) Space Opera doesn't need to have anything near 'hard' science, or even any science at all really, it just needs conviction. It can even be explicitly nonsensical, as long as you make sure you have a convincing grasp on the outlines, stick within the rules you set for your world(s) and fake it convincingly. Look at Yoon Ha Lee's *excellent* Machineries of Empire series.
Hell, you don't even need to explain how or why things work at all, as long as you have a good grasp on the characters/people, and write like you know what's going on. Pretty sure you have THAT covered blindfolded and/or in your sleep. ;D
Star Wars supplies us with both good examples of how to do it right (the OG trilogy) and also so very how not to, as well as what happens when you Do It Wrong. (The entire prequel trilogy and especially episode 8/The Last Jedi, IMHO.)
2) Ahh, Ilona Andrews, their work will always have it's own special place in my heart, though I first discovered their work with The Edge series, and it's very much still my favourite. That said, I haven't read the Innkeeper books yet, and wasn't even aware of the Hidden Legacy world, so that's something I have to get hold of as soon as I finish my current book. Um, and then the latest T. Kingfisher release, Thornhedge.
..yes, after those two, definitely. :sweatsmile:
Oh, and Translation State after that, because I adored the Imperial Radch trilogy and really enjoyed Provenance too, if a touch wistfully.
3) Ahh, where was I again? Oh! yes, Tardigrades! If you appreciate tardigrades, and/or want to learn all kinds of stuff about similarly-sized things, in a calm and relaxed way, check out Journey to the Microcosmos on the ewe toobs. It's cool, fascinating, weird and often really cool. https://www.youtube.com/@journeytomicro
4) Coming to terms with Entropy, and especially how it is/has/will be affecting our fleshy, all too hard-wearing suits. Or at least, trying to/starting on doing so. AMAB here and mostly male-presenting as the path of least effort, so I'm not going to be able to grasp all the aspects of how that feels or works for AFAB/female-presenting folks, but a lot of that section resonated with my own experiences and attempts to reach that acceptance. (Pale nerd redhead here, BTW) I had a silver patch show up at one of* my temples when I was 15 or so, and have a couplefew others on my head these days, but it was working at accepting my own growing male-pattern baldness a decade or so back that most resonated to your descriptions. These days I have plenty of silver in my beard as well. I mostly miss having enough hair that dyeing it wouldn't be a waste of effort and/or A Bad Idea these days, even if I didn't necessarily do so all that often.
And so it goes.
Also, you clearly have a mama that is both Wise and Cool. ^_^
Aaaand I think that's all that's going to come out today. *rattles noggin a bit, just in case*
Yup, I think that's it. Looking forward to hearing from you next time, and I REALLY need to squeeze Saint Death's Daughter and Dark Breakers into the TBR Ranges somewhere near the summit, but yeah, :sweatdrop:
Thanks for all your beautiful, very Claire-like thoughts! All the agreement in the world on *Translation State*, which was amazing. (And I think you'll love *Mimicking of Known Successes!)
lady, the things your newsletter does to my hold list at the library ....
In my journey from pink hair to purple hair, I spent 2 months seeing my natural hair color (except for the Dreaded Pink Band of who knows WHAT my EX hair stylist put in, that resisted even straight bleach). If it were mostly white, I think I would've just cut off 18 inches of hair and grown that back out. (On my dad's side of they family they all had beautiful white hair by the time they were 35! Alas. Not I.) But despite being able to acknowledge that my natural hair color is FINE, I had such a negative reaction to living under it. I dyed my hair (fuschia) for the very first time the day my divorce from my first husband was finalized. I was so surprised to get out of that relationship alive that I wanted to demarcate the reborn, living me - and I guess 25 years aren't enough to have worked back around to the other side of that. Weird, right? A thing ostensibly "shallow" that remained untouched by all that therapy & work. It's just hair! I still believe that I believe that!
Being a human being is so weird.