I hope you’ll forgive me for a third comment in your public community forum but I want to say something about this part of your answer:

“Normally I like to stay away from partisan politics on my blog—as it provokes discussions that are somewhat repetitive…”

When I read that, my mind said “Interesting… one can see discussions with no (easy?) resolution as repetitious patterns (rounded, returning, female image) instead of contests (opposing ideations, linear, male image). Could they be definitive patterns within the wider fabric of social interactions, and could there be some mathematical expression that defines the pattern (repeating sets, based on equations, are patterns) of discussions that consistently lead nowhere?

My primitive instinct says there is some connection though I lack the scientific training to back my hunch.. And maybe I’m just a bag of hot air, I dunno!

It’s just that my mind made a connection here - because I connect the idea of repetitive patterns with sets etc… um, and you said it and I link the two ideas in my mind because of that… perhaps with two things that have no connection point at all.

I hope I’m not wasting time in this forum by asking this q.
It just seems like a fun q to ask, that’s all.

I mean, I know you have ideas about politics and the like but do you believe in voting?

Some of the radical thinkers in my life refuse to vote. They say it’s about buying into an illusion, the illusion that we belong to a participatory form of government.

There were actually people in my home town during the 1980 Reagan/Carter campaign who were trying to sell not voting as the truly progressive thing to do. Some of the progressives I knew fell for the bait until one of us figured out that this was a fake CIA movement. He had a dossier with the FBI for yrs because he did so much, um, community organizing -lol- !

There were a lot of spooks around the campus where I came of age.

love from us all over here in KT

I don’t really think I’ll stop writing, it’s just a kind of wishful thinking thing. I polished up all my tasks (the revisions, and the story with Paul Di Fi) and now stand at the edge of the memoir pool. If I imagine this might be my last book, maybe it’s easier to jump in.

Describing oneself as a character is a good way to think of a memoir. And I like the notion of events that are on the forest floor as opposed to in the canopy. The things that somehow seem so important, those tiny crumbly recollections.

This morning I’ve been working on a painting.

A few years ago at Norwescon I was hanging out with a well known sf writer I’ve known for many years, and he remarked that after the book he was currently writing, he was probably going to retire…at least from sf. His attitude was very businesslike: He’d been doing this long enough, writing one book every few years. He had it all worked out. I couldn’t imagine having that attitude, but then again, I haven’t been plugging out a book every few years…and even when I was, they weren’t built on so much research as his.

Chip Delany talks about how many writers someday realize that they are no longer a writer, that it’s over. This is probably moreso the case for writers who start very young, like Chip. Maybe like me. I can’t imagine it because it has been the way I always defined myself. Always. My earliest memories of what I would do with my life all involve being a writer. Some of my earliest memories of doing anything are of writing…probably because I have polished those memories and kept them bright over the years.

L. Sprague De Camp wrote a book on the business of writing, which I read when I was a teenager, and said that writing is a profession that gets harder the longer you do it. I don’t think that’s true for everyone…except perhaps in the sense that one’s standards and skill get higher, and therefore it’s more work to get something to a level of polish that feels right.

I know that in terms of energy, I’ve never been more disciplined and able to just throw myself into the creative trance of writing than when I was a teenager, with no real life responsibilities (really, no life), sitting alone in my room for a week at a time just writing a novel in one continuous dream. Those were amazing sessions in terms of entering into a vision, where I could hardly type fast enough to keep up with the visions…and writing a story was exactly like living it. I have dreamed of being able to get back into that state, with the experience I have now…but I think that was largely a product of my age.

Well, these are some morose morning thoughts.