Category: Writing (Page 3 of 6)

2020 – Year in Review

December 24, 2020 / dbbaldwin

Hello friendos and welcome back. It’s the end of another year, and I feel that I should leave some notes for my future self that I may remember this most-unusual of years.

2020 has been, in many ways, an absolute shitshow. Bad enough to have a global pandemic, but then to see both the country in which I live and the country of my birth handle it so poorly is beyond disconcerting. I’m not going to get too political in this post, but I will say this to both my American and British friends: it didn’t have to be this way. Look around the world and you’ll see plenty of places that did much better. Americans and Britains are no more dumb than Australians or Germans, but we did have worse political leaders. Please remember that the next time you have a chance to do something about it.

Bushy Park with trees along a rainy path

Bushy Park on a rainy autumn morning

Family Notes
Many of my friends and family have been affected by covid, though my immediate family has escaped either without catching it or with mild cases. We’re not actually sure if we’ve had it since we had mild symptoms back in March when testing was unavailable. Since then, we have spent much of the year in one stage or another of lockdown, though it’s felt like a faux lockdown for the most part. The kids are still going to school in person, and I’m still busy with work, albeit remotely. Hordes of people are still shopping, and restaurants have had plenty of diners. We have only been able to make one trip into central London since March, and we spent most of it outdoors looking at the Christmas lights. For the most part, we’ve stayed in our borough and made many trips to the Thames and to the local parks, including the ever-beautiful Kew Gardens.

The year has not been all bad, however, and the Baldwin house (at least this Baldwin house) has escaped the worst of it. The girls are doing well. They are both quick-witted, independent young ladies who are more than capable (believe me) of speaking for themselves, but I’ll share a few things. They are both in music lessons, and it warms my heart to hear flute and piano riffs echoing down the stairwell. The oldest started year 10. The youngest started year 7. That’s 9th grade and 6th grade for my American readers. They are now both at the same school near where we live in Twickenham. They both very much enjoy it and have complimented the school’s instruction and general attitude toward students as being positive. Do you know the joy it brings this writer’s heart to talk about history and Shakespeare over the dinner table? It is boundless.

The girls are in a Goldilocks age. Old enough to be independent, but not so old that their social life has overwhelmed their sense of self-preservation. We certainly have some moments when we remember there’s a teenager in the house, but both girls are such vibrant, delightful people that I embrace even the “teachable moments” when they come.

Personal Notes
I’ve sold five short stories this year, an all-time high. Three of those have been published already, and two more will be out next year. You can find more info on the stories here. I’ll also be putting together an end of year post with submission statistics for my writer friends.

Being at home so much has meant that I’ve had plenty of time to cook. It’s also meant that I’m not walking all over London to work off those calories, so I decided to make an effort to get more exercise. Initially, that meant cycling, but the time commitment to get a decent workout wasn’t something I wanted to undertake. So I started running in June. I’ve always hated running. That didn’t change for the first few runs, but I kept going. After about the second week, I was able to run the first couple of miles without wanting to die. Somewhere in there I found that there’s a yearly 10k race a Kew Gardens, so Carissa and I signed up. That gave me about 10 weeks to train, so I found a plan online and dove into it. The problem with running, it turns out, was with me. Once I had a basic level of fitness, I found that I enjoyed the thirty to ninety minutes of solitude. I especially enjoyed how I felt the rest of the day. It helped that the weather here is so mild. It also helped that I’ve done much of my jogging along the Thames while listening to history and writing podcasts. The only downside has been the injuries. Running in your late thirties isn’t as simple as running in your mid-teens, it turns out. I’ve had to learn more about physiology, warm-ups, and stretching than I ever expected.

We did successfully complete the 10k race in September. I finished in 56 minutes, which was a few minutes faster than Carissa. My body may have rebelled during the training, but I still ran faster than she did, so it’s all good.

This year also marked a milestone anniversary for us. We celebrated by going to our first-ever Michelin starred restaurant. (This was when covid cases were super low in London!) The Dysart in Petersham isn’t too far away, and it was absolutely delightful. The food was good, of course, but the service was a level above any other farm-to-table restaurant where I’ve eaten. We have both agreed that we must return in the future, and we’ll have to find a special occasion when we can bring the girls with us.

Ruby Chicken with a side of rice and naan

Some favorites from this year:
Book:
Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky. It was published in 2015, but I only found it this year. It weaves two story threads together, but it also weaves two veins of science fiction. One is a doomed generation ship, which is a common science fiction trope, but the other is the evolutionary biology of a colony of super-intelligent spiders. The biology-focused thread was an absolute delight. It was everything I love about science fiction, and I cannot recommend it enough.

Short Story:
There have been many wonderful short stories this year, and my favorite isn’t one that I necessarily think is going to place highly in the usual awards, but I absolutely loved “Yo, Rapunzel!” by Kyle Kirrin. It is simultaneously fun, playful, and deadly serious. The artful swearing made me giggle, and Rapunzel’s take-no-shit attitude made me wish I had written it.

Game:
Working from home for nine months has meant no commute, no travel, and far too many hours lost to video games. There have been many I’ve enjoyed. Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey was a fun open-world RPG. Crusader Kings 3 was everything I wanted it to be and more. Horizon Zero Dawn took open-world RPG storytelling to another level. If I had to pick a game of the year, I’d go with Hades. It’s a rogue-like, which means you go back to the beginning whenever you die, but it has RPG elements built into it that allow you to grow stronger with each attempt. The general concept is that you are Zagreus, son of Hades, attempting to escape Hell and get to the surface. The story unfolds on each escape attempt and as you talk to the other characters. The story alone would have been enough to make me enjoy it, but it really excels with the way you interact with the Olympian gods and receive their boons (character and weapon buffs). Each escape attempt is different than the last, and it gives the game a ton of replayability. I played on PC, but I’d 100% buy it on Switch if you have a Switch.

Song:
Working from home has meant that I’ve had Spotify running all day, every day. Mostly this means listening to a private playlist of old favorites, but I do occasionally listen to the curated lists and the new album suggestions. I’ve long enjoyed Chris Stapleton’s music and his blend of country, bluegrass, blues, and rock. My favorite song of the year is his track “Cold,” which adds piano and strings to his usual genre-bending. I am such a sucker for songs that start quiet, build to a crescendo, and throw in strings.

Album:
I mentioned country offering more misses than hits for me, and pop isn’t much better. But Taylor Swift, like Chris Stapleton, refuses to be pinned down by a single genre. I wouldn’t call myself a fan, but I’ve enjoyed some of her earworms over the years. The video for Blank Space is one of my favorite music videos ever. It packs more storytelling into four minutes than most Hollywood blockbusters manage in two hours. This year, however, she put out an album that’s a mix of folk and pop: folklore. I really enjoyed it. No single track is as strong as “Cold,” but from end to end it’s just so darned listenable and perfect for a rainy London day stuck indoors.

TV Show:
This one is pretty easy. I don’t watch television. Plenty of football, yes, but little else. After Carissa raved about it, I watched “The Queen’s Gambit” and found it to be thoroughly enjoyable. It is a bit formulaic as far as plot, but the quality of the acting, the attention given to the costumes and sets, and the novelty of following a chess prodigy all combined into something that was highly entertaining. It’s also a perfect length for me. Six hours is enough time to work through more than one story arc, but not so much time that I get bored halfway through the season and go back to books and video games (and football).

Recipe:
Who has a favorite recipe for the year? Me, that’s who! With the pandemic we couldn’t go out to our favorite restaurants, so I had to bring them to us. One of my favorite places in London is Dishoom, and the owners/chefs put out a cookbook in 2019. I’ve made a number of the recipes over the last year, and the family favorite is the Ruby Chicken. It’s similar to chicken tikka masala, but with much more depth of flavor. Buy the cookbook and make everything. Or go to the restaurant when it’s safe and order everything. I shall do both.

Conclusion
2020 has been a very bad, no good year, but I’m still thankful at the end of it. It’s been another year of good health spent with Carissa and our girls. I am thankful to be employed at a company that has not just allowed–but required–me to work from home since mid-March. I am thankful to have seen career growth at both my day job and with my writing gig. I’m looking forward to 2021 and hopefully a safer year when we can visit with friends and family again. Stay safe, everyone. Stay healthy. Try not to kill any grandparents while you wait on a vaccine.

2020 Award Eligibility

December 23, 2020 / dbbaldwin

2020 has been a terrible year in many ways, but it’s been fairly decent for my fiction career. I’ve sold ~~four~~ five stories and had three published. All three published this year are eligible for the major science fiction and fantasy awards.

My first sale of the year was in February. “Better in Every Way” is a user manual for your new clone. It can cook, it can clean, it can do so much more. As long as you treat it well. “Better in Every Way” is available online via Flame Tree Press.

Up next is “Where the Earth Meets the Sea and the Sea Meets the Sky.” It’s a combination of two fairy tales long after those stories end. At its heart, it’s as much romance as fantasy. A tale of two lonely, broken hearts helping each other mend at the far edge of the world. Ages ago I saw someone ask “what if a selkie story ended with a happily ever after.” I’ve tried to present how that could look. This one is not available online, but the print anthology can be purchased from Air and Nothingness Press. If you’re reading for awards and would like a copy, please reach out.

My final publication of the year was “Hope, Unrequested and Freely Given.” This is another story that’s as much romance as fantasy. It’s the tale of two elderly magicians in their twilight years. The woman is wracked with cancer, and her husband is trying desperately to save her. Ultimately, it’s about accepting and embracing the inevitable. It’s available online at Zooscape.

Of the three, I suggest “Where the Earth Meets the Sea and the Sea Meets the Sky” as the strongest. It’s a bit longer than the other two, and it ends full of hope and the promise of a new beginning. As 2020 winds to a close, I feel like hope is something we all need.

Cyberpunk 2077 – Review & Tips

December 14, 2020 / dbbaldwin

Cyberpunk 2077 will end up regarded as a genre-defining game, but not in the way the marketing would have you believe. It’s not the next-generation open-world RPG I expected. It’s not really a looter shooter, either. It’s more a cinematic experience where you, the player, are the co-star in an A-list actor’s interactive production. At its best, Cyberpunk is a cinematic experience played out across the gorgeous, gritty backdrop of Night City.

tl;dr: did you grow up making jokes about hacking the Gibson? If so, you’ll like this game. Read on to see why.

Caveat to this mini-review: I’m playing on PC rather than a last-gen console, so bugs and performance issues were all tolerable for me.

Cyberpunk liberally borrows ideas and systems from other games. You can certainly see the influence of other open-world RPGS, from The Witcher to Fallout to Grand Theft Auto. What the different systems lack in originality, they make up for in overall fun. They all hang together well enough that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

Where Cyberpunk really excels is its integration with Keanu. He plays a major role in the main story, of course, but he also turns up on many side quests and adds pithy commentary. His role is a key part of the game’s lore and of the playing experience, and it comes with all the weight of Johnny Mnemonic, John Wick, and Neo behind it. We’ve seen good storytelling in other games, but nothing that blends action cinema and action gaming like this.

The side gigs and side characters are well done. You will come to love Jackie, Panam, and Judy. Probably more that I haven’t met yet. There are some really well-executed emotional turns in there, too.

There are multiple possible playing styles available. I started with the idea that I would play as a stealthy, katana-wielding ninja (channeling my inner Snow Crash), but I found the hacking to be so fun that switched gears to quickhacks and a tech pistol. There are also options to play as a cyber-enhanced Wolverine, complete with giant retractable claws. Or as long-distance sniper who can shoot through walls. Or a grenade lobbing pyromaniac.

At its worst, Cyberpunk is a buggy, repetitive grind to raise a few thousand eddies (eurodollars) for your next upgrade. I have had NPCs disappear mid-quest, I’ve hopped through a window and out of the world, and I’ve had special effects from some NPCs stick around after they should have faded. All these were fixed by exiting and reloading the game, but they were annoying all the same.

While leveling your character increases your power, you also need to enhance your cybernetic options, and that means collecting a whole pile of eddies. The scripted side gigs and side quests are engaging and just as fun as the main story, but they don’t pay enough to get that legendary operating system or those double-jump legs in a timely manner. And Soulkiller forbid you want to respec your perks; that costs a cool 100k eddies. A resource grind is pretty typical for RPGs, but no less annoying when the world is washed in neon.

Cyberpunk is a violent game. While you can get through much of it as a non-violent player, the inherent violence of the world is inescapable. Night City is a dark, treacherous place full of terrible people doing terrible things. It’s also full of nudity and sex. I’m not opposed to there being sex in video games, but I am not impressed with how they usually handle it, and Cyberpunk is not an exception. It’s mostly ham-handed fantasy with a smattering of unnecessary violence. But hey, you get to choose your character’s penis size, which is a nice change of pace from the more-typical choosing of breast size.

On balance, I like the game. The good outweighs the bad, and much of the bad feels as if it will be patched over the coming weeks. The game really shines with the story and movie star intersection. I don’t want to say Cyberpunk is a turning point in game/movie interaction, but it certainly feels as if has let the genie out of the bottle, and I’m betting we’ll see more of a blend of games and cinema in the future. Add VR to the mix, and the next generation of entertainment will really have arrived. There’s a famous line from William Gibson, the father of the cyberpunk genre, that says “The future is already here–it’s just not evenly distributed.” Cyberpunk 2077 makes that feel true in a way few games have previously.

–End Review–

–Begin Lessons Learned–

Money is important! (So say we all.) There’s a gimmick for making money fast, too. You can buy soda cans from the 10 eddie machines, disassemble them, and sell the components for far more than the cans cost. It’s a little tedious, but it makes eddies fast. I won’t be shocked if this is changed in one of the upcoming patches. If you want to take advantage until then, head to the ripperdoc in Watson’s Northside for easy farming. There’s a collection of vending machines out front.

Once you have a stack of eddies, buy yourself something nice. Cyberpunk as a genre goes hand in hand with body modification, and Cyberpunk the game leans in on it. You can–and should–upgrade yourself. You’ll need some street cred to get the better choices, and I’d wait until you hit a street cred of 12 to get the legendary operating system at the Kabuki Market ripperdoc, though there are cheaper (and less reputation-intensive) options, too. Once you upgrade, hacking really takes off. You can also upgrade your personal cybernetics. The double-jump leg implants are a nice quality of life improvement.

You’ll want to put at least 6 into Tech to help with opening doors.

There’s a perk that allows you to automatically disassemble junk loot. This means you disassemble some stuff that would sell for 750 eddies, so you might want to skip it. I took it and made up the money by recycling soda cans.

Motorcycles are great. They steer better than the cars, and you can lane split.

As mentioned above, there are many useful weapon options. I loved going crazy with hacks. Upgrade your quickhacks at ripperdocs and netrunners, and you, too, can take down an entire building from the sidewalk outside.

The game will glitch. Save, exit, and reload when it does. That has gotten me around all issues so far.

Quicksave (F5 on PC) is your friend. Use it liberally. I haven’t noticed any performance impact from it.

Happy hacking, chooms.

Hope, Unrequested and Freely Given

December 1, 2020 / dbbaldwin

Buddy & Kathy’s Front Yard

I have another short story out in the wild today. “Hope, Unrequested and Freely Given” is live at Zooscape. There was no rapid turn-around on this story. I wrote it in 2019 and subbed it a few times before sending to Zooscape in May 2020. They accepted it a few weeks later, and it’s out now in the December 2020 issue. This is a fairly typical timeline for many stories that reach publication. Alas, they cannot all be written in a weekend, sold a few days later, and published within a week.

It’s a story written with Missouri on my mind. Baroch and Valerie’s porch has the same view as my in-laws’ porch. The mood was inspired by the Chris Stapleton song “Scarecrow in the Garden.” Sort of a quiet hopelessness, but it didn’t feel right to end the story on the same emotional note as the song, so it goes a different direction.

Where the Earth Meets the Sea and the Sea Meets the Sky

November 4, 2020 / dbbaldwin

Hello Friends,

This post is entirely politics-free.

2020 has been a good year for fiction for me. I had a story out in February, and I have another out this month. “Where the Earth Meets the Sea and the Sea Meets the Sky” is the closing story in the Upon a Once Time anthology of fairy tale mashups. The anthology is print only, and it’s available at Air and Nothingness Press’s website. (If you find this link after November 2020, you’ll need to search for “Upon a Once Time” anthology and hope it’s still in stock.)

“Where the Earth Meets the Sea and the Sea Meets the Sky” is another of those stories that irritates other writers. Not the story itself. It’s possibly the kindest story I’ve ever written. It’s the way it sold. I wrote it over a weekend a few days before the anthology’s submission call ended. I edited it a bit, let Carissa read it once, and edited it a bit more. I do love rearranging adjectives. And then it just… sold. To the first market I sent it to. I sent it at 2:02 PM and it was accepted at 8:19 PM. That’s twice I’ve had super fast turn-arounds to the very first market I submitted a piece. It simply doesn’t happen.

So that was nice.

I have another story that I sold earlier in the year that should, hopefully, be available online next month. I’ll link it when it’s published.

Until next time…

Pre-Election Update

October 23, 2020 / dbbaldwin

In my last post I talked about the mighty Bees of Brentford and their push for promotion to the Premier League. Spoiler alert: they lost in the Championship final. Fulham played well, Brentford played well, but Fulham did a better job countering Brentford than Brentford did imposing their will. After the season ended, Brentford let two of the BMW (Benrahma and Watkins) leave for beaucoup pounds, some of which they promptly reinvested into the squad. I don’t know if the Bees will be fighting for automatic promotion again at the end of this season, but they’ll probably make the promotion playoffs again.

My usual running path is off to the right on the Twickenham side of the Thames

I was sad when Ollie Watkins went to Aston Villa, though my Villa-supporting coworker was quite pleased. And rightfully so. Ollie scored a hat trick against Liverpool a couple weeks ago. Supposedly he wanted to go to Tottenham, but the Spurs chairman wouldn’t pay as much as Brentford wanted. Speaking of Spurs, it’s hard to complain. They’ve had a couple dubious draws lately, but the team looks revitalized in a way I haven’t seen in two seasons. Harry Kane is back to being one of the top strikers in the world, Son is one of the best wingers in the Premier League, and prodigal son Gareth Bale has returned home from Madrid with a trunk full of silverware to inspire his new teammates. Add some canny transfer business, and the squad has both a fine starting lineup and depth to allow them to compete in multiple competitions. It’s just a shame I can’t go watch in person. (Maybe in the spring?!?)

The younger child and I made donuts a few weeks ago. Some with cinnamon and sugar, some with a basic glaze

The girls are both in school (in-person) and doing well. We moved from Barnes to Twickenham over a year ago to try to get them into a different secondary school, and they are both finally in it. All indications so far are positive, and they both seem to be thriving. Carissa, unfortunately, has not been able to keep up with teaching gymnastics due to the pandemic.

A little gift from the Dysart in Petersham on our anniversary

When spring comes and things start to relax I hope to continue my football pilgrimage. The original goal was to visit all the professional grounds inside the M25 (the highway that circles London). I’m well into that, having already been to see Spurs (both in Tottenham and at Wembley), Brentford (multiple times), West Ham, Crystal Palace, Chelsea, Fulham, Arsenal, Millwall, and AFC Wimbledon. I need to get to QPR, Charlton, and Leyton Orient still, plus a few of the grounds used by the Women’s Super League.

I love a good beef stew. This one has carrots, parsnips, potato, and onion. Google “Jool’s favourite beef stew” to get the recipe

I’ve also cooked up a new plan for when things reopen. I want to have a pint at every pub in my borough. The idea is to get a big map of Richmond-upon-Thames and mark each pub with a red pushpin and update it to green once I’ve visited. If anyone wants to come visit next year, feel free to use the excuse of helping me in my quest!

Who needs to go out for dinner when you can buy Nando’s sauce at the grocery store.

The cooking has, of course, continued, and in an effort to not gain 20 lbs from my food, I’ve taken up running.

I’ve always hated running.

In my book, if you were going to run, there needed to be a ball or the police involved. After not being able to play football through the spring, I started running in June and signed up for a 10k in September. The first few weeks were terrible. I wasn’t in terrible shape, but I couldn’t run a full 5k, never mind a 10k. I worked my way through one of Hal Higdon’s novice 10k plans for a few weeks, but then injury struck. After changing from broken down Adidas running shoes to a pair of Merrell minimal running shoes, I didn’t make a gradual transition, and I twanged my Achilles. It took a few weeks in August to get that healed, and I’m still not truly back to 100% (like 95%). Still, I persevered and ran the 10k in September with Carissa. I finished in 55:59, which is extremely Not Fast, but it was under my goal of one hour, so I consider it a win. Since September, I’ve kept up with the running. I’m in the middle of a half-marathon plan and running 4-5 times a week. It’s weird to wake up and look forward to running rather than dreading it like in high school.

Carissa after completing the Kew Gardens 10k in September

Writing has continued. I sold a story in September to the “Upon a Once Time” anthology. It’s out now, though it requires buying the anthology. I have another story I sold in the spring that should be out this winter. I’ll link it when it’s published. It will be available online to read for free. I’m continuing work on a novel, but it’s been slow going. 2020, y’all. I’ll try to get a draft done by the end of the year. Hopefully. My level of optimism about the world is being influenced by external factors, so we’ll see how things go.

Continuing my experiments with the Dishoom cookbook, this is their rajma. It’s an onion/tomato masala with kidney beans

Speaking of external factors, there’s an election coming. It’s inescapable. I follow news in both the UK and the US, and it’s Biden this or Trump that. When I get on Facebook, I see all manner of terrible articles and memes from people back home (hi Mom!), usually in support of Trump. I saw one the other day that got me thinking, and I decided it could use some improvement. I present you this:

That moment when someone says, “I can’t believe you’re voting for Sauron!”

I reply, “I’m not voting for Sauron.” (I vote for policies not personalities)

I’m voting for Grima Wormtongue and King Théoden’s Freedom of Speech.

I’m voting for Saruman and my right to defend my life and family from the radical Ent hordes.

I’m voting for the Nazgûl to be respected and to ensure Law and Order.

I’m voting for the Uruk-hai who defend us from socialist elves.

I’m voting for tax relief for Smaug and all hard-working dragons.

I’m voting to protect MOUNT DOOM and the blighted land in which we live.

I’m voting for the continued appointment of trolls who respect the sun and will eat meddling hobbits.

I’m voting for our jobs to remain in Mordor and not be outsourced all over again to Gondor, Eriador, and other foreign countries.

I’m voting for Shelob to secure our western border and enforce legal immigration.

I’m voting for the wounded orcs and wargs who fought for Mordor and to protect our freedoms.

I’m voting for unborn babies and the ghouls who will ignore them after they’re born.

I’m voting to sack the lazy peaceniks of Hobbiton and protect our way of life.

I’m voting for continued peace progress in Middle Earth.

I’m voting for the Freedom to Persecute.

Make Mordor Great Again!

Do I think Trump is comparable to Sauron? Of course not. Sauron paid more taxes.

The election is barely more than a week away. If you haven’t voted, you should. Lot of people around the world–and plenty in America–that can’t.

Football is about to kick off, and I need to get up early for a long run in the morning. Catch you next time, friendos. Try not to burn down the country in the meantime.

Mawwiage is what bwings us togewer today

Better In Every Way

March 6, 2020 / dbbaldwin

When you decide to have a go at being a professional writer you either learn to embrace rejection or you quit. The writing business beats you down far more often than it lifts you up, and if you aren’t ready to hear a hundred “nos” for every every “yes,” then this isn’t the career for you.

But sometimes, an editor says “yes.” And when that happens, you get to walk on clouds for a few days.

Another thing about the writing business that you don’t realize at the beginning is that it’s a waiting game. Short story submission sometimes take months to return a response. Novel submissions take a year or more. Even when you sell a story, the publication can take months, and you have to keep quiet while the gears of the publishing machine grind away.

But sometimes you submit a story and the editors says “yes.” And even more rarely, they want to publish the story next week.

Well, friends, lightning struck. Flame Tree Press had a submission call, I had a story, and we hit it off like a lightning strike in a stand of ponderosa pines.

My short story “Better In Every Way” was accepted last Friday, and it came out yesterday. You can read the handy user’s guide to your new clone on the Flame Tree Press website and learn how it will improve your finances, your relationships, and generally make you better in every way.

Fair warning: it gets real dark, real fast.

Enjoy! And remember: be good to yourself.

It’s Been a Year

June 30, 2019 / dbbaldwin

Carissa and I arrived at Heathrow one year ago today. So far, so good. It’s not so much England vs America as it is London vs Springfield. All due respect to the Queen City of the Ozarks, but it has as much in common with London or New York as it does with the moon.

I walk more now than I ever have. Any given day I go to the office is 6000 to 8000 steps. A day out in the city is anywhere from 8000 to 20,000, depending on our schedule and how everyone’s feet hold up.

Not having a car–or at least not needing a car to get everywhere–is amazing. Looking for parking isn’t that much of a pain in Springfield, true, but it’s nice to not even have the worry when going out on the town. Also nice to not have to worry about who’s going to drive us home if we want to have an extra drink or two with the meal.

Springfield has musuems. They are twee and lovely. London has museums that people travel from across the world to visit. They are vast and amazing, and some are also twee and lovely.

I love that Springfield gets an off-Broadway touring show through town every season. I appreciate that Springfield has a lively local theater scene. The West End is phenomenal. The Globe is amazing. I feel like I’ve hardly sampled what London has to offer in the theater department, and I’ve been to more shows in the last 12 months than the previous 12 years. We’re off to the Globe again in two weeks to see A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

There was a lockdown drill at the local primary (elementary) school a few weeks ago. They do one a year, just in case. The school sent a notice to parents:

We just wanted to let you know that we have practised our lock down procedure at school today. The children were told that this was a practice drill and there was no real danger. Their class teachers have explained to the children that just as we have to practise getting out of school quickly and safely during a fire drill, we also need to practise what we should do if we needed to stay inside to keep safe. We have given an example of needing to hide because zookeepers might be trying to recapture an animal and that by keeping quiet and out of sight we would not upset the animal and the zookeepers would therefore be able to catch it easily.

It absolutely breaks my heart that America is still suffering a shot-up school multiple times a year and mass shootings practically daily. It’s just not a thing here. It’s amazing to send my kids to school every day and not worry “what if this is the day a shooter comes to my school?”

The barbeque is suprisingly good.

The Mexican food is unsurprisingly bad.

I still miss General Tso’s Chicken. And Andy’s.

It annoys me that vendors at football matches don’t go around selling snacks and beers like they do at games in the States. It especially annoys me that I can’t even have a beer at my seat. Drunk assholes ruining it for everyone else.

Rugby is weird. I can almost understand it through a lens of American Football and soccer. The atmosphere is lovely. The fans are polite. The food is great. You can even drink beer at your seat. But I hate, hate, hate how destructive the sport is for the people playing it. It’s hard for me to get behind something that profits a few people via the destruction of other people’s bodies. America isn’t exactly on a moral high ground here, either, with the NFL.

Driving here is bananas. Roundabouts everywhere. Cars on the wrong side of the road. Steering wheels on the wrong side of the car. We’re thinking about getting a car this winter so Carissa can get around the borough to teach gymnastics again. I’m told to expect to spend about 15 hours in paid lessons just to get a license. I’m sure she’s going to love that.

The first year has been great. We’ve all enjoyed it, and we’re looking forward to more to come. We’re not looking forward to the inevitable hard Brexist on Halloween, but we’ll deal with that when it happens. The oldest is planning to stock up on peanut butter when we’re in the States in a few weeks, so she’ll be ready. The rest of us will just have to do without rioja and camembert for a while.

Oh, Spring, Where Have You Gone?

June 17, 2019 / dbbaldwin

I realize you’re all here for London photos and stories, but first you get the writing updates:

The never ending novel-in-progress is still in progress. I’m in the middle of the third major revision. After this it goes on submission. Perhaps it sees the light of day in a couple years. Perhaps it ends up in a trunk after a hundred rejections. I have no idea. Once I start sending it out, I’ll start writing another book. In the meantime, I’m still writing and submitting short fiction.

It’s been 8 months since Viable Paradise. I am fairly sure I learned some things, if only because the writing comes harder than ever now. I more easily see things that aren’t working in my stories, but then when I think things are working, I get feedback that no, they aren’t quite. Writing is beautiful and terrible in that it’s a never-ending journey of improvement, but that improvement stalls out and splutters backwards and forwards.

Yes, but what fun things have you been up to in Europe?

Well, a few. Mom left in February, so we didn’t do a tremendous amount in March and April. In March I took the oldest child to The Globe to see Romeo & Juliet. The theatre was brilliant. The cast was excellent. We stood two meters from the stage for the entire show. For 5 quid a ticket, it might be the best value of anything (paid) in London.

The Globe Theatre, as seen from the second floor balcony

In April I went to Eastercon on the Saturday before Easter and chatted with one of my VP instructors and a VP alumnus from a previous year. For Easter dinner I made a roast leg of lamb for the first time. It’s a traditional English thing to make for Easter, I’m told. It was good. Carissa might have preferred steak, but she definitely enjoyed the lamb.
In May a big round of visitors came. My brother and his wife were here for a week early in the month, and one of my board games pals from Missouri and his wife came for a week late in the month. Oh, the places we saw. Oh, the food we ate. Oh, the walking we did.

Highlights included:

The cliffs at Dover
London Bridge and Tower of London
The Spirit Tour at the Natural History Museum
A day in Richmond to watch football and consume schnitzel and hefeweizen
Kebabs x2
The Churchill War Rooms
The HMS Belfast
The Tank Museum in Bovington
The League 1 playoff final where Charlton scored in the 90th minute to gain promotion
The Merry Wives of Windsor at The Globe

The white cliffs of Dover. Missing iPhone not pictured.

We rented a car and drove to Dover to see the cliffs. It absolutely gushed rain on us on the way out, but when we arrived it was a beautiful day with scudding clouds and a nice breeze over the English Channel. My colleagues were not impressed with our plan to visit the cliffs, but the way I see it, if something is a Wonder of the World in Civilization, that means it’s worth seeing. The highlight of the trip was when the girls and I decided to sit at the top of the cliff pictured above. My eldest was sitting quietly, taking pictures of France, when I heard a screech and looked up. Her iPhone tumbled forward, bounced once, and went right over the edge. It seems she encountered a spider, and her response was to panic and toss the phone. Over. The. Edge. Of. The. Cliff. Kids these days. On the plus side, she’s fine other than a bruise to her pride.

London Bridge on a sunny May afternoon — London Bridge

With all that behind us, the summer will be no less busy. We’ll be in America for two weeks to see friends and family. The day after we get back to London we’re moving to a new place a little further from the city center. We’ll be a few minutes’ walk from Twickenham Station, so my commute will actually go down due to the faster trains, but the biggest thing is that we’ll have more school options for the girls.

A storage room at the London Natural History Museum.

Amongst all that, I read a few books. Kameron Hurley’s “The Light Brigade” was brilliant. It’s a vicious deconstruction of military science fiction and neoliberal capitalism. It’s science fiction using the elements of wonder to shine a light on the present day.

I also did something unusual for me: I watched television. Not just a little, either. I binged seasons 2 through 7 of Game of Thrones so I could watch the final season with the rest of the world. After watching them all in about a month, I think the series peaked in episode one of season seven. “The north remembers” was such a brilliant line and the culmination of years worth of character development for Arya. After that, it felt like a rush to the conclusion. A series defined by the characters turned into a chess match of moving pieces into place, and the resolutions for Brienne, Cersei, Jaime, and Daenerys didn’t work for me. Dany’s felt rushed, but it might have worked with more time to setup. The others I just plain hated. The Starks, at least, seemed to do okay out of the deal.

January & February Update

February 24, 2019 / dbbaldwin

Unrelated to the travel journal parts of this blog, but I have a new short story out in the “Gorgon: Stories of Emergence” anthology published by Pantheon Magazine. My short story “Of Talons and Teeth” is included along with fellow Viable Paradise alumnus Aimee Ogden’s “Psalms.” “Of Talons and Teeth” even includes an illustration!

You can find a list of my publication history on this very website.

On the travel journal portion of things, we’ve been up to our usual shenanigans. The big family highlight for January was our trip to see Hamilton.

I didn’t go to the theater much when I was a kid, and the handful of times I went in high school and college it didn’t really stick. (I have never forgotten the production of “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum” that I saw at Drury as an undergrad, so I’m not sure why it didn’t stick.) It took listening to the Hamilton soundtrack for me to find an interest. The combination of whip-smart lyrics, history, and musical style caught my attention and never released it. I had to wait for it for three years, but I was finally able to see the show in person in London this year.

It was excellent. The production, the staging, the choreography, the costumes were all *amazing.* The cast was really good. They weren’t the same as the cast album that is seared into my brain, but they were all highly talented. I especially loved Rachelle Ann Go as Eliza in “Burn.” My favorite song of the show, and it doesn’t make my top 20 from the cast album.

If you’re into theater, you should see Hamilton. Period. Listen to the cast album a few times, read the Wikipedia entry on Alexander Hamilton’s life, and go when the opportunity presents itself. It will blow you away.

Also in January, I made it out to Griffin Park to see Brentford FC (named after me, obviously) take on Stoke City. It was a chilly afternoon, but a good result for the club. I had a great time visiting some of the local Brentford pubs and talking football with a bunch of people that have been following the clubs for decades.
And… I saw these two delightful street signs.

I was shocked this was the name of the street…

…and then I saw this one a block later. Well played, England.

In February, my mom came to visit, so we took her into the city to see some attractions. We made our first trip to the London Eye.

It was a typical February day in London.

We were back near the Eye a week later, and the weather was *perfect*

We visited the Museum of London, and it remains my favorite museum in the city. It’s the narrative that really does it, I think. I love that you walk in the entrance, start in the Paleolithic era, and make your way chronologically forward through the history of the city.

We also made it to the Sky Garden. It’s a three-story garden at the top of the Walkie Talkie in the City of London. From 35 stories up, you can see much of the city. We had a fairly clear day (by London standards) with wonderful views of the Shard, the Tower of London, the City of London, and St. Paul’s. The Walkie Talkie, you may remember, was the building that was melting cars after it was built. Sadly for us–but happily for the vehicle owners below us–the problem was successfully resolved with metal slats on the southern face of the building, and there were no unsightly lumps of plastic stuck to the pavement.

Back on the writing front, I am finishing a second pass of edits on my novel-in-progress. I started it in late 2017 and have worked on it off and on since then. The move led to some interruptions, but I’ve been working on it steadily since Viable Paradise. I have a few willing alpha readers lined up, and I’m aiming to have it out to them by the end of March. It’s part steam punk, part space opera, with a heap of revolution, and a twist of betrayal. This will be my first novel that I send out to agents and pursue the traditional publishing route, so it will likely be years before it’s available to a broad audience. Hopefully you’ll see some more short fiction from me in the meantime.