Jamie Ferguson

There’s so much going on that it’s hard to keep track of everything!

Actually that’s not true. I have lists, and spreadsheets, and lists of spreadsheets, and spreadsheets of lists—all very colorful, of course! The hard part right now is that I’m doing a lot of organizing at work and while wearing my writing/publishing hats. I’m on top of everything—even when I’m behind, I’ll have a list of what I’m behind on. 🙂 But I have found that even I have a limit to how many things I can comfortably stay on top of. I’m not at my limit, but I’m closer than I’d like to be.

Fortunately I’m pretty close to getting caught up on a number of things. I’m working on four anthologies right now, two of which should be published in the next few weeks, and one more should follow in November or December. I have three short stories to write by the end of the year, a number of interviews to put together, and need to put together—and start implementing—a marketing plan for a brand new anthology series. Easy peasy! 🙂

Here’s my update on new things I’ve learned and experienced in the past week. I’ve added a new category to cover things I’m reading. I’m debating the format I’m using—while I really like the emphasis on learning/experiencing new things, and have found this to be a great reminder for myself during the week, it feels a little too structured. Yes, I do love spreadsheets, and realize my commenting on “too much structure” is a bit amusing. But I’m considering modifying how I present this type of thing in these posts.

Learnings

I learned that mole doesn’t always involve chocolate!

In my quest to use the vast number of tomatillos I unintentionally grew, I found a recipe for mole verde (thanks to my sister Michaele). My initial excitement at making a recipe involving tomatillos and chocolate was dampened when I realized chocolate wasn’t involved at all. But I persevered, and found I quite like mole verde.

I only followed part of the recipe…I left out the garlic (which I’m allergic to) and onions (which I’ve come to not care for, in spite of the fact that I loved onions for most of my life). I only measured a few ingredients, used probably three times the number of tomatillos the recipe called for (hey, I have a lot of tomatillos…), and didn’t use cilantro because I, incorrectly, thought there was some in our fridge and so I didn’t buy any. The result was a very tasty dish which I will happily make again—and, since there are now a lot of tomatillos taking up space in my freezer, I am sure I’ll be making it again soon!

For the record, Wikipedia says mole sauce generally contains a fruit, chili pepper, nut, and spices.

Experiencings

There’s a group of writers at work who are participating in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month—which is actually November, not October, but they’re getting a head start!). One of them organized an hour-long writing session on Fridays, and I joined them for half an hour last week. Only a few of us were able to make it, and it was funny because we’re all in different cities. We showed up on the video conference, said hi, and then ignored each other and wrote for the rest of the time. I’m not participating in NaNoWriMo—I have way too many projects in progress right now to even think about writing a novel in thirty days! But I liked the idea of the joint session, and found it surprisingly productive.

Readings

I’m reading many books right now, as is my wont. I generally read multiple books at a time. Sometimes I’m in the middle of a serious book, and am busy at work or something, so I’ll add in a cozy because I want to read but need something lighthearted to balance everything else out.

Because I’m not reading enough books already 🙂 I’ve recently started two new ones: Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward, and On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century by Timothy Snyder.

Sing, Unburied, Sing is the November book for the book club that’s just started up at my day job. I didn’t vote for any of the selections, mostly because I was really curious to see what the other people in the club picked. We’ll have our inaugural meeting in a few weeks, so while I know a few of the people already, I don’t yet know what the dynamic of the group will be. I decided I wasn’t opinionated enough to vote, and by not voting I’d learn something about the other members. So far I’m really enjoying this book, although I am avoiding reading it before bedtime because the one time I did that I found myself thinking about it when I woke up in the middle of the night, and I really need to get more sleep. 🙂

I don’t remember why I added On Tyranny to my to-read list. I think it came up in an article I read or something—I added it back in July. The premise of the book is that we should learn from other democracies who yielded to fascism, Nazism, or communism, and not repeat the same mistakes. Here’s a quote from Chapter 19: Be a patriot.

The president is a nationalist, which is not at all the same thing as a patriot. A nationalist encourages us to be our worst, and then tells us that we are the best. A nationalist, “although endlessly brooding on power, victory, defeat, revenge,” wrote Orwell, tends to be “uninterested in what happens in the real world.” Nationalism is relativist, since the only truth is the resentment we feel when we contemplate others. As the novelist Danilo Kiš put it, nationalism “has no universal values, aesthetic or ethical.”

A patriot, by contrast, wants the nation to live up to its ideals, which means asking us to be our best selves. A patriot must be concerned with the real world, which is the only place where his country can be loved and sustained. A patriot has universal values, standards by which he judges his nation, always wishing it well— and wishing that it would do better.

Democracy failed in Europe in the 1920s, ’30s, and ’40s, and it is failing not only in much of Europe but in many parts of the world today. It is that history and experience that reveals to us the dark range of our possible futures. A nationalist will say that “it can’t happen here,” which is the first step toward disaster. A patriot says that it could happen here, but that we will stop it.

—Snyder, Timothy. On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century

My very first non-fiction book has been published!!!

Bundle Up! is about creating and promoting story and book collections. This includes anthologies, ebook bundles, boxed sets, and so on.

The section for authors goes over what to expect when you participate in this kind of project. I also added a chapter on things to consider when evaluating a project and the curator so authors can decide whether or not to participate in a collection. It can be difficult to turn down the opportunity to be a part of this kind of project, but sometimes that’s actually the right thing to do. I’ve turned down a few invitations so far, and each time it’s been hard to say no—but I have to make sure I’m putting my time and energy toward the projects that are right for me, and not overcommit. (Although I am very good at overcommitting! :))

I also have a section for curators which includes things like how to select authors and stories, the steps that you need to do to put everything together, and how to plan ahead so you can either prevent problems or be better able to handle them when they occur. A big chunk of the book is about multi-author collections, but a lot of the information—like the section on promotion—could apply if a single author was creating a collection of their own work.

My book is currently only available through the NaNoWriMo Writing Tools bundle, a collection of twelve books on writing put together by Kevin J. Anderson for National Novel Writing Month (aka NaNoWriMo). This bundle will be for sale through the end of November 2018. A portion of the proceeds goes directly to benefit the Challenger Center for Space Science Education, a non-profit group created by the families of the crew of the Challenger shuttle.

I’m SO EXCITED to be a part of this project! I’m also very happy to be done writing the book. 🙂 It was a lot of fun, but I hadn’t written non-fiction like this before, and I naively assumed it would be super easy because this is a topic I know very well. Ha! For a while it felt like the manuscript was a random collection of notes—which, of course, is exactly what it was for quite some time. 🙂 That makes sense now, but was immensely disconcerting because I had a very hard deadline. Now that the book is done, I have a much better understanding of how to write this type of non-fiction. I’ve actually started on a second book! But this time I’m setting a much more realistic schedule. My plan is to hand off the manuscript to my editor by June 1st, 2019, and to publish the book in the fall. That will give us enough time to iterate over edits.

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Here’s an update on new things I’ve learned and experienced in the past week!

Learnings

I’ve learned—or, more correctly, re-learned—that checklists are more reliable than my memory. We went on a short vacation with the dogs, and while I printed out my checklist like I always do, I was busy and distracted and didn’t actually check things off. The list of things we forgot to bring on our trip was long, and included a few pretty important things—like dog leashes and dog food. Ack!!!

I’m usually really, really good about using a checklist when I travel, and I’m also a big know-it-all if my husband forgets something (since he doesn’t use a checklist). So this turned out to be a little embarrassing, and super funny—once we stopped and bought dog food and the other things we’d forgotten. 🙂

Experiencings

We normally take the dogs on a hiking vacation in the mountains in September, but skipped last year—which seemed like a good idea at the time, but in retrospect not so much. This year we rented a house just outside of Marble, Colorado, and took Rosie and Jasper. Unfortunately we managed to find a chilly week, with both rain and snow, but we’ve had fun nonetheless. The house we rented is roomy in a cozy way, so it’s been quite pleasant to hang out inside. We’ve also gone hiking, although our hikes have been abbreviated. The first day it rained most of the day, so we drove into Marble and walked the dogs around the Marble Mill Site Park, where the largest stone mill in United States history used to be until it closed in 1941. Our other hikes have mostly been on four-wheel-drive roads, with a little hiking on muddy dirt trails. Even with the cool (and wet!) weather, this has been really fun. Rosie and Jasper are enjoying their vacation!