There’s been a lot of talk online lately about toxic fandom, spurred mostly by the reaction of some fans to the recent Star Wars movies. They’ve driven some of the actors off social media with their horrible abuse, and now there’s even a group trying to raise money to remake The Last Jedi “the right way,” so that it’s not so much about social justice (I guess they missed the fact that in the original trilogy, the villains were literally Stormtroopers, and the heroes were freedom fighters battling oppression). I think I got the most response to anything I’ve ever tweeted when I responded to someone else’s post about how male fandom, when disappointed by something, tends to react with “You’ve ruined my childhood! Now I will destroy you!” while female fans just go and write fan fiction. I added that female fandom also will tend to get into in-depth analysis of the characterization and plot elements, and out of that discussion will develop lifelong friendships. That got a lot of “likes.”

That’s certainly been my experience. I have a number of good friends I initially met through online or convention fandom and discussions. We don’t always like everything that’s done in the show or movies, but when we don’t like it, there’s fun in the community that forms around figuring out where the problems are. I haven’t done a lot of fan fiction, and when I have, it hasn’t been so much about “fixing” things. When I “fix” things, it tends to spur something entirely new that never really exists as fan fiction. But I really get into analysis.

Not that all female fandom is non-toxic. The “‘shipping,” or advocating for certain romantic relationships, can get really nasty. I’ve seen actors driven off social media by fans who harass and abuse them because the fans perceive the actors as being obstacles to their chosen relationship, either because the actors play characters who get in the way by being involved with one of the parties in their chosen relationship or because the fans perceive the actors as being opposed to or not supportive of their chosen relationship (which can include the actor speaking positively about the relationship the character is actually in on the show). It can go as far as fans trying to spread nasty rumors about actors in an attempt to get them fired.

But for the most part, the fan community can be a positive thing, and that’s a central theme in the book I’ve been working on for ages. It’s largely about what it is to be a fan of something, to love it so much that you wish it was real and you could actually live it, and how that love can form connections between people who otherwise are very different from each other. I haven’t delved into the toxic side of things in the story because I wanted to write something about joy. I think that’s why it took me so long to really find the right story for this book because it’s hard to have both high stakes and that joy. I’m doing my final pass before I send it to my agent, and I think I’ve finally captured what I wanted.

It’s wonderful when you find that shared connection with someone over something both of you love. Star Wars was a great icebreaker when I was a kid. I was a military brat, so we moved around a lot, about every year to year and a half in the years after Star Wars came out. I found that bringing up Star Wars was a good way to find new friends when we moved. It meant we had at least one thing in common, and soon we’d learn other things we had in common. As an adult, I’ve made long-term friends in discussions of The X-Files, Buffy, Firefly, and Doctor Who. These are friendships that have transcended the original topic and continued in other forums, or even in person. Sometimes, I even forget how I originally got to know these people. They’re just friends, not specifically fandom friends.

I really hope this book finds a home, because I think it’s a story people will relate to and I think it’s a good reminder of what it is to share in the joy of loving something.

I should be able to stop sidetracking by looking up vacation ideas because I got my August vacation booked. I had to go to the airport to get my flight because you have to either book by phone and then mail a voucher (which tends to get lost) or go to a ticket counter. Since getting the good hotel rate requires prepayment, I didn’t want to book the hotel without being sure of my flight, so I went to the airport. It was on my way to a friend’s house, so I’d have been going past it, anyway.

And it turned into quite an adventure. The place was relatively quiet, especially for a Friday afternoon, so I didn’t have to wait at all to walk right up to a ticket counter. That turned out to be a good thing because it took an hour, three ticket agents, two supervisors, and a phone call to get my ticket. The first agent didn’t know how to deal with vouchers at all and had to ask the second one for help. The second one tried to type in something and recoiled in horror at what she saw on the screen. Apparently, it wasn’t supposed to do that. So the first agent went in search of a supervisor, tried what the supervisor suggested, and when that didn’t work, she called elsewhere in the airline and got put on hold, with a projected wait time of an hour. Meanwhile, she kept trying other stuff that didn’t work. It seems that my voucher was some weird type they’d never seen before. When the first agent finally got an answer on the phone, they didn’t know what she was talking about. The supervisor came over to see how it was going and didn’t know what to advise. Another supervisor came over to see what was going on, and she wasn’t sure what to do. Then a third ticket agent who’d just come on duty came over to see what the fuss was about, looked at the voucher, typed in some things, and it worked.

So I paid for my “free” ticket in time (I think it took longer to redeem the voucher than I was delayed by taking the bump). But considering that someone else paid for the flight that got me the voucher, this is a doubly free ticket. And then this weekend I booked the hotel, so I’m set.

But then one of the hotel chains I have a membership with sent me an e-mail saying I could get an extra 15% off during the month of my birthday. They don’t have a lot of hotels, but there is one in downtown Fort Worth, and I thought that might make a fun mini-break for my birthday, itself — take the train over, maybe go out in Sundance Square. The hotel has a spa, so I could make it a spa retreat sort of thing. Then I noticed that there’s a show I’d like to see opening at the downtown performance hall the night of my birthday. But this hotel would be a walk that I’m not entirely sure would be safe alone, and the show ends after the downtown trolley stops running. Skimming around on other hotel web sites, I found that there’s an Embassy Suites across the street from the performance hall, and it would be less expensive — or free if I use my Hilton points — plus the big breakfast buffet. On the other hand, no spa, no morning tea brought to your door with the morning paper. So, maybe I could hotel hop — do one night in the fancy hotel and do the spa thing, then go to the other hotel for the night of the show and a big breakfast.

I spent way too much time on Saturday researching possibilities for a semi-staycation trip. I’ve talked about wanting to do a trip just to relax and not come home tired and hadn’t considered something quite that close to home. It would be about an hour by train, so it would feel like an actual trip without being too draining. I may or may not do it for my actual birthday, but I might do a mini-break during the fall when I could walk around outside without bursting into flames because there are museums, the botanical gardens, etc., to enjoy there, and I seldom go because it’s not a pleasant drive.

But now it’s the work week, and I want to get one project off my plate so I can concentrate better on other projects.

Thinking about vacations yesterday really got me sidetracked because I kept going off on research rabbit trails. But I think I’ve made a decision. I figured that if I got a bad knot in my stomach when I thought about booking an overseas trip, it was a bad sign. Maybe that’s not the thing to do right now or this year.

Then I came across a notice of a Hilton sale and started looking around at what I could get in which places, and I could get some really nice rates in downtown Chicago, and the airfare for the dates I’m looking at would end up being free, with that voucher I got for taking a bump. I only seem to get to Chicago for conferences, so there are a couple of touristy things I want to do, like the Art Institute, and then they have a tall ship that does cruises on the lake. I have friends there I could get together with in the evenings. It could be a nice, relaxing-type vacation, the kind where there’s some stuff to do but some time to hang out in a hotel room and just chill. When I think about it, I feel good instead of getting that knot in my stomach, which is a good sign.

But I’ll have to make a decision by this weekend because I have to book the hotel by then to get the sale rates.

Now I think I should be able to concentrate on my work again.

Earlier this year, I decided that I was going to take a big vacation this summer — actually use my passport and Global Entry status and check something off the bucket list. I was thinking Norway would be good. It’s where one side of my family came from, and it looks like something I would enjoy, with forests, mountains, and water. I started researching it, and everything I saw spoke to my soul.

But I never actually booked anything. Now I’m at the point where I really need to be buying plane tickets and making hotel reservations, and I’m balking. I started worrying about traveling to a place where I don’t speak the language (I had all these grand plans about studying Norwegian on Duolingo, but never got started) and thought maybe I’d postpone the trip to next year and do something else this summer.

So I looked into Scotland, and flying there was really expensive. I thought maybe I could fly to London and take the train, but that was actually more expensive than flying to Oslo, even though the flight to Oslo is actually a flight to London, then changing planes to fly to Oslo. I also looked up Dublin, which is a bit more expensive than flying to Oslo.

The language thing shouldn’t be that big an issue, since most Norwegians speak perfect English, and Norwegian is a somewhat Germanic language, so I can figure out a lot of things like signs based on what I know of German. I looked up hotels, and it seems like I can get some pretty reasonably.

But every time I think of actually pulling the trigger and booking, I get a knot in my stomach. I don’t know if it’s a fear of the unknown (or of spending money) or just some sense that maybe this isn’t the right thing for me to do right now. The thought of spending that amount of time in transit isn’t very appealing (though I’m considering splurging on business class).

Or maybe I should do something closer to home — a mini-break in New York or Chicago, or something like that.

Whatever I do, I guess I need to decide and plan soon. Weirdly, I probably have more fun planning hypothetical vacations than I do actually taking the trip.

I do want to go to England in the fall because there’s a book I need to research, so maybe that can be my big trip.

The fun thing about returning to something you last worked on months ago is seeing how much you’ve grown as a writer since then. I applied my “but” or “and so” trick to this book that I put aside to work on the one I just finished, and that immediately exposed the plot problems. Now I just need to fix them and figure out what happens in the rest of the book.

That will be today’s fun, a day spent plotting (and scheming). I hope that means I can get to the writing part tomorrow.

I have to say, I really love playing in the Enchanted, Inc. world. These are such fun characters who immediately come to life for me when I write, and I love slipping into Katie’s narrative voice because I can let my snark flag fly.

I came up with some ideas on my morning walk, and now I need to see if they fit.

I got a slow start to the day because I was up for about an hour very early in the morning (around 2 a.m.) when a big hailstorm hit. I have a clay tile roof, so storms tend to be very loud. Regular rain sounds like a hailstorm, so an actual hailstorm sounds like boulders hitting the roof. There’s no sleeping during that because each strike of a hailstone sounds like it’s going to be hurtling through the ceiling. I saw posts on Facebook (while I was awake, I was checking various news feeds for weather conditions) from friends nearby who had tennis or baseball-sized hail and who had broken car windows. I don’t think it was that bad in my neighborhood. As soon as the sound of hail stopped, I looked outside and didn’t see any hailstones on the ground, so they must have been small enough to melt quickly in the rain. The trees around my neighborhood were shredded, and there are leaves and twigs all over the ground under every tree, but cars that look like they were parked outside during the storm (because they’re wet and covered in shredded leaves) didn’t have any visible damage.

Rain is good, but I can do without the hail. It took me a while to get back to sleep after the hail finally stopped and it seemed that the storm had moved on. Then I slept late.

I’m doing a near-final pass on the book I’ve been working on, and I think I’ve hit the part that will need the most revision, so it’s going to slow down a bit. The problem is that I know it needs something, but I’m not quite sure what that something is. It’s been a while since I looked at this part, so maybe that something will strike me now.

Hmm, maybe I need to add a good hailstorm.

I took a short break to visit my parents, and now I’m hoping to be fully in summer work mode. There’s a lot of stuff I’d like to do this fall, once we’re back to it being cool enough to go outdoors without bursting into flames, so I need to do the bulk of this year’s writing during the summer, when I’m huddling indoors under the ceiling fan.

Of course, wouldn’t you know it, we got a thunderstorm this morning, right after I got up to go take my walk, so that kind of ruins the whole “summer” thing. Not that I’m complaining. I’m definitely okay starting a June day with the windows open, listening to the rain.

One of the topics of discussion at that conference I went to was subscription models like Patreon. I hadn’t really considered doing something like that because I make decent money from my books and don’t necessarily need my fans paying subscription fees for access to my stuff. But it sounds like this has almost become a new promotional platform, with the money you make a bonus. So, you might post a blog there that doesn’t require payment, and then there would be bonus content at various payment levels. Just the announcement of the bonus content gives you something to publicize in between books. Some writers post movie and TV reviews there. Some serialize novels, and some post short stories or deleted scenes.

I’ve been putting most of that kind of stuff just on my blog, and the thought of having to produce extra stuff, in addition to writing books, is a little stressful. But since that seems to be where the cool kids are, it might prove to be a way to stay in touch with fans. On the other hand, I don’t even have 600 Twitter followers, so it’s not that likely that I’d get enough patrons to make it worthwhile.

One thing I’ve considered to start with is doing some rewatch reviews of Once Upon a Time, from the perspective of a fantasy novelist. An online forum I’m in is doing an organized rewatch, so this might be something I’m doing anyway. These posts might be more detailed than I’d do in a regular blog, and it might be of interest both for fans of the show and for writers (because, oh, is there a lot of What Not To Do, especially as we get into later seasons). I wonder how many people might be willing to pay $1-2 a month for access to something like that, along with other writing advice-type posts.

But, really, I mostly need to spend the time writing.

I can’t believe it’s Memorial Day weekend already. Summer’s beginning (traditionally and soon meteorologically, not astronomically) and I feel like we skipped spring. I should probably do the winter and summer closet swap because I doubt I’m going to need flannel pajamas or a heavy sweatshirt anytime soon. Alas.

It’s also the weekend of a new Star Wars movie. I love that we’re getting more Star Wars content now, but at the same time, it used to be such a major event when we only got a movie every three years, and then there were those big gaps. Now it’s maybe a little less special when it happens every year. But still, more Star Wars is good, as long as it’s good, and I could use something fun right now.

Then we’re having our Memorial Day concert Monday night at church.

So, busy weekend, but I’ll fit in some relaxing because I’m still recovering from my trip and then a bunch of other stuff I had to deal with when I got home. Still, in all the excitement, I manage to draft a short story, and I may even like it.

My plan for the summer is to buckle down and do some serious writing. I will hide in my cool cave and emerge in the fall with a few books.

I’ve been busy wrapping up some things and getting ready for my trip to the Nebula Awards weekend. I may try to post from the road, but things are going to be busy, so I’m not sure it will happen.

As I’ve been planning my packing, I found myself thinking of a feature they used to have in the travel section of the newspaper, in which they had various famous people who travel a lot tell what things they can’t travel without. Of course, they were mostly useless for normal people because these people were rich and traveled in first class, so it was stuff like “my personal set of silk sheets and cashmere blanket.” So, here’s my more realistic list of travel must-haves that make life on the road easier:

My travel hot pot — I don’t drink coffee, which means most hotel coffeemakers are useless because they produce hot water that smells and tastes like weak coffee. I have a small travel hot pot that’s about the size a school lunchbox thermos used to be (before they made them smaller and a different shape). I bring tea, hot cocoa mix, spiced cider mix, some herbal teas, and chicken noodle cup o’ soup. That allows me to have a cup of tea before I face the world, cocoa at bedtime, a refresher whenever, and I’ve got a light meal, if necessary. I learned to bring the soup when I was traveling on business. Our company’s travel department always seemed to have us fly late in the day, so we could put in a full day of work before going on a business trip. That meant I usually got to my hotel after they shut down room service, and far too late to try to go out to eat. After a few meals of hot cocoa and Doubletree cookies, I learned to bring soup.

A pair of yoga pants — these are a multi-purpose garment. They work as pajama pants with a nightshirt, if the room is cold. I can wear them to the hotel gym or to take a walk. I’ve used them as a swimsuit coverup. Mostly, though, they’re for comfortable lounging in the hotel room. I try to travel light, so I often bring just a couple of skirts or pairs of slacks and then have different tops. If I change into yoga pants whenever I’m in my room, I can hang up the skirt/slacks and let them freshen up/not get dirty or wrinkled.

A pair of those fuzzy spa socks — I use these as house slippers while in the hotel room, and they’re also good for recharging if I have a break during the day. Taking off your shoes and socks and putting on the spa socks even for a few minutes can make a big difference, especially if you’re on your feet a lot.

A couple of binder clips — these are good for organizing documents, of course, but they’re also good as clothespins if you’re hanging something up on the over-the-tub clothesline, and they’re great for clipping the curtains shut so you don’t get that gap that lets in light.

My tablet and bluetooth keyboard — I bring this instead of a laptop when I travel. It works as an e-reader and as a computer for Internet access. I haven’t tried to do heavy-duty writing on that keyboard, but the keyboard is nice for making social media posts.

Earplugs — I use the silicon putty kind that you stick on the outside of the ear canal, since the kind that stick in the ear are uncomfortable and tend to fall out. They’re good for dulling the usual hotel noise of the ice machine, people in the halls, plumbing, etc., but I can still hear the alarm clock and fire/smoke alarms.