(Mid-)December, or pre-Yule
On the first of December, I was boarding an Amtrak train to visit the Northwest, which means I was pretty frenzied in the days leading up to it; and then across the remote wastes of North Dakota and Montana, I had no wifi. Even my phone had iffy connection.
This was an experiment, to see whether trains were worth the money, and my answer, for myself anyway, is emphatically Yes. It is more expensive than a plane ticket, but: no TSA, no security drama, no “two hours before departure.” My brother drove me to the St. Paul (MN) terminal and parked, for free. He walked me to what would be the gate, if there were one. Someone scanned my ticket, but that was basically all there was: no one checked again, I never dug out a passport or had to answer questions about my destination. I ambled into my roomette (why not cabinet? Did they think I would mistake myself for 64 oz. of shelled pistachios?) and tucked in for the night. The travel from St. Paul MN to Everett WA was about thirty hours, but I always lose the day I am traveling to the stresses of air travel, anyway, and instead, those hours were a liminal space, neither here nor there. I wrote, I knitted, I looked out the window, and no one, no one at all, could reach me.
I have driven this MN-to-WA run many times, as well. When I was young and my hips infitinitely flexible, I could drive for twelve of fourteen hours a day and get cross-country in two days, three at most.I fell into what I called “highway zen,” a blank, receptive state where the landscape and my thoughts streamed through me. Now it is a four-day drive, and I...lose interest partway through the second day, when I am STILL on the Great Plains and feel I will never actually escape from them. Gas and three or four days’ worth of food and motels adds up to about the same amount of money as a roomette on a train, which makes my decision for me: if I can take the train, and unless I have urgent reasons to be somewhere, the train is preferable.
Because, O, the views and the solitude and the uninterrupted time.
I think an essential part of deep creativity is boredom. I need to get past my social media and the last show I watched and the emails from my job to a place where nothing much is happening and I am mentally coasting. I run through all my surface thoughts and feelings, the reactions and the responses—and then a space opens up where my brain needs something to react to that isn’t the same old stuff. In our normal lives, we fill this space (if we even find it) with distractions like catching up on a show, a chat we’ve never quite had the energy for, or a spurt of errand-running—but these aren’t conducive to deep creativity. They are not new things; they are variations of all the same old things.
The things I find in this space can be large or small—a new novel idea, a realization about life, a sudden memory I haven’t had time for before this, a turn of phrase that delights me—and suddenly, I am not bored any more.
This is by no means a unique insight, but it’s still useful, I figure. And meanwhile, the train keeps rolling and eventually I end up somewhere I want to be.
(To be clear, the trip isn’t over yet! I have a couple of other places to go, and then I head back to Minnesota, visit my mother in Wisconsin, and come home at last, on Midwinter Night.)
Publications
China Editora just released the Spanish translation of my short fiction, Al final de un río de abejas. I sae pictures of the book, and now I am panting to get the actual book!
“26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss” has just been published in a Marathi translation, from Indian publisher Bhas Prakashan. The print magazine is waiting for me at home.
This isn’t exactly a publication, but “Ponies” is being adapted for reader’s theatre by a high school speech team in Iowa. I everything but begged for them to send me videos.
Patreon
My Patreon has gone up another four members, to 107. Inch by inch, yard by yard... https://www.patreon.com/kijjohnson
Workshops & classes
As I said last month, Ad Astra has finalised our dates for next summer’s workshops. Chris McKitterick’s (https://christopher-mckitterick.com/) short fiction workshop will be 6/15–28, and my Novel Architects workshop with Barbara Webb (https://buttondown.com/bjwebb) will be 6/29–7/12. Expect details here and on my website in January.
Projects in progress
Since we signed the contracts last month on the secret RPG, I have been working like crazy on this, mostly art and map briefs and chapter drafts for design review. This meant a lot of preliminary steps that didn’t rise to the level of an actual item on a list that could be checked off, but which needed to be done. BUT the company publishing the game will be teasing it in mid-February and announcing it in late March, with a funding program in April sometime, so that’s something to look forward to. Meanwhile, I can tell you that I have about 50k words of a 90-100k project written, plus most of the art and map briefs.
The American Tour is still in limbo, waiting to hear from a UK publisher about whether they are interested. If ever. In January, I will start the next step, hiring a lawyer to see about retrieving my rights for the first book in the series.
Mystery Flesh Pit National Park: The RPG [editor] is someday soon? https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ganzagaming/the-mystery-flesh-pit-national-park-rpg/posts
Dreamland RPG [writer and editor] is scheduled now to launch on Kickstarter early next year, I think; details as I get them. https://www.dreamrpg.com/
Kobold Press TTRPG project [editor]: This was a giant editing job, handed in and off my plate. I am now starting to look for the next big project.
...and that is life. If you celebrate one holiday or another, please have a joyful, safe, and comforting time. Dopn’t let the jólakötturinn eat you! Love, Kij