John Larson

I've resolved, apparently, to not even be embarrassed about Halloween creep this year. It's not even October and I've had only pumpkin-colored beverages for weeks now.

Genre Trouble Or: the Limits of Vampires

New post-WorldCon entry ambivalenting about genre!

jdlarson.substack.com/p/genre-trou...

Dentist: Just be still; the x-ray will only take about ten seconds.

Me: *realizes I have never spent ten sustained seconds not vibrating wildly*

The Simple Art of Murdering Darlings Raymond Chandler, Style, and Revision’s Strange Sins

In this entry of my newsletter, I meander around the motion of killing one's darlings purely as an excuse to quote Raymond Chandler's prose a bunch: jdlarson.substack.com/p/the-simple...

Me: Nobody notices or thinks about you as much as your anxiety believes.

My barista, just now: I know the face of every person that walks into this cafe and orders *tea*.

And why did I hear about, I don't know. Ender's Game, I guess? Hyperion? Not that these are bad, but that they're not aligned with my particular interests. These unique voices are out there, even lauded, and I seem somehow to be paying attention to the wrong spaces.

Given how exciting I found what I've read from both of them, it's shocking I hadn't heard of them.

In the last year I have been hearing about Gene Wolfe and M John Harrison, both of him were prolific for decades and who never flitted across my radar. How?

I think that there's something about influential writers from exactly one generation back being skipped over because they influenced people that hadn't yet broken out. This last year I've been exposed to Angela Carter and Joy Williams, both of whom wrote for decades, but never came across my radar.

Them: What a cute mug! I'd love my coffee in that.

Me: Ye-es. You can have your coffee in... in my favorite mug.

Them: Mmm. Thank you! This is delicious. Do you have cream, though?

Me: No you're doing it wrong. Stop that. She doesn't like her handle touched.

Considering new pronouns of she/her/azade

My partner: don't forget to wear sunscreen and write the name of your emergency contact inside your arm!

Me: Okay, MOM. Calm down, I'll be fine.

Me, later: shit i forgot sunscreen

I've just finished Alan Wake 2. What twisty self-referential video game/FMV experiment should i play next?

*scans horizon*

Hellooooooo...?

Why Force It? Very Well, I Contradict Myself

In which I argue with the me of two weeks ago.

jdlarson.substack.com/p/why-force-it

My new life's ambition is to acquire and listen constantly to Genesis's 1986 album Invisible Touch. i have not heard it since ca. 1990 i wonder if it holds up.

(Note: this post is not endorsed nor in any way affiliated with Sleeper Coffee of Astoria, OR, where you can enjoy a range of sumptuous caffeinated and decaf drinks while watching the cargo ships on the Columbia and breaking a loved one's heart.)

Need to break up with your partner? Collect for a loan shark? Excise a parasite that has been replicating and replacing you, cell by cell? Bring your scalpel to Sleeper Coffee!

I began the process of revising my novel by driving to Astoria and reviewing it at Sleeper Coffee. I'm excited and optimistic! I suspect this is because any activity at Sleeper Coffee becomes thrilling and positive.

Update: I think my espresso machine might be struggling with anxiety and also projecting its neurosis onto anyone nearby.

I think my cat might be struggling with anxiety and also projecting his neurosis onto anyone nearby.

AI writing alt-universe fanfic.

The steaming chemistry between Jess and Nigel on that show is legendary. The way she was flighty but lovable and he was stoic and drank various teas from delicate china.

Stiffens my upper lip to think about it.

Preview of newsletter post with the text "How should it feel to write? Motivation, muses, and dangerous feelings" over an etching by Dürer

Today's post considers how we want to feel while writing, and whether that feeling has value, then incorrectly concludes that it does not.

Shit, I gave away the end.

Remember: spring is the second season of folk horror. The "horror" comes from October, but the "folk" comes from May. And by "May" I mean "pole season" and by "pole" I mean go watch Wicker Man and I'll explain when you're older.

Current mood: an entire box of Honey Bunches of Oats poured into a large bowl with chocolate milk.

Looking forward to getting through peak hay fever season and into summer, where I can look forward to rocky mountain spotted fever and Eli Roth's cabin fever.

Relocated box turtles will try to return their home range. If they cannot find it, they may spend the remainder of their lives wandering aimlessly, trying to find their home.

Box turtles can live over 50 years.

Friends, I hope you greet tomorrow like a medieval painting of a lion that looks like a smiling housecat, not a medieval painting of a lion that looks like a dyspeptic greyhound. Or a medieval painting of a lion with a horse body whose lush mane surrounds a child's features. Never that.

I hesitate to admit this -- particularly on a public forum like there, where I'll be subject to the judgment of my peers and even strangers -- but lately I've been marginally less into Cotswold cheese.

Velvet and Leather and Lesbians Oh My Sarah Waters’s Tipping the Velvet and Carol Queen’s The Leather Daddy and the Femme

My recent entry on 90s representations of gender (in smut and literary... smut--but classy!) is a bit more personal than my usual post. But I obviously have to share it because I like the accompanying photo.