A speculative mind

  It is interesting what children take from a conversation. I remember when my family took a trip to see Crater Lake. I was young, maybe three or four. I did not know what Crater Lake was. It was not that far from where we lived, maybe a three-hour drive. But a three-hour drive to a three-year-old is a near eternity. Not to mention that it is hot in southern Oregon in the summertime and our old Oldsmobile station wagon did not have air conditioning. The car carried my parents and my three siblings and me. Not that I remember much of it, but I imagine the drive must have been tedious for all concerned. In fact, I don’t remember much of the trip at all at this point, but I do remember my father’s explanation of Crater Lake. He explained to me that the mountain had a hole in it and water went in the hole and made a lake. Those weren’t his exact words, but it was something like that. Anyway, what I got out of this explanation was that there was a hole in the mountain. As we drove thr...

  As a writer, I thrive under a deadline. Deadlines keep me motivated and focused. I like participating in NANOWRIMO (National Novel Writing Month), where I have one month to write a 50,000-word novel. It is a good challenge, and it gives me motivation to write every day. There have been other small projects where I have had a deadline, like the recent anthology Rainbows Aren’t Just for Leprechauns . I had a deadline to get the story in, and I made it. Without a deadline, without something pushing me forward, it is just too easy to not write. Procrastination is my nemesis. Give me a deadline. I am happy with a deadline. But there was one project I signed up for where the deadline proved downright terrifying . . . I joined a twenty-four-hour theater project. You can sign up as a writer, or an actor, or a director or tech crew. The idea is that each play goes from conception to performance in front of an audience in the course of 24 hours. I signed up as a writer. The writers com...

  The lodgepole pine is a common pine species in western North America. Native Americans used the tall straight trunk for teepee frames, hence the name lodgepole pine. Its scientific name is Pinus contorta . The genus name “Pinus” means it is a pine as you would expect. But the species name “contorta” might throw you. “Contorta” would indicate that it is contorted, twisted, or distorted. I live on the windy Oregon Coast and our version of Pinus contorta is called “shore pine.” Shore pines, as the name indicates, grow along the coast from northern California to Alaska. They are subject to winds that the more inland trees do not experience. Shore pines are gnarled and twisted, a far cry from the straight-growing lodgepole. Winter storms on the Oregon coast can be extreme with wind gusts sometimes blowing over 100 miles per hour. A visitor to our coast might naturally assume that the trees are twisted because of these strong winds coming off the ocean constantly blowing the trees i...

  Red Rising   by Pierce Brown  is one of those books that I heard mentioned by people, but it never quite made it to my radar. At some point I heard another person talk about it and that must have been critical mass for me to decide I should probably read it. Revolution can be messy, but a little rebellion now and then is a good thing.   In Red Rising , the population is divided into strict classes defined by colors. No one steps outside of their class boundary. Our hero, Darrow and his friends and family are “Reds,” the lowest class. They are little better than slaves working in the mines of Mars. They are lied to. They are horribly oppressed in ways that are at times hard to read. But you need to read about it. You need to see how bad it is, so it will be that much sweeter when he sets himself on a course to right the wrong. He will fight the good fight. Darrow is recruited into a revolutionary group. His body in modified so he can pass for a “Gold,” the elite...