The life of my son River (whom we often call Riverboat, Mr. Boat, the Boatman, and other such things) is a succession of first times. First time in a playground swing. First time eating mashed apples. First time a booger got stuck to his nose. First sneeze. First time on a plane. First taste of juice. First laugh. First time pulling himself to standing. First time he fell over and hit his head after pulling himself to standing. He reminds me how nice it is to do things for the first time -- to not be bound by routine -- and reminds me to notice and appreciate when I do venture beyond the everyday boundaries. It can be scary, you might get hurt, it might taste bad, but the kid, he doesn't hesitate, he embraces the new. He reminds me to try to do the same. (This applies, of course, to writing. But it also applies to, say, eating strange Mexican candy or oddly-named fruit, or listening to music in a genre I think I won't like, without even trying it, or and so on.)

Good, strange Meghan McCarron story in Clarkesworld: "Tetris Dooms Itself". (Good Dora Goss story, too, but I've read it before; hadn't read the companion essay, though, which is also interesting.)

Tangentially, I play a lot of Tetris (PC emulation of the Nintendo version) when I'm plotting or otherwise trying to figure out something about a book or story. It occupies my upper attention and lets my subconscious work stuff out. My high score is about 230,000 points. (I start on level 7 in the A-type game, where you get about 10,000 points for every Tetris.)

At some point, I think I became a novelist. I always said I preferred writing stories to writing novels, but selling a story brings beer money while selling a novel brings car money or eradicate-credit-card-debt money, so novels it is. But stories, they were the thing I loved.

But I've been writing stories for the past few weeks ("A Steadfast Tin Soldier," "Unexpected Outcomes," and "Origin Story," which is the superhero story I mentioned a few entries back, all done in July! A good month!)... and while I'm enjoying it, and think the stories are good and weird and adventurous, I miss having a big novel to sink into. I do hope I get to write more Marla Mason novels (the jury's still out, should know in the next month or two or few though). But either way I should write SOME kind of book... I miss the total creative immersion.