Author Archives: joyceusagi

The office doesn’t look quite like this anymore. But we are in the dog days of summer (already)!

I’m somewhat pleased with my productivity over the past week. Not only have I finished The Cost of Power but I’ve been contemplating what the trilogy might look like and I’m just about ready to start spending some quality time with the easel, paper roll, and so on to do serious brainstorm work, not just for that story but for the Goddess’s Vision trilogy. I keep going back and forth about whether I want to use Philip Martiniere’s POV because…I don’t know, I think the perspective might be useful. At the very least, I plan to write some more drabbles about Philip to help me figure this universe’s version out. I kinda have an idea but I’m not definite on it yet. One of the burdens that this version of Philip carries is that there are so many universes where he is a destructive force–and he knows it now. But due to his relationship with his younger brother Gerry, and a few other differences, he’s not that destructive person in this universe. And…this version of Philip deeply loved Gabe’s mother Angelica, regretted losing her to his twin Saul, and was absolutely torn up the first time he saw Gabe as a baby because he couldn’t claim him–yet.

Anyway, I also managed to get many small things done this week, in spite of the heat and the traveling. I’ve also started journaling again–I think that is a key for stirring up my brain and it’s telling when I don’t do it. Another factor that seems to be helping my productivity is getting a new pair of computer/reading glasses with a blue blocker and a slightly longer focal distance. One thing I’ve appreciated about working with this optometry office has been that they listen. When I say that I don’t want my reading distance at 18 inches but closer to 24 inches, welp, they write the prescription that way instead of what they think it should be. And…it’s a lot easier on my arms and shoulders, too. I prefer books and computers at a reasonable distance, thank you very much. In any case, my eyes feel a lot better and I’m less fatigued. Win-win, all around! We’ll see what happens when my distance glasses show up next week–I have single focus reading/computer glasses and single focus distance vision glasses–just works better for me than any form of bifocal or transitional lenses, and contacts are right out for various reasons.

Looking at what didn’t get done this past week, I also don’t feel too bad because I did a lot of the preliminary tasks that needed to be completed before I tackle the stuff that didn’t get done. Plus, just catching my breath after completing two books that were pretty much being written simultaneously over the past six-seven months. I’m going to have more of that happening soon, but this week I think is the time to do a bunch of foundational stuff. One thing I want to start getting in order is an online store to sell some of the hard copy books I have lying around the house. One set is for a series that has been recovered and reissued, another is for a series that is due to be recovered and reissued next year. I think I’ll also make some bags to go with the books as swag. In any case, I need to work toward getting that set up and ready to roll for the fall and Christmas season if I’m gonna do it this year.

And if I feel the urge to write something…well, there’s all those noodlings that need to be done regarding Philip’s character in the world of The Cost of Power. I’m going to make that the title of the series, and I kinda have a title for the just-completed work: The Cost of Power: Exile’s Return. Because in part the focus of this series is the reconciliation of father and son to fight against a toxic variant of the father. And other stuff.

Meanwhile, the easel is calling me. Or, at least, notes to scribble as I think about where I’m going with this series.

It’s hot. I’m irritable. We’re taking care of business in the big city, which is going okay but the higher humidity mixed with heat is making me ache.

However, I’m also experiencing the “end of book; beginning of series” phenomenon with The Cost of Power. I’ve said before that this book (now books) would wrap up the whole Martiniere Multiverse thing. It seems to be happening as I realize the scope of what I’ve been doing with this book is much larger than two books. Three seems about right. I’ve brought in an element of science fantasy to mix with the other stuff and…I dunno, I might just call it science fantasy western with romantic elements. Nothing like throwing every concept possible into the stew pot, right?

Coincidences also add to the worldbuilding. I just read a neat little paper about conspiracy theories and the political roles they played in the 18th and early 19th century. Talk about the universe displaying synchronicity, because some of the threads in Power trace back to that era and specifically around the French Revolution. This was the perfect time for me to come across that paper. But…and this brings us back on track with accountability…it also points to the need that is arising for me to sit down and plot out what threads I have at the end of Book One that need to be carried forward…and some notions about when I’m going to tie them off. Some will happen in Book Two, others in Book Three.

There are also going to be significant research needs. I’m just not sure how much of the 18th/19th century I’m going to bring into this story. It might be fun.

This is pointing toward a need for at least a temporary office reorganization. I need space to spread out and think, then type notes into the laptop. I’ve been feeling restless about my office setup for some time now, but I don’t have a lot of options at the moment. I have two desks and hate both of them. One is totally unusable, so serves as a table for stacking stuff. I can’t use it for my computer effectively, and it’s too high for me to do paperwork/note taking/planning work. The other would probably be okay for paperwork, but it’s better than the other one for computer work, though that’s not saying much. I don’t see much possibility for resolving the desk situation soon, so…temporary alternatives.

Well, I guess the card table moves into the office for a while. I used it during the drafting of the main Martiniere Legacy at this point in time, for similar reasons. So why not do it now?

The other piece is that I’ll need it shortly for planning the Goddess’s Vision series, which is also nagging at me. Serial writing has somewhat taught me how to juggle two projects. I’m almost at the point of saying “no more Kindle Vella projects” as the bonuses appear to have played out–oh well, it was a good run and for once I grabbed onto something in publishing as it was a rising trend, and got at least a little bit out of it. In that case, I’ll be playing off the Martinieres and the Goddess books against each other for a while.

It is turning into the hot season. Cocooning in that office while scheming on writing plans sounds pretty good.

Meanwhile, this has been a productive week, overall, even with the traveling bit. Fabulist and Fantastical Worlds is now uploaded and on pre-order from all of the usual ebook distributor suspects. I’ve developed a low-key promo campaign for it. I’ll also put it up on Ingram for paperback orders closer to the release date (August 15th).

I have promotion booked for next month.

I finished a bunch of small projects around the house, including some office reorganization that has sparked these thoughts off. I took care of several tasks related to managing a volunteer organization’s committee and writing a press release for the same organization.

All in all, it’s not been too bad a week for getting stuff done. But I need to be able to just wheel around and move cards and paper and write notes on the easel.

Yep. Planning time ahead.

Well, I’m on the way back to getting some organization set up in the writing life. I’ve managed to put up some promotional items, design some promotional slides, and…drum roll…not only am I closing in on the finish of The Cost of Power but I have new issues that need to be considered for the next book. Let’s just say that there are fantastical elements mixed in with the science fiction western bits. This one could be–interesting. We shall see. As it is, I’ll probably end up the week with something like 16-17k words written, which isn’t too bad, really. Perhaps more than that once I wrap things up tonight.

There were also a bunch of fiddly-foo items that were completed this week, some writing-related, but many not. The carpet in my office is suddenly showing wear, so I ordered a chair pad that isn’t one of those dang plastic ones with the sharp pointy bits. This one is actually a bit on the pretty side. Plus I settled in and took care of a medical procedure appointment (outside referral for something that has always been in-house before, pushed back to October of all things, and I need to call my insurer to make certain all the financial details are in place–in other words, a time suck). I also completed the interior layout for Fabulist and Fantastical Worlds and will be putting it up for preorder next week. And I signed up for an August promotion.

But…no writing got done other than Power. Well, duh, since I’ve been drafting around 2k words a day on this story, no wonder nothing else is getting done.

The weather is one big roadblock. I don’t do well in heat, and while it’s been pleasantly in the 80s here, it still tires me out and makes my gut unhappy. On the other hand, I may have found a solution for sleep issues, for the most part. Some sleep issues are still present, but at the moment, I’m doing better. However, I’ve also had a couple of rough nights, have slept in, etc. It’s really telling to see the difference that two hours can make in getting things done, even if I end up working until 10 or 11 pm.

The other piece is all of those multiple fiddly bits to do that just aren’t on anything other than my daily to-do list. Maybe I need to start tracking them, as well.

Eh, progress is happening. It feels slow, but I think when I look back at the year, I’ll feel much more productive.

Onward.

Sometimes characters just sneak up on you. They’re just secondary characters, not even a protagonist, someone you created to fill a needed spot in the story, but somehow, before you know it, that secondary persona has enough backstory and a sufficient story arc behind them that could fill a book or two. So, what can you do?

You write their story. In this case, The Heritage of Michael Martiniere.

Michael Marcus Martiniere, clone of Philip Martiniere, adopted son of Gabriel Martiniere and Ruby Barkley, was one of those characters. I needed something more in the plot of Realization, the third book of the Martiniere Legacy. A piece to fit in with Philip Martiniere’s cyborg schemes and, well–Philip in this series is enough of a sociopath that he would create clones with the intention of using them for parts and blood transfusions, and the later possibility that he could transfer a digital personality clone into a physical clone as a means to live forever.

It gave Ruby and Gabe an additional dynamic to resolve in that book, especially Gabe in dealing with the twin concerns of guilt over not being around while his son Brandon was growing up, and worry that he won’t see Philip’s clone as anything but a copy of Philip.

Michael–Mikey–Mike–rose to the challenge. The frightened, timid, hurting five-year-old clone who nonetheless had enough courage to stand up to his toxic progenitor and threaten to bite if Philip laid hands on him. But who also fell madly in love with horses when he first sees them, as well as dogs, unlike his progenitor.

I had to think hard about Mike’s arc. I decided that in this case, cloning meant being raised from birth to adulthood at a regular pace. I also added in the “Dolly factor”–accelerated aging, and susceptibility to the ailments that plagued Philip when the host tissue was harvested. Mike had arthritis at an early age. Heart attack at fifteen, which led to the discovery of cancer and then crippling osteoporosis. Besides being a clone, he needed cyborg heart and lung replacements, and later cyborg bone replacements in his arms and legs.

Besides the health issues, everyone around Mike also had to worry about the possibility that Mike might turn out to be too much like his progenitor, with the same sociopathic drives toward acquiring and holding power. He’s clearly heir to Philip’s intellect–Philip might have been evil and dangerous, but no one denied that he was brilliant.

Fortunately, for whatever reasons–a singleton rather than a twin, perhaps, or just the different upbringing, Mike is the opposite of his progenitor in many ways. That doesn’t mean Mike isn’t ruthless when he needs to be–he is a Martiniere, with all that implies. But the concern and care he received from Ruby and Gabe, as well as the others around him–Brandon, who accepts him as brother, Justine, who accepts him as nephew, and all the other Martiniere connections as well as Mike’s ties to his dogs and horses–means that Mike grew up being loved and understanding it.

And when Mike has to face off with Philip’s digital thought clone that is determined to possess him–it is the love and support of his connections that sustains him in that final battle.

The Heritage of Michael Martiniere is available on Amazon, Apple, Barnes and Noble, Bookshop, Kobo, and Smashwords (25% off at Smashwords through the month of July!). Links available here.

The summer front porch evening office is BACK! Doesn’t quite look like this for 2023, but it’s close.

I sat down and did some looking at the first and second quarters of the year as far as sales were concerned, and was pleasantly surprised to see that Q2 sales were significantly better than Q1–however, that’s also reflective of a new release in February that got some much-appreciated support from Deborah Ross, amongst others, and reflects March sales that didn’t get posted until April. What doesn’t show up necessarily is the degree to which both Ingram and Amazon have supplanted Draft2Digital as my primary sales sites. D2D just went completely flat for sales in Q2, and I’m still not sure why. Barnes and Noble is now a complete and total bust, where previously it used to be my best venue. I suspect it has something to do with changes in their management, because it was pretty dramatic. That, plus the Books2Read links became unreliable. Sigh. I think it’s time to tackle Linktree.

Ingram has been a complete and total surprise this year. I hadn’t been selling much there until suddenly, with the release of A Different Life: Now. Always. Forever. books started to sell. Well, the paperback of Beating the Apocalypse did decently, too, as have some of the Netwalk paperbacks. I’m somewhat falling down right now because I haven’t really been keeping up with the process of editing and getting those paperbacks OUT. I swear, there’s something in the air that keeps holding those books back. Too bad, because as my first series, I really like those books and I think they’re pretty decent. Oh well. We shall see.

But this isn’t the first year that I’ve foundered on the rock of April-May-June when it comes to productivity, especially when it comes to promotion. Oh, some of it is due to health issues–cataract last year, reacting to Covid shot and a couple of other things this year–but that doesn’t really explain other years. I really hit the shoals in April. Possibly due to the time and seasonal changes. April is all about the time change, followed by the need to adjust the horse schedule to later in the day to reflect more daylight and warmer weather. Then comes May and June, with woodcutting and recovering from woodcutting days in between those woodcutting days. We shoot for anything from six to ten pickup loads in the spring, depending on the state of the woodshed and our health. This year, we hauled nine loads of wood.

This year, we also had work on the Portland house, which sucked up a week of time working hard and not doing much fun because we were either a.) working or b.) recovering from physical labor. Plus two weekend virtual conventions. One involved paneling, the other one didn’t, but that still took up time.

Essentially, what seems to happen from April-June is a lot of disruption at about the time that any new routine I might institute needs to be revised and reconsidered. And I think that’s where I flounder in the whole organization thing. I don’t always get back on track as a response to the disruption, and that’s not a good thing.

Still another piece is that my office setup for winter doesn’t always work for summer. I instituted some changes in ergonomics and rapidly became unhappy with the layout. I’ve since fixed it, but it’s entirely possible that I may need to reorganize my office twice a year to reflect the different needs of the season as far as what lives in my office, what sort of paper-sorting organization I need to set up due to what’s happening, and what my responsibilities may be, as well as expanding places where I can work (in summer) and contracting spaces (in winter).

When it comes to promotion, I really need to get my act together. Part of “getting my act together” includes reducing complexities. I sat down and made a list of my social media platforms, sorted them by “these platforms I can post something somewhere in some group on a daily basis,” those where “targeted promotion once a week” is appropriate, and those where “only when something new–blog post, cover reveal, new release–is to be posted.” I sorted them out, grouped ’em, and made that list part of my monthly promo plan list. We’ll see how well it works.

The other piece with regard to promotion is that I really, really need to organize how I solicit reviews and interviews. I’m very hit and miss on that aspect of organization, and I need some sort of system to make it function. Some of that is a result of dropped emails–I need to set up a daily time to review and either respond or delete responses. Not sure how I’m going to set that up.

My biggest problem is that I’ve written and published a lot of work without building the supports I need for easy promotion organization. Now I’m playing catch up, and it’s making me a wee bit frustrated.

Ah well. It just takes time. Deep breath. Onward.

Well, halfway through the year with these posts. Are they working? Kinda sorta, though the promotional side is really lagging.

One of the things I identified early on in my organizing back in January was that I did not have any releases either in June or December. Well, December is understandable–holidays and all. But June?

I started thinking about this. Before retiring and even a couple of years after that when I was teaching PE and Health online, June was the end of the school year. The final push to get all the special education paperwork organized, any advance work for the next fall started, finals, and grades, of course. June during my teaching years was the month where I somewhat collapsed and caught up with myself from the previous mid-August on.

So a good reason not to be trying to release anything new during those years.

And after that?

Well, mid-May through June is the prime time for cutting firewood, before it gets too hot and before fire restrictions limit how much we can do. We generally haul anywhere from six to this year’s nine loads in the spring, and try to do one or two loads in the fall, weather and fire restrictions permitting. The picture above? Much more doable in spring than in fall. All that green foliage will be brown and dry in the fall. A fire hazard. The hot underside of the pickup could ignite the grasses, and…well, we don’t want that.

The flip side is that too early in the spring, and the restriction becomes snow and mud. The sweet spot is…well, mid-May through June, where the ground is still dampish but not so much that we’re going to bog down, or tear up the ground hauling a heavy load to the gravel road. 4-wheel drive somewhat helps reduce the likelihood of spinning out, but all the same…best to avoid the gumbo when woodcutting.

We go out woodcutting 2-3 times a week. Up until the last couple of years, I’ve been able to get some work done in the woods, then come back and do more work at the house. These days, however, age is starting to show. I want to vege out after cutting wood and rest. The next day is frequently a day of being tired as well.

Okay, so another logical reason for no June releases.

But that is done now.

This year, another factor was construction work on the Portland house which required our presence to move furniture and check on the work being done–as well as do deep cleaning at that house. We were hustling to get most of the woodcutting done before that job.

Overall, then, I guess it’s worth it to say that I had good reasons for the past month and a half to be a little bit off.

I am pleased about a few things, however. I finished up Federation Cowboy at the beginning of June and set it aside for a while. I compiled it and printed it out this week, and went through the MS with a red pen. Oh, there are lots of marks on it. Still, I identified two significant developmental issues in the story that needed fixing. I’m quietly happy about that. Second, I got a few words down on Dragons of the Raven Alliance and think I know where I need to go from there. Third, I worked out a major issue in The Cost of Power and I’m ready to start doing developmental work for the second book. And finally, I had some ideas about how to structure the Goddess’s Vision series.

Things are falling together. Now if I can just keep juggling everything appropriately…we shall see.

Another late post, but this one is for a different reason. We went to the woods yesterday to cut firewood and look for morels. Well, we found some good lodgepole logs but alas, no morels.

This past week in writing was kinda meh. I wrote a post about a rejection which illustrated one of my current pet peeves, which is the equating of in media res with “must open with actual physical action scene.” Yes, opening with ten pages of backstory is a bad thing as well, but dumping characters into a complex fight scene without giving us a chance to get to know them? Equally problematic. I like to open my stories with a little introduction to the characters to make the reader care about them. Which does not mean elaborate description of the character or setting, but does mean getting to the main conflict that the character is going to be facing pretty quickly within the first few paragraphs. Or at least a main conflict, as well as showing the reader what the character is like.

The number of rejections I’ve received emphasizing that false conceptualization of in media res just sets my teeth on edge. It’s sloppy application of critique group cliches (one reason why I growl at the Turkey City Lexicon is that it is full of aphorisms that have now become cliches themselves–and look, I was in a critique group that absolutely raved about the Lexicon when Turkey City was new, folx, so I know what it’s about).

Anyway.

Between catching up with necessary household tasks after spending the week in Portland the previous week, and feeling blah and down because of various things, including the formation of claques and cliques on a new social media platform, I didn’t get a lot of words down. However. I did spend a bit of time thinking about The Cost of Power and where it’s going, which meant I went back in and added stuff. I’m throwing in a “mystical origin” history for the Martinieres loosely based on the legend of Melusine and the Lusignans, because why not? The Lusignans are ancestors of the Valois, and since the Martinieres are an illegitimate branch of the Valois, why not? I’ve also been thinking through some backstory notions involving Philip and Gerard, including the scene between them after the deaths of Saul and Angelica, and I’ll probably write that down today. The other piece is that the ultimate reason the Martinieres and the Brauns are feuding is that the Brauns are longtermists for whom posthumans are a goal…while the Martinieres embrace their humanity, and fixing things in the here and now. That’s the key to the multiverse struggle, at least in this series.

I also put together the loose final form of Fabulist and Fantastical Worlds in Scrivener that required me to track down appropriate versions of the stories I wanted to include in that collection, and I made a preliminary cover. A few weeks ago, when family was visiting, I took a rather cool picture of the East Moraine that my camera filters turned into something different. Since I’m now skittish about resorting to stock photos due to the AI stuff, I went digging through my old art shots to find something that might just work. This one was what popped up, and since so many of my stories are based on experiences out in the woods….

Here’s the first draft of the cover:

We’ll see how it plays.

And now it’s time to get to work.

I haven’t been a big fan of editorial comments upon rejections. Some of that comes from the old paper submission days back in the ’90s, when I received several rejections from a Market That No Longer Exists And Will Not Be Named (but contained some Big Name Editors) where the comments were–well, I don’t know what planet they came from, but they certainly weren’t about the story I had sent to that market. At times I wondered if the editors just randomly grabbed a rejection rationale and slapped it onto the page. Other times, I scratched my head trying to figure out what they meant (wizard? What wizard??? I didn’t put a wizard in this story!!). Or I obsessively checked my widow/orphan settings, or margin settings, because dang it, I knew how to set them. Inevitably, my settings were in line with the market requirements.

Eventually, I just stopped submitting to that market, and started disregarding the editorial advice dispensed by the three editors because, going by the poor quality of the editorial comments I received, either the editors or their slush readers weren’t following their own recommendations. What was clear was that they wanted a certain tone, trope, character, and plot, and if you didn’t write in that strict formula, you weren’t going to sell to them. But since they were dedicated to commenting on each and every story, they had to come up with some rationale for the rejection. Even if it didn’t really fit. Honestly, the comment about the wizard was the point where I stopped submitting to this market. They had clearly mixed up manuscripts by that point, which was something I had wondered after the repeated formatting comments.

However, what I didn’t realize in my younger days was that rejection comments when done well not only reflect on issues with your story, but it also points out biases in the markets. That information can be useful because, despite all the comments about don’t pre-reject your story before submission, it helps save you time when sending out new work. If you are aware that a market isn’t going to be receptive to the type of story you’re writing, then why bother sending that story to them?

Hence, my reflections on this latest rejection, for a science fiction space opera story that integrated quilting as a major element of the tale.

First take: based on this and other rejections that fingered the “jargon,” the “technobabble”–I’ve not encountered this particular type of rejection in the past for using the same non-quilting technology in a story. Ergo, it’s the quilting terms that the editors are tripping over. Which is a revelation in itself. I’ve never encountered rejections before where the editors not only did not understand the terms but aggressively pushed back against their usage. Weird. I have theories, but that would be Joyce just blathering feminist conspiracies again. Though I have to wonder what would have happened if I had used knitting as the craft instead of quilting? Knowledge of knitting is more common within the genre.

Second take: this market in particular clearly prefers its in media res openings to not only be action (which we had action and engagement between the protagonists very early in the story) but active confrontation, or, in other words, pew-pew-pew rather than emotional conflict. Pretty telling, especially given the way that they write up their submission guidelines.

Third take: clearly this story isn’t working because the quilting parts are simply too alien for the market and I need to do something different to make the quilting more palatable if I want to publish this work traditionally. It happens. I have several trunked stories that I won’t even put into a collection because of flaws, or they aged poorly beyond the ability to rewrite them. Given that the use of quilting in a far-future setting is very novel, apparently I need to approach the story from a different angle. I won’t take the quilting piece out, but I need to contemplate just how I’ll use it in a manner that is apparently understandable to science fiction editors.

Eh, the story was an experiment, anyway. One of those failed attempts that needs to be put aside for a while. I still maintain that it’s possible to combine quilting with science fiction (originally a conversation in a quilting group brought up this story idea), but it’s clear that unlike the combination of quilting and mystery, there’s active resistance to the use of this particular craft in the speculative fiction genre. Which is a shame, because the quilters I know are heavy readers and would pick up a specfic story if it had quilting in it and wasn’t too heavy on the pew-pew-pew action elements.

Ah well, a learning experience.

(P.S. No, I won’t reveal the markets. Not even in private messages. Don’t ask.)

Well, there wasn’t an accountability post last week and this one is late for a very simple reason.

Late on that Friday afternoon, right after we returned from woodcutting, we got a call from the contractor who was supposed to reroof the Portland house, where our son and a housemate live. He was pulling the schedule up by a week.

That meant instead of having nearly a week to prepare for this trip, we only had three days. And since the work involved removing old, first-generation skylights that were no longer a good thing (admitting heat, for one thing, leaking, and concern about replacing the glass), that required a lot of preparation on our part including a deep house clean afterwards. So, hurry-hurry, running around, packing and organizing and getting ready for a prolonged stay in a hotel because every bedroom in the darn place (except for the housemate’s) has a skylight. It wasn’t just an issue of replacing a skylight, however, it was also the need to seal up vaults for the skylights because…sigh…they went through an attic. Interior work needed to be done.

Furniture moving. Covering things. Preparing protective measures in case the contractors were of the careless type.

It all came together much better than we thought it would, but wow. I am so glad that I had made finishing up Federation Cowboy a priority because I wasn’t fretting about writing. However, as a result, a lot of June has already gone by.

Not that it hasn’t been a useful time, or all dedicated to construction prep and housecleaning. I blocked out the remaining elements in The Cost of Power, enough that my morning reading today opened everything up so that I know where I’m going with that particular subseries (hint: I realized I’ve been dancing around the implications of transhumanism/longtermism with the digital thought clones, and this series is going to deal with those pieces. Including the multiversal element).

I did some thinking about Dragons of the Raven Alliance and what it’s going to focus on–for one thing, I’m dropping Tales from the title.

And this morning, I was able to block out some requirements for promotion in June (oddly enough, June and December are the only months where I don’t have a major book release to talk about).

I’m cautiously excited about where I’m going with the work from now. There are lots of possibilities. We’ll see where they go.

Picture: September 7, 2022, Wallowa County.

I became smoke and fire-aware at a very young age, living in Western Oregon. Besides the one view of a wildfire raging around a point above Lookout Point Reservoir while the family was on their way to our usual summer camping and fishing location in the Cascades, there was always an awareness in August that things were dry, unsupervised flame was bad, and that lightning could bring wildfire. There were little spur roads all around the campground we favored by Crane Prairie Reservoir that had little metal signs on white-painted wood that read “Fire Road” plus a number.

But my smoke awareness wasn’t just due to wildfires. Growing up in the southern Willamette Valley in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s meant being around a lot of grass seed cultivation. The preferred method for sterilizing the fields from pests and disease was open burning. Things got really bad at times. The worst was the infamous “Black Tuesday” of August 12, 1969. Of course, we don’t have AQI data from that era, but I remember the skies being dark with smoke (I was almost twelve years old at the time). A smoke management program which, basically, sent the smoke directly east into the small valley where I grew up, was enacted. It wasn’t until much later and a disastrous 23-vehicle pileup on Interstate 5 near Corvallis which killed seven people on August 3, 1988, that serious management came under consideration. Even then, it wasn’t until around 2009 that serious acre reduction was enacted. By that point I lived at the other end of the Willamette Valley, because between pollen and smoke, the Eugene area was just not feasible.

Years of exposure. Years where part of my summer centered around avoiding smoke as best as I could, thanks to reactive airway disorder and asthma, caused in part by those exposures as well as growing up in a household with multiple cigarette smokers.

Meanwhile, wildfire smoke became worse and worse. A summer visit to Northeastern Oregon where clouds of smoke covered everything in 1986. The 1988 Yellowstone fires that turned the sun orange during our Labor Day camp. Flying to Denver on a red-eye and looking down to see all those fires burning.

Reading Norman Maclean’s Young Men and Fire. Writing a moody review for an environmental literary journal that hit the streets just as the Storm King fire killed firefighters in almost the exact same scenario that Maclean wrote about.

But it has only been in the last ten years that I learned to dread smoke and fire even more.

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2015 Fire smoke started in July, with a major fire along one of the corridors into the Wallowa Valley, followed by an August of smoke and fire. Looking at the bright orange sunset as the horse went into the vet clinic to treat colic. Seeing a horned owl hanging out on the lamppost across the street from the house on the smokiest of days. Attending the World Science Fiction Convention in Spokane, just as multiple fires broke out around the region. Needing to leave the convention early because of the possibility that I might need to evacuate my horse, and having to take a 200 mile detour because another fire cut off the shortest route.

2017 Beside smoke, a teenager playing with fireworks sets the Columbia River Gorge on fire, closing down the major east-west corridor of I-84 through the region. The flames come close enough that portions of the Portland east metropolitan area comes under evacuation orders.

2020 Smoke from Idaho fires, California fires, Southern Oregon fires, topped by smoke from the catastrophic wildfires on the west slope of the Cascades from Eugene to Portland. We end up buying air purifiers because the AQI ranged from 250-400 for several weeks.

2022 Late August/early September thunderstorms triggered three big fires surrounding our high mountain valley. While our town was never at risk, hard winds blew ash and cinders into town, some with chunks as big as two inches long. Again, weeks of mostly wildfire smoke with AQIs in the 100-250 range, occasionally with a day or two under 100 AQI. While I used to like thunderstorms and watching them, the sound of thunder now fills me with dread because where’s the next fire start going to be?

2023 Wildfire smoke drifting into the valley in April from Canadian wildfires. Out in the woods cutting firewood for the winter. Almost no mushrooms, including morels. Despite a heavy snow winter, the ground is scary dry. What will this summer bring? Is this the year that the north face of the Wallowas ends up burning?

I hope not, but one never knows.

Shocked reactions when the Canadian wildfire smoke drifts into the mid-Atlantic region and the Midwest. Jaded responses along with survival advice from those of us in the West who have lived with this reality for years.

And now what?

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Forest management is one huge factor in how we got to this position in the first place, and that story is one that is far too long for someone like me to go into all of the twists and turns. Catastrophic wildfire is, unfortunately, not unusual in timber country. Big burns happened in Minnesota as an adjunct to logging. One of the biggest ones happened in the late nineteenth century and killed hundreds of people. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Hinckley_Fire

In my own corner of the woods, the multiple Tillamook Burns are an epic part of the state’s history, now second to the 2020 Cascade fires that happened under very similar conditions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tillamook_Burn

But the biggest, and most devastating due to long-term impact on forest policy was the Big Burn of 1910 in Idaho/Montana. Those fires led to a policy of fire suppression that has placed us in today’s untenable position, where decades of “no fire is good” has led to a buildup of dangerous underbrush and fuel in the forests, without understanding the role that fire has in the management of a healthy forest ecology. https://foresthistory.org/research-explore/us-forest-service-history/policy-and-law/fire-u-s-forest-service/famous-fires/the-1910-fires/

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Is there a solution? Well, it took us a century to get to this position with the ineffective tool of fire suppression. There’s also a colonialist/settler attitude that disregards the reality that indigenous peoples effectively managed forestlands in the Americas for centuries before the Europeans showed up. Fire was a management tool in indigenous hands, a means for controlling underbrush and dry grasses while promoting the growth of more fire-resistant plants.

But the sort of fire we’re talking about here isn’t the big, huge wildfires. Rather, the use of creeping fire, or quick burns such as used in grasslands.

Other solutions?

Precommercial thinning and thinning of thickets of short-lived succession species before they reach the end of their lifetime.

Shutting down powerlines during high-risk situations.

Educating forest users about safe fire behavior, including not shooting off firecrackers, not driving off-road even to turn around in tall, dry grass (catalytic converters and the hot underside of a vehicle can start a fire), and being aware of any activity that could ignite a fire during hot, dry periods.

Managing brush around houses.

Will that be enough?

Who knows?

Meanwhile, I’m preparing for a typical West Coast summer. I have plenty of masks for smoky days. The air purifiers for the house. Soon, I’ll start checking WildCad and the local Forest Service fire information site for news of potential fire starts. I’ll be making evacuation plans for us and for the horse.

Welcome to the reality of the 21^st century, and life in the shadow of smoke.