I’ve not been feeling great the past couple of days. It happens. I was going to do this post at the beginning of the year, but decided to instead save it for a day just like today, when I wasn’t feeling well. So, instead of my normal post, here’s some of my favorite things I’ve written in the last year, and my favorite quote from each:

Humor

Sh*t My Editor Says “In one particular instance I managed to skip about three words in a single sentence, resulting in the majestic line ‘and then he the door.’ The comment here was ‘Please, for the love of all that is holy, make it very clear what he did to that door.’”

Cringing At Myself: In Which I Makes Fun of my Older Writings “‘I looked down at the dying Gonati. Tears were in my eyes. ‘I promise, Prince Xela. We will kick the Faarts in the butt.’ Prince Xela smiled at me, and then he was dead.’ The somber tone to the scene is kind of ruined by the phrase ‘We will kick the Faarts in the butt.’ I’m pretty sure that was what I considered wordplay back then. I’ve gotten better, now, however. I know that fart jokes do not belong in death scenes, and that it’s always funnier to call a butt an ass.”

(Bad) Ideas from my Dreams “I’ll be honest here, it’s possible this note said ‘There’s amaze in the world and I ate it.’ You might say, ‘But Alex, ‘amaze in the world’ doesn’t make sense.’ To which I would give you a flat, level look and say, ‘Reader, look at that sentence. Look at it. We’ve left sense behind long ago.’”

Why you should Give Up Sex and Devote your Life to the Elder Gods “Sex is great, isn’t it? One of the basest of human desires, it also brings you closer to the person you love both physically and emotionally. But, and hear me out on this – have you considered devoting your life to the Elder Gods?”

The Beginners Guide to Befriending an Alien“While reaching out and randomly stroking an alien’s junk could make them more favorably disposed towards humanity, it would give them the impression we’re all massive, massive perverts. I mean, they’d be right, but we don’t want to announce that on first contact.”

Life

A Month of Misery: Changing how I Think about Happiness “Instead of trying to achieve happiness, what you should do is figure out what makes you unhappy and then do the opposite of that. Even if you don’t get to some kind of nirvana-state of pure bliss, which isn’t really possible anyway, you’ll at least be less unhappy with your life.”

Cats and Balloons or How I Accidentally Let Evil into my Home: A Loki Story “Before I could even say “hello,” Loki was tearing off across the tile floor and into the safety of the bedroom, where he could burrow under the bed and wait for the terrible floating monsters to go away.”

Life with Cats “As a child, I was terrified of cats. My first ever encounter with a cat involved cornering a neighbor’s cat then thinking it was cute how the cat puffed up and made a hissing noise, followed by a great deal of crying when it turned out that cats were made of fifty percent floof and two thousand percent knives and hatred.”

Writing

Things I Tried for Nano that Failed “I drank so much expresso I could taste the face of God. Given how much caffeine I have normally, it took a terrifying amount of caffeine to taste the divine. He tasted like peppermint lattes. I got home, vibrated through my door as opposed to opening it, and passed out.”

Never, Ever Pay Someone to Publish Your Book “The dubious ‘service’ vanity presses offered wasn’t needed anymore, so vanity presses had to get creative to survive. And by creative, I mean predatory as hell.”

Pasta Sauce and Books: Should you Write to Market? “If you’re writing to market, you’re Prego trying to compete with Ragu. You’re not offering anything the market doesn’t already have. And sure, you’ll get some people who are interested in trying “similar but slightly different,” but most people are going to stick to exactly what they know, or look for something new.”

Popular Culture

The Witcher is Absolutely A Show I’ve Seen“I can think of one hundred and two ways to establish this monster without being weird about women’s reproductive organs, but don’t worry! This show is by no means done being weird about women’s reproductive organs.”

Remaking Princess Bride is a Terrible Idea “Mr. Vinciquerra, you have to wait for after society has collapsed for this to be valid. So give it at least another decade. Okay, five years. Actually…at least another year. Hmm. Now that I think about it, at least hold of until next Tuesday.”

Mortal Engines Review: Ideas are Worthless “That’s right. You have something as cool as ‘mobile cities that hunt and eat each other,’ and decide to set a story in the days when that is becoming incredibly infrequent. I just…why would you do that? Why would you take the idea ‘cities are hunting each other’ and decide ‘so we’re gonna limit our use of that as much as possible.’”