It’s hard to get out of bed in the mornings.
Not because I’m depressed, but because it is dark outside, the house is cold, and it is so very cozy beneath my covers with my dogs snuggled up with me. Autumn seems to have sneaked up on me this year; it seems like only yesterday it was 80 degrees, and now I need gloves when I walk Castor and Pollux. Or maybe that’s just climate change.
Octobers are my favorite month. It’s Bear and my anniversary month (20 years!), and it’s also one of the few months of the year that always seems to live up to the platonic ideal of October in my head. It’s something about the quality of light perhaps. There’s a clear, translucent quality to the rays that filter through the changing leaves, and the shadows they cast on the ground look like ripples of light under water. The weather also feels appropriately seasonal where I live right now; I can see my breath in the mornings.
October also never seems to last long enough. I had a few book events—I went to Decatur Book Festival and hosted a Teen Night at my local indie bookstore—but I swear I blinked it was already nearly November. (I am packing for my yearly trip to Korea with my mother as I write this newsletter.) But perhaps it’s because as the days grow shorter, I have the tendency to hibernate. All I want to do is curl up in front of my fire with a good book and my dogs, and before I know it, more time has passed than I’ve realized. I’ve read more books this month than I have in all the previous months of this year (granted, a large part of that was a Murderbot binge), and I don’t see that changing as the sun sets earlier and earlier with each passing day.
In this issue
1. JJ’s magical world
2. Lexical gap
3. This creative life
4. What I’m reading
5. What I’m watching
6. Other things of note
lexical gap: languescent 🧩
Autumn morning mood.
this creative life ✨
I’m not a parent, but I imagine raising multiple children is a little like the process of writing multiple books. The firstborn was easygoing, intuitive, and I hadn’t known enough to understand just how much I might be fucking everything up. The second was a nightmare, with many sleepless nights spent tearing out my hair, my voice growing ragged as I begged it to behave. With each subsequent book I’ve written, I’ve gotten better at accepting that each story emerges and develops in its own way, according to its own needs, and whatever processes I’ve discovered to write them are merely coping strategies to handle this uncomfortable truth.
And yet, I am surprised every time when the tips and tricks I swore would fix everything the last time don’t quite work the way I want.
I am taking my time with ROPE—I have the luxury of being between contracts at the moment—but I can’t help but feel a little impatient at just how slow it seems to be going. I thought I would have started zero-drafting by now, but every time I’ve sat down to write, I would run into plot holes, gaps in the worldbuilding, or stumble over yet another missing piece of the point, philosophy, or characterization. And the most frustrating thing is that I have the structure, the story, and the characters, but right now, it feels like I’m assembling furniture without an instruction manual. I have all the parts, but the order is wrong, or I’ve put the wrong screw in the wrong joint and have to undo hours of work to fix the mistake.
So I spend a lot of time journaling. This is the most “hands on” I’ve ever been with a story, and I’m generally pretty “hands on” with all my books. But perhaps what is the most frustrating thing to me about ROPE is that all my ideas seem to come after sundown, curled up in front of my fire with reruns of Lucifer playing on my TV, when I would rather be reading a book. I am a morning person; I feel the most productive and creative in the hours after I wake up, but most of my mornings these days are spent in other activities. I try not to let this irritate me too much—I have the privilege of writing full time—but it still aggravates me that my creative process with this project doesn’t align with my circadian rhythm.
But such is the nature of children; they are all individuals with different needs. I try to honor them as much as I can while trying to get everything else that needs doing done. And I’ve never been able to adhere to an ideal schedule (thanks, ADHD). It’s been forty years, I should know that by now.
So I’m trying to honor the slowness. To be present in the moment with the story. This is, after all, the part of writing that is my favorite. The time when it’s still mine, all mine, and full of potential. Soon enough the real world will impose, and I will deal with that as it comes, but until then, I will savor this while I can.
what i’m reading 📖
Cassiel’s Servant by Jacqueline Carey. I started listening to this one the drive home from Decatur Book Festival (about five hours). As much as I love the universe of Terre D’Ange, I wasn’t all that interested in experiencing the events of Kushiel’s Dart from Joscelin’s perspective, but then again, I’m not someone who generally reads books retold from another character’s point of view (e.g. Midnight Sun or Grey). Still, it was a pleasant enough way to pass the time; my favorite parts involved Joscelin’s training in the Cassiline Brotherhood, and not just because they were wholly new to me.
House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski. I read this review calling House of Leaves is just Infinite Jest for spooky people and…I can’t necessarily disagree. It had been years since I read this book, and after Strange Pictures I was in the mood for another unsettling read, especially during spooky season. Did it have the same power as it did the first time I read it? No, but it still managed to crawl under my skin anyway, and that was exactly what I was looking for.
All Systems Red, Artificial Condition, Rogue Protocol, Exit Strategy, Network Effect, Fugitive Telemetry, and System Collapse by Martha Wells. I am 100 years late to this party, but I adore Murderbot. The voice is so charming, and all the characters (especially the non-human ones) are so endearing. With the exception of Network Effect and System Collapse, most of these are novellas, which was both good and bad, as I blew through them all in a binge read. Now I am out of Murderbot books and I am bereft. I need Platform Decay yesterday.
what i’m watching 📺
The Woman in Cabin 10. This was…fine. I enjoy mysteries and thrillers, both in book and TV/movie form, but nothing about this particular story or film was especially notable.
Good Boy. DO NOT WATCH THIS MOVIE IF YOU ARE AT ALL A DOG PERSON. To assuage people’s fears, no, the dog does not die. No harm comes to the dog. In fact, there’s a cute little featurette at the end of the movie showing how it was made! But oh my god, I was BAWLING by the end of this movie and I had to run home and hug and kiss Castor and Pollux, much to their bemusement and dismay. As a horror film, it’s fine, nothing particularly revolutionary (barring the fact that it’s told from the POV of the dog), but when you think about the fact that it is about what a dog would find horrifying, the ending just HURTS. This film is less horror and more of a love letter to the loyalty of our canine companions. Recommended if you want your heart ripped out.
Murderbot. Obviously, after reading the series, I had to watch the TV show. I thought this was a pretty good adaptation of the books, fleshing out or trimming things where necessary to make for a better viewing experience. Alexander Skarsgård is great as the titular Murderbot, and the rest of the cast is good too. My one complaint is that the episodes are too short. 20 minutes???? I need more Murderbot, please.
The Wailing. Watching this movie was an experience. I really can’t describe it any other way. It’s sort of hard to describe The Wailing; it’s a horror film, yes, but the way the story unfolds absolutely keeps you doubting and questioning the truth of what is happening until the ending, which I will admit left me staring at the wall for a good while afterward. Absolutely recommend this one.
other things of note 💾
Walter, Damien. “Andor: A Marxist Story.” Science Fiction with Damien Walter, Youtube, Dec 2022.
Olurin, Oyalemi. “If Pretty is a Privilege, Ugly is a Curse.” Olurinatti, YouTube, Aug 2025.
Canterel, Cy. “Fear and Loathing in San Francisco.” Abstract Machines, Substack, Oct 2025.
Montell, Amanda. “The Secret Language of Cults.” Crash Course, YouTube, Sep 2025.
Yours entire,
