Pavarti Tyler is a force of nature. She just about always has about forty oars in the water, and is a bundle of energy and fun. When she asked me to be interviewed in the Kosa Press series on Women in Sci-Fi, I was like "HECK YEAH."
Then I got the questions, and they were awesome. Sometimes the typical "blog interview" can get kind of the same, and even when both interviewer & interviewee are trying their hardest, it's just bleh. But I loved the rapport and the funny vibe we managed to pull off. It all started with Pavarti imagining that I have my very own Gimp in the basement to take out my frustrations on-- and I told her nah, he's in the kitchen doing dishes.
I never thought I'd be a video person. Vlogs, or video on the Internet, just didn't seem like a "me" thing. I don't love my voice, and I always think I'm ridiculously unphotogenic. But my writer-friend Laxmi Hariharan told me about this new platform that Twitter has created called Blab. I was intrigued, and we've done two of them now, talking about books with other writer friends.
I'm hooked. Laxmi & I are planning to do more, as long as it stays fun. Right now we have future video-cast Blabs scheduled for a couple of weeks. You can find the subscription schedule here at our Twitter page, and a video playlist on YouTube, too. It's really fun-- like having a chat in a hip coffee shop with smart people that just happens to also be intercontinental. Digital. Cyborgian. Brilliant.
These are the very words she uses to describe her life... She said a good day Ain't got no rain She said a bad day's when I lie in bed And think of things that might have been... "Slip Sliding Away" Paul Simon, 1975
Sometimes, you'll hear a song or see a face that reminds you of another life you might have lived. If you had taken that one path differently, that life lies shimmering just beyond your reach. This isn't melancholy or regret, just thoughts about alternate timelines.
Each step we take causes a quantum state of "might have been" to slide right past us. We hardly notice them, these alternate lives. This is actual scientific theory, but you know, I think it's also the root of a lot of world religious beliefs. Not only are we reincarnated in many lives but we're living many lives right this second. And a new one this next second. That smiling beauty at the bookstore, looking at you with longing in their eyes? A different word, another path, and you would be with them, instead of who you are now. Would it have been better? Worse? Somewhere, some WHEN, it is. Somewhere, you took that step and you live an alternate life.
Isn't that interesting? The thought that there are multiple copies of you out there? Some of them aren't that different. They chose to eat scrambled eggs this morning instead of corn cereal. Big deal. Some of them live in entirely different cities, have entirely different careers. That fleeting thought of change you had once? Some other you took it. They went skydiving, they joined the Peace Corps, they got married young, they pursued their PhD, they are a waitress in a dive bar and they go to the beach during the day, sun-kissed and smelling like coconut sunscreen.
Honestly, this life I have right now I'm 99.9% happy with. There are choices I could have made that would have been a little different, a little better. There are some that could have been a lot worse. I would have liked to finish a few things a bit faster. It would have been (would still be) nice for my career path to have gone a bit differently. More winter beach time would be, would have been, amazing. I would not have dated that one guy. You know the one-- the one that rubbed all the innocence off, that broke pieces of your heart into tiny bits. You put them back together, but never quite the same.
But sometimes I catch a sliding door, a crack in the timeline, and I see a vision of the me I would be, could be, if that other step had been taken. This one I'm on now is amazing, and it's entirely possible that other one would have been sadder, lonelier. But it's still over there, hovering out of my consciousness.
Other lives. Live all of them to your fullest. Every single one.
If I didn't have my head screwed on tight, I'd forget where it was. Is that how that saying goes? I feel like I'm messing it up.
Today is a big launch party for a fellow author and a bunch of us are getting together and having fun. The party even includes the giveaway of an actual KINDLE. Seriously. There are a lot of other prizes happening, including books, and whatever else someone wants to toss your way. There will even be incredibly witty discussions of THINGS. Unimaginable things. Dark things. Things that will eat away at your soul and....
Wait. What happened there?
I shouldn't listen to those horror podcasts at night.
Celebrate the release of this collection of 20 beautifully irreverent stories which blend the surreal and the mundane. Together, the authors explore the lives of the odd, the unbelievable, and the impossible. Imagine a world where magic exists, where the physical form has the power to heal or repulse, where a deal with the devil means losing so much more than your soul.
Featuring Authors: Philip Harris, Sessha Batto, Robb Grindstaff , Brent Meske, Sally Basmajian, Robert Pope, Keira Michelle Telford, Jordanne Fuller, Michael Harris Cohen, Deanne Charlton, P.K. Tyler, Bey Deckard, Vasil Tuchkov, Laxmi Hariharan, Samantha Warren, Rebecca Poole, Daniel Arthur Smith, S.M. Johnson, Kim Wells, Christopher Godsoe, and Bob Williams.
I can't believe I haven't shared this here!! Where has my brain been?
Here's the book trailer promo video for the #UnCommonBodies anthology, which you can actually pre-order now!!
I did a couple of other promos for some of the individual stories. Mine is first, for my UndeadGirl story. I love this one so much.
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Then there's the promo for a story by author Jordanne Fuller, which looks amazing, and I can't wait to read.
I've offered to do promos for all the stories, so there may be more eventually. These are so much fun to do. I told them in a way, doing a promo video is just my form of relaxing, the way people knit while they're watching TV.
