Tag Archives: life

Cooking, writing, prep work 5/7/26

Posted on by Henry

Here are two scenarios.

First, you’re in the kitchen. You need to make dinner—food for tonight, and leftovers for several days. You’re working from a recipe that you haven’t read before. You haven’t done any prep. You’re sure you have most of the ingredients you’ll need, but you haven’t even pulled any of them out of the cupboard.

Second, you’re in the kitchen again. You still need to make dinner—food for tonight, and leftovers for several days. This time you’re cooking a familiar dish; you know the recipe, you know the flavor palette you want, you know what you’re doing. You’ve already prepped all your ingredients. Each one is on hand, in a bowl or dish or whatever, ready to add when the time comes.

In the first case, you are going to be stressed, and frustrated, and the whole thing is going to take way too long. Forget improvising; you might make changes to the recipe but they’ll be by accident and you’re probably going to burn something.

In the second case you’re relaxed, you’re having fun. You have enough free time and spare brainpower to play around with a few ingredients you thought of as you were cooking. You know what you’re doing well enough that you can track the results of your improvising and experimentation as you go.

If I had a choice, I’d pick the second option every time.

So why do I keep picking the first option with my writing?

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Distractions, 4/30/26

Posted on by Henry

I’ve once more been waylaid by other things this week.

I’m excited to see my friend’s book coming together (she’s working on book three of three). I’ve enjoyed reading another friend’s current work in progress (they’re retelling Lady & the Tramp as lesbian werewolf romance, and it’s great). My own writing has suffered the usual fate of being sidelined by other life duties… and when I do have time to sit down for it, my mind runs off to chase the chores and tasks still undone.

That said, I am changing my current approach to a story I’ve had bouncing around my head for a year. I’m looking forward to ignoring the plot for a little bit, and instead simply focusing on world building and hashing out who some of the relevant powers-that-be are (and what they want). I realized that I’d been chasing story ideas that kept coming to me, without building the foundation that I usually need (and delight in making). I hope that switching approaches will gin up some excitement again and let me focus on the story and its world instead of being distracted by chores.

Well, I should say ‘instead of being distracted by chores when I have time to sit down and write.’ I do still need to do all the other work.

Fortunately, doodling out a few ideas regarding the schemes and motivations of NPCs for my Worlds Without Number game reminded me of just how much I enjoy that side of things. With any luck that enthusiasm will carry over to similar work for a different story. Honestly, I’ll probably use a few of Crawford’s generation tools for my creative process. I’m a little nervous, but I’m looking forward to it.

Little circles, big circles 2/12/26

Posted on by Henry

Little circles, big circles.

I’ve mentioned before that I have family all over. I don’t remember if I’ve been clear about how widespread that family is. I don’t know if I’ve thought through how much that has shaped my worldview.

I grew up with family in the Dominican Republic, the Philippines, the UK (in both England and Scotland), and the Netherlands. Family friends came from Uganda and India and Tibet. These days, I have family…

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Sick baby part dunno of lots, 12/4/25

Posted on by Henry

Once again, I am taking care of a sick baby. This time he’s less sick! By that I mean that he’s less sick than he has been in the very recent past. He was rocking a worryingly high fever until yesterday. It had just been climbing and climbing despite our best efforts. Yesterday we returned to the doctor’s office, got a solid reassessment, and were prescribed antibiotics (which Gibby has been doing his best to spray into my face while I dose him). Now his fever has dropped significantly and he’s merely hungry, sleepy, poopy, sometimes cranky, and full of head-gunk.

I’m not caring for this sick baby alone, thank goodness. Ley and I have been swapping off or stepping in for each other as extra support. I have come to feel, however, that the nuclear family model is designed to break you. A mere two adults caring for a sick baby—with baby-induced terrible sleep and everything else—is a recipe for suffering. It’s a recipe for suffering even when those two adults take time off work. There really ought to be two to four more people on call all the time so that people can sleep, or do anything other than care for the baby. Even one more person would be a big help.

I’ve had these thoughts before.

We might have been able to avoid this fever if we’d found a better way to manage his congestion from his fever two weekends ago. He produced lots of snot while fighting that (milder) fever. That was good, mucus helps! He didn’t manage to eject all that mucus though, and his resulting congestion likely fed his current ear infection—in other words, his body’s healthy reaction to the previous virus created fertile ground for this bacterial infection. Next time he gets snotty and feverish, we’ll need to find more ways to help him drain all the mucus instead of allowing it to linger and get infected.

Making Monsters

Posted on by Henry

You’re a monster. If you’re a good monster, you’ll be able to resist your terrible urges for a long time. We like good monsters! You should be one. But eventually you’ll do something unspeakable and hurt those around you, those you love. Because you’re a monster. We all knew it would happen sooner or later. We were just waiting, dreading the day when you’d reveal how awful you truly are.

But there are other monsters out there who tell you that you aren’t a monster. None of you are. Just like them, you aren’t evil. Maybe you could use a better attitude, some self-improvement. Your new friends have lots of advice about that. But those others who tell you that you’re a monster? Lies. Jealousy. Those lies are sick mind games meant to control you, to trap you, told by liars trying to profit while you suffer.

You don’t have to listen to those lies. You just need to be stronger. You need to be harder, and faster, and better. You need to understand that those people who say you’re a monster, their opinions don’t really matter. They don’t really matter. You can do better without them. If you really want people like that in your life, make sure that you’re the one in control—not them.

After all, you’re the man.

Or maybe you have some other privileged identity, and the people telling you that you aren’t a monster are spinning a slightly different story. That’s not the important part. What really matters is that there are people who tell you that you should feel bad, and others who tell you not to worry about it. Which ones feel better to listen to? Which ones give you hope?

In case you couldn’t guess, this is a follow-up to Are Boys The Problem?

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