Adam Rakunas's Blog

Words matter. Words define the spaces around us and give power to concepts that have no corporeal existence. It’s always important to find the right words, especially as we feel our way blindly out of this current crisis.

The word we need to use is “derelict.”

Not “bungled.” Bungling implies clumsiness, and our current national catastrophe isn’t because of an oopsie. There’s intention behind the federal government not using its powers to mobilize a response that can keep up with the scale of this catastrophe. America’s reactionaries cling to the idea that government is a failure and that only businesses and charities can get anything done. They’ll cling to it all the way to the grave.

Negligence doesn’t quite cut it, even though there’s a lot of neglect coming from some state governments and from the current occupant of the White House and his idiot son-in-law. There’s a lot of crossing fingers and waiting and seeing and wishful thinking.

(Quick aside: my paralegal brain wanted you to know that, well, actually, this is absolutely negligence, because there’s duty, a breach of duty, causation, and damages. Paralegal brain also wants you to know that the President can’t be sued for anything done in office, thanks to the magic of Nixon v. Fitzgerald. Oh, if only one justice had flipped that day, things would’ve been different. Go get a juice box, paralegal brain.)

Jamelle Bouie wrote the correct word today when he was describing the governor of Florida’s utterly fucked up actions as his state starts racing up the COVID-19 curve faster than a lobbyist chasing a drunk Congressman.

difficult to exaggerate the extent of desantis’ failure here. a flailing, derelict governor who doesn’t know what to do now that his job requires more from him than just entrenching GOP rule and leasing the state to his rich buddies https://t.co/O4clYv2Lm6

— b-boy bouiebaisse (@jbouie) April 1, 2020

Dereliction: the shameful failure to fulfill one’s obligations.

I realize the current occupant of the White House has no shame. The GOP certainly doesn’t. But that’s the word we have to use from now on. All these assholes took oaths to uphold the Constitution, and they failed.

I always figured the beginning of the Constitution was more of a mission statement than the actual meat of the document, but after months of reading laws that start off with statements of legislative intent I think that it absolutely matters if someone fails to live up to the Preamble’s obligations. Every step over the last three months has been a failure to promote the general welfare or insuring domestic tranquility or forming a more perfect union. The levers of power are in the tiny hands of venal, short-sighted dummies, and we need to get them the fuck out.

The derelict Presidency. Call it that from now on.

I started writing on the web in 1996, when I was lonely, unhappy, and bored. Today, I might have stumbled into the toxic embrace of any one of a dozen online communities that would have told me that, no, bro, it’s everyone else’s fault that things suck, not yours. I’m glad that part of the world wasn’t an option back then.

Instead, I found other writers who were working to amuse themselves first and everyone else second (or as a distant third, as others were trying to amuse potential employers with deep pockets who were trying to figure out how to turn hyperlinks into money). I hope I haven’t lost that sense of play over the last twenty-three years. I know it’s carried me through my fiction, even during the parts in the middle where everything is hopeless and impossible and man writing is hard. Well, good writing is hard, which is why we should all get paid for it. On time.

I got paid a few times for my words in the last decade, which was a pleasant surprise after years of not getting paid for them. I’m sure some of you have wondered why nothing else has happened since Like A Boss, and the answer is that it hasn’t been for lack of trying. I have a couple of finished yet unpublished novels sitting on the hard drive, and they remain unpublished because they just aren’t good enough yet. Writing is editing, and editing takes time and energy, two things that have been in short supply since we moved to Seattle and the Republic decided to commit suicide. It’s hard to focus on making up stories when you’re too busy making sure the PTSA has enough money for arts education and snacks and a cheap thug in an ill-fitting suit is busy selling off the nation for parts.

Or maybe that’s just me.

I know that 2020 will have to be a year of changing my habits and patterns for the better, which is why I’m bailing on Twitter for the foreseen future. I’ve taken a few breaks, and they were so invigorating because I wasn’t throwing my time and attention down a well that was filled with bots, monsters, and influencers. I plan on continuing that for a good long chunk because a) I went back to school in the fall to get a paralegal certificate and the next quarter is going to be a bear and b) I have stuff to write and edit and get paid for. The only person getting paid for me writing on Twitter is Jack Dorsey, and that salt juice-drinking, white-supremacist-enabling dingus can go to hell. I’ve enjoyed some of my time on Twitter, but not so much in the past three years. I got books to write and sell, man. Twitter isn’t going to help me do either.

Also, once I’m done with Ye Olde Certificate, I need to get me a job, partly for the cash but mostly because the law is weird and I want to keep learning about its weirdness, all while getting paid. Assuming the United States doesn’t implode next year, I foresee the need for motions and research and other things, and all that stuff fascinates me. With any luck, it will fascinate me for money.

Will you hear from me? If you’re on the Mailing List, you will. I’m not sure what else I’m going to write on this site until I have new books/stories/interpretive dance recitals. It feels odd that I was prepared to share all kinds of bits of myself in 1996. Now I want to keep it close to the vest. Or, at least, away from the eyes of bots and jerks. There weren’t as many of them back then. It would be great if there weren’t as many of them now.

2020 is going to be strange, and I think the best way to get through is kindness toward most and closed fists for bullies. I hope we’ll see each other in the middle of it, with a wary eye and a plate full of tacos. Do something good.

“Cloudy Seattle Sunrise” by Michael @ NW Lens is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

It’s been a busy year, as you can see from the lack of everything here. I haven’t updated in a year, which is how blogs are supposed to go, as far as I’m concerned. You get a mad burst of verbiage, followed by a thunderous silence as you get to work on other stuff that doesn’t appear here until it’s done.

The big stuff isn’t done, though I have one bit of small stuff for you: I published a short story at the end of October! And I got paid for it! With money! That’s a victory, as far as I’m concerned. Writing is good. Writing for pay is better.

The story is called “To Plant A Tree,” and the fabulous Kate Lechler. I hope you like it. I also hope that, if you like it and you’re a member of SFWA, you put it on the Nebula Recommended Reading list and put it on your nominating ballot under Best Short Story. If you’re a member of Worldcon, you can nominate it for Hugo. If you’re a member of the Nobel Committee, then you can’t do anything ’cause I think that committee imploded. Maybe get a coffee and work on destroying that institutional sexism? That’d be great.

Do you want to live forever by dying horribly? Do you want your horrible death to be for a good cause? Do you want generations of Seattle public school kids to look at your name and think, “Wow…this was a generous person who died horribly for me.”

No, I’m not asking you to take up arms in the name of public school. I’m asking you to donate to my kid’s school’s playground renovation project and ensure semi-immortality for yourself by becoming a character in my latest book.

In order to finance Phase II of the project, we need to raise $40,000, and we’re doing that by selling bricks and pavers that will bear engraved messages for eternity. If you buy one, you can be a part of my book. How? It’s easy.

If you buy a $100 brick, I’ll name a character after you who will die horribly.

If you buy a $500 paver, I’ll name a character after you who will get some snappy dialog and die horribly.

If you buy a $1000 paver, I’ll name a character after you who will get some snappy dialog and become integral to the plot and die horribly.

And, for one lucky fan who buys two $1000 pavers, your character will get to survive. Think of that! Snappy dialog, integral to the plot, and you’ll live! What a deal!

I am absolutely on the level, friends, fans, and Russian bots. Buy a brick or a paver, and you can join my next book. And die horribly.

Dear friends, fans, and possible bots:

Ever since I got on the web in 1996, I have thought of online spaces as something special. They are a democratic source of information, a space open to everyone with a browser and online access. For good or ill, anyone can post anything on the internet.

This was the space where I really became a writer. It was the first time I could experience having someone who wasn’t a teacher or a girlfriend read the stuff that came out of my brain. I had a tiny, tiny audience who liked my musings on life in my tiny corner of Southern California. That time on the web cemented the notion that my calling was not to be a computer programmer, but to be a writer, by God.

I had doubts about Facebook when it appeared. After all, if anyone wanted to publish stuff about their lives, they could just use blogs, right? MySpace had appeared and imploded, as had countless other spaces. Facebook would likely implode, and we’d be back to making personal websites.

This has not happened. Facebook has expanded to the point where it has become the web, and that democratization that I loved so much in 1996 has been supplanted by The Algorithm. To be on Facebook is submit to what Facebook thinks you want to see. The experience is not your own. The things you post may never appear in the timelines of your friends and families. My wife can post a picture of our daughter, and it won’t appear on my timeline because Facebook doesn’t think it’s relevant to my interests. I can see some random person I met once at a party dozens of times in a day, but not my own family.

Fuck that.

This is my rambling way of saying that I am going to end my presence on Facebook by the end of this year. I can’t use it to communicate with you the way I would to communicate with you. I have to pay to boost posts. I have to pray that The Algorithm will let my ramblings show up in your timeline. And, man, let’s not get started with all this bullshit about Russia buying political ads to put yet another thumb on the scale in favor of the Fascist-In-Chief. Jesus, if we can get through the next couple of years without getting into a shooting war with China, Russia, or, at this point, Canada, we’re going to have to have a serious look at ourselves and how we conduct our online lives.

Every week for the next nine weeks, I’ll post a reminder that I’m ending my professional page and others dedicated to my books. How I extricate myself from my personal postings, I’ll have to sort out. If you’ve liked what I wrote, you can sign up for my mailing list. With any luck, I’ll have writing news to write about soon.

Thank you for your time and attention.

-A.

Mailing List

Spring has sprung, the grass is riz, you’re wondering where my writing is. Well, friends, it’s going to be appearing live at Norwescon, and in digital formats right in your earholes.

Let’s talk audio first. I’m stoked to tell you that Windswept is coming out from Graphic Audio in a week. Like A Boss will follow a month later. GA did the excellent adaptations of Ms. Marvel, and I’m really excited to hear how they’re going to bring Padma to life. Also, the direction is a fan of Firesign Theater, so I know my work is in good hands. You should buy all of these things right now.

Now, the live stuff. I’m going to be at Norwescon this Thursday and Friday. You can find me at these places, or at the bar thumb-wrestling with my Twitter Bestie, Patrick Tomlinson.

THURSDAY

Beat Writer’s Block

Cascade 13

5–6 p.m.

Stuck in a story? Writers lead a series of quick exercises that have helped them get past obstacles. Bring pen, paper, laptop, or whatever you need to write.

James C. Glass (M), Adam Rakunas, Catherine Cooke Montrose, Marta Murvosh

SFWA: What Is It, Where Is It Going, and Why Should You Care?

Cascade 3&4

6–7 p.m.

Panelists will discuss the origin and history of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA), what the organization does for professional F&SF writers and the genre, and what its direction will be in coming years.

Cat Rambo (M), Django Wexler, Adam Rakunas, John Walters

FRIDAY

Interview and Q&A with Angry Robot

Grand 2

1–2 p.m.

Adam Rakunas (M), Marc Gascoigne, Mike Underwood

Reading: Adam Rakunas

Cascade 2

3:30–4 p.m.

The Throne Oath. Six student magicians lead a revolution against their government. It does not go as planned. Rated PG.

Adam Rakunas (M)

Well, it’s gonna be a busy week. Got a school function, gotta pack for ConFusion, gotta WAIT IS THAT ME IN THE STRANGER?

That is indeed me, along with a lot of other people who have moved to Seattle. I was pretty happy that my babbling about tacos, coffee, and parks got picked, and I was even happier to see the photo credit. The kid took that picture of me in front of the Gum Wall, one of Seattle’s most disgusting points of interest. Really, that place is vile, but I got a good picture out of it, so, what the hell.

If you’re tired of looking at the ads for pot shops and personal massages, and if you’re going to be in Novi, Michigan this weekend, you can see me in person at ConFusion! If I’m not at one of the panels listed below, I’ll either be at the bar or the Indian place in the gas station across the street. Come say and have some biryani.

Friday, 5:00 PM – Manitou

The Expanse

Open, round table discussion of the characters, themes, and theories about what is happening/happened in the show. Moderator(s) will help guide!

Adam Rakunas (M), Kate Elliott (M)

Saturday, 12:00 PM – Petoskey

The Dynasty of Deep Space Nine

Deep Space Nine: Great Trek, or the Greatest Trek? The newest incarnation of Star Trek will launch in 2017, but, really, what’s the point when Deep Space Nine has already happened? Our panelists will discuss what made DS9 not just great Trek, but the greatest Trek ever.

Adam Rakunas (M), Navah Wolfe, Kate Elliott, Andrew Drummer, Scott H. Andrews

Saturday, 4:00 PM – St. Clair

Autograph Session

Come meet your favorite authors, artists and musicians and have them sign things! (Please limit your signing requests to 3 items per person.)

Matthew Alan Thyer, Dyrk Ashton, Angela Carina Barry, Mishell Baker, Brandon Black, Elly Blake, Gail Carriger,Suzanne Church, Michael Cieslak, Lesley Conner, Seleste deLaney/Julie Particka, Kate Elliott, Amal El-Mohtar, Janet Harriett, Christian Klaver, Mur Lafferty, Jeffrey Alan Love, Mark Oshiro, Dustin Patrick, Cherie Priest, Adam Rakunas, Jason Sanford, Michael J. Underwood, Brigitte Winter

Saturday, 6:00 PM – Isle Royale

Reading: Adam Rakunas, Patrick S. Tomlinson, Clifford VanMeter

Authors read from current or forthcoming works

Sunday, 10:00 AM – Leelanau

Fantasy & SF All-Stars

Panelists draft players for their team from across the science fiction and fantasy multiverse, right before your eyes, to confront an existential threat! Who will they choose, who will they ignore, and who will end up with the best team? The audience decides the winner!

Dan Moren (M), Stacey Filak, Adam Rakunas, Andrea Johnson, Navah Wolfe

I’m a lazy person, which is why I was just going to post that gif of a dumpster fire and call it a day. Since I can’t figure out how to make a gif work as the featured picture, I’ll have to write. Stupid laziness.

I just deleted a whole bunch of negativity about 2017. It’s easy to be negative, because there is a whole lot of very, very bad stuff looming over our heads. Yes, even the heads of the very, very rich, because they have yet to figure out how to avoid doing things like breathing and eating. Yes, they can afford cleaner air and food that’s not made of artificial flavorings and sawdust, but they’re still human and need the same things as the rest of us, which means they’re just as screwed if we don’t get our act together.

The acts we need to get together: reversing climate change, eliminating nuclear weapons, feeding humanity, breaking kleptocracy, smashing institutional racism, undoing all of these bullshit laws that keep people from voting just because they’re poor/people of color/women/unlikely to vote for the GOP, keeping police from shooting citizens or robbing them via civil forfeiture, fully funding public education, and eating more tacos. Acts are not listed in any order of priority. Despair is not on the agenda.

So, was 2016 a complete disaster? On the one hand, my kid’s Girl Scout troop expanded, and everyone’s having fun, including the kid. Anne did the New York Marathon and kept her goal time. And me? Well, Windswept got nominated for the Philip K. Dick Award, and Like A Boss got published. “Oh Give Me A Home” got a real cool audio treatment. And, thanks to the magic of physical therapy, I can move my left shoulder again. So, small victories.

What’s going to happen in 2017? With any luck, I’ll sell some more books that you can buy for money. A lot of excellent books will be published, and we’ll get to read them. And there’s always the hope that Congress impeaches the bejeezus out of the crooked pile of goat excrement who’s about to waltz into the White House and turn the nation into a piggy bank for his cronies. None of these things will happen without hard work and organizing, which is difficult even on the best of days. I believe in my heart and in my guts that there will be nothing more important in 2017 than resisting the tsunami of hate and corruption that’s going to crash over the United States and the world, that we will have to fight the looming entropy with hope and fact and humor, that none of this is over until we decide it is. Make the art you’ve always wanted to make. Run for the office you’ve always wanted to run for. Take that class, make that change, talk to your doctor about getting your life together. There will be plenty of people who will say that, no, look, everything is going to be fine. Those people are fooling themselves for a paycheck and a chance to go on cable tv. The danger is real, the time to act is now, and it starts today.

In 2014, I volunteered for a friend’s city council campaign. What started as a simple request to help him and his manager understand the software they were using to keep track of voters turned into a full-time job that consumed my summer and autumn. It was exhausting and exasperating, but, for a political junkie like me, it was the equivalent of sitting in the stands at a baseball game and having the manager ask you to put on a uniform and take to the field. Despite my friend losing, I learned a lot about political campaigns, except for one thing: how to get people to vote.

And I don’t mean “how to get people to vote for my candidate,” though if I’d learned that I would now be a political consultant with a sweet hourly rate. I mean convincing the great masses to get off their duffs and go into a booth and punch (or mark or boop or spit on) a ballot. I grew up knowing voting was important. My parents made it quite clear that, when my brother and I turned eighteen, we would vote because there were members of our family who couldn’t. Granted, that family in far-off Lithuania got to have real elections not long after, but the message stuck: voting is really goddamn important, and you’d better do it or else you’re not going to get pie (which, in my house, was a threat that had teeth).

So, zip forward twenty-two years, and, here I am, crunching numbers and ticking off donations and doing campaign work that is meaningful and also doesn’t require me talking with voters (’cause I paid those dues, man). The campaign chair sat down and made a spreadsheet of his predictions, and I nerded out and filled in a lot of historical data to help me determine my predictions. We both thought our candidate had a good shot, which certainly biased our numbers. I felt confident based on our operation.

In the end, we were all wrong, ’cause our guy came in seventh in a field of fourteen. What’s more, voter turnout was low. Super low. Ridiculously, hang-your-head-in-shame low. And this was in Santa Monica, which was supposed to be a magical place with an active, engaged citizenry that cared and thought and argued and really, really got the importance of voting.

What a crock of shit.

Out of 58,803 registered voters, 20,479 of them cast ballots. That’s 35%. In every other midterm election, the average turnout was 59% with little variation. In an important race that determined four city council seats, a property tax levy, the fate of the city’s airport, the vast majority of the city’s voters couldn’t give a shit.

This baffled me. This bothered me. This enraged me, and not just because I’d worked my tail off for the campaign. How could people not bother to vote?

I wish the city or a campaign or someone had thought to do some kind of survey to ask what the non-voters’ deal was, because the aftermath of that campaign lead to a whole slew of stuff happening that affected everyone’s daily lives. The city’s chattering classes are still chattering, but I haven’t heard any of them ask the important question: how the hell are we gonna get more people to vote?

I’m sure a lot of people would just point to Spider Jerusalem’s rant about voting and say, “See? That’s why.” I get it. The choices suck. There’s too much money in politics. The candidates are all corrupt. The system is rigged. I can’t do anything.

What a crock of shit.

You have a vote, and you can use it. You can vote down some stupid ballot initiatives. You can vote up that candidate you believe in. You can write in someone who’s better qualified for the job. And, if you convince enough people to side with you, you win. That poor doomed fucker in Spider’s rant didn’t try to negotiate with the freaks and get them to change their minds. He didn’t campaign. He just sat there and merrily voted and threw up his hands in disgust as he got switchbladed. “Oh, well. No one voted with me.”

Campaigning is hard and boring and soul-crushing, but getting people to vote shouldn’t be, because it has consequences that you will feel right away. And I’m not just talking about the big showdown at the top of the ticket. I’m talking about the people who represent you in state and local government. I’m talking about the little ballot initiatives that pop up out of nowhere. If you sit out, you’re going to feel the results. You have every right to complain, sure, but those of us who voted will look at you and think, “God, what a jerk.”

And if you don’t like the candidates, then run. Running is easy to do. Look at your ballot and you’ll see plenty of people who did the legwork and got on. Yes, it’s a big pain in the ass to be a presidential candidate, but not for something like city council. If you’re serious about your beliefs, then you should run. Yes, even you Nazis. Go ahead and run for city council. If anything else, you’ll probably drive up the number of people who actually vote.

I don’t know what’s going to happen on November 8. What I hope will happen is that a lot of people will vote for Hillary Clinton and send the Combover Fascist to the dustbin of history. And then I hope everyone else will sit down and figure out how to safeguard everyone’s votes for real. None of this “the election is rigged” bullshit. I’m talking about ending gerrymandering and voter suppression and voter ID laws and all the other things designed to make people feel like their votes don’t matter. They do, but it takes a lot of them. Take your friends to the polls, but your friends to go to the polls, throw an election-watching party where only voters can come in. I did that once, much to my friend’s consternation, but it got her to register and vote. I don’t think she’s passed up an election since.

Do that, and maybe we’ll get through this without getting switchbladed.

In these uncertain times, it’s important to stretch the value of one’s money. You want to make sure it goes as far as it can. You want savings. You want bargains.

Friends, have I got a deal for you.

For a limited time, my debut novel WINDSWEPT is on the Kindle store for a low price. How low? Well, if you’re in the UK, it’s ninety-nine pence. If you’re in Canada or the US, it’s a buck ninety-nine. That, my friends, is a heck of a savings. It’s cheaper than a good taco in Seattle ($2.65 at Rancho Bravo, which is a really good taco) or some good British toffee (£3.00 for a bag of Thornton’s) or a ten-pack of Timbits in Toronto (C$1.99…which isn’t cheaper, but work with me). BY GRABTHAR’S HAMMER, WHAT A SAVINGS.

This offer expires next week, so get on it! And please send me some Timbits. Man, those look good.

WINDSWEPT for Kindle UK

WINDSWEPT for Kindle Canada

WINDSWEPT for Kindle US