Sumer is Icumen In

Indeed, it is. Well, somewhere in the Southern Hemisphere it is. Here in Wisconsin, it is still winter. Plenty of time for sewing!

A brief update - Patch 2 of the left arm is now secured. The patch is from one of my favorite movies, The Wicker Man. I thought it appropriate for the esoteric denim. Those who have seen the movie know why. Those who don't . . . well, you'll have to see it. At this point, the left arm looks like this:

And, since it's not completely clear in the picture, here is what the Wicker Man patch looks like, up close and grimly beautiful:

Again, not the best stitching job, but I don't care. It's mine, and I love it!

Next, I think I will work on that Frank the Bunny patch. That one shouldn't take long. I'll be honest, I'm dreading doing the rest of the cloth patches, as I'm going to need to stitch those tight and thick and trim the edges, which scares me more than just a little. Then again, isn't that the point of the esoteric denim?

Previous entries:

Sew Much to Do

Ouroboros Complete

Back to the Back

Two Stitches Forward, One Stitch Back

Slew Going

Full Frontal

Incidentally, the social media fast is going well. One week left. But I might just very briefly check in on social media, then immediately withdraw until this project is completely done. In fact, I'm toying with the idea of doing this each time I want to tackle a project, just completely shutting off social media until I am done. Or I might do an intermittent fast, going forward. Say, every three months take a month off. I feel like now I am empowered to do that, to make that decision and not regret it. Honestly, I feel stronger for it.

Forrest Aguirre's Writing Goals, 2015 Edition

It was a good year that saw the publication of Heraclix and Pomp and a couple of short stories. I was also able to finish my draft version of my space opera novel, Solistalgia, which is in Agent Kris's hands at the moment. I was able to attend Wiscon, the Heartland Fall Forum, and the World Fantasy Convention, as well as participate in a couple of readings/events to publicize H&P. All-in-all, a successful, productive year.

So what's ahead for this year? Heraclix and Pomp will come out in trade paperback sometime this Spring or Summer. I will, as always, be in attendance at Wiscon, as well. I'm certain that there will be more readings and events associated with H&P once we are out of our Wisconsin deep-freeze and the release of the paperback is closer. Unless H&P is considered for a World Fantasy Award (I would like another statue like the one in the corner of my writing area so I can use them as bookends) I am unlikely to attend WFC. But on that same weekend is the RPG convention that is becoming a rather big deal in the Midwest, Gameholecon, which is held about a half hour walk from my house. Being an old-school gamer, I'd be crazy not to attend.

As far as writing and promotion and such, my goals are pretty simple:

1. Successfully launch the TPB version of H&P.
2. Finish my current WIP novel, tentatively entitled The Simulacra. Incidentally, I am enjoying the heck out of writing this.
3. Finish my top secret RPG supplement and find a market for it or publish it myself. This has been a fun pet project of mine. Time to finish it and find it a home.
4. Have a few short stories published (there are two on the docket to be published this Spring already, so that's mostly done).
5. Nudge, annoy, or stab Agent Kris enough that he sells either Panoptica or Solistalgia or both.
6. Continue to blog, tweet, etc, and share "stuff" with the online community.

Now, if Agent Kris sells one or the other of the novels that are in the wings, all bets are off. That whole editing thing is a lot like real work. It sucks the very lifeblood from my soul. Hopefully, I'll be able to at least see to H&P's trade paperback inauguration before everything goes crazy all at once. I've been thinking, too - it's been a few years since I've sold a short story collection . . . 

So here's hoping to a productive new year. The fun has just begun. :)

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If you like my writing and want to help out, ko-fi me at https://ko-fi.com/forrestaguirre. Every little bit is seen and appreciated! Thank you!

Conned, Yet Again!

I've just wrapped up my time at Wiscon, the world's largest feminist speculative fiction convention. Wiscon is a well-regarded gathering of science fiction and fantasy readers, writers, fans, and academics who come together to discuss speculative fiction and, more particularly, how the form relates to issues of gender inequity, power relationships, and gender identity. But Wiscon is far more than that. I am continually amazed by the high quality of the panels and presentations at Wiscon, and I've been attending regularly for ten years now.

Of course, I've made many friends at the con, and was delighted to unexpectedly see some old friends there. It's always good to reconnect and the convention, by its very nature, is a good place to pick up tips and tricks on writing, marketing, and so forth. And I love, love, love finding new visual artists in the art room.

But what I really enjoy the most (outside of my friends) is the opportunity to hear panels of incredibly talented, intelligent people speak on subjects of interest to me. Two panels stuck out to me this year, one on biology and engineering and one on anarchy. I won't go into detail on these (it's Memorial Day and I have steaks to grill . . . mmm, steak . . .), but I came away from the biology and engineering panel with some questions. I had planned to attend to get some grist for the science fiction novel I'm (very slowly) working on. The panel ended up being more of a discussion of AI and consciousness than what I had hoped for, but it still proved fruitful and stimulating.

My questions, in short, are these: I hear a lot of talk about machine consciousness and the point where machines will or might become self-aware. The way the panel members were talking made it sound like they thought that there was one set of criteria by which we would judge whether or not a machine had become self-conscious (either spontaneously, or by human design) but no one seemed to know what those criteria were. The fact that each panelist seemed to speak in a uniform way about self-consciousness rubbed me the wrong way. I asked: "How does personality enter into this? Doesn't each human being have their own consciousness and isn't that consciousness manifested through personality? Why would we expect one kind of consciousness to be the same as any other?" I have to admit that the answers never really addressed the questions directly, save for one panelist's throwaway comment that "personality is an aspect of psychology, not self-awareness" That just sits wrong with me, but I didn't want to be that obnoxious person who hogs everyone's time (she was sitting just across the walkway from me), so I let it go.

Several audience members and panelists talked about what a newly-aware self-conscious machine would want, in terms of a physical housing. Would they want to live in an anthropomorphic robot body or would they want to be housed in a factory environment, say, so it could do more than the average human? I question the assumption that the machine would want anything in particular at all. More importantly, if the newly self-aware machine wants something where does this want come from? How does the self-aware machine get desire? And since desire largely determines actions, shouldn't we be really, really concerned about what is informing this machine's desire? Furthermore, if the desire came as a result of the way the machine was programmed for self-awareness, what does this say about agency? Can the machine ever be an agent for itself, given its programming?

These are my questions. Mars needs women, I need answers.