Christopher McKitterick

Happy New Year! It's long past time for an update here, methinks! So, let's start with fun stuff:

Public appearances

On October 25, I gave a short reading with two awesome spec-fic writers, Don Allmon and Benjamin D. Cartwright, from our novels-in-progress. At The Raven Book Store in Lawrence.I've been on the "Central Standard" on NPR's Kansas City station: KCUR, 89.3 FM show a couple of times in the past month or so:

• The Future Is Now: How 2015 Stacks Up Against Predictions, where we talked predictions, inventions, and innovations that science fiction suggested would have happened by now, whether or not they have come to be, and why or why not. The other guest was a futurist living in France.
• Science Fiction and Science Fact in Interstellar, pretty much as it sounds. Other guests included KCUR's resident film guru, plus an astrophysicist from KU and an ecologist fresh from the international meeting in South America.

Writing

Reached 115,270 words as of this morning on Ad Astra Road Trip (book 1 of 3 in The Galactic Adventures of Jack & Stella). Since completing final grades for Fall semester last week, I've nearly finished the draft of the novel. But being so close to the end reveals many things that require going back through and consistifying, enhancing, filling out, and so forth. I've revised the persistent metaphors and imagery for Stella and Jack, rewritten dialogue, cut extraneous language, etc etc. To paraphrase James Gunn, writing is all about revision: You don't know really what you're doing until you've finished the draft - that's when the real writing begins. SO CLOSE to the end. How much is left? Let's call it less than 10k more. My goal is to wrap up the first complete draft before the start of Spring semester... that's less than two weeks from now, and I have a lot of Work-work to do in that time, as well. Eeek. Wish me luck. (PS: Considering I'd initially targeted 70k words, that means I'm almost done with Book Two? Right? Um, yeah, I don't think it works that way.)

Published a couple nonfiction pieces: "Frederik Pohl: Mr Science Fiction (A Love Story)" for Foundation, and a memorial piece about Fred for Elizabeth Anne Hull's Fredzine: The Frederik Pohl Memorial 'Zine, shared with attendees of the Frederik Pohl Memorial Celebration on August 2.

Wrote another half-dozen fragmentary bits for my memoir, Stories from a Perilous Youth. Really looking forward to diving in to that after sending J&S off for agential attentions.

Sold "Orpheus' Engines" (short story) to the original anthology, Mission Tomorrow: A New Century Of Exploration, due out from Baen next fall.

Also got my largest royalty check to date for Transcendence, which feels pretty awesome, considering that the book came out four years ago! (Four years. Gods.)

Personal

I don't know if I've said here, but my mom died on October 4. It's been really on my mind a lot, especially lately.
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Once again, you're a lot more likely to see things from me over on my Tumblr (mckitterick), but I still drop in here from time to time. It's my homeland!

Best,
Chris

Not really up to writing a lot about it right now, but just got back from an impromptu trip to Omaha to see my mom. We're down to her last days.

My friends, Alzheimer's is a damned horrific nightmare. If I ever start looking down the barrels of that living hell, well... I wish we lived in a country where one could choose not to endure years of ever-increasing loss of self, health, and free will, knowing we cannot get better, certain that we will get worse, until one day we cannot remember our loved ones or even who we are. That, my friends, is the worst hell I can imagine. The only words Mom has formed in the past few weeks, and those were barely audible: "Have a headache."

Oof.

Yesterday, when I got home from an all-day English Department strategic-planning meeting, I saw a dead squirrel. Someone had driven over it. This was distressing, because I've gotten attached to several neighborhood squirrels. Also, if one of these poor bastards is going to die, it should be in the talons of a hawk or something, not a senseless death beneath the mindless wheels of a car.

When I parked my scooter, I picked up the little dead thing from the road and placed it in the grass beneath a tree in front of my house. It was still warm, flexible, but very dead. I spent a few seconds examining it to see if this was one of the regulars, my "outdoor pets," but it showed no markings I recognized.

I wonder if its siblings will perform another squirrel funeral like they did last time.
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And then, this morning, I witnessed another little urban-wildlife tragedy. A few days ago, I put a big, clear-topped, metal live-trap on my back porch. See, I've apparently been breeding mice by feeding the squirrels and birds. Baby mice are about some of the cutest things you'll ever see, darting out of cover just long enough to fetch a seed, than darting back under cover like a furry lightning-bolt. Heck, I've even made videos of the tiny things, and will share them soon. Just need to upload.

This morning, I saw that the live trap caught two little mouses since I checked yesterday. One had been dead for a while, the other had just died and was cuddling it, nose pressed on top of its dead sibling.
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Finally, last week, my grandmother Violet McKitterick died. She had been sick for a long time, living in a nursing home, but getting frequent visits from her five children, their partners, and even grandchildren. She hasn't been fully cognizant for a few years, but she seemed to enjoy the company. I thought I'd share a few of memories of my Grandma Vi:

When I was a little boy, especially before I started school or in the summers, I would often stay with Grandma Vi during the day when my parents were at work. I always looked forward to spending time with her. She was so kind and patient, letting me play with Matchbox cars all over the floor, or take apart old clocks or other things so I could figure out how they worked – even if they never did again.

Grandma Vi taught me to paint when I was barely old enough to hold a brush. I remember once, while she was doing rosemaling on the kitchen cupboards, I sat at the table and painted scrap pieces of wood in a similar style. One of these is still around somewhere. It says, "Violet is very beautiful."

In the hot summer when I had trouble falling asleep, Grandma would sometimes gently brush her fingernails along my back, giving me goosebumps so I felt cooler. It was such a comfort.

When I discovered she had played the accordion, I was so proud! It seemed like such a magical and complex instrument that surely she had to be a musical genius to be able to make that thing work.

Most of my earliest memories of Grandma Vi and Grandpa Harvey together were of them laughing and chasing one another around the house. She would laugh and say, "Oh, Harvey!" then giggle and swat at him. This ritual often ended with them scurrying off to the bedroom. They seemed so happy together. I still think of that as a model of how two people in love behave toward one another.
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In other news, I'm still SWAMPED with new-course development. Sorry I've been away for so long! Now I've got to get back to work.

Best,
Chris

An LJ friend's post about forgetting to take his meds prompted this disclosure and discussion:

Over the last few days, I've forgotten to refill the pill-box on my desk so I can take my afternoon Adderal before class. I tell you what, I won't be doing that anymore. I've been feeling like Charlie Gordon from Flowers for Algernon.

I haven't talked about this here before, because I felt uncomfortable doing so in public. For a long time, I'd been suspecting I might have ADD - not the hyperactive part, but the fragmented-attention part, so I was uncertain and avoidant. But I certainly suffered many of the symptoms, the worst of which was having great trouble focusing on one task (especially when I had many things to do, as I always do!), difficulty concentrating on things, and serious impairment in listening to one person talking in a noisy room, and so on. What I didn't realize that many of my anxiety issues also stemmed from the ADD, and overcoming this is perhaps my favorite result of the new meds: Even though I'm a light sleeper now, I used to startle awake at the slightest sound; I used to experience near-panic-attack levels of stress when I had too many things on my plate - and I've always been exceptionally good at putting too many things there. Brilliant. Imagine how emotionally straining it was for me when I was working full-time for both Microsoft and KU, plus trying to maintain my writing career, plus trying to stay in relationships. Since childhood, I've always been prepped for attacks whenever walking past people.

Are these things normal? I think not. They certainly weren't doing me any good. Of course, most of these symptoms - by nature of only existing inside my head - no one knew about, but they constantly plagued me.

Yet I felt that an ADD diagnosis would be problematic, a dirty label. Even now, I'm going back and forth whether to post this publicly or friends-only. How will the professional world, my co-workers, view me if they knew? I didn't want to be "one of those people," and I certainly didn't want to see myself like [insert names of people who are barely functional]. I despised having to admit that I have even more problems. As my suspicions rose, I asked myself, Why shouldn't I just be able to overcome this on my own? I actively avoided reading about ADHD. I mean, I lived through childhood. I've been successful in adult life. I'm smart, quick, capable of dealing with lots of crap all at once. Except I wasn't. Sure, I've always managed to deal with things. Except not very well, and it took a serious toll on me, my life, my writing, my career, my relationships... you get the idea.

So these broken-in-half little blue dextroamphetamine-amphetamine pills have transformed my life. I can now pay attention to a single conversation at parties. I can work on single projects until I'm done or reach a stopping-point. My stress level has dropped at least 90%. In class, I stay on track so well - even if a student's question redirects the discussion for several minutes - that I can return to what I was saying before. I'm WAY better at tracking time in a linear fashion. I'm more patient and less prone to frustration. When I have a dozen things to do and only time to deal with half of them, I can now tactically or strategically determine which needs to be dealt with first without the Beast Anxiety rearing up and trampling my ability to decide. And so on.

Strange that forgetting to take my pill - even at such a minimal dose - causes me so much trouble now, when I didn't even start taking them until last winter. How did I ever teach so many classes or get anything done before I started the stuff? How did I ever finish writing projects as long as novels? Most of all, how did I ever live with such stress before?

Thank you, modern medicine. Thank you for your patience, everyone who had to put up with me before. And thank you, everyone who not only supported me in pursuing a solution but also didn't think less of me when I acquired a new label.

I don't feel more broken now, bearing new scarlet letters. I feel more human. In fact, I feel superhuman at times, in control of a newly freed mind, able to focus while still retaining the hypervigilance that once wore me out. Simply taking these meds, I feel much more capable of taking control of this oft-quarrelsome mind. I mean, who doesn't have some kind of issues, right? Plus, ADD and ADHD no longer bear quite the stigma they used to. Though I'm still troubled by children getting the diagnosis, I waited too long before addressing this.

This much is certain: I won't be forgetting to refill my office pillbox anymore.

Chris

Here's what I've been up to over the past week or two:

Visited Free State ComicCon

This is always a blast. Picked up a pile of graphic novels (and an awesome T-shirt of John Brown, Superhero).

Later that week was the "Weird Edition" of Super Nerd Night at the Jackpot.

Chased off a Home Invader

At 4:10am on Saturday night (or Sunday morning, whichever you prefer), the doorbell went off. Being a light sleeper, I woke instantly, if not clear-headedly, heart pounding within my ribcage, wondering, "WTF?!" A few seconds later, it rang again. Worried that a friend was in trouble, I set about searching for pants (found some stretchy shorts in the dark), glasses (no luck), and dagger (beneath the pillow, natch), and then headed downstairs. This is when the doorbell began ringing in eanest, as the visitor pressed it repeatedly for at least a dozen times. Now my concern turned to irritation and a bit of worry, because my friends wouldn't do that, would they?

Downstairs, I found my phone. No missed calls, so not a friend. Unfortunately, the front-door motion-detector light was turned off, making it tough to see outside very well (no Moon, either), so I inched the front curtain open. The doorbell-ringer had left. Whew.

Just then, I heard the back sliding-screen door open. Here's when I went all HOLY CRAP INTRUDER! The ensuing adrenaline cleared out any remaining sleepiness. The back-yard motion-detector light on the garage was unplugged, I learned later (probably my own fault from turning it off with a long stick), and the back-door light is switch-only (and off at the time), so no light back there, either. I peeked around the corner in the kitchen as the man - a little taller than me, I judged, and wearing bulky clothing - tried to open the sliding-glass door. Because of last year's adventure with locking myself out (this involved a drill, lock-puller, chisels, hammers, Sawzall, and such), the back door doesn't have a lock but is instead blocked; ironically, this is much more secure than a simple lock, so the door only slid an inch or so before hitting the rod in its runner. He put his hand INSIDE THE HOUSE, searching for a chain or something, I suspect, then pushed the door again.

Pissed off now, I turned on the overhead kitchen light. The intruder-dude CONTINUED TRYING TO GET INSIDE. Unfortunately, the sliding-glass door is virtually impossible to see through when it's dark outside and the overhead is on inside, so all I could see was a hand. CREEPY. At this point, it was time to go upstairs and fetch something more menacing than a dagger.

In the back bedroom where I store the menacing stuff, I discovered that, naturally, chernobylred had slept through all this. I turned on the light, informed her what was going on, found what I was looking for, and went back downstairs. En route, I also found my glasses.

When I reached the kitchen, he had left.

chernobylred, being more level-headed than I, asked, "Shouldn't we call the police?" Uh, yeah, good idea. Ahem.

They arrived within minutes. A cruiser rolled past on the street out front, lights off like a land shark, while another pulled into the alley with lights everywhere. Two police walked the alley with flashlights as bright as the sun, and another walked through my yard. The intruder was gone.

I gave them my report and discovered that they had found a suspicious man nearby on a bicycle. Of course I couldn't give any description, but if that was him, perhaps he'll be more cautious in the future. As in, NOT TRYING TO BREAK INTO HOUSES.

My theory? The doorbell-ringing was to find out if anyone was home. If someone meek had answered, he might well have busted inside for nefarious purposes, but I bet he'd have run away. I think he wanted to find an unoccupied house, break in, and steal stuff. I wish I'd gotten a good look and we could finally catch - assuming it's the same guy that's been robbing neighborhood houses - this serial burglar.

I'm double-locking the doors now and sleeping with more-substantial equipment within reach. Oh, and now all the outside motion-detector lights work.

Wrote a New, Um, Thing, Plus Jack and Stella

At last Thursday's Write Group, I finished a new piece of writing. My first sub-1000-word work in a long time! Now some polishing and off it goes.

Oh, and is coming along nicely. Over the past week or two I've written another couple thousand words. Best of all, I worked out parts of the plot-arc that were shaped more like nebulae. Also wrote a scene for the next book in the trilogy (I think it'll be three...).
The Galactic Adventures of Jack and Stella progress:

Went to the Kansas City Renaissance Festival

Since the KC RenFest opened three weekends ago, I've gone three times! Different goals each time, naturally, with next time being a group trip to the Barbarian Battles region, where I intend to pummel my friends with foam swords. This last weekend, I caught a whole bunch of shows and finally rode the bungee-trampoline. HOLY COW was that fun! I aimed for the sky, and reached a good 30 feet or more toward it. The combination of trampoline below and gnarl of bungees attached to each side of a climbing harness = HUGE AIR. I leaped so high that the bungees were actually pulling me down, and upon hitting the trampoline, I sank in knees-bent several feet before it launched me back up.

A MUST-DO BLAST FOR ALL!

This was a day when I intentionally wore jeans, not the kilt. Ahem.

Saved a Baby Snake

I was working in the garage today and discovered that one of the sticky traps I put down in there to capture horrid things like Brown Recluse spiders had captured what looks like a baby Brown Snake. It was still alive, but barely moving. Only about eight inches long, thin as a pencil at its thickest, with a teeny pointed tail and wee face with long, black, nervously flicking tongue. It was stuck upside-down on the glue trap, face first, looking like it was trying to eat the cricket stuck there.


Click the image to see the Great Plains Nature Center's website.

I felt so bad! I looked up how to humanely free a critter from the trap, and it seems that vegetable oil will do the trick. So I trimmed the glue trap down to near the snake, then drizzled olive oil (the only oil I could find in the house) along both sides of its body. I set it down in the shade in the grass upside-down so that the snake would be upright, then soaked the back (paper) of the trap, too, thinking it would loosen the glue faster.

Went back out after an hour, and the snake is gone. Hooray! Go free, little Brown Snake, and eat bugs and snails!

Conclusion

Sorry I haven't posted much in the past week. I've been busy with teaching, writing, and so forth. Hope you're well!

Best,
Chris

It's been lovely so far! Man, I needed a vacation.

First, kicked it off with a visit from a friend I haven't seen in far too long (hi Thomas!) on Thursday evening. Great to see you, man! Miss you!

Just beforehand, my "Science, Technology, and Society" class talked about robots, and the author of one of the stories (Robin Wayne Bailey, plus his wife Diana) paid a visit. The students really enjoyed his being there, and it was a great discussion. As a thank-you, I took them out to dinner at one of my favorite local restaurants, Ingredient, then bid them adieu before joining the Thursday-night crew at Harbour Lights, Lawrence's oldest bar (in continuous operation since the end of Prohibition). Ended the evening with some adventures with a friend who's always up for adventures. Lovely evening.

Spent a fair sum ordering parts for the Chevelle. It's going to be awesome! If only the people from Keisler Engineering get on the ball and update my 6-speed transmission quote so I can get that thing ASAP.

Also worked a bit on the Newport: made an anti-drainback valve for the fuel system in hopes of keeping the gas from running out of the carb back into the tank, so it'll start easier between runnings. If all goes well (haven't been able to test it, as we're enduring 40 days and nights of deluge here in Larryville), I'll put together a little tutorial for how to make one for yourself, saving tons of money if you can even find something that works for a carbureted engine.

The Lawrence St. Patty's Day Parade is always charming, with pretty much everyone in town participating, either by watching or driving in it: If you have a convertible, you're in. And if you ever won a beauty pageant within the past few century or two? Sit in the back of one of those converts! That part was a little weird. It was a beautiful, cool-but-pleasant day, and we sat outside most of the time enjoying good company and conversation. Ended the evening at Matt's place playing old Atari and Nintendo games (remember The Adventures of Link?) on his Wii. Also had a drunken push-up contest - turns out I can do 7 one-armed push-ups with each arm (yes, even with the damaged side) after blasting out 30-odd nose-to-floor knuckle push-ups. Absinthe is a curative. 'Twas a blast.

Got caught up with the current BBC Sherlock series. Wow, but is it amazing: great acting, great actor chemistry, great filming, great writing... just all-around fantastic. LOVE IT.

Also finished Season 2 and started Season 3 of Due South, which is even better with the addition of Callum Keith Rennie. He and Paul Gross (RCMP Constable Benton Fraser) have PERFECT timing. At a few points in their first episode together, I was laughing so hard we had to pause and rewind to hear the dialogue. LOVE IT - how did I miss this series before now? Thank you for introducing me to this often-surreal series, CR!

Getting caught up with reading through more of the mountain of nominations for the Campbell Award. Really loving Ernest Cline's Ready Player One right now: It's well-written, well-conceived, funny, serious, and meaningful. Hope it gets even better; if so, it's probably my favorite book of 2011.

Earlier today, bought my first pair of running shoes since high school, New Balance Minimus MR10 trainers in an astounding green-and-blue color combo. They weigh less than the box they came in! Also got a pair of exercise shorts from Sears at 50% off (yes, Lawrence is losing our Sears *sadness*). I couldn't buy a pair of Nike or New Balance or other corporate-logo shorts. Can't do it.

Why did I need this equipment? Well, right now I'm recovering from the introductory session of CrossFit. WOW, but I'm beat. And I'm beginning to get hints of how sore I'll be tomorrow. I thought I was in decent shape with my regular exercise (weights, pull-ups and push-ups with 25-lb weight vest, heavy bag-work, stair-running, and so on), but boy was I WRONG. They say, "Expect to have a challenging, but short workout that might give you a little reality check on your fitness level." Reality check? CHECK: Kettle ball swings up over the head, lunges, box-leaps, sit-ups, running while carrying a medicine-ball, hardcore stretching... I just about died. Even so, we both decided to sign up for the next step: a 10-session "Elements" punch-card that includes several one-on-one sessions with a personal trainer. Seems like a great workout; can't wait for the next one! (Did I really just write that?)
( trimmed for my most-recent fitness-tracking photos )

I'm in a little better shape right now, but not significantly - that's why I bought the 25-pound weight vest for pull-ups and push-ups and part of why I decided to do CrossFit, because I've been kicking ass for a long time without significant results. I'll take another set of shots after CrossFit to see how this program improves things!

Okay, and now I need to get back to finishing my little 7-questions response for Weaselmom....

Chris

Gully Foyle is my name
And Terra is my nation.
Deep space is my dwelling place
The stars my destination.





Now I'm off to class - yes, in the face paint!

Chris

I was just reading a friend's post about getting shot in the butt by a drive-by, and I burst into a big crying jag. At first I couldn't figure out why that would bother me so much; he was okay afterward, and it even inspired him to stop carrying a gun, himself.

I realize what whacked me was thinking of how people treat each other: a delayed response to what happened 10 years ago on Sunday and all the other ways that people hurt and destroy one another. Sometimes we can ignore the bad news on the radio, sometimes we can forget the inhumanity of humankind to others, but we don't really stop caring, the pain and disillusionment doesn't stop building. We hear stories about inhumanity like those assholes in the Republican debate audience who laughed at the death of the uninsured, or what the Palestinians and Israelis are doing to one another, or the Syrians, or the Afghans; we hear about violent robberies, we suffer our own small but devastating personal tragedies, we encounter any of a million other conflicts big and small that blaze around the world every single day. And, usually, we're able to distance ourselves from those things, resist getting too emotional about them.

But the pain is still there, bubbling under the surface, and once in a while one little thing is enough to open a crack, and the pressure is released in a great flood of tears.

I love this horrible and wonderful species, but sometimes it breaks my heart.

Chris

One definition of joy: a warm summer evening with friends that includes a chorus of cicadas, hot links grilled on a fire in the back yard, cool beer, some sparring, racing around a track, a few Perseid meteors, and swimming in the lake beneath the waxing gibbous Moon and distant lightning.



Now THIS feels like vacation.

Chris

The SF Writers Workshoppers made me a pair of TERRORIFIC cakes for my 2011 birthday. Here they are:


The more-SFnal one: see the rocket exhaust from the feet?


This one uses the title of a film project I'm working on with a friend.

My birthday always arrives during the workshop, so I feel a mix of melancholy and joy. Because all these people are so nice to me - people who were mostly strangers a week before - more than makes up for not really getting to celebrate my birthday, which has all the normal emotions attached to it already, plus the parental lies that the whole country was celebrating my birthday. Sort of like learning about Santa Claus, but only you were the fool.

Anyhow, had a lovely day of Workshopping, with Brad Denton in town for the week and Jim Gunn visiting for a short discussion, fantastic custom cakes, a fine dinner out at Ingredient, and now an evening of reading and critiquing and talking with new and long-time friends.

Thanks, you guys!

PS: If you want to track my feeble posts I'm able to manage these days, it's over on my Facebook page.

Best,
Chris