Ian Pierce

Tag: California

  • reflections on hominid mating rituals

    Been a while since I’ve written anything here, eh? Maybe it’s because I don’t have much to say at the moment. My life has lacked interest in recent weeks. Aside from a jaunt down to California to go to a friend’s wedding, not much has happened. The wedding ended up being great, though. The bride is the warlock in my D&D campaign, and it was an honor to be invited. We actually met through D&D. She and I had several mutual friends who played in the D&D campaign I ran during the pandemic, and now I consider her one of my closest friends. For the wedding, she and her husband rented out an entire campground in Carmel Valley for the weekend to do a sort of adult summer camp. Since the groom was Scottish, there were many people in kilts, and copious amounts of alcohol consumption. I definitely indulged in quite a quantity of liquid enjoyment myself. It was a good thing that I had a bed in a cabin, because it meant I could just pass out after the drinks ’n’ dancing were finished. 

    But I’m back in Seattle now. In recent weeks, I’ve been deep in the novel mines, working on a couple of different projects, a vampire horror novel and a secondary world supernatural adventure fantasy. I’ve liked switching between projects in the past. If I’m bored of one book, I can always switch to another. This especially helps when I get stuck on a particular part. Short fiction is also a great way to change it up. This spring, I wrote about ten or so short stories, and it’s a lot of fun to have a finished manuscript after just a couple days or a week. And if you write 1,000 words a day, eventually you’ll end up with a lot of manuscripts… 

    At the same time I’m working on these new projects, I’ve been querying a contemporary YA fantasy. In order to understand the market, I’ve been reading a lot of YA fantasy series as well. This leads me to reading a bunch of what I would consider “young adult romantasy slop”. It’s enjoyable slop, I suppose, but that doesn’t change the fact that most of these books follow the same recipe: 

    1. We begin with a teenage female protagonist that has no real distinguishing characteristics save for being ravishingly beautiful, although no one acknowledges that beauty. 

    2. She encounters a much older supernatural male character, often a member of a royal family who falls madly in love with her, because apparently what ancient vampire/fae/wizard/necromancer/whatever gentlemen crave is a nubile teenage girl with no distinguishing characteristics. 

    3. The teenage girl awakens to supernatural powers. Often she is revealed to be of magical lineage herself. 

    4. A second love interest falls for the teenage girl. Often this is a childhood friend who reveals supernatural powers as well. 

    5. The older supernatural man forms a mystic unbreakable bond with the teenage girl. Angst ensues. 

    6. After a final confrontation with some kind of world-dominating evil, the teenage girl’s powers save the world. But for some reason, the supernatural pedophile – sorry, hottie – cannot be with the teenage girl. Their romance will play out over the course of the next several volumes of the series. 

    Is Twilight to blame for this formula? Because these books all follow the same arc. That’s fair: I guess you gotta follow what’s popular. I get the idea of having a POV character with no real personality: she can become a reader surrogate figure, although I would much rather read about interesting people with strong motivation who set out to achieve their goals in a compelling way. But maybe I’m just a weirdo that way. 

    I also wonder what these books say about the desires of teenage girls. If these books are supposed to be a sort of wish-fulfillment, does this mean that millions of teenage girls secretly desire for a powerful older man to get obsessed with them to the point of insanity? Part of me gets it. I mean, considering what absolute degenerates teenage boys are, the idea of dating someone with more experience or maturity can be appealing. But if these girls want someone at their level of maturity, why don’t they just date other girls? Even if you’re only a 1 or a 2 on the Kinsey scale, surely girls your own age must be so much more appealing than older creeps? 

    Maybe I’m trying to use too much logic. As someone on both the autism and asexuality spectra, I sometimes feel like an alien anthropologist studying the mating behaviors of some lower species of hominid. But seriously! Use your brains for once! Do not listen to your ovaries! They can only lead you astray! 

    I guess I don’t get the desire that people have to spray their genetic material all over each other. This is why asexuality is the most powerful orientation, I suppose. But is sex really so good that humans will abandon of all the higher functionality of their cerebral cortex just to rub against something moist and warm? What exactly am I missing? 

    ~ Ian (listening to Unicorn by GUNSHIP)

  • mountain stars

    I’m in California right now, but I thought I’d check in. I was up in the mountains skiing for a little while, which was weird, because the highs were in the low seventies, so it was like skiing on Slurpees for most of the time. But even so, I had fun. It was typical spring skiing: guys in shorts, girls in bikinis, guys in Spider-Man costumes… the usual shenanigans. The only problem was that the weather was like what it is at the end of April, not the middle of March. So it goes!

    I tried to take some pictures of the stars while I was up there. I think they turned out pretty good! At least, they were pretty good for a basic iPhone camera.

    It’s nice to be able to see stars. Back home, the night sky is shrouded in clouds most nights and light pollution the rest of the time, so seeing some actual spacelights is a welcome treat

    Writing continues apace. I’m almost done with a draft of a novel. Gonna ship that out to beta readers soon and start querying it by this summer. I’ve also written a few short stories that I’m going to submit after revisions. My hope is that 2026 will be the Year When It Finally Happens™. Unfortunately, I wanted that about 2025, and while the Resnick award was cool, I’m still not a Publicated Authorist, as I call it. My fear is that I’m going to think that this year will be the Year When It Finally Happens™ until there are no years left. I don’t think that’s a writer thing, though. It’s a human thing.

  • i like to be here when i can

    I was just down in California last week, visiting family and friends for the traditional autumnal bird consumption ritual festival. It’s always a little weird going to California for me. I spent years being miserable there, trying to get out. I’m surprised how much I enjoy it, although that’s probably just because that’s where my family lives, as well as most of my friends.

    The story of my moving to Seattle basically boils down to “I wanted to move here, so I did”. What I didn’t know is how quickly it would become my home. Seattle felt like home to me within six months, something that never entirely happened in my hometown. I feel a kinship with this place, despite its flaws, and whenever I return here, no matter how fun the trip was, I always feel a sense of unclenching, of being in a place where I belong.

    This begins as soon as I get off the plane for one reason: fonts.

    This was the view as I left my plane from San Jose at SeaTac Airport. The font on the sign up there is called Humnst 777. All the signage in the airport is in that font, which isn’t unusual, since all airports have some manner of unified typography. But the use of this font continues once you leave the airport and get onto the Link light rail. All the station signage is in this same font. So are the signs in bus stations across King County. In fact, I’d argue that this font is as much a symbol of Seattle and the larger Puget Sound as the Space Needle, Starbucks, and annoying tourists who refuse to drink any beer that doesn’t have enough hops in it to turn it green.

    It’s funny how we create these signifiers of home within our minds. Maybe someone who doesn’t ride the Link every day like I do wouldn’t have such associations with this font. But for me, it’s just a reminder of the human element of good design.

    ~ Ian (listening to I Heard It’s A Mess There Too by Aesop Rock)

  • portraits of a seattle autumn

    Growing up in California, I was always told that my home state didn’t have seasons. I knew that wasn’t true. California, especially the Central Coast where I spent my childhood, has seasons that can largely be determined by the color of the hills. Roughly, the three seasons are when the hills are green, when they’re yellow-brown, and when they’re orange and smoking.

    Still, here in a more northerly city, the changes in seasons are more dramatic, with flowers in spring, red leaves in fall, and even a scattering of snow in winter, on occasion. And autumn in Seattle is a special time. People claim that summer is the most beautiful season in my city. I admit that the clear blue skies, warm temperatures, and endless evenings have their charm. They certainly trick tourists who visit in July, all of whom are confused that they don’t need an umbrella or a rain jacket.

    (Side note: carrying an umbrella, especially for only slight rains, is one of the most telling signs that you’re a tourist in Seattle. The only more obvious indicator that you’re not from here is calling it “Pike’s Place Market”.)

    But in my opinion, Seattle is at its most beautiful in the rain. With the sharp edges of the world blurry and smeared by mist and rainfall, the streetlights reflected in puddles, the subdued colors… it may not be the sort of weather that gets put on the postcards, but it’s ours. And when the clouds crack and kindle the red and gold and green trees into bright fire… it’s enough to make you think this place is magical.

    Autumn is the perfect time for spookums and spectres. It’s a time for leather jackets and big boots. It’s a season for sitting inside a cafe with a nice beverage and a book, staring out the window and thinking about death. Since all of these things are my favorite, it stands to reason that fall is as well.

    Plus, this fall feels especially charged with meaning in Seattle. There’s a mayoral election, and to the shock and delight of many in the city, the Mariners are one game away from the World Series. They say autumn is the dying time of year, but somehow everything feels more alive than ever.

    ~ Ian (listening to Holocene by The Ocean)