Mark W Tiedemann

Category: Personal

Chicago

Posted on By Mark Tiedemann

The first week of April, we boarded a train and headed to Chicago. The train ended up behind a freight train, which slowed us down a bit, so we arrived later than intended. Still, after navigating the construction blocks around Union Station, we summoned a cab and got to our hotel. Famished, we asked what was open this late and were directed to an Italian place three blocks away, which served good pizza.

It was raining when we arrived and continued most of the week to be one degree of wet or another, but it did not deter us.

We met up with friends, ate great good, wandered around the central district around Michigan Avenue, toured some smaller museums, and had a great time.…

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Projecting

Posted on By Mark Tiedemann

I went out yesterday and indulged myself. New clothes. I needed a new belt. Pants. Socks. I haven’t been to a mall in over a year. I used to enjoy them quite a bit. They sprouted like mushrooms for a time, though, and like the gas station wars (which, yes, I remember) they undercut each other until there was an inevitable collapse. The few that have survived, well.

I was amused a couple weeks ago when I had occasion to drive past one of the first in the greater St. Louis area, Crestwood Plaza. In my childhood, we used to run out there.…

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Standing On Principle

Posted on By Mark Tiedemann

Now that it’s clear who the contenders are, I thought I’d make a few statements about the upcoming election. I doubt anyone who has read these pieces over the years will be surprised at who I’ll be voting for. But I want to address a problem that plagues us in aggregate and I see it raising its problematic head again. Let me start though with something that may strike you as curious.

My mother is frightened.

My 89-year-old mother is terrified that Trump will win. She was mightily disturbed back in 2016 when he did. Today she has reached a point of near-despair.…

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I Do Not Believe

Posted on By Mark Tiedemann

It was a toss-up what this post would be. Something about upcoming books or…this.

It is said that we are more polarized than we have ever been. I do not believe that. What I think is that in the last 40 years the band-aid has been ripped off and because of the emergence of social media we are now seeing just how polarized we have always been. Look at any period of our history and ask a simple question: were people more tolerant then or was it that anything that might challenge them in their complacency was simply kept buried and they didn’t have to deal with it?…

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Slouching Toward The End

Posted on By Mark Tiedemann

I’m in the last stages of the current novel I’m writing and I have entered the zone of “I Don’t Want To Do This Today.” I get that way from time to time, especially with a long project like a novel. I’m writing the sequel to Granger’s Crossing and I reached 66, 000 word this morning. My brain is a funny thing in that when I reach the end of a chapter, everything just shuts down for the day. If I manage to squeeze out a sentence or two on the next chapter, I know I will probably rewrite it the next morning.…

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Small Revelations

Posted on By Mark Tiedemann

It is never too late to know yourself better. In truth, working on understanding the inner workings of one’s psyché is—should be—an ongoing process. For all sorts of reasons, not least of which is to have some grasp of your own reactions and how you affect those around you, that work to understand is vital.

Unfortunately, it’s not the most amenable process to any kind of ordered plan. Revelations, discoveries, realizations come when they will, and often not at convenient moments.

We’ve been rewatching some episodes of Queer Eye. We like that show quite a lot, it’s impressive (though early on I wondered at the work they managed to accomplish in a week, which seemed…incredible) and we’ve gleaned useful insights over the course of its (so far) seven seasons.…

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Going Forward

Posted on By Mark Tiedemann

I started this post last night and it turned into something rather unpleasant. So I trashed that one, went to bed, and here I am. I am on the same page with the late Stephen Jay Gould with regards to calendrical silliness. It is simultaneously one of the most useful and absurd things humans ever invented. Imposing order on the seasons, allowing for cooperation across distances, the timing of events so chaos is kept at bay—wonderful. But the idea that certain dates mean something in cosmic terms? The whole industry of horoscopy, while mildly entertaining, is a window into human gullibility.…

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Considerations Going Into 24

Posted on By Mark Tiedemann

It has been a year of highs and lows, as are most years, but generally we pick one by which to characterize the whole. I can’t do that this time, because it is all of a piece.

The highs? A new novel appeared in April, Granger’s Crossing, the first in what may turn out to be a series. I have ideas anyway. I could stand a bit more love for it, not to mention reviews, both at the link and on Goodreads. But after a seven year gap, to have a new book out is amazing.  Likewise, my Secantis Sequence is about to be reissued in ebook format (paper copies will be available, I’m told) and that is something I never expected to see.…

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From There To Here, the Curious Path to Granger’s Crossing

Posted on By Mark Tiedemann

It’s a good question: how does a veteran science fiction writer come to write an historical mystery-slash-love story? Especially one set in a period and place wherein, as far as I can find, no one else has bothered to set fiction. 

There are clear parallels between historical fiction and science fiction (clearer still between historical and fantasy) in that, depending on how far back and where you go, world building becomes a major component, and science fiction is very much about world building. Though the emphasis on that has of late verged on too much. We still have to create character, develop plot, and have something meaningful to say.…

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The Meander

Posted on By Mark Tiedemann

I’m a bit tipsy as I write this. A nice bourbon, at an inappropriate time of the day. But my mind is bouncing from topic to topic, so I thought I’d let folks know what’s going on.

Is the next Granger novel going well? Well. Depends. I have a bit over forty thousand words done on the first draft. I ran into a wall, called the Osage, and have been semi-diligently researching this rather impressive tribe of Native Americans in order to say things about them that will not make me look stupid. They had an intricate if inconsistent relationship with first the French and then the Spanish, at at least two geographical points—the Arkansas River and St.…

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