Mark W Tiedemann

Category: blog

Swift Impressions

Posted on By Mark Tiedemann

Let me state up front that I do not listen to Taylor Swift. Until this past year or so I have been barely aware of her. It is the osmotic dynamic in which we live that I know anything about her at all. So when she became the Time Magazine Person Of The Year, I was amused but frankly unstartled.

I say “unstartled” intentionally, as in I was not blind-sided, shocked, or negatively put off balance. Mildly surprised, maybe, but hell, given the record of Time’s Person of the Year, anything is possible. (Hell, Kissinger was one, on the same cover with Nixon.…

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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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Intellectual Parasitism

Posted on By Mark Tiedemann

This will be brief. Sometime around 2010 a term entered common usage—Woke—which basically meant be alert and aware of racial prejudice in all its manifestations. It took hold and came to stand for general awareness of discriminatory conditions and practices across a wide range of social interactions. Being alert and aware and, a step further, choosing to speak out about a variety of all-too-commonly held beliefs that slowly, deeply poison our daily discourse, from anti-LGBTQ statements to all manner of anti-Progressive resistance from certain quarters. In the short decade since, it is being weaponized as a pejorative on behalf of the very attitudes and mouthpieces the term was intended to call out.…

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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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Recognitions

Posted on By Mark Tiedemann

I have long understood that I am not a competitive person. Not in the sense of besting others, striving to be better than, more than, ahead of. Somewhere along the way over the last 60 + years, what might have become a competitive drive morphed into something, to my mind, more benign. Self-betterment is not, in my opinion, competitive in the way most people apprehend the term.

That said, I like awards. I have favorites. It seems important to acknowledge quality, impact, set goals, and shine a spotlight on that which is most laudable (for the moment) in order to validate the work done.…

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Memories

Posted on By Mark Tiedemann

Yes, it is my birthday. I’m 69. In another era I would be an Old Man…or dead. Instead, I seem to be fortunate in what vitality I have. I work at it, of course, but that’s not always a guarantee. I intend fighting decrepitude for as long as I can.

This year, my father died. He was 92. My mother is 88. I come from long-lived stock, so to speak.

But I thought today, for this, I’d depart a bit from the standard birthday celebration kind of reminiscence. Not sure if this will tie in, but what are anniversaries like this for if not for indulging memory?…

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If I Could Change One Thing

Posted on By Mark Tiedemann

This is a wholly personal, largely confessional post. I’m telling on myself, though most people who know me will not be surprised.

From time to time you see these things online, which stem from old conversational gambits and party games. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be and would you? There’s utility in these kinds of challenges. You don’t necessarily have to respond openly, but it might prompt you to do a little introspection, and that seems ever in short supply. Do an inventory, if you will. What loose ends are dangling that you might want to tend to.…

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Feeling A Bit Horizontal

Posted on By Mark Tiedemann

The novel is proceeding apace. Having come to a pivotal moment, I tend to step back, appreciate what is there (or not) before continuing on. While pausing, I do other things, like music or photography. So…

 

 

 

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Down There

Posted on By Mark Tiedemann

Things are happening. Slowly. At this point, the plan is to see the cool parts and ignore the annoying parts. I have an urge to cuss, richly and with feeling. But.

Making something cool out of the uncool is an impulse I get to indulge in weird ways.  With all that vagueness, something emblematic.

 

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