More on Doctor Who

One complaint I'm seeing about the second episode that I don't get is the idea that it condoned genocide. Okay, that's one way to read the Doctor's solution... I saw it more of inoculating humanity against the Silence's influence. But even if you read it that way... well, if you have a problem with the protagonist orchestrating genocide, you would have stopped watching a long time ago.

That's why I'm not cutting this post for spoilers at this point, incidentally. If you've watched all of David Tennant's time in the running shoes, the idea that the solution to an episode might hinge on wiping out an entire intelligent species is not a spoiler. It would be more like a running joke if only it were funny.

Genocide was the most-commonly accessed preset on Ten's sonic screwdriver. If you zoom in on the palm of his hand, you'll see the following scribbled there:

Killer Aliens:
1. Talk. (Note: maybe they need a planet?)
2. Genocide.

When Ten exiled Human-Metacrisis-Doctor off to the Rose Garden, it wasn't for wiping out the Daleks... it was for not offering them a planet first, and really, given that they had all the planets they needed I think he could be excused for skipping past that bit.

"Need a planet?"

"NO THANK YOU. WE HELPED OURSELVES BEFORE YOU GOT HERE."

It wasn't so much that Ten condoned genocide. I'm sure he thought it was wrong, and would be prepared to wipe out entire races to prove it. That's just how he rolled.

Eleven, on the other hand, not only didn't back up his offer to save the Saturnynians with an "...or else I will wipe out every last one of you.", he was filled with regret when the mother chose oblivion rather than accepting his offer. He described the Krafayis in "Vincent and the Doctor" as being "evil", a member of a brutal race that will kill without mercy until they are killed... and his first idea is still to stun it and his second idea is to talk it down. He wants to save it.

That's how he rolls. There's no "or else" with the Eleventh Doctor.

( And now, in deference to Doctor Song... )

"Somewhere beyond the barricade, is there a world you long to see?"

A thing to be filed under "incredibly obvious epiphanies": it is important to have goals. Not just objectives, but aspirations. An objective might be something like "secure an income of $x/month". The aspiration is "so I can write full-time". Or an objective might be "Sell x pieces" with the aspiration being "to qualify for guild membership". The gap between objective and aspiration might be very small indeed: "Sell a piece to my favorite science fiction magazine" - "so I can have a piece appearing in my favorite science fiction magazine."

The important thing is not so much what your aspirations are, it's that you have them and you keep them in sight. Now, there are no universals here (of course, that's true of everything)... some people, I'm sure, are task-oriented in a way that it's more important for them to focus on the next step or what they're working on rather than what they're working for.

But if you're the sort of person who finds herself floundering when you have a clear set of steps to follow, a clear list of tasks, and a clear goal firmly in mind, this might be what you're missing. In the first few months after I started writing Tales of MU, I managed some fairly impressive things because I knew what I wanted. After that, I spent a lot of my time just keeping things going.

What's changed to kick me into higher gears and keep me there? I have a dream. There's a bright, shiny, glittering tomorrow that's peeking over the horizon and instead of shambling aimlessly around I'm shambling towards it.

What a difference it makes.

Tuesday is the greatest day the world has ever known.

News For The Day

Today has been a fairly productive day, though mostly in boring ways. What's interesting to me is that the past two days (i.e., yesterday and today), I have successfully "switched off" from writerbrain and non-writerbrain tasks fairly successfully.

I'm very happy with the way the newsletter's been going. The actual financial returns have been modest but measurable and I hope I will see them continue to grow in the future. There are other less tangible benefits, among them the fact that it's turned out to be a great way to elicit more detailed feedback from my readers. People really respond to the invitations to email me with their thoughts on a particular issue, and some of them do so more expansively than they do in comments. This is especially good for things that aren't Tales of MU... if I post a snippet of something I'm working on here in my blog, I might get like three comments that say "I'd read that.", and it is helpful to know that... it really is, it's encouraging... it's also useful to get a broader sample of more detailed responses.

So those of you who are subscribers are definitely going to be seeing more solicitations like that. I could see a part of the newsletter evolving into something like a running conversation. Dangerously "web 2.0".

Personal Assessment

Quality and length of sleep are good, but it seems very delayed. Part of this is the whole vicious cycle of "I didn't get to sleep until late last night so I slept late this morning so now I can't get to sleep until late", but part of it... well, they call it sleep-onset insomnia for a reason. Believe me, I can feel the difference between "just not tired yet" and "not able to sleep yet"... it's why I sometimes talk about the difference between being tired and being sleepy. It's been going on for almost two weeks. I keep not mentioning it in my assessments because my brain pretty much registers this as "normal".

I think I'm going to try a slightly higher melatonin dose tonight.

Plans For Today

I've been working up a new system for keeping track of sponsors/subscriptions. On top of letting me get the sponsor/subscriber lists caught up and keep them caught up, this is going to give me a way of actually tracking how my sponsorship income changes from month to month. Even when I'm calculating my income I've never had more than a ballpark idea there because I've never needed to separate that out from everything else in my PayPal reports.

I've also been writing for Fantasy In Miniature. I announced a M/W/F in my newsletter and then didn't post one yesterday. Oops. Well, it's long past time I got my electronic calendar back in order. That's the first thing I'll add to it.