Rosemary Kirstein

It was the end of my working day on Friday (that would be ’round about 2AM Saturday morning), and I was just checking in on my various social media accounts before heading home…

I like to check in every now and then, since I ABSOLUTELY DO NOT ALLOW my accounts to send me beeps and pings and notifications at will!   I have other things to do!  Don’t need to be interrupted randomly, thank you!  Did you know that if you’re deep into something, and you even glance at your email or social media, it takes you about 20 minutes to get back on track?

So, if I want to see what’s going on, I have decide to stop what I’m doing, and  go and look of my own free will.

Which I do.  Because my pals are wonderful, and my fans are the best (yes you are), and I follow some really interesting people. Always glad to hear what they’re up to.

This time, X-Twitter had a little note for me saying Cory Doctorow followed you.

So, I thought: Really?  Cory Doctorow? Well, that’s cool!  I’m ‘a follow him right back.  And I did.  But I also thought: I wonder what brought that on?

And when I checked in again this morning, I found out:

Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

Rosemary Kirstein’s “The Steerswoman” (permalink)

Doctorow is — how do I describe it? — one of the voices of the Internet Age: SF author, journalist, blogger (starting back when it cutting-edge), tech advocate, copyright activist. A commentator on the intersection between society and technology.   As an old techno-nerd myself, I’ve had him on my radar for quite a while.

And he says some really nice things about my work:

Holy moly is this a good novel! And yeah, there’s a super interesting puzzle in it that I won’t even hint at, except to say that even the book’s genre is a riddle that you’ll have enormous great fun solving.

…This book is such an unexpected marvel, a stunner of a novel filled with brilliant world-building, deft characterizations, a hard-driving plot and a bunch of great surprises.

Well.  I am, as the Brits say, chuffed.

But come to think of it, the idea of the Steerswomen really is right up Doctorow’s alley.  Heh.

Apparently it was Randall Munroe (of XKCD comics fame) who got the word to Doctorow.

And it was linguist Gretchen McCulloch who told Munroe about the books… I wonder if she’s going to be at Scintillation this year? (I am!)

You know, my friends who don’t do social media (other than Facebook), sometimes ask me what the point is.  Where else would I find out what Cory Doctorow’s up to lately (he’s on a tour for his latest book, The Bezzle) or Gretchen (new episode of her podcast “Lingthusiasm” with Lauren Gawne) , or Daniel Pinkwater (he’s put out an open call for an illustrator to collaborate with)?

One does have to be careful not to drown in it– especially if you’re a teen.   And some people get toxic comments, sad to say (and it’s mostly women who seem to be the targets).

But so far, it’s allowed me to stay in touch with writers, scientists, musicians, artists — all sorts of people who I would not run into in the course of my normal day.  It’s worth it.

I’m on X-Twitter: @rkirstein

Blue Sky: @rosemarykirstein.bsky.social

and Facebook: Rosemary Kirstein — writer

(There’s a second Facebook account, but non-public, for family and close friends.)

Given that I don’t post here on my blog in any kind of a formalized schedule, how can you make sure you never miss a post?

Because, every now and then someone out in the offline world will mention to me that… well, that they sort of check on my blog every now and again to see if I’ve posted lately.  Whenever they happen to think of it… if they do happen to think of it.

To which my general reaction tends to be something along the lines of: “Dude! Why make it hard on yourself?”

It’s pretty easy to be automatically informed when there’s a new post here.  Several ways to do it, in fact, some more nerdly than others.

Simplest way?  Are you on Facebook?  I am, and whenever I write a post here, I immediately write a post on Facebook that has a link right back here.  Actually, that’s pretty much the only stuff I post on Facebook.  Just  a link to my latest blog post.   Look for “Rosemary Kirstein — writer.”  It’s  a “page”,  not a personal account, so it’s open to all, and if you hit “like” or “follow,” any new entries of mine will show up on your regular Facebook feed.  Then, just click the link to get here.  Easy!

(I do have another account, a personal one  that’s just for family and pals.  I have to do that, out of courtesy to my family and pals.  Otherwise, all their baby pictures, political griping, and complaints about their cousin’s alcohol intake might be promulgated out to total strangers every time I hit a “like” or “angry” button.  And that would be unkind.)

Next easiest?  Twitter.  When I post a new blog post, I tweet a link.  (And some sort of accompanying wisecrack.  Because it’s Twitter.  That’s what you do.)  I am @rkirstein.  I rarely tweet, other than the blog link — but I do retweet, so if it’s interesting to you to see what’s caught my eye, there’s that.    And by the way, if you scroll down on this very page, you can see a little widget in the second column that will show you, right here, whatever I’ve tweeted or retweeted recently.

Nerdier choice: A news aggregator. I use Feedly myself, to track the blogs that I like.  You can use it online in your browser, or download an app for your phone or tablet.  It’s free — and there are others that do the job just as well. 

There are other ways, as well, including “live” bookmarks in Firefox (and similar in whatever browser you’re using), well known to the more techno-nerdy among you, I’m sure.

So, there you go.

In other news: Progress made on Book 5.  Yes.  I don’t want to jinx it, but I seem to have successfully excised the loads o’ crap that intrenched themselves into the previous iterations.  The story is making sense.

Feeling very good about this right now.

Fresh air helps.

(PS: If you read my blog on your computer, and not a tablet or smartphone, remember to hover your mouse over any photograph; very often, there’s an extra message hidden in the “tool tips” hovertext.)

And thank you NASA.

For this:

You want full size. Click.

From Colonel Wheelock’s TwitPic posts.

Seriously. The man is Tweeting from space.