Category: banal magic
-
Banal Magic: Why Now? (Part III of III)
Spoiler: It’s Not About Security (This is the third and last part of a three-part series. Here are the first and second parts.) As I mentioned in Part II, I have two reasons for currently chasing becoming a successful author. (Part I explained my zeroeth reason: why I’m not currently chasing the alternative — the… Read more
-
Banal Magic: WisCon 2025
I have just “come back” from attending (and volunteering at) WisCon, an annual (or mostly annual) feminist science fiction & fantasy convention. In truth, I never left my house. ‘^^ WisCon 2025 was online only — done mostly through a combination of Sched for registration & scheduling, Zoom for panels & roundtables, and Discord for… Read more
-
Banal Magic: Why Now? (Part II of III)
The True Security of Transferable Skills In Part I (about snake oil), I argue that the conventional idea of (stereotypical) 9-5 jobs as “secure” is, in my humble (or perhaps not-so-humble XD) opinion, just plain wrong. That is to say, I think the idea is inaccurate. (To be clear, I’m not trying to claim there’s… Read more
-
Banal Magic: Why Now? (Part I of III)
The Snake Oil of “Secure” Jobs There’s been a lot going on in the sociopolitical realm lately — at least in the United States of America (which happens to be the country I am most familiar with). Moreover, what with the U.S. being a global superpower and all, it’s hard to just outright ignore it,… Read more
-
Banal Magic: Engineering Engines
I have mentioned that I was turning my creativity car into a creativity train, thereby giving myself way too much leeway to mix metaphors. XD So, of course, why stop there? =P I’m upgrading said car-cum-train into a jet. With two engines. I’ve already introduced the concept of one of these engines for boosting my… Read more
-
Banal Magic: Changing Gears
This post is thus titled, not because you, dear reader, will see anything here change, but because I am making a change in my own mental gears. (Think of these as internal gears, hidden away in some kind of casing, not the kinds of gears that are out in the open.) You see, my earlier… Read more
-
Banal Magic: Tacking Train Tracks
I’m a big fan of metaphors. They help me conceptualise, well, just about everything. They also feel rather nerdy to me (I’m not sure why), and that just tickles me even more. ‘^^ If I can make an extended metaphor, so much the better, but I’ve learnt that even an illogically mixed metaphor can be… Read more
-
Banal Magic: Double Digit Check-In
This is post #10 — we’re now in the double digits, yay! ٩( ^ᴗ^ )۶ This post also happens to coincide with the end of the second month of this blog, so I thought now would be a good time to reflect on how it’s going: Well. . . . ‘^^ Okay, I confess that… Read more
-
Banal Magic: Creating a Creativity Car
When I’m in a fallow period of my life — that is, when I’m not productive (in the literal, semantic sense of the word: when I’m not producing) — for a prolonged period, either deliberately or accidentally —, I don’t need too many tools to get by (read: to fool other people into thinking I… Read more