Find Your Crew

Howdy everyone,

I’m back in London after my vacation to Toronto, where my partner and I stumbled completely accidentally upon the Toronto Marathon, and let me tell you—the vibes were immaculate.

The thing about marathon weekends is that they are weekends. It doesn’t start and end at the starting line and the finish line of the Big Race. There are shakeout runs all over the city, usually hosted by a local running club or a brand, there may be free swag, there may free food, there may be coaches, masseuses, DJs, pre-parties, afterparties, and so much more.

S and I went to a 5k shakeout on Friday morning with Ciele, a Montreal-based kit brand, and in addition to making out like bandits with a free hat that I wore all weekend, we also made new friends with some new-to-running runners and some long-time community members, who told us about…

The Saturday shakeout run we did with PDRR, Parkdale Roadrunners, a run crew that sprang out of one of the lower-income majority minority neighborhoods. It’s their 15th anniversary this year, so they did it big, hosting a pop-up site that was coincidentally near our hotel, so we dropped in every day to see what was up. I’d never seen so many black runners, runners of color, in one place—outside of the elites, anyway.

And before the shakeout, there was a speech by a surprise (to me, anyway) guest—DJ Dark all the way from London’s own Run Dem Crew!! That was wild, and we caught up to him on the jog and had a little chat. (Also, I’m not used to having to clarify what London I’ve come from. Talk about decentering the metropole, lol. I suppose the accent helps. I suppose I do sound more like I’m from London, ON than London, UK.)

For the rest of the week, on runs, walks, and drives, I noticed little signs of PDRR around town…my only regret is that I didn’t pick up some stickers of my own…. All in all, I went for a rest and came back rejuvenated in a whole new way, which is exactly what I needed as my training was feeling run down and heartless. Now, I’m looking at trying a run with the Run Dem Crew some time and even—gasp!—signing up for a marathon??? But only in a city where the vibes are as good as this. A few of my new friends whispered…Montreal? Alors, peut-être. ;)

Writing

In other news, I did something that is perhaps a little stupid as soon as I got back into town, but here we are, so I’m going to embrace it. Life is for accidentally but sort of on purpose making bad decisions when you didn’t have all the facts and embracing the mixed bag of consequences after.

Which is to say, I signed up for a really intriguing novella class (S’s fault, she suggested it) only to miscalculate the time difference. So for 4 weeks, I’ll have novella class from 1 am to 3 am. woop woop! It will include reading several novellas (which I totally have time for and can do because I have NOT forgotten how to read). I’m sure I’ll write a bit more about this as it gets underway.

My hope is that it will help me make #FellRunner fit the vision I have for it in my head. Like Fate’s Bane, I have ambitions. I want to experiment, to break things a little. To stretch myself.

I set to working on it again as soon as I got back from my trip, and I might finally have a grasp on the narrative. It’s taken a few more turns since the last time I wrote about it. I like surprising myself.

I also want to finish a first draft in the next month-ish so that I can work on ANOTHER secret project, which is due in February. An announcement on that should be coming soon… 😏

Events + A SUBSCRIBER BONUS

In addition to running around Toronto, I had an awesome event at Bakka-Phoenix, where I was interviewed by Miroki Tong of the Story Engine! I talked a bit about how I used the Story Engine Deck to flesh out Fate’s Bane and The Faithless, I talked about the progression of intimacy in the Magic of the Lost (yes, this is about Ch. 15 and about Walls), I talked about magic systems, and so much more.

Now that I am back in the UK, I will soon pack up again for another round of travel—starting with next week’s stops in York (with Tasha Suri and V. L. Bovalino) and in Brighton for World Fantasy Con, where I’ll theoretically be on a panel about marmite characters (Team #FuckLuca😏 vs Team #FuckLuca🤬) be on a panel on Writing Fighting and part of the mass signing.

And finally, a thank you to everyone who has showed up to one of my events so far. Thank you for being there! Thank you for not letting me play to an empty room! Thank you for the great conversations, the insightful questions, and for telling me your own stories. It’s an amazing joy to know that my stories have become a part of yours. Hearing how you love or hate my characters, interweaving them with your own understandings of colonialism, queerness, oppression, and love.

How fucking magical is that?

So, thank you.

And I look forward to seeing the rest of you on a later stop!

Stay sharp, my friends.

C. L.

p.s. if you have questions about how I use the story engine, hit me! i love talking about it and demo-ing and showing how my ideas go along rabbit paths. you can catch a little of this in the video i did with Peter and co. about writing relationships!

p.p.s. if I am not stopping near you, feel free to comment your questions and I will keep compiling them into an AMA style thing when I have enough.