The Marshmallow Ranch Gazette (Patreon)

Howdy, patrons!

It doesn't quite feel like it yet, but autumn is in the air. My coworkers are starting to gush about pumpkin spice and all of the IPAs are starting to dwindle from the store shelves, leaving room for all of the porters and stouts. At least, that's how we tell the changing of the seasons here in Silicon Valley. While I miss the changing of the foliage out east, autumn is still my absolute favorite time of year.

I live for the darker, chillier mornings; the chance to break out my sweater vest and hoodie collection; running in those windy evenings like I'm trying to sprint away from the nip of cold at my fingertips. There are even a few trees that will turn orange before they're taken over by the roving gang of juvenile crows that darken cloud-grey skies. I love being inside during the fall, sipping something warm, listening to the wind or rain if we're lucky. Just thinking about it makes me smile. 

I'm really looking forward to a quiet and productive few months. There isn't much on the horizon until Midwest FurFest at the end of November...actually, I take that back. My Husband (the Dragon) and I will be celebrating our tenth anniversary this month. At my day job, my department is locked in a deadly struggle for costume supremacy with another department so I'm going to HAVE to come correct for Halloween this year. As much as I've liked the idea of it, I haven't really done costumes for a long time. It'll be...interesting to see what I can pull together, and if it'll meet the standards of my coworkers when the time comes.

Writing-wise, I'm starting to get my groove back after settling in to the day job. I'm hoping that laying down the groundwork for a writing practice now will pay off once the holiday season heats up; we're a service that heats up during the holidays, so things will start getting busy after Thanksgiving. Making sure I've built good habits now will hopefully pay dividends later. 

But listen to me, all looking ahead like I don't have stuff to do right now! I'm still working to get a good buffer for "Crushing The Competition" before I start work on anything else in earnest -- I'm thinking at least four or five chapters ahead is a comfortable pace. That way, it'll be a bit easier on me to double back and edit what's come before and release an "episode" a month over on SoFurry. That's the dream, anyway. First things first. 

I'm still feeling my way around the world, but I'm also trying not to bundle in too much continuity so that I end up writing myself into a corner or things become a pain in the ass to work around. It's tough, because the world in the story needs to have its shit figured out in order to run efficiently; when you're working with such vast size differences, any flaw in the system could really have these outsized effects. But then again, maybe that's the fun of it. Maybe the flaws are actually features or something. Who knows? It's corporate anarchy!

I think my favorite thing about writing the story so far is the chance to work on characterization through action and dialogue. I hadn't realized this, but it's also a smorgasbord of scenes for size difference and 'nested' sizes of all types, and I'm really looking forward to playing around with that. It'll be fun to throw Ralph in with all kinds of giants with all kinds of temperaments to see how he handles them. 

Ralph himself, the more I think about him, represents a lot of my insecurities in the corporate world. It's easy to see there's a lot more to making it in Silicon Valley than just doing the work. You have to know how to "people solve" in addition to problem solving. My current day job has thrown me in with a much different crowd than the one I left, and I think that's one reason I've had such unexpected cultural whiplash. Going from a bullpen of Linux geeks to a group of women who love SoulCycle and The Bachelor is...something! Some days it feels like doing the job is not going to be enough to make it here, but I'm not sure I can find a way to navigate the social dynamics in a way that doesn't feel disingenuous. If I can't, then what? I'll be a poor, small snow leopard leaning on more socially-adept coworkers to help me get any scrap of recognition I can find. 

It's not that bad, of course. But I relate to Ralph more than I realized. Which means putting him through his paces is going to be a lot more fun than I realized. 

That's all for this week -- the next part of the serial will be up on Thursday or Friday. Until then, friends!

• Jakebe