Like Jo Walton, I love this not-so-great novel.

Friday by Robert A Heinlein

What’s good about it now? The whole 'passing' bit. The cloning, the attitudes to cloning, the worry about jobs. The economy. It has an interesting future world, with lots of colonized planets, but most of the action taking place on Earth—that’s surprisingly unusual. There’s a Balkanized US and a very Balkanized world come to that, but with huge multinational corporations who have assassination 'wars' and civil wars. There’s a proto-net, with search paths, that doesn’t have any junk in it—that’s always the failure mode of imagining the net. It was easy enough to figure out you could sit at home and connect to the Library of Congress, but harder to imagine Wikipedia editing wars and all the baroque weirdness that is the web. Friday’s point of view works for me as someone with severely shaken confidence, and as always with Heinlein it’s immersive. Reading this now I can feel myself sinking right in to Friday without any problem. There’s a complex multi-adult family, not unusual in late Heinlein, but this one disintegrates in a messy divorce, which is unusual and well done as well. And it’s a fun read, even if it’s ultimately unsatisfying. What’s wrong with it is that it doesn’t have a plot. --Jo Walton

https://www.tor.com/2009/06/14/the-worst-book-i-love-robert-heinleins-friday/

Diving back in?

When I began to consider once more immersing myself in writing, I had to ask myself, "Diving back in? Do you still remember how to swim?"

It caused me to reflect some on where I am in the journey to become a writer. It occurs to me that it's a tricky thing to define if one's goal has little to do with being published. I write for the sheer fun of crafting a tale, sharing it with those few who might enjoy reading it, and inspiring others to pick up a pen, dust off a vintage typewriter, or sit at a computer keyboard. Yet, I've written nothing much of consequence for several years. Do I really feel I have a firm grip on what "being a writer" really is? According to Patricia C. Wrede, according to the first few pages of her book "Wrede on Writing," the answer would be a resounding NO.

In spite of that discouraging news, I still feel I need to dive back into writing in the only manner I feel works: writing when it suits me for the pure enjoyment of writing -- if publication at some point in the future makes sense, then I'll decide then to swim in that other direction.

Meanwhile, I'll absorb as much wisdom as I can from Patricia Wrede's book and do my best to put her advice to practical use. After reading posts in her blog for years and finding them filled with insight and practicality, I'm certain she can help me paddle around here in the shallow end of the pool.