here's to rabble-rousing ptarmigans

Alan gets his groove on and yes, yes, you really should go read the whole thing:

This is really getting out of hand on my part; it's one am and I'm rapidly losing coherency. I'm not going down this road just for the sake of it, but to really figure it out--because I really, really think it has a lot to do with the way we not only think about SF/F (or whatever mode) but also how the very work is produced--the worlds written about, or not written about. And which books are bought and not bought (by editors, I mean--the public is a whole other ballgame). It matters how we look at each other. I want to think, every day, that my writing helps me become a more decent person. The core of personhood is at the center of what I write. What I write may change, and sometimes my interest in stupid byways might puzzle me, but that keenness to write in the first place, despite mutations and inconstancies of subject matter and form, that in itself gives me hope, and always has.

Mandel also said: "Your work is a lifelong arc (well, a much more complex shape than that); its weaknesses, lapses, gaps may contribute to strength."

Here's to weakness.