Robins, and Capybaras, and Goats, oh my! (Reading, Writing, and Randomness for December 2024)

Well… November certainly happened, didn’t it? Instead of any of the actual news that I can’t even process yet, you know what I’m focusing on? WICKED, y’all!!!!

I’m going to save my full gushing about it for next month, but it’s really the spot of brightness (and subverse messaging) that I needed this month and I’m here for it. I’m here for the tear-filled press tour, too — leave Ari and Cynthia alone, y’all. They are theatre kids living their best lives and if you don’t understand that, I’m sorry.

A fun little announcement before carrying on: your girl got herself elected! In 2025, I’ll be the new Vice President of Memberships for Romance Writers of the Rockies. I found the group earlier this year and have found it a super supportive and educational group so I’m so excited to be joining the Board. If you want to learn more about it, lmk!

And now… on with the regular updates…

Reading

• Robin: Year One

• The Wedding People by Alison Espach | Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

• Bride by Ali Hazelwood | Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐.5

• Most Wonderful by Georgia Clark | Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

If you’ve been following my reading roundups this year, you might have noticed there’s been a lot of comic collections on the lists. A lot of Bat-family and a lot of Nightwing in particular. It started heavily in March, as I recovered from my hysterectomy. One of my comfort watches during this time was bingeing Batman: The Animated Series. That got me wanting to dig out my collected editions of the New 52 (Gail Simone) Batgirl comics. I found that, in the first couple weeks post-surgery, comics were easier reads for me than novels, so when I was done with Babs, I decided to delve into the same era of the Nightwing series. I’ve been reading the current series’ run led by Tom Taylor and Bruno Redondo for the past couple of years and their run would be coming to an end in October, so it felt like good timing to catch up.

The world of Gotham and the Bat-family (the fan-coined name for Batman and the various Robins, Batgirls, and other crime-fighting colleagues he’s gathered over the years) is one of my earliest fandoms. One of the earliest universes I started writing fanfic in. The ‘60s Adam West series was my introduction to the universe, becoming an afterschool staple (which was then superseeded by Batman: The Animated Series). Until The Batman, I’d seen every Batman film starting with Batman Returns in the movie theatre and every one starting with Batman Forever opening weekend. I loved Barbara Gordon / Batgirl — the librarian-or-college student daughter of Gotham’s commissioner Gordon, inspired to don a costume and use her skills to fight crime, no matter how much she was underestimated. She was smart, sassy, and a redhead — highly relatable for a young me. I could write an essay or five about Babs/Batgirl, but for this issue, I’m going to do something uncharacteristic: write about a dude. Namely, Dick Grayson.

Dick Grayson is, or has been at one point or other the first (best) Robin, leader of the Teen Titans, Nightwing, a circus performer, a spy, Batman, an amnesiac, an Owl (it makes sense in context), Discowing, a vampire king, and more that I’m sure I’m forgetting. But mostly, he’s (with occasional exception) the best dude in the DC Universe — the heart and moral center of the world of Detective Comics. That’s been an especially present theme in the Tom Taylor run of Nightwing, which is part of what’s made it one of my favorite runs in comics. It starts with Nightwing (2016) #78, the kickoff to an arc titled “Leaping into the Light.” It serves almost as a reintroduction to Dick Grayson/Nightwing, which makes it a great place to (no pun intended) jump in if you’re new to the comics. Dick has recently recovered from amnesia, during which one of his two surrogate fathers has died, leaving him his estate and making Dick a billionaire. No, not Bruce Wayne (though, Dick has taken over for him when he’s been dead in the past) — the departed is Alfred Pennyworth, co-parent to the Bat-fam. Through the first arc, Dick deals with the trauma of his amnesia, his grief over losing Alfred, the return of one of his longtime villains, and the ongoing troubles of Blüdhaven (his post-Gotham home). Oh, and figuring out what do do with the billions he’s inherited. By the end of the arc, he’s at least resolved that last one, creating the Pennyworth Foundation to help Blüdhaven’s poor. That makes Dick Grayson even less popular in the corrupt town than his alter-ego and this flipped dynamic propels the three years of the Taylor-era Nightwing.

It’s an interesting contrast to a commonly raised logic question about Dick’s former home and mentor: Could Bruce Wayne have done more to help Gotham as himself, through his billions of dollars, than he ever did as Batman? Taking it out of the realm of fiction: could billionaires better benefit society by actually paying their fare share of taxes over their tax-writeoffs-disguised-as-altruism philanthropics? The real world backlash against billionaires isn’t new, but the ethics of “billionaire romance” as a subgenre/trope have come up in writer circles with increasing frequency. It seems funny to question “ethics” in a genre that’s filled with other eyebrow raising subgenres such as mafia, dark romance, “alphaholes,” “shadow daddies,” and more but the mere idea that billionaire tropes are discussed along side these more angsty/forbidden categories says a lot. (Further reading in the Randomness section)

My completed novel currently in queries does feature a billionaire as a side character and the second (currently WIP) book in that series is his own story. I often wrestle with that (because I’ve written him and his family as such damn good people). I want the fun aspects of billionaire romance (private planes, gorgeous homes in Aspen, private access to cool events), but how do I portray his family as some of the “good” billionaires — if there even is such a thing? How do we write the billionaires we want to see in the world? I don’t have an answer, but it’s a thing I ponder.

Writing

I won’t lie — I hit a significant stall point in my writing a few weeks ago. I’d gotten to the point of my story where I really needed to finally map out my Formula 1 season and start figuring out what the story of each race would be. For those not familiar with Formula 1 seasons, there are a few conventions they follow in the current era:

• There are typically around 22-24 races.

• The season “follows the sun” — too hot or too cold conditions are to be avoided where possible so the seasons often start (in mid-March) and end (in mid Nov to mid Dec) in the Middle East. The bulk of the summer month races are held in Europe, with APAC and the Americas bookending on both ends.

• There are minimum day/hour requirements between races. If you have a night race on a Sunday one week, you can’t have an early Sunday race the next.

• Travel times between countries, other major motorsporting events (the Indy 500, 24 Hours of Le Mans, etc), and other major events (is it an Olympics year) determine where the multi-week breaks between races are.

I knew there were a few races I wanted in specific places for story purposes: the first US race couldn’t be too early in the season; the British Grand Prix had to have breaks after but not before; the Saudi Arabia Grand Prix had to be toward the end of the season, but couldn’t be the last. And the season had to follow the conventions because it had to be somewhat realistic to readers who are familiar with Formula 1. I ended up taking the last three seasons, color coding by continent and designing my book’s race season. I used some of the 2025 dates as a basis (because I like grounding things in actual dates and it helps me figure out where the character’s birthdays fall in the story), but not all of them and it’s not explicitly the 2025 season. Especially since I’m definitely going with the 22 race season and not the current 24 race season — I’ve already got my task cut out for me as it is.

… and Randomness

• If you liked the look into bookish drama in the Reading section, check out Lady Whistlethreads, a weekly round up of book discourse™️. It’s fun.

• More on billionaire romance: a Slate article from August and a great piece on the future direction of billionaire romance from Tasha L Harrison (from April 2023, but still relevant and prescient).

• Have you ever wanted to pet a capybara? If you’re near St. Augustine, Florida, you’re in luck. Noah’s Ark Sanctuary has opened a Capybara Cafe as part of their outreach and education efforts and I got the chance to go while visiting my family for Thanksgiving (thanks, sister-in-law!). The experience was clean, well run, highly educational, and the animals we met seemed so well cared for. In addition to the capybaras (3 of them!), we met a rescued ball python named Lemondrop, a couple of cheeky ferrets, and got to pet Flower, a beautiful and sweet de-scented skunk. Fun fact - did you know capybaras make adorable chirping sounds? They do!

• More Thanksgiving break fun: I went to Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge at Disney Hollywood Studios for the first time. I left it to kismet to determine if I’d splurge on a custom lightsaber and when I checked to see if they had any walk-ups available, they had one if I could join right then. It was meant to be. I chose a violet kyber crystal to pay my respects to one of my retconned faves: Jaina Solo, daughter of Han and Leia in the pre-Disney Expanded Universe. I even impressed the cast member guiding us through our journey with this deep cut name drop.

• I have a very unhinged idea for a short story of a rom-com. If we’re all lucky, I may share it next month.

Whatever you’re doing over the month of December, take care of yourself and I’ll see you in 2025!