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Coming out in Character
For Coming Out Day, 2009 Peter was “born” sometime in the second half of 1999, likely toward winter. I remember that first scene very vividly. I saw him wrapped in a brown cloak, his hands wrapped around a staff, a tuft of his sandy hair protruding from the hood. He was standing by enormous bronze gates, cast in the torchlight, keeping watch: yes, my first original protagonist of my first original (non-collaborative) novel, then titled, The Gatekeeper. He started out as the savior of the world and ended up its doombringer. Yes, much about Peter has changed in ten years, and since then his world has become home to The…
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Bright Star: The Beauty of Love, The Sensuality of Words
I don’t know what I was expecting in regards to Bright Star, though I suppose I thought it might irk me a bit, as biopics tend to do–especially when concerning authors. Far too often it seems directors need to sensationalize the stories, add sex and intrigue, muddle up the plot so the movie reads more like a Harlequin than a historical account. In some ways I’m one of the worst kinds of audience members to please in cases like this; I’ve read Andrew Motion’s Keats biography (upon which the film is based), I’ve read close to every Keats poem and a vast majority of his letters and criticism. I’m hard…
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A year ago…
A year ago I decided that I’d had enough of working full time in a career I didn’t love. It wasn’t that I was bad at it, it was that it left no time for two of the most important things in my life: my son and my creativity. Writing, if if happened at all, oscillated between utter ease and utter drudgery. My son was misbehaving so badly that weekends in our house were battle zones, and we longed for Monday just to get away. That’s no way to live if you can help it. I left because I knew I couldn’t be my genuine self–first a foremost a mother…
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Dear self-important new writers: STOP. You’re making us all look bad.
<rant> I wasn’t going to write about this, because frankly, I’m a new writer and I doubt there’s anything I really say that will be enlightening on the subject. Except I started thinking about how pissed off I am when I read excerpts of the pertinent emails and conversations. It’s not the professional writers’ responses that bother me so much, but the tone and self-importance of the new writers that makes me ill. Yeah, some of the established writers’ responses to Josh Olsen’s original piece have been a little, um, tough to read. But not every writer is going to turn n00bs away if they adhere to a code of…
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“Be patient, keep writing” and other things I tell myself.
Last night I finished chapter 20 of Peter of Windbourne, and am now approaching the part in the book in which a series of Very Bad Things happen. The draft is sitting at 101,122 words at this moment, with hopefully no more than five or six chapters remaining (generally my chapters hover between 4-5K). It’s a blind rewrite, as I’ve mentioned, so I’m giving myself some extra wiggle room. I know it’ll be edited down a bit next. I’ve got until November to get it done, because I’ve promised to do NaNoWriMo again this year. This chapter has been particularly difficult, mostly due to the influx of freelance work that’s…
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Becoming an atheist of the muse.
That’s it. I’m over it. I don’t believe in muses anymore. I’m sorry. Does that sound harsh? I know, we have such romantic notions about muses, how they lovingly whisper inspiration and buoy us along with creative power. But in the end, they’re just not worth the trouble. And you know what? They’re fickle, they’re never there when you want them to be, and you really can’t base a career on them. You’re silly to think that you can become a writer by relying on some magic alchemy. It’s not alchemy. It’s just work. That’s all there is. And sometimes, the work comes easy. But let’s face it: it’s you…
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Outer Alliance Pride Day Post
As a member of the Outer Alliance, I advocate for queer speculative fiction and those who create, publish and support it, whatever their sexual orientation and gender identity. I make sure this is reflected in my actions and my work. Today is Outer Alliance Pride Day! Roughly (only!) two weeks ago, I posted about starting a group like this. Before I knew it, a remarkable group of people had banded together to form a true alliance of writers in the speculative fiction community dedicated to supporting (and celebrating!) queer contributions in a positive way. That, my friends, is what the Internet is for. I identify as straight, but, from a…
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Gatehouse Gazette #8, with Dr. Adderson’s Lens
Gatehouse Gazette #8 is out and, even more exciting than usual, contains my story, “Dr. Adderson’s Lens”. This little story was originally slated for a place in The Willows Magazine, but we all know how that ended. I don’t write short stories that often, but I really liked this weird little piece. I contacted the folks at the Gazette about the tale and they liked it enough to put it in their next issue! I’ve always loved the Gazette–as well as their fabulous forum and site–and it’s definitely exciting to be a part of it. It’s always nice to have a story find a home. This is also the Halloween…
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Where I’ve been all week
Well, hello again. A week has passed. And what a week it’s been. Last Monday’s post resulted in the formation of an entire organization: The Outer Alliance. Suffice it to say, that’s kept me quite busy. Coupled with a huge freelance (entirely non-creative) project, my brain’s a little on the fried side. Tripled with that, my husband and child and I accidentally took a two hour tour yesterday; our “little hike” ended up being an up-the-side-of-the-mountain-with-three-year-old-on-back kind of thing. My body is mad at me, I think… I worked on a piece that’s owed, which is an amusing concept to me. A short story. I have a very odd relationship…
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A SF/F writers LGBT alliance group?
I’m not going to talk about what happened this week. But I am going to talk about what should happen, and what needs to happen. Immediately after reading the rant by said individual, I went on a search. I wanted to find a group of SF/F writers, from all walks of life, who support LGBT issues, particularly in SF/F literature, and join up. I didn’t think this would be hard to find, and assumed that there was some magic place for support, celebration and the furthering of such material within the community already. I was surprised not to find anything. And it occurred to me that if we’re actually going…
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It’s not about the destination, it’s about the… lemurs?
(Warning: a late-night caffeine-infused post-word-binge rant.) I’ve had friends tell me that their favorite part about fantasy literature is the journey. The part when the characters are tromping through the forest, drinking from waterskins, gnawing on jerky, and sitting around campfires telling stories. Yes, there is a certain amount of charm in that but, well, let me tell you something. I seriously hate writing it. At the moment, ironically, it is just where my characters are. While much of the first half of the book is, technically, a journey, this point is where the marshmallow toasting and night watches come in. It’s the build-up to the big end, the culmination,…
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Falling in (and out of) love with fantasy
Occasionally, I still have moments where I look at a scrap of dialogue or a descriptive phrase, and I feel a little self-conscious, writing what I’m writing. It’s fantasy, sure. It is epic? Sometimes. It is heroic? Yeah, a bit. Does it have magic and all that? Of course. Am I way hung up on defining it? Not really. Okay, maybe a little. But it’s also not a lot of things. There are no elves, dwarves or, really, even wizards. Magic is… ordered, in a way. Effectively I’ve written out a great deal of the things that define the genre for other people, and even for me. Sometimes I forget…
