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Netwalk’s Children…and so it begins.

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I just texted the above picture to a friend with the note that I needed to break out the notecards…what one does with the third book of a series. Hoo boy, is this ever a writing change. While I’ve never been a complete pantser (oh dear God, after years of lecturing about prewriting to kids, I At Least Do Some Prewriting), at this point I am Officially Tired of having to go back through and tweak everything after the first draft. Or digging through piles of handwritten notes on assorted scraps of paper. I have some significant series threads that need to surface in this volume (one reason I have been procrastinating the writing of this damned book, this Netwalk’s Children, for at least two years). I need to track reveals, clues, and character arcs.

I admit that I was wowed and amazed by the release of J.K. Rowling’s outline for chapters 13-24 of the 5th Harry Potter. Am I likely to go into that much detail? No, probably not, because I don’t think I have that many subplots. What I’m having to track are character arcs, because I have some series-long arcs as well as several-book arcs.

Sigh. It’s late. I’m blathering, but…I’m still working things out.

Over the past few years, too, I’ve written some short stories to help me understand and play with aspects of this universe that I want to develop–not so much the tech but the characters and how they react to the tech. I’m leaving the tech as mostly handwavium until I get to the actual writing, simply because I can’t base the plots too heavily around the tech. It changes too quickly. What I can write about is the implications of what that kind of tech will do to characters and their way of thinking. I’ve spent two book volumes and an omnibus volume of novellas laying the ground for this book (and am developing a short story series along with this book to develop the themes)–and now, we’re in the third generation of the Netwalk/Dialogue tech. It’s time for the kids to react–and carry the wave of tech forward.

Yeah, yeah, vagueblogging. I’m tired, I’m toying with ideas, and this is supposed to be a writing process blog, not blathering about the book itself. But that’s another reason why I am settling in for some serious prewriting and blocking of this book. This damn world gets away from me, more than any other I’ve been playing in so far. I can’t say that Seeking Shelter, Pledges of Honor, or Alien Savvy have demonstrated the ability that the books in this world consistently do in twisting out of loose pantser plotting and creating more complexity which requires elaborate rewrites. I’ve spent too damn many hours going back and doggedly revising because I didn’t think through what the probable answer to a single scribbled sentence would be before I had to write it. Part of that is because I was already detailing lesson plans, IEPs, evaluation plans, etc, etc, etc. But I can’t count on snow days any more to deal with midbook vagueplotting issues.

Well, no more. I’m a working writer, not a teacher-writer, and I have to get into the groove of turning out a good, consistent book on a predictable cycle. I know I do better with a framework–it works for my short stories when I have to purge too many Big Ideas. With this many threads that I want to maintain, I need the help of the structure.

Additionally, this book is going to be written and revised during a moving process. I can’t count on having time to dig continuity out of my brain. I also have a personal hard deadline as I want it out by Worldcon. So…to the grindstone I go.

My hope is that having the reference structure will allow the words to flow, because I also want good words. I really want that good language to dance and sing.

Yeah. Process. Fun.

Seriously, I am enjoying it. Really. It’s nice to be possessed by a story again.

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The days are just packed…

Things have been rather hectic of late, one could say. While the trip to Eugene weekend before last was fun, and I got to enjoy a night of the String Cheese Incident, something kicked off both my asthma and my irritable bowel syndrome. I’m blaming a known allergen that snuck in under the radar of my usually good scans, along with air inversions and cleaners in the hotel. Hubby commented on noticing that his lungs felt irritated, too.  Still, we had a good family outing as the son joined us.

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Anyway. Got back home on Tuesday, and been scrambling ever since then.

So various bits and pieces of information. I’m now up to three things coming out this year from publishers who aren’t me. Woohoo. Hybrid publishing rocks. So what are they?

First, my novella Seeking Shelter at the End of the World is out from eTreasures Publishing. It’s supposed to appear in Amazon sooner or later, but hasn’t yet.

Rianna, one of the genetically engineered weather monitoring modelers known as Canaries, has been cast out by the Canaries and is hunted by those who once protected her and who have murdered her boyfriend. In a world threatened by toxic Clouds, will Rianna be able to find love and safety? 

Next, my story “Consistency” will be out in First Contact Cafe, a shared world anthology edited by Phyllis Irene Radford, on February 1st. Link is to Amazon preorders.

There are rules for first contact with aliens. And a place to meet aliens where the rules are enforced. Simple things like avoiding smelly bodily emissions, even if your race considers them a compliment, and complicated things like not asking another race if they are edible.
Feel free to read up on the rules of the First Contact Cafe, then pull up a bar stool, or a pool of sludge, have a drink of beer or get high on methane, and plan your next trade deal, a compelling con, or find a mate compatible to your DNA. But whatever you do, don’t piss off the bartender. Your prosperity, or your demise belongs in her hands. She owns the First Contact Café, and your soul.

And finally (for now), my story “mist-in-the-woods” will be coming out in Tales from an Alien Campfire, an anthology from the Campcon Writers and edited by Phyllis Irene Radford, in March. No links there yet.

There’s at least one other story in the works, and another book. So my publishing 2015 is already off to a good start.

On the self-publishing front, I just finished putting this book together:

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It’s more of a novelette than a novella, and I haven’t written the blurb yet, which is why I haven’t posted it. Brain tired tonight. Anyway, it’s a Bess Fielding story, kind of a warmup to Netwalk’s Children. Which I am starting. Real. Soon. Now. After I write “Valentine Disruptions,” which is going to be the last Diana and Will story, having them chasing the Disruption Machine around on what was supposed to be Parents’ Night Out over Valentine’s.

I’ve got another story on deck for February, or maybe I’ll make it a March pub.

I am pretty happy with this little novella from a production point of view. I think I’m getting the hang of prepping a MS in Word through final edits, then moving it over to Scrivener for the final pieces. Gimp was reasonably kind to me today, only throwing one monkey wrench into the layout, and while I’m not completely happy with the cover the fact that I didn’t have to completely wrestle it into submission is a good thing. The back matter really should have a cut from “Valentine Disruptions” in it but that’s still pretty rough. I’ll see how I feel about it tomorrow.

Anyway, after the making of ebook above, I went to the doctor for a regular checkup, picked up Mocha’s portable shed for Wallowa County life (i.e., heavy turnout blanket with detachable neck) from the mailbox, then came home and pinned the monster front window curtains. This set–for the two big front windows–is slightly bigger than the two big side windows. But I got the pinning done. I’ll sew them tomorrow, then prepare to attack the big side window curtains.

So yeah. Quiet from me right now is a good thing because it means I’m doing a lot of stuff. I haven’t talked about hauling a ton of sand over to the shared garden on the Coast (Saturday), or Mocha’s progress (good but she’s stiff on that right side. Time for another appointment).

The days are just packed right now. And that’s without starting to do a lot of actual packing of things. Yet.

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A quiet Christmas

In past years, I’ve spent Christmas running around doing this or that. When the son was still in school, I was also active in the church and doing Christmas Eve mass liturgies, either as reader or singer. Then, when teaching, there was always the crazy buzzing around as we counted down from Thanksgiving until Christmas. We had to do productive work, but whatever unit I brought on line had to be quick, easy to do, and fun. I did like turning the Christmas/winter picture books into one act plays (Jan Brett books are great for this) as a class writing project, but as test scores became more important and I got sucked into doing more paperwork stuff and test prep stuff, the plays went into the trash heap. Too bad, because I think the kids enjoyed doing them. Oh well.

This year was definitely a transition year. Sometime in October I suddenly switched out of Teacher Brain and into Retail Artisan Brain, otherwise known as oh crap I have NOTHING READY FOR CHRISTMAS PROMOTION. So, um, I’ve been fixing that. I know I’ve commented on this before, but between urgent rush production stuff, scrambling to meet some anthology deadlines, bringing horse back into condition, and other stuff, I’ve–uh–been busy and not being paying a lot of attention to the house and to the season. Knowing it’s a transitional year is also an issue, plus, damn it, the snow levels are such that I’ve not wanted to go up skiing yet (and, in fact, there’s not been enough snow to contemplate skiing unless I really wanted to turn my skis into rock skis).

Last week I also did something incredibly stupid and bricked my phone. Then I panicked, and went to my cell phone provider to deal with it instead of Apple. Needless to say, I’ve learned that going direct to Apple is the wiser course these days, and had many thanks for my son who helped me recover from the idiocy. But that was a day and a half or so lost due to dealing with those issues.

And then last Saturday, with a holiday book reading, was kind of the end of the promotional year. I did put Christmas Shadows out as a separate story e-book,  put it into Kindle Unlimited, set it to go free on Christmas Eve, and I’m now mulling over the results. Very interesting. I did make it into the Amazon Top 100 Free Under One Hour Romance list–well, okay, on last look I was still there. I think my highest was 45 and last look was 59. Hmmm. Food for thought.

Meanwhile, a good friend shattered her heel while setting up an artisan shop. I’m trying to pop in and see her a couple of times a week and help out when I can. There’s other local friends with issues. Plus the remodeling at Farpoint is now kicking into high gear, and we’re probably going for the home stretch big finale now. I have many things to do, and I’m scattered between all of them. Things like making curtains, buying construction materials, etc.  Shoot, the “buying curtain fabric” stuff ended up taking about three hours and two trips, in the long run.

So yeah. This year was a quiet Christmas. Yesterday, hubby, the son, and I went out for breakfast. Then hubby and I went to the barn while the son went to do tech stuff for a friend. We gathered in the early evening and had dinner, presents, and veged out. More vegging today with a nice breakfast, pizza for lunch, and then Peacock Lane and leftovers for dinner. I worked on a story I have due to an editor (rough draft almost done, yay) until I’d thrashed that thing to death, then cut out curtains before going to Peacock Lane. I worked a little bit on a show ribbon wreath this evening, and I’m now fading.

The year heads on toward its conclusion. 2015 is going to bring in a new era. Damn, I hope I can pull some of this stuff off.

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December at Farpoint

Winding down after another day at Renovation/Remodeling World, Enterprise Version. Hey, we had mountains this morning, and then the fog moved in. But it was a high fog, and temps warmed above freezing, so with ski base layers and other stuff I could move around freely. We are within striking distance of getting the basement free of dust and stuff (old coal dust….we still have the old Fairbanks-Morse coal stoker in the old coal bin, and pulled out about ten pounds of coal. But still. Coal dust. Must go.).

Tried to write this morning but with the urgency of various errands to run around the County, including a 20 mile drive to Wallowa to pick up insulation, I got maybe about 300 words in. Doesn’t have the flow of the words I lost the other day, but oh well. Words got put down. Then it was drive down to Wallowa in the Dakota to pick up what I thought would be insulation rolls…but turned out to be batts. 30 packages of batts. 4 at a time in the Dakota. Luckily, I was able to figure out a way to keep from having to drive so far so many times and we got all 30 packages to the house. Then, after further Adventures in Basement Cleaning, we met with the contractor for Phase II (floors, porch and more windows). After that, between the two of us, we hoisted those 30 packages to the attic, for further work. Not me doing that, fortunately…just the hubby. But we got an oil delivery done, got the insulation on site, and are now down to mopping the basement. Getting there.

Meanwhile, I keep searching online for more information about that Fairbanks-Morse coal stoker and getting nowhere. It’s definitely a 1920s-1940s thing. Burgundy and cream, and when the tongue of the stoker was buried under junk, we thought it was possibly a Coca Cola cooler. Nope. It would be nice to find out if it’s worth anything, but unless there’s major $$$$$ involved, I’m not pulling it out of that corner now.

Since we don’t have TV service here, we went out to watch the Ducks game (seriously, this is not a place where rabbit ears or anything short of a subscription will get you even basic TV). Good grief, the team I grew up with snatching defeat from the jaws of victory is now winning and is #2 in the country. Huh.

And now the publisher drama has escalated. Apparently they are “redefining their image” to be family friendly. Not sure what that means yet. Hoping that means they will be willing to release the fantasy novel that I absolutely don’t think will a.) meet their criteria and b.) is not something I want to revise to meet that criteria. Drama continues. Of course it all comes to a head when I’m out of town and have iffy Internet. Isn’t that the way it works? I can hardly wait to get reliable Internet access here. Right now I’m limited to cell phone connectivity, and that’s iffy. Tonight is an exception because I have access to regular Internet.

Thinking thinky thoughts about where I need to go as an independent writer. Somehow, I have to get past my usual trend of catching the wave just as it’s broken and not earning a good ride because of bad timing. Somehow, I’ve gotta figure out a way to balance family and myself so that I can catch that break at just the right time.

My gut tells me this next year may be crucial. But dear God, what obstacles lie in my way? So freaking tired of freaking obstacles, while watching others seem to glide on through with no problems. When will it be my turn?

Ah well. A brief moment of angst. Sooner or later it will happen…or not, as the case may be. It didn’t happen with horses, much as I wanted it, because I realized what I needed to do far too many years after I had the physical capabilities to do it. The recession and those fucking education reformers exploded my hopes and dreams for making a difference in special education work (my perception is that we’re going to have to fight to regain where we were in the late 90s, pre-No Child Left Behind). Damnit, one of these days I’ve gotta find something that works.

Or maybe not. Maybe I’m doomed to the same curse as my ancestors….coming to the end of my days with nothing more than a small ripple of effect on the world, my stories barely heard, my voice effectively silenced, despite years of raging and fighting and arguing against being silenced. Thirty years ago I was being silenced because I was young and cute and blond. Now…it’s because I’m old and female.

Damn it.

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Of Writing, and Thanksgiving, and Horses

I swear I will not let the holiday season catch me unprepared again.

I swear I will not let the holiday season catch me unprepared again.

I swear I will not let the holiday season catch me unprepared again.

You’d think I would have remembered all the hard-earned lessons from selling jewelry online in the 90s and applied them to the hybrid writing life. Plan for the Christmas season. Have Christmas promotions and product ready by September. Do not be scrambling to produce work in the middle of the season. But I was locked into teacher brain, not retail artisan brain, and so instead of scrambling throughout the summer to make sure I had my seasonal book production lined up, I was decompressing. It’s really only been the past few weeks, since just before Orycon, that I’ve been scrambling to get the writing finished and either published or submitted, much less run through beta editors.

Well. This is the last year that’s gonna happen. Next year I will know what my holiday season books will be and have them ready in plenty of time, instead of just in time. I’d also been counting on a small press publication which appears to be going nowhere. Sigh.

Meanwhile, I’m getting the last piece of the book I hope to have out by mid-December wrapped up now. It was supposed to be a short story. Now it’s careening recklessly toward novelette territory, and could spin off into its own novel. Maybe I’ll premier it as a serial story, and publish subsequent installments over the course of this next year. Hmm. Could publish it separately for free as well…Hmm.

Thanksgiving is going to be low key. I get up in the morning, go ride horse, come home, get cleaned up, cook gluten-free dressing (already made blueberry crisp and spelt biscuits), then go to a friend’s house for restrained debauchery. If I’m lucky I’ll get time to wrap up the story tomorrow.

Horse is definitely in rehab mode. While most of our work is still in walk and mostly in straight lines, I’ve thrown her a sop in the form of four laps of working trot (about a half mile, two laps per direction) and four long side of the arena canters (again, two per direction). We’re also doing haunches and forehand turns, as well as backing in circles. That’s enough to keep her happy, as she does seem to get tired of doing nothing but walking. She perks right up when she gets to think about using herself, and I’m up in two-point while doing it.

But at least the writing is moving along, the horse seems to be improving, and perhaps we’re getting more movement on other things going on in the life.

Onward.

 

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Fallout from the storm of rage activism in SF

Deep breath. This is a SFF insider post, so if you aren’t in that world, a lot of this won’t mean much to you. Additionally, I know that I have Facebook followers who are right of center/white/male, and if you jump in on this post to bash ideology, make arch and to-you witty statements about political correctness (in most cases about things in which you have little to no knowledge and I KNOW IT), you WILL get blocked. By me. This is NOT for your discussion. You know who you are. This isn’t for you. Mean Former Middle School Teacher will enforce proper polite behavior. You have been warned. That includes comments about tone policing, censorship and #notall…whatever.

So. Second deep breath. Onward.

I have been deeply distressed by the progression of the Requires Hate/Benjanun Sriduangkaew explosion and what it reveals about social justice ideals, concepts and thinking as a tool to bash others. Rage activism as a tool of silencing.

As a former political activist of the left persuasion, I’m not unfamiliar with the tactics used–they were very common during my activist days in the late 20th/early 21st century. Mobbing, friending only to turn on you when you either challenge the established order or seek to advance above the leader of the pack, making ideological mistakes because one is still learning…oh yeah, seen them used in the name of political advancement and climbing up the political ladder. There are people in Oregon politics who have lost my support forever due to their behavior at the lower levels of activism, though most of those who have used those techniques of silencing opponent voices have, ironically, ended up being silenced themselves. I’ve been an occasional rage activist myself, trying to be an ally in the political world, but never had the stomach to carry it far enough to destroy someone else’s political career or silence their voice. That was a line I did not want to cross. I simply wanted people to understand that they had made a mistake and needed to reconsider. I didn’t want to destroy or silence my opposition.

And that is at stake here. I read comments and worry from people of color who have been silenced. From people with non-traditional sexuality who have been silenced. From alter-abled people. From older people, specifically women, who have been silenced. That isn’t right. Repeat: that isn’t right.

When did correction become silencing?

We all make mistakes. When did a mistake or misunderstanding become grounds to destroy or silence someone? When did destruction instead of education become the goal?

When did the ideals of social justice become tools to destroy or silence someone? Yes, the opponents of social justice have no qualms about using these techniques, and to be honest, if the RH/BS thing had happened in the political world, I’d be thinking agent provocateur, because that’s how agents provocateur destroy movements. I’ve seen it done. It’s a major tell for me in a social justice movement. But does such rage activism justify counter-tactics that are identical?

Anger and frustration at being repressed, throttled, and minimalized are necessary and real emotions. That’s what drives activism and keeps people going in order to change unjust situations. You need to be angry when injustice appears. But turning those emotions on those who would be allies, on those who are oppressed rather than the oppressors, is not the appropriate use of rage in activism. It doesn’t create a movement. It is not a tool of creation but a tool of destruction. It doesn’t change the world. The world does not usually change overnight with forceful intervention, and when it does, what results isn’t usually better. Change is frustratingly incrementalist, and it’s a long game. I have my own personal examples of some changes I’ve seen happen, but it’s taken damn near thirty years of persistent and steady activism to create those circumstances.

It doesn’t necessarily mean we need to be nicey-nicey sweety-sweety all the time. But being aware of that line between correction and destruction needs to exist. Being aware of the ultimate goal–changing hearts and minds–needs to exist. Being aware of the need to wrench the face of SF away from those who would keep it European white male with token women, people of color, and people of alternative sexualities needs to exist. The bottom line is that if it destroys, if it tears down, without the option to rebuild…then perhaps it needs to be reconsidered.

It is possible to critique fairly without resorting to the techniques of personal destruction. It is possible to speak the truth to power without being destructive.  It is possible to say “Your presumptions are wrong and here is why” without lashing out and attacking. Yes, it’s hard. Yes, that means constant repetition. Yes, that means gritting teeth and repeating the 101 education courses.

But rage does not justify the excesses of hyperbole. Eventually, such hyperbole can and will turn back on you, whether professional, political, or personal.

I don’t know what the answer is. But I would ask that we create safe spaces for those who feel threatened. That we allow newer writers to grow and find their voices with appropriate criticism without nuking their mistakes. That we look carefully at those who use the language of destruction to critique those with whom they disagree, even when we agree with the substance but not the tone of their commentary.

It all starts with the individual. Let’s go from there. And that’s my statement.

(reminder, I can and will block, edit, or otherwise manage those who will be destructive in my spaces. Former middle school teacher here. I’ve dealt with these issues IRL, and have no qualm about doing so in virtual in order to maintain civil discourse–and it’s MY definition which counts)

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Well, that was a birthday

I am now the same age as the last two digits of my birth year. Auspicious or what? I’m taking it to be a promising new development and plan to make the most of it. The day started out pretty well with my first email being the notice that Shadow Harvest is now live on Kindle. Let the promotional games begin….

I went onward to showers of birthday messages on Facebook. I have to love that part of Facebook because the birthday messages started the day before and they’re still trickling in, as people check their Facebook accounts. There are some things that social media does right and that’s one of them. Once again, thanks to everyone who shared. I couldn’t answer all the messages but I loved every one of them. Thanks, folks.

Mocha time was pretty anti-climactic, nothing big or dramatic there.

Then I joined a friend for a drink, plus a visit to a comic book store. We shared a few laughs and thoughts, then I came home. Had a lovely takeout dinner provided by the husband and just plain partied out (as much as one does as a member of Club 57).

So I’m a little slow and fuzzy this morning, but that’s okay since I am just plain waiting around for a serviceperson. Have some work to do, primarily promotional for Shadow Harvest, plus finishing off Alien Savvy, then plotting and planning for two short stories and a novel.

Onward.

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New things on the writing front

Right now I find myself playing with some of the writing things I am doing. Between editorial work and my own stuff in different stages of production (both self and small indie press), I’m juggling about five different projects and figuring out how to advance work on some others.

Additionally, Mocha’s white line disease flared again, in the old site, and I’m having to check on it daily, plus get her out of her stall for a little bit to do some light work. We are at the stage of doing White Lightning soaks (at 45 minutes) three times a week on the affected foot and last weekend I did maintenance soaks on the other three hooves. I was doing iodine and Epsom salts soaks every other day, but I’ve decided that maybe that’s a bit of overkill. So I’m just doing an iodine flush on the days I’m not doing White Lightning. Which is a chlorine compound (oxine) that, when mixed with vinegar, creates a gas that fumigates the hoof and kills the dang fungus that causes white line. This fungus is the same dang fungus that humans get in fingernails, and oxine/White Lightning works on it. It’s just a challenge to find ways to get the White Lightning to where the fungus is in a horse hoof, especially since the horse is walking on it.

Ergo, the gassy soak. Mix White Lightning and vinegar, and pour it into a bag that can contain the gas for an extended period of time. Regular hoof boots don’t retain enough gas by volume to be effective. So it has to be a bag, and the bags for sale are not cheap. But finding a bag that is a.) cheap and b.) durable requires some thought. I’ve found that gallon generic freezer bags reinforced with duct tape works nicely. Yes, I was raised redneck. Anyway. Tie the bag with a strand of whatever you have handy to tie with, and proceed to bribe entertain the horse for 45 minutes of hanging out in the crossties.

Yeah. Time consuming. So very glad I’m not teaching right now. As it were, once this hit, I realized I had to focus a bit more on the writing organization if I was going to keep the writing AND the book production together.

It’s not perfect, but I think I’m starting to develop a system. Which is good, because:

Shadow Harvest needs pictures, perhaps a cover revision (must do research first), then compile and check, plus PR copy. I still plan to release it at the end of October.

Alien Savvy is chugging along for release in November. This is a 5500 word short story that I’m blowing up into a novelette. The way it’s going (I added some scenes), I think it could easily crack 15,000 to 20,000 words. It’s an interesting little Cuban Missile Crisis-era Western story with aliens and UFO conspiracies, and features a nice little buckskin cutting horse mare. I have no freaking idea what the market will be for this story, but I’m having fun with it.

I plan to release an omnibus edition of Winter Shadows and Shadow Harvest in December.

Netwalk’s Children. Dear God, what can I say about Netwalk’s Children? This is the toughest book of the series, in part because I’m trying to be so mindful about it and I’ve also written a lot of words just playing with this world. I have also decided that this is going to be the book that I compose entirely in Scrivener, including the notes. I’ve gotta have a system with this series. It’s getting too big and too complex. That said, I’m finding it to be a help. Now I just have to get to the point where I’m ready to write.

Seeking Shelter at the End of the World (eTreasures Publishing). I should be getting galleys next week for a projected October 27th release. I also need to start promotional work, but the release date needs to be firmed up.

Plus there are editing jobs and beta reads to keep up with. How on earth did I ever do this when I was working? And there are move-related things which will become more imperative as time passes, and, and, and….

I am developing systems. I am trying things out. I’m reading books about writing and being mindful and conscious of what I am doing. I’m also thinking about where I want to go with this career, which comes back to–what do I want to write?

Growth is happening. I need to find my place to thrive. Perhaps that is coming…soon.

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Reflections on men and feminism (long and rambly)

The short version of this particular set of musings is: it’s complicated. My feminism is inflected and informed by a 60’s childhood raised in contradictory but powerful influences. I’m the product of at least two (and most likely more) generations of strong and opinionated frontier farm women (Grandma was a chicken farmer; Mom could grow one heckva garden, can, and raise a good flock of layers and fryers). I also got exposed to a particularly toxic form of fundamentalist Christian repression of women in my late teens through school Bible groups and the Christian college I attended–Basic Youth Conflicts, one of Bill Gothard’s groups (go here for the Wikipedia TL:DR version). However, I never quite fell within the lure of Basic Youth, especially after I went off to college and discovered Ms. Magazine. Various adventures with conservative religious boyfriends which usually ended up with me being handed things to mend also had an influence, plus growing up in Springtucky and getting hassled by men for being blond and big-busted.

My family followed rather traditional roles that I viewed with a jaundiced eye as I got older. It didn’t help that during my high school and early undergraduate career, any boyfriends I had soon got chased away when we decided it would be romantic to take classes together. Um. Yeah. The first time I got a better grade than boyfriend did, it was bye-bye. I had three boyfriends in my college years who took me seriously as an intellectual; I married one of them nearly thirty-three years ago.

But there was more to the man I married than just taking me seriously as a thinker. One of the light entertainments of politically oriented students at the University of Oregon during my era was engaging with the different right-wing preachers who ranted at U of O students as part of their ministry. Of course, what they didn’t know is that about half the students arguing were liberals from the neighboring Christian college who were honing their theological arguments…but I digress. The man I married took extreme exception to one of these preachers personally threatening me by getting into that preacher’s face. He also did things like cook for me when I was working as an organizer on the previous boyfriend’s campaign. He wasn’t and isn’t perfect, but he “got it” (in the terms of a recent internet discussion about men and feminism) at an early age, in part because, like me, he was the son of a working mother who carried quite a bit of weight in the family economy. The personal was political for him at a very early age. He had a personal stake in understanding feminism because he saw it on a daily basis.  Was and is his feminist awareness perfect? Nope. Neither is mine, and I don’t think anyone can make that claim about themselves.

Way back when my son was little, we attended an indoor park for toddlers. It was all female, until a single at-home father started attending with his daughter. Many of the women were feminist. Did all of them embrace his attendance? Um. No. But enough of us did that we banded together over the others’ attempts to exclude the father and got ourselves elected to the governing board. I remember being heartily annoyed by complaints about insensitive spouses, but then the rejecting shoulder to a father walking the talk.

As part of the upbringing my husband received, he’s a nurturing male who has no qualms about doing housework. Our housework divisions in past years have fallen either into skill areas (yours truly doesn’t have chainsaw skills and arthritic hands mean if I do, it will be with a light saw; I still end up doing the sewing) or allergy areas (water used to irritate my eczema and dust irritates his sinuses). He likes cooking, while I like baking and canning. Our son was raised to be nurturing and with the model that the men do the housework. He likes cooking, and when he’s had a partner, part of what he does is cook.

That’s one reason why I get grouchy with those who complain about men who apparently don’t Get It about feminism until injustice touches their wives, their daughters, their sisters. If you look back far enough, every man who Gets It had that little spark of feminist awareness fanned by some sort of personal stake, whether it was watching his mother struggle or his sisters struggle. Somehow, somewhere, personal connection fueled awareness. That’s how people learn and develop politically. That’s why consciousness raising is such a crucial task in developing and maintaining a movement, and sitting back to think that it’s all done is folly. That’s why, no matter what the issue is, dear God, we have to have basic Feminism/Racism/Ageism/Ableism/etc 101, because there will always be someone new who Doesn’t Get It, until the personal becomes political and awareness flares into being for that individual. It would be nice if people were born with their consciousness raised, alleluia, alleluia, but by golly, unless we all suddenly get raptured into some sort of progressive heaven, it ain’t happening (Let’s listen, for example, to how men talk about what they’ve lost by never being able to express their nurturing sides due to traditional male roles. We have to be honest and listen to that oppression as well).

Until we reach the understanding that we are all people together, and that we should respect each other, we’re not going to get anywhere. Slamming folks for not immediately developing advanced awareness is foolish. Awareness is a learning process. We don’t expect kids to enter school reading at a twelfth grade level (at least not yet), nor do we expect to be immediately proficient in a new language. The same is true for all forms of awareness. So yes, there will always be a need for Basic Consciousness Raising, and excluding or condemning people because they are insufficiently advanced is just another form of exclusionary arrogance. It’s acceptable to be annoyed about it sometimes, as long as you take a deep breath and acknowledge that learning is hard for both student and teacher.

And with that, I’m not only tired and have probably bored everyone, but I wanna go play with my new sewing machine. Curtain-making awaits. I’m gonna go be creative in a new way.

Have fun, y’all, and remember to pay it forward. That means being patient when it’s time to trot out the 101 learning. Everyone had to start there sometime.

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A ranty morning

What is it about today? Already I’ve gone off on someone about Patrick McLaw (the Maryland African-American teacher detained allegedly because of the themes in his self-published sf books), and now I’m all ranty from a pompous interview in the Guardian with Ian McEwan. Since I’ve exhausted myself with McLaw (let’s just say I’m pissed, pissed, pissed), I’ll just rant a little bit about the McEwan.

Keep in mind that he’s a mainstream writer considered to be writing about family and drama. I think it was the subplot of his newest work that set me off originally, with the 60-year-old husband wanting “one last go” at a grand affair. Grrr. I’m afraid that these days, I wouldn’t make it past the first few pages of a work with that subplot element. I’m sick and tired of the glorification of the male sexual fantasy, especially in a work where the author is allegedly trying to think like a professional woman with homelife drama who encounters a big ethical challenge. Dear God, take me now. Ugh. Can we just say cliched, overdone, trite? Quite frankly, I think “spouse fed up with his work and wanting to retire” or “spouse dealing with onset of illness” is probably more realistic as homelife drama, unless one happens to be part of a particular rich and privileged class. Affairs? Jesus, John Updike did that to death. I don’t care what genre it is, if there’s an affair involved, I’m probably going to throw the damn book against the wall. It’s why I don’t spend much time on the literary genre. Male infidelity is just so done in fiction, in my opinion.

Maybe I’ve just had too many other family dramas in my life to be able to engage with the egotism involved in a man’s desire for an affair. I don’t know. The concept of “one last go” is somewhat offensive to me. Either you’re monogamous and you both agree, or else you’re poly and the rules and structures exist for how you engage with others and it’s No. Big. Deal. To be monogamous, and then have this one last desire for a fling with someone else is profoundly so much a violation of the original relationship (in my opinion) that the other person is justified in chucking the whole relationship and ripping the man to shreds in the court system.

Yeah. So please slap me if I ever decide to write such a thing.

There are aspects of McEwan’s interview that I like. He’s unapologetically placing himself in “what he calls the ‘family division’ of English prose.” I like his advocacy for bringing work back into contemporary writing. I just–I don’t know. Something about the tone of the description of the latest work set me off. Probably it’s more an argument with the character in the latest book who feels himself entitled to ask for permission to have an affair. It’s the male gaze issue

And probably a huge chunk of it is that the sort of sf and fantasy I want to write is more of that sort of family interactions and dynamics stuff. The as-yet undisclosed heart of the Netwalk Sequence involves some very dark and horrible stuff that happened within the Stephens family. It was kept successfully hushed up for over a hundred years. It explains a lot of Sarah’s dynamics, and her star-crossed relationship with Francis Stewart. Only I also bring in gadgets and tech and other stuff because, well…I like boom today. Boom tomorrow as well, but boom today is good. Anthony Trollope in space is fun. So is Jane Austen, the Brontes, and etc.

But it’s not taken as serious writing within the genre, unless you get very, very lucky and you write about the male protagonists. Me, I like playing with multi-generational female protagonists, including the additional drama of reproductive realities. So yeah. Probable obscurity.

However, I intend to have fun doing it. And now my ranty mcrantypants rantage is done. Whew. That’s enough for one day.

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