Hi!
I write stuff. And here, I mostly write about writing stuff and about writing-related issues. I've been posting poems, lately, and am likely to keep doing so.

Do feel free to friend me -- I shall be thrilled. And do feel free to unfriend me -- I shall not be hurt. Though, if you are a real-life friend I'd like to know why -- because if I hurt your feelings I'd like to mend that, and if I didn't I'd like not to have to fret :)

I'd also love it to pieces if you tell me a bit about yourself, if I'm unlikely to know you from your lj name (my lj powers are weak). At some point when I'm finding it a bit less overwhelming, I'll be friending people back; I just haven't the focus to figure it all out just now.

I think that's everything for now :)

I've been sitting on this news for a bit now -- but I see that it's out!

Sultana Lena's Gift has been accepted for publication by Realms of Fantasy*, making it Doug's first slush survivor to be bought by the new RoF :)

Sultana Lena's Gift features some of the same characters as my story in Shimmer's Clockwork Jungle issue, The Mechanical Aviary of Emperor Jalal-ud-din Muhammad Akbar. It's set a little earlier, and based on an actual historical incident (except that the historical incident had a sad lack of solar-powered mechanical soldiers).

I am, of course, thrilled :)

And I just got both the RoF contract and my Strange Horizons contract for Charms, which is a truly lovely way to procrastinate on the diss. YAY!

ETA: Wow, thank you all so much! It's a lovely feeling to wander off into dissertation land and come back to so many kind thoughts. *feels warm fuzzies and shares them round*



* This does not mean RoF is open for subs -- they're not.
For context about where things are at -- I submitted this story in September, and it was on Shawna's desk when the magazine went down. While (as I understand it) Doug is totally done with the pre-closing slush backlog, Shawna's not; there are still later slush survivors on her desk.

I am still getting over the Brainfuzz of Doom, and it'll be a while before I approach smart again -- but you make up for it, people on the internets :)


In the comments to ellen_kushner 's timely sputtering about FAIL on urban fantasy in a Salon article, tithenai says: Also ... In what way is "urban fantasy" bounded by "the contemporary world"? Last I checked the world was not exclusively urban. I wouldn't call Peter Beagle's Tamsin urban fantasy, nor Terri Windling's The Wood Wife. Surely "urban fantasy" should mean not only fantasy in an urban setting, but fantasy that explicitly engages with that setting in a way that informs the story?

Also, her icon hits my academic geekery in the bestest way possible.

On writers and jealousy, which I am so very lucky to have mostly escaped so far, raecarson says: Unless you start actively looking for other reasons why someone is agented/published besides the smug, masturbatory “she got lucky” or “he eschewed artistic integrity in favor of commercial success” or “she has connections,” then guess what? You’ll never get better. You’re so invested in creating a reality in which you are a suffering, misunderstood genius that you will never face the truth and find success for yourself.

It's the flip side of the "OMG anyone I like reading is perfect and if you don't like them you're just jealous" coin; both are ways of avoiding the sort of critical thinking that actually helps us improve.  And given that I'm especially prone to defensiveness when attacked by The Brainfuzz, it's a timely reminder :)

On objecting to the "unnatural", redbird says: Referring to things as "natural" says more about the speaker than about the things. Hemlock, strychnine, and arsenic are as natural as fresh fruit and solar energy.
redbird  also has great thoughts about thinking about RaceFail, which I cannot possibly summarize and don't wanna quote out of context.

All these posts and comment threads are, I think, really good and useful thinkyjuice.

Here are things so far that are worth mention but don't fit on my list :)




Featuring but not mainly about POC:
Francesca Lia Block, Weetzie Bat books
Michael de Larrabeiti, The Borrible trilogy
Tamora Pierce, The Circle of Magic quartet/The Circle Opens quartet/The Will of the EmpressGraphic novels: 
Runaways

Not fantastical, but by POC about POC and awesome:
Sherman Alexie, Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
Louise Erdrich, The Birchbark House, The Game of Silence
Naomi Hirahara, 1001 Cranes
RK Narayan, Swami and Friends

Some helpful blogs suggested to me, with suggester's comments (I haven't followed 'em yet):

ETA: This list is still in progress but I absolutely need to get a dissertation chapter to my committee before updating.

I have been making 'em. Because a) I love YA, so I need these, b) The Carl Brandon Society has several wonderful lists but not a specific YA one yet, so this fills a gap (and is mostly made up of suggestions from the CBS listserv, as well as suggestions and resources from sdn .) and c) I'm co-modding a YA fantasy roundtable at MythCon and realized my knowledge of the sort of YA about POC is shameful.  This is the first step towards fixing that.

It's doubtless woefully incomplete, but it's a work in progress.
And I haven't read nearly everything here, so please tell me what doesn't fit, or if I have anyone in the wrong category; I've done the best internetsearching I can, but I'm basically going off suggestions.
And I haven't liked everything I've read (a couple books have problem-notes).  But it's a start!

ETA: There's so much stuff here that's worth noting even if it doesn't fit on these lists that I've started an addendum here.


( Big long list 1: YA novels by POC about POC that are more or less the same sort of POC they are  )


( Intermission (little list 1): YA graphic novels by POC about POC that are more or less the same sort of POC they are )

( Big Long List 2: YA Novels by 'non-POC' that are about POC of a different sort from them )



Thoughts? Additions? Fixes? Cookies?

I'm currently reading over the galleys for Pishaach. Excitement!

It looks like part of a book. With the fonts and, and... yes, yes, I know it is part of a book, but this is still strange and new and wonderful.

Of course, the excitement and delight are tinged with writerly neurosis. As follows:

1) I'm finding absolutely nothing wrong with this copy, and while I know that just means it's a lovely clean galley (set of galleys? I don't even know the syntax of galleys, I'm so new to them), I still wish I had found a missing period or something. Because that would mean I wasn't missing errors.

Well... actually, no it wouldn't, but it would comfort my neuroses. Because of course if I can't find anything wrong I must be missing something!

ETA: Found a couple of typos! I feel much better now.

2) I keep wanting to fiddle with my phrasing, because a) I wrote this story in late '06 and edited it in late '07, and have grown as a writer since, and b) nothing drives me quite as crazy as the notion that I cannot change it any more. Especially given the amazing and somewhat daunting company I'll be in in this anthology.

eep!
But mostly --

So, I wasn't going to do this. I was going to keep my fiction-life and my academic-life separate. Oh well, that lasted well into my... first diss chapter.

Heh.


Here's the thing -- I could use opinions, especially from people who read various types of comics. Is it common to draw main characters somewhat more schematically and less realistically, with simpler lines, than secondary characters? I think very few comics do it quite to the extent of the delightful Shi Long Pang, or the differently delightful Bone, but I have this intuition that I've seen it a fair amount. Even though I'm not currently finding many examples.  ETA: scriitor points out that I missed Tintin.  Not sure how I did that, except maybe that I mistakenly remembered everyone being as roundheaded as him.
So, thoughts?


And apropos of not much else (except the fact that I've been rereading it for examples), I'd like to point people at Dicebox. The art starts good and gets wonderful, the characters are complex and interesting, and it's SF that gets both that sense of awe-inspiring scope and that sense of worlds being lived in, where stuff breaks down, where there are inequities people get mad about and there's dirty work to be done. And enough Neat Stuff that for all its problems, this is a future I'd like to live in (and maybe could exist in; there are plenty of people of various ethnicities in these worlds).

Goodness, Mythcon is like 2 weeks from now.
It's the first con this year my lungs may actually let me make it to.  Hopefully!  I'm supposed to be co-moderating the YA fantasy roundtable, which is I think on Sat. morning, but should check.

Anyone I'm not expecting to see planning to be there?
I'm currently expecting to see sartorias , elsmi , kirizal , voidmonster , and whswhs .
And of course  buddhistmippo.

Am I missing anyone?  Am I going to be happily surprised by anyone?

Well, it's June... *waves*
Been sick all month, and just getting better enough to work on the dissertation again.

But I've been noticing a pattern again and wonder if other people have it too -- namely that I seem to have four different brains.

ETA: Just in case this is unclear, I'm not going for any sort of cogent analysis, just babbling about how it feels. What's actually going on is doubtless a lot more complex than I could possibly access consciously, and not nearly so structured, but I really do seem to function in entirely differnt modes.

1) The editor/academic brain.
These two seem to be one and the same, because I have been entirely unable to edit the two story drafts I have languishing while I'm working on the dissertation. Even though I'm not editing the diss, I'm writing the first draft. This brain is that -- ability to think precisely, rather than go with what feels right just now, and think about how the words will affect the reader while I write.

The editor/academic brain dies at the first sign of fuzziness. If I'm not breathing pretty well, it's just gone. This is probably why I spent four years making no diss progress.

2) The prose-writer brain
This one can handle a little bit of fuzz. I don't have to be thinking incisively to imagine a narrative and immerse myself in a character's point of view, and I seem to plot by imagining. But once I'm immersed in a narrative it's pretty unpleasant to pull out of it and think about the dissertation.

3) The poetry-writer brain
This one seems to thrive on brainfuzz. Lines of poetry come into my head when I'm trying to fall asleep or not wanting to wake up, or when I'm far too out of it even to read. That's when I get free-associative, I guess, and the things that have been bothering me that I've been ignoring bubble up. Though they also turn up when I'm in the shower -- perhaps it's just that the poetry requires not being distracted by a zillion different thoughts?

Of course editing the poetry or the prose require editor brain, which has been completely taken up with discussing iconicity and metaphor in Comics as compared to language. So I'm feeling pretty unproductive as a writer just now. But when I get back to the novel, my main MC gets to threaten my female MC with a crosssbow, so that will be fun :)

4) The artist brain
This one comes on without warning -- words stop making sense and all I want to do is draw, or carve candles, or make something. And it's also all I'm good for for a while. It's a little disorienting, the extent to which I stop being a language-centered person, but I'm pretty confident at this point that the words will come back.

Anyone else have something like this, or am I just overthinking this?

Er, I mean... hi?

I've been off in tendonitis/family crisis/ear infection land. All of which is... well, getting better, I think. And hope.

However, I've also been making dissertation progress, which is a Precious And Important Thing. That's basically been taking all my wrists can handle, so I haven't been hopping on lj (though I bet I'm missing awesome bittercon conversations).

I figure I'll be back in June, maybe? But I miss my lj friends, so wanted to pop on to say a brief hi and, y'know, mention that I'm Not Dead Yet.

And I got a wonderful call-out from Beth Wodzinski of Shimmer, so I also wanted to squee a bit :)

...Er, and Beltane.

Specially for lutin, here is a sonnet + a bit of head-explodiness for cognitive linguists. Because it's a copy of a sonnet I wrote, but it is not the sonnet I wrote. This confuses matters enough that I wasn't going to share it -- but given that this seems to glance off fictive interaction stuff, in that the space the written words (the form) are taken to be in determines the nature of the (semantic) beast, it seemed appropriate for the lutin-elf.



If I write a sonnet in the sand,
unedited, just scribbled part by part,
created by the rhythm of my hand,
then shall we wonder if it may be art?
What gives it sense to justify the form
When every line is written for the rhyme?
Will meaning come emergent when the storm
described this way is but the storm of time?
And if true art lives on, then this is not
If art is great -- again, my words are small
A work of moments etched upon a spot
that, in some hours, will not be here at all.

Like mortals, then, my mortal work abides
for moments, to be lost beneath the tides.

---


Also, I seem to have seen the sun up. Hi, Sun. Very seasonal of you.
Good night.

From The Grin Without A Cat:

But what made this doubly-interesting was when-- on a whim-- I googled the first line of the first story and what came out was Eugene Fisher's Husbandry in Strange Horizons. The others were Nira and I by Shweta Narayan, The Spider in You by Sean E. Markey, and Turning the Apples by Tina Connolly. A-ha! The plot thickens!

The web administrator of Strange Horizons-- after I notified them-- had it right: that's embarrassing, finding your work now part of a spreading spam-mail worldwide. But I figured, it's a shame the spammers didn't include the writers' names: that's one hell of an advertising trick for the writers, don't you think?

I'm in good company, anyway... O.o

...And happy birthday naomikritzer :)

I am still encountering WristFail, and also KeyboardFail; fixing the lattter ought to help the former, and a new keyboard is in the mail.
Till then. I'll just share my bit of technopeasantry.

He says

His eyes follow curling trails of incense
and red silk creases
over my breast
You're what a gently nurtured wife should be
he says

I shred spiced peacock wing
a morsel a time into
his mouth.
Not like those other girls
he says from my lap
Messing around with that flute player.
He feels me tense.
I know, he says
It disgusts.

He's exotic, of course.
Skin dark as twilight
sandalwood scentAnd that music.
And you girls like the exotic.
You don't understand
Don't know right
he says. That's why you need husbands.

I smile down at him.
Pomegranate seeds follow peacock wing
One at a time between his lips
red as virgin blood.
Until he sleeps, finally
Sated.
I wrap him in red silk

gather peacock feathers
pick the brightest shivering blue
shred its ragged barbs
slice the shaft
strip it down
for a crown of gold on black hair
And I wait in silence for my flute player
my Shyaam
Who carried a mountain
danced on a serpent
and does not say
I am gently nurtured
And do not understand.

I'd really like AmazonWTF to be a glitch and not bigotry, as I don't want to have to stop using 'em altogether.

And, Two Men For Marriage looks like political speech of the best sort.

I'd say more but WristFail makes this much hard enough *sigh*

John M. Ford's birthday.
And unlike many people on my f-list, I didn't know him. So this is in remembrance of... I don't know. What I knew, who I didn't know.

Happy birthday, Dr. Mike, and thank you. I blame you for the sonnets. This one isn't done, but I'm out of time for now.



I was the kind to pen my stories in --
stay small and risk no (glorious) mistake
He taught me that it matters what we make;
a fine-honed tale lives underneath the skin

Examples pull me harder than advice;
his army-dragons, crashing into war
upset my balance, rattled wide the door
that trapped the bits of me too big for 'nice'.

He helped me stumble out from where I hid
(would he have granted such a major debt?)
And dammit, he was right about regret --
he never knew he taught me what he did

In death, he taught me never just to say,
"I'm tired; I'll meet him on a better day."


Note: Still no wrists. This is my typing quota for the nonce. Going over quota, the 9th was the nephew's 1st birthday. He's walking! Oh the cute.

I have left a lot of convrstions dngling, sorry. Major bad tendontis flare. Hd to stop typing within 5 mins ch tim I've tried in the last 24 hours. Time for a break.

( Behind a cut --please don't answer that after reading this? )

Could I bother people to put spoilery responses behind a cut too? If responses can do that...
Silly Shweta, they can't. Er. So! people shouldn't answer that after reading comments here either :)

ETA: Better question, thanks to early comments:

Grey or Gray?







(ETA again: I'd also love to know if you had a definite opinion on the matter before I asked.)


Original question:
Which is darker, gray or grey?

Sing.

I love you.


Yes, you :)
And check out deepad's wonderful wonderful poem here.

And here's an example of why.

It's part of the picture I'm drawing to accompany scriitor's Clockwork Jungle story (which is an excellent fun story, which I specifically asked to illustrate and should've finished by now)




The part, specifically, is like the top inch or so.  Of the background, which shall be faded out in the final version.

But it's fun!

*facepalm*

Note for artists: perspective is deliberately a bit wonky.  There's a reason for it.