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Sunday, July 20th, 2008
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8:54 pm - Misc
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| Wednesday, July 16th, 2008
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8:55 pm
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Right, the Helix thing.
I've been doing a lot of thinking about this in the past few days. On the one hand, Helix has published some excellent stories. I only just recently enthused over Vylar Kaftan's "Break the Vessel," for instance.
Helix has also published stories by me. Stories I am very proud of. Stories that were essentially unsalable to other markets.
And my business dealings with Mr. Sanders have been absolutely fine--he struck me as a trifle crochety, it's true, but I've got some tolerance for crochety. Hell, some folks have histories that, when you look at it, I'd be surprised if they hadn't turned out crochety. I had and have no idea if Mr. Sanders has such a history, but I was perfectly willing to shrug and say, "Eh, he's like that." Especially since he likes my work. I'm vain, I admit it.
But.
One comes to a point where "Eh, he's like that" doesn't really cover it. Where "but he's always been courteous and professional to me" doesn't suffice.
Over the last day or so, to add to the whole rejection letter business, we've also seen the insulting treatment of authors like Yoon Ha Lee and N. K. Jemisen. The responses to their requests to have their works removed from the Helix website were graceless, resentful, ugly. And the removal of the stories was used as a vehicle for yet another attempt at insult. The whole effect is of a grown man throwing a tantrum, not caring about anything but his anger, not caring that the mud he's flinging is mostly landing on himself. And it sends a clear message to Helix authors--don't you dare ever criticize or disagree with the editor! Do that, and you can just go fuck yourself. Oh, and your stories actually sucked.
Mr. Sanders is, of course, free to have and express whatever opinions he thinks right. He is also free to run Helix in any fashion that seems good to him. As I am free to be unwilling to work with an editor who treats his writers so disrespectfully. Who despises "political correctness," insists on the right to fling ethnic slurs, but then demands that anyone around him approve of his actions, banishing anyone who might question or disapprove--essentially instituting his own brand of political correctness.
I have sold three stories to Helix. Two of them have been published. I was happy and proud to have sold those stories. I'm sure other writers who have sold stories to Helix felt similarly. I'm not going to ask that Helix take those stories down. I signed contracts giving Helix the right to archive them indefinitely. I am certainly not willing to pay the fee that Mr. Sanders has demanded for the right to break that contract.
Nor am I going to withdraw the third. Once again, I've signed a contract.
But I have broken the links to those stories from my website and livejournal profile, and linked instead to copies of those stories on my own website.
I do not mean, in any way, to express disapproval for those who have withdrawn stories. It's my decision, made in my particular circumstances, made about my stories. Others have to take the actions that seem right to them.
I can't applaud the use of ethnic slurs. I can't ignore that, nor can I ignore the insults aimed at Helix writers, the willingness to deface the magazine itself just to get one more shot across. The vindictive attempt to hit a writer at the point of her (presumed) vanity, just to score points, to get back at her.
I won't submit to Helix any further. I am not happy to be saying that. There's a lot I liked about Helix, about its stated aims, about the authors Helix published. But I can't in good conscience continue to submit there.
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| Monday, July 7th, 2008
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8:16 am - Good Morning!
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| Friday, July 4th, 2008
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5:41 pm - Independence Day
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Very full schedule today! We hit the Webster Groves parade, which is always fun, and then the Community Days carnival thing. Last year, Paidhi Boy thought he might try the Tilt-A-Whirl, but once it started up, regretted his choice.
This year he decided to try it again, with much better results. Though what he'd been waiting all year for was the bumper cars. He got his bumper carring in, did the big slide, the Scrambler (which was for some bizzare reason called "the sizzler") and the swings. Which about gave me palpitations. Yes, it's a very tame ride. I loved the swings when I was a kid. I knew he'd love the swings. But he was so high up. I faked my way through it, though--smiled and waved as he came around, of course all was well.
We ran into one of Paidhi Girl's school friends, who asked urgently, "Where's Paidhi Girl?"
"She's at Girl Scout camp," I said, which she was. Today was the last day, and we went straight from the carnival to camp to get her. She'd spent two weeks swimming, and riding horses. The horse riding was the whole point of the camp, and she had an award from the show they'd had yesterday, she and her horse won "Cutest Couple." Her horse was named Jack, and Jack walked very slowly and halted a lot if you told him to walk, but if he was just going somewhere on his own, he moved quite briskly, and at the show he trotted around the corners three times absolutely perfectly but the fourth time he just stopped and wouldn't go, but he was still a good horse, actually he was a pony, and one day there was a spider as big as her hand in the tent, and also lots of crickets, but all you had to do with those was pick them up and throw them out, and she passed the test that let her go in the deepest part of the pool, which she never had in previous years because she couldn't float on her back, and her unit had to hop (set the tables and serve food at meals) four times when all the other units only hopped twice.
And they seem to have discontinued the unit songs. When I went to that very same camp, and even stayed in the same unit Paidhi Girl just did (and hopped!), and did the horses and all, there was no way to avoid knowing at least the refrain of Kiamecia's song, and Tonda's as well--even if you weren't in either of those units. But Paidhi Girl knew nothing of such things. Not a huge surprise--last year I discovered that not only Awhenasa's song, but Awhenasa's Super Secret Ritual that involved being given a Super Secret Name, was completely unknown to Paidhi Girl, who had just spent two weeks in Awhenasa.
So now we're all back home, and stuffed with barbecue, and are resting, waiting for the fireworks tonight. Well, Paidhi Girl is checking up on her fish, who I've been feeding for two weeks. Her pleco is getting bigger and bigger, some of those guppies are freaking huge, how big do guppies actually get? But anyway. One of her guppies is right this moment producing more guppies. One of which, Paidhi Girl reports, seems to have an extra fin in a funny place. "It might not live," I told her. "We'll just have to wait and see."
But really, on July 4th, it's all about the parade, the carnival, and the fireworks.
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| Wednesday, July 2nd, 2008
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7:12 pm - Wow!
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Mr. Leckie walked in the door and I said, "They found the rest of Metropolis!"
And he stopped in his tracks, and said, "What?" And I said it again and he swore.
Metropolis is our Christmas tradition. We have several versions of it. The fairly recent restoration? Is lovely, they did a lot of work on it. And I actually like Moroder's. Please tell me there's going to be an edition with the newly discovered stuff restored!
They found the rest of Metropolis! Holy crap!
######
And speaking of holy crap. Surf over to Helix and check out Vylar Kaftan's "Breaking the Vessel."
Vy read the first half as part of a group reading at Wiscon. (The other readers were the awesome Rachel Swirsky, M K Hobson, and Jennifer Pelland.) I have been waiting for July 1 to come so I could read the whole darn story. Go, read it! There are also great stories by Tina Connoly, Samantha Henderson, Ruth Nestvold, and Jennifer Pelland, and poetry by Ada Milenkovic Brown and Jane Yolen.
Go! Read!
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| Saturday, June 28th, 2008
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8:31 pm
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So, I'm not officially doing the Clarion West Write-a-thon. But I am sort of unofficially doing it--trying to get a substantial chunk of work done on the novel every day, and not allowing myself to do that thing you do, where you get up and check email and say, "Oh, there's so much other stuff to do today and I don't really have a lot of energy, so I'll just do other stuff today and..."
You know, that thing. None of that. Week 1 has gone fairly well. For certain values of fairly well. I have, indeed, written every day. I did some revisions on chapters three and four, things I had to fix before I could move ahead. Then I spent two days forging into chapter five, then realized that really, the beginning of chapter five needed to be the end of chapter three, and that took some surgery--most of my writing time that day--and then, of course, I needed a new start for chapter five, and I just couldn't see any of it, and whenever I can't see something, that can only mean one thing--I need to do research. Research always leads to more research, actually, until I can finally see what I'm trying to see. And that took most of my time the next day.
So the end result is, after a week of steady work, I'm only five hundred words into the chapter I'd meant to make headway with. Paidhi Boy was very impressed--five hundred words sounds like quite a lot, to him. And the truth is, I worked really hard for those five hundred words. I can do a couple thousand an hour at top speed--and there are times when that kind of blurting out is really, really helpful, Goddess knows--but this isn't a top-speed kind of project. So there it is.
At least it was directly helpful research. Sometimes, when a story is in that weird, pre-formation state, I find myself reading things almost at random, trying to coax it into some kind of shape I can work with, and I can read for hours and days with seemingly no useful result. The research itself is actually cool, and fun, but there's something very satisfying about saying, "Okay, I need this information," and then going and getting it. "Okay, so that implies I need to know about this other thing." And I get that. And everything falls into place, and suddenly I have it, I know where my character is standing, what the weather is like and exactly what the temperature is (because she always knows exactly what the temperature is) and what sort of terrain, what kind of buildings are around...and when I know that, for some reason, her actions, and everyone else's, are clear to me, and feel right.
I can sketch through a scene without those things, if I have to. There are a lot of things I can put in square brackets. But it never feels quite right. It's very satisfying, when I can get those details nailed down.
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| Sunday, June 22nd, 2008
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10:45 am - Woah!
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So St. Louis recently got Street View, on Google Maps. We were playing with it this morning. And discovered myself, Paidhi Girl, and Paidhi Boy, walking together. (We hadn't walked far. The car is parked just a bit down the block.) It's pretty clearly from about a year ago. Mind blowing!
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| Wednesday, June 18th, 2008
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11:18 am
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So, my mom gets opera tickets every summer. She divies up the operas between people she knows might enjoy them. I always get to pick one, and often get to go to a second that no one else was interested in. This year I picked Troilus and Cressida.
But this Sunday, my mom had an open seat for Tales of Hoffmann. I know enough to have heard of ToH, and OTSL is always worth hearing, so of course I go with her.
I'm still sort of recovering. Okay, so the deal is, ETA Hoffmann is drunk off his ass in the bar during a performance of Don Giovanni. His girlfriend, who he's recently broken up with, is singing. She's sent him a note offering a reconciliation and asking him to visit her in her dressing room after Act 2, but the bass has intercepted this note (Basses just do that sort of thing, cause that's how basses are), so Hoffmann never gets it. Meanwhile, Hoffmann's muse is pining because Hoffmann has abandoned her for human women, who never treat him right. The muse has dressed up like a man and is posing as Hoffmann's servant Niklaus.
Hoffmann then proceeds to tell the stories of the three great loves of his life. These are all based on stories of Hoffmann's. In the end he concludes that the three loves are just facets of the opera singer who's recently done him wrong. The opera singer comes in, angry and presumably hurt that he's ignored her attempt at reconciliation, finds him drunk off his ass and kicks him permanently to the curb. Hoffmann swears off women, much to the joy of his muse.
Are you boggling yet? How about this? Those three facets of the opera singer--who we hardly see at all in person--those three facets, what do they tell us about this opera singer? Well. She's a whore who steals men's souls for money, a gifted singer who for some inexplicable reason chooses to sing and die young rather than live a long life doing Hoffmann's laundry and never singing again (<.sarcasm>Obviously she can't do both! And what sane woman would want to exercise her artistic and creative gifts instead of giving that up so Hoffmann could have lots of babies?<./sarcasm>), and, to top it all off--or to start with, since it's actually the first of the facets presented--she's not human at all. She's just an automaton!
I boggled.
Add in the fact that the first act was played for humor. The first act that's based on "Der Sandman." Oh, that story is high-larious, let me tell you!
Actually, that story is highly creepy, if not an outright horror story. And bits of the creep were left in. "Beautiful eyes!" Played for laughs. Much of which was clearly in the libretto to start with, but OTSL's production turned it up to eleven, and the ultimate effect was like someone had made a nice, zingy curry the original recipe for which called for, say, some raisins or apple or something added for contrast, for a touch of sweetness, but instead the cook had slathered on an inch of powdered-sugar frosting.
Yes, I know. Coppelia! Nothing but sugar! Right. There's no curry in Coppelia, no chunks of horror bobbing up in the sea of sugar, for no discernable reason except to remind you the story isn't really as funny as they're all pretending.
Well, the music was gorgeous. It always is, with OTSL. I particularly enjoy their chorus. Composers take note! If anyone were to write an all-chorus opera I'd be right there. I'd probably die on the spot if OTSL staged it, from sheer ecstasy. Lovely chorus. Lovely singing.
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| Tuesday, June 17th, 2008
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11:30 am - Misc. Links
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| Sunday, June 15th, 2008
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1:25 pm
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I have been trying to get a photo of this so I could show it off.
Paidhi Girl has, at this point, a tank full of guppies. At first there were six. Now there are...more than Paidhi Girl can count. We took a cupful of them back to the store and caused the person working there to exclaim, "That's a lot of guppies!" We got to tell her there were plenty more where these came from, and more on the way.
Paidhi Girl also loves origami. She's got an origami a day desk calendar, and many books, and is very good at folding things. The other day she brought me this. It's her own design--an origami fancy guppy.
It takes two pieces of paper--hence the tape joining the tail to the body. However. I was unspeakably impressed.
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| Saturday, June 14th, 2008
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1:46 pm - these streets so fixed and solid
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I am so behind on posting.
So, Wiscon! Got in Friday afternoon, me and Paidhi Girl, dead tired. Almost immediately went out to dinner with ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) velourmane and glvalentine and catrambo and a few other people who either I'm not remembering clearly (dinner on Friday is kind of blending into dinner on Saturday, or lunch, or...) or whose lj names I don't know. It was Mexican, and Paidhi Girl had fish tacos. Mmmm. Lovely conversation, very nice.
Still, I was very tired. In fact, I have no clear memory of what happened after that. I do know that I went to the Cherryh Panel that warriorofworry was on, but could not make it all the way through because I was So. Tired. I nearly fell asleep sitting there, not because the panel was uninteresting--it was great--but because I'd been up since three that morning.
And I had an 8:30 am panel the next morning. Ancient Mythology. Got up, went down to the green room for coffee, and found some of my fellow panelists. We chatted. Went down to the panel, expecting lots of empty chairs, but when we opened the door--woah! It was full of people! "What are you all doing here?" the moderator asked, and someone said, "We went to the farmer's market!"
So there were lots of lovely people in the audience. Gregory Frost was moderator, and I thought he did a great job, he was very organized, had actual questions for discussion, all very cool. There were also very good questions from the audience. I managed to speak coherent English. It was fun.
I'm not entirely certain just what came next--lots of chatting with people, lots of buying books, a couple of panels. Paidhi Girl did the kids programming, which she enjoys enough that she complains if I don't take her with me. In the evening, a bunch of Escape Artists folks went out to dinner, and there was some hanging out in the bar talking. Haiku earring party, I know I did that. Got the earrings to prove it!
Sunday, a few more panels, a bit more chatting. I never came down with the Wischolera, and niether did Paidhi Girl. During the "Take Things Apart" segment of kids' programming she took apart a CD drive and found some gears, which she saved as a present for Paidhi Boy. (Explaining that would take too long.) We both had dessert tickets, and we chatted with the folks who ended up at our table. We made it through Timmi's speech before it became clear Paidhi Girl was going to tip over from exhaustion, and so we went upstairs. Then early next morning, it was off to the bus stop for the long ride home.
It all sounds kind of vague, but really I had a blast.
***
School's out! The weather is a bit weird, bouncing from cool to hot and back, but what the heck. We've got pool passes, we've got sunscreen. I've got my novel to work on. Which is going slowly. But don't they always anyway?
Or at least I keep telling myself that.
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| Monday, May 19th, 2008
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6:46 pm - Preach it, Sister!
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| Saturday, May 10th, 2008
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2:58 pm - Mach Go Go Go!
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Pitch.
Freaking.
Perfect.
The reviewer for the Post said it was too lightweight, and I thought, "Um? This is Speed Racer we're talking about. Any attempt to add weight would be...perhaps misguided is the kindest word."
The obligatory schmalz moments did not make me want to puke, and were over quickly, which is saying a great deal; my tolerance for obligatory schmalz moments is really, really low. Whoever said it was like they'd melted Starburst candies and poured them in your eyes? Bang on target. And if they'd paced it even a hair faster it would have been incomprehensible. And possibly triggered seizures.
Oh, and the Paidhi Kids enjoyed it greatly.
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| Monday, May 5th, 2008
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3:51 pm - I can has Wiscon schedule!
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For the first time ever, I am On A Panel.
Ancient Mythology in Modern Fantasy and Science Fiction
How do you blend ancient myths into a novel while still keeping the book fresh and modern? What are some examples of authors who do this successfully? Which myths have been overdone or underexplored? What is important to leave out to keep from bogging down the story? What should you put in to flesh things out?
Saturday, 8:30-9:45 A.M.
Senate A
M: Gregory Frost
JoSelle Vanderhooft
Lori Devoti
Ann Leckie
Joyce Frohn
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| Sunday, April 27th, 2008
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8:39 am - Nearly the end of the school year!
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Yesterday was sunny, and cool--45 when we left the house at 9am, sixty or so by the afternoon.
We left so early on a Saturday morning because it was the day of Federation. Which is the annual flocking of young instrumentalists to Washington University's music department to play for judges and be awarded ribbons if they do well. (This sounds fairly stressful and competetive, but it's not, at least it never has been for my kids or their teacher's other students that I know of. The judges are, in our experience, uniformly kind and leave encouraging notes.)
This year the Paidhi Kids were scheduled to play on the upper level, where the practice rooms are. Glass fronted, and nearly soundproof, the practice rooms were an object of fascination. Our teacher had nabbed one for us to put cases in and such--the hallways at this event are always very crowded with waiting kids and parents, so space is at a premium. Paidhi Boy played one of his pieces (Minuet I) inside, and no one outside could hear him! Then he and another student talked to each other through the glass, gesturing wildly.
While waiting for Paidhi Boy to finish playing (Paidhi Girl was done by then), we had a pleasant chat with the little boy after Paidhi Boy, a small fellow-student who is just now learning "Long Long Ago." He was playing "Song of the Wind" and "Go Tell Aunt Rhody" for the judge. I told him Aunt Rhody was one of Paidhi Boy's favorites, and he allowed as how "O Come Little Children" was his own fave. Paidhi Girl and I agreed it was a good song. Just about then, Paidhi Boy came out, and he was up, so I wished him good luck and off we went.
We'd taken the Metro, since the weather was lovely and Paidhi Boy loves to take the train. Got home, put away instruments, ate lunch, and back to the train station! Because we'd bought all day passes. The route goes near a shopping center where Paidhi Girl had purchased a small plecostomus. The pleco had died five days later, expiring, fortunately, before the two-week guarantee did.* So we boarded with the dead pleco in a plastic bag, and took it to the store, where we obtained a live one in exchange. Meantime Mr. Leckie and Paidhi Boy shopped at Trader Joe's. Paidhi Boy found the baby elephant and got a sticker and a tangerine. Then we got back on the train, Paidhi Girl and me to go home--she was worried we'd be thrown off because of a sign that said "no animals"--and Mr. Leckie and Paidhi Boy in the other direction to ride all the way to the end of the line and back.
Once they made it back home, we fired up the grill, because there's whole pork butt on sale this week, and if there's anything better than giggling about eating a pig's butt for supper, it's giggling while eating a barbecued pig's butt for supper. We're going to have pig butt quiche today with the leftovers, I think.
So it was one of those relaxing Saturdays when very little productive got done. We haven't had one of those for a while.
Today I need to buckle down and have a hardcore writing day. But I'm also having one of those days when I'm searching for reasons not to write. Not for any particular cause, I think, it's just...that happens. I'm going to have to be very stern, though, and get down to business very soon.
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*The pleco's death wasn't any fault of Paidhi Girl's. Her tank currently houses three otocinclus and what was originally six guppies but is now...well, a lot of guppies. All of them are healthy and happy (well, all right, judging a fish's state of mind is a tricky endeavor, but they all seem satisfied), and her water quality is good. The fish are an endless source of fascination, especially when the guppies give birth, an event I recieved a very detailed account of last weekend, when a veritable cloud of brand new baby fish suddenly appeared in the tank.
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| Saturday, April 5th, 2008
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9:23 am - Saturday am kids
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So, recently the paidhi kids had violin lesson. There's going to be a recital--actually two recitals, the kids split between a Saturday and a Sunday. "Which one are the paidhi kids going to do?" asks the teacher.
"I don't care," I say. "Whichever one makes it easier for you. We're flexible."
Paidhi Boy, standing there with his violin in rest position, pipes up. "Teacher, I think I should be in the Sunday recital."
"Why is that?" asks the teacher.
"Because on Saturday I need a little rest."
Probably because that second grade grind wears him down so badly during the week. I laughed and laughed, but the teacher managed to keep a straight face and get the lesson started.
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| Tuesday, April 1st, 2008
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6:34 am - No Foolin'!
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Podcastle is up! The very first episode: Peter Beagle's "Come Lady Death" read by Paul Jenkins. Go download and listen, and subscribe to the feed so you won't miss the next episode.
********
And "The God of Au" is available for your reading pleasure--or I hope pleasure--at Helix. There are also stories by Sara Genge, Robert Reed, A.M. Dellamonica and more! Also poetry by Rachel Swirsky, for a Podcastle connection.
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| Sunday, March 23rd, 2008
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3:49 pm - Easter Dinner
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Ham, au gratin potatoes, green beans. Here at home--we've sworn off the crazy brother in law for good.
So, eating, discussing dinosaur brains, like you do at Easter dinner, Paidhi Boy observes that, "Dinosaurs, one of their brain things was art."
Of course we asked for clarification. The explanation involves some diagram of a brain he saw that had different sections labeled "Math" or "Science" and so on, as though there were such easily identified segments of the brain.
So, we've explained that brains don't actually work like that, but I'm still a bit boggled by the whole idea of the art center of dinosaurs' brains. I guess they didn't do rock carving, and all that literature and painting was lost in the meteor strike.
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| Monday, March 17th, 2008
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2:36 pm
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Today's special--Mystery Strep. Is it strep, or isn't it? Only the swab can tell for sure, and it won't be back until Tuesday or Wednesday. Meantime, augmentin. My money's on strep, right now, cause I felt so much better by Sunday it wasn't even funny.
Excitement du jour--baby guppies in Paidhi Girl's tank!
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| Wednesday, March 12th, 2008
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2:16 pm - Podcastle has a feed.
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There's nothing there but a placeholder post (in which velourmane talks about the upcoming episodes and such, so do give it a listen), but if you want to set up your iTunes, or whatever, go to the Podcastle website and click whatever needs clicking.
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