Paper Fruit

It’s official: I just confirmed with Garth Nix and I’ll be interviewing him at World Fantasy! This is so exciting, not only because I’ll be, well, interviewing one of my favorite fantasy authors (everyone go read the Abhorsen trilogy, now) but also because Mr. Nix has been incredibly nice and approachable, even though he is obviously super-busy. More details as they come, but for now, this has lent a beatific glow to me this blustery Monday morning.

Also: Friday night I rolled into Denver with my homedawg Jesse and we saw A Hawk and a Hacksaw live at the Hi-Dive. Oh gosh and golly, it was the best show I’ve ever seen, no exaggeration necessary. I really, really love that band, and they played most of the tracks off their most recent album, Delivrance, which is one of my favorites, and also, uncannily, most of my most beloved tracks from their other albums, as well. They did an entire set on stage, wherein Jeremy Barnes rocked out on his accordion and Heather Trost melted my soul with her violin and also a Balkan contraption like a violin with a trumpet bell in lieu of a resonating chamber. They also had a trumpet/coronet player, a tuba player, and a dude who alternated among an oboe, drums, and what I think was an amplified balalaika. Afterwards they came down into the center of the Hi-Dive and played an acoustic set, which was just as amazing. All in all, pretty much The Best.

Taking a break from all the MoFo-ing, I’d like to announce that I’ve joined The Outer Alliance. The Outer Alliance is, in their own words, “a group of SF/F writers who have come together as allies for the advocacy of LGBT issues in literature. Made up of individuals of all walks of life, our goal is to educate, support, and celebrate LGBT contributions in the science-fiction and fantasy genres.” This is important stuff, especially these days, what with all the conservative backlash to Obama’s election and the fact that Obama himself is dragging is feet on making good on the promises to the gay community that helped him get elected in the first place.

SPEAKING OF CONSERVATIVE BACKLASH, I was inspired to join The Outer Alliance for two big reasons. One, Jesse joined, and was saying good things about the group, so I took an interest. Two, someone on the PPK posted an article entitled, of all things, “The War on Science Fiction,” about how people with vaginas and non-straight sexual orientations are destroying science fiction (Maybe through talking about human relationships instead of, like, robots and stuff? And making Starbuck a woman on the new Battlestar Galactica? Maybe?). Though I’m sure linking it here will only make the author wipe away a tear of pure, unbridled, righteous joy with the corner of her “Official Ursula K. LeGuin Book Burning ’06” t-shirt it’s worth noting that these sorts of frightening, anti-woman, anti-LGBT attitudes still exist, somehow, incredibly, in 2009. So no, Virginia, feminism is not obsolete, nor is fighting for human rights for all humans.

This quote from the article pretty much encapsulates both the terrible prose style and the upsetting sentiments voiced therein:

“Slash fiction is a form of fan fiction written primarily by women where characters in science fiction TV shows are gay and have homosexual relationships completely contrary to the established canon of the show.  The first slash fiction was about the original Star Trek series where women wrote stories about Kirk and Spock in a homosexual relationship.” (Emphasis mine.)

Come the fuck on. Seriously. I dare anyone, ANYONE, even Heinlein enthusiasts, even people older than 15 who think Ayn Rand’s Anthem is a really good, original piece of science fiction, even, I dare say, whackjob bloggers with an axe to grind about the new Doctor Who, to go watch some original series Star Trek, most notably, off the top of my head without even thinking about it for a second, “The Paradise Syndrome” (ep. 58) or “Turnabout Intruder” (ep. 79) and tell me that a Kirk/Spock makeout is “completely contrary to the established canon of the show.” Bull. Shit.

Joking aside, the amount of self-hatred contained in this vitriolic rant about how women and women’s issues (and teh gayz, too) are destroying science fiction (the author is female) is incredibly sad and depressing. Though slash/fic is not really my bag per se, I think it is a cool venue for anyone to express themselves, especially women eager to write something “for them by them,” or, alternatively, an opening market for people nervous about the wall of Western, masculine names in the SF/F section of Borders to get into speculative fiction writing. Is that really such a travesty? Of course it isn’t, but why be reasonable when you can nail sixty years of progressive feminism and LGBT activism square in the uppity jaw with your violently jerking knee? Why view non-white, non-straight, non-male folks as valuable when you could spend your time writing this inspiring sentiment:

“As we know science fiction has inspired boys to pursue careers in science, engineering, and technology as men.  With women killing science fiction on television, the current generation of boys won’t have this opportunity to be inspired to work in these fields.  There is still a great deal of written science fiction that is real science fiction so all is not lost.  However, many boys who would have gone on to make scientific discoveries and invent new technologies will not do so since they will never be inspired by science fiction as boys.”

Holy freaking crap.

At this point, I really do wish some dude (you know, the kind with balls and a penis, those genetic prerequisites to understanding science fiction and also technology and math and stuff) would please just invent a time machine (because he read some H.G. Wells) so this blogger, and all of the people who wrote comments in support of her, could go back to 1948 or whatever time period they genuinely believe to be “the good old days.” Please. For the good of humankind, some man, any man, please do this. Save us all!

So the long and short of it is that women, LGBT folks, straight allies, and other such types are ruining not only science fiction, but science itself. Really! We lefties are just basically banging rocks together, calling for us all to return to the caves.

It’s funny, you know, this kind of ignorance. The author implies that it’s women who insert women’s issues into science fiction, but really, that’s just total lunacy and self-delusion. Five minutes of research would have told her that Gene Roddenberry– the very same man who put absolutely no gayness into Star Trek, really– actually wanted the character of Wesley Crusher on Star Trek: The Next Generation, to be a girl. Leslie Crusher. I’m not making this up, it’s in the official ST:TNG Companion which yes, I have read. Anyways the network said no way, because it would limit the number of storylines for the character, since lady issues would have to be addressed. Geez, Gene! Why would you want to ruin ST:TNG like that? It’s almost as crazy as having a woman of color on the bridge of the original Enterprise! Or a lady doctor! Roddenberry was obviously an Obammunist before his time, excise Star Trek from the Sci Fi Canon immediately! Also, five more minutes of research would have told her that Jonathan Frakes– you know, the dude who plays super-macho Commander Riker– complained that his asexual love interest in the 5th season episode of TNG, “The Outcast,” was played by a female actor and therefore made less of a point about love transcending gender.

And that’s just Star Trek, yo.

Is it just that these men were pressured by screeching harpies and swishing predatory homosexuals? Of course not. They were intelligent men who realized that their own sexual orientation and gender made them uniquely able to advocate for the representation of “others” in science fiction, which is always what science fiction has been great at doing— taking us away from our immediate selves and allowing us to consider the problems within our own society with more objectivity. Or maybe that’s just my x-chromosomes having some girl talk about how The Foundation Series should be more like Bridgit Jones’s Diary. Probably.

It is sad, but it is also inspiring, because while there will always be allies who are willing to speak up for the inclusion of women and LGBT folks in science fiction and fantasy, more and more we are just having to get in there and write the stories about ourselves and our friends and our world that we want to hear. So it’s time for me to stop blogging and get back to my fantasy novel, which has, right there on the page, some lesbians.

There I go again, destroying genre like it’s no big deal.

Last week I saw this over at Fantasy Magazine:

We are looking for readers interested in dedicating 5-10 hours a month to reading Fantasy Magazine slush. We will be glad to train you in considerations of online publishing and editing. Position is unpaid but we would be glad to write letters of recommendation or whatever’s needed for internship status and buy you drinks at conventions.

So I applied. Why not, right? I like drinks, I’m going to World Fantasy Con, and I’m pretty awesome at quickly reading a high volume of stuff carefully and critically after three years of grad school at FSU, right?

So today I woke up to find a very exciting email in my inbox. The first line read:

Everyone: If you’ve gotten this email, then you’ve been accepted to slush for Fantasy Magazine. Congratulations!

What.

Yes! Seriously! I guess my seven semesters of heartlessly (and for the most part thanklessly) grading seemingly-endless piles of student papers has finally paid off! This is a better gig by far because instead of stacks of essays on Descartes or Antigone I get to read speculative fiction which, to be honest, applies much more directly to my sensibilities. Also as an experienced RPer I will be able to spot a transliterated Dungeons and Dragons campaign from, like, a mile away.

So awesome. I’m very enthusiastic about this, and feel very honored they are taking a chance on me.

I am going to take a few minutes to be frustrated about something.

I really don’t understand what the heck is up with people trying to tell me it’s a bad idea to leave grad school, causing me to have to endlessly justify my decision over and over and over again and making me feel increasingly vexed about my choice. I don’t see really what the difference is between grad school and any other job– you work, you get paid (kind of), you deal with co-workers. In fact, grad school, and academia, to those who aren’t in love with the culture, is even more of a hassle than other jobs. Just like anything, it is fun for people who love it and annoying and terrible for people who wish they were doing something else. And for me, grad school has been interfering with my other goals and aspirations, and I don’t desire to work in an academic department. Or deal with writing papers. Or deal with department politics. So what is so terrible about leaving? I can go back if I want to. When I got my Bachelor’s degree I graduated with one of the top five GPAs in my entire graduating class. My GPA for my Master’s is a 4.0, and though I haven’t gotten my grades from this summer I assume I’ll have around that for my year of Ph.D work. I have fantastic teaching evaluations, professors who would write me letters of recommendation. I’m not leaving with my tail between my legs, failing my classes and skulking away because I can’t teach. I’m leaving because I want to leave grad school, I’m not enjoying it and I want to do something else for a while. My “family of choice” thinks it’s a good idea, as does one of the biggest deal professors at FSU, an awesome person who has guided me with the combined skills of a mentor, a father, a professor, an advisor, and a friend, thinks that my decision to try something else for a while or maybe forever is an awesome idea. I have another friend/professor who thinks I am following a “calling” by leaving and maybe that’s the case. It certainly feels right to leave. Why can’t everyone else just see that?

There is some sort of weird stigma with quitting school, as if choosing to leave an expensive, high-stress environment with uncertain payback, that I don’t enjoy, and don’t want to do for a living, is crazy and must mean I have some sort of psychological issue or some other tragedy. As if I am failing as a person because I am leaving. Any job has opportunities, but most people who quit a job because they feel unfulfilled aren’t met with “but you might have been promoted!” or “But you might have gotten a raise!” or whatever. Usually people who quit a job are met with “Congrats, awesome! Such great opportunities await you!” But with quitting school you get the concerned brow-furrow and the personal questions. “Is everything OK?” “Are you sure you want to do that? You’ll lose so much work!” “Why just give up now?” Let’s take stock of things for a moment: I have one year, and not even a complete year, of Ph.D work. I have a Master’s degree, which of course in this day and age is the consolation prize of degrees, chump change instead of a respectable effort. I dislike the elements of academia that are unfortunately its defining characteristics in this day and age. So where exactly is the tragedy?

And so I have to go through the whole rigamarole over and over again: I’m too mentally exhausted at the end of most academic days to write, and I want to take a few years to try my hand at the writing thing. As a grad student I never have time for other things I love in the world, like painting, cooking, writing, knitting, whatever. I have to do those things on breaks instead of frequently. I want my evenings and weekends to myself again. I don’t enjoy writing papers. The fields I work in are currently dominated by academic trends I find unproductive, disingenuous if not (occasionally) downright despicable, and uninteresting. 

Grad school was an awesome experience for me. I can parse academic writing. I have boss research skills. I can read (to some degree) ancient Greek. And I am going to use those skills, hopefully, to write. I know it is an insane crazy dream and I will most likely fail at it, but I don’t want to look back at my life one day and say “I really wish I had taken the time to try the whole writing thing. I had an opportunity and I squandered it.” So that’s what I’m doing. I feel fine in this decision, except when I have to endlessly justify it to everyone I’ve ever met. So everyone just leave me alone!

So I finished my DISes for the summer, and turned in my grades this week. This means I am free and able to concentrate on packing, getting tattooed in various places, and writing! Actually I’m only getting one new tattoo because my backpiece is officially finished and I will be posting pics soon. This Wednesday I’m getting a piece on my calf, the castle from the Miyazaki version of Howl’s Moving Castle.

My last project is on indefinite hold right now, a situation that I have mixed feelings about. But, looking forward rather than back I am very enthusiastic about my new project, which I’m hoping will be as rewarding. Right now I am uneasy about the idea, possibly because it is a more complicated narrative structure than the last book (multiple main characters set in different time periods, eep!) but I am slowly remembering how it felt to start writing the last novel, and I think I felt just as nervous. I had forgotten how much harder and slower it is to write starting from scratch rather than editing, and the fact that after hours of work this week I have a grand total of one six-page chapter feels both exhilarating (“I have a chapter!”) and frustrating (“Several hours of editing meant like 50 pages a few months ago! What the heck?!”).

I have a stack of books out from the library that I need to get through before I move, which is intimidating, but also awesome. I also need to pack some shit, so I’m going to do that right now.

Instead of just posting random links and insane rambling, this is just going to be a sort of state of the union-ish update.

1. I finished the semester having read all the Jane Austen catalogue except for the last few chapters of Persuasion (I was unpersuaded to finish it) and most of Sanditon. Also I finished teaching two great classes full of students who I already miss. It was a good semester overall, considering I managed to kick butt at ancient Greek, read a ton of Austen, and finish a personal writing project that I’ve been working on for a long time. 

2. I went down for a week to visit my and John’s family and cleaned out my closet down there. It felt good. Now I basically have family heirlooms that I don’t have space for right now (dishes, mostly), a one-person hammock that you have to bolt into the ceiling, my yearbooks, my diaries from middle school, and all my baby stuff. Other than that I am moved out. I also had some revelations as regards my personal life which have been productive, and it has inspired me to try to work on some of the personality traits I am less proud of. 

3. I have started the summer semester. I got completely and utterly overwhelmed within two weeks with the course of study/teaching I had set up for myself and actually had a bit of a breakdown yesterday. I emailed my professor and she kindly reduced my workload. That should be helpful. I am still going to have to work all day every day, but things are looking better. I have a lot of work instead of an impossible amount of work now, and on the upside my class this semester is awesome. They are reading and are either actually into the Iliad right now or they are excellent actors.

4. I have been very social of late, owing to the fact that I am going to be moving soon, and my dear friend Raechel is going out of town for about two months. This is contrary to every instinct I possess but I have been enjoying it for the most part. That said I am looking forward to going into my standard hibernation mode again.

Other than that, the usual– role playing, hanging with my two bad cats, and thinking about my next writing project. I think I’ve decided what I’m going to do next but I would be writing about a location I know nothing about, so research will be challenging!

Intersections in research are always fascinating, and I was lucky that when I was finding out how to make my own kombucha I found out about another awesome fermented beverage called kvass, which I was subsequently able to use as a nice piece of atmospheric detail in the novel I’m working on. Woo! A scintillating threeway to be sure. Since then I’ve wanted to make my own kvass but the recipes I found seemed to differ wildly and I was afraid of poisoning myself if I made a wrong step. Recently, however, I’ve obtained a copy of a not-written-by-some-possibly-insane-person-on-the-internet recipe for kvass and plan on starting my first batch this weekend, as I am now officially on spring break and can attend to any sort of evil that might ensue in my kitchen during the fermenting process.

Spring break! Woo!

Yesterday we returned from a camping trip for Jesse’s birthday. It was exceedingly awesome, but I am glad to be home again and sleeping in a bed instead of on sand. 

I am doing well on my resolution to work for at least half an hour on the book every day, and it is paying off (well, we’ll see. I have a Greek test this Thursday and I have a suspicion I will not do as brilliantly as I would like due to this new commitment taking up my time). I’m entering the home stretch of the edits from my end and I’m starting to have weird anxieties over style and my language. Too late now, I suppose, to second-guess the entire novel, though I’m doing it.

Also, I have a sore throat. Exciting times around Chez Tanzer.

I think something must be going around, a plague of some kind of epic proportion, because Raech is down with something, as is Shawn, and I fear I may soon succumb to the same. I have a runny nose, foggy head, and a tummy that is sick of post-nasal drip: just the cocktail I desire to write a friggin’ paper tonight. Oh well. I’ve already done my Greek homework so all I have to worry about is the book review for my Jane Austen class, which shouldn’t be too bad. Probably not my best work, but I’ll live, as I’m sure so will my professor. I just hope it doesn’t turn into a major cold because I’m scheduled to go camping this weekend and I’d hate to cancel.

I had something of a breakthrough last night regarding Pharmakoi, and I’m very excited. It’s the kind of thing I’ve been hoping for, as there was a definite, terrible weakness in one character’s motivation at a crucial point, and I think I’ve fixed it to my satisfaction. As an upside/downside, it makes the ending far more tragic than I wanted it to be initally, but also much sweeter in some ways.

I feel conflicted about the book sometimes regarding that tragic element, I wonder if I’m being uneccesarily cruel to the characters. A while ago (omg, last July) I told Jesse that I felt really bad about the end of the novel and wondered if anyone would want to read something so sad. I still am concerned about this: that my (our) beloved book, the apple of my eye, child of my heart, the object of so much sweat, tears, labor, research, and love, is simply too much of a downer. I don’t know what to feel about that. Maybe it will only be sad to me? Maybe I’m attached to the characters in a way no one else will be? Is that a good thing or a bad thing? I don’t know.

Then again, maybe it will never be published, making any anxiety over reader impact pure onanism. I think I’ll keep that in mind, to perhaps save myself from falling too deeply into the stereotype of the loathsome, neurotic writer.

Raech just gave me an awesome pep talk about school, my writing, etc. I guess I hadn’t really thought about the fact that my writing should be as important to me as my school work; it needs to be my job, on some weird level. I need to give it time every day as much as possible, just like I do Greek, or teaching, or whatever. I think I am going to put aside at least half an hour, or better yet, an hour, every day. I am also going to stop feeling guilty about it when I do. It is just as important as anything else.

You know, like tonight. OK!