Lepus domesticus

I.

I know there was more I wanted to say about Eona, but I can't quite remember now.  Mostly how annoying and unnecessary it felt how the author kept telling us how "masculine" Lady Dela was.  Anyway, but today I'm here to talk about disability in fiction again.

THe best fiction, or perhaps rather the fiction that most resonates with readers, is that which leaves enough up to the imagination that readers feel it was tailor-written just for them.  There are few books that feature protagonists or even major secondary characters with disabilities--I mean the characters you actually remember by name when weeks later you describe to someone What It's About.  The best of these are rarely specific.  Here's what I mean, in Frances Hodgson Burnett's wonderful The Secret Garden, Colin Craven's...well, problem, is fairly ambiguous.  Some people read it as an illness which he rightly recovers from, others as a disability from which he is magically cured by Mary's, well, bullying.  I always saw it as psychosomatic, as hypochondria stemming from his father's paranoia, both fear of his own physical deformity as well as of his wife's fragile mortality, and that Mary saved both of them with her reminder to live life, though she has precious little to live for at the beginning of the story.  Mary is also saved, of course, by the garden and by gardening, drawn out of depression caused by the traumatic loss of everyone she's ever known in a horrific way, as well as her home, and everything a child has as markers of identity.  So, does that count as an unreasonable miracle cure?( In Which I continue my ongoing discussion, including mentioning Little House on the Prairie and The Trumpet of the Swan, and review The Brothers Lionheart. )

Much love, Susie

( Notes: In which Susie actually talks about My Little Ponies. )

Recently, authors Sherwood Smith and Rachel Manija Brown wrote an open letter to the world about what they believe to be institutional bias against diversity (the specific incident involved a gay protagonist) in YA literature.  I'm not going to go into that today, except to share this link in which Cleolinda Explains It All (link stays in LiveJournal), and this highly-recommended marvelous link (goes to another blog) by the even more marvelous Malinda Lo which has PIE CHARTS (!!!) breaking down the numbers of LGBT characters in YA books.  I mention all this because a) I think it's wonderful that people are talking about this and hopefully working to improve the situation; Lo's statistics are particularly striking, and b) because the focus on Diversity in YA has been largely about including TLBG people and People Of Color, but I have not seen any lists or action about characters With Disabilities, which is an issue, of course, near and dear to my heart.

( How we treat disability in fiction )

Which is what I actually wanted to talk about today!  (Whew! I KNOW!)  I just read Allison Goodman's Eona, sequel to Eon, which I reviewed before, and which was the subject of this excellent Open Letter on Miracle Cures in Fantasy Fiction (goes to a blog).  This review is necessarily going to be full of spoilers.

( Summary of a 637-page book )( Discussion of Eona )( Fury of the Phoenix, as an aside )

And here's to Nepot Rain's first wheelchair, which is blue.  :)  Much love, Susie

P.S. The subject line: Once again, whenever I read an epic fantasy, I have new appreciation for Tolkien.  I know a lot of people don't like the end of LOTR, but I am glad that Nine-Fingered Frodo and the rest didn't just magically recover from what they'd gone through.  Saving the world is something that really ought to change a person, you know?  :)

( Notes on Evil Rats and Tyrant Kings )

1. I'm reading Elizabeth Knox's Black Oxen.  Every one of her sentences is doing something, and a number work on both literal and figurative levels.  I'm such a lazy writer.  Not that I want to write like her--her style is opaque, sterile, dense, distant, magnificent--but I want to learn from it.  I think I like details, explicit, concrete details.  Which is why my stuff is so long.  But also... I don't know, Knox's work is very distinctive, and she has a number of recurring themes, recurring types of characters that I haven't encountered much elsewhere.  But it's ... difficult.  I have to learn how to say precisely what I mean in fewer words.  But I don't want to write in serieses of vague and arresting images in pursuit of the mere implication of theme.  Yet I feel both that I have to say what I mean, and that I'll never write for adults.  Sigh.  I'm working, I'm working, I'm working.

2.  Years ago, at another house, we had an apple tree.  Every spring it produced a profusion of pinkish flowers, every autumn an abundance of tiny hard blushing green fruit.  We didn't know to thin the swelling hips of the pollinated flowers, and one fall one of the branches drooped so far under the weight of its bounty, that it split at the seam, by the trunk, bent downward stretching splinters of heartwood and the grasping remnant of bark on the underside through which the xylem and phloem still flowed.  We lifted up the branch, apples still attached, and I bound it with plastic-y green gardening tape--not sticky--like binding up a wound, and looped it around the branch above, so that the stronger branch could support the injured, apples and all.  The branch didn't die, we ate the apples, and years later it had healed; I removed the tape and there was a scar, a thick knot on the joint where the outer layers had mended around the broken heart of the branch.

This happened, so I knew that it was possible for such injuries to heal, such that, on my walk, when I saw a young cherry bush with its red-budded branch split at the top of the seam near the trunk, I knew with proper care it could be healed.  I had no gardening ribbon, no string, only a tissue in my pocket, just a regular paper tissue.  The branch was light and in a flight of fancy or whimsy--I am never whimsical--I pulled out this paper handkerchief and of it made a sling.  I tied the sling around this broken arm--the split wood fit back together perfectly, folded up, releasing the cramp in the still-whole bark and living wood on its underside.

But then I was afraid that a paper tissue would not hold, would find the weight of even so slight a branch too much, would disintegrate with moisture.  So I sought an alternate binding, a reinforcement and settled on some grass.  This was dead grass lying hollow crisp and yellow on the road; I did not kill the grass to spare the branch.  I tried one stalk which was too brittle, and another which was too brittle, but which was longer and didn't break where I needed it not to break.  And I tied the grass around the tissue, a splint around a sling.  And I walked away, feeling both foolish and whimsical, fanciful and idiotic, and wandered on my way.  When I reached home, it began to snow, heavily, big wet spring flakes falling down to coat the hill with a half-foot blizzard and color the sky with spitting clouds for three days.

On the third day I was able to walk again--I'd walked a shorter distance on the two days in between, but not as far as the certain switchback in the road.  I wandered down to the crossroads--I forgot to mention, my whimsy on that other day was no doubt due to the wind bending my ear at the crossroads; it's a three-way crossroads at the base of the hill, three ways which I always feel is significant, feel should be significant--and didn't feel conducive, in fact I was miserable walking up the hill that day, fretting about many things, disbelieving, lacking, for want of a better word, faith, though I can't imagine faith in what.  That life is worth living, I suppose.  And, without expecting to, having in fact decided already that my ridiculous effort, my useless fancy, had become a labor that like all my other labors had failed, I saw a little cherry bush with a branch in a sling, a paper sling, with a splint of grass.  I laughed.

I laughed.

I laughed, but it was not a free and beautiful laugh, was not a desperate, dispairing laugh of inevitability, was not a shy laugh of being faced with a person of greater power, but some combination of all three.  "A miracle!" I said, laughing, and my laughter suddenly was inevitable, miracles were inevitable; I walked and laughed, laughing walking up the hill.  I, laughing, wondered if I should write a letter to Kleenex praising the tensile strength of their product--and this was not one of those triple-ply-cold-season tissues either, just the old cottony soft paper two-ply kind--a nervous blasphemy in antidote to the overwhelming force of my wonder.

"And you're a miracle," I told the trees in front of me, "and you're a miracle" I told the clouds overhead.  And I paused, struck wonderful again, by an aspen tree, its white trunk sinuous as the track of a snake against the sun-darkened deep blue sky.  And I said, "The trees are writing a language in lightning against the sky"--for the trunk did swerve back and forth between the seams of its branches, white as light against that dark blue sky--"They have written a language in lightning with their bodies against the sky."  And it may have been the manufacturing genius of the tissue company that was a sling for that broken branch, through wind and storms of snow.  Or it may have been the grass.

Love, Susie

Dear Readers, hope springs eternal.  You see, I have brilliant schemes.  All the time.  That almost never work out.  I should rephrase that.  That trick sometimes works, Bullwinkle.  In fiction.  When it comes to plotting stories, I do pretty well (and get rather giddy when a really convoluted turn of events works out logically at the end).  But I also have schemes for how to work better, harder, faster, etc.  As you may recall, recently I decided to write a different book^.  Uh, well, um, you see...  Anyway, that's not important right now.  What is important is that my latest scheme is to revise L&W.  Lemme 'splain.  My general pattern has been 1. Write a novel.  2. Proudly show it to everyone I know.  3.  Bask in their praise.  4.  Get rejected by agents.  5.  Mope in their rejection.  6.  Write another novel.  You may notice there is a missing step in there, which is "revise the novel."

( Going to bed with angry jerks! )And this is merely the introduction to another book review post, (which illustrates how I come to write 1,500,000 word epic trilogies.  ;P).  Those of you reading the subject line have probably guessed that I'm reviewing The Princess Bride by William Goldman, but also The Dust of 100 Dogs by A.S. King, and The Spirit Thief by Rachel Aaron.  As usual, I leave the best for last.

( Pirates! Fencing! Fighting! True Love! Revenge! Miracles! )
( Lady Pirates and A Hundred Dogs, or Monuments To (Poor) Execution )
( Lady Wizards and Big Grey Dogs ).

Happy Reading!  (And revising!)  Love, Susie

( Outliners, Pantsers, and embarrassing things I do In Real Life )

Middle Grade books don't often much appeal to adults beyond their authors and elementary school teachers.  I mentioned briefly in my last book review post that the first time you read a concept in a book it seems original to you.  Nowhere is that more true than in children's books.  Adults often note cliches and poor writing and tired plots and dismiss books for young readers, but to the kids themselves a cool world or a likeable protagonist are enough for them to adore even those books with the most recycled premises.  Just as children haven't yet developed a sophisticated palate for enjoying strong-flavored foods (or perhaps have not numbed half their tastebuds yet), so too does it take growth and life experience to be able to read a book with a critical eye.  Even when a book is so bad the smallest child knows it, they tend to say, "I just didn't like it," and not to outline articulately why.

But the best books for this age group--older elementary and younger middle school if they read them to themselves, younger if the books are read to them--are enjoyable even for jaded readers, if they aren't so cynical they've forgotten what it's like to be a kid.  Which is to say that for young children especially, the world is really magical, and really, really scary.  Anything is possible, and nothing adults do makes any sense.  A kid's understanding of other people's motivations is simplistic at best, even as adults tend to give kids too much credit, while paradoxically ignoring the capabilities they do have.  The best middle grade books are a joy then for adults to read with children, because children get that sense of adventure and possibility and wonder that this mysterious world has to offer, and adults recall some truth they've forgotten about their own childhoods.  In other words, the best children's books offer a glimpse at the real past for one set of readers (sometimes in a happy way, sometimes not; after all, anyone who says it isn't often miserable to be a child is lying, or has at least forgotten), and a glimpse at a potential future for the other (they may not get to do magic when they get older, but at least there is the sense that they can have exciting adventures and (hopefully) come back home safely when it's all over--nihilism really doesn't appeal much to the elementary crowd).

It's easy to recognize the classics that are fun to read aloud, like A. A. Milne's Winnie-ther-Pooh books; other times, kids like books better than you think they will--I knew the My Father's Dragon stories by Ruth Stiles Gannett were suitable for the Nepots, but I didn't know they'd love them so very much (think about it: to an adult, "Elmer Elevator" is a ridiculous name, but to a kid, for whom an elevator is basically a magical device that is fun and cool to ride it, it sounds like a pretty enviable name).  But it's hard to say which new books will be well-received, and I think it's very difficult for a Middle Grade book to achieve "timeless" status, since kids tend to read them and forget them, and adults tend not to revisit them and remember them for future generations.  I just read a really good Children's/MG book, Grace Lin's Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, which I adored and will talk about again later, but the three today are more in the category of "good for what they are" instead of just universally good.  And I admit I'm putting together these three mostly because of their titles.  Only two are actually Middle Grade, the third is solidly Young Adult, easily appealing to the older or more mature reader in the Middle Grade category, as well as older readers, since it has a 16-year-old protagonist.  In ascending order of age appeal, we have The Magic Thief by Sarah Prineas, The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan, and Thief Eyes by Janni Lee Simner.

( I still keep reading his name as Connwater... )
( Perseus, Perseus, son of mighty... er... never mind. )
( I don't know how thieves' eyes came into our family. )It's interesting to me also that all three of these books were told in first person, a voice I find very difficult to do well, and I think all three captured their narrators' characters very well.  Happy reading!

I never know what I'm going to remember about a book.  Some seem so vivid right after I finish them I think I'll never forget them, others I can't even keep track of while I'm reading them.  This is not necessarily a mark of goodness; my reactions to books are entirely subjective, subject to many variables in my life at the time.  Occasionally, I encounter a book that I think is really good writing, which I want to focus on as a writer, so I reread and study the language and try to figure out how the author did what she did.  Contrariwise, when I think a book's writing is not good, I have just a vague sense of badness without necessarily articulating why.  I think the reason for that is that I only get books that are either on a subject I just can't pass up, and/or I have read very good reviews of them (generally only good reviews)--which is why honesty in book reviewers is so important.  Anyway, I'm sure it's because I'm a writer that I tend to focus on the negative rather than the positive (think of revisions, do you look at all your good sentences and feel pleased with yourself?  No, you stare at the bad sentences/paragraphs/scenes/entire plot and agonize over fixing it), but generally speaking almost none of the books I read and review I think are truly bad.  The worst are more like 3 out of 5 stars, usually.

Anyway, I realize that I'm only writing these reviews for my own reference (why I'm not too worried that though I do understand what a good book review is, I don't tend to write them, or rather haven't in the past, more on that presently), which is why it's doubly bad how much I forget.  In searching for something in my old e-mails, for example, I found some first reactions to books I had just read or was reading.  I said I liked that Katniss in Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games was smart.  Huh.  All I remember (beyond vaguely recalling that the book was fast-paced and hard to put down) was how annoyed dystopic fiction like that makes me because I spend half the time reading arguing with the book about why that alternate future could never happen, darn it, (and I argued with the biology in that one too), and also how I thought the ending could have been better--except that the way I wanted it to end wouldn't have fit the characters, so I don't think Collins ended it wrong or anything.  In fact, I kept the book because I thought somebody might like it, even though it wasn't one I'd ever want to reread and I have absolutely no interest in the sequels... but I definitely understand what all the buzz was about.

Some comments seem more mysterious, since I recall the plot of The Hunger Games pretty well.  But I wrote that I really liked Lisa Mantchev's Eyes Like Stars (though I said I didn't know where the world was and that distracted me).  It, er, takes place in a sort of theater outside our dimension or something?  Wait, the heroine is an orphan?  And she has three (?) little buzzy fairy sidekicks, and there's a melodramatic elemental wreaking havoc and maybe that's the plot?  Who knows?  Apparently I liked it when I read it.  I haven't reviewed it here, in large part because it just didn't stick with me.  And then there's a book that I think I remember pretty well--Kristin Cashore's Graceling (which I'll come back to in the end), mostly recalling what I didn't like about it, because what I didn't like was at the end, even though up until the very end, I liked it pretty well, overall.  And then I totally forgot the villain.  Or that there was a villain, really.  Which brings me to the topic today.  :)

A short time ago, I asked for recommendations of books about heroines who are monsters.  (I'd still like recs on those, by the way.)  Related to that topic (but not fulfilling it), I'm reviewing Rampant by Diana Peterfreund, Mistwood by Leah Cypess, and Fire by Kristin Cashore.  The first two are YA; Cashore's books are marketed as YA in the U.S., but I don't really think they are.  That is not a value judgement, and certainly her heroines are young adults (Katsa is 18 I believe and Fire is only 17 when the story starts, but both of them are adults in their world, which makes the difference.), but the themes of the books, while dealing with coming of age and finding one's place in society, just feel more grownup to me.  Anyway.

( Alexander the Great dressed almost exactly like this! Rampant )( Not Quite Monsters and Princes, Mistwood )( Monsters and Princes, Fire )
Happy Reading!

( Notes, in which I depress myself )

All day today outside my window a little blond* fox was curled up asleep.  It changed position at least four times, but didn't move much, though its ears twitched frequently and it half-opened an eye now and then.  Once I was sure it was dreaming of pouncing on a vole.  I suppose foxes must sleep most of the day, like cats, and it's just that I didn't think of it because I've never before been in a position to see one doing so.

Made a cake today, which means Eggs Sardou (ish) tomorrow.  :)  And I started reading Elizabeth Knox's The Angel's Cut which Mokey gave me last night, and which has further cemented my obsession with a certain fallen archangel.  Why is it, Dear Readers, that writers and their audiences find him so much more interesting than God?

Much love (and foxes for everyone!), Susie

*It was like a silver fox, but the base coat was red instead of black, so it was very pale and grizzled with little red patches around its amber-brown eyes--much paler than the yawning fox in the userpic.

Tonight Mokey Fraggle invited me over for her first (possibly) annual Oscar Party.  I went.  It was, as Elmo would say, a Cultural Experience.  It was nice to see Mokey (with whom one day I will have an all-works-by-Elizabeth-Knox book discussion group*), and some other people I like were there as well, but the evening's entertainment itself left me feeling a little down.  But I'm cheery now, and here are some reasons why:

1. While everyone was crticizing the costumes of the people on TV, and half of the advertisements were selling clothes, I was wearing my soft moss green corduroy pants (which I was complimented on) and the newest article of clothing I own, a lovely shirt my mama gave me for Yule/[Nepot Red]mas which looks like it's made out of birch bark with red wine stains on it--but in a really pretty way!--and felt loved.

2. Today (and yesterday, when I took a long walk in it, which made me very, very happy) was a warm (about 25 F), cloudless day.  The snow in the sunshine was burnished, shimmering in glassy patches reflecting the light, with crystals of light in every color within it.  The sky against the light on the snow was so dark a blue, it made my eyes water to look up at it, and against it, the aspen trunks were white as the snow, and their branches were red as blood.

3. It's always something of a herculean labor for me to go to the grocery store (I love food, you know, and despite the sort of obscene abundance in the chain store (usually I go to the smaller grocer), I enjoy seeing all that bounty of produce in all its rainbow of colors and shapes and forms, but still, there's something really sad for me in shopping just for one person--it's just so much more fun to cook delicious beautiful meals that I'll share with other people; clearly I need to start a gourmet soup kitchen.), but I was proud of myself for completing the chore and gave myself a treat (which I also need/want for work) of a new notebook (alas, the only college-ruled they had was three-subject, but at least it was green *g*) and some very pretty gel pens and six colors of highlighters (all of this I'm convinced will make dreaded revisions both easier and more fun, and maybe even, hope hope hope, more productive.  Ha.  We'll see.).

That wasn't the good part, though.  The good part was that on the way out I saw a buzzard (I think it was a red-tailed hawk, but lighting conditions made a positive identification difficult, plus, you know, I was driving quickly past it on the highway), its belly shining like a lamp of pure snowy white compared to the multitude of colors in the actual snow, its back dark brown as earth in comparison.  And on the way home I saw three slender ducks (I think teals of some kind) raise their long elegant necks and fly three feet from one pond to another, while the trumpeter swans raised their melodious hoots, and mallards and geese rested on the ice or swam two by two around the edges.

And then of course I had a green banana (yes, that really is a treat for me.  I must be a primate after all.) which was tart enough, it tasted almost (but not quite) like my beloved apple bananas that my parents grow in their yard in Hawai'i.  And I also had carrots which were sadly not very sweet, and hot chocolate which seemed almost too sweet, having not had any for a while.

4.  And the sky at sunset, as the wind blew in the clouds that are yet obscuring all the stars, was pastel and heavy with ice, the airplane contrails making orange and pink exes that bled out into dragon's ribs of dendritic clouds.

5.  And then I checked my e-mail and logged on here and Mom sent me e-mails grateful to know I agree with her on certain politics and that she can always talk to me, and p_a_morningstar  said I inspired her to think slashy thoughts (which made me LOL *g*), someone even commented that they like my blog, and on my flist there were stories of a sprout taking hold in a sink, and winter taking hold of a heart, and poems about love and honey and sunlight.  And I thought... life is still beautiful, and I am happy.

Now for more of that hot chocolate...  :)

Much love, Susie

*In fact a big part of why I went tonight, besides seeing friends, was to exchange more books with her.

( Heroin addict? Well at least he's not bi. Also hyena teeth and heroic orcs and more! ) Poll #1709599 Fluffinella is discerning!
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 3

Fluffinella, as you may have guessed, is beginning the long process of becoming a nun, possibly making her the only Catholic nun in history to write slash. So, blackmailing a nun...?

Who is your favorite fictional nun?

Fluffinella is looking to discern the Carmelite order, a mystic order, including among its historical members St. John of the Cross. What's the opposite of Mystic?

Who is your favorite Skeksis?

Will Fluffinella be an asset to the abbey?

Much love, Susie

*See numero cinque.

This morning I: tried to sleep through the house's security alarm going off*, woke up, had breakfast, and sat down to write!  And it was good!  OK, it was a very short scene and a Plot Bunny, but it was definitely my intention (still is, er, heh.  Yeah, good luck with that, Susie) to finish the Plot Bunny and Move On to Real Important Scenes!!!  Ahem.  Also, these scenes were not in my nominal current project but in my other pseudo-current-project, L&W.  Sigh.  I don't question my brain and it doesn't question me.  I'd complain to my Genius, but sometimes I'm really not sure my Genius is all that bright... Still, long as he/she/it/they is/are driving, I don't care where we go!  (I really hate driving.)

ANYWAY!  I was, this will surprise you not at all, somewhat distracted, round about the time I stopped mid-dialogue for some lunch (this was more than 3 hours ago at this point... will be more by the time I finish writing this post), and I decided to share some thoughts with you, not necessarily in any particular order.

1. First of all, grr, I'm really sorry I was so tired for the last post and once again failed to provide descriptions of the pictures.  (Accessibility should be a right not a privilege!)  Anyway, they were hilarious pictures of me as a child dressed in silly clothes.  At least, Mom thought they were hilarious.  And honestly, the train-robber- from -a -Western outfit in the last post was pretty darn funny (though I really needed a black hat).

2. So, my friend*** who may or may not be a spy p_a_morningstar  commented that when she was a kid she liked books about boys because boys had more fun.  And, although I couldn't articulate it this way at the time, I definitely agreed with her when I was younger.  Thinking of the awesome fantasy books my fabulous English (which was called "Language Arts" in those years, and which actually is kind of a neat name) teacher asigned in 7th and 8th Grades, could fit perfectly into two categories: 1) written by a man, featuring a male protagonist who goes and has cool adventures where lots of awesome stuff happens, and 2) written by a woman, featuring a female protagonist in which the protagonist or her close female friends and/or relatives are threatened with a) arranged marriage, b) rape, c) sexual assault, or d) all of the above, often including robbery and murder too.
( More on books I read in middle school plus the first set of stats )

So, in that sense, portraying women/girls as being both commonly subject to threats of sexualized violence**** and as far more affected than men/boys is realistic, as is the fact that men/boys feel more able to ignore its presence and our cultural narratives surrounding it.  Except, while fiction can be a valuable place to educate people on societal problems, there is a tendency for writers to decide that overt lessons are "preaching" and "always bad," and also for writers to gloss over such things if they are writing anything other than a "problem novel."  Likewise, while I have found that female authors tend to be slightly less likely to include gratuitous rape/sexual assault purely for shock purposes^^^, and are more likely to have the victim be both a major character and sympathetically portrayed, female authors, I have found, are just as likely as men to elide the role of, you know,the rapists.  Because it is somehow still controversial in our society to say, "Rape wouldn't happen if nobody ever raped anybody else."  And women are just as likely to engage in rape apologia, or else we would not have the despicable trial and conviction rate we have in this country today.
( Stats and differences between men and women as authors )3. Related to #2, I've noticed a marked difference between male and female writers when they are evolutionary psychologists.  (Oh so easy to mock, so easy. (it left out discussion of the color of ape genitalia, though))  Namely, that it's much worse to read a woman write stuff like this.  (because of this)

( Maybe we should call it Bonobo Kissing )
And that's how I spend 8 hours a day not working on my book!  Next time, a poll!  Much love, Susie 

( The only thing that's shocking is how much we still let it happen. )

Susie, is it true that you are the world's worst procrastinator?

Yes, this is true.  I know of at least one thing I said I'd do that I've been putting off for about three years now.  But mostly I've procrastinated today.  I was enabled, in fact, by another chronic procrastinator, hereafter known as Sister Fluffinella.  (I'll explain the change in another post... actually, not explain it, but I have a silly poll planned, which is practically the same thing. *g*)

Camilla: Oh, I think I'll finally post the second part of my sexism in fiction discussion this morning!
Fluffinella: Hey, do you want to chat?
Camilla: I'm only opening this chat window to let you know I can't chat with you.
Fluffinella: I am procrastinating today.
Camilla: That makes two of us! STOP ENABLING ME!
Fluffinella: I'm really bored, too.
Camilla: Is it your day off?
Fluffinella: Yeah, it's Presidents' Day.
Camilla: Oh, is that still a holiday? How quaint. But I'm serious, I can't chat. I want to post to my blog before it's too late!
Fluffinella: Oh, that's OK. Let me just send you this thing I'm procrastinating on.
Camilla: All right, but I'm not going to read it right now.

As you can probably guess... actually, no one could ever guess.  Anyway, I didn't read Fluffinella's essay! I also didn't post to my blog!  (And it's too bad, because if I'd done it this morning afternoon, it would have been coherent! So, it's a lose-lose situation.  For me and for you, Dear Readers.  Fluffinella wins.)  Instead I spent 2 1/2 hours, among other things, summarizing the plot of Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe to highly comedic effect!  My summary was surprisingly accurate!  At least it would be surprising if you expected me to remember absolutely nothing of the actual plot.

Anyway, I did manage at least to get outside today, and I saw an elk!  Which was very surprising.  And I heard a great-horned owl, which was very nice.  And then I fretted some more because my brain is in the midst of a Senseless Rebellion and I have been busily thinking up scenes for L&W, and not actually writing anything down.  Sigh.  Will I forget all this work in the future?  Alas.  Perhaps.  Does that inspire me to sit myself down and actually do some work?  Alas.  No.  I am very contrary, even just to myself.

Are you going to share your parody of Ivanhoe with us?

It's doubtful.  It wasn't all that accurate.  Which isn't surprising, since I've never actually read the book.

But you will talk about the battle of the sexes in fiction now, right?

So, Kate Elliott's question about the difference between male and female authors I think stemmed in part from this ridiculous screed about the supposed nihilism of modern Fantasy, ( In which I bribe you to keep reading with pictures of me and a hyena! )

So, we're at it again. In my last post, I mentioned some unpleasant things I'm learning about sexism in fiction, and specifically in Fantasy. Adding to that, and in response to some other things, Kate Elliott (kateelliott ) asks if men and women write Fantasy differently, and gets some answers in the comments. I would have said that always if a person uses female as a noun, he is a man, and if the person uses female as an adjective only she is a woman, and then Elliott wrote that post.  ;)

I want to talk about this a lot more, but first I wanted to talk about gender performance. Now as you have probably guessed, I am a freak my family is not like a lot of families in our culture in this regard. Which is to say that most of the gender stereotyping my brother and sister and I picked up came from pop culture (television, movies, books, other kids) and not from our parents. Both my parents are vocal feminists in their way, and so are my siblings and I. Bigotry, quite simply, is illogical, and my very rational, highly educated family didn't stand for any overt displays of it--though we all have absorbed the little things.

Easily the most shocking and distressing thing for me in writing L&W has been envisioning a society without any sexism at all. Not the society, mind you. What has distressed me is how bloody hard it is for me to envision such a society, and to realize how much misogynistic baggage I'm hauling around. I well remember hating being a girl and disparaging "girly things" between the ages of about 10 and now 20ish, but it is only in the last year or so that I've finally been able to unpack that baggage and figure out why. And I'm still working on a lot of stuff, of course, but I understand so many things so much better than I did yesterday, last month, a year ago, when I started this blog.

And it's kind of odd, really, and shows the power of culture, since we played around quite a bit with gender normativity in my family. So, um, Elmo may wish to avert his eyes for some of this.

It was all play, though--all three of us are cissexual--but while it was most pronounced around our family's biggest holiday, we did it at other times, too. I probably did it the most. So, photographic evidence:

We'll start with what I consider my basic default:

This is why I could say "parasaurolophus" at the age of three. This is still my default costume when out of the house: jeans, t-shirt, tennis shoes. Dinosaurs are gender neutral, nature is gender neutral. In my mind I am many things before I am "female." I am simply myself. Our culture places a huge emphasis on gender performance, so many people think they should be their gender first, but it's my belief that few of us are. Ask me who I am, and my first answer is "Susie," because that encompasses all of me. My love of nature, biology, writing, how much I love my hair, all come up before I think to say "woman." But I don't doubt that I am a woman, and never doubted that I was a girl when I was a girl, even though I often thought (and sometimes still do) that my life would be easier, better, if I were male instead. (Now that I know I have a fatal genetic disorder, there's an added layer of knowing my sex makes it so it won't be fatal for me, a mixed blessing indeed.)

Anyway, this means that for me, putting on any kind of gendered costume, whether gendered boy or girl, was equally performative. I recall wearing this:

But I recall having very mixed feelings about doing ballet--it was what girls did (but how much I longed to take karate with my brother instead) and I had to be a girl, but I remember even at six thinking I was ugly and fat and ungraceful compared to the other girls, and I quit ballet as soon as I could take horseback riding lessons instead (which was at seven). I should mention that riding horses was gender neutral to me, despite the preponderance of girls, because Elmo rode with me, and PrairieDawn had ridden before at camp (as had Mom, way back in the day). This is a recurring theme in my life, benefit of being the youngest child, and was a large part of why I did this, also:

Football/soccer is also gender neutral to me, because in the U.S. it's very, very popular for kids of all sexes. It wasn't until I was much older that I considered the professional makeup of the sport, even as I knew that much as I loved baseball (mostly because Dad did and I wanted to spend time with him--I've actually never really cared much for any sports (football/soccer I like because it's really, really simple)) it Was Not For Girls, which just reinforced my belief that girly things (like ballet) basically sucked and boy-y things (like everything cool) really didn't.

Now, I can't take credit for this, as I was two at the time:

That's Elmo as a bat and me as Christopher Robin, and yes, there is a pun in that.
But, when I got older, I rotated pretty regularly each Halloween between characters who were male, female, and gender neutral (as when I was a pterodactyl--I didn't think of myself as a "girl pterodactyl" in fact I don't think I thought about the sex of the pterodactyl at all, in part because my brother had worn the very same costume in a previous year).

I was not alone in this. All three of us frequently dressed as animals (or fruits, as when my sister was a tomato), and my sister was very fond of going as corpses, which are naturally fairly sexless. One year I went as a disembodied head. Anyway, when I was ten or eleven, PrairieDawn converted us all to Paganism, which led to her very eagerly encouraging Elmo and me to dress specifically as other than our own genders (PrairieDawn also always did all our makeup). I really, really enjoyed that, but I fear Elmo more put up with his sisters' antics than was particularly enthusiastic about it.

So, here is one of me at eleven as the ghost of Paul Revere (with duct tape on my cardboard musket and safety pins in my tricorne hat):

There's something about my expression in this picture that's very compelling. And I love my horse.
Anyway, here's Elmo about to turn 14, as a banshee (I think he should consider wearing his hair like this all the time, don't you?):

He doesn't look very happy, though I think whenever we wore white grease paint, Mom told us not to smile because our teeth looked yellow.
Bullying at school I think helped discourage Elmo from wearing his sister's clothes for a little while, but I was rather aggressively oblivious to it:

Here I am dressed up for a book report in, I think, 4th Grade. I loved the Great Brain books in elementary school, because the Great Brain was a) smart, b) mischievous and very naughty in a way that grownups found mostly endearing, and c) got to do all kinds of really cool stuff that I never got to do. I don't recall anyone else in my class dressing as a character not of their same gender, and frankly, I was bullied so much in that school, I couldn't possibly remember any particular incident. I do recall in 5th Grade, however, desperately not wanting to play the required "girls'" part in the school musical production, because it involved wearing a short pink skirt, and I had already (thanks to ballet) determined that my fat legs should never wear any skirt ever, especially not a pink one. So much hatred tied up in one little package--that is kyriarchal womanhood, folks. If she is not pretty, she is worthless, because pretty is all that girls are. I remember hating my appearance so much, and thinking I looked boyish around this age, and remember even more (sorry Mom) my own mother not reassuring me when I sobbingly asked her after school one day if she thought I was pretty, because I'd assumed the phrase "a face only a mother could love" meant the reverse, that mothers always believe their children to be beautiful. (Obviously, it means they love their children's faces, which is not at all the same thing, and certainly my mother loves me very much.)
Looking at these pictures now, though, I think I was really pretty cute as a child, and even looking at myself as a teenager, I'm filled much more with a kind of fond nostalgia for how much lay ahead of me, and sympathy for the pain I felt then--both products of being able, at last, to look at myself in the mirror today and like what I see. When I'm a bit fatter and quite a bit less feminine (performatively at least) than I was in high school and college and after. And nothing about me changed, except that I learned to blame the system for my self-loathing, and love who I really am inside, where it counts. And some days I feel pretty too, and even wear pink now and then.
And when I was fifteen, somehow I was even confident enough to dress as a goddess:

That's my gorgeous sister on the left, as The Millenium Bug. She still did my makeup. :)  People sometimes say they think PrairieDawn and I don't look much alike, but look at this picture! We both have the exact same expression! And weird appendages coming out of our heads! Clearly we are highly related. :) The year in this picture, Elmo was back to wearing his sister's clothes again--this time one of my skirts because he was a Roman legionnaire. SuperGrover, Floyd, and Janice were also with us that year, I do believe for the first time (PrairieDawn and SuperGrover got married that winter following). SuperGrover was a bat that time, and Floyd and Janice were the corpses. :)

I have many very sweet pictures I cherish of PrairieDawn holding me as a child, benefit of her both adoring babies and children and being seven years my senior, but I'm going to end with a couple of pictures I adore of me and Elmo, as amends for the banshee pic. (You were a very lovely wicked fairy, Elmo)

I have a nose! Our relationship has changed little.

Very typical: me with my binoculars and believing Elmo knows absolutely everything worth knowing. That's Dad and PrairieDawn on the ridgeline, by the way; Mom took the picture. I'm five, so Elmo's eight going on nine and PrairieDawn is twelve. We all still love dinosaurs.

NOTE: This blog post is only about the state of things in the U.S.A., though much of it is true elsewhere, my examples are specifically U.S.ian.

Mmm... dates.

So, some time ago I made a flippant comment on someone else's blog saying that women aren't a particularly discriminated against group in publishing.

( My Experience as a YA Fantasy Author and why that makes me an expert (not) )Here is a helpful graph showing the gender breakdown of both professional reviewers and the authors of the books they review in some major literature publications.  Here is an essay from Slate on the topic (I had forgotten how annoying Slate is, but it's a good quick assessment).  And finally, what started this thinking yesterday, here is a discussion started by N. K. Jemisin on her blog (calling it a discussion, because she's asking the question, and the comments are the answer) about how all this applies to Epic Fantasy.

Basically, the graph shows that "literature" as defined by literary journals is still written by men at a ratio of as much 7 men to 1 woman (if you are The Paris Review).  And Jemisin has discovered that if a woman writes a book with a sex scene in it, it is automatically a Romance Novel ( (ironic, is what that is) )  Even weirder is Kate Elliott's story in the comments on Jemisin's post in which a (male) reveiwer said she was "pushing a homosexual agenda" because she described male characters as sexually attractive.  I have no words, for that, Readers, only an abbreviation and a bit of punctuation: WTF?

And all of this reduces down to me needing to write faster, write better, and write more.  So I'll do that.

'Til then, dear Readers, what do you make of all this?  Much love, Susie

( Notes: Adult themes like paying taxes and stuff )

Location in Current Project: Chapter Seven (The Earth-Knight's Labors)
Worry about this chapter: The primary action consists of building a privy.
Weird writing phenomenon in this chapter: The pace was too slow, so I had to make less stuff happen.
Prognosis for the next session: Good.  Today I realized that a certain character would have a different reaction to a certain situation than the one I'd originally planned, and the new one is much, much better.
Books to study before revisions:
Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater
Thomas the Rhymer by Ellen Kushner
The Vintner's Luck by Elizabeth Knox
(Also, maybe Plain Kate by Erin Bow, but that's not relevant to the POLL!)

Poll #1675431 So I'm writing this new book...
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 4

Based on the above list, what is this book about?

OK, it's a romance with angels and fairies. Would you read this book?

What do you want/need?

So, yeah. I'm writing a new book. I have not abandoned L&W mind you, it's just on a brief hiatus. Not because I don't know what happens.  See, I realized that I've been writing the first draft of L&W for about a year. In that year I wrote 220,000 words of first draft (in order), plus many thousands of words of future scenes in Book One and Books Two and Three of the trilogy, plus innumerable notes, tangents, timelines, and even some scenes I've already cut. And I'm only halfway done with Book One. It's not so much that this is a problem, except that after more than two years of work (counting coming up with the idea, and my initial outlines and notes), I was having this panicky feeling that I'd never finish anything again. Yes, I am well aware of the irony: I didn't finish what I was working on because I was afraid I'd never finish.

Initially, I thought this current story (hereafter known as Bird & Beauty (is that intriguing?)) would be very easy to write and I'd finish it quickly and feel that rosy glow of accomplishment (plus have something to send out to agents) which would fuel my second wind (or 12th, whatever) on L&W. Thing is, as my skills as a writer increase, so does my ambition. I have two challenging goals for this book: 1. Write a lyrical imagistic book evoking a powerful emotional connection between the two main characters, as it is their romance. 2. Interweave two parallel storylines that intersect more and more as the book progresses to the end.
Attendant on these goals, I am writing two alternating points of view, both told in first person (which is always challenging to me), and because goal #1 involves the reader believing the two main characters are still very much in love even though they are physically separated for almost the entire book, and goal #2 involves information coming to both characters and readers slowly, I am also playing with chronology and utilizing many flashbacks/memories, which are told in present tense.
I actually think it's working. Really! And I still plan to have the rough draft finished in about 2 months (or less), though that's a bit hindered when I don't write for three days.

But I have been reading. And I have tons of books to talk about. Now I'll just mention the book I finished today, which was Kate Elliott's Cold Magic, and is not only one of the best books I've ever read, but also has one of my very favorite fairy worlds, which I'll talk about when I talk about the book.

Dear Readers, it's been a while. Well, you know me, I'm posting today because I really want to be working and it's not working, so I blog. I swear it's better than spamming everyone on my e-mail contacts list. Uh, for them, not necessarily for you, though most of you are the same people... ;)

So, I was thinking of Things We Do On The Internet that we (or at least I) don't (or shouldn't) do "In Real Life." With illustrations to let you know some of what I've been up to.

( Five Rules of Civil Discourse For Meatspace Users )And I have lots more to talk about, but I'm outta space for today, so be kind Dear Readers, to others, to yourselves, to the world. Much love, Susie

( Lifeforms Bearing Gifts )

1. Not so much to share with you, but so I remember it. This morning, Mom saw I was writing a post about The Virginian and she got excited and said, "Does anybody read this? [meaning the blog, I assume] I find it really interesting." :)

2. It's a bit of a stretch to call my last three entries an essay, when they're more like slightly organized rambly musings in which I come to no profound or definite conclusion. I'll undoubtedly edit it in the future, but I don't know when. I'm curious, though, to know if you draw any conclusions from it, or see threads that seem to point to something coherent I was going to say. ;)

3. I have a thought. Right before we started The Virginian, I tried to read, on Elmo's recommendation, Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter by Mario Vargas Llosa, who recently won the Nobel Prize for Literature (though probably not for that book), and was so utterly disgusted by it, I only read through the first chapter because I was reading it to Mom, and wanted to not just stop, but throw the book in the trash, or possibly incinerate it in the fireplace*, but Mom stopped me. And I realized that there are three ways in which to encounter Bigotry in a book, and I react to the three in very different ways.

A. It's an Old Book (TM) and even though you know there were people who knew better back then, most people didn't, and the Bigotry fits the culture the book was written in.

B. It's a less-old book and even though there were still plenty of people who didn't know better, the people who did were hardly a small, silent minority.

C. It's a recent book and the author draws attention to the lampshade Bigotry and says something like, "It's not P.C., but here's this great joke we used to tell back in the '70s."

Now, all of these are still perpetuating Bigotry, but somehow I find option A. least offensive and option C. most offensive. Why is that? So, I have examples of all three to illustrate my thinking.
 
Example A of course is The Virginian. Now, in reading it aloud, I declined to read the easily skippable racism (name calling, the description of the noble savages in Omaha, etc.), but of course there was some that was ingrained in the plot of the story and couldn't be removed without affecting meaning. (Same with the sexism) Of course it bothered me (I mentioned a little bit of it in the "essay"), but I was prepared for it; I expected no better of a popular novel from 1902. Maybe I should expect more from fiction, but the world of the U.S. in 1902 was very, very different from the U.S. of 2010. A hundred years is a long time in any period of history, but it's exceptionally long when that century was the 20th.

Example B was the Vargas Llosa. It was written in 1977, translated into English in 1982. That's more than 30 years ago the book was written, which is the difference between the dawn of personal computers and my mom buying a Droid.** (And indeed between Mom being a first-time mother and having a granddaughter in kindergarten. My, how time flies as PrairieDawn gets old... *g*) And it's such an alien time, indeed, that the translater into English put in the phrase "raw fish marinated in lemon juice" instead of leaving it as "ceviche." But by 1977, a lot of the various human rights movements had not only been going on in a big way in the public consciousness for about a decade***, but by 1977 were a part of the daily public dialogue nationwide in the U.S. Hell, Loretta Lynn sang "The Pill" in 1975 (though she'd recorded it 3 years earlier and the record label wouldn't release it). Now, of course, Vargas Llosa is Peruvian, and it's a bad (generally racist) stereotype to say that South America Is Backwards, but one can hardly say that the concepts of equality and social justice were unknown there, besides which, Vargas had frequently lived abroad, including in London and Paris, at the time he wrote it. (That it was set in the '50s, I think in this case is immaterial). Part of my problem, also, I'm sure, is that I was looking forward to some light, humorous escapism, and was confronted instead by outrageous bigotry from the very first page. I laughed much more reading The Virginian, which was not supposed to be a comedy. ;)

Example C was especially disconcerting because there was no reason for it to be there at all. It was a nonfiction book about birders, of all things, called Birders by one Mark Cocker.^ The book is basically the author's memoir about being an obsessed bird-watcher, comprised of anecdotes about the birds he sees and the fellow birders he meets. Very light reading. Now, of course, the trouble starts because the book has a humorous tone. Most of the funny stories are genuinely funny about being lost in the wilderness or comparing the size of one's binoculars, driven by both characters and situations. But then he throws in a pretty horrible joke (using a slur I didn't think would be published in a mainstream nonfiction book--but I guess publishers will publish anything... Ahem.), which is bad enough, EXCEPT, he does it with the caveat that this was a joke they made when he was a kid in the 70s and that it's not generally acceptable to make today. And instead of trying to figure out why the joke is offensive, he says, "some people find this offensive," and puts it in anyway, because he still finds it funny. And that bugs me the most, I think, because whereas a person like Owen Wister is living in a world that encourages his bigotries and has no reason to suppose he ought to question his assumptions, and Vargas Llosa probably also never considered that there was anything wrong with him because he had a heap of privilege (in Peru, racial, gender, heterosexual, and able-bodied--outside Peru, there may be a question on how White South Americans are, even the ones with predominantly European ancestry--the racism in the book was directed at indigenous Peruvians (at least in the first chapter and a half, which is all I read).), but in Example C, the author acknowledges that he has had the opportunity (probably more than once) to become a better person, and has consciously chosen not to take it. And that really gets me, I suppose because I care.

So, it snowed all day today. I made cupcakes the other day. Having people over for dinner twice in a week next week. How are all of you? And don't you miss the days when I was stuck on a book and wrote NSFAQ instead? Maybe I do. ;)

Love, Susie

*We had more snow today! It's gorgeous outside, with more than a foot of soft fluffy powder everywhere, and there's something about this kind of weather just makes me want to have a fire. :) (Mind you, I'm being facetious. Under dire circumstances I'll throw a book in the trash (usually if the book has some fault in printing, etc. that makes it unreadable; if I just hate it, I'll usually give it away instead, though sometimes a book is so hateful I don't want to inflict it on anybody, in which case, uh, I gave it to Fluffinella. Ahem.), but burning them has too many conotations I dislike. :P )

**I am so technologically averse, I was hoping Mom had picked up an R2D2 in Hawai'i. :( Would be more useful around the house. ;P

***This is my impression from pop culture. I wasn't around then, nor I have I studied the period from a historical perspective.

^I wonder if your name affects what you do in life? This is right up there with, I think he was, the former president of the National Audubon Society named Flicker.

This is part three of my increasingly long-winded discussion of The Virginian and the Kyriarchy. Part One isHERE. Part Two is HERE.

( Mother of Exiles )
Whether or not there must be a natural hierarchy of people is something that has been debated by philosophers in one form or another probably ever since there first was an artificial hierarchy. Generally speaking though, the claim that one has a natural right to one's position on the pyramid of power is the defense used by those who did nothing to earn their place at the top, who, in fact, fear they aren't naturally better than those below them, and so have an interest in keeping Wister's "Equality" in their place at the bottom.

( The Honest Settlers of Jackson's Hole )

This is part two of my discussion of The Virginian and Kyriarchy. Part One is HERE.

How the Ideal Man treats the Ideal Woman is important, but it's not as important as how he relates to other men.

( On Roman names )And it looks like this essay, like Gaul, must be divided into three parts. A link to part Three will appear here when that part exists.

*And lots of (I hope) unintentional double entendres. The book actually has some genuine humor in it (particularly the beginning when the Narrator loses his luggage), but a lot of what I was laughing at (and how can you not laugh at the phrase "leathern chaparreros"? I dare you.) was probably meant to be funny in another way. What, for example, do you make of the meeting between the Virginian and Scipio? ( In which the Virginian admires Scipio's legs... )

Today I'm going to talk about The Ideal Man.

Now, this is not my ideal man, but I mean the concept of an Ideal Man. I just finished reading aloud to my aged mother* Owen Wister's 1902 novel The Virginian, which invented the Western, and strove to show through its title character an exemplar of the archetypical New American Man of Wister's day. Now, it's not that good of a book, in fact I found it quite objectionable in many ways, but it illustrates beautiful just what I've been trying to say about our modern Kyriarchy, its origins, and our culture.

( In which I refer to many Westerns )And this is rather long, so I'll break it up into two parts. Part two will be HERE when I write it and edit this entry to reflect its existence. ;)

*Back when The Homeless Person was living with us, she told me she thought this reading aloud thing was "kind of romantic." I don't think she meant in the sense that reading aloud was a valuable social skill in the 19th Century. And, I don't know. I have a tendency to do things other people think are romantic (not just [not] starving in a garret basement dungeon lower level for my art), but I enjoy reading aloud and I'm good at it so I'll keep doing it anyway.

**Because the book was published in 1902, it is written that way, though I personally enjoyed reading out loud, "you son of a blank!" ;) Interestingly, he mentioned Bitch Creek by name, presumably because a) it's a proper name, b) it's not a slur as used, indeed, the geographical and historical information in the Wyoming State Archives suggests the name was originally "biche," which seems plausible enough in Teton County, with its number of French names for things... though the surviving ones are certainly slangy--Teton, Gros Ventre, etc. See here.

***Despite the nautical knowledge requirements of L&W, I remain a writer first. It took me until this moment to realize they are metaphorically firing cannons at each other and not handing each other newspaper editorials. Ahem.

After a pretty miserable two months, something wonderful has happened. See, one time PrairieDawn said one should never use one's blog to complain about things one has chosen to do. I don't want to complain about writing here, really, but this thing happens to me, way too often, in which I stop writing. And I despair that I'll never write again. Sometimes I need only not write for a day for this to happen, and I get caught in a cycle of negativity in which I decide I've written nothing for ages and ages, when it's not true, and definitely not helpful. In fact, the problem with Part Three seems to be that the first scene was really actually completely awesome. It was brilliant and it just happened on a whim and somehow I captured through structure the character's feelings (uh, concussed, hung-over, and self-loathing, heh), while simultaneously including a really silly running gag, and brief brilliant insights (totally lost on the POV character) into the mental states of the three other characters in the scene (one is still in love with a bad person and hating it, the other two are falling in love with each other against their will...well, OK, one of them is totally OK with it, the other has very conflicted feelings*), and also some pretty darn fine writin', including a few sentences that I am madly in love with. Actually, ahem, more than a few.

My first reader**, Mom, was actually impressed by the scene (and those that followed--I managed two before having yet another existential crisis) and said, "This is excellent. You said exactly what you meant to say."*** And so I passed the next interminable four weeks not writing a bloody word, not even turning on the ancient computer I work on. I couldn't even think about the story. It was just gone. There was no other story filling its place, I just... my thoughts were empty. I couldn't write, I couldn't read, and I felt pretty well crazy and very unhappy.

Then, having achieved maximum cabin fever to spectacular results (and the despair of all my friends--as I was pestering them with random whinging and incongruous thoughts about nothing all this time), I went outside and sledded in the back yard, and lay upon the fresh snow (record amounts too!) and the only sound anywhere was the wind in the douglas-firs and snow squeaking in the sun (and Mom knocking on the window to wave at me goofily). This was Thanksgiving. And, returning into the warm house, Mom and I made a feast, just for the three of us, and it was easiest, tastiest Thanksgiving ever. We made no desserts, only roasted a heritage turkey which tasted like a turkey and was so delicious, and some stuffing which wasn't quite perfect, and some very good sweet potatoes, and cranberry sauce, and some buttermilk-mashed Yukon Gold potatoes too, to go with the fantastic gravy--fantastic because a) that was the fattest turkey ever. It had about a one-inch thick pad of fat after roasting in its furcular hollow^, and b) it had about a cup of blood (real blood, not just bloody water) we drained out of it (it came in a bag), and now you know Susie's secret to the best gravy ever (and any roux-based sauce for meat): blood. I am sanguivorous.

That wasn't the end of it. I went another week without writing. But I resumed research, which got me thinking.
Here's what I read this week: 1. Literal pornography (That link is to an MA thesis by a University of Calgary student a decade ago, on Hetairai in Hellenic and Hellenistic culture. I found it fascinating, but be warned it's 157 pages long.), 2. Pamir National Park in Tajikistan (who knew Tajikistan is so beautiful? Well, now I do *g*), which led to a tangent on Tibetan Blue Bears (Which are not found in Tajikistan, obviously, it was quite a tangent), 3. Cannibalism in the Solomon Islands, and 4. Vaishnavism, particularly Dashavatara, or the ten avatars of Vishnu, which may or may not be seen as symbolic of human evolution. ;) And much more, too, for example I now know the average knots a certain culture's ships must travel to achieve the travel times I want... and it's totally plausible! Thank you personification of inspiration and whatnot!

And then the last three days, I've been writing. Still have a totally messed up sleep schedule, and last night and the previous night I was writing scenes in Part Four (and Part Five) rather than the Part Three I'm supposed to be working on... But it was necessary. I just realized this. You see, last night I wrote a scene in the timeline of Part Five that is totally and utterly superfluous. It includes a very old not original joke, absolutely no plot motion, and miniscule (I mean, seriously miniscule, virtually nonexistent, and none of it that can't be found better elsewhere in the story) character development, and I knew before writing it that if I wrote it I'd have to cut it, but It'd been filling brain space (came to me in the shower too) and I just wrote it. And you know what? It was the right thing to do.

I realized I'd been stuck because I was literally (er, figuratively... it makes sense, really it does) constrained. I love the story. I don't want to change it, but even in this less-plotted Part Three, it's fixed. The plot is so incredibly complicated, the action so basic, that there's very little room for tangents, or for altering its course. I like the way it goes, but when I feel stuck, I can't just throw a troll at the hero, as I did with The Comedy. (Or Giant Killer Swine From Tartarus, or Lacivious Mermaids, or a goat... you get the idea) Instead I find myself with these what I call Plot Bunnies--bits of action that really do happen... off stage. Hence, last night I wrote Psychometric Hero getting a little respite from his angst by sitting down to a friendly game of cards with some midshipmen who have no agenda and a penchant for rather, ahem, salty jokes. ;) It's totally pointless in terms of the overall plot, but I liked knowing, somehow, that Psychometric Hero has a chance just to be young and without responsibilities or the threat of peril, and especially to know that he didn't find the joke funny. The scene's not even worth posting to a blog as a cookie if the book ever gets published and read, because as I said, it's a very old joke, and while it is funny, it's not so funny that I feel a burning need to share it with you. Although the other disgusting old joke I learned from the same source... heh. Probably not good in mixed company, even virtual. ;)

And, having cleared my head, I feel ready to keep pressing forward with Part Three until I get to the bits I'm looking forward to writing, namely a very silly encounter with a character from the last part (which might be to be cut too, but more on that in a second), and also the profound wisdom and insight of the chief of the man-eating wifwolves, and of course at last getting to Part Four which I've been excited about from the very beginning (and why have I now added two new already-dead characters I find totally fascinating? Alas!). The point is, I've figured out viscerallly what I've known intellectually for a very long while: You can't edit what you haven't written. They may be Plot Bunnies, or Cookies, or just Old Jokes, but I have to write them, just because I can, because I need to still feel free to write what I feel like, even if I know readers will never (and in some cases should never) see it. Because although I don't think readers will ever need to know the first names of two characters in Part Two, I think I should know, because they know, and because it explains why we don't know. And one day I sincerely hope all of you can appreciate how much of this vast world had to exist in my head to create the beautiful windows onto it that exist on the page. Because I can write just what I mean to. And I don't have to do it all the time to be able to do it when I need to. I'll edit the book when it's done. I can't keep editing it in my head, or it becomes the kind of cycle of autocannibalism that results in flat, meaningless words running very fast telling nothing.

Also, giving credit where credit is due, this burst of creativity coincided with reading again. I'm reading Owen Wister's The Virginian aloud to my aged mother. I have lots to say about it, and maybe I'll even post soon before I forget. ;)

Much love, Susie

P.S. Sheesh. I'd already forgotten what day it was, what month it was, and what date it was more than once today, and nearly forgot my subject line. Three interesting (to me) bits of news: Police are investigating a Ponzi scheme at my old high school involving students believing they were investing in a marijuana dispensary, a certain bacterium from Mono Lake uses arsenate instead of phosphate, and astronomers say there are 300 sixtillion stars in the universe. Those last two should inspire some sci-fi. All I can think is, that's a lot of stars. :)

P.P.S. Sheesh, again! ETA: I mean the book we're reading, I chose the userpic because we had red crossbills in the yard the other day, and tonight for the first time this year there was a cow moose. And now, I'm really done. :)

P.P.P.S. The editing streak runs deep. ETA: that I also made a vast vat of turkey stock which almost all went into the freezer that same day and was exceptionally proud of myself, and also to correct a spelling error, though I'll undoubtedly find more, but I'm really done.

*I've actually, at last, gotten to the point where I really like the romancey bits. I don't know whether this is a good sign or not.
**Who is actually really perfect as such this time around, praising the book as needed, enjoying the characters and the world (for its weirdness, but that's OK), and asking me for more.
***Did I mention she also spontaneous said a really sweet thing to me about characters completely randomly of her own accord? I'm beginning to think I might actually be good at this writing thing. ;)

^Furcular is your Obscure Biological Word Of the Day! :)