Crazy storm last night. I went on a walk with plunderpuss to investigate, and the following tweets are our terrifying account.

(originally posted here, but I'm adding the tweets I made before Sän sent me the hashtag - my phone? Totally can't txt the #. I know. What the hell.)

Breaking my "Won't post my tweets to LiveJournal" rule just to show you why you should be watching my twitter feed: Adventurespam!


#stormwalk:

43. Keffy Power out south of home on elm. Wind smells of christmas and dead tree.
42. Keffy Lightning or power substation exploding? Hmm.
41. Keffy Outage continues down elm to dupont only light is county jail and the mad, cloud-skittery sky. The sane are all indoors.
40. Keffy More lightning. I do not seem to recognize these street names. Odd, but i do not usually go down by the water.
39. Keffy Street light went out while we waited to cross.
38. Keffy The storm smells briny. Investigating a foul stench emanating from the sea. @plunderpuss also tweeting. Saw blue light to the south.
37. plunderpuss Operatipn #stormwalk commencing. Expecting mystery, adventure, and sudden death. about 3 hours ago from txt
36. plunderpuss The wind on the construction site sounds like howling. My dog is growling at it. We’re almost at the waterfront. #stormwalk about 2 hours ago from txt
35. Keffy This vehicle has been abandoned. No other souls are out. Pressing on. #stormwalk about 2 hours ago from txt
34. plunderpuss It’s hard to see in this wind, but the whitecaps are huge. It almost looks like they’re climbing up the rocks. #stormwalk about 2 hours ago from txt
33. Keffy Oh shhit+ #stormwalk about 2 hours ago from txt
32. plunderpuss Fck, there s really something in the water Also my dog ran off. dammit #stormwalk about 2 hours ago from txt
31. Keffy Something from water… It’s a dude. Naked, pale, blue veins, like a goth swim team. He isn’t responding to our queries. #stormwalk about 2 hours ago from txt
30. plunderpuss Dude there’s like 10 crazy jackasses swimming now we’re um, not staying. One of these guys is making the constructipn site howl. #stormwalk about 2 hours ago from txt
29. Keffy They are following us down the path… Aud is creeped. They smell like tide flats. Walking away faster. Still can’t find dog. #stormwalk about 2 hours ago from txt



"I hope this turns out. If you can see tell me wtf is going on. #stormwalk"

28. mitchv noooooooooooooooarrrrghurghhghh *farts* #Stormwalk about 2 hours ago from txt
27. Keffy Mitch is riding ahead of us screeching and ringing his bell. He won’t come back. There is a mist ahead. I am afraid. #stormwalk about 2 hours ago from txt
26. Keffy Wind is picking up. #stormwalk about 2 hours ago from txt
25. plunderpuss Lost @mitchv and my dog. Fimd them later, have to get home NOW. Fish guys gone but other shadows in rain. Such bad idea #stormwalk about 2 hours ago from txt
24. Keffy ocean skyline has gone dark with reverberating howl #stormwalk about 2 hours ago from txt
23. plunderpuss Power in streetllights gone. Benthic darkness, can’t see companions. Wailing so close. #stormwalk about 2 hours ago from txt
22. Keffy dark where where where #stormwalk about 2 hours ago from txt
21. plunderpuss Alex is acting weird and Audrey is trying to stop him from running BACKTO THE BAY. Some lights now thank god. #stormwalk about 2 hours ago from txt
20. Keffy Alex won’t stop singing murmaider, it’s in my head oh god #stormwalk about 2 hours ago from txt



"Alex just attackd Aud, evidence .what do I do. Shes not moving #stormwalk"

19. plunderpuss I ran, Alex has weord crap on his neck looks like gills. Not waiting for others to freak. #stormwalk about 1 hour ago from txt
18. Keffy San ran off. Aud dead. Alex gibbering. Gills, green, pulsating. So horrible. I should leave? #stormwalk about 1 hour ago from txt
17. plunderpuss Tree or something fell near me. Still better than whatever’s going on by water. I’m afraid to go home. Alex lives there. #stormwalk about 1 hour ago from txt
16. plunderpuss Sweet, my dog found me! She’s limping. :( #stormwalk about 1 hour ago from txt
15. plunderpuss At historic train depot. Something wrong with dog. She’s so cold. #stormwalk about 1 hour ago from txt
14. Keffy I just found @plunderpuss ’s dog. I think. It’s cold. Still hearing the children. Are those gills or tentacles? #stormwalk about 1 hour ago from txt
13. plunderpuss I think she’s sick. Her neck is swollen. Also I don’t like sounds from road. Slimy, scraping. #stormwalk about 1 hour ago from txt
12. Keffy Running to downtown few lights pissing rain. More lightning, wind. There are laughing children i can’t see them. #stormwalk about 1 hour ago from txt
11. plunderpuss Something wrong. Dog split open, tentacles (!?) came out. Stung my leg but I’m on C street by gravel pit, hiding on beached boat #stormwalk about 1 hour ago from txt
10. plunderpuss I cant hear if its coming, rain too hard. Dark shape on horizon in lightning, warehouse sized. Not sure where to go. #stormwalk about 1 hour ago from txt
9. Keffy Dog howling. Things moving in dark. I can’t it’s coming. I can’t everybody gone every #stormwalk about 1 hour ago from txt
8. plunderpuss #stormwalk was terrible. Dont understand what is happening. Someone please resc about 1 hour ago from txt

i. plunderpuss …And thank you for reading #stormwalk. Stay tuned for special features.
ii. plunderpuss #stormwalk #outtake The dog really wants to rent John Carpenter’s “The Thing” and we don’t know why.



"Dog in stage makeup. #stormwalk"

Also, my hair this morning is amazing.

Monday is Mondaying in a very stereotypical Monday fashion.

But I managed to get myself a transtastic testosterone-related appointment for next week, of all times. After that it's just a few short awkward years before I won't have to correct pronouns all the time when I'm in public. Hooray.


I'm doing that NaNoWriMo thing. I haven't given up yet, which is impressive, considering I started this particular project five days late and my writing speed for the past year has been slower than slow. I've been bouncing around at roughly one day behind for the past few days now. If I'd just drop a 3000 word day today, I'd be right on track.

Of course, I do need to kick things back into gear, since the novel will be more than 50,000 words to a first draft, and I want a draft by Nov. 30. Not a good draft, mind, but a draft. (Plus, this time 'round, I think that everything I've written so far, while in need of editing, is definitely worth editing.)

All that aside, here's a music video I rather enjoy:

WFC 2009 was awesome-crazy.

It was the most overwhelming of all the cons I've ever been to, even though numbers-of-people-wise it wasn't quite so large. That being said, conventions like Norwescon have large sub-groups that I'm not particularly interested in, whereas World Fantasy was packed, PACKED with people I know, or want to meet, or otherwise want to talk to. It was all very, "holy crap, I know everybody in the entire world."

Sort of.

I added book #2 to my collection of "books in which I have specifically requested that the author sign and use the personalization to insult me", which means that it is now a Thing I Do instead of just a one-time attempt to let Scalzi get back at me for harassing him through most of Worldcon.

I got a ton of free books, bought some books, enjoyed readings (You want to pre-order N.K. Jemisin's The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms), and even served on A Panel that went well enough, I think. (I enjoyed myself, despite being terribly nervous when I first sat at the elevated magical panelist table. As far as whether it was a good panel or not, I think you have to ask the audience.)

One of the panels I attended resulted in a) the unveiling of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Translation Awards, to give prizes to SF&F that has been translated from other languages. www.sfftawards.org b) My purchase of a Haika Soru title, Usurper of the Sun by Housuke Nojiri. I'm nearly finished with the book now. It's very hard SF and the novel itself was written with a different literary aesthetic than I'm used to, which is a nice change of pace.

I'm still in post-con recovery mode, since I spent most of Sunday feeling hungover and tired. At the end of Sunday, I missed all the parties due to a ridiculous high fever. I slept almost all of Monday, except for being marginally awake during the Seattle-Bellingham drive.

In non-con news, I will apparently have a job after moving to Seattle, even if it is still retail. Yes, boo-hoo, whatever. I'm relieved that I will be able to pay my rent and bills.

I'm also doing NaNoWriMo, but I think we will all be happier if I don't talk about that here. At least, I will be.

Today I started packing for The Move.

It consisted of filling three boxes with books, realizing I was going to need about a million more boxes, and where are these going to even GO anyway, and aaaaaaaaaaah!

But I did clear everything that was definitely mine off of 1.5 of the many shelves in the house...

The books are pretty much the only thing I own that I'm not able to just dump, and of course, the large bulk of what I own ... is books. (I know, I'm not alone...)*

NaNoWriMo is planned-ish, though I feel like suddenly this year, Bellingham is looking for way more in an ML than they did the past three years, so I'm kind of scrambling to get caught up. I have a vague idea that I might write something that involves teenagers and ghosts. I know. This is terribly original. I might even throw in some vampires for that extra kick.



Hey, but World Fantasy is next weekend. I'm on a panel, even.

1:00 PM Gold Room Are Homosexual Characters Past Notice?

It’s been observed that a group has become truly accepted in society when society no longer notices them as a group per se. Has the portrayal of homosexuality in fantasy reached that point in the eyes of the current readership or is it still something worthy of comment in it’s own right?
Nancy Jane Moore (moderator), Keffy R. M. Kehrli, Grá Linnaea, Malinda Lo, Doselle Young

See some of you there!


* Shelves. I have lots of shelves.

This is part of the collection of posts made for Coming Out Day by members of The Outer Alliance.

Coming Out Day was on October 11, but I forgot was busy.


Out.

I have mixed feelings about “Coming Out” day. That’s sort of a funny thing to say, I imagine, considering that I’m queer, queer, queer, and rather unrepentant about the whole thing.

I try to remember to regularly mention, publicly, on the internet, that I’m trans. This isn’t due to some ridiculous idea that it’s somehow required for me to broadcast. (Oh, and do I ever have a rant about that concept.)

I do this because I hate coming out to people in person. It puts my teeth on edge because even though most people are going to be perfectly O.K. about it, there are a lot of questions and conversations I’m beginning to get tired of having. I also figure that if I broadcast, people who are going to have less-than-desirable reactions will know well in advance and we can avoid one another and life will be that much easier for me on a day-to-day basis.

It’s also a fear of rejection. It’s one thing to say, “Oh, if so-and-so walks away from you because you intend on getting a sex change, then you don’t need him/her anyway,” and quite another to watch her/him walk out the door and not look back. Trust me.

And the fear of judgment.

1. I’m destroying feminism because I’m intelligent and don't consider myself female.
2. I’m a misogynist because of #1.
3. Transgendered people are doing it because they’re afraid to be gay.
4. Transgendered people who are attracted to the same gender are doing it for attention -- why not just be a straight chick?
5. Transpeople are destroying the gender binary.
6. Transpeople are upholding a rigid gender binary.
7. I’m doing it for the privilege.
8. I don’t know myself as well as whoever I’m talking to. / It's a phase.

And the fear of very real, very negative consequences. Granted, I live in one of those locations that is Pretty Liberal, which means that Bigotry Is Not Cool. Of course, that just means that if the transsexual makes you uncomfortable, you don’t tell them so. No, that would be wrong. However, should you somehow, you know, just happen to find someone else to take their position, or maybe hire the woman you find “convincing”... well, it’s not like it can be proven, right?

Part of me wanted to hope that coming out as female-to-male would be a one-time thing. I’d just say it publicly online and then it’d be over. I’d be out, we’d be done.

Well, maybe if transitioning wasn’t a years-long process I can’t really afford at the moment. Then I’d just tell all the people who thought I was female, and everybody else would just meet me as male and never question and *POP*

Yeah, that bubble burst.

I come out every time I go to a convention. Coming out hovers on the horizons of my mind every time a customer asks me where my name came from at work. If I do feel like explaining myself, it’s hard for me, personally, not to sound apologetic. As if, you know, I had anything to apologize for. I don’t think I do.

There’s also the awkward wondering of: does this person not know about me yet, or are they just forgetting and defaulting to the pronoun that their ingrained sense of gender-detection tells them? Because if it’s the latter, well, I can just politely remind. If it’s the former, then I feel like an asshole because the conversation, whatever it was, will probably turn into Trans 101, or What Has It Got In Its Pocketses.*** Then I'm the guy who just likes to talk about himself all the time, ew.

Whichever it is, whatever happens, I usually finish by thinking that, you know, maybe if I’d started transitioning earlier, somebody, somewhere might NOT decide to call me “miss” or “she”.

Here’s one that most cisgendered/cissexual**** people don’t usually consider:

Using the restroom can either a) require a trans person to “come out” depending on which door they’re more comfortable going through or b) result in a trans person being forcibly outed by others.

So, yeah. Hooray for proudly telling the world who you are, and not being ashamed about it. I'm entirely down with that aspect of Coming Out Day.

At the same time, who among us only comes out once?

More like once a week.



* I don’t think that “Out” vs. “Closeted” for the rest of the Gay BLT is not directly the same as “Out” vs. “Stealth” for transpeople but that is a whole ‘nother post worth of talking on my part, and I would probably stick my foot firmly in my mouth and start chewing if I took it on.**

** See also: I am but shakily educated in the history and customs of my fellow queers, and a little shy of talking knowledgeably about this stuff beyond the borders of my own experience.

*** Trans 98: This should go without saying, but you never know and I am posting this for public consumption, so...
a) Unless specifically requested by the person in question, “it” is guaranteed to be the incorrect third-person singular pronoun.
b) I, like most other transpeople, have previously hit my “let’s discuss my current and/or future crotch configuration” limit. Ask at your own risk.

**** This is a steadily becoming more standard term for “people who are not trans”. I’ll be honest. I became a much bigger fan of the cis- prefix when I found out it was “controversial” because some people find it offensive to have their privilege checked. Wah.



My Zune hit this song at random as I was finishing up this post. How perfect is that? Crazy.

Band of Skulls - I Know What I Am

At the moment, my writing process seems to just be "Very Slow."

Frustrating, is all. I haven't been posting here because I feel as though, if I'm going to be putting down the words for a blog post, shouldn't I be putting those words in a novel or short story instead?

Stream of consciousness yay.

When it's summer, fall/winter really doesn't seem so bad. This is especially true if the summer goes extra long as it seems to have done this year. I don't remember being able to go all the way into October before feeling like maybe I ought to put a jacket over my t-shirt when I go outside. I should probably zip the pants back onto my shorts, too. (They're those... zip-the-legs-off cargos. Whatever they're called. Fashion terms. Meh.)

But yesterday (and the day before, I think, but yesterday was when I noticed it), was the first day that was really, definitely, NOT summer. It's weird, because in retrospect, it always seems like the SeasonAllyDefective nonsense comes on slowly. Not so much this year. Mentally, I feel a bit like I just slammed into a brick wall. My sleeping patterns also skipped into slightly-insomniac-mildly-nocturnal, which is weird. But okay then. I still have tons of energy, just none of it, and I mean NONE of it is directed in the right way. Uuunfortunate. Of course, sarcastic whining seems to at least be making me put sentences together properly and I still have time before work, so maybe I will work on something useful in spite of my very best efforts to be useless! Whodathunkit.

Winter. The sky is dark all the time. Dark grey. Dark and doomy and overcast and actually kind of claustrophobic, really, or maybe that's just being at work all day. Humidity is up, it won't stop raining until June and the sarcasm index is through the roof.

Not that sunny-all-the-time is good either, that also makes me anxious because OH MY GOD IF IT DOESN'T RAIN SOON WE'RE ALL GOING TO DRY UP AND DIE IT HASN'T RAINED IN A WEEK IT'S A DROUGHT.

But generally, overall, my mental health tends to be better in the summer. I would get one of those weird light thingies, but you're supposed to shine them at-but-not-into your eyes, which would probably make me flip because there will be no eye damage thanks.

Yes, it is all very boo-hoo, with my wah-sometimes-it's-winter problems. I should write something tragic and goth-tastic, about how our flesh is dying around us and doesn't it suck when you prick your fingers on the thorns of black and white roses.

Anyway. I typically am less productive and less all-there during the winter. I thought I was out of it all summer, but clearly I was wrong because that was really not so much compared to how I am now with the flighty OH LOOK A KITTY.

And that's all very well and good, but I have to be ready to move in 62 days (yes, I am TOTALLY counting).

And I have to try and get a real job because, look. I still have boobs, they're Not Easy To Hide and I'd like to someday go to a con and not have the awkward "wait... I thought you were a dude... okay..." conversation lurking in the background. (Far better will be the day when I start cross-dressing the other direction and get the weird looks because wait... I thought you were a chick... a dude... a... oh crap...) ^____^

But yeah, the retail stuff does not allow me to continue my lavish lifestyle of car insurance, cons, food and rent AND save up for boobectomy, so I would definitely like to become an Scientist In Training and make what is really a moderate salary but looks like an Epic FuckTon of money from where I'm sitting. (For the sake of argument, we're just going to pretend that the economy isn't going all to fuck and that getting a not retail job is possible. I have been told it is so, and I am going to stride purposefully into the future or something.)

And I need to write some short stories, since the last one I added to my pool of "things on submission" didn't stay on submission very long. (I seem to be trading up to new and wonderful problems. :) I enjoy this problem. May I continue having it.)

And I need to finish the novel.

Oh, And I am in charge of NaNoWriMo in Bellingham for the LAST YEAR EVER. SNIFFLE.

And winter and the interior of my brain need to learn how to play nice together because a) it happens every year. YES, EVERY SINGLE ONE. SURPRISE! and b) sunny summer climes have the problems of being sunny and hot and expensive and usually California.*

Of course, once I've taken over the entire world with my gay mind control lasers, I can just switch hemispheres each equinox an live a life of eternal manic summer.


* I didn't realize this until I'd heard people transplanted from elsewhere bitching about it, but apparently us western-Washingtonians are cold, cranky people. You know what? I agree***. I also have a theory, which is that since this is the best place in the entire world to live** - and it's still not perfect - we aren't able to have the delusion that moving somewhere else will fix our problems. Life is shit. We're all gonna die. Best we can do is pretend we were old enough to remember grunge as anything but "dad's music" and deal.

** Aberdeen, Forks, and Longview/Kelso need not apply.

*** Of course, I also work retail.

**** Also, before somebody says it, yes. I know I'm listening to a covered song. I do that sometimes. They don't all suck. Just most of them. Plus, Green Day totally needed to play a John Lennon song to remember what rock is, vaguely, now that they're apparently writing music for the 12 year old girls who buy pink crap with heart-shaped hand grenades on it at Claires' in the mall. (Say that five times fast.)


Also, thanks for putting up with the sarcastic humor here. I still have this twitchy Must. Be. Normal. (Whatever. That. Is.) complex that I'm dealing with, so talking about something that is a mostly-managed mental issue makes me cringe a bit. Like, ohmygosh what will people THINK? Yeah. Nothing. Let the anxiety go. Phew Phew Deep Breaths.

And now I reward you with a picture of a cat WITH NO FACE.



An embarrassing number of photos on my digital camera are of my face. Hrrrrrmmm.

Fantasy Magazine has accepted my short story "Daha's Son".

Hooray!

I feel like I should say more here, but "hooray" really sums it up.

Just one more pro sale and I will be a real boy an Active SFWA member.

Tomorrow, more Foolscap!

I ate chocolate, argued over the One True Meaning of the word "fey", stayed sober at barcon, and got lost in Seattle.

Ballinger? That's a suburb now? I think that I hallucinated it. It's like fake Ballard from the alternate dimension in which America has been taken over by raygun-wielding raccoons.

We did end up driving through Bothell listening to weird trance.

In Redmond, I enjoyed finding a sign (posted on my twit pic account earlier) that announced the shop made wedding and prom dresses for men and women. I love Washington sometimes.

Tomorrow: More Foolscap and probably donuts. Not holding my breath about getting writing done.

OH! If you are at Foolscap, I do have copies of Sybil's Garage no. 6 on hand. :)

I have no idea what this dog is trying to do, exactly.

Have nearly finished editing a short story so I can send it out.

I've also been far more active on Twitter than LiveJournal lately. I'm not entirely sure why, except that I rarely have lots to say. I haven't ported my Twitter comments to LiveJournal because I find that getting a compilation of the tweets at the end of the day divorces them from a lot of context. (Not that there's ever a ton of context on Twitter anyway.) I HAVE, however, set up Facebook to repost my tweets. This is responsible for... all of my activity on Facebook recently.

Writing stuff:

Not really sure how regularly I'll post about my writing process, since it is still in flux. I do want to start blogging about it more, however, if only so I have something to look back at later and laugh about how little I knew*.

I've been fighting my process lately as I try to write real first drafts* instead of what I typically do. I'm afraid I'm becoming one of those people who does not usually redraft because I spend a million years on the first draft as if it could ever be perfect anyway. Except it can't, because, you know, first draft. On the plus side, my drafts tend to be pretty clean on the first run through. On the down side, I really need to write a bit faster as I'm selling stories faster than I finish them (not that I'm complaining about having that problem, mind you).

That being said, I think I've written almost every story in a different way. I'm still a relatively new writer so I'm still trying to determine how I do my best work. There is a pattern emerging.

Most stories start with an idea. (SURPRISE!) This is sometimes a character, setting, or 'what if' question.

For "Advertising at the End of the World", I was inspired by the most inspirational of all things: spam email. They seem to have mostly tapered off into "Get 50% off of Pfizer!" and "Prove your gender!" now, however, when I started writing the first draft for my week 1 Clarion story last June, almost all of the spam in my inbox had subject lines that sounded like it might be mail from somebody I knew. That creeped me out.

Then I just go with the idea and write without an outline until I feel like I'm half to 2/3 of the way through the story. At this point, I usually get a theme in mind and try to make the plot match the thematic elements. Once I've figured that out, I put together an outline for the rest of the story.

Results vary widely.

Due to lack of experience, I have no idea how I write novels, but it involves a lot of muttering under my breath. Clearly.


*I enjoy looking at things I wrote when I was 12-16 and trying to remember what strange misconceptions I had about how stories got finished and published.

Was linked to this 4theluv e-zine site earlier today. What we will not accept under any circumstances :

"Alterantive [sic] Lifestyles:

Any sexual relationship that isn't a married man and woman.
A boy and girl living together and having sex is alternative lifestyle, but a boy and girl who are simply roommates but not in a sexual relationship is not.
Two guys in a sexual relationship is AL
Two women in a sexual relationship is AL
a man and his pig in a sexual relationship is AL
and so on"

Wow. The site navigation is also sort of hysterical.

STOP POKING OUT PEOPLE'S EYES.

All night. EVERY NIGHT.

I'm supposed to be running merrily on to my day job right now, so this has to be brief:

"Advertising at the End of the World" is up now at Apex Magazine in the September 2009 issue.

Five years after her husband died, two years after she moved to a cabin in Montana, and six months after the world ended, Marie opened her curtains to discover her front garden overrun with roving, stumbling advertisements.

Read more...

In other news, the Doorstop is at around 31000 words, stuck because of a combination of day job and reading other stuff for other people. Oh, and I need to finish some short stories. The pile of "started-but-not-finished" is beginning to stress me out.

When I lived on State St, the house had a bit of a problem with morning glories, which were growing through the wall. Of my bedroom. And only my bedroom.

Old posts on the subject including photos.

Since then, I have moved entirely across town. Despite the morning glory that has been around the yard, or whatever, I wasn't too concerned. After all, this is a much nicer house, and I have a nicer (though a bit messy right now) room.

So what, exactly, are the chances that out of this entire, huge house, the room that would have morning glory growing through the wall would be mine?

I don't know, but there is, in fact, morning glory growing into my bedroom. Again.

It's like some kind of bizarre elaborate curse. It's also 2am, and I should probably sleep because the last day of Valhallacon is tomorrow. But I really really want to, you know, kill it. A lot. Right now.

Because at this point, it is clear that the morning glory plants of Bellingham are, without a doubt, out to get me.

I don't want to go to bed yet, so I will share with you my two favorite songs in all the world when I was 4 or 5.

1. Supertramp - The Logical Song



I don't think I've posted this in my journal before. If I have, well, watch it again. Good song. I distinctly remember listening to this when I was really small, probably 4 or 5, like I said, possibly younger, since my brother was still too little to bug me in the car. I remember craning my head back all weird in the seat so I could stare up at the stars while it was on the radio.


2. The Beatles - Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds



I don't have any idea why I liked this so much when I was that young. I DO remember crying once because my mother was bringing me to the store and we were leaving before the song came on. That was when I had the concept of records explained to me.

Mindboggling.

August brought me acceptances #3 and #4. :)

On August 6, I received an acceptance (though I did not see it until after I wandered back to the room from the Tor party) while at Worldcon! In my email! I love email!

"Advertising at the End of the World" was accepted by Apex Magazine, and it will be out soon. Since Apex is online, you'll be able to read it!

This story was my week 1 Clarion story and was written for Kelly Link's week.



TODAY, rounding out August (okay, yesterday, now):

"Shoes Worn Once" was accepted by Electric Velocipede.

This makes me very happy, since this was a very extreme rewrite of my week 3 Clarion story. (Written for Mary Anne Mohanraj's week.) It is also the first story I have ever written that clearly and explicitly featured a transgendered character.


I also got my contract for Talebones, today, which reminds me that I am noticing a tendency to get acceptances either at or just before conventions.

"Machine Washable" was accepted by Sybil's Garage just before Radcon, and "Bone Dice" was accepted for Talebones AT Norwescon. Valhallacon is in Bellingham this weekend. The pattern continues!

Speaking OF Sybil's Garage no. 6, it has been getting good reviews AND contains Sean Markey's "Waiting for the Green Woman" which was added to SFWA's Nebula Suggested Reading list. I've also heard/been told that the print run is nearly sold out, so if you want your own copy, buy soon. :)

Good month, A+++, Would Definitely August Again.

Okay, so a day-by-day play-by-play of Worldcon is clearly not going to happen, and at this point, I need to just accept that and move on with my life. August is meandering through its last few minutes, PDT and a brief wrap-up is the best I can do.

So, Worldcon was more or less entirely awesome. ("Awesome" will be used a lot in this post, most likely. Sorry. See, and now I probably won't use it all later, just to be contrary...) My report about it is going to be entirely out of order. I'm not sorry.

First, I got to see FIVE of my Clarion classmates (Megan, Kathleen, Paul, Emily and E.J. and FOUR of my instructors (Geoff, Nalo, Jim and Neil). Which is a lot. I'd missed them a ton, so getting to hang out and become the roving Clarion blob with them, was pretty much awesome.

I really do mean "roving Clarion blob". We would attach to anyone who looked like they needed an entourage. Sometimes this worked out beautifully, in the case of kylecassidy, who responded with, "I CAN HAZ POSSE?" and he COULD HAZ.

Eventually we ended up in the Intercontinental bar, which was way too classy for me. Luckily, I was in a big group. While there, I had my first taste of absinthe. It was licorice! Holy crap delicious! I would place it between Ouzo and Salmari on the magical scale of "how can you drink that, Keffy" tastiness. It's a damn good thing for me I was never a writer back when drinking that shit was trendy, because I totally would have died of it by age 30.

Sometimes, the entourage/blob/posse did not work out quite so well. See, we're not always the speediest of entourages, so certain people who walk rather fast kept having to stop and wait for us to catch up, which sort of defeated the purpose. (This, also, was awesome, in the hilarious sort of way.)

I could go on for hours about all the people I met, (such is the nature of Worldcon), but I'll just mention a few.

I got to tell grrm that I enjoy his football posts, which I do. I like posts in which the author is extremely passionate about something or other.

I met yuki_onna and was able to talk to her about "The Radiant Car Thy Sparrows Drew", which... if you haven't read it, go do so. It's in the August issue of Clarkesworld and is one of my favorite short stories. It is really cool, and then it swoops down and pushes the THINK NOW button in my brain, which hurt a little, but was good for me.

I also met John Scalzi. Now, I first met him on crowded stairs***, where I was practicing my OH LOOK A CAMERA pose. The next night, we ran into each other in the Delta bar, and he mocked my apparent inebriated state. Which, okay, I was working on the fifth screwdriver, so perhaps I was a bit drunk.* Later, I discovered that he is entirely too much fun to mock, and now I've decided that we need to campaign to get him named guest of honor at some West Coast conventions, or that I need to go to east/middle of the country/whatever conventions more often (read: ever). The only thing better than watching him deservedly bash Star Wars online is watching it happen in person.

I didn't go to too many panels -- but liked the ones I saw, I ate poutine (am still unimpressed), watched a Hugo award ceremony, held several Hugos after the awards were over, because they were really heavy and people kept handing them to me**, discovered that the bus that goes to the airport ALSO goes all the way to the other side of Montreal if you forget to get off, saw many of David Hartwell's ties, didn't buy many books because my luggage was full, and was generally fabulous.

Due to other things that August has set into motion (sort of), I severely doubt that I will have the funds to go to Worldcon next year. Australia, you see, is very far away. I would love for things to change, but if I have that much money, I'm probably going to spend it on one of the Big Things I need to spend money on in the future, rather than plane tickets. :(

* My fascination with, and subsequent attempts to get the in-bathroom breathalyzer machine to work were met with nothing but lamely standing in the bathroom for a long time. As far as I could tell, the machine was there to trap drunk people into trying to figure out if they were drunk for long enough that they would sober up just standing there.

** Seriously, people can ask me to hold Hugos any time.

*** The bathroom picture was also pretty fun, although we had to block many people from their beer for a few minutes, which was sort of tragic.


THE END, except for the thing that happened to me on August 6, Thursday night, because I got yelled at the first time this sort of thing happened to me and I buried it in a huge post.

So, I have been given a coupon to use on a paperback book. Even though I have (okay, at this point I looked at my "to read" shelf and feel a bit panicked by the number of unread works on it, but we'll carry on anyway) a lot to read, that has never stopped me from acquiring more books.

In fact, it doesn't matter if I've determined that I Will Not Buy More Books and I Have No Room In My Luggage Anyway, I still come home with something new.

However, all of this is beside the point. The point is that I have a coupon for a paperback book, and I like both books and coupons.

But what SHOULD I get? Oh, I could do what I usually do, which is wander into the bookstore and find where my name will be on the shelf someday. Then I spend at least 20 seconds looking slightly dazed, thinking about how awesome that will be. Then I wander about looking at the shelf and going, "hrm, which of these fine specimens have I heard of?"

No. This time, I want suggestions, damn it. I want to walk in with a laundry list and break my own heart by only choosing one of the books to use this coupon on. And then, after I've broken my heart over it, I'll probably end up accidentally buying 2-4 more books, but that's not the point either. The point is ... actually I'm no longer really sure what the point is.

So suggest! No limits. I like everything up, down, and sideways across the speculative genres. I also like quite a few things outside of the genres. The only stipulation is that I would prefer it to have been published in 2009. What is the new hot paperback that you just read and fell madly in love with?

TELL ME IN THE COMMENTS. You don't have to tell me why, nor do you have to preface it with "if you haven't bought this yet" or "I'm not sure you'll like this book/author/theme/cover art." Just tell me the title (and preferably author).

D:

I still owe roughly one imperial ass-ton of words regarding Worldcon and how nose-bleedingly, brain-meltingly awesome it was for me and about the NEWS that I got while there and how very much of a bad idea it was to travel the way I did, because holy crap it's the 13th and I just barely feel human enough to get some work done. (o___o)

So, yes. I'm going to go see if there's anything in the fridge worth eating for breakfast besides the world's fattiest pie, and then put on the good old KILL KILL DIE DIE PAIN MISERY DEATH boots and start the EPIC FANTASY WORDSTOMP OF DOOOOOOoooooOOOOOM. Or write a short story. You never can tell with bees.

And now! I inflict youtube-hosted music on you all and run screaming into the miserable looking day that is this Thursday.



Apoptygma Berzerk - Love To Blame

I seriously enjoyed this music video up until the last few seconds when it had to go for some kind of a meaningful ending. Why? Because it's a video of people having hookups in a sleazy hotel while Stephan looks on like the world's most ineffective conscience, a sort of emo/goth Jiminy Cricket that people find twice as easy to ignore. I find this angst endlessly amusing. Whenever somebody looks vaguely like a rejected extra for a vampire movie and stands around being miserable, it makes me happy. Thankfully, in the world of music, this happens a lot.

Norway, I love you.

Today was a day of packing and sitting in airports. I have just started my wild and crazy airport-sitting adventure with a flight delay here in Abbotsford. Not that it matters much, I was going to have a 3 hour layover in Calgary anyway, so now it will just be 2 hours. Yes. You can hear me weeping about it, can't you.

My adventures began when I realized about 5 hours ago that If I was going to take full advantage of being on vacation for ALMOST TWO WHOLE WEEKS by dyeing my hair, I'd better get on that real quick. Now, I have no INTERESTING HAIR DYE materials at home since little old ladies won't trust me to run the copiers if my hair is blue or something equally scandalous. I figured I'd just go get a jar of Manic Panic somewhere and slop it all over the AMAZING roots that have grown in (wow, I don't think I've put black hair dye in for several months.)

However, csinman had a better idea.

"Hey, if you wanted it to be brightly colored, you should get some of the pube dye we have here. It has the dye AND the bleach in it and it's on clearance for $4."

"I'm NOT putting that on my head!"

"I did it."

"... Okay."

So I turned around and went back. Coldplay's "Viva la Vida" started to play on the radio. Everything was grand! Everything was awesome! Here, get in the mood: COLDPLAY

And THEN!!! A HUGE BLACK SUV leapt out in front of my car out of nowhere!!!!

I screamed and slammed on my brakes and nobody plowed into me from behind, and Audrey had a minor coronary, but mostly it was okay. Except for the mortal terror that I felt upon realizing that I had nearly DIED! listening to COLDPLAY! on my way to buy PUBIC HAIR DYE!

Yeah. Not exactly what I want on my tombstone, unless it's a fake Oregon Trail one.

HAIR!



It worked! I think! Well, I'm not bald, anyway.

Poll #1440303
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 27

Is my hair TOTALLY AWESOME or TOTALLY STUPID?

There was no border wait, so I decided to go to the grocery store. The only problem with this is that I almost never go to BC and thus had no idea where the nearest grocery store even was! So I drove around more or less aimlessly and gawked at the practice air show stuff going on at the airport, and the GIANT HOUSES OF DOOM... seriously, HUGE mansions out here.

My aimless wandering came out right in front of a liquor store, though, so as far as I'm concerned, Canada is pretty awesome. I didn't buy any, though, because my checked bag was already full. I know! Totally wasted that opportunity.

Oh yeah, also... why won't anybody give me Canadian currency? I'm in Abbotsford-fucking-British Columbia and the only ATM says AMERICAN DOLLARS ONLY. And my bank in Bellingham doesn't have Canadian, either, they have to bloody order it!

WTF! I WANT BRIGHTLY COLORED MONEY, DAMN IT.