ringsnake posted a comment to my nattering on about Melbourne. I started a reply several times but in the end though I'd put it here, because I think it bears repeating into the LJ megaphone.

I think that it's these stories of international travel that cause us lesser mortals to have a skewed idea of the writer's life. The very idea of traveling internationally to go to sci-fi or games cons captures the imagination more than the reality of slogging away at a keyboard trying to make characters and plot behave themselves.

Right now I wish I was you. I'd let you have your life back once it gets back to the daily slog.

I think ringsnake is right--it's stories like this that make us all seem to glamorous and carefree. I try to post happy things about my travel, so that you all can experience a little of my wonder. It is, of course, not so very glamorous to have ankles swollen up so big from a 15 hour coach flight that you can't put a pair of shoes on, but it is pretty awesome to be in Melbourne, to do what I do. There's a reason everyone wants to be a writer--it is, even at my level, pretty much the best life I can think of.

But I want to be clear--cons are tremendously hard work.

I'm not paying for this one. Expedia gave me an I'm Sorry coupon after my honeymoon debacle that covered my flight and hotel. But it's true--I do pay, out of my own somewhat anemic pocket, to go to several cons a year. Only GoHs, generally, get their expenses covered, though very occasionally a con will extend that to me, it's not the normal way of doing things. Cons are expensive. We go because we love our fans and we need to network and a whole host of other reasons. But where you might go to one or two cons a year, the costs of attending many more--five, six, ten--is just part of operating costs for an SFF writer.

And we work at cons. I have to tell you, most of us are destroyed afterwards. It's physically and mentally punishing, especially given that most authors are not in their 20s when they start publishing (I was, but I'm not now). The body rebels against all nighters and constant screaming to be heard and the mind rebels against answering the same questions nineteen different ways. It is a performance for fans, and it is very often a rewarding one, but it's not a vacation by any means, and we pay for the privilege of it all. There's a reason many authors have assistants or handlers at a con--not because they're snooty, but because we run ourselves to the bone, forget to eat, forget to stop when our body tells us, forget what we're supposed to be doing half the time because we're so tired by day two. (I do not have an assistant at this con, before you ask. Usually my husband helps me not die, but I'm on my own this time.)

We don't talk about it so much because you should have an experience of meeting an author you like that is free of their crankiness and pain and exhaustion, their irritation at the thousand little tortures of travel. It's for you guys--so that the world of books will shine for you, and we will, too. And least we try. We do try, so hard, to be the authors we wanted to meet when we were younger. Kind and generous and beautiful, all those things, and none of the rough edges.

So yes, Melbourne is wonderful. I wish you were all here. I will remember this con so very fondly. But my body is prepared to take a hit with a science fictional shovel, and I will be in a lot of pain by Sunday, between my foot injury, my back, walking the ridiculous distances big convention centers love about forty seven times, jet lag and the voice loss that's already started. Is sexy, no? Hot grrl author, with Audrey glasses and the flash of ze camera?

Not so much.

This isn't meant to be complainy--I could have stayed home. It is a huge privilege to get to fly to other countries and have people care what you say, have them want you to write your name on things and have dinner with them. There is glamor and gorgeousness. But we usually keep the price tag hidden, so that our readers can enjoy our tales of life on the road rather than listening to me go on about my weird arch foot thing and how I am more or less constantly dehydrated. The icon that says Undestructable? It's as much a prayer and a hope as a statement.

I'm going to dry my hair and go register. Worldcon is going to be awesome--it already is. I'm going to share it with you because dude, I blog. That's what I do. I overshare. And then I will go home and write, which is even less sexy than appearing at a con. I rarely wear my lobster pajamas and monster slippers to a panel, after all. I will have deadlines that would thick your blood with cold. This life takes your breath away sometimes, with the grace and beauty of it, with the luck to be able to make a living on your mind and heart alone, but like any theatrical dance and shuffle, what goes on behind the scenes is a good deal less sparkling than it appears when the author executes her double flip and lands on her feet, smiling, shining, flowers in her hair, laughing as if it didn't hurt at all.

I feel I should just quote Men at Work songs this whole trip.

I have arrived in Melbourne. It was a horribly long flight, my legs swelled up like an elephant's, but I got to sit with Liza, Locus Goddess, on the way from Sydney to Melbourne (OMG she is so cool you guys) and got a ride to my hotel.

Holy shit, everybody. Expedia, whom I am pretty much brought to you by this trip, did me right with this hotel. I have never stayed in a room so nice. I have stayed in rooms the size of my current bathroom. I have Blade Runner night shades on my window that go up and down with a button touch. I have a giant sunken tub. And while I was out last night, a fairy came to my room and left a bowl of kiwis, a bottle of sparkling water, and a little note telling me what the weather would be like tomorrow. I called--and by the way, there's a button on the phone labelled MAGIC that you use to get help--to see if I would be charged for eating them, and the nice Magic Man said "Good Heavens, no, eat, eat!"

I've stayed in Hiltons before--they're kind of a staple of the con circuit--but this one easily takes the cake.

And the free breakfast? Is not a day old croissant. It's a full, gorgeous buffet with everything you could ever want to eat in the morning. So. Awesome. I get so viscerally grateful when people feed me, especially at a con where I am almost always running at a calorie deficit. I just want to hug the staff and whisper: thank you, kind stranger.

Less awesome is the internet situation. It costs $30 a day at the hotel, which is robbery, and $145 for a week. I don't know yet what it costs at the convention. And since my cell doesn't work here, no 3G access, and that means no magical Google Maps to help me find my way, and no way to text friends to arrange meetings, and no way for anyone to contact me. I am rendered impotent. I've been making do with an hour or two of coverage at $10 a pop, but that's not sustainable. I need to be able to contact people! Arrrg. I just can't afford what they want me to pay. Nice hotel, guys, but for business folk this is ridiculous.

Speaking of, there are several business (the real kind, not the science fiction kind) conventions here this weekend, and as I am wearing a suit and my hair up, I keep getting asked to dinner by suave Don Draper types and beautiful Japanese women. It's like some kind of surrealist dream.

Also a dream? I was rescued from "Meep, I don't know anyone and can't find my friends without the internet" syndrome last night by mondyboy, who brought along Rob Shearman, recent Shirley Jackson award winner. Who casually, as we were crossing the street, let slip that he wrote for Doctor Who. Specifically, the awesome episode Dalek. And Reader, I tried to keep my little fan heart from exploding all over the place. We drank and ate and talked, and the two of them are so funny I thought I might have an actual coronary. An American, a Brit, and an Australian walked into a bar...also Doctor Who is like the least cool thing about Rob, who is a superb dude, and mondyboy is so familiar and adorable that I felt we'd been friends for years.

Mebourne is beautiful. It's a bit of cognitive dissonance--huge and spread out like an American city, but the architecture and culture is very European (Canada is sometimes like that too). The train stations are amazing. I want to do photo shoots there. There's modern sculpture everywhere and I can see all the way to the bay from my window. It's sort of...Ottawa esque by way of St. Petersburg? Not sure. I said on our outing that it was like New England and New Orleans had a cold, humongous baby.

Not wholly sure what I'm up to today, as contacting folk is so dodgy, but possibly an art museum trip. If you need to contact me, well....I wish you luck. I sometimes have net access but often do not. I'm at rm 719 at the Hilton if you can swing that. I'm hoping to Borders down the way has free net, but I've not been able to find a free network anywhere in Melbourne so far. This is like the least futuristic SF con ever. I can't even use my magical future toys. DYSTOPIA, YO.

Posted via Journaler.

So I finally checked my ticket a little more carefully and discovered that I have a twelve hour layover in LA tomorrow.

WHAT.

That is an absurdly long time to be stuck in LAX. It's almost as long as my subsequent flight to Sydney. OMGMAKEITNO.

Anyone in LA want to come pick me up and hang out with me tomorrow?

Seriously. Please.

I have no words right now. I have finished my crying and am going to attempt to explain.

I just received mail from one of my characters.

An envelope arrived, postmarked with ornate nickel stamps, postmarked simply: November.

It was one of those moments when the whole afternoon went quiet.

I opened it. Inside was a japanese matchbox wrapped in white paper and yarn. Inside the matchbox was a page from an encyclopedia about magnetometers, folded carefully. Inside that was a golden bee on a chain, a bee with huge, gorgeous wings.

Just that was amazing, holding that bee in my hands, not having any idea who sent it except November.

And then I saw the white paper that had wrapped the box. Inside it was written:

Things that have deserve should see success: Olive branches, harvests, sunrises, pregnancies, hope, you. You have never failed us. --N

Reader, I lost it. That kind of crying you only see in the movies where there were tears running down my face but my cheeks weren't red and my forehead didn't scrunch up. Just wonder, and awe at the magic in my hands, and the relief that someone cared to do this, to say that, someone read the book and made this magic and said I hadn't failed. I don't want to fail you guys, ever, and sometimes I feel like all I do is fail, and reviewers hate a book and I don't write fast enough and I'm cranky all the time and I'm not good enough for all the stories I want to tell, and then I go to the mailbox and there's this astonishing thing waiting for me, and I have no words, just no words.

Thank you, November. I'll be wearing this bee against my heart at the Hugos.

But you know what? This is better. This is secret, and magical, and without precedent in my world.

So seanan_mcguire  and I have this "In Conversation" thing at Worldcon.

This is where we sit in a room for an hour and get to do or say whatever we want.

Oh, these are heady days, my friends.

But with all that freedom, how can we create order?

So what we want is for you guys to fill up The Hat.

The Hat is full of what you would like to see seanan_mcguire  and I do in a room for an hour. (Get your mind out of the gutter.)

In the comments, tell us what you'd like us to talk about, debate, attack, defend, act out, or any other performy activity. Keep it balanced so that we can both play the reindeer games--ie, no Hour Long Seanan Concert or Cat Honks On The Accordion for an Hour! (Also I'm not bringing my accordion.) Props are ok as long as they fit in a suitcase. On the actual day we'll draw suggestions and it will be wonderful and probably a little hilarious. We'll do our damnedest to film it and post it to the internet.

Hit us!

Many of you may have wondered if I have seen the discussion and letter-writing on behalf of the proposed cover of The Habitation of the Blessed.

I have.

In fact, it's been seen far and wide.

What I know today is that there will be a redesign of the cover, with input from me. Hopefully this will not delay the book, but it might.

I have optimism that things will be worked out now. I am grateful both to you all who cared so deeply about the book and to Night Shade who responded so quickly with reassurances. It will be a good book, and a beautiful one.

All will be well.

So I have this friend, Danielle. She does, well, kind of everything. I look at her with such envy sometimes, that everything she touches seems to turn into something beautiful. For a long while she and her husband Dave ran Jack, an occasional restaurant in Brooklyn, and oh my god, the food. You've never tasted the like. When I'm depressed about my place in life I tend to go cook recipes from her food blog Habeas Brulee until I feel competent again.

She got me into glassblowing back when I lived in Cleveland. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find a studio with reasonable rates in Portland, so I gave up glass. But once again, Daniell inspired me--she started taking up lampworking, which is like mini-glassblowing without the blowing part. Making glass beads and sculptures with a home set up that involves a blow torch and some bitchin' purple safety glasses.

Since I'm on an island, and we have to make our own fun, I asked her to teach me when I was in NYC last, and I've just now finished setting up my studio at home. I'm ok at it, since I've handled glass before. I've finally solved my issue with having gotten a bad batch of bead release and am ready to try in earnest.

But you know, what she does? It takes my breath away.

Every time I look at one of her beads I'm filled with longing--and they're beads. I don't usually feel that way about beads. Her work is so exquisite and strange, and I love it.

And she has an Etsy shop, Emblems.

All my friends who make jewelry and use beads, y'all should check her out. And she has some finished necklaces for those who just want to wear something made with fire and glass and passion by an amazing woman.

I hope I can be as cool as she is when I grow up.

This is my Worldcon schedule--and boy, it is a big one:

Thu 1600 Rm 204: Steal the past, build the future: new histories for
fantasy fiction;
Fri 1300 Rm 213: I could do better than that!
Fri 1600 Rm P1: In conversation: Seanan McGuire and Catherynne M Valente
Sat 1300 Rm 207: Reading
Sat 1500 Rm 201: Signing
Sat 1700 Rm 203: Academic Panel: Fantastic females: reworking feminism
in women’s fantasy
Sun 1000 Rm 213: The eternal stories: myths and legends in YA spec fic
Sun 1200 Rm 204: The case for a female Doctor
Sun 1300 Rm 213: Has Hollywood sucked the vampires dry?
Sun 1500 Rm P3: Future trends in speculative fiction
Sun 1800 Hugo Awards Ceremony
Mon 1100 Rm 201: Kaffeeklatsche
Mon 1300 Rm 211: The eternal border: taboos in dark fantasy

You are correct, that IS seanan_mcguire  and I getting a room to ourselves for an hour. We'll see if someone can't videotape it. And that case for the female Doctor panel? Paul Cornell is on it too! I am dead of amazing now.

This is the post where I say: please come to my events, especially my reading and kaffeeklatsch, if you are going to Worldcon, so I don't feel like a loser. But! It is also the post where I say if you have any advice on things to do and see in Melbourne, or if you live in Oz and want to meet up, or if you are going to Worldcon and want to meet up, then let me know in the comments so we can make all that happen.

I'm arriving early on Tuesday and leaving on September 9th, so I have lots of time to do awesome things. My one goal for the moment is to put my feet in the ocean--I'll accept the bay, but actual ocean would be awesomer.

OMG I'm going to Australia in a few days! This is crazy! (I'm trying not to hope for the Hugo. It's deeply unlikely and I want to have a good time and not be nervous.)

Antipodes ho!

So the Boston Salon thing seems to meet with general approval!

I hearby christen it SmallCon...or TinyCon. What do you guys think?

So I am going to suggest October 2nd as a first try at this. Who could make that? Who could host--or is there a place we could go that's not Diesel (too busy)? I'm open to alternate dates, too.

We could even have a theme if we wanted. That might be too dorky. But I am the kind of dork who would dress up for a book club if I could get away with it, so. What do we want to do for our first meetup?

And to answer a few questions:

1. Yes, you can come if you haven't met me before! I want to meet new people, that's part of what this is about.

2. Yes, if this proves successful, we could try meeting up in Portland, too, and maybe even a New York SmallCon. But I'm willing to be the only one traveling for now.

One of the things to come out of the What Do You Need post is the sheer number of Etsy sellers in my readership who need more customers, more traffic, more visibility, more of many things.

And because the internet is magic and that post is doubly so, there is now a community for you guys, one where you can share tips for photography, traffic increasing techniques, online marketing, and also inspire each other, take part in challenges, and help each other out. this community would also be a great place to shop, I think, and find cool stuff on Etsy.

I am not running this community. I am not an Etsy seller. But I wholeheartedly support the effort, especially because the name they chose makes me tear up.

So go check out cat_scradle and help each other out.

I'm going to try to take a little bit of control over my social situation here.

I am 2 hours from Boston. Slightly less, really. Many, many awesome people are in Boston, but we don't go down much because the ferry's hours mean that it's tough to get back in time to get home and not have to get a hotel. Nevertheless.

What if we could make it down once a month? Is there a group of people who would be willing to get together at a restaurant or someone's house, have a salon kind of thing--talk about books, knit, play instruments if we feel like it, not if we don't, maybe read from books we love or just hang out and MST3K poor unsuspecting Terminator movies or something? I'm talking about a monthly playdate for grownups, so that I can see some humans once in awhile and be a little more connected to the world. I've always wanted to have a Round Table--could we make one?

Please comment if you would join in. If you could regularly make such meetings, especially if it was always third Sundays or something like that, would you be willing to host, or do you have ideas for restaurants and cafes we could use? If we missed our ferry departure window, are there folk who would let us crash?

In essence, let's do this thing. What Boston folk are in?

The What Do You Need entry is still going strong--and still getting replies, offers of help and advice--at almost 1000 comments. You guys are amazing. Have no doubt I am reading every comment, and offering what I can when I can, making what connections I can. Those of you who needed signal boosting--I'm going to ask you to reply to a second post because I can't keep it all straight with the deluge of comments. I'll then do a round up post so everyone gets linked to.

And you all have been so open and intimate and brave with what you need--I figure I should be brave too. But only at midnight on a Wednesday, when few enough will see.

1. I need local friends. This is really getting to me and making my life hard and I don't know how to fix it--I have exactly one friend in the area and he's busy most of the time. All my friends are distant. Add that to being on an island and it's so isolating, and my spirits get damn low. If anyone in the Portland, Maine area (I include Augusta, Portsmouth, and all points in between in that, and probably Bangor too) is geeky and friendly and wants to hang out, please comment. I do stuff other than write--knit, make glass and collages, play a very halting accordion, sail, grow things in my garden. I'm a neat person, I swear. It's been very hard to meet people and I can't live in a city where I don't know anyone forever. (But please...and this sucks to say, but if you just want to meet me to get writing advice or ask me to look at your manuscript, don't. I want real friendship, not someone who only cares for my connections. Just ask for that stuff here and I'm happy to share when I can.) The addendum to that is that I would love a local role playing group, like I had in Cleveland. But I don't ask for that, just for other humans who live near me.

2. I need more subscribers for the Omikuji Project. We've lost quite a few over the last couple of months and our housemates moved out so our expenses just went up quite a bit. This is a serious commitment for me and it can't survive without people who want to read it.

3. I need you all to know how beautiful and kind and special you all are. To forgive yourself for not being what you want to be yet--none of us are. We are all a work in progress, and we are all at different stages. It's ok. We are all going to be ok. We have each other, our chosen family, our tribe, and we take care of each other the best we can. I need you to keep on keeping on, and keep the faith, and keep each other going. I need you to smile, and know how very many of you there are just on this one single journal who want to help, who want to connect and share their world. I need you to keep that post going, for everyone who needs it, and I need you to never give up. I swear to you, it will all come out all right. We are undestructable, like the song says. Even if it doesn't always feel like it.

I love you, even if I've never met you.

It's not Ghost Rider, I swear!

I'm SUPER curious about y'all's reaction to this--do you like it, does it make you want to buy it, is it evocative? Opinion me, O Livejournal!

So shadesong  did this post a little while ago, and I've seen a couple others mirror it, as viralness in the name of the public good is always worthy. I want to do the same, since, well, there are kind of a lot of you out there reading this.

So, please do not be shy. You rarely get what you need without asking for it.

What do you need?

Not "What do you want?" Which is an entirely different question. But what do you need? Are you looking for an apartment, a job, a ride to somewhere, assistance with something? Comment here, and maybe I or one of my readers can help you! The internet makes miracles, we all know it. Read the comments, and see if there's something you can offer.

It's the day you didn't know you were waiting for.

Palimpsest is out on audiobook!

This is my first audiobook and I'm so excited--I've been waiting for ages to have my work available in this format. I hope you all like it and tell your friends--the better it does the more likely I am to be able to sell audiobooks in the future. I'd love to her what you think of the recording, too, since it's not me reading it. Other people performing my books is always so awesome!

Also, eee!

And lastly, well....happy birthday, Ray Bradbury.

I posted my "new" author pic on Twitter the other day--it's not really new, having been taken by kylecassidy  while on the tour last year, but I've been told that the image I was using as my standard headshot makes me look like I'm about to cut a bitch, so I figured since The Habitation of the Blessed is going to have my mug on it, I'd pick something softer from my awesome photos file. (You can pre-order it now! Just ignore the hilarious cover thing, it's a system error that's being fixed. Cover should be available for squeeing this week.)

As an aside, it's kind of funny--most of the male author shots I see are definitely in the "I am badass" or "I am super smart" expression set. They wear plain black shirts or suits. They rarely smile, often look hard or hardcore, and of course there is the famous Manly Arms Crossed Pose (patented by China Mieville I believe). This is obviously on purpose as in real life most of those male authors are as goofy and friendly as anyone else. It also has the advantage of allowing the author in question to plump up their biceps a bit with their hidden hands. (I am wise in the ways of OKCupid prodile images.)

But in their author shots, women tend to smile, or to pose with musical instruments or other of their hobby items, to wear fantastical clothes, to dip their head so that they are looking up at the camera rather than down at it as in the MACP, wear soft colors, hair, etc. And both with my previous headshot and this one I've been told I look too hard and mean--even though I am actually smiling (a little) in the new one (and wearing a corset) as opposed to the old one. I find this very interesting because I feel like the gender performance of Male Author is one of power and strength while that of Female Author is of Beauty and Non-Threatening Wisdom. And in that we often police ourselves. We internalize what we think an Author looks like, even acts like, especially online in the age of the Alpha Geek Author, and we perform it. Of course you can show me many women author shots that do not apply (Atwood comes to mind as someone who always looks badass to me) and I beg you not to. It's something I've noticed happening more often than not, not a rule.

So I pick these author shots where I think I look powerful, and eventually I always hear that I look mean. Of course, given a choice, I will always choose Badass and Hardcore over Pretty and Soft, but still, I wonder if male authors get told they look too mean? Somehow I doubt it. 

BUT THE POINT OF THIS POST WAS TO BLOG ABOUT MY CAT, YO.

So I posted this pic and thought suddenly "I do believe I've seen that canary-ingested expression before." And dug up a picture of October lounging on her favorite chaise, which is in this case the Fairyland copyedit but could be any manuscript, really. Do cats end up looking like their owners? You be the judge.

Cat #1:



Cat #2:



TOBY PERFORMS THE SHIT OUT OF HER BADASS AUTHORCAT HEADSHOT. JUST LOOK AT HER PAWS. THEY CRUSH PATRIARCHY.

Last night we repainted what is now a guest room/library/craft room. Or will be when it's done.

Honestly, it's amazing what people will do to a house. Someone in their infinite wisdom decided that the best color for the trim, door, and built-in drawers in this room was flocked, textured paint the color of moldy dark grey greenish rock and the feel of that crap fake snow on Christmas trees.

Seriously? What foul demonic intelligence looked at all the possible colors in the world and was like NONE OF THEM ARE GROSS ENOUGH. You have to buy textured paint specially. justbeast  thought it must be some kind of textured wood but no, it was just that horrible spray-on smocking texture you buy in a can. All I can think is that someone's son wanted to live in a castle but their parents got bored after the door.

Once we painted all the grey white and the walls (which had been a nice sky blue the housemates chose but not my speed) a nice sage green (after a mishap in which we brought home what I thought was a bold spring green and turned out to be pretty much the color of frog poop) the place looked much better, and hopefully we'll have the furniture in tonight.

I've been a little tired and blue since the housemates moved out--my golden retriever is chewing her fur off and throwing up as she usually does when she's depressed. The house is a mess until we can get the room done to move everything else around in its new just-us shape. We're starting to get cucumbers in the garden, and Australia looms. I was hoping to start work on a Sekrit Project this weekend, but not all of my supplies have arrived.

I'm coming out of my deadline haze and slowly getting my brain back. I've been sort of zoning out, knitting and playing with glass (I have a lampworking set up now, though I've had a lot of issues getting the right equipment) and watching Nip/Tuck, which is surprisingly compelling, if occasionally pretty poor on trans and gender issues and a sterling example of how poly would do these idiot people good, as the show is secretly about a triad and just can't actually be about that and still be a mainstream show.

I wish there was a tried and true way to recharge batteries. I'm trying. I suspect when the house is put back together I'll feel put back together, too.

So I'm having this conversation on Twitter about this "list" of books which will save horror and indicate that we are in the middle of a horror golden age which is not a list because it is two books, and because more ink is expended on Paolo Bacigalupi as the savior of SF than on either of the horror authors mentioned, and also because it is stupid.

First of all, House of Windows was merely meh. It was OH SO STRAUB circa Ghost Story and not very innovative or interesting at all besides featuring the WORST FATHER/HUSBAND EVER who totally deserved to be ghoststomped. Also it is not about a haunted house and the house is just like: whatever, I'm old. Those people were fucked up when they got here. Except not because the house is not haunted.

Second, a list of two dudes and no The Red Tree is talking out of its ass to begin with. (Two books is not a golden age, yo. I feel you and all, it must suck to have lived through the heady 80s and now be like...a shelf of King and Koontz reprints and some LA Banks. But come on. TWO?)

Horror is not dead. It's just reshelved. SO MANY people are writing horror these days, by any definition--books that have vampires and werewolves are literally propping up the rest of the publishing industry, and even if you consider those not horror by dint of...something, I guess. Not being scary enough? 80s horror is often not scary at all or the fear is in the eye of the beholder--I find a lot of the implied rape in the mildest vampire fiction to be pretty scary. (Look, I don't like paranormal romance either but you can't discount it out of hand--chances are, if you're a writer, some paranormal romance writer's success is paying your elegant literary novel's advance.) Even if you cut out the vamp/were stuff, a WHOLE LOT of what's called dark fantasy is horror with a cover in a color other than black.

The problem? It's girls writing it. And people of color, and queer folk, and all those undesirables. And as soon as I realized that, it hit me.

I think "dead" is always code for "OMFG girls (POC, gays) are doing that thing we like to do! Kill it! Kill it with fire!"

I mean, that's what they mean when they say the American novel is dead, right? No one with a teaspoon of sanity could look at the sagging bookshelves and actually call the novel dead. They mean girls are writing novels and maybe better novels and so it's not cool anymore and we can't smoke and drink and fuck and chalk it all up to I'M AN ARTIST YOU CAN'T JUDGE ME anymore and EW do we have to COMPETE with them now? Let's use our ancient powers of Shunning the People What Are Not Like Us and write screeds about how the novel is dead because our white dude friends haven't written any good ones lately and everyone will believe us and nod because if it's in the New Yorker it must Be Real! Cool? Cool. WONDERDOUCHE POWERS ACTIVATE.

I feel like I have understood an essential part of the universe. Whereas before I was all: what do you mean, science fiction the print novel the American novel horror is dead? Like EVERYONE EVER still wants to be a writer and ALL THE BOOKS EVER are being written constantly and lots of them are really good! But when I say books and when they say books we do not mean the same thing. I mean printed narratives bound in covers, or sometimes pixels. They mean that, but only written by white dudes. When girls and POC and gay people write them, they are not books. They're just like...coloring books or something. You might think a kid is clever and cute for staying in the lines, but you don't give them a Pulitzer. You take it off the fridge as soon as their widdle feelings won't be hurt.

Horror isn't dead. (Neither is SF, GAWD.) We do not need dudes to save us from this terrifying dystopia. Trust me. The kids are gonna be all right.

Today I am in Boston, at emilytheslayer 's library, teaching kids how to make book trailers as sort-of book reports for school. Yay, iMovie skills!

Have no fear, there will be trailers for Habitation of the Blessed, Deathless, and Fairyland. I'm getting ready to shoot the Prester John/Habitation ones even now--for there will be TWO videos, one a trailer, and one awesome thing which may or may not involve my old He Man action figures, I'm not telling.

But today is teaching other people how to do it, and then home to spend time with babymonkey  and mishamish  before they move back to Cleveland on Monday. It will feel like an awfully big and empty house without them--I'll miss them so.

Now I go to read slush. Pray for my soul, and tell my mother I love her.

If you want to take an amazing writing class and you live in the Bay Area of California, you should be checking out Nick Mamatas's course.

How do I know it's amazing? Because this guy teaches me about writing just by his posts on LJ and his own books. He's awesome. So awesome he was my first purchase for Apex--and he knows how to talk about writing, which is not as common a trait as you might think on this blogosphere.

Here's my final seal of approval: if he were teaching an advanced class, I'd consider flying across the country to take it. There you have it. Run, don't walk.

YOU GUYS I AM FREAKING OUT RIGHT NOW.

Robin Sachs is reading How to Become a Mars Overlord at Lightspeed Magazine right now. And it's really good, I mean really, really good. The most perfect authoritative British voice to read this story.

Don't recognize the name? I didn't at first, either.

OH MY GOD ETHAN RAYNE IS READING MY WORDS. GILES' NEMESIS FROM BUFFY THE FREAKING VAMPIRE SLAYER. AND I AM NOT ASLEEP.

I can't believe that just happened? What? WHAT? He said my name with his own mouth! And then he made my story sound so awesome and sinister that when he was talking about bending worlds to one will MY DOG JUMPED.

I WILL NOW RUN AROUND LIKE A MAD DOG AND SMACK INTO THE WALL.

My life, holy crap, I don't even know. Squee is such a small word.

The point is you have to hear this. YOU HAVE TO. One of the great TV villains, reading my Martian story.

OMFG.

GUESS WHAT.

I have another SF story out today! I know, seriously. When I say I had all the deadlines ever, I mean it. These are just the ones with quick turnaround.

Some people seemed to be upset by yesterday's story at Clarkesworld, going so far as to suggest it's so clearly autobiographical that it doesn't belong in a fiction magazine.

This I find sad and bizarre. Does it have details from my own life? Yes, it does. Every single thing I write does. I would say that The Labyrinth remains the single most autobiographical thing I've written. I don't know how to write without using my real emotions, real experience--all I have to share is my experience of the world, even when it has space and magic in it. This is what writing is, mining life for fiction. I suppose I should be complimented that those readers assumed everything in the story was true--it means I did a good job. Try reading The Things They Carried sometime--that whole book is about the terrible thin line between the truth and fiction, and runs back and forth over it constantly. This is like the entire point of literature.

But even if it were all true, I used those details to create a character. It's no more illegitimate than using creation myths that are really part of cultures living and dead. I find it bizarre to have to insist that fiction is fiction, a story is a story. Write what you know isn't some kind of pithy joke--y'all agreed when I wrote this. I wasn't just taking a rhetorical stance. I mean it. And if writers didn't use their own lives, well...listing the books that would vanish from existence would take the rest of the year. I said it was personal, not non-fiction--the best stories are personal. If I had not said that, would they have assumed it was autobiography? Not sure, I just know I'm a bit incensed at being told I didn't write fiction. I know SF isn't supposed to be about those squishy feelings, but I have no time for stories that are totally impenetrable and impersonal and just have a lot of lasers in them. I WILL LASER YOUR HEART, YO.

So I have this other story out today. And this one is completely different: How to Become a Mars Overlord at Lightspeed Magazine. A guide to achieving domination over the red planet. It's funny and it probably won't make you cry, though I can't make any promises. But it's still intensely personal, and uses some big details from my own life, because that's how I write stories, and that's where inspiration comes from.

I am extremely proud of this story, too. I pretty much don't write stories that don't connnect viscerally to the real world and how to live in it. Last I checked, that was supposed to be what science fiction was all about.

Read How to Become a Mars Overlord right now through the magic of the internet. Comment, so the folks know you read it. Listen to the podcast (I'm going to right now--it is SO AWESOME to hear someone else read my work.) And Overlord the shit out of your day.

Just a heads up to let you guys know that theferrett  is in his last week of blogging for the Clarion Write-a-Thon. Clarion is pretty damn awesome and he's been doing amazing work in support of it--a truly epic amount of critiquing and writing on his clarion_echo  blog. Plus he's giving away an iPhone, so head over and see if you'd like to support the next generation of spec fic writers.

Also, shadesong 's Blogathon auctions are still up til tomorrow, benefitting the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center. Many gorgeous things, and a great cause.

I think I'll be trying to Blogathon again next year myself, after a few years on the bench.

This has been your friendly blogosphere tour guide!

OH MY GOD I AM BACK IN THE LAND OF THE LIVING.

I have had every deadline known to man land on me in the last three weeks, and it's taken all my strength to get through them all. But I have (ok, I have one thing left, but it'll be done today) and I am miraculously not dead.

And to celebrate my resurrections, two very big things are happening today!

First, Clarkesworld Magazine's August issue is out, and it contains my short story Thirteen Ways of Looking At Space/Time.

I'm not sure proud is even the word for how I feel about this story. It was a difficult, painful piece to write--it is incredibly personal, probably the most intimate, naked thing I have ever published. It was frightening to write, and sort of embodies the stop caring if you live or die ethos for me. It was crazy research intensive, for all that. It's one of those stories where, the moment it went up, my heart was in my throat, hoping people would read it, would not hate it, maybe even like it. I'm usually not so nervous about such things. Yikes.

The point is, please go read the story! Comment on the site--it's notoriously hard to get comments on web fiction. (And to answer the comment already up, yes, it's all real science, I am not half smart enough to make up all those concepts myself.)

Second, my first issue of Apex Magazine is live today! This is the first thing I've ever edited, with fantastic stories by Theodora Goss, Nick Mamatas, Jeff Vandermeer, and a lovely poem by csecooney . These things, too, you must read!

I declare it All About Short Fiction Day. Hooray! Terror! Frabjous!