Getting a read on mid-July
Hello! It's been a weird week. Four days ago I was in Switzerland. More on that soon. Since then it's been a headfirst dive into apartment hunting and a work assignment I had a hard time with. At least the assignment is done now.
I.
Trying to find a satisfying new place to live on short notice in peak season in a rent-inflated city is stressful and I do not recommend it. I haven't learned yet how to set manageable goals for the search, i.e. when it's okay to stop each day or each session. I'm also trying to define when a listing is worth compromising on vs. what I've done so far, which is keep holding out for better. Not counting the awesome-looking place that went off the market literally two minutes after I set up an appointment to view it. I am feeling many negative feelings and reminding myself to simply feel them and keep going.
II.
A break in the clouds. Last night @stultiloquentia and I popped down to Readercon's free first evening, since neither of us could make the official con Fri-Sun. I really wanted to hear Stephen Graham Jones, this year's co-Guest of Honor with Tananarive Due, and see if he would sign the copy of Mapping the Interior that @gretchening.twitter sent last year as a gift. (He did!) And as luck would have it, SGJ's Thursday panel included our local writer and film critic @sovay and moderator Darcie Little Badger a.k.a. @shiningcomic.twitter, both of whom I started following a couple of Readercons ago, plus teri.zin and Paul Tremblay.
The topic was "Being Vague to Make Space for Horror," about how ambiguity rather than clarity serves the genre. Different kinds of ambiguity. The horror of not being believed, in life and in fiction. The discomfort of not being able to put names to things, in life and in fiction. How ambiguity can arise from an author struggling with disbelief in the supernatural while writing it. (Tremblay: 'I don't think it'd be a six-foot ghost. I'd try to explain away whatever it was. I'd keep thinking about it later. I'd be unsettled.') Ambiguity as a different thing from confusion or authorial laziness. (SGJ: 'I always commit to one or the other in my head. [i.e. Is this thing real or not?] I pick whichever is more fun. And then I entertain the opposite in the story.') What authors know about their characters and what happens offscreen and before and after the story, and what they don't. What happens in the rarer cases when providing an answer works for the story. (Examples cited: Get Out, Cat People, Scream, Midsommar, Hereditary, Visible Filth.) The satisfaction of dissatisfaction. The value of being unsettled, dislocated, wondering.
The fresh reading of Mapping the Interior proved an excellent lens through which to appreciate the discussion.
I also bumped into @kate_nepveu on the way out and tried to help her right a faltering easel. And that's pretty much everybody I could have hoped to recognize at the con except @yhlee. Sorry to miss you this year. Be safe down there.
Of course, seeing Tananarive Due would have been excellent too. Alas. At least @stultiloquentia was able to go to her panel during the same slot: "Afrofuturism and Solarpunk in Dialogue."
III.
Before jetting off on the work trip, I did finish both stories for @nonconathon! Like, just before jetting off. I cranked out the rest of the second story across something like six hours and two thunderstorms with one break to look at an apartment, posted it, took a shower and left for the airport, where I polished a few rough spots from my phone.
Almost 9,000 words total. I think they both could have used more work, being unplanned first drafts written across multiple sittings. But they exist, and that is what matters. One of them-the down-to-the-wire one-has done quite well. The other, at least the recipient liked, or politely pretended to, heh. Could also be a consequence of being buried toward the back of the 232-story collection.
Reveals are this weekend, I believe. Will post some recs after. I haven't read any fics since returning to work but I did enjoy a bunch on the flight home, pre-downloaded, largely in the Original Works category.
Originally posted at https://bironic.dreamwidth.org/388600.html, where there are
comments.
I.
Trying to find a satisfying new place to live on short notice in peak season in a rent-inflated city is stressful and I do not recommend it. I haven't learned yet how to set manageable goals for the search, i.e. when it's okay to stop each day or each session. I'm also trying to define when a listing is worth compromising on vs. what I've done so far, which is keep holding out for better. Not counting the awesome-looking place that went off the market literally two minutes after I set up an appointment to view it. I am feeling many negative feelings and reminding myself to simply feel them and keep going.
II.
A break in the clouds. Last night @stultiloquentia and I popped down to Readercon's free first evening, since neither of us could make the official con Fri-Sun. I really wanted to hear Stephen Graham Jones, this year's co-Guest of Honor with Tananarive Due, and see if he would sign the copy of Mapping the Interior that @gretchening.twitter sent last year as a gift. (He did!) And as luck would have it, SGJ's Thursday panel included our local writer and film critic @sovay and moderator Darcie Little Badger a.k.a. @shiningcomic.twitter, both of whom I started following a couple of Readercons ago, plus teri.zin and Paul Tremblay.
The topic was "Being Vague to Make Space for Horror," about how ambiguity rather than clarity serves the genre. Different kinds of ambiguity. The horror of not being believed, in life and in fiction. The discomfort of not being able to put names to things, in life and in fiction. How ambiguity can arise from an author struggling with disbelief in the supernatural while writing it. (Tremblay: 'I don't think it'd be a six-foot ghost. I'd try to explain away whatever it was. I'd keep thinking about it later. I'd be unsettled.') Ambiguity as a different thing from confusion or authorial laziness. (SGJ: 'I always commit to one or the other in my head. [i.e. Is this thing real or not?] I pick whichever is more fun. And then I entertain the opposite in the story.') What authors know about their characters and what happens offscreen and before and after the story, and what they don't. What happens in the rarer cases when providing an answer works for the story. (Examples cited: Get Out, Cat People, Scream, Midsommar, Hereditary, Visible Filth.) The satisfaction of dissatisfaction. The value of being unsettled, dislocated, wondering.
The fresh reading of Mapping the Interior proved an excellent lens through which to appreciate the discussion.
I also bumped into @kate_nepveu on the way out and tried to help her right a faltering easel. And that's pretty much everybody I could have hoped to recognize at the con except @yhlee. Sorry to miss you this year. Be safe down there.
Of course, seeing Tananarive Due would have been excellent too. Alas. At least @stultiloquentia was able to go to her panel during the same slot: "Afrofuturism and Solarpunk in Dialogue."
III.
Before jetting off on the work trip, I did finish both stories for @nonconathon! Like, just before jetting off. I cranked out the rest of the second story across something like six hours and two thunderstorms with one break to look at an apartment, posted it, took a shower and left for the airport, where I polished a few rough spots from my phone.
Almost 9,000 words total. I think they both could have used more work, being unplanned first drafts written across multiple sittings. But they exist, and that is what matters. One of them-the down-to-the-wire one-has done quite well. The other, at least the recipient liked, or politely pretended to, heh. Could also be a consequence of being buried toward the back of the 232-story collection.
Reveals are this weekend, I believe. Will post some recs after. I haven't read any fics since returning to work but I did enjoy a bunch on the flight home, pre-downloaded, largely in the Original Works category.
Originally posted at https://bironic.dreamwidth.org/388600.html, where there are
comments.