"Zero hour, nine a.m."*
How did it get so late? Now, there's a good goddamn question. I only meant, how did it get to be 12:47 p.m., when I could have sworn it was only noon.
The last two days, after the trip to Beavertail, I was able to write again. On Tuesday, I did the first 1,009 words on a very short story, "Tall Bodies." Yesterday, I wrote 1,195 words and found THE END. Along with the considerably more lengthy "One Tree Hill (The World As Cataclysm)," it will appear in Sirenia Digest #80. Yeah, 80. Well, technically #81, if you count #0 (November '05). Anyway, Vince has done an especially sublime illustration for "One Tree Hill (The World As Cataclysm)". Today will be spent putting the issue together, and it ought be out sometime this evening.
My thanks to Cam Collins, who has been hard at work setting up Aunt Beast's Salt Marsh Home Companion. It's almost ready to be up and running. We just have a few kinks to iron out (like my figuring out how to upload the actual podcasts).
Please have a look at Spooky's Dreaming Squid Dollworks and Sundries Etsy shop. She's been adding new necklaces. They are most bow tie.
---
Last week, I wrote about being accused of racism and sexism, via Silk and The Dreaming (yeah, ancient fucking history, the both). Because I'd written about a Vietnamese girl and Vietnamese stamps, because of the rape of Nuala, the Cultural Appropriation and Gender Patrol Beast raised its shaggy head and gazed in my direction. It sees us all sooner or later, squinting its myopic, piggy squint. It points a finger and makes that sound the pod people made in the 1978 remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
Because it is essentially impossible for an author, especially an author of fantasy and science fiction, to appease both the cultural appropriation crowd and the crowd crying out for greater diversity (recall I was accused of "whitewashing" in The Red Tree, because there were no people of color, even though I'm not supposed to write about people of color because that would constitute cultural appropriation). You see that, right? That the Art Police can't have it both ways?
So...yeah. Kill your fear, and fuck the Art Police, the Thought Police, Big Brother, Big Sister. Know what you write, and write what you know (within the best of your abilities); this noise is irrelevant. The cyber bullies (and academic bullies and litcrit bullies) who simultaneously scream for inclusion and exclusion. Fuck, I didn't mean to talk about this crazy shit today.
Want to hear my (mostly silly) complaints about how so many white authors have written the Irish? The Irish surely qualify as a nightmarishly oppressed minority. But do you hear me whinging? No. That's because I'm not a moron. Well, not usually. Could I be more politic about this sort of thing. Sure, I could. But why bother. THEY don't. Oh, and when do we get around to the pressing and equally legitimate issue of temporal appropriation?
---
No reading since last we spoke, unless you count "Humans were contemporaneous with late Pleistocene mammals in Florida: evidence from rare earth elemental analyses." No fiction.
I have tried very, very hard. But I cannot make piece with the fucked-up tattoo. So, once the skin is well and truly healed, in late September or October, I'll be seeing other tattoo artists to see if there's hope of fixing it. If there isn't, I've been looking into the long, expensive, and painful process of removal. Meanwhile, I'll talk with Vince Locke, whose brother is a tattoo artist. For now, I try not to look at it. Try not to think about it. Oh, and please stop sending me pieces of beautiful black-and-grey work? Please? I know you mean well, but it makes me crazy and angry and tired.
Okay. Enough. I didn't sit down to write an angry post. It just came out that way. Has the Lamictal stopped working? Anyway, if subscribers don't get the digest until saturday, it's because the Art Police and this shitty tattoo have gotten the better of me again. But do please have a look at Spooky's Etsy shop. By the way, it is now 2:02 p.m.**
At least this is adorable and not angrifying.
Angry, With Good Reason,
Aunt Beast
* This is an edited version of the original text of this entry, and I apologize to those I may have offended - if they warrant apologies - for my confusion ai having possibly offended them. I screwed up. Which pisses me off even more.
**And I predict fewer than 25 comments. My replies don't count.
The last two days, after the trip to Beavertail, I was able to write again. On Tuesday, I did the first 1,009 words on a very short story, "Tall Bodies." Yesterday, I wrote 1,195 words and found THE END. Along with the considerably more lengthy "One Tree Hill (The World As Cataclysm)," it will appear in Sirenia Digest #80. Yeah, 80. Well, technically #81, if you count #0 (November '05). Anyway, Vince has done an especially sublime illustration for "One Tree Hill (The World As Cataclysm)". Today will be spent putting the issue together, and it ought be out sometime this evening.
My thanks to Cam Collins, who has been hard at work setting up Aunt Beast's Salt Marsh Home Companion. It's almost ready to be up and running. We just have a few kinks to iron out (like my figuring out how to upload the actual podcasts).
Please have a look at Spooky's Dreaming Squid Dollworks and Sundries Etsy shop. She's been adding new necklaces. They are most bow tie.
---
Last week, I wrote about being accused of racism and sexism, via Silk and The Dreaming (yeah, ancient fucking history, the both). Because I'd written about a Vietnamese girl and Vietnamese stamps, because of the rape of Nuala, the Cultural Appropriation and Gender Patrol Beast raised its shaggy head and gazed in my direction. It sees us all sooner or later, squinting its myopic, piggy squint. It points a finger and makes that sound the pod people made in the 1978 remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
Because it is essentially impossible for an author, especially an author of fantasy and science fiction, to appease both the cultural appropriation crowd and the crowd crying out for greater diversity (recall I was accused of "whitewashing" in The Red Tree, because there were no people of color, even though I'm not supposed to write about people of color because that would constitute cultural appropriation). You see that, right? That the Art Police can't have it both ways?
So...yeah. Kill your fear, and fuck the Art Police, the Thought Police, Big Brother, Big Sister. Know what you write, and write what you know (within the best of your abilities); this noise is irrelevant. The cyber bullies (and academic bullies and litcrit bullies) who simultaneously scream for inclusion and exclusion. Fuck, I didn't mean to talk about this crazy shit today.
Want to hear my (mostly silly) complaints about how so many white authors have written the Irish? The Irish surely qualify as a nightmarishly oppressed minority. But do you hear me whinging? No. That's because I'm not a moron. Well, not usually. Could I be more politic about this sort of thing. Sure, I could. But why bother. THEY don't. Oh, and when do we get around to the pressing and equally legitimate issue of temporal appropriation?
---
No reading since last we spoke, unless you count "Humans were contemporaneous with late Pleistocene mammals in Florida: evidence from rare earth elemental analyses." No fiction.
I have tried very, very hard. But I cannot make piece with the fucked-up tattoo. So, once the skin is well and truly healed, in late September or October, I'll be seeing other tattoo artists to see if there's hope of fixing it. If there isn't, I've been looking into the long, expensive, and painful process of removal. Meanwhile, I'll talk with Vince Locke, whose brother is a tattoo artist. For now, I try not to look at it. Try not to think about it. Oh, and please stop sending me pieces of beautiful black-and-grey work? Please? I know you mean well, but it makes me crazy and angry and tired.
Okay. Enough. I didn't sit down to write an angry post. It just came out that way. Has the Lamictal stopped working? Anyway, if subscribers don't get the digest until saturday, it's because the Art Police and this shitty tattoo have gotten the better of me again. But do please have a look at Spooky's Etsy shop. By the way, it is now 2:02 p.m.**
At least this is adorable and not angrifying.
Angry, With Good Reason,
Aunt Beast
* This is an edited version of the original text of this entry, and I apologize to those I may have offended - if they warrant apologies - for my confusion ai having possibly offended them. I screwed up. Which pisses me off even more.
**And I predict fewer than 25 comments. My replies don't count.