The Sleepers and the Shadows

the heart has its reasons. my heart has its own.

Am I doing that, writing about books I love and working on my really fun thesis?

Well, sort of. But mostly, I'm writing a book.

Shoot.

So this is my problem: I may have a compulsion. It may be an addiction. Because I tried -- honestly, I really, really did -- to stuff this novel deep down in my body. Like, in my toes. Where it would take ages for it to work its way back up to my heart, sink its spacey tendrils into my flesh, and make me get it out. I tried, but the bastard was quick and clever and I can't stop it. So, sure, I'm doing some research. I've got it mostly done. I still need to read a few books (a few books? why, that's nothing!) and I'm already 33 000 words into this shiny novel and I don't want to stop.

Part of me thought, when I finished Sigil, that I'd never feel that way again. Like there was this force welling up inside of me and I had to just let the story pummel its way through me and onto the page. I figured, once in a lifetime. After all, I did write a novel in about three weeks.

But then my space opera exploded out of me and I have spent the past several days obsessing. I think about it in the shower. When I'm buying groceries. Drinking tea. Making supper. Vacuuming. I think about it when I'm underlining pertinent sections from academic tomes. I think about it when I'm writing it.

All. of. the. time.

So, my options are kind of like this: 1) repress! (not really an option. I'm working with Foucault for my thesis and we all know how repression works out), 2) write like a mad woman!, or 3) try to strike a balance and maintain some semblance of sanity. I'm hoping for option three, but the likelihood of me maintaining some grasp on reality while trying to write both a thesis and a novel seems, at best, unlikely.

But, then, knowing me, I should wrap up the novel-writing in a week or so. And then I can write my thesis, having been refreshed (possessed?) by my book.

This happened the last time I wrote a thesis, too. I guess, if I want to be a productive writer, I need to give myself a ridiculous deadline, which I then need to panic about because I've been taken over, body and mind, by a story that demands my attention. A recipe, I think, for a healthy life.

In other news, it's spring. And I am now an aunt.

(download)

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(1. spring in the park, 2. Callan, who thinks very little of you)

The end.

search terms: a study in the strange

How did people find my site?

Well, friends, it's pretty weird:

(Next time, having written this twice in an entry, I'll get about one hundred hits for centaur porn. You just wait and see. New calling? Steamy interspecial quasi-bestiality fics?)

reading break is for reading

A list of the things I have read this week with micro-reviews, followed by a list of things I have read this year, and then a breakdown of how gay my literary life is (turns out it's pretty gay -- shocker):

1) Another Kind of Cowboy (Susan Juby)

This one made my heart happy, because of horses, excellent characters, and Canada. Possibly one of my favourite coming out scenes in the history of ever.

2) My Heartbeat (Garrett Freymann-Weyr)

Awful cover, interesting premise, disappointing result. I'm frustrated that Freymann-Weyr didn't explore the emotional implications of Ellen's (sexual) relationship with James, for everyone involved. I hated how it ended (years later, I will do this and this will happen).

3) Absolutely Positively Not (David Larochelle)

My favourite parts of this book were Steven's strategems for unlocking his hidden heterosexuality. I could relate. That being said, I found the book as a whole fairly emotionally empty.

4) My Most Excellent Year (Steve Kluger)

This was fun, if a little (a lot) idealistic. The storytelling methods were fresh, but they didn't do much for me. Also, the most adult fourteen year olds ever -- that always irks me.

5) Don't Let Me Go (J.H. Trumble)

Oh, my heart. Trumble creates incredibly real and compelling characters. This is a story we rarely hear -- how people who are perfect for each other can also be perfect at breaking each other. I devoured this book, and it absolutely broke my heart (in the most delicious of ways). My only qualm is the ending. I know Trumble wanted to tell a story queer teens don't hear often -- the ever after -- but it rang false to me. I would have been happy if she'd left us living in emotional devastation without the ten years later. Still, a brilliant example of innovative storytelling and pitch-perfect characterization. I am very, very excited for Trumble's next book.

EDIT: 6) The Vast Fields of Ordinary (Nick Burd)

Burd adeptly captures precisely what it's like to be a queer teenager on the cusp of adulthood. His vision is so perfect and his writing so beautiful that it hurts a little. I like, as well, that we get a sense that Dade will inevitably move on. He is, I think, relateable in so many ways and so very real. As a fun bonus, Lucy is a girl after my own heart.

EDIT: 7) Out of the Pocket (Bill Konigsberg)

Admittedly a little too much football for my taste, but it's immensely refreshing to read about a boy like Bobby coming out. A lot of things were right with this novel -- the secondary characters (particularly Bobby's parents) were compelling, Bobby's coming out process realistic, and his journey refreshing.

EDIT: 8) Skim (Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki)

This absolutely beautiful graphic novel is lovely -- dark, sharp, and true to life. Its understated plot captures perfectly the drama of the both the everyday and the (awful) extraordinary.

--

And now to the books I've read since January (*=texts for classes):

6) Leviathan (Scott Westerfeld)

7) The Demon's Surrender (Sarah Rees Brennan)

8) City of Bones (Cassandra Clare)

9) The Zombie Survival Guide (Max Brooks)*

10) Orientalism (Edward Said)*

11) The Conquest of America (Tzvetan Todorov)*

12) On Beauty and Being Just (Elaine Scarry)*

13) Stanley Park (Timothy Taylor)*

14) Rebuild (Sachiko Murakami)*

15) Hushed (Kelly York)

I just need to pause here to give Hushed a bit of praise. York's adeptly crafts compelling characters -- even when they're mostly psychotic. While I did have some issues with how she dealt with a rape survivor's trauma and, indeed, I felt like Viv was pretty one-dimensional, Archer was amazing and York gave the book an ending it deserved. An incredibly solid (and promising) first novel. I'm excited for what will follow! 

16) 99 Ways to Tell A Story (Matt Madden)*

EDIT: 17) The Girl of Fire and Thorns (Rae Carson)

--

Currently reading:

Behemoth (Scott Westerfeld)

City of Ashes (Cassandra Clare)

Objects of Worship (Claude Lalumiere)

--

How much gay is there on this list? Well, a lot. I've read sixteen twenty books so far in 2012. Out of those eighteen, I've read thirteen of my own volition. Of those thirteen, eleven either feature a gay main character or have an important gay side character (and one of those that doesn't -- Leviathan -- features a phenomenal lead character who's pretending she's a boy, so that's at least a little queer). I could claim that this is all research for my thesis -- I'm getting to know the field, ahem -- but these are the books I would probably choose to read anyway. Study what you love, right?

Off to the library today for more books, then.

(I should also add that, since the beginning of the year, I've re-read most of Sigil, have gone through the 15 000 words of my Quiverfull novel, completed a 10 000 word writing exercise for my impending space opera, and worked on that novel a little this morning. I also submitted my thesis prospectus, marked papers, taught classes, went to classes, applied to do a BEd and got an interview for that very same programme. And I now have a gym membership. All in all, despite feeling like my life is on hold, it's been a productive two months...)

words, breaks, books

2. Reading break. What does this mean? Reading. Mostly for work, some for fun. Reading, working, counting down the days until this semester is finished.

3. My thesis prospectus is submitted. It's tentatively titled "'Lock Up Your Sons': Young Adult Urban Fantasy, Queer Youth, and Authors' Resistances." If all goes according to plan, I will get the go-ahead to study Sarah Rees Brennan, Cassandra Clare, and Holly Black. Which is much more exciting than anything else I'm doing at the moment. This thesis is the carrot pulling me toward the end of the semester. That and, you know, money and a degree.

4. I recently read Scott Westerfeld's Leviathan and, friends, it was so good. It gave me the same soul-crushing jealousy that I experienced when I first read The Hunger Games (which, PS, the foxwife just devoured). Leviathan is incredibly imaginative: it presents a rich and compelling alternate Earth history, with fantastic creatures and machines and two wonderful lead characters. It is YA at its finest. I've picked up the next book to read over break, along with a slew of queer YA. I am nothing if not a diligent researcher. What a slog -- reading things I love for research (ahem). I'll try to post mini-reviews as I go through them.

5. At some point, this blog will become password protected. I can't have anything like this attached to my name once I enter education. I'm developing an alter-ego for writing and I will no doubt continue to update this puppy, except I'll keep it safe with lock and key. Compartmentalization is crucial in this situation.

6. There's nothing else to add here. Perhaps this: there may end up being a faculty strike at the university I attend. In fact, it looks likely. In which case, I will begin work upon my thesis and perhaps, if I'm naughty (and I suspect that I am), I'll get either to working on my shiny new book or editing Sigil, my shiny old book. That being said, I'd rather the semester finish sooner than later so that I can move on to greener pastures filled with faerie courts, demons, Downworlders, and teenage feelings.

eviscerated (an anniversary)

All of this has been in the forefront of my mind for two reasons: first, I've been re-reading the novel I produced in the span of about three weeks last January; and second, I've been trying desperately, desperately not to be devastated by the lack of anything remotely resembling creative output this January. That's not to say there isn't a story waiting in the wings -- it might be easier if there weren't. But here I am, reading poststructuralist theory and postmodern poetry, when I'd rather be basking in the post-novel glow.

Enough complaints, though. This is a year for study. My job, this year, is to read and write papers and make it through in one piece. And next year's schedule should allow me time to sink back into my work -- my proper work.

In any case, the sun is bright today. I am warm. I only have two months left of coursework. I still love Sigil. These are all good things.

And this is when we hope that all the good things eclipse the apathy and the anger.

(But you know, looking back, it seems that this time of year is always awful for me. That I always feel exhausted and a little bit lost. That the nights always seem darker and emptier and the days long and predatory expanses of time. So there's that -- the cyclical nature of this time for hibernation and the subsequent ascent back into brightness.)

--

And she leant forward, shot him a wicked smile. “There’s no point, you know, to holding your breath. Either you make it back or don’t. Either you drown or you return to the surface again. A lungful of air isn’t going to change that. There comes a moment when you simply must let yourself fall.” And without so much as another word or a moment’s hesitation, she plunged deep into the water and Weir stood, looking out after her. Surface of the lake still as ice, her body left no trace and suddenly he was alone, there at the edge of the world.

He stared into the dark and thought about that — either you lived or died, and that was that, and he thought, words clear in his head, we all have to die sometime and it’ll either be now or it won’t and so he just dropped down into the water, swirled in the deep, cradled by the cold. And when he surfaced, sucked in his lungful of air, it was crisp and sweet and the twilight was near as his own skin. Cloaked in the dusk at the edge of Atlantis. (Excerpt, Sigil)

the time between then and now

And, since I haven't been writing a single sentence that doesn't rely upon academic rhetoric and research, I will take down all of the things I've read (unreleated to my studies) since we last spoke. Lists of this sort are better than lists of no sort at all:

1. Tithe (Holly Black)

2. Valiant (Holly Black)

3. Ironside (Holly Black)

4. Kushiel's Dart (Jacqueline Carey)

5. The Privilege of the Sword (Ellen Kushner)

6. Swordspoint (Ellen Kushner)

7. Hex Hall (Rachel Hawkins)

8. Call Me By Your Name (Andre Acimen)

9. The God Eaters (Jesse Hajicek)

10. Shadow Walkers (Brent Hartinger)

11. The God Delusion (Richard Dawkins)

12. The Red Tree (Caitlin R. Kiernan)

13. Asterios Polyp (David Mazzucchelli)

The list of things I have read that pertain to my programme is much, much longer and is certainly not worth copying down. Suffice it to say I doubt I have ever read this much in such a short period of time (and I'm renowned for being a voracious reader, dear friends). I will note, however, that a few of the books I read for school were also books for fun, and so they will be added to my list:

14. House of Leaves (Mark Z. Danielewsky)

15. The Haunting of HIll House (Shirley Jackson)

16. Dracula (Bram Stoker)

17. Tarzan of the Apes (Edgar Rice Burroughs)

19. The Ticket That Exploded (William Burroughs)

20. The 42nd Parallel (John Dos Passos)

21. Between the Acts (Virginia Woolf)

22. The Turn of the Screw (Henry James)

I've also cultivated an intense fondness for both Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson.

I leave you with pretty things.

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wild roses in seaside thickets

1) I married the lady I love.

2) There were two (very successful and lovely) parties to celebrate that we had signed a legal document linking ourselves in matrimony.

3) I learned a great deal about land acquisition and was paid for my troubles.

4) I wrote 12 000 +/- of a novel set in rural Alberta. There are no fairies nor homunculi in this book. Just sheep and horses and a rather large Quiverfull family and their rather curious neighbours.

5) I moved from a city on a river to a city on a harbour. I fell in love with the new city.

6) I assembled a terrible amount of Ikea furniture. There were only tears on one occasion. This is a triumph.

7) I was assigned as a TA to a course that begins on Friday.

8) I met with the English graduate program head and was approved to sign up for the appropriate courses.

9) The city in which I now live became more familiar.

10) I made a rather significant life decision about what's next after this degree.

11) I realized a great deal about what I believe or, rather, what I don't believe. It turned out to be a lot.

12) I moved away from incredible friends.

13) I said goodbye to the foxwife's parents, who are now in Suzhou for the year.

Thirteen things. A summer full of change. My courses begin on Thursday, but I'm off to campus for TA training on both Tuesday and Wednesday. I am simultaneously excited and anxious -- eager to be on the cusp of this year, terrified of what it might contain. This degree is, for me, chiefly about enjoying myself, particularly now that I've made some decisions about what lies ahead. I am thrilled to begin my work as a TA; I am thrilled to return to my work as a lover of literature. I can only hope I'll find time to continue my work as a writer.

For now, a little snippet of what I worked on this summer:

They moved in the same day Holly came home. It was weird, because no one moved in January, not with the winds still stiff and mean off the mountains, but sure enough they came. Jesse couldn’t say if it was a good omen or a bad omen, but then he wasn’t supposed to think about omens. But when the sky collapsed around him and his world convulsed, he couldn’t help but think there might be a series of symbols fighting for his recognition. He just couldn’t tell which was raven-cruel and which was sweet as sunlight.

That day, he watched them with their vans and horse trailers, when he was down checking the pasture out front for tracks. It was like something in the air shifted and he thought for a second maybe it was a chinook, warm wind sudden and hot rolling down the hills, but it was too early in the year for that. It was like the air got all wet and damp and it smelled just like spring for a second, and Jasper grabbed at his brother’s coat sleeve, sucked him right back into the real world, and said, “Who’s that?” 

Jesse raised his head up and stared down the road, watched the rumbling trucks crunch over the snow and salt. He didn’t have an answer, so he said, “That old place finally sold, I guess.” He bent his head back down, now that the trucks and trailers had crested the hill and dipped back towards the house and barns, far beyond his sight. His skin prickled under the sheepskin coat that sat heavy on his shoulders, electric in the way spring is, like your skin’s been waiting for months just to feel the cold and wet snap of rain against its skin.

“Looks like they have horses,” Jasper’s voice all eager, because he always loved horses, never cared much for sheep. But sheep is what they had, bumping up against each other in the barn so they didn’t freeze in the fields, so they weren’t snapped up by waiting jaws. Never time for horses, not even when Jesse wanted one to ride out through the pastures to keep an eye on the flock. That wasn't his job, said his father, that was God’s: to watch and tend.

(Excerpt from Wild Rose Country)

a milk-boned girl/a dark-eyed woman

To be too young, however, to suddenly be eyed like a child, to be thought incapable of making decisions pertaining to love and legality. Well, it's a strange feeling for someone like me, a woman who has always heard the litany of: so mature, so adult, responsible, prudent, and logical. Maybe it's just my ego. Maybe it's my pride. But when I hear that I'm too young to get married, well, my insides twist up into a little bundle of anger and frustration.

It's a terribly condescending sentiment. The notion that these people -- these well-intentioned people, who met me a few weeks ago -- can look at me and determine my decision-making capabilities, that they can see something in my eyes that tells them that I will be unhappy, or that my heart will stray, or that -- well, I'm not sure what they imagine they see. Do they see themselves, making poor decisions at my age? Are they projecting the ghosts of their pasts onto my life, a graft of old regret onto an unsuspecting target? Should I be feeling sympathy for their prejudice? For the incapability of seeing me as I am?

(When people come out of nowhere and tell me I'm too young to be getting married, however, I don't feel sympathetic. I find myself absolutely lost for words, because I feel like this on the inside:

That being said, there are certainly times when I have learned of other couples who were planning on marriage and I have clucked my tongue and said, "They're too young." And, really, it wasn't their ages that bothered me; there is a type of youth some people never leave behind, a kind of perpetual teenage intensity. Some people will never be old enough to get married, I suppose, but I am not one of them.

Of course, if I'm complaining about being judged, I should probably quit with the judging. I'm working on it, okay. I'm trying.

What could I do to make myself more ready for marriage? We've already made our commitment to each other. If we ever went our separate ways, our life together could never be easy to untangle, with or without government recognition and protection. As a married couple, we can share health care, legal and medical benefits and rights. I am old enough to see the value in legal protection; I am old enough to see the need for medical benefits. I am old enough to look at this world and know that it isn't a kind place to queer couples, and I am old enough to know that we can do something to make ourselves a little bit safer.

In a week, the foxwife and I will head down to a government building to sign some paperwork. It is, as she likes to say, about as romantic as filing our taxes. The thing is, of course, that we've already had our romance; we've had our professions of love and commitment, through sickness and health, through prejudice and celebration. We've done that. A piece of paper isn't going to change that; it isn't going to change us. But there is something about marriage that makes even the most liberal of thinkers pause to consider its gravity. But our relationship is already serious; our marriage, contrastingly, is an occasion for silliness, for unicorns and rainbow cakes and BBQs and friends.

I'm old enough to have already dedicated myself to my relationship. I am now following that up by signing my name on a piece of paper. And then we're having a fucking party.

So we're getting married. Grown-ups and glitter and all.

saturday: the day after that day for fireworks

There's not much for today. Work moves along; forms fill my head. I consider returning to the novella I began last summer. This month promises to be absolutely bursting with things to do and people to see and places to go. It is all rather daunting. But, for now, have a poster or two from Every Day Posters Every Day:

(download)

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an artless saturday

You'll find me dancing with the light, dancing with the light you'll find me
Find me dancing with the light, dancing with the light you'll find me
In these nuclear skies with these nuclear lies

(Nuclear Skies, the Irrepressibles)

This week: horses, interviews, horses, interviews, and that blessed space when I'm home with my lady and everything is quiet and warm. But it looks like I've found a job, and so there'll be more money in my pocket and more structure in my day. And those are both good things.

I know I should do one of two things, when it comes to my writing: I should either edit Sigil so that I can send out queries, or I should get back to work on Dark Violet. I suppose I could also search out anthologies and periodicals that are searching for submissions and I could fill those up. But I feel like doing nothing. I think summer tends to be a dry time of year for me. I thrive in colder climates, when I delve deep into myself and hibernate and create. I am like a bear, giving birth in the darkness of my cave. In the summer, I just want to eat berries and splash through streams and catch silver-edged fish.

Today is grey and rainy. Here I am, inside watching out, before venturing forth to forage for food. Perhaps I am a bear, in the end, just searching out my next meal.