Lilith Saintcrow

The world is barren enough.

With your knowledge that life, with endless vigor, seems to tilt the playing field on which we all live, in favor of unhappiness and hate… this is what your heart tells you to do? You want to sanctify marriage? You want to honor your God and the universal love you believe he represents? Then Spread happiness — this tiny, symbolic, semantical grain of happiness — share it with all those who seek it. Quote me anything from your religious leader or book of choice telling you to stand against this. And then tell me how you can believe both that statement and another statement, another one which reads only “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” –Keith Olbermann

I could not agree more. The world is indeed barren enough.

One of the reasons I do not identify myself as Christian is because of this very issue–no, not gay marriage, but the underlying hypocrisy. People cherry-pick quotes from the Bible to justify whatever hate they feel like slinging today. They quote the Old Testament’s jealous, insecure god (with a need for praise greater than an adolescent male’s, as Ruth Hurmence Green so memorably put it) and conveniently forget that Christ hung out with the hookers and the lepers, the people he wasn’t supposed to even touch as a good Jewish boy. Those Christians who do espouse love (pun definitely intended) are so few and far between, and they usually meet bad ends at the hands of the established hierarchy. The religion (as most monotheistic religions do) relies on a division of Good vs. Evil, Us vs. Them, Kill Them First, Hate Hate Hate.

Then there’s the threat of hell if you don’t toe the line. Look, the divine love that engenders all is not going to send you to Hell. You can (and probably will) create your own hell while you live and after you die; that’s well within your purview as a human being. But God(s) doesn’t need Hell.

What parent WANTS to torture their child endlessly? A very, very bad one. And I cannot believe the Divine is a bad parent. A sarcastic one sometimes, a parent with an adolescent sense of humor sometimes, but not a bad one. Not a sadistic one, to punish us over and over again for choices made with “free will”. The fiction of eternal punishment is a lie told to keep us paying, praying, afraid, isolated, and powerless.

The world is indeed so very barren enough. Every chance of love and commitment should be cherished. Not bashed in the head by hypocrites (and let’s not even talk about the Mormon church, those who brought us polygamy and the Mountain Meadows Massacre, bankrolling this hatred and hypocrisy about the “sanctity” of marriage). It constantly amazes me that so many so-called Christians, as well as others who consider themselves “religious” or “spiritual”, have entirely forgotten the “do unto others” and the “love thy neighbor” parts of their holy one’s teachings.

I guess it must be easier to hate. But isn’t there ENOUGH hatred in the world already? Can we not add to it? Please? The fire is large and it will take so long to burn itself out. We don’t need to fuel it more.

Still sick but getting better. Coughing a bit, but the nose has largely stopped trying to flood the rest of my face. Fever gone down. Today is my last day of rest before I go back to my regular workout schedule–I’ve been shovelgloving the past few days to keep myself together, and to get myself moving and get the crud worked out.

I feel like the sickness has broken in more ways than one. I listened to both speeches last night–McCain’s concession and Obama’s celebratory. Do not read further unless you want to hear my opinion. You’ve been warned.

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Big question for the week. Why on earth do we do what we do? More to the point, I’ve been talking about craft a lot lately and not so much about the whys and wherefores. And this morning, while slogging away on the treadmill, I started thinking about why we write.

Bear in mind I’m philosophical today.

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Last night, after I finished the draft zero of FC, the Selkie picked me up and we hopped out to the Martian Mooncrab’s*. She had a dresser that will be good for the Princess, since the Princess’s old one has endured many years of hard use and just finally gave up the ghost. (Or at least, one of its drawers did.) So, big thanks to the Mooncrab, who also plied us with goodies. And I got to see her lair, which is full of books. You may think my house is full of books, but hers leaves mine in the dust. It was a cornucopia, and I was agog at the shelves.

How bad is it that when I go to someone’s house, the bookshelves are the first thing I go to? I want to know what furniture is knocking around inside their heads. And the siren song of booooooooks is very hard to resist. (It’s like the siren song of struuuuuudel. *winks at JM*)

Today is a day off. I don’t have to work out (a relief, since this week’s upping in intensity is kicking my bum but good) and I’ve finished an initial draft, so the Muse usually declares a holiday the day after and lets me poke around at other stuff without really doing much of anything. The work is still going on inside my head–nothing will stop that, I’m afraid–but today I need the huge wheel that was spinning madly providing impetus for a Jill book to wind down and come to a halt. I’m getting better at this bouncing-back thing. Finishing a book used to just destroy me. Now I take a day or two off and get back up on the horse. Deadlines help–I don’t have the luxury of sitting on my thumbs. But I think I’m learning to be a bit gentler on myself.

It’s about damn time. I’m tired of chewing myself to bits.

The Teen sent me a link to a bunch of BBC mind/personality tests, and we’ve been having fun doing those. My brain, according to the “What Sex Is Your Brain?”, is right dead in the middle between male and female. I do not attach much importance to a quiz I can do online, but it was hilarious. I announced “I’m a bloody hermaphrodite!” into the evening silence of everyone reading and the Little Prince playing quietly with his cars.

This household being what it is, the announcement was greeted with one “Hmmm” and one not-very-interested “Really?”

Yeah, not much disturbs our serenity around here. *snerk*

The other test that was thought-provoking was the “are you a perfectionist” quiz, which seemed to be three-quarters full of questions about what one’s parents expected of one. It made me think of why I push myself so unforgivingly hard. It was kind of a shock to realize, Yes, I was never good enough.

In some ways I suspect I will never feel “good enough” or like I’ve achieved enough to be loved. Which is sad, because the measure of love should be the inherent worth of a person as a person, not achievement–or more damaging, “I will love you if you do ______ for me.” Part of my revolt against the way I was raised is the hard work I’ve done to 1) never use corporal punishment and 2) let my kids know that loving them for themselves is the baseline that is never going to change. I might get angry at something they’ve done, but I am not angry at THEM. It is a critical distinction and one that I hope means they don’t feel a huge yawning emptiness laced with pain and terror when they think of their childhood.

And truth be told I have rarely even had to raise my voice with my methods, let alone spank anyone. Even the Teen, who occasionally acts out as all kids do, is responsive to the other methods–things like time out, like responsibility, like clear communication and the distinction between loving the child and deploring the deed. He’s finally beginning to relax and grasp that here he is valued just-because, and not because he’s going to be the carrier of his parents’ unfulfilled dreams, or a chit in the war between them.

We talk about it sometimes–the damage a parent can do by pushing their unfulfilled dreams off onto a child, or by using a child as a bargaining counter. Children are not meant to bear such burdens. Growing up is hard, and it’s hard to be a little person in a big world. Why make it harder for them?

I find myself being able to say to him some of the things I wish someone would have said to me at that age, and it’s an opportunity for healing to both of us.

Sometimes, when you save a life, you end up saving your own as well. Sometimes.

Anyway, today is a day to lay on the floor and stare at the ceiling while the Little Prince uses my hair as a freeway for Lilliputian cars. Or watching terrible movies with the kids. And baking–I have a cherry-pecan loaf I want to try, as well as more cranberry-walnut bread. There will be reading and playing games and perhaps some video gaming if I feel really ambitious.

Tomorrow is early enough to start on the revisions for Weasel Boy, which is the next project scheduled. After that’s revised and sent off FC will be cold enough for me to whack at it and get it into a workable first-draft for the beta. Then there’s short stories and a YA novel to plug at.

But all that is tomorrow. Today, my dears, I am enjoying a well-deserved (or at least, a necessary-for-sanity) rest.

* For those just joining us, yes, these are pseudonyms. I do not use real names in my journal unless the person is a public person.

First of all, a new chapter of Selene is up! We are getting into the last two weeks of the serial, and this is the point in the book where things start pulling together and really kickin’ ass.

Today, I am going to feel like a superhero. For no particular reason other than there’s Talk Like A Pirate Day and I Survived A Dysfunctional Family Day (thank you, Making Light). Today, after a hard morning workout, I’m feeling like I’m doing pretty good. So today, I’m setting out to be a superhero. Which will mean a lot of hands on hips, a lot of shaking the hair, a lot of, “This would defeat an ordinary mortal…BUT I’M A SUPERHERO! HAHA! TAKE THAT!”

You get your joy where you find it, methinks. And once I explain to the kids I’m sure we’ll all have a grand time with it.

And now, link salad. But not just any link salad. SUPERHERO link salad.

* Five minutes of shovelgloving this morning. Damn. This IS a workout. I’ve been looking for something with weights I can do to tone the upper body, and this fits the bill. I’m starting out slow, slow slow, just like with the running. If I start slow I’ll stick with it longer and begin to see the effects, giving myself a reason to keep up with it.

Plus, every girl (and every superhero) needs to know how to chop wood, shovel, and swing around a sledgehammer. I can see this workout coming in mucho handy if there is a zombie apocalypse. And really–isn’t that what a workout is for?

Kudos to MissShepsu, who has been shovelgloving for seven weeks now and has a pair o’ guns to prove it. We shall survive the zombie apocalypse together.

* This made me scared and angry all at once. Try as I might I can’t find a flaw in Teresa’s logic, and the links to definitions of malignant narcissism were so helpful to me for other, personal reasons. ZOMG.

* And to round out the politics, Republicans are bad for the frickin’ economy, stoopid. They are not the party of smaller guvmint and privacy. They are the government of taking from the poor and middle class to give to the rich. People get seduced into thinking otherwise by the PR the rich can pay for. And there is the not-inconsiderable group who want to ally themselves with the powerful, so toe the party line and sit up in expectation of a treat tossed their way. *sigh*

* Speaking of rich (and rich corporations) getting richer by squeezing the middle/lower classes, how about this–$700 billion and no oversight to the very corporations who created the problem in the first place. Way to legislate responsibility. The far right is getting their panties in a wad over this, finally and for the wrong reasons, but hey, I’ll take it–but it can’t hurt to call your Congresscritter and voice your own concern, so they know you’re watching.

THIS BAILOUT WILL AFFECT YOU, fellow Americans. No matter how arcane it seems, no matter how you think this is just a Wall Street mess that an ordinary person can’t do a thing about. What the federal government does now–and whether or not the lobbyists get a billions-rich payout–will affect millions in their day to day lives. I can’t urge you strongly enough to go digging and find out about this mess and the means being proposed to fix it.

* And whew, this turned into a heavy post. I’m just going to note that I blurped a few thousand words on a trunk novel yesterday, and that seemed to clear my “throat” for working on FC again. And the edits for SA are largely done and turned in, thank God. Now the next thing I have to worry about is copyedits and proof pages.

See, you don’t just write a book once. You end up writing it four or five times before it’s even close to published. *headdesk*

But that’s okay. That would defeat an ordinary mortal…

BUT TODAY, I AM A SUPERHERO.