Life, ah…

…finds a way.

One of the reasons I love moss is how it provides a bed for other plants upon inhospitable surfaces. Moss quietly goes about its work, an advance guard enduring terrible conditions which would either rot or parch lesser warriors, terraforming bit by bit. Moss is very patient, and after it often comes the weeds–also ignored and maligned, surviving despite it all.

The work goes on, ever and always. Life creeps in just like hope; while I often dislike the latter for its habit of kicking me in the teeth once I allow it purchase, the former is beyond my small feelings. It will continue no matter what I think.

Sometimes I find comfort in that.

Anyway, it’s the Ides of March, or as we refer to it around the house, Happy Stab-a-Dictator Day. The Republic was a bloodbath, the Empire somewhat worse, and both were afflicted by murderous power-greedy bastards. Wonder if there are a few lessons to be learned there–oh, I’m sure humanity will ignore them, I just wonder if they exist, hmm?

On that cheerful note, I shall be sailing into the weekend. This week has been…odd, indeed. I’m hoping for a chance to take a breath.

Ivy and Horizons

Even in winter, life is everywhere.

It’s too warm for February. (Thanks, climate change!) At least we’ve had some icepocalypse to cut down on summer’s insect population, and the cherries aren’t blooming yet. Even the one down the street which usually wakes up first–giving me no end of worry, I might add, the poor thing’s going to gamble wrong one of these years–is still blissfully asleep. But that doesn’t mean nothing’s happening.

For example, the ivy-banks are full of berries. The blooms were active far later in fall than anything else, and on sunny days late bees clustered them with zest. They’ve swollen through the worst winter has to offer, and I’m not sure what precisely eats them but something must be overjoyed at the snack.

Ivy’s a terrible plant in this part of the world, and can choke entire hillsides if allowed. Yet for obvious reasons I feel a sort of kinship with something thriving despite every effort to kill it. I also saw a dandelion in the backyard t’other day, while waiting for Boxnoggin to decide which part of the turf to christen. A tiny yellow sun saying hello, good afternoon, fuck you to the world; many are the yards in this neighborhood where such a thing would call for a sudden vengeful application of weed-n-feed. But the older I get, the more I want to just… let things live, if they’re not hurting anyone.

Still going to prune any ivy so it doesn’t kill the Venerable Fir, though. There’s letting things live, and then there’s being foolish with a vine which can kill a tree that will in turn absolutely take out two whole houses if it comes down during a hard wind. I’m broadening my horizons, not being stupid. (Granted the line is a little blurry some days…)

See you next week, my dears.

Blackberry Lesson

Clinging to life, even after ice.

Blackberry brambles (and raspberry canes, to a lesser degree) love the climate here. In spring they don’t grow quite so quickly as kudzu, but sometimes it seems that way. In summer they’re banks of green hiding small animals–maybe larger ones, too–and full of wicked claws just aching for a bit of flesh. As the season turns to autumn the berries are ripe, birds gorging and people with buckets heading for the closest bush uncontaminated by pesticides, dreams of cobbler dancing through their heads.

But I like blackberry bushes best in winter, simply because some absolutely cling to green life through the worst weather imaginable. There’s a beauty to the dormant vines, while their roots sleep safe below frozen ground. Sure, they’ll still take a blood sacrifice, and a lot of gardeners around here hate them almost as much as ivy. (Do not get me started on ivy…)

There’s just something about a plant that shelters so many, feeds so many, and refuses to die even after icepocalypses, that pleases me. If I can be even a fraction as resilient, I will consider it effort well spent.

See you next week, my friends.

Awards, Co-Opted

Well, release day has come and gone, and I’m still a nervous wreck. That’s to be expected, since this series has had such an awful time being born. Recovery always takes thrice the time I think it will, even when I pad out the schedule to what I consider “reasonable”. This perhaps means I am an unreasonable person who drives herself too hard, or…you know what, I’m just going to drink more coffee.

The big news in my corner of publishing right now is the Sanford & Barkley report on what precisely went down with the 2023 Hugo Awards in Chengdu. Yes, it was censorship. Yes, the call was largely coming from inside the house–censorship and bribery often function indirectly, after all. And yes, this bears out my point that if an award is so easily co-opted by bad actors, perhaps it should not be so very prestigious.

I should, in the interests of clarity, make it explicit that I can say this because I am not and will never be an “awards”-type writer. The reasons are various and sundry, but the reason I mention this boils down to me not having any skin in this game. I am aware my position is relatively privileged in that respect. I would like to think that if this were not the case I would still say the same things, but upon that path lies hubris so it’s best to just be honest.

Look, most (if not all) literary awards are popularity contests. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, since the approbation of one’s peers and/or co-professionals is in many cases desirable indeed, and in a wider sense popular works are that way because they appeal to a wide number and variety of people. It’s a good thing to have other folks in your industry say openly that you’re fantastic at your job, and popular works that get more people reading and talking about books lift up the rest of publishing/bookdom, a rising tide heaving all boats up a few inches. Nothing is wrong with that AT ALL.

However, there is a dark side to any awards process. Those who are good at bureaucracy or brigading have a natural advantage when it comes to gaming such things, and any work which speaks to a wide number of people also speaks to their fears and collective id. The former is far more insidious than the latter, and will be relentlessly taken advantage of unless the awards process is constructed in such a way as to curb the enthusiasm of ill-meaning bureaucrats and bigots.

Ideally, an awards process constructed to curb those advantages garners prestige. In the real world, prestige is often bought, or a function of combined age and catering to dominant prejudices, and we are faced with one of the most highly sought and well-regarded awards in SFF being co-opted with stunning regularity by bigots and censorious dickwads. Those who have spoken about this problem when it surfaces face relentless harassment and mockery before being proven right every. damn. time. I don’t think this particular incident will end any differently. The inertia of the Hugos, the “it’s too haaaaard to change!”, are heavy indeed. The old-guard vested interests will simply wait for the storm to pass before going back to co-opting and pulling levers, and in another few years we’ll have yet another “omg the Hugos are fucked” moment. Plus ça change

So yes, this is bad. And yes, I think some version of this fuckery will happen again and again, up to and including “well-regarded” fansites mocking and brigading those who point out problems as they’re developing. It won’t stop until SFF publishing and fandom put a stop to it, but herding those cats–especially if there’s money to be made and egos to be massaged–may well prove impossible.

The real horror here is that Chinese SFF authors, publishers, and fans had a brief shining moment of hope which was relentlessly stamped out by the arrogance and collusion of people in charge of the Hugos and their ringleader, a breathtakingly egoistic, bigoted, and contemptuous white dude. The damage extends far and wide, and will no doubt be forgotten by Western SFF publishing and fandom by the time the next shiny spaceship awards are handed out.

plus ce même chose.

I mourn for all the stories and fandom deliciousness we’re missing out on because this shit keeps happening. Things could be so very different, yet they are not. There might indeed be an arc bending towards justice, but damned if I can see it.

Anyway, I need more coffee and Boxnoggin wants his walkies. After that it’s back to writing. I have the great good fortune to continue making my books, at least for the moment, and I’d best use it to the hilt.

Let Thursday begin.

Love, Anonymous

I needed to hear that, thanks.

Chalk art is one of my favorite things. The beauty, the impermanence, the care taken with each scribble…I love it. And I see a lot of it at certain points in the neighborhood when weather permits. The rain has no doubt already washed this away; I’m glad I got the snap.

It’s odd to have been living in one place for so long, and to feel almost as if one belongs. I wandered a great deal and never felt at “home” even during childhood. How could I? Home is where one feels safe, after all, and I knew very well from an early age that I was not. Finding a tiny corner of the world to call my own has been a revelation. Ah, so this is what people talk about when they say home…how odd!

How odd indeed. How wonderful.

Anyway, this felt like a tiny, anonymous hug, and happened right when I needed it. So I pass the gift along, with thanks to the anonymous artist.

Have a lovely weekend, my dears.

Switchback, Lightning Rod

The Year of the Real continues. We’re not even out of January and I already have a form of psychological whiplash, though I’m trying to look at it like the Very Large Unpleasant Thing was a wicket to run through, or a struggling out of a chrysalis, or a phoenix burning down in order to burst into fresh flame–you get the idea. An uncomfortable necessity, a forging to make me stronger even if I would prefer something a little less, uh, red-hot and hammer-y.

My second husband had a theory of enlightenment–he had theories for everything, naturally, it was part of his charm and his downfall, but I digress. “There’s two paths,” he would say. “One switchbacks up the mountain, where you get the howling wind, the falling rocks, the avalanches, the lessons administered time and again. That’s how most poor motherfuckers do it.”

“Heard of that one,” I’d say. “What’s the other?” I rarely minded playing the straight man to his comedian. Part of my charm and downfall, I suppose.

“Well, the other starts in the parking lot. It’s a big lightning rod that goes straight up, all the way to the peak, and there’s a forest of warning signs around it saying DO NOT LICK.”

At that point, I’d repeat what I said the first time he ever expounded upon this theory in my presence. “That sounds more efficient. Where do I sign up?”

Ninety-nine percent of the time, that did him in. He’d laugh until tears streamed down his face, and I’d be pleased to have done my part. The one percent it didn’t was the first time, when he stopped and gazed at me for several seconds, brow furrowed, and finally said, “You know, that doesn’t surprise me at all, babe.” (And then began to laugh.) It was somewhat of a mystery to him, how I didn’t mind the pain all compressed into a few blinding instants if it got me up the goddamn mountain. I was equally mystified by his apparent pleasure in switchbacks and frostbite.

He was about the journey, I was about getting the bitch to Mount Doom. For a long while our relationship worked because of those contrasting commitments. It failed for other reasons, certainly, but I still remember the parts which didn’t rather fondly. And that image–the different ways to enlightenment–has stuck with me ever since.

Even people who leave one’s life change one somewhat. Getting older hopefully means putting uncomfortable changes in proper perspective, and thankfully that process gets easier once one has some Life Experience socked under the mattress. Which could be an argument for the switchblade route, I know.

But I’ve always been a lightning rod girl. So I’m choosing to view the recent unpleasantness as one of my trademark tongue-stuck-to-electrified-metal moments.

Of course the joke is really on both of us. Once the peak is reached, one gets a better view…and discovers that there’s an infinity of mountains, each higher than the last, each with a path (or two, or fifty) and a lightning rod festooned with warning signs in the parking lot. Sure, nirvana probably arrives once one gets rid of the mountains or realizes they’re all in one’s mind, et cetera, but I like learning new things even when the lesson is somewhat painful. And I already committed to sticking around until all other beings get through that particular door first, since the universe interests me and (more importantly) I’m not leaving anyone behind in this mess.

Not if I can help it. Enlightenment’s rather useless, after all, unless one helps others up the mountain–in whatever way they prefer. I do tend to discourage the lightning-rod method, but the sort of people who choose it aren’t the type to be discouraged by my warnings. (Guess how I know.)

So I hit the lightning again, pick myself up on the peak, shaking my head and frowning at the crisped bits in my hair. Stagger away from the pieces of chrysalis, my wings drying to catch the wind afresh. Sing while I scrape the ashen remnants of my old self into an egg of myrrh, and feel the fresh fire in my vitals. Shift my grip on the croquet mallet and eye the next wicket, not worrying about how far into the weeds I’ve been sent.

Pretty soon I’ll arrive in another parking lot, and I might take the switchback route next time…

…oh, hell, who am I kidding? We all know what I’m gonna do.

See you at the top, my beloveds.

Rope, Ladder, Net

Just when I think that perhaps I should throw up my hands and leave the merry-go-round completely (headfirst if necessary), the Universe throws in a few things to keep me hanging on. Like finding out a fellow writer is a fan, and that I’ve made their day by agreeing to a small request. Or like someone just finishing a four-book roadtrip I wrote and telling me about their favourite character(s). Or like a very nice letter from someone who found my YA books a lifeline while navigating the jungle known as the school system.

Small things, tiny things, precious things.

I often forget, working in isolation, that the work goes out into the world and finds those who need it. I consider myself an invisible midlister just chugging away, doing the best I can with what I’m given or can wrest from the dustheap, never truckling or bowing, ripping each word out of my guts or chipping from the cortex as occasion demands. Of course I’m an introvert, a bit of a hermit, and while not quite a misanthrope certainly no philanthropist, so I’m happiest being unremarked and left to toodle along my own little train track, building as I go.

But sometimes even I get lonely and discouraged. Sometimes the fight to keep the work whole and protected so it can become a line into the abyss for someone else is messy and draining. (It’s all very much like this Akimbo Comic, which lives in my head rent-free.)

And it’s kind of…funny? Each time I get to the point of kicking over the traces and abandoning the war, some small thing hits my inbox or my DMs, my texts or even out in meatspace. I get a little jolt, a piece of proof that one of my stories helped someone somewhere, even if it was just a momentary smile or a few hours’ worth of escape from capitalist hellscape dystopia on a boiling planet. That it had an effect.

And that gives me the strength to go on a bit longer, especially on days when even spite has failed me. Spit out the blood, blink away yet more hot claret, brace oneself on the broken sword, and rise yet again. Reach down just a little further and find the doorway for one last ultimate defense as the music swells breathlessly. Or simply scan the horizon, pick a point, and say, there’s the next one as your weary band of travelers looks to you for direction.

I have often disliked hope, especially in the past few years as the cycle between daring to feel any and being kicked in the teeth accelerates. But it keeps happening, springing up through the cracks in my heart like golden weeds, binding the pieces together in one more jagged whole. The kintsugi of endurance. Drive some ink into the scars, let them be a roadmap.

I should not have been born, by all odds I should not have survived nearly half a century, and I definitely should not be the one handing out hope to other ragged, haggard survivors. Yet here we are.

And so long as there’s even one person out there to help, so long as there’s even a chance that the ball will land in the lap of someone who needs it, I’ll be pointing my bat at the fence and getting ready for another swing. I’ve done it all day, I can do it all day, and tomorrow I’ll get up and do it all day again.

So if you’re a fellow writer/artist/singer/whatever, keep going. If someone made something that dragged you out of the abyss, try to tell them. And if nobody tells you that your thing is helping, take it from me–it has, and it will. Keep going, please, for the love of the gods, keep going.

Keep making.

Because the abyss is hungry enough to swallow us all, and the ropes we send into it become a ladder, a net. Because you never know when a flailing, questing, drowning hand will light on the rope you twisted and be yanked to the surface for a breath of knife-cold, blessed air. Because one day the net will catch you too. Because it’s our job, it’s our calling, it’s our humanity. Because fuck the greedy abyss-servant bastards who want to reduce us all to ad engagement. Because it’s a day that ends in “y”.

Because, just because. And someday when you’re at the end of your endurance, a little jolt will arrive. They happen along when we need them, more often than not.

And maybe this is one of them. So, let’s get up again, my beloved.

We can do this all day.