Tag: geek life

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Authoring Writing Life

Getting comfortable in my writer skin

No writers were harmed in the creation of this skin, I swear.  The comfort comes from taking two big steps towards acknowledging that this writing gig is a Real, Permanent Thing.

1. I got Dawnrigger license plates.

Yes, personalized ones. Don’t hate. There’s a story. Of course there is.

A couple of years back, the state decided that it would be rolling out a new license plate style, and that when my turn came, instead of getting a sticker for registration renewal, my old plate would be replaced for free. Huzzah, I said, because the plates I was issued Way Back When had a letter/number combo I always hated.  I never replaced them because  the fee for title transfer was low compared to the exorbitant fee for getting new plates with a new car. The Awful Old Plates went through…four title transfers, I think? Yes, I am a cheapskate.

This year, it was my turn to get free new ones! The form arrived with the link for renewing title registration online, so up to the website I went, all excited about finally being rid of my Awful Old Plates.

Whereupon the state informed me that once I completed the registration renewal they were going to send me THE SAME AWFUL LETTER/NUMBER COMBO on entirely new plates. WTF, said I, with extra exclamation points. No. Nope. Unacceptable. HELL NO, even. Cussing out the computer screen may have been involved.

Then I spotted my salvation in a sidebar on the left. An option for personalizing plates. An extra fee in addition to the renewal, but not as much as new registration.

So I did it. What the hell. No, they are not vanity plates. (Seriously. They aren’t. Vanity Plate was a whole ‘nother  choice on the site. Who knew license plates came in so many different flavors? I didn’t.)

Now my little car has plates that read DAWNRGR. See? Maybe no one but me will ever know what that means. But I do know, and it makes me happy.

2. The other authoring-related thing I did makes me even happier, and was much easier; I listed myself as “author at Dawnrigger Publishing” in an official directory for the first time.

It wasn’t a government form or anything.  It’s just a member directory for a organization at my college.  I’m still working as Registration Staff part-time at the Mount Prospect library and as a volunteer at the Botanic Garden. Putting the word ‘author’ in the
Primary Employment” slot on this form changes nothing at all officially, but…

I felt comfortable doing it. That changes everything.

I’m getting there. Slow & unsteady, but I’m getting there.

Categories
1. Storysculpting 3. Other Things

Telling stories again

I saw some articles on two topics recently that made me stop and say, “Hm.”

Topic 1, how the United States military is drawing from an ever-smaller pool of soldier families and geographic regions, so there’s a growing disconnect in the public view of what the military is and does and what it ACTUALLY is and does–because fewer people in general come into contact with serving military members. (And the articles discussed that can feed prejudice and dehumanization and a wide array of other dangerous issues…)

2, how the concept of evil and what evil groups have done in the past has become so abstract, so disconnected from the daily experience and the personal narratives of whole  social groups. This feeds the human tendency to create false equivalencies between groups exhibiting similar behaviors (Nazis vs anti-Fascists, for example.) Supporting false equivalencies is also Not Good.

Basically, both topics boil down to the problem of “people losing a sense of the importance of things.” Awkward phrasing, but there it is. It’s an awkward situation when things past and the distant become deniable because they don’t feel real.

I don’t know how to be that detached from the world.

I suckled history at my mother’s breast. Well, I would’ve done, if she’d breastfed me, but women didn’t much in the era when I was born. She was a history teacher, though, and an english teacher, and my father was an avid consumer of history and narratives himself, and loved to share every new discovery, yes even with his babies. History was never a school subject for any of us Morris kids. It was all around us, everywhere we went, and it connected everyone we knew.

Visiting ANY destination meant collecting fascinating tales of the local heroes, villains, any gruesome disasters, and other trivia.  Meeting people resulted in stories about their backgrounds and how they came to be where we were. Learning to sing Waltzing Matilda so we could serenade the new neighbors from Down Under came with stories of Australia’s culture and founding, so we knew why there were swagmen as well as what a billabong was…just to name one of many, many such memories.  And dinner conversation could turn to any old topic that struck Dad’s fancy, from apocryphal tales of obscure British monarchs to Russian folk stories that offered insight into political decisions we were seeing on the nightly news. (Because yes, we watched TV over dinner. As a family.)

I thought all families were like this until I started visiting friends’ homes for meals in fifth & sixth grade. Not so much, it turns out. Nope. Kids were seen & not heard most places, or else we were sent to eat and socialize without supervision.

Teaching moments, that’s what some people call the sharing of knowledge and life experiences as they relate to past and present. I call it conversation. Seriously, I don’t know any other way to relate to people.

I think all of us need to look closer at wherever we happen to be, ask when and what, where and who, and then share those tales for their own sake. Histories. HERstories. OURstories. This casual tale telling keeps fresh the easily-dropped point that people are people.  Relating then to now through narratives brings together past and present, distant and near, them and us, so we understand better how all these things are connected.

And most importantly, it reinforces the reality that what we do now is how history happens. Or so it seems to me at the moment.

Okay, I’m done. Until next time.

 

Categories
Authoring Cons & Appearances Writing Life

Indiana ComicCon 2017 Adventure (day 1)

I came to Indy on Easter weekend this year to scout out a convention and see if it was a good fit for me both professionally and personally.

note: I am at the Wordfire Press(Guest Authors) booth near the photo ops area all weekend.  You can get signed books from me while they last. Yes, my books. And other people’s books. Claudia Gray is here. Dan Wells. Josh Vogt. Ozgur Sahin, Neo Edmund, and Kevin J Anderson. So much author goodness. Come check it all out.

My conclusion: Indiana Comic Con suits me like a comfy favorite shirt. I really like it. Not too big, not too small. Juuuuuust right. Yes, I am resorting to a Goldilocks metaphor.

See, some cons are so large they overwhelm me in masses of people, and most have a faceless, heartless, “profit-generator” feel.  There are many things I love about huge events, but they can be a major emotional struggle for me. Other cons are so small I feel exposed and self-conscious everywhere I go, and some of them suffer from disorganization and/or lack of communication that generates stressful drama for attendees and vendors alike.

Here? There’s a relaxed, personal, fan-enthusiasm feel to the crowds, the crowds are managable and move well, AND there’s more. Good way-finding, helpful staff on hand, a nice variety of panels and events for the number of attendees, and tons of of great artists, authors and dealers in the exhibitor’s area.

(Hey, I’m in the exhibitor’s area. HOW COOL IS THAT?! Worthy of an interrobang, that’s how cool.) Anyway. I think this con hits the sweet spot, and I am enjoying it.

My goal now is to sell out of books. It’s a stretch, but goals are good, right? I sold more than I expected today, and this was only Friday, right?

Although I forgot to take a picture today, my books are right there on the table between Kevin J. Anderson’s Star Wards Legends series and the new Terry Goodkind novel. That’s kind of a fairy tale place to end this, I think, don’t you?

Until next post, have a couple more random con snapshots. More to come…

Categories
Authoring Writing Life

Happy Author Bubble

TL;DR  The good: someone bought my ebooks as a friendly gesture because they knew me for reasons unrelated to writing. The better: they recommended the books to a second person who bought them too. The BEST: the second person liked the books even more!

Full explanation. It’s long, but I feel bubbly, so I’m sharing backstory and all.

I work the Butterflies & Blooms exhibit at the Chicago Botanic Garden every summer. It’s a volunteer gig done in four-hour shifts, and I’ve hopped from shift to shift over the years as as my library schedule allowed. Since many volunteers have worked the same shift all five years the exhibit’s been open, I’ve gotten to know dozens of fascinating, knowledgeable, helpful, friendly people.

The volunteer pool is a fascinating and inclusive group, mostly retirees from all backgrounds imaginable. Being casual acquaintances who might never otherwise cross social paths, we cover All the Usual Topics during quiet periods between visitor groups. You know the list: what do you do, where do you live, how’s the family, what’s new in your life, etc… Since I’m an author,  writing anecdotes are one of the things I end up sharing.

Few of the others are speculative fiction readers,  but they ask great questions about the nuts and bolts aspects and  are cheerfully supportive in a general way. Their reactions and respect are welcome reminders that the wide world is much bigger and more accepting of independent authors than the pop-culture and publishing pools where I spend most of my time swimming.

One of the volunteers on my new shift last year–let’s call her Butterfly Reader One–was so tickled to learn she knew a published author she grabbed some of my ebooks so she could say she owned them. Despite not being a speculative fiction reader (at all)  she ended up reading and enjoying the Partners books and Flight Plan, then read and loved Extraordinary. This made me giddy, and I was profuse with thanks and gratitude, but  of course I chalked up the praise to politeness and casual friendliness because that’s how I roll.

This year Reader One and I are both on a new shift together, and a few weeks ago I learned that  Reader One mentioned to another volunteer that I wrote books she’d enjoyed. (!) The way I heard this news was the truly glee-making part.  Reader Two approached me to say how much she had enjoyed Extraordinary, and did I have any print books–because she would love to own a signed book.

I restrained myself to merely hopping up and down and clapping, but picture the happy Kermit flailing inside. Yeah. There was flailing.

Of course I shared the news that I have two novels in print form, then issued the disclaimer that they are in a different series. We chatted about the two series and what she liked about Extraordinary (more strictly internal happy-dancing on my part) and she wrote down the titles of the other books in the Rough Passages collection.

I honestly thought it would end there, but this week…well. This week Reader Two brought in the copy of Controlled Descent she purchased, and handed me a pen.

Squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Soon after that I handed out two business cards to two more volunteers who were delighted by the sight of the print book.

Color me happy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Categories
Uncategorized

Not Like The Other Girls?

This is a phrase that gets cyclically dissected in social media these days. The last time its bones got picked, I saw it being portrayed as a phrased used by women to men as a defensive measure to make themselves look better. It was said to be a distancing tool, wielded to earn better treatment. As in, “I’m not like other girls, so don’t treat me the way you treat other girls. Treat me with respect.”
Okay. That is clearly true for others in situations outside my experience. But this is my blog, where I talk about me, and that narrative doesn’t match my life. So, let me tell you my story. Not interested? That’s all good. I am hardly a mainstream example of anything. Except, y’know, white, married, educated, employed, not-poor privilege. I’m all that.
 I’m only saying, I did say those words, and I meant them, but it was never said(and I doubt was ever interpreted) with the meaning stated above. Bottom line, though: I’m not speaking for anyone else.
When I used that phrase with men (and I haven’t in over 25 years)  I was saying it to reassure guys who were afraid to trust me. These were guys over whom I held all the power of acceptance or rejection in the social dynamic. They were accustomed to dismissal and outright derision from women who were not interested in scruffy-haired comic-reading, math-obsessed, Monty-Python-quoting fantasy-RPG playing men. I was saying to those men, “I know the rejection you feel, for I, too, am a social outlier.”
And in an aside, those same women were the ones who actively, vocally refused association with me because I was a scruffy-haired, flannel-wearing, moisturizer-indifferent science-obsessed weird girl. Just saying.
And back then when my overwhelmingly male social circle said disparaging things about women followed by, “but we don’t mean you, you’re not like them,” I called them out on it, oh, yes I did. Mostly by pointing out that I was indeed female and emphatically did identify with the “girls” they were dissing. Sometimes by simply tugging my collar and doing an ostentatious boob check.  (how often? usually? always? I can’t judge from memory. I know I had a whole repertoire of comebacks memorized by junior year in college.)
I never felt “better than” other girls. I was measurably isolated in my differences. I had damned few compatriots in my limited peer group and fewer adults as role models. Until college, I knew three women who read SFF. My physics teacher, her daughter, and one classmate in a high school class of 700.  (And four I met in summer camp. We shared two unforgettable, brilliant, giddy weeks fighting light saber flashlight battles and talking about The Dark Is Rising, but we had no internet to hold us together when the dream weeks ended, and we never saw each other again. The end.)

I met a couple more women SF gaming nerds in college. By which I mean two. TWO.  But sure, there were always some other girls like me. When I said “I’m not like other girls,” to guys I was never declaring myself a unicorn who should be revered, just a member of a shared minority. And it was accepted in that same sense by guys who were not like other guys. Our geeky awakening was a shared, culturally alienated phase where all of us were truly wasn’t like almost any other people we knew.

The men I hung with, back in the day (and now) treated women with respect. No, really. They tried, to the best of their ability and experience and blind privilege. And when they didn’t get it right, they got read the riot act (and told me I was being emotional, got read MORE riot acts until they eventually learned.)
We stuck with our passions, me and my guy-exclusive social circle, the world turned around us slowly, nerd culture became mainstream, and I no longer had to reassure men I understood difference. These days I can’t swing a cat without hitting nerdly women and men in every walk of life.
 If I was 20 years younger, I would’ve had girl friends who didn’t turn away from magic stories in junior high and start shunning me. I would’ve had Harry Potter-raised, video-gaming adept girl buddies. I never would’ve said I wasn’t like other girls to men, because my sisters in nerdliness would’ve stepped up beside me and I  would’ve been like them all along, loving nerdy guys and girls right back.
The glory of nerd passion is that it can be discovered and embraced at any age, by anyone, so women of my advanced age have discovered SFF and video gaming and comics over the years too. (When curiosity meets ubiquity, magic happens)   I am now like so many other girls it makes my heart sing and my head spin with giddy joy.

But. I do still use equivalents of that phrase with women to this day. These days, it is a different defensive shorthand, explaining in the language of the groups I move through that I don’t enjoy things they assume (nay, insist) I should and must like because of my gender. What I actually say is something more like, “I know <X> is a popular thing, but it isn’t my thing.” They’re the ones who nigh-invariably translate that to “well, you’re not like other women.” Which is patently not true, and I will call it out when I have the energy, but there’s only so much ingrained prejudice I can fight. If they want to think me different, well, then, bless their hearts.

Battles. I pick them.