Sarah Monette's Blog, page 53

The CEM has landed.

It's the last day of November, it's snowing, and the CEM of The Tempering of Men has showed up on my doorstep like a foundling child. Since we turned in the final manuscript sometime in August--late August? Early September?

. . .

Since we turned in the final manuscript sometime in the part of my timeline that is now nothing but narcotic sludge, I rather expect this pass through to be a voyage of discovery. Imagine what wonders I will find!

It's due back in New York on December 7. So if you need me, you know where I'll be.

Whedonistas: much more interesting than my screwed up neurology

Last night was Lovecraftian: unspeakable, abyssal, and possibly squamous. Maybe batrachian. Not so much with the eldritch, though.

The RLS teamed up with my insomnia, so I was uselessly awake until four. I hate the fact that all the drugs and supplements and everything else have really been able to do is make the RLS unpredictable. So I don't have it every night--which is great, don't get me wrong. That part I have no quarrel with. But when I do get it, I have no idea why. Why last night? Why not Saturday night? Or last Thursday night?

*ahem* Obviously, I'm just a tad bit cranky today. Move along, nothing to see here. We are a hedge.


And, in fact, I have something shiny and distracting to offer:

Mad Norwegian Press has announced the full list of contributors and the table of contents for Whedonistas , which is slated for publication March 15, 2011. My essay, "The Kindness of Monsters," is about the struggle of monsters in Whedon's various worlds to learn to be human, and why the finale of Angel made me cry.

(If you'd rather not deal with a .pdf, the table of contents is here below the cut:

Introduction – Lynne M. Thomas and Deborah Stanish

The Girls Next Door: Learning to Live with the Living Dead and Never Even Break a Nail – Seanan McGuire

Ramping Up for a Decade with Joss Whedon – Nancy Holder

Outlaws & Desperadoes – Sharon Shinn

An Interview with Jane Espenson

My (Fantasy) Encounter with Joss Whedon (And What I've Learned from the Master) – Jeanne C. Stein.

The Ages of Dollhouse: Autobiography through Whedon – Sigrid Ellis

A Couch Potato's Guide to Demon Slaying: Turning Strangers into Family, Buffy-Style – Heather Shaw

Smart Is Sexy: An Appreciation of Firefly's Kaylee – Laurel Brown

Teething Troubles and Growing Up – Caroline Symcox

Transgressing with Spike and Buffy – NancyKay Shapiro

Brand New Day: The Evolution of the Doctor Horrible Fandom – Priscilla Spenser

"We're Here to Save You" – Elizabeth Bear

Imperfectly Perfect: Why I Really Love Buffy For Being a Pill Sometimes – Mariah Huehner

My European Vacation – Kelly Hale

Romancing the Vampire and Other Shiny Bits – Lyda Morehouse/Tate Hallaway

An Interview with Juliet Landau

I Am Joss Whedon's Bitch – Maria Lima

Going Dark – Jackie Kessler

Joss Giveth – Jaala Robinson

The Kindness of Monsters – Sarah Monette

Shelve Under Television, Young Adult – Jody Wurl

The Browncoat Connection – Dae Low

Late to the Party: What Buffy Never Taught Me about Being a Girl – Racheline Maltese

How an Atheist and His Demons Created a Shepherd – Meredith McGrath

Older and Far Away – Jamie Craig

Why Joss Is More Important Than His 'Verse – Teresa Jusino

Let's Go to Work – Catherynne M. Valente

Something to Sing About – Jenn Reese

Malcolm Reynolds, the Myth of the West, and Me – Emma Bull

Lots of cool women, including coffeeem , matociquala , yuki_onna , rm , and many others whose LJ handles I do not know.* And, ne plus ultra, rarelylynne .)

I, personally, am geeked beyond words about the Juliet Landau interview.


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*If you are one of them, or you know their handles, comment on this post, and I'll add them in.

Draft: To Die for Moonlight

6,300 hundred words, which was quite a bit longer than I expected. However, comma, well within parameters.

It is, yes, a Kyle Murchison Booth story, the first one I've finished since "White Charles." It is also a werewolf story.

And, well, just generally, w00t!

fountain pen geekery ahead

(Or, displacement activity to distract from the corner I have written myself into.)

My birthday/X-mas present to myself is a Pelikan Technixx fountain pen (in chrome), since Fountain Pen Hospital has them for $40. I'm trying, in a not very serious way, to collect one pen from each of the great fountain pen manufacturers. I have Sheaffer, Waterman, Cross, and now Pelikan. Plus the two Lamys* and the Griffith Stadium pen (interestingly, Ballpark Pens no longer seems to be making fountain pens, so I'm glad I grabbed that one when I did, because--historic awesomeness aside--it's a really nice pen) and the handful of vintage pens (mostly nibless) maryrobinette gave me.

I do actually use all my pens (except the vintage ones, which are my dragon hoard), each with a different color so I can keep track of different projects/locations. It's a way to make the physical act of writing more fun that works very well for me.

The Lamy Safari demonstrator that lives in my purse gets violet ink cartridges. Lamy's violet isn't wildly exciting, but it's a nice workhorse color for my purposes.
The Waterman Phileas uses black; it's my administrivia pen and also the pen I write down my dreams with. I've been experimenting with blacks lately, and have just ordered Noodler's Old Manhattan (described as "blackest black") from FPH.
The Griffith Park pen uses Pelikan cartridges; it gets Pelikan's "brilliant green," which I actually quite like.
I use Noodler's Couleur Royale in my Sheaffer Legacy II. I love the deep blue-shading-toward-purple and am unlikely to stray.
The Cross ATX gets a ink I mixed myself (yes, such are the depths to which I have descended), about 45% Noodler's Nightshade, 45% Ottoman Rose, and 10% Couleur Royale. Nightshade I found too rusty-brown-black rather than red-violet; Ottoman Rose was like writing with raspberry sauce; combining the two and adding some Couleur Royale to pull it toward blue makes a really rather awesome burgundy color. Since burgundy was the color I started out using, way back in the day, with my Sheaffer (before Sheaffer discontinued their burgundy, the rat-bastards), I am possibly just the slightest bit unbecomingly smug about this.
No matter how hard I try, I cannot like blue-black ink (which is what Mike used in the John M. Ford Memorial Pen). I have just purchased a converter for it and a bottle of Noodler's Old Dutch Sepia.
The Pelikan Technixx is going to get Noodler's Squeteague Turquoise.

The Squeteague and the Sepia are both experiments. (Squeteague is such a Lovecraftian word I couldn't resist it, and it looks like an interesting color.) We'll see what happens.

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*One of the Lamys is my purse pen, so that I have a fountain pen to use outside the house which I will not be devastated if/when I lose. The other Lamy is my John M. Ford Memorial Pen, and it does not leave my desk.


Incidentally--the things you find when you Google--you can get cufflinks made from the copper window encasements removed in the 2005 remodeling of the Flatiron Building. Tor peeps, did you know about this?

The Tempest (Julie Taymor, 2010)

So, Julie Taymor is directing The Tempest , with Dame Helen Mirren as Prospero. (I am ignoring the change from Prospero to Prospera, because honestly (a.) not necessary, (b.) what's wrong with some good old-fashioned genderfuck?, and (c.) to me it kind of suggests we don't think Dame Helen is up to the challenge of playing Prospero, which is nonsense. But if that's the worst mistake they make--and hopefully, this is really a very carefully thought out feminist statement that will persuade me of its rightness when I see the movie--we are all so very golden.)

The Tempest is not my favorite of Shakespeare's plays, nor even my favorite of Shakespeare's late plays, but I have to tell you, the trailer goes a long way towards persuading me to rethink that opinion:


Because:
1. Helen Mirren.
2. Alfred Molina.
3. HELEN MIRREN.
4. This, seriously, is what CGI is for (check out those hellhounds, OMFG), and if there was ever a Shakespeare play that could take the bling, THIS IS THAT PLAY. I am really almost deliriously grateful to see that here, finally, is a production of The Tempest that takes Prospero's magic seriously.
5. Hard to tell from the tiny clips we get, but it looks like they're also taking Caliban seriously. Which not all productions do.
6. And did I mention, HELEN MIRREN.


glvalentine has some excellent discussion of the costuming (which is where I lifted the still from). Zippered doublets FTW.

It also looks like, from the trailer, they understand what Stephano and Trinculo are in the play for (again, not all productions do, nor do all Hollywood versions of Shakespeare understand what the clowns are for. See Much Ado About Nothing, re: Michael Keaton.). The casting of Alfred Molina, aside from rocking my socks, is a good sign.

And, in conclusion, HELEN MIRREN.


ETA: if anyone else would like a very simple Helen Mirren icon, you may feel free to use this one:

And don't hesitate to add text if it pleases you. Currently, my only image-editing software is, um, Paint.

5 things: Thanksgiving

1. As today is my birthday, I observe that the true and valuable purpose of Facebook is birthday greetings. I'm not being sarcastic. I'm very grateful and very touched at how many people are wishing me a happy birthday, and I'm very grateful that Facebook makes it so easy for them.

2. Amazing photographs (1): Astronaut Douglas H. Wheelock's pictures from the ISS. My particular favorite is No. 17. (Link via papersky .)

3. Amazing photographs (2): This picture of an ornithopter is going to turn into a story someday. The rest of the ornithopter pictures (just keep scrolling down until you run out of ornithopters) are also fantastic. (Link via jaylake .)

4. mirrorthaw is playing weird covers for me again. Ska "Crazy Train," bossanova "November Rain," the weirdest-assed weird-ass cover of "King of the Road" I have EVER heard.

5. Tobias Buckell has a smart post about the American Thanksgiving, and how its origins and cultural mythology are kind of problematic and off-putting, but the idea, of taking a day to think about the things you're grateful for, is a good one. And, yeah. What he said.

This is probably a good place to mention, btw, that Pat Rothfuss is doing his Worldbuilders fundraiser for Heifer International again this year. I don't even know what awesome stuff Pat has in his hat this year. But Thanksgiving seems like a good day to think about giving to others.

Our plans for today involve staying in and not doing much, except for the food. (Love is the plan, the plan is food.) Given how exciting/hellish things have been for us recently, this feels like the right thing to do. I'm grateful we can do this, and I'm grateful my life has put me here to do it.

I hope all of you Americans have a very happy Thanksgiving with people you love. And I hope all you non-Americans have a very good November 25th. Which, you know, is a perfectly cromulent day to have a good one of.

5 Things: Miscellany

1.) I have 2100 words on a new Booth story, "To Die for Moonlight." My plan for today is to get as close to finishing it as I can. (Thirdhop Scarp has thrown yet another new wrinkle at me, and I have to assimilate it and work out a game plan before I can continue. This novella is NEVER GOING TO END.)

2.) Leftover notes from yesterday's acupuncture session:
(a.) I wasn't queasy last night. The real test will be tonight, since I've had random bouts of nonqueasiness before that don't correlate with anything, but it was just really nice to have a break.
(b.) That point on my left quadriceps that was agonizing when the needle went in was also agonizing when the needle went out. The 2nd Practitioner said that was a sign the point was still working.
(c.) I'd forgotten how much I like Viparita Karini.
(d.) In case you're curious, acupuncture needles look like this. They are very long and very flexible, and they go in to an astonishing distance.
(e.) I need better language to describe RLS, especially to describe the non-acute phase which seems, distressingly, to be my baseline. Because now that I'm paying attention and know what RLS feels like, none of it is at all unfamiliar. I think I've had symptoms, mostly very minor, for years.
(f.) Which is an argument in favor of getting a referral to a neurologist, just to see if there's some underlying something-or-other I should know about.

3.) If you haven't been following Pictures of Muslims Wearing Things, I highly recommend it. Both because it is very helpful in dismantling the Muslims = terrorists fallacy that the American government and dominant culture are so eager to promulgate, and because it's a magnificent reminder of how awesome our species can be when we're not too busy being assholes. I particularly love Robina Muqimyar and Sarah Khoshjamal Fekri, Olympians; Soraiya, Sami Yusuf, and Art Blakey, musicians; Ahmad Mustafa, calligrapher; and above all others, Anousheh Ansari, astronaut.

4.) On a not dissimilar note, French photographer Sacha Goldberger took these beyond marvelous photographs of his 91-year-old grandmother as a superhero. And there are ten more here. Super Mamika is, truly, super.

5.) And finally, since I have to walk to the pharmacy, I offer this Disapproving Rabbit as an indicator of my current mood.

3rd time around

So the RLS was naggy and annoying like a naggy and annoying thing last night. Woke me up twice, which may in fact be a new high.

No idea why. Which is what we love so much about this fucking thing.

Happily, acupuncture today. New practitioner, younger than the 1st Practitioner, and much more interactive in her approach: she asked more questions and gave me more incidental information, plus suggesting Viparita Karani before bed, which is a fantastic idea.

She did a treatment she said is called the Four Horsemen, which involved needles in the quadriceps rather than just the calves. One of the points on my left quad was agonizingly sensitive, suggesting that, yes, this is probably a good idea. She also used essential oils on my feet, cedarwood and peppermint, so that if nothing else, my feet smell good. And I now have magnets band-aided to each wrist at what she tells me are the nausea points. Given that the Ropinirole, aside from not doing its damn job vis-à-vis the RLS, also makes me nauseated, I'm even willing to give the magnets a go, although frankly my skepticism on that topic is pretty darn vast.

The 2nd Practitioner also doesn't believe in leaving one alone with the needles for an hour, which on the one hand is good, because I didn't have time to get really chilly, but on the other, not so good, because the iron knot in my right quad did not have time to dissolve (although, since she wasn't doing the same treatment as the 1st Practitioner, perhaps it wouldn't have anyway).

Oddly, my left forearm insisted that she had used a point she had not in fact used. It hurt throughout the session exactly the way it hurt when the 1st Practitioner did have a needle there. I'm not as off-kilter in the aftermath as I was on Thursday, although she warned me that the Four Horsemen can have emotional effects for the next week.

We'll have to see how the long term effects play out. Certainly, I liked her, and I liked the fact that she explained why she was doing what she was doing as she went.

The downside is that the 2nd Practitioner charges $85 an hour, rather than merely $60. Which makes this an increasingly costly speculation.

announcement: Melusine and The Virtu OOP: what next?

So remember a while back, I said I had an awesome piece of bad news?

I can tell you about it now.

The bad news is, Mélusine and The Virtu are out of print.

The AWESOME news is, Ace has officially returned the rights to me.

Which means I can finally finally finally do something about getting them BACK in print.

Plan A is to find a small press that would be interested in publishing them, either separately or in an omnibus edition. (Although there is the whole second half of the series, I think the first two books actually stand together very nicely, so it's not as crazy as it sounds.)

If that fails, Plan B is to self-publish them, through lulu.com or some such POD service, so that at least people who want to read them can get ahold of them. Yes, obviously, I would vastly prefer it if there were a way for these books to continue to contribute to (a.) my career and (b.) my income, which is why we're going with Plan A first, but if Plan A fails, I'm not going to sit on them like a dragon with a very small hoard, but will find a way to make them available.

In any event, I've been frustrated and unhappy about the situation, particularly wrt The Virtu, for a long time, and I am extremely happy that I finally have the ability to do something constructive about it.

And now for something completely different.

I've just been reading some really horrible information about snake venom and the ways in which it can fuck your shit up. (Yes, it's for a story. Almost everything is.)

So, as a palate cleanser, and in case anybody else needs this today, I offer you baby red pandas at the Knoxville Zoo. And another red panda, about to break the camera with pure undiluted cuteness. The Knoxville Zoo was the zoo of my childhood, and I remember the red panda exhibit, but things have obviously improved since the 80s, because the red pandas now have a village.

As well they should, says I.

(Also, I now totally want to write a early-Cerebus-style sword & sorcery send up with a heroine named Red Panda. Or, more accurately, I want ursulav to write it for me.)