Lilith Saintcrow's Blog, page 176
February 27, 2013
A Thousand Stars
Today I visited the Little Prince’s class again, both to see how they were getting along after the fire…and to read to them.
First, though…the ELEW’s Evil for Crestline Auction raised over $5000. (That’s not a typo.) I am slack-jawed with amazement, at Skyla and Dina for arranging and running the whole thing, for those who contributed time, effort, books and various other goodies to be auctioned off, and to those who bid and bought. Your graciousness, hard work, and amazingness has a cumulative impact on the lives of about 500 students, their teachers, and other staff who take care of them on a daily basis. I saw firsthand some of the initial results of your efforts, guys–books in a fourth-grade classroom, bookshelves, teaching aids, posters, donated supplies used by people who lost years of accumulated work and effort when the school burned down. YOU have made a huge difference the lives of 500 children, an effect that will ripple out through them and their teachers. You’ve been the very best kind of shiny bad guys. Thank you so much.
You might remember that right before the fire I visited the Little Prince’s class. I did write a story for them, since every time I picked up the Prince after school I was pestered with “Miss Lili! When are you going to write US a story?” and big shiny hopeful eyes. But I didn’t want it to be a regular story, so I hit upon the idea of a sort of Choose-Your-Own-Adventure alien “book”. I would write the alien’s landing, and the ending, but in between there would be many blank pages for each kid to write in their version of what the alien looked like, why it had landed, what the problem with its ship was, and how they would solve it. I formatted it (Jesus, anyone who works in publishing production, I have so much respect for you) and got copies printed over at Kinko’s, spiral-bound so they could lay flat.
And today I went in and read it to them. They were amazed. “My favourite thing is the blank pages!” most of them said, “Where I can write my own bits! My alien’s going to be _____!”
I only had to hold back tears once, reading the dedication. (Can’t have a book without a dedication.) There may have been pictures taken of the event, and if there’s one that doesn’t make me look like a DERPing moron I’ll post it.
I would list the names of the kids in the class, just to put faces on the people you have helped. I can’t, because of privacy concerns, but I wish I could. Suffice to say I’ve known a great many of them since the Prince was in second grade, and seeing them grow with him is so exciting. I wish I could name names, tell you all about how you’ve helped the jug-eared kid who loves dinosaurs or the boy with attention problems who works so hard to stay still and learn some impulse control, the quiet little girl who likes drawing trees, the cat-eyed girl who every time she sees me gives a huge grin and announces “I don’t know you!” so I can give the follow-up line, “But I’ll still tell you to sit down!” (Long story, she was in my group during a field trip.) Every day when I pick up the Little Prince, I see those shining faces, and I am reminded of so many things–including, now, awe and amazement at seeing so many people pull together in the face of a disaster.
Even if that wasn’t enough to make my black little heart grow a few sizes, I only have to look at my baby, the Little Prince. His classroom has school supplies, new books, and too many other things to count, directly because of people like Skyla and Dina and Danielle K. and those I can’t list because this post would grow to gargantuan proportions. People in the community who volunteered to organize supplies and helped with childcare arrangements, who went to work and organized fundraising drives, who donated auction items or bid on them, people who dealt with overwhelmed and tangled bureaucracy to get things done…
Thank you. You have directly, materially helped not just my child, but all his classmates. The ripples of all these small (and large) kindnesses will echo for a long time to come. Thank you so much.
In the words of the late and much-missed Leslie Banks, “a thousand stars in your crown.”
A thousand indeed. Thank you.
photo by:
Libertinus
February 25, 2013
Paying For Libraries
THIS.
I don’t use my local library like I used libraries when I was younger. But I want my local library, in no small part because I recognize that I am fortunate not to need my local library — but others do, and my connection with humanity extends beyond the front door of my house. My life was indisputably improved because those before me decided to put those libraries there. It would be stupid and selfish and shortsighted of me to declare, after having wrung all I could from them, that they serve no further purpose, or that the times have changed so much that they are obsolete. My library is used every single day that it is open, by the people who live here, children to senior citizens. They use the building, they use the Internet, they use the books. This is, as it happens, the exact opposite of what “obsolete” means. I am glad my library is here and I am glad to support it. –John Scalzi
Libraries are not obsolete, Mr. British Author Who Shot His Mouth Off And Is Getting Publicly Schooled By Scalzi, Among Others. (Who I am not going to link to because 1. he is an ass and 2. he won’t get any traffic from me.)
This is also how I feel about public education. Even if you don’t have children, if you are able to read this (i.e., if you are literate) you are a product of public education. (If you’re homeschooled–who do you think pioneered the textbooks/teaching aids you used, and made them economically viable for companies to produce on a mass scale? Even private schools suckle at the tax teat, and if you don’t know that, YOU SHOULD.) If you are able to read, to balance your checkbook, or attempt any of a hundred daily tasks, you have not reached the end of what public education has given you. You still owe to the public who invested in you, whether in schools or libraries or crosswalks.
Which reminds me. You use the roads? You rely on postal or package delivery services that use the infrastructure? You rely on public health (drinking water delivered reliably that doesn’t sicken you, for one) or public safety (stop signs, sidewalks, city or county contracts with ambulance companies, I COULD GO ON AND ON) at all? These things cost money (i.e., taxes) and if you don’t like your tax burden, are you paying attention to where the money goes and writing to your Congresscritter or state legislature representative, or calling the city hall to politely but firmly register your opinion? If you are, great, keep it up, if you’re not, well, why are you bitching? You’re the one in charge here, and if you use the services, well, you owe. Unless you’re homesteading in a shack out in the middle of nowhere. (Even then, if you can read this, you’re using the infrastructure that brings the Internet to you.)
Infrastructure is not free. Just like ebooks aren’t free to produce, but some jackasses feel entitled to steal–thinking you don’t owe for libraries or schools the same jackassery, writ large. Libraries and schools are not free either, and you know what? If you even start the right-wing bitching about poor or brown people (don’t think I don’t know all your dog-whistle words, I grew up in a household of bigots, I know them) using the schools “I’ve paid for”, shut your pie-hole. We’re goddamn America, and we invest in the poor and huddled masses because when they’re given a chance, they work just as hard as the rest of us and make everyone’s life better. (I grew up blue-collar and ended up poor for most of my adult life, I worked my ass off, and now I don’t complain about paying my goddamn taxes for this very reason.)
And we also invest in libraries and schools because it’s the forward-thinking, fair, just, and goddamn smart thing to do. We owe and we pay back, because we haven’t reached the end of the help that schools and libraries built by others has provided us.
Lili OUT. *drops mic, does fist-jab, walks away*
February 22, 2013
C is for Cookie
Peanut-butter cookies made last weekend. Yum!
February 21, 2013
Perception, Memory, Attention, Habit
You stop smelling violets after a while; the receptors in your nose get tired.
Which makes me think about perception–the things we get tired of seeing and so ignore, or the things that numb us into acceptance. Sharp moments of recognition and absurdity that open doors, and how fleeting they are.
I’ve begun to be able to walk around the new house in the dark. It takes a while for proprioception to kick in, for me to relax into a new space. It used to be almost instantaneous, but living in the old house for a decade probably blunted that skill. Before then, I never stayed in any one place too long, so I had to learn it quickly and forget it just as quickly. Except one never really forgets, right?
Memory is a funny thing. There can be trauma-induced gaps side by side with vividly-recalled moments; a memory can come rushing at one like a hungry lion or creep up, softly, nosing about and ignoring you as you sit and wait. Sometimes, thinking about my childhood, an adult realization colors the memory in slightly less painful hues. It can’t draw the sting completely, but understanding things about the experience from an adult’s point of view mitigates.
Dogs are in the eternal now, but they paradoxically love habit and routine. Just like kids, they need to know that some things are the same. I vary our running routes, and Miss B is sometimes quite put out that I’ve decided to go a different way, especially when there are dogs in backyards she is accustomed to hailing with perked ears and lolling tongue. I wonder sometimes what our different routes feel like to her–the layers of scent she no doubt catches, the sounds she hears, the brief polite conversations with other dogs as we run past. Odd Trundles, of course, has to smash his face against anything to smell it, so he spends a great deal of his life lipping and snuffling everything in reach, hungry for sensation.
We see through lattices: perception, memory, attention, and habit form a kaleidoscope. Ever-changing patterns, even the most solid intersections can suddenly turn ninety degrees and crumble.
Which is, I suppose, a good reason to keep moving. If one crumbles, another one has solidified. Moving from handhold to handhold, dancing in a kaleidoscope, we are all athletes of perception.
It’s so funny that many of us don’t know…
photo by:
Tambako the Jaguar
February 20, 2013
Conlang, And Using What You Have
Crossposted to the Deadline Dames. Check us out!
I am no stranger to constructed languages. I’ve read Tolkien, and Orwell, and others too numerous to list. The first novel I ever finished had two complex tongues that needed to be channeled and described–to me, making a language was something you did when you were writing epic fantasy, just because. (No, don’t ask about that book. Really, don’t.) It even has to happen in other genres, sometimes. Lit-fic, YA, suspense, you name it, making up a language is something writers can’t seem to stay away from. We deal with words and grammars all day, it’s our job and our fascination to express. Some are built more carefully than others, some are inserted as jokes or puns, others are to illustrate a principle. Sometimes a conlang is a procrastination trick for a writer–I’ve met several who sink so much time into inventing a fictional tongue they don’t have time for little things like craft or plot or learning punctuation.
The above rather-rambling paragraph is brought to you, dear Reader, by this New Yorker article. (Hat tip to Particle P, who sent it to me.) It started a chain of thought in my head having to do with language–when to construct a tongue, as a writer, and when not to. (I seriously recommend you go and read it, the moment when they realize exactly where they are is PRICELESS.)
When do I construct a language? Mostly when the characters tell me they’re speaking one I can’t think in. The process of construction isn’t very conscious for me, it tends to be rather organic. There is the language hellbreed speak in the Kismet series, which Jill only describes the sound of; there’s a demon tongue (full of k’s and z’s because, well, nobody would take a strictly vowel-speaking demon seriously, would they?) in the Valentine series; Steelflower of course has several tongues from the flowery, case-specific, punning tongue of Kaia’s homeland to the tonal song of Hain and the rolling horse-warrior-conquerors-turned soft-overlords of Rikyat Ammerdahl’s people, with its many loan-words from the conquered. And of course the almost-French of the Hedgewitch books, which I do not apologize for, because it was a loving homage to my high-school French teacher who, one day, got a soft misty look in her eyes when she spoke to us about how a language was a living thing. Each of these grew specifically out of the story; there’s never a point where I outright decided “hey, I’m going to make a tongue up!” Generally it’s the characters telling me about the peccadilloes and fiddles of their particular language. I’m certain I make horrendous mistakes in translation, but oh well.
The point, for me, is never in setting out to construct a language, and I don’t think it ever will be. I’m no Tolkien, and linguistics fascinates me but its theory can only go so far before my eyes glaze over. What I love, what really lights me up, is simply this:
How can I take the language I already have and make it work?
It’s one thing to start from scratch and build a language to your needs. It’s another thing to take an existing tongue, with its messy democratic (or imperialist-repressive, if you find that strand in it) vitality and tickle it into accomplishing what you need. English is lovely for this, because it’s a thieving little language that steals from anywhere it can with utterly ruthless, pragmatic, and conscienceless abandon. Coining neologisms, playing games with structure inside a sentence or paragraph, sliding a hand up the skirt of conventional usage and gently squeezing–this is the stuff that makes me light up with glee.
Part of the mad joy of writing, for me, is having the rules internalized so I know better how (and when) to break them. The words and how they fit together are my playground, and the fun lies in doing a trick, climbing a rickety staircase, performing a dive that hasn’t ever been done before. My very favourite copyediting comment ever–I think it was in a Kismet book–said something to the effect of “this passage plays so many games with semantics, rhythm, sound, and meaning that I doubt a normal reader will ‘get’ it.”
My response was to gleefully stet. Mostly because the normal reader is waaaay smarter than me or any CE, but that’s (say it with me) another blog post. I don’t know if anyone will like the games I play in the thickets of words and usage and grammar; I don’t know that my little in-jokes or out-takes will be funny to anyone. But I do think that my sheer joy in playing may come through occasionally to the reader, and it is with that hope I keep at it.
Well, that and the hope of feeding my mortgage and kids. Still, the joy is nice.
What about you, fellow writer or dear Reader? What constructed language do you love? How do you build ‘em? What do you think of them? (I’d add something in Klingon here, but I don’t think it would work…)
photo by:
Insomnia PHT
February 19, 2013
A Teaching Shelf
photo:
Pankaj Chirayil
The long weekend held a couple milestones for me. I actually asked for help, and I threw a party. Both centered around a shelf.
There was this lovely large space above the three kitchen carts I have end-to-end (counter space is your friend when you like to bake) and I had acquired and put together the perfect shelf to go above them. Two shelves actually, and a rail with hooks! It was awesome except for one thing.
I didn’t know how to put it up.
Well, to be absolutely fair, I had a good idea of how to…but I was afraid of doing so. The vision of yon bonny shelf and assorted breakables collapsing in a shattered heap atop kitchen carts (and my tile dining-room floor, big fun) danced before my eyes like a ghost of Christmas Whatevers. Intellectually I knew it was ridiculous. Intellectually I knew that finding the studs and wasn’t that hard and the guy in the hardware aisle told me the wood screws I was about to purchase should hold it up, of course. Intellectually, I knew I was being an idiot. So I did the proper and adult thing.
Yes. I procrastinated.
Eventually I got tired of moving the assembled shelf around the house, and screwed up my courage. First, I asked Wonder Woman–the mother of one of the Princess’s best friends–if her big Strapping Cajun of a husband knew how to put up Ikea shelves.
“Shit yeah,” she said, “you got one? He’ll come over and put it up for you, no problem!”
I was not prepared for such generosity. During my childhood (not my fault) and several relationships (half my fault, I think, because I WAS THERE TOO) it was never safe to ask for help. As a child and adolescent, asking for anything showed a vulnerability to be exploited by frightening, inconsistent adults. Later, I dated (and married) people who raised unreliability (emotional or otherwise) to an art form. It’s taken me years (and therapy, but let’s stay on topic) and hard work to get to the point where I don’t immediately scramble away in terror when someone offers some kind of assistance. (The Selkie can attest to this.)
So I gulped, really hard, and said “Let me look at my schedule. I’d love to offer something in return.”
We negotiated that Wonder Woman, Strapping Cajun, and their brood would come over for Sunday dinner. The shelf would get put up, I would make coq au vin, we would have some wine and nosh and socialize.
I realized, belatedly, that I had undertaken to throw a party. Cue total panic.
Besides my natural, rather introverted bent, there’s the fact that growing up, family get-togethers were not safe. The pressure to have everything “perfect” was intense, and any fault or mistake, real or imagined, was a potential bomb that would detonate after the guests had gone home. Later, I rarely if ever lived in a place where I could host even if I wanted to; I gave birthday parties for the kids and only realized later how breathless with anxiety I’d been, waiting for someone to yell at me for not doing it right, or “ruining” the whole event “for everyone”. In fact, it was my daughter’s blissful assertion that every party she attended, her own or someone else’s, was the best EVER that made me start cautiously thinking maybe I wasn’t doomed to eternal ruination of every event I was present at.
So I fretted. I paced. It was too late to back out. I decided to plunge through it. Wonder Woman, with her usual perspicacity, knew I was nervy and reassured me several times before the event. The Princess and her friends who stayed the night (including Wonder Woman’s daughter) pitched in to help clean the house. The Prince ran back and forth, fetching and carrying and thrilled to be a part of it all. The guests arrived bearing flowers and a vegetable tray, and I…
…I had a good time. In fact, I’d go so far as to say I had a great time. Everyone laughed and had fun. The kids played downstairs, the shelf was on the wall in less than twenty minutes, and we all sat around and ate, and drank (except the Strapping Cajun, as he was the designated driver for the evening), and had an absolutely marvelous time. I was worried they wouldn’t enjoy themselves, but they did. Odd Trundles and Miss B were excited, the Strapping Cajun’s bulldog was brought over and had a wonderful time playing and sniffing (though Odd was in Durance Vile for some of that visit, because he would not stop screaming “MAH HOUSE! MAH HOUSE! MAH HOUSE!”) and, well, it went fine. Everything went fine.
Nobody screamed at me afterward, or pinched me viciously and said just wait until they leave or you’ve ruined everything, why are you even alive? There was no explosion, no raging, no sobbing, no breaking things. Instead, Wonder Woman is volunteering the Cajun for other household repairs. (I think she likes my cooking. And our giggly wine-fests. Heh.) I was tired afterward, but not overly so. I had thrown, and survived, an actual party.
Now every time I look at that shelf, I can take a deep breath and remember that progress is possible. I’m never going to be a social butterfly…but I think, sometime in the future, maybe soon, I might have another gathering. And it might, just might, turn out okay too.
February 15, 2013
Ganesh
Remover of obstacles, patron of writers and readers, watching from the top of my desk.
February 13, 2013
Bird by Bird
The Evil for Crestline auction is still going strong, with over $3000 in pledges. Among the things you can bid on are signed hardback copies of my upcoming YA book Nameless–the one that won’t be out until April. There’s critiques, drinks and meetups at conventions, signed copies galore (the Deadline Dames put together an AMAZING prize pack), mentorship from published authors, and so much more. All proceeds go to benefit Crestline Elementary, the Little Prince’s school, which burned to the ground ten days ago. And when I say burned to the ground I mean it literally. Everything, even the gym, is gone. I ran through the park behind the school yesterday and drove past the front while on errands, both views are equally bleak. The bricks are scorched, there are just piles of twisted charred wreckage. We still haven’t heard what the cause of the fire was.
*sigh* At least the Little Prince is adjusting, and his class, grade, and teachers were all kept together. Small mercies. The kids are bouncing back faster than the parents.
The 10K training program continues apace. The hardest thing about this, I can already tell, is going to be the rest days. I don’t want to rest, I want to run. So on rest days I’ll be doing yoga and keeping up with Gorilla workouts. I need some core strength and flexibility, this will be a good way to get it. I signed up for Fitocracy, too, thinking that the game bit of it will keep me interested in Things That Aren’t Running. Maybe I’ll even start cycling again. (Don’t bet on it, though.)
In other news, I’m in the wilds of revision for Wayfarer, my retelling of Cinderella. Slow careful work, unpicking sentences, examining each word, incorporating editor suggestions. (Repeating to myself “the editor is your FRIEND, the editor wants your book to be the best book ever, the editor is your FRIEND…) It’s not as painful as copyedits, but some days I wish this career only included the fun part of pure creation.
Don’t we all.
In that vein, Chuck Wendig wrote today about the hardest writerly truth of them all. It reminds me of that time I said “write every day, writers WRITE,” and got a huge pile of crap-flak for it. (Some of that convinced me to stop taking comments on LJ. *shrug*) Even ten minutes of writing daily is better than weekend or month-end warrior-ing it, because you’re building the discipline that will carry you through those times when the writing (or life itself) just ain’t fun enough to keep you coming back for the dopamine hit. Plus, every daily ten-minute session can give you that jolt of accomplishment that can wire your neurons into a habit of writing. I’ll take discipline and habit over the amorphous thing called “talent” any day.
Anyway. Back to the salt mines, back into the wild. Hacking through my own sentences, slogging through the places where I said oh yeah I’ll fix it in revision. *wishes for a belt of Scotch*
*gets back to work*
photo by:
Steve (huz001); over 218,000 Views & Thanks.
February 11, 2013
Oh, Monday
Dear Monday: please stop kicking my ass, I just got up, mmmkay?
Let’s start the week off with FANTASTIC news! The Evil for Crestline Auction is up over $2500 in pledges! And that’s before the second wave of auction offerings! All proceeds will go to benefit the Little Prince’s school, which burned down a week ago. I am completely blown away by the generosity of both those bidding AND those who donated, and those from the ELEW who put the whole thing together. You guys are amazing. Thank you so much.
The Little Prince is settling into his new classroom. It helps a lot that he has familiar faces around him–the district moved heaven and earth to keep whole classes with their teachers, and grades together in the same school. The teachers have been working overtime to organize the classrooms, and there’s been such an outpouring of support, it’s amazing. The Prince did bread down in tears–part of the grieving process–this weekend. He sits on things for a while before they work themselves out, poor kidling. It’s hard to hold your sobbing child and not be able to fix everything. I think it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. *sigh*
This weekend the kids and I took it really easy, since last week was so horrorshow. (New schedules, new classroom, organizing supplies and volunteering…) I did manage to get bookcases put together and ALL my books unpacked. (I plan on maybe shooting some grainy cell phone video of it today. Won’t that be hilarious?) My back is aching and unhappy, but the rest of me is alight with delight. I hadn’t realized how much it bothered me to have my hoard still in boxes. Handling every book yesterday, sorting and alphabetizing, soothed me like nothing else can.
The kernel of my library is the few books that survived my parents’ depredations, lo those many years ago. Then there’s the few of those and others that survived my first marriage. After that I was never in the position of having to chew my own limbs off to leave a place again, thank the gods, and I’ve been building my collection ever since. The scent of paper and ink and binding soothes me, and being able to touch the books–each one a different world that doesn’t judge, or rage, or hit me–makes me feel much more secure. I finally feel like this house might possibly be home, like there’s a root tendril or two driven in. And the kids are happy to see the familiar spines and bindings too. It’s like we’re really here permanently, and it only took six months for me to unpack the bulk of the books. *whistles innocently*
So Monday is upon us again, and I’m going to kick its ass right back. *rolls up sleeves* I’m ready.
photo by:
law_keven
February 7, 2013
Rebuilding A School
Today was the Little Prince’s first day back at school since the fire. The semi-controlled chaos was intense, but the kids are bouncing back quickly. They have their teachers and classmates with them, and that helps a lot. Plus, now it’s a matter of building routines in a new space. All the organizing and volunteering and sorting and frantic activity has begun to take effect.
The kids at the schools around the district are uniformly welcoming and kind. Even the high-schoolers volunteered to help get students on the buses at the central collection point, which was their campus.
Now some of the hardest work begins. Rebuilding.
I can’t keep track of all the fundraisers, so I’m going to concentrate on just three of them.
First: the Evil for Crestline Auction. The ELEW got together–the fabulous Skyla Dawn Cameron and Dina James organizing like mad organizing things–and put together a simply bang-up auction. It includes things like three signed –that’s the first book in my new YA series, and it isn’t out until April, so you’ll be getting it before anyone else and signed to boot. A signed copy of Jim Butcher’s Small Favor, isn’t that incredible? And there’s stuff like manuscript critiques, a lawyer’s reading of your manuscript to give your portrayal of legalese proper depth and verisimilitude, being able to name a character in upcoming novels, drink and chat at a convention with an industry pro, a package of treats (including Tim Tams!!!!) from Australia–the list goes on and on and on. A custom My Little Pony! Query letter critiques! All proceeds will go directly to Crestline.
If you can’t bid, but you have even just five bucks (because even the price of a latte would help), you can donate to the Crestline Fund at the Evergreen School District Foundation. (Just choose “Crestline Elementary” in the drop-down menu.) The Foundation is a nonprofit, so the donation may be tax-deductible. How cool is that?
There’s a book drive going on as well, since the school library and all the in-class libraries were burned to ash. You can send your (non-manky, K-5 appropriate) contributions in to the drive; if you have a small box or so you can send it to my PO box and I will schlep it to the Little Prince’s teacher, who can distribute it among her colleagues from there.
If you can’t do any of those things, but you can boost the signal about the auction, I would really appreciate it. Every tiny bit helps, especially when you have to build a school from the ground up. Already the outpouring of love and support has been overwhelming, and I hope that at least some small good will come out of this–as I keep telling the Little Prince, people are pulling together to help, and just the fact that they are helps too.
I’m pretty exhausted from helping set up the classroom and run herd on twenty-odd kids, not to mention getting the Prince to the new place and catching up on all the work that I haven’t had a chance to touch since Sunday. So I’m going to go hug my little warrior and look over the paperwork he brought home, and count my blessings to be so, so lucky.
Thank you. Thank you all. It’s rare for a writer to be without words, but I am speechless with gratitude, and I wish there was another term stronger than “thank you” so I could use it. There isn’t, so I’m left with repeating it: thank you. Thank you from the Little Prince, and his teacher, and her colleagues, and the 500 Crestline kids who your goodwill and generosity has had such an impact on already. Thank you.
Thank you.
photo by:
Indy Charlie
