Elizabeth Bonesteel's Blog, page 5
November 5, 2022
SEVERANCE S1E4: The You You Are
In Which: The outie world invades, and Helly gets a definitive answer.
(Note: This episode opens with a self-harm content warning. There’s nothing bloody, but they mean it.)
Helly, looking like forty miles of bad road, is still reading the compunction statement. The wound on her wrist that Milchick had dressed has bled through the bandage. This time when Milchick tells her she doesn’t mean it, she just blinks, exhausted. Milchick glances up at the clock on the ...
October 25, 2022
The Future Is Not Set
I’ll go out on a limb here, and assert that nobody likes uncertainty.
I may be a bit of an outlier, even there: I don’t like surprises, even good ones. I shake my Christmas presents (which drives my family crazy). Years ago, when I learned, moments before it happened, that my job was giving me a surprise baby shower, I very nearly headed for the parking lot.
I have spent my life trying to anticipate every eventuality, which as it turns out is impossible. And yet my brain has been trained (...
October 19, 2022
SEVERANCE S1E3: In Perpetuity
In Which: Everything gets weird, and Mark can’t protect Helly anymore.
We pick up where we left off, with Petey fighting a nosebleed in Mark’s basement bathroom. Petey makes jokes and says he’s fine. Mark, awkward, is trying to thread the needle between being a good host and remaining as uninvolved as possible; he apologizes for the robe he’s loaned Petey, saying was a gift from Ricken, and asks Petey if he needs anything else. “Yeah,” Petey says, all banter, “I want you...
September 5, 2022
Self-Publishing After Trade
Dear Liz: I have trade published some of my books, and am now considering self-publishing. Is this a good idea?
Sincerely,
Curious About DIY
Dear Curious,
My friend. What a good question!
The answer, of course, is “I don’t know.” But I know some of the things that have caught me off-guard about it, things I didn’t recognize until I was in up to my neck. Coming from a trade publishing experience isn’t like starting off self-publishing your first work. And depending on your reasons for con...
September 4, 2022
SEVERANCE S1E2: Half Loop
In Which: Helly settles in, and Mark’s curiosity wins out
We open with a flashback: Helly recording the message we saw her severed self watch in Episode One. She sits in a stark white room, indistinguishable from all the severed floor rooms; Milchick is behind the camera, focused and efficient. But when Helly finishes he’s not the paternalistic, falsely-cheerful Milchick of Macrodata Refinement. He’s quieter, slightly nervous. Deferent, almost. He’s different with a non-severed person. Or may...
August 24, 2022
How My Latest Book Ended Up Self-Published
Arkhangelsk has been doing pretty well.
Which is to say, it hasn’t catapulted me to stardom, nor has it bumped Project Hail Mary off any bestseller lists. But it’s been well-reviewed, and has in fact garnered more Amazon ratings than either my second or third books. My first book has received a little bump in attention, which from the timing seems clearly to be a knock-on effect from the publication of Arkhangelsk.
People have liked it. That’s the best part.
It’s not at all uncommon for...
August 8, 2022
SEVERANCE S1E1: Good News About Hell
In Which: we meet our cast, and have an inciting incident.
“Who are you?”
On a bland conference room table ringed with neatly-placed chairs lies a fair-skinned woman with red hair. Her blue and teal clothes echo the colors of the carpet; everything here is precise, perfectly placed, planned. The question comes from a speakerphone set on the table, a small box, old-fashioned but instantly recognizable.
The woman stirs, and the question comes again: “Who are you?” A man’s voice, mildly ch...
August 7, 2022
Now and Then
The thing about little glimmers of hope is that some people think “Oh, hey, cool, we’re all good now” and all the effort goes away. Of course every glimmer tends to be followed by at least one unfathomable shitshow, so I, for one, plan to stay on my toes.
But I’m going to enjoy the small victories anyway, for a little bit. They are a reminder that we are not the minority, not at all. The other side is trying hard to keep us discouraged, to make us feel isolated and stop fighting. But there a...
July 25, 2022
As The World Falls Down
What do you say during times like this?
Not a lot of possibilities, really. Reassurances seem like platitudes; cynicism feels like fearmongering. Like most of us, my ability to influence what’s happening is limited. It’s not zero, and that’s something. It’s everything, really, because if we all make whatever small changes we can, large changes can happen.
Which sounds like a platitude, doesn’t it? But one other thing I know, along with the scope of my influence, is that I can’t predict the...
May 5, 2022
v2022.6: Until All Of Us Are Free
In 1985, when I was a junior in college, I wrote a short story about a woman who was executed for getting her daughter an abortion.
The Handmaid’s Tale came out in 1985, but I didn’t read it. I wasn’t even really aware of its existence until I looked back, years later, at the timing.
To be clear, mine wasn’t a fabulous story. It was manipulative, and more than a little purple in its prose. I claim no uniqueness or special foresight by having written it.
Which is the point.
In 1985, w...
