Rachel Manija Brown's Blog, page 105

Tiny Things

While I was in Alaska I made some action figure accessories for Layla's collection. Check out my cacti, hideous pot, and tiny box of fake heroin here!

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Travels with a Mexican Circus, by Katie Hickman

A memoir by an American woman who joins a Mexican circus as a kind of hanger-on, though she does end up sometimes riding the elephant. The circus details were fun but this book contained way more rape and domestic violence than I had expected, though to be fair I had expected none. It’s also got a whole lot of “all Mexicans are X trait.”

I am reading circus and carnival themed books as inspiration for a circus book I’m writing. Does anyone have any suggestions, fiction or nonfiction? I already read The Night Circus but it didn’t have enough actual circus for my taste.

Travels with a Mexican Circus[image error]

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Gardening

On Layla's suggestion, I've been trying various projects this year at approximately one per month. The standout successes were learning to bake bread and eating almost entirely from the farmer's market. The common themes in those two are food, cooking, self-sufficiency, eating local, and apocalypse skills. (Though if the true post-apocalypse skill is pasta-making, I am still unprepared for the pastapocalypse.)

I want to branch out into gardening, specifically herbs and vegetables - possibly also fruits/berries if that's at all practical. I have never successfully nurtured a plant in my life (but have only ever tried to grow plants in very small pots) and do not have a garden per se, so this will be challenging.

Please read my conditions carefully, then offer ALL the advice.

I want to grow...

Greens that I can eat in a salad. My preference would be baby kale (small flat leaves), arugula, miner's lettuce, or something of that nature. I don't like regular lettuce or spinach. I would ideally grow enough to have one-person salad every day.

Herbs. Except cilantro, the weed of Satan. My favorites are thyme, rosemary, and flat-leafed parsley, but I can happily branch out.

Anything else that's practical for my conditions EXCEPT zucchini, squash, eggplants, broccoli, cauliflower, and tomatoes. I don't like them.

I have...

An open space which gets about 4 hours of direct sun/day. It's concrete, but I can put planters, grow bags, pots, boxes, etc on it. It's about 4' x 10'.

Another space which is mostly shady though it gets some dappled sunlight. Same condition (concrete but can put stuff on it), about 3'x3'.

I'm in Los Angeles which I believe is zone 10. I'd like to start planting or growing stuff now. I'd prefer to start with at least some seedlings rather than growing everything from scratch. I have access to nurseries.

Advice, encouragement, and tales of others who went from hapless plant-killers to genius gardeners welcome! Feel free to link this.

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Mrs. Pollifax Pursued, by Dorothy Gilman

Mrs. Pollifax (now remarried, I assume in one of the books I missed) discovers a young woman hiding in her closet; when she asks Carstairs for help protecting her, they are both stashed in a carnival that’s a front for spies in need of stashing. Unfortunately his last one was just stabbed there. Oops. Pro: Mrs. Pollifax is conveniently on hand to investigate. Con: So is the stabber.

Fun but not my favorite entry in the series. There is a foreshadowed but still sudden turn in which the carnival portion of the story abruptly ends and then they all go to Africa. As one does. In other series entries, all the supporting characters had full arcs; in this one, some did but others were left hanging.

I was also frustrated by the suggestion that Mrs. Pollifax pretend to be a psychic and tell fortunes, only for them to decide that would be too difficult and instead had her pretend to be a journalist and interview people. What a bait and switch! Mrs. Pollifax telling fortunes would have been hilarious. In fact I am going to add that as a prompt to my Trick or Treat letter right now.

Mrs. Pollifax Pursued[image error]

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Upcoming Fic Exchanges

Keep thinking about doing a fic/art exchange, but haven't ever gotten around to it? There's some good ones coming up!

Trick or Treat signups close in two days. Read all about it. It's a low-pressure fic and art exchange (300 word minimum), loosely Halloween themed but you don't have to follow that if you don't feel like it.

Here's my Trick or Treat letter.

Femslash Ex is also open for signups. Read all about it. It has an absolutely fantastic tag set, including some great original fiction prompts (under "No Media") such as Eldritch Abomination/Canny Psychiatrist, Cutthroat and Talented Necromancer/Her Reluctant Bodyguard Sworn to Her Service, female horse soldier/intelligent mare who can take the form of a woman, and female horse soldier/woman who can take the form of a horse.

Here's my Femslash Ex letter.

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My AU Exchange Fic

I wrote four stories for AU Exchange.

First Pilot - The Punisher (TV 2016). A space opera AU in which the Liebermans are fugitives on a stolen spaceship and Frank is the mysterious hyperspace pilot they rescue. You could probably read it as original fiction without knowledge of the show.

It was a pinch hit I picked up for Layla and ended up madly writing 9K + in three days while madly packing to go visit her in Alaska. It turned out that she had also written for me, also a science fiction AU in the same fandom, both focusing on Frank and Leo's surrogate father-daughter relationship.

Matchmaker of Mars - Star Trek - The Original Series. A 1930s science fiction writers AU. The prompt was "Uhura and T'Pring vs. John W. Campbell," so credit for that goes to the recipient, scioscribe, not to me.

I had a lot of fun writing snippets of their work. I was also reminded of why I don't normally write non-fantasy historical fiction, as that under-3K word story found me researching whether the 1930s had liquid paper, egg timers, and the use of -30- to end a manuscript, not to mention specific titles of pulp magazines, new-for-the-time polymers, and the letters of John W. Campbell. My hat is off to everyone who writes entire historical novels.

And they went into the ark to Noah, two by two - The Leftovers (TV). I got a really cool prompt for this which I don't want to mention as it's very spoilery for the show. If you've already watched it, you might enjoy my story.

Wings - Game of Thrones. Sansa Stark, Queen in the North, and Daenerys Targaryen, Queen of the Six Kingdoms, enter into an arranged marriage in a world in which all women can kill with a touch. (A fusion with Naomi Alderman's The Power.)

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Femslash Ex Letter

I've requested just fic, but would be delighted with art treats. Particularly a pulp novel cover for the Pulp-Era Butch/Pulp-Era Femme original fiction prompt.

I am very into women's bodies of all kinds, so I would enjoy some physical description of whatever the characters find appealing - beautiful hair, muscular arms, dainty little feet, etc. Or what they find very strange, as appropriate.

( General DNWs )

( Bas Lag - China Miéville )

( Earthsea - Ursula K. Le Guin )

( Night Watch - Sarah Waters )

( Tale of the Five Series - Diane Duane )

( Original Work )

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Trick or Treat Letter

NOTE: I may add some fandoms later.

I have asked for both tricks and treats for all of these as I don't draw sharp lines between them. Any tone is fine.

I've requested just fic, but would be delighted with art treats.

This year Trick or Treat has an option where you can treat people with unrequested things if they agree beforehand. I agreed, and would be delighted with any treat based on prompts I've made in any past exchange, including non-Trick or Treat ones. You can see these by clicking on my "fic exchange letter" tag. Specifically for Trick or Treat: I'd be delighted with a spooky version of any of my previously requested canons.

( General DNW )

( The Punisher (TV 2016) )

( Mrs. Pollifax - Dorothy Gilman )

( IT (Movies - Muschietti) )

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Alternate Universe Exchange

The Alternate Universes Fanfic Exchange is open!

It's for all kinds of AUs, from canon divergence to crossovers to setting changes. Ever wanted to see Bucky Barnes go to Westeros and rescue Shireen? Elle Kensington from Legally Blonde attend Star Trek Academy? (There are two takes on that delightful idea!) T'Pring and Uhura as 1930s science fiction writers taking on John W. Campbell? All of those and much, much more are in the collection.

If you enjoy something, please comment and let the writer know!

I have only had time to read my own gift story, Math and Poetry and Gunmanship, an absolutely wonderful post-apocalyptic take on True Grit in which Frank Castle reluctantly takes Leo Lieberman on a quest to find her missing parents, full of post-apocalyptic worldbuilding, awkward bonding, and hurt-comfort.

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Giant Spider & Me: A Post-Apocalyptic Tale, by Kikori Morino

Complete in three volumes, this manga is a cozy post-apocalypse tale about the adorable adventures of a young girl and her beloved pet giant mutant tentacled spider.

It’s also a cooking manga.

12-year-old Nagi is living alone and lonely in the mountains since her dad wandered off. But luckily, she encounters and adopts a giant mutant spider baby, which she names Asa. Asa doesn’t speak, but they and Nagi communicate just fine anyway. (Nagi uses “they/them” pronouns for Asa; it’s not stated whether it’s because Nagi doesn’t know Asa’s gender, or if she does know and Asa is nonbinary.)

Each chapter features Nagi and Asa having some kind of adventure and also cooking, so you get titles like “Danger & Pita Pockets.” Recipes included. That is, Nagi or people who Nagi meets cook, and Asa helps out, eats, and carries trays of food on their back.

I only read the second two volumes of this—Lyda and Mason left it with me, along with other manga, to mail back to them. But it was easy to pick up on earlier events, which I gather prominently featured pumpkin dumplings.

Giant Spider & Me is bizarre and also extremely sweet. Some people think Asa is a dangerous monster, but nothing ever gets too threatening and the love between a girl and her giant spider always carries the day.

Adrian Tchaikovsky would enjoy this. I did too. It’s like there’s some kind of conspiracy afoot to make me fall under the spell of our new many-legged overlords, I mean our adorable arachnid friends.

Giant Spider & Me: A Post-Apocalyptic Tale Vol. 1[image error]

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