Tricia Sullivan's Blog, page 13

punctuated equilibrium

So, that laptop I was begging not to die?  It died.

Pause for wails of grief from me.

I managed to replace it in short order and without complete financial ruin.  Just sent out a big stack of DVDs, but still many more to do. 

Yesterday the kids started school.  Sean was great.  He bolted away from me and into the fray.  I shot to Starbuck's with new laptop.  I had to go to two.  First one was full of women whose children were in school.  Talking. Ugh! Found a quiet one, wrote. A relief to know I still can.  But I've been mostly busy getting the new computer set up, finding my backups, downloading stuff, blah blah blah. Had my last maths tutorial last night.  Tutor was great and brought much-needed lucidity to difficult calculus questions. 

These assignments still killing me, though.  Really the maths one is just too hard in comparison to the rest of the course.

Choppy nature of this post is because my brain is without glue.  Or gluons.  Or did I mean glial cells?  I don't even know what I meant.  It only works in brief bursts. Then has to lean against a tree and rest.  Regain balance. Etc.

Me out.

September's here again

Oh, David Sylvian. I wish I could listen to you but (horrors) Katie Perry's in my life now.

There. I just had to confess.  The guilt is eating me alive. I borrowed Rhiannon's i-pod Shuffle because mine died, and I've been running to her music. I think it's why I'm running faster. Also that horrible song 'Parlez Pas Americano' is great to run to. This is how the cosmos laughs at me.

So yeah. September. The last couple of years at this time, I was gearing myself up to make a big push on the writing. Tearing my hair to get at the computer after a summer of distractions.

This year I'm looking at a big stack of OU work due later this month. I've been doing well since I started in February, and generally I've gotten away with spending far less time on the courses than it says on the package--but I tend to take that for granted because I was always a quick study. Yeah? Really, Sullivan? My whole 'I can deal with it because I haz brainz' schtick is fucked out the window with the end of term approaching. The End-of-Module Assessments (EMAs) are HARD and SCARY and they come just when I'm weary of working on this stuff all the time.

Urg. Poor me. It's not like I'm entirely unfamiliar with hard work, just...this is more like a greased slide to humiliation.

I've been working on school seriously for the entire month of August; the only days 'off' I've had have been for family outings.  If you have a family you know how not 'off' those days are. There weren't many. This adds to my guilt. I'm not going to go into that here because it's a not-pretty collision of my hopes and expectations for their childhood running up against the reality of what Steve and I are able to actually pull off.

Here--look at this frog!




In other news, I ran a DVD sale off Steve's website to try to bring in some income since I've got no writing contract or nothing right now and we are always living hand-to-mouth. I've done this before and it's always a scramble but brings in customers. This time I was too lazy to change all the paypal buttons on the site so I ran it as a straight 50% rebate. We had A LOT of orders considering that our business fits in a shoebox. Many of them were from the US, which requires some mad conversion of the video files and international airmal (I always post and pack as part of the price). I have barely seen my computer for the whole month because it's been tied up burning and converting round the clock. A couple of times I accidentally clicked on Scrivener Beta when I'd meant to go into Nero and it felt like somebody grabbed my heart.

O Scrivener! I miss you!

Anyway, I brought some money in but it was a very small profit margin. I am writing this post on the laptop in between conversions. This is a laptop that Anthony the computer doctor told me was unfixable, past its sell-by date. It is held together by luck and the stickiness of my need. If it dies before I finish fulfilling my sale orders, I'm going to cry a lot. Don't die, sweetness!

On the other hand. When I checked my files the other day I did find some promising stuff, lurking. A few good projects. Unfinished, of course. There's the rub. Right now I'm just holding to the faith that it will all still be there when I get back to it. That it will remember me. I think it will. Writing's quite doglike that way. Maybe it will even be happy to see me.

As long as it doesn't sniff my butt.

Yummy readables

Oh, man.  4:30 am and I'm up, red-eyed, damnit!  At least it's quiet enough to contemplate writing a quick post.

I was in the States for just over a week and once or twice when I checked LJ during that time it was down.  I've been trying to catch up on my friends list bit by bit, but lately I tend to dive into the computer for a few minutes and then slip out again.  Been too hectic for real reading online.

I just wanted to mention a few things, because they are important and I don't want them to vanish into Twitter.

1) First, I wanted to draw your attention to this fascinating post by Nina Allan discussing clocks, physics and her forthcoming book, The Silver Wind .  I bumped into Nina at Eastercon, whereupon I gushed all over her about her excellent story Flying In The Face of God, which I'd been lucky enough to read because this year the BSFA sent round a booklet with all the nominated stories in it.  (I'm so grateful that this was done, because before that I'd heard of Nina only through coalescent  's discussion of her work on Torque Control, but I'm terrible when it comes to reading short fiction unless it's right in my face.  Which it seldom is.) My enthusiasm must have made an impression, because Nina eventually thought of me when it came time to release The Silver Wind.

She sent me the text and I fell in love.  I've written the introduction to the volume in which I relate a little of what I think is wonderful about this piece of work, but for now I'll just say that Nina's writing blows me away with its sophistication and thought.  There is a philosophical edge to her stuff; it's very involving.  And what I groove on most about The Silver Wind is the way it is structured.  It's not a collection, it's not a novel.  It's a form of writing that embodies the ideas about time slippage that Nina engages.  Very, very cool -- and I'm so glad she didn't try to shoehorn this piece into a novel.  It works beautifully just as it is.  Little spiders run up my back when I think about it!

2) I've got a short piece in SFX issue 212.  It's a Book Club discussion of Octavia Butler's Wild Seed and you can read it online here.

3) This is overdue, but I've been underwater.  My dear friend stephanieburgis   has released her second novel in the UK, A Tangle of Magicks .  The first book won the Waverton Good Reads Children Award and the action ramps up a level in the second book, making use of a Bath setting for all sorts of dark deeds and magical danger.  The books are for ages 10-14 and although I am 43 I love them!

This picture, of the author enjoying a fancy cup of tea at the pump house in Bath, is one of my favourites of Stephanie.  Guys, let me tell you: I know Steph and that is one friggin' well-deserved cuppa right there. Please join me in congratulating her and wishing the new book success.

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That's all for now.  Kids are off school, I'm up against loads of OU deadlines as the end of term approaches in September, and I haven't written fiction for weeks.  I have a couple more nonfiction bits up my sleeve, and I'm chafing to get at the fiction but realistically this is going to have to wait.  Every time I go to the laptop to burn DVDs for stevemorris  , I glance longingly at the Scrivener icon and then--ouch--click on Nero instead.

I'll get there.  Just not yet!

talking about the e-volution

OK that was a corny title.  I'm really really really tired.  My chops for sleep-deprivation have gone down in the last year or so since I finished breastfeeding my littlest, and I've gotten accustomed to about 7 hours a night.  But last night two of them came in our bed in the middle of the night.  Steve found himself turfed out of the bed by munchkin invaders at 3 am.  He shambled off to sleep elsewhere but I couldn't get back to sleep because they were kicking me so much.  I used to do without sleep routinely but I seem to be slipping, because I feel ded today.

In between this and that I've been thinking about e-books.  Linda Nagata has a great blog series on the nuts and bolts of how she put together her e-books, and I'm wondering if I have the nerve to try.  One problem is the fact that there are so many formats and options, and I'm intimidated by all that--although LInda does lay our her method really clearly.  My other problem is that I don't have digital versions of any of my older titles.  In fact, I don't even have paper versions of most of them.  So I'd be faced with acquiring and re-typing my own books.

The problem of this is partly the sheer work of it and partly the fact that I wouldn't be able to type them as written.  I'd start fiddling and poking and pretty soon I'd be ripping them apart and rewriting--that's not a place I want to go anywhere near.  I've thought of maybe finding a scanning service to do them, and then just go through and clean it up.  But it's definitely going to be a case of psyching myself up.  I have several short stories that I've been meaning to put on my website for a year, but just haven't managed to overcome the scanning/correcting process even for them.  What makes me think I can tackle several novels?

I do sort of have a sad feeling, though, when I think of all that work I did and now the books are out of print.  It feels like I should be able to get my act together to at least put them up in some form.  Fairer to them, if not necessarily lucrative to me.

Well, it's probably not gonna happen particularly soon with all the running around I have to do.  But I still have an itchy feeling about it.  

White privilege

Zetta Elliot has an incisive post on her blog, with links to more in-depth material and also to a substantial interview by Doret at the Happy Nappy Bookseller with Stacey Whitman of Tu Books about starting up an imprint focused on multicultural fiction for young readers.

Zetta's absolutely right that if we care about equality, white people need to get our shit together.  This is not news to me but occasionally I need reminding. 

 

Guest post & Lightborn Giveaway

Wot?  Two posts in one day?  What's come over me?

Turns out I am guest-posting today on stephanieburgis   blog and she is graciously giving away a copy of Lightborn to a commenter.  Steph is a terrific writer and a most excellent friend, and I've owed her this post for many a moon.  It's one of many balls I've dropped in my juggling act, and you can read more about my (doomed) efforts to juggle over at hers.

Thanks, Steph, for having me and for being so patient!

Science fiction for children

Does anybody have any suggestions for science fiction books for young children (under 10)?

I've been asked to do a short piece for LOCUS and I'm struggling to come up with much to choose from.  No shortage of fantasy, but 'science fiction'?  Not so much.

If you can think of anything, let me know?

Thanks.

Also?

For some reason the NightShade twitter feed picks up my posts one post too late. So I'm putting this up to bump things into their current state. For now.

3 things make a post. Or a stool (if the things are legs). Or a triangle. etc.

I have some bits to share.

1) I am guest-blogging at Marianne de Pierres' website on the subject of deliberate practice. I avoid deliberate practice because it is hard.  I prefer to sit in lotus and wait for idea-fairies to land on my head. But that doesn't always work, so this post is about the backup method.

2) Hey!  I have this story coming out!  In Solaris Rising!  My piece is called 'The One That Got Away' and IMHO it's the best short fiction I've done (whatever that means or doesn't mean).

3) I've just signed a contract to publish Lightborn in Turkish!  <insert joyful sounds> Pegasus Publishing House will be publishing the translation.  I am over the Moon.

I call myself out

I'm starting to feel crazy about this whole women in SF thing. 

See, last year when Liz de Jager--an uninvolved bystander to SF--pointed out to me that there had been only one female Clarke Award winner in the previous ten years, I found myself scrambling for an explanation.  How to explain why is SF so male-dominated?  Because I just took that for granted as a feature of the environment.  LIz's immediate instinct was to blame the award, but when we took a look we found that not ony had the Clarke had a pretty good track record in its earlier years, but that there weren't many SF books by female writers being published and therefore up for consideration.  And this exposed a dip in the number of women publishing SF.  Well, not so much a dip as a near-extinction at novel length with major houses.  Jaine Fenn is under contract.  Lauren Beukes is certain to be offered a deal for her next book.  That's...er...about it.

So a big conversation ensued on Torque Control.  And I started thinking about the issue seriously for the first time.  I began to think maybe I shouldn't give up on SF (as I had been intending to do) because perhaps people really did care about the narrowing of the genre in Britain.

Now this thing is all over the place.  Hot topic.  On Nicola Griffith's blog and later on SF Signal a simple request to read and discuss more women writers turned into what NK Jemisin so hilariously described as: "OMG YOUS WIMMINS ARE OPPRESHING ME QUOTAS GULAGS MEN REDUCED TO NEKKID CASTRATED SLAVES WOMEN PLAYING FOOTBALL CATS AND DOGS LIVING TOGETHER THE END OF THE WORLD!!!1!"

Ian Whates recently published the TOC of the new Solaris Rising anthology.  I'm in it, and the other women are Jaine Fenn, Pat Cadigan, and Laurie Tom.  The ratio of women:men is weak and this has brought down a shitstorm on Solaris in general and Ian in particular. 

Ian is an extremely hard-working editor, writer, and publisher and has put his money where his mouth is when it comes to supporting women writers. He funded and published an all-female SFF anthology several years ago.  The title, Myth-Understandings , seems to have come through his efforts to unify a diverse collection of stories; it's divided into two parts, of which the second is more SFnal.  My recollection is that at the time there was some flak on the internet about men not being allowed to submit. 

At first when a storm developed around the new anthology, I didn't know the history of female representation in the Solaris books (it sucks). Looking at it I think Ian might have been better prepared for the angry response to the TOC.  It seems like it took him by surprise.  But not everybody reads the internet all day.  Every time I'm in touch with Ian he's buried in work.  And that's the point about Ian.  He doesn't go on the internet and talk about things.  He rolls up his sleeves and gets in there.  I know he is aware of the discussion on women in SF and I know he's keen to change it.  I consider him an ally.  But I don't think he's fluent in the art of internet debate. In fact, it's painful to watch what's happening for that reason alone.  The attacks that have come down against him as the representatiave of Solaris are really ugly.

I'm hard-pressed to imagine another UK anthologist who could have done better than Ian Whates with this book.  Ian is proactive when it comes to women writers.  He goes out of his way.  (That's one reason I made certain I got my story in, even though it was a real stretch for me with my current schedule.)  Now, in the current climate it may be judged (particularly by USian standards) that he is not proactive enough.  OK.  This then begs the question, how proactive is enough?  To what lengths should anthology editors be going?

And very soon we are talking about quotas.  I'm uneasy about this.  I am in favour of discussion, examination, and the routing out of the ASTONISHING BULLSHIT that still goes on with respect to women and science fiction. I am in favour of supporting and encouraging more women to write SF and also of promoting SF to women readers.  I'm not in favour of establishing quotas, although if male writers want to question anthologists and publishers about what they are doing in terms of representation, if prominent male authors want to put a spotlight on this issue, I think that would be great.  Editors who have that pair of eyes in the room watching them (you know those experiments I'm talking about, right? with the eyes?  it's really weird) may be more conscientious and willing to go the extra mile.

But is it OK to tar and feather editors for their failures to recruit enough women for anthologies?  It may seem like an acceptable tactic when you don't know the editor in question.  When you do, and when you know that person has good intentions and is making the best of a difficult publishing climate, then it's horrible to see these attacks.  I feel complicit. 

Yes, we all need to be called out on our shit from time to time.  Me, too.  So here I am, calling myself out.  I want to see change but I don't want to work in a climate where individual people are at risk of being brought to ground, cornered and shamed for issues that arise out of a much more nebulous problem in society--and in this case, in the peculiarities of the SFF scene in Britain.  I don't think editors in Britain are chauvanist pigs.  I've worked with several book editors in this country and have never had a whiff of old-school sexism from any of them.  Do we live in a sexist culture?  Yes, absolutely.  Fucking yes.

Because of this and for other reasons it seems to be impossible to precisely identify the problem in SF in this country.  I've said again and again in personal conversation that I believe it is systemic.  I don't think it's merely a case of mistakenly attacking the branches instead of the root of the problem (as I've seen the attacks on Ian described) because it's not a rooted sort of problem.  I suspect the whole ecological cycle is messed up and I doubt there is any one action or plane of action that will ameliorate it.  As I said to Juliet McKenna at the AGM: the whole is dumber than the sum of its parts. And I think it would be good to address this on all levels but perhaps only in small ways in some situations because sometimes that is all you can do for the moment.  The main thing is to keep it going and move it forward.  The scene didn't get like this in a day and it's not going to be fixed in sweeping strokes.

Also we need to recognise that we are in a teacup here.  We are a small community and we're in this together.  Nicola Griffith mentioned the idea of a fighty family in one of her posts.  This strikes me as key.  It's one thing to squabble and challenge one another.  But it's also important to fight fair and to give one another room to maneuver, to change our minds, to have another look, to take a positive step. 

I'm trying not to sound sanctimonious when I say this.  Hope I got there.