Lyda Morehouse's Blog, page 24

More Requirements and Chapters

I managed NOT to get a Tate chapter out this week, BUT, for those of you reading the School for Wayward Demons, there is a new installment out today--and it's a doozie!  It's called Bad Jaguar! and it's up now.  It also comes with some AMAZING, knock your socks off art by Mandie Brasington.

Meanwhile, in the continuing Requires Hate debate, Daily Dot has written one of its exhaustive articles about the whole event: "Acclaimed Sci-Fi Writer Exposed as Notorious Internet Troll."

They ask a really troubling question, which is, is there a double-standard here?  Are there toxic personalities in the SF community who are more readily tolerated because they are (white) men? (I put the white part in parentheses because Chip Delany is mentioned.)  

I don't know what to make of that.  

I feel there are things I could say, but I won't.  I won't partly because I don't want to go on record saying anything that could be construed as being apologist for any of the behavior of the men cited--not because I secretly agree with any of it, but the opposite. I refuse to even *accidentally* seem like I would condone any of it.  

I also am backing away from an opinion about this because I think the issue of hate and who owns the right to be angry is, in this case in particular, ultimately an argument best spoken to by the communities of color who were hit hardest by RH.  As a lesbian, I get the usefulness of being the "angry lesbian" (or having one in your community), but I also think there is a REAL difference between writing a snarky, strident opinion piece and actively harassing someone/using hate-speech to silence opposing opinions, and internet stalking--all of which RH/winterfox/et al. has, according to many very reliable sources, actively engaged in.  It is problematic that she's a woman, PoC, and queer, but the hatefulness she's being accused of I would tolerate from no one.  It's completely inexcusable by race, creed, sexual orientation, or... really, anything.

So that's me... I have a lot more to say, but I'm going to make good on the backing away and leaving this for other people, particularly RH's victims and the communities she's been a part of, to argue.

If you want something happier, there is that chapter I posted!  :-)

lyda222 @ 2014-11-10T11:51:00

I don't know if you've been keeping up with the latest in the science fiction/fantasy community, but there's a very big discussion going on right now about the author who has been outted as the "Requires Hate" blogger.  For a full, insightful rundown on all the things regarding this, I point you to Laura J. Mixon's post on the subject:
I've mostly stayed out of this one, as I do most of them, because for the most part I've been fortunate enough to never REALLY be a target of "Requires Hate" under any of her pseudonyms.  Now, she did "review" Archangel Protocol in her usual style. I wrote about my reaction to finding it skewered there in my post: Nerves of Aluminum.  It was painful to read, but, in my case, what she wrote was no more than what any writer who publishes professionally can expect (to some degree.)  Which is to say, she kept her reactions within the context of her personal reaction to my writing.  She was gleeful to discover I was out of print, which is a little more personal, but again, nothing I can't just shrug off (with my nerves of aluminum, by which I mean, easy to say now, but yeah, it stung at the time.)

I, however, was not harassed or internet stalked or... worse.

So, I can't really complain about a review, except to say that for my part, I believe in this model:  "It Costs Nothing to Encourage An Artist."  

This does NOT mean that I excuse her harassment of anyone. Anywhere. Ever. Full stop. 

But, I write this after reading Jim C. Hines's post: "Only a Sith Deals in Absolutes."  Some books should be taken to the mat and CONSTRUCTIVE criticism makes us all better readers, writers, and people.  Similarly, there should be a place for snark and snide comments and humor with an edge. And, if you go back and read my post, I actually considered her complaints of my work with some seriousness, because, you know, that's part of the dialogue between reader and writer.

You can do this, however, with minimum douchbaggery.  

That is all.

/PSA

Minn-Spec Annual Local Authors' Showcase

I'm just back from the Minn-Spec Annual Local Author's Showcase reading, which I participated in. As I was heading out the door, Mason asked me if I'd live tweet my experience. So I took along the iPad, which would have been perfect, except I forgot my Twitter password and so attempted to face it on FB. Here's how it went:

Who knew Acadia was the old Riverside Cafe? ‪#‎latetothereading‬
Got the stare of doom when I sat in an empty chair. Guess it was taken? ‪#‎nerdsocialskillz‬
Tyler Tork awesome short and an alien invasion involving tax evasion.‪#‎supercool‬
New story involves mandibles clicking.  ‪#‎IloveSF‬
Plus "forearm barbs" #notsureitgetsbetterthanthis
Wait, it got better. "A post-apocalyptic steampunk story about a circus traveling through the remains of civilization."
Now not the least prepared... ‪#‎thankyouthankyouthankyou‬
Paranormal military SF... That involves German World War I werewolves.‪#‎fuckIloveSF‬
Next story is "Amish science fiction spy story." ‪#‎notsureIcancompare‬

At that point I quit, because Shawn informed me that Mason had wandered off to do more interesting things. There were several more amazing stories including one about 'time traveling sperm' which was ridiculously funny and probably the very worst thing a writer could ever hope to have to follow.  So, of course, I went on next, after the time-traveling sperm.

I have to admit I'm not overly fond of readings.  I do them because I feel like I ought to and this seemed like a really good way to get out there and such, since it was a shared venue with SO MANY talented people.  We were given about 7 minutes a piece, so that made things even sweeter, because how can you screw up 7 minutes?  Well, I may have since I probably only read for about half a minute.  

Well, see, I have an excuse.  I ended up being slated last, and, frankly, it seemed like a fine choice to get up there say a few words and get the heck off the stage so people could go home/mingle/etc.  I hung around for a little while afterwards chatting with Micheal Mirrim and a few of the other authors.  They're a good group.  I'm proud to be a long-standing member of Minn-Spec.  

Even though I feel like the least professional among them these days.  Sure, I've books out, but these folks are all very serious, hardworking writers.

Podcast Madness

 Mason and I have done our podcast thing again "Villain's Soliloquy: #32" in which we discuss the current happenings in Bleach, Toriko, and Fairy Tail.  We also talk a little about the current line-up in Weekly Shounen Jump because a lot of people out in Tumblr land are wondering what might replace Naruto now that it's ended.  I did actual research about this, so you know... 

It might sound a bit choppy this time because I ended up editing out a lot of us shuffling around trying to find things. So, if you're wondering about that, that's what it's about.  Because all THREE of you are probably deeply concerned.

Deeply.



Beyond that, here is another reminder to local folks that if you want to come hear me read, I'll be doing a rapid-fire type reading thing at Acadia Cafe on Sunday (Nov. 9) from noon to 3 pm.  I'm still not sure what I'll read, but it'll be something I'm working on.

My folks are coming up for a visit today, so I dragged some things up to the attic.  For a brief moment, I lost Ms. Ball (our black-and-white) cat up there for a while (I think she was investigating the various squirrel nests.)  But, she came back down eventually.  She's very social and is our number one lap cat, so it was cold and unfriendly up there.  Now her face whiskers are covered in dust.

I should do the dishes and other fussing about so that I'm ready.

See you later!

Tate Thursday? (I Need A Name for This)

 There's a new chapter of School for Wayward Demons called "Devil in the Details."  This is a chapter that features Erin. It's short, but it features this AMAZING art by Alexis Cooke.


Which you really need to see the larger version of to appreciate, so go... check it out.

In other news, I finished painting the bathroom... kind of.  I need to go over the edges of the trim and, well, the blue is, erm, a little darker than I thought it was going to be.  I'm not sure I'm entirely happy with it, but I don't really want to repaint already again, you know?  *sigh*  Anyway, while I was in the middle of painting, I got a call from Roseville: could I come in?  I initially said no because I was in the middle of painting, but they called back when everyone else bailed and I, being that sort, said, Okay, I can, but I can't come in until 10:30 am.  So I ended up working from 10:30 to 2:30, which was just fine, except now I feel fairly dead on my feet and there's still a ton to do before my folks come tomorrow.

*sigh*

Ah well.  Money is a good thing.  Plus, I always have a great time working there.  I worked the front desk and had several fascinating conversations with various patrons.  I had one guy today who was very obviously quite autistic.  Functioning on his own, but very, almost stereotypically "Rain Man" like, in that he wanted to repeat the information he was checking a LOT.  The thing is, I have a massive amount of patience.  I was happy to just stand there discussing the fact that today was, in fact, Thursday, and it was the last day this week that this library would be open until 9 PM over and over. I mean, the only other thing I had to do was put a cart in order, so why not?  I think my lack of impatience put him at ease, too.  

On the other hand, I think I accidentally transferred someone on the phone to a reference desk AT ANOTHER BRANCH.

Oops.

You can't win them all.

Mason and I will be recording our podcast later tonight (or tomorrow, depending on how the homework histrionics go).  I'll probably post it at my various places tomorrow.  I tell you because I'm sure you're completely on tenterhooks wondering how the latest Bleach and Toriko chapters went, am I right?

Yeah, I didn't think so.  

It's Tate Tuesday~

So, I've got some fiction for 'ya! Come get your pipping hot fiction!

First up is the continuing saga of UnJust Cause. This episode is called, "Why Did the Centaur Cross the Road?" The answer is: he didn't. He started to, but got hit by a car before he made it. Now, Jack and Alex (who, if you recall, were taken off the jumper/drop-victim case) are sent to investigate what happened.

After reading that, you can make your way over to the Enter the Unseen website and read: Theo Uncovers Secrets! with a lovely illustration by Mandie:

Countdown to My Birthday

It's November 3 already.  My birthday is in only 15 more days.  I'll be 47.  Actually, I don't have big plans yet.  In fact, my birthday happens to fall on  the last day of my Japanese class, so I'm going to go to that... because, well, I paid for it, and just my luck, if I skipped, that'd be the day we learned to the one thing that would be key to understanding and pronouncing Japanese.

I should also probably post a couple more Halloween pictures.  If you remember Mason, this year, decided not to go trick-or-treating. He wanted to stay home and be spooky, so his costume was a featureless mask and black robes:




I kind of think Mason looks like Dr. Doom's son, but hey, it's all good.  And it worked exactly as he hoped.  Shawn and I sat inside and could hear people coming on to our porch and gasping and giggling.  So, yay for Mason!  It was just the experience he hoped for, and, as far as I know, he did not make any toddler's cry.

Here one more of the pumpkins.  People on FB told me they looked like the Grinch and Cindy Lu Who:



Mason carved all his own pumpkins this year, too.  I think maybe this is another sign of growing up that no one quite prepared me for.  I mean, I knew about the staying home from trick-or-treating because I liked to do that too, but the whole: "no, I got this," with the pumpkin carving... well, that was a shocker.  And his turned out really well, too!

Countdown to My Birthday

It's November 3 already.  My birthday is in only 15 more days.  I'll be 47.  Actually, I don't have big plans yet.  In fact, my birthday happens to fall on  the last day of my Japanese class, so I'm going to go to that... because, well, I paid for it, and just my luck, if I skipped, that'd be the day we learned to the one thing that would be key to understanding and pronouncing Japanese.

I should also probably post a couple more Halloween pictures.  If you remember Mason, this year, decided not to go trick-or-treating. He wanted to stay home and be spooky, so his costume was a featureless mask and black robes:




I kind of think Mason looks like Dr. Doom's son, but hey, it's all good.  And it worked exactly as he hoped.  Shawn and I sat inside and could hear people coming on to our porch and gasping and giggling.  So, yay for Mason!  It was just the experience he hoped for, and, as far as I know, he did not make any toddler's cry.

Here one more of the pumpkins.  People on FB told me they looked like the Grinch and Cindy Lu Who:



Mason carved all his own pumpkins this year, too.  I think maybe this is another sign of growing up that no one quite prepared me for.  I mean, I knew about the staying home from trick-or-treating because I liked to do that too, but the whole: "no, I got this," with the pumpkin carving... well, that was a shocker.  And his turned out really well, too!



This was one of his. The other one I didn't get a very good picture of, but it had three eyes and was VERY spooky.  

So it was a successful Halloween.  We never get a ton of visitors, but I heard the door open a number of times.  I think it helps that, every year, we go all out on the decorations.  (You can see the eyeball lights in the above picture.  We didn't plug them in this year because I found a cut wire, but normally they light up and blink!)  Our entire porch is decked out, and, this year, we put in a red porch light, so there was even MORE spookiness to be had.  I put up candy corn 'christmas' lights and there are Japanese-style paper lantern with spiderwebs on them, spiderwebs everywhere and ALL THE SCARY THINGS....

In fact, I spent several hours taking everything down today.  

*sigh*

Ah well, there will be Christmas porch decorations, too.  

We don't do much in terms of decorating for Thanksgiving, but this year due to our special guest from the UK, we're basically repainting everything.  Shawn has been wanting a change in the kitchen, so we're trying out a few new color ideas.  She knows she wants to go "retro" and has decided on a kind of candy green she saw on (of all things) a shoe advertisement.  Matching this color has been HARD.  But, we think we're getting close.  We tried out "minty green" but decided it was too pastel:




The color we think we like better is a touch more "blue" than this.  

But all the cabinets are going to be repainted, so that'll be "a job" as we say here in Minnesota.  What the heck, I have WEEKS.  No problem, right?

That's most of the news I have.  The only other thing is to let people know that if they want to hear me read, I'm going to be part of the 2014 Local Author Showcase this Sunday, November 9th from noon to 3 pm at Acadia Cafe in Minneapolis.  It should be a fun thing, since we're doing a rapid-fire reading thing, so you only have to sit through a little taste of a whole bunch of authors doing their thing.  I should probably skim through my stuff and decide what I want to read.  I'm thinking about reading some of School for Wayward Demons, but I'm not sure.

Anyway, hope you're all doing well!

Happy HOLLOWeen

Let's see, I guess I have a lot to report.  First, link salad:  Mason and I did a Halloween podcast in which we did our usual reviews but also sang too much and put on bad "vampire" accents:  31st on the 31st.  Then, if you forgot to check out the Thursday installment of the School for Wayward Demons, it's up on the Enter The Unseen web site: "A New Home for How Long?"

Mason and I did our usual pumpkin carving/pumpkin seed roasting last night.  This year, for the first time, Mason did all the carving and scooping of his own pumpkins.  I'm going to get pictures of all of the pumpkins we did tonight when the candles are in them, but here are some "action" shots from last night:



The pumpkin above is going to have a bunch of knives sticking in its head when we're finished with it, which is why he looks a bit like he's wincing.  

Here's a shot of us in progress:




There will be more pictures, particularly once Mason is in full costume tonight.  He's decided to take up the long standing Morehouse tradition of preferring to stay home and hand out the candy.  As part of this, Mason has made a featureless black mask and plans to dress all in flowing shadowy robes in order to 'haunt' anyone who shows up to the door for Trick-or-Treat.  So you could say he's going as the Trick in Trick-or-Treat.

My only hope is that he doesn't make too many little kids cry.  But, you know, he's a good kid. I know that's not his intention.  In fact, it would break his heart if he made some little Elisa cry.  I'm pretty sure who he has in his sights are the neighbor boys and those late straggling teenagers.  

We've also been invited to a neighbor's costume party so I might struggle on my Renji cosplay and head over to try out their appetizers and such.  As a bonus,  I can bring along about six zillion roasted pumpkin seeds, because OMG we had so many this year.  They were big and juicy too, so they're delicious!

I have a few other announcement to pass on.  First and Foremost, I was invited to be the Guest of Honor at MarsCON again for 2015.  MarsCON is going to be held March 6 -8, 2015: MarsCON 2015: Heroes and Wizards & Fae--OHhh MYyy.  

Secondly, I'll be reading at this year's Minnesota Speculative Writers' Showcase.  It's Sunday, November 9th from noon to 3 PM at Acadia Cafe.  The Local Author Showcase has a Facebook Page with more information than you'll ever need!  But, if for some reason, you can't see that, the salient bit of information is that Acadia Cafe is located at 329 Cedar Avenue South, Minneapolis.  The event is FREE and open to the public. I was told I'd have only a very short period to read, so I think the idea is kind of like the Broad Universe Rapid Fire readings.  You'll get a tiny sample of everyone work.  It should be fun.  Hope to see some of you there.

Marvel Thoughts

Those of you reading on Dreamwidth will see a new icon, Captain America's shield:



This will serve as a warning that I'm about to talk far too much about the Marvel Universe (comic books or movies) with probably very little other bits about my life.

Before I start on my Marvel stuff, though I want you all to know that once again I got a 99% percent on my Japanese quiz. This may sound as if I'm acing this class, but I thought about it a lot last night. One of my fellow classmates, Mint, has this wonderful pronunciation, right? He didn't do nearly as well on the quiz as I did. I think the reason for that is simple: anime. I'm really, really accustomed to LISTENING to Japanese because I listen to it at LEAST once a week (sometimes daily when I'm on a dishwashing/watching spree.) I think this means that I can hear the distinct words better than my classmates, because the quiz is that Tetsuya-sensei says the word (or occasionally phrase) in Japanese and we write down the English version. God forbid it be the other way around, that I would have to SAY the Japanese to his English. Half the time he looks at me like, "WTF are you even trying to say, Lyda-san?" when I do try.

So, you know.

Given that that's why I'm taking the class--a desire to hear and understand Japanese better, I feel I'm doing great. But if I were hoping to talk to someone Japanese, I think I still have a really, really long way to go.

Okay, so Marvel...

I just found out this morning that the new Captain America movie is subtitled "Civil War."

I'm so excited that I could squee my pants. Seriously. As I was telling my friend in Wales this morning, "Civil War" was the arc/storyline that truly brought me back to reading comic books regularly again after about a decade or so hiatus. I know I've written about it here when I was reviewing comic books more regularly and I also know that it's a bone of contention for a lot of Marvel fans.

Regardless about how you might feel about Civil War as it happened in the comic books, I feel like it's a good choice for the movie franchise. It seems as if they're already setting Tony Stark up for certain things, giventhe reveal that in the movies, Stark will be the creator of Ultron and the voice of Ultron will be played by the actor who voices Jarvis.
Ultimately, though, that's the problem, isn't it? Taking on these gigantic story lines and trying to distill them into two hours often means that some of the important character moments, etc. get lost in the Hollywood need for explosions.  Civil War appeals, I'm sure, because it comes with villains we already know and a lot of opportunity for every fans' wet dream of the versus, i.e. Hulk vs. Thor!  Who would win??

And it's going to get complicated as they draw from earlier story lines like the Infinity Gauntlet, which is one I remember from when I was a youngster.

So, I don't know.  I guess, fingers crossed?  Other Marvel fans, your thoughts?

Also, I have to admit that I'm not super-fond of the casting of Benedict Cumberbatch as Steven Strange.  I'm not necessarily against it, but Mr. Cumberbatch is currently overexposed.  I don't feel like the Marvel 'verse particularly needed him.  It would have been more interesting for my money if they'd gone with someone far less well known, like Oded Fahr.  I know there's no particular reason to cast an Israeli actor in the role of the very white Dr. Strange, but then there was no reason to cast Idris Elba as Heimdall EXCEPT THAT HE WAS THE MOST AWESOME HELMDALL EVER.  So, you know, it can work.  Also, it would make sense to case Strange as a PoC if only because it could have mitigated some of the awkward of the manservant Wong.  Some.  Honestly, I'm not sure how they're going to deal with Wong or a lot of the overt-Orientalism that permeates the Strange title.

TBF, that may have changed.  I think the last time I picked up the Dr. Strange title I was 12.  Though someone on FB told me that Wong is still there, acting more like Jarvis (which I'm not sure is different from his past or any better in terms of the racist stereotyping.)

So that whole thing could be interesting.  I particularly loved what my nephew John had to say about it which was, "If they shoehorn in an appearance by Loki just to make Tumblr poop itself, I refuse to see this film."

Tumblr may very well poop itself that that mere suggestion.  I'll be okay as long as they don't cast Martin Freeman as Wong.