Michón Neal's Blog, page 23
July 16, 2014
Character and Song #25: Joseph Lawrence/Wheeler
Joey is the best friend of Allison Dutch. He’s also unfortunately in love with her. More than a little crazy, he clings onto her as his only ground in a messed up life. Little does he realize how she’s changed, that she doesn’t love him, and that life is about to get much, much harder. Yet he is very intelligent, mechanically gifted, and can handle more than he believes possible. Throughout the Allison Dutch series, Joey deals with his own demons surrounding love, masculinity, and the existence of mythical creatures. Can he finally get his head on straight and live up to his potential before the vampires take over? Or will his darkness ruin Allison/Aeryn for good? And what can he possibly have to teach Mark Ashton about learning to live with the past? Find out in the Allison Dutch series. In the meantime, Mindless Self Indulgence’s Stalkers (Slit My Wrists) wraps up his struggle loving Allie quite well.
Filed under: Stories, The Cuil Effect Tagged: Allison Dutch, Books, broken, characters, fear
June 25, 2014
Loon for All – Project Loon – Google
Have you heard about this? Google certainly is loony. Below you’ll find details for a plan to provide internet across the Earth. What do you think?
Loon for All – Project Loon – Google.
Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: google, internet, loon, news, technology
June 21, 2014
Character and Song #24: Isabelle Voss
Isabelle Voss has quite a few problems, starting with her last name and ending with her PCOS and motion sickness (if you don’t know what PCOS is, it’s a horrible condition I presently suffer from and you can find out more about it here). On top of that, she’s also hounded by an undercover cop investigating the cigarette-fighting gangs and recruited into a group of women whose names are reapproptiated from insults. Somehow she’s supposed to gain control of space (in the dimensional sense, not merely what most consider outer space) while not throwing up on absolutely everything and dealing with her love for a woman she has to start completely over with in every dimension. To add to her troubles there are also very powerful people seeking her talents to build them ever more complicated structures. Her happy adventures are detailed in the Like the Water series, which you might start seeing next year. Her song is Human by Krewella.
Filed under: The Cuil Effect Tagged: characters, pcos, series, stories
June 17, 2014
40 Most Bloodcurdling Chinese Mistranslations Ever! Warning: You Will Laugh To Death! – Seenox
Since things have been so stressful and pressured in my life these past few months, what with a lover dying, being separated by distance from my kid and my other lover for another few months until they can move in with me, family going through their own issues, the state of the nation, and the hundreds of characters begging me for attention, I’m happy to see something that took my breath away but not in the way you might think.
Language is a magnificent, living thing. It helps us communicate, collaborate, and accomplish so much. And sometimes it goes terribly wrong in the recesses of lost translations. If you are offended by curse words you probably shouldn’t click the link below. If you’ve been having a hard time or even a great time and need something else to laugh about then please check it out. You won’t be disappointed.
http://www.seenox.com/2014/05/29/40-bloodcurdling-chinese-mistranslations-ever/
Filed under: Life
June 11, 2014
Street Harassment PSA by Kimchi Cuddles
Good stuff. That is all. I’ll be back in a few days to inundate you with more information about my books and characters. :)
Filed under: Inspiration Tagged: comics, funny, harassment, Kimchi Cuddles, PSA
June 10, 2014
In Droves They Came
http://www.cnn.com/2014/06/08/us/arizona-dhs-undocumented-children-moved/
I don’t know how many of you are aware of this, but it’s important. I’m writing about this because there are so many implications for this country. Plus it just breaks my heart. There has been an influx of unaccompanied minors pouring into the United States, many from Central America. Due to the distance between the countries, difficulty with paperwork, and immigration laws these children cannot simply be sent back to their original countries. There are rumors ranging from gang warfare to misunderstandings over the Dream Act as reasons for why this increase is happening. Over the next year, 100,000 more children are expected to flood into this country. The border patrol is overextended, exhausted, and has no idea what to do with all of these children. The facilities are inadequate, children have been dropped off on street corners in Arizona, and locating family members in the home countries of these children is nearly impossible (that is, if they even have any). I’m writing about this because the numbers are staggering and a lot of these children are suffering. The federal government hasn’t exactly made plans for how to deal with this yet. Whatever these children are doing it, it is heartbreaking that they are alone, without many resources, and that their numbers are growing. I’ll write more about this topic as it comes up. Eventually, someone’s going to have to pay for all of these little ones, so keep your eyes on it as well.
Filed under: Ethics, Uncategorized Tagged: border, change, children, immigration
June 5, 2014
#583: The Worry Wyvern and The Dragon of Disappointment
Brilliant. How many years have I been struggling to realize my own voice matters, that it even exists? How many years of fear surrounding my stories going into the “mainstream” where I could be judged and derided just as I had when I was a child? How long was it before I finally rid myself of all those horrible voices in my head beating me down because there were so few people who had kind words or touch? I fought my way out. I started erecting boundaries. There is still so much work for me to do. I only realized recently a lot of my anxiety is tied to the fact that 9 times out of 10, perhaps even more, the people I knew hurt me, wanted to hurt me, and ignored me. The track record for human beings’ behavior towards me is atrocious. If I were just going by the math there would be no reason to trust anyone, no reason to ever treat men with respect, no reason to live in a world that absolutely screamed at me that I did not belong. Captain Awkward knew the only way out is to do for yourself what should have been done for you before. To have and exercise agency is such a gift. It takes practice, especially when you haven’t been able to use it before. My stories are my story. Publishing it is letting go of all that darkness, fear, and trauma one book at a time. Thank you, Captain Awkward. Our hearts may pound, it may never get easier, but it is so worth it. We’ll know that we can. Bless you.
Originally posted on Captain Awkward:
Dear Captain and friends,
I am terrified of talking to my mother. If I, or my partner, do something she doesn’t like, even if it has no impact on her life, she will worry and blame me for that worry. Sometimes this is because she finds a way in which it will affect her later (she thinks that if anything ever goes wrong for me financially she’ll have to bail me out despite my assurances to the contrary). She often implies or says outright that I’m childish and should always do what she says (I’m 27). When I was 18 my psychiatrist used a garden metaphor for my life so sometimes when I am trying to communicate with her I use that. At the moment I think she is trying to walk into my garden and rearrange everything, and keeping her out is stressful, but she says she has the…
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Filed under: Uncategorized
May 30, 2014
Romance is Not Love: What Negative Aromantic Stereotypes Say About Romantic People
I love this! I love writing about all the different kinds of relationships people can have in my books. And of course there’s my own life. I never fully had the language to explain why I felt so strongly for those in my life, whether friends, lovers, and/or unlabeled (you can probably tell by now I have so many labels it doesn’t even matter; I’m human, damnit, interacting with other humans). All I had was sexual and romantic language to filter and understand my feelings, even when I had love for others that involved neither. I have long been fascinated with love, sex, romance, connection, all of the myriad ways that people come together. I’ve also got a post coming up that talks about the importance of touch in my books, sexual and asexual. The thing that matters most is actual connection! I never understood why so many were obsessed with the form. It’s always substance for me. Anyways, all this to say I am so grateful that I have come across these new scripts, these wonderful words, and found wonderful people like Ace who have given me better ways to express the parts of myself that didn’t quite fit in. I’m more excited than ever to get my works out there, to truly see all people represented as individuals instead of labels, and who knows, perhaps some folk will actually like it. Eh, I can dream. The one thing I know is I must keep writing. Until I’ve explored it all. This post by Ace is long, yet it’s completely worth the read.
Originally posted on The Thinking Asexual:
When they aren’t forgotten or ignored completely, the most common reaction that aromantic people get from ignorant romantics sounds something like this:
“You can’t be aromantic, that isn’t a real thing, you just haven’t met The Right Person and fallen in love yet, because romantic love is the ultimate human experience, so saying that you are an aromantic human being is as nonsensical as saying you’re a human being who doesn’t need oxygen to survive. Only psychopathic criminals feel no romantic emotion or a desire for romantic relationships. Something is seriously wrong with you if you can’t or don’t want to fall in love.”
What they’re implying is: aromantic people are cold, heartless, unfeeling individuals who are antisocial loners with no desire or capability for positive attachment and connection in the context of an interpersonal relationship with someone else. If you don’t want romantic love, you don’t want love, period…
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Filed under: Uncategorized
May 28, 2014
Bouncing Up and Down
Life is full of ups and downs. Isn’t that what we hear often? In my experience the good and the bad tend to come together in such extensive ways that distinguishing them from one another seems nearly pointless. Over the course of a day, I will have received so much good news and bad news that by the end of it all I can feel is simply tired. Whenever someone asks how I’m feeling I usually say I’m fine or that it would take too long to explain all of my conflicting emotions.
These past few years have certainly been a test of the limits of my emotions, sanity, and patience. Through my poor health I learned to stop trying to be superman. Through all of the deaths of family and friends I gained more resolve to live authentically. Through raising my kid I determined to become my very best.
I have reached a point now that is as great as it is terrifying. A few weeks ago I posted that I had exciting news. As events in my life often do, it became complex and multifaceted as sorrows and joys transformed and revealed new bits of connected consequences. The delightful news is that I have returned to the place where I spent the best years of my childhood, California. Shortly after relocating here, the shit hit the fan.
It was nothing I was doing. No, as it often is, the people and events around me reacted in wonderful and inexplicable ways. My family supported me. My live-in partner took charge of our kid and holds down the fort 3000 miles away until they can join me. We are each standing on our own and searching for better jobs and a better life. The people I’ve met so far here are fantastic, diverse, and open. It’s a paradise of refreshing challenge after being in a place where everyone seems so negative and defeated. I can literally see progress all around me.
Yet…the thing I couldn’t control came to bite me in the ass. Just months after my former girlfriend died, my other boyfriend (partner, whatever the hell he was to me, labels are weird) died. This just a week or so after us promising to remain in touch more often and him expressing excitement that I was chasing my dreams. He was my star and the universe suddenly saw fit to snuff him out without warning. Before I really had time to mourn, trouble arose with a stubborn family member. Trouble that could have derailed all that the rest of us were working on. Thankfully it has passed without too much incident but the stress has already taken its toll.
All is never lost, however. I am now working on several new outlets for my stories. I have submitted the dreaded queries in order to find a literary agent (with the hopes of turning my books into movies or shows some day). I have fallen in love with Game of Thrones. I have discovered the wonderful adventures of Honor Harrington. I have grown closer to the father I hadn’t grown up with and his amazing and perceptive wife. I’m also actually talking to others instead of just hiding in the corner like I usually do.
Life is incredibly short and fleeting and fragile. It is complex, surprising, and relentless. Good, bad, who cares? I am alive right now. I have loved and still love beautiful souls. I am nearly ready to write the last book of the Cuil Effect (out of order, mwa ha) in which the traumas of my past will be fully explored. One of the promises I made to myself was to live every moment as worship, let every step and breath be full of wonder, appreciation, and acknowledgment. I think I’m nearly there. Up and down, but always moving, always coming back, and always staying still where it counts.
Filed under: Death, Integrity, Life Tagged: death, Life, love, resolve, stories
May 23, 2014
Love Never Dies
There is a saying that the best revenge is living well. On the other side of the coin, for me, is honoring a person’s memory by doing the same. Two of my loves passed away this year, within months of one another. I shall pay tribute to the ways we touched one another’s lives by getting back to my feet, carrying them with me, and living the best I can. My love never dies. They were a part of me as I was a part of them. I’m so grateful to have known them, to have had the chance to let them know how much they meant to me, and to have opened myself to them. I’ll never forget. I’ll go forward with them in my heart. I miss them every day.
Filed under: Death, Life Tagged: death, love, memory, mourning, polyamory
