Nicole Field's Blog, page 19
May 5, 2016
This week has been an incredibly productive week. If, by...
This week has been an incredibly productive week.
If, by productive, you were to count everything except for writing…
Oh, that crocheting up there? Yeah, that’s what’s keeping me awake at night. Plans for Mother’s Day presents and a table cloth crocheted together in various different hook sizes until I found one I liked.
Plot bunnies? What plot bunnies?
The glamorous part of writing that nobody ever talks about is the writer’s block. And it’s hilarious that this happened this week, literally days after I saw Warren Ellis posting this:
This is the part of the job that doesn’t get talked about a lot, not least because it’s hard to talk about, but also because it doesn’t involve Productivity and Goals and The Magic Of Writering and The Grand Statement and all that good stuff in interviews. Sure, we all talk about the important Staring At The Wall And Farting Around time, but it’s also about sifting through the shitpile at the back of your head and deciding if you actually have anything to say. Any idiot can recycle the monomyth and plug in a setting and a handful of blank characters, but that’s not the same as having something to say: about the world, life, a thing, even yourself. I have a whole folder of loose ideas that dried up and got thrown in the folder because they and I turned out to have nothing to say about anything - they were just collections of cogs and levers. And by that, I mean probably eight to ten dead ideas, written up and filed, for every one that gets published.
Well. Hilarious may be too strong a word.
I realised, when I pulled out my laptop today, that I wasn’t interested in the part of the story I was telling. And I thought to myself that, if I didn’t want to tell it, what were the chances of other people wanting to read it?
So I wrote down the sections of the story that were boring me, things that needed to happen for the plot to go forward, but things that didn’t necessarily need to be shown.
The whole writerly industry is all about show over tell, but sometimes the showing just isn’t going to get you there.
And today I’ve written 2 totally new chapters and I’m at the end of the first scene of my Twitter conversation new trans superhero novella. Which is good, because there is now story there to edit if I figure out later on that I need to show rather than tell this troublesome bit of plot.
May 2, 2016
blondiepoison:
Cate Blanchett and Emily Blunt suited up for...
Cate Blanchett and Emily Blunt suited up for IWC Schaffhausen’s ad campaign
It was images like this that first made me want to write gender queer, transitioning, questioning, non-binary, multigendered, etc individuals, before I even knew what half of those words were.
There something about the well cut suit that just… grabs the eye and tugs at the imagination, isn’t there? It almost doesn’t matter who’s wearing it. The casual elegance of some poses, the utter irreverence of others–untied neckpieces and splayed out legs–rugging up or overheating, laughter, seriousness; an individual wearing a suit will always speak their own stories.
And that’s how I conceived of Con. Androgynous to begin with, with hair cut and elegantly done in a coif, this trans gentleman wears his suit as a reassurance to how he will be seen by the outside eye.
And so, when @lessthanthreepress made their collection call regarding suits at the end of last year, I scrubbed up this character, handed his story out to a bunch of people for edits and then sent him in. Within a month, I had my acceptance letter inviting me to be a part of the LT3 team and the Peacock collection call.
Prima Facie is available to purchase from here at PREORDER PRICES until 29th June.
April 30, 2016
Opening scene from my new WIP
Chapter One.
“… A month since the near devastating attack on Washington D.C. Residents in and around the capital have been arriving for the commemoration event today outside the White House.”
Bruce Paulson flicked through the channels. The coverage was pretty much the same on all networks. It seemed that the question on everyone’s lips was the same one that Bruce had been asking himself for the last month.
Where was Captain Hart?
Of course, Bruce knew the American superhero merely as Leo Hart, the trans man with whom he’d shared an apartment in Arlington since they’d finished college.
Bruce tried to remember when he’d realised it was more strange finding out that his roommate spent nights patrolling the Washington metropolitan area after being bit by an escaped dog from a medical research facility than that Carrie—Leo—was doing so as a guy.
It felt like Bruce was somehow betraying Leo’s memory to remember him as anything other than his chosen gender.
It also felt like Bruce was betraying Leo when he stumbled across phrases like ‘Leo’s memory’ in his mind.
Bruce had no more idea than the rest of Washington or America what had happened to Captain Hart after the Battle of Washington. Leo had never returned home. Bruce tried calling his phone as the footage began to be televised. Non-surprisingly, the calls had gone to voicemail. Bruce, with the rest of America, had been glued to his television as the space ship soared through the city like a flying tortoise. The internet filled up with YouTube clips of the alien space ship from the ground. Like them, Bruce had been desperate for a resolution that would not end in the destruction of the White House.
In the days afterwards, when Leo still didn’t return, Bruce tried sending him emails.
I know you’re probably hiding out after everything that went down. Bruce tried to sound understanding about something he had no idea how to understand. But if you need a friend… I’m here.
He agonised over the wording in his emails, not wanting to send something that came across as scared or needy when Leo had literally gone through hell for the sake of America. He’d done what no one else could have done when he shut off the power core that had connected the ship to the rest of its species. Scientists employed by the American government had apparently been able to confirm that the co-ordinates of their little planet Earth hadn’t been sent to the rest of the alien species before Captain Hart had disabled it. There would be no future attacks.
Hopefully.
That was the other hard part of the Battle of Washington. It had shown human kind how behind they were in terms of space travel and technology.
Bruce could hardly stand to watch the news feeds online and on TV in the aftermath of the Battle. He’d only turned the television on tonight to try to feel some connection to the roommate who had suddenly become one of the most known faces in America today.
It wasn’t working. Bruce clicked the television remote one more time. The TV turned off.
annenigmatic:
Less Than Press Book Haul!
It’s...
Less Than Press Book Haul!
It’s @lessthanthreepress‘s 7th birthday, and they’ve been celebrating in a big way–25% off EVERYTHING! That means double discount on preorder, so I trotted over to the LT3 Book Market and picked up a few upcoming titles at a great price! :D
Definitely looking forward to reading gay sci-fi All the King’s Men from the talented @alexpowell-writer!
Also grabbed two novelettes from new-to-me authors writing in LT3′s Peacock collection: all about the beauty of a well-tailored suit and the people who wear them! Right up my alley. *straightens tie*
First up is Prima Facie, a contemporary romance with a transgender main character, by @polynbooks. Next, is Just a Suit, by @medinabrooks–it has suits and spies! I was sold.
Today’s the last day to get these and lots of other books at a super-savings. And you could snag my two titles for a total of less than three bucks, too! ;)
Happy reading! xo
Hope you enjoy it!
April 26, 2016
Come oooooon book. You’ve been in traaaaansit...
Come oooooon book.
You’ve been in traaaaansit foreeeeeever.
*pines loudly*
“This is the cost we pay for broad roads and hot water, for...
“This is the cost we pay for broad roads and hot water, for banks and new crops. This is the trade you demand.”
“This resistance is meaningless,” Baru said. “If they want change, they must make themselves useful. Find a way up from within.”
– The Traitor Baru Cormorant.
This is an iiiiiiiniteresting book, and yet one I’m not quite sure just yet that I’ll finish. On the one hand, it one author’s answer to a history fantasy novel starring a main female lead, queer content and racial issues. On the other hand, it has such a slow start and is so dense with politics and I’m not even 100 pages in yet.
Baru Cormorant is the only child of two father’s and a mother. As part of the colonisation of Taranoke, one of her fathers is taken away early for his “unclean sexual practices” and the rest of his family don’t hear from him again. Baru is eight.
She is then brought into a school where she is taught the glories of the Empire–and seriously, can anyone use that as a title anymore without everyone immediately knowing they’re the Bad Guys?–but from nearly the very start of this book, it is Baru’s aim to topple the government from within.
The Traitor Baru Cormorant does a really clever job of, in the author’s own words, toeing the line between subversion and complicity. Too good, at times. I almost felt like I wanted to shake the main character and demand why they’re so easily capitulating at certain times.
Whether I finish reading it or don’t, it’s undoubtedly an important fantasy novel for any feminists, queer people and / or PoC.
April 23, 2016
Before. After. This all started from a conversation had...
Before. After.
This all started from a conversation had yesterday. Someone put me in the category of androgynous, and I queried it.
Me: I guess my face is, kinda, from a certain angle. But I love my flowy clothes and my hair is way too long for actual androgyny.
Them: It’s more, when I hang around with you, it’s not like you’re a guy, or a girl, you’re just a Nikki.
Funny thing. I love my clothes, but I hate my hair. I’ve pretty much always hated it. Regardless, I seem to constantly come up against the idea that beauty, for women, means long hair. Last time I cut my hair this short, I was in the middle of depression and grief and didn’t want anyone to find me attractive.
Today, I feel like I’m coming full circle. I don’t want to be found attractive “as a woman” but I’m just fine with it if people find me attractive. As me.
I want to look on the outside the way I feel, and seem to be expressing, from the inside. And this year is the year for all the big statements. So it’s all gone. Photos of me are from two months ago, and today.
April 20, 2016
Reasons I love asexuality
I can dress skimpily if the weather’s hot without feeling self-conscious.
I want to be cuddly / touchy again.I feel better about myself in that I’m expressing myself honestly.I’m learning new communication skills and yet more reasons to use them.I feel like I’m a better partner to my loved ones.
