Nicola Griffith's Blog, page 45

Holiday greetings from Charlie and George

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Image description: Front face of a Christmas card, in pale yellow with a dark red border. The top two-thirds is a photo of two tabby cats sitting with attentive expressions next to a miniature Christmas tree and wrapped presents. The lower portion is hand-printed text that reads, “Charlie and George listened patiently to what the mice wanted for Christmas, and then they ate them.”

Edited to add:

Since I posted the card on social media three hours ago I’ve had several comments/questions on both the image and the caption, so here are some answers.

Image

The image is a Photoshop composite. Judging from questions and comments I’ve had, many seem to think that the cats themselves are digitally messed with. They’re not. Here’s the original photo

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Getting the picture was a mix of luck and persistence. I’ve been thinking about this card for about a month. I knew what the caption would be, but for it to work I needed them to be sitting together and facing the camera. A vaguely bored look would be a bonus. So day after day I stalked them with the camera, and finally about ten days ago, just after breakfast, got this. I was particularly pleased with George’s pose, especially the paws.

I was going to crop it to a rectangle to take out the platform on the right, then give Charlie a little red Santa hat and George a miniature tree by his paws. But the composition felt off. So I restored the original square and started again. First I put a Christmas tree on the right hand platform. I’m not exactly a photo-manipulation expert so this took some figuring out: find the stock image, abstract the image, size it, put it in the right place, figure out how to put in shadow and make it look as though it was sinking into the carpet covering. But eventually I did figure it out. At which point I realised the colour needed balancing with something on the other side. I tried hanging a Christmas stocking from Charlie’s platform but then it looked weirdly symmetrical. In the end I decided on a couple of little presents. Again, I had to find the image, abstract, resize, place, add shadow, add sinking-into-carpet. Yep, that would work.

What followed then was endless futzing with colour balancing, adding a purple frame, changing colour of the frame to match the Christmas baubles, deciding how big a box I needed for the text, changing the colour of that box, etc.

I did all this using a variety of apps on my iPad (with Pencil) and Mac desktop: Photoshop, Photoshop Fix, and the Apple Photos app. Then I had to write the caption.

Caption

I’ve known for a month exactly what the caption should say because around this time every year I think of a holiday card my good friend (and ex) Carol sent me from the UK, starring a cat called Buster. All that I retain of that card is a black and white photocopy of the front with no copyright info. I don’t know who originated either photo or caption. But the basic idea stuck in my head, and every now and again I do a desultory search based on that that old image. A TinEye reverse image search returns a variety of images of the original cat, but no copyright information. And I’ve found this site, with something very like the card, but not quite. A search for the original text brings me several products for sale based on reimaginings of the original (e.g. Etsy, CafePress) but all differently copyrighted. I’m pretty sure the original photo is by Kat Caverley, but the basic sentiment of the caption seems to be some kind of meme.

And that’s as much as I knew until earlier today, when I learnt from a Facebook conversation with Eric Cline that the meme goes back at least to Mark Twain, via Weinstein and Albrecht’s Jonathan Seagull Chicken (in which a chickens’ good friend, including Mark Twain and Moses) throw him a banquet, and then eat him, for, dear readers “…isn’t that just what a chicken is for?”), and probably a zillion other repurposings. We decided that is is an example of the kind of classical SFnal reversal parodied so effectively by Douglas Adams in the Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

Aaaaanyway, seeing as I wasn’t using Caverley’s photo, and the caption idea is a meme, I felt pretty secure about my card. Now I just had to figure out how to do it. I wanted the caption to look handwritten. I experimented with a few fonts but none of them looked right. In the end I just opened the photo app on my iPad and wrote the text with my Pencil, then then finalised everything in Photoshop.

So there you have it: a simple card that took about ten hours to make. If you want to use it, feel free: just click on the image for a larger version, and download. Enjoy!

 

Kitten report #10: The evolving disability consciousness of Charlie and George [photo, video]

Today is International Day of Persons With Disabilities.

The annual observance of the International Day of Disabled Persons was proclaimed in 1992 by United Nations General Assembly resolution 47/3. It aims to promote the rights and well-being of persons with disabilities in all spheres of society and development, and to increase awareness of the situation of persons with disabilities in every aspect of political, social, economic and cultural life.

It seems like a good day to discuss the evolving disability consciousness of Charlie and George. Disability consciousness, like grief, follows stages.

When they first arrived in our lives in August, their initial assumption was that, as it was inconvenient that I couldn’t run around with bits of string for them to chase, my impairments must all be in my head. Therefore they would encourage me to realise this, and so cure myself. After conferring it was decided to take away my mobility aids and so force me to walk. They tore out the brake cable from my Rollator. They were disappointed when instead of a miraculous healing they faced roars of outrage.

Being cats, they skipped the pain and guilt stage and moved into another variety of denial: there was nothing wrong with me; they just wouldn’t see my disability. When they (particularly Charlie, in the initial stages of his brain-injury blindness) kept crashing into the invisible Rollator and being nearly crushed under the wheels of my non-existent chair, they decided they’d better acknowledge my impairments after all.

At which point they declared “Mobility aids are awesome and fun! We wish we had to use them!” This translated into several weeks of leaping onto the Rollator and expecting me to cackle with glee and hurtle round the house at speed for a thrill ride.

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Charlie: Drive, James!
George: And don’t spare the horses.
Charlie: Let’s just eat the horses.

That got old fast, at which point they turned bitter and resentful: “Why me? Why is my mom a crip? It’s not fair!” And they took it out on my mobility aids: they chewed on the wheelchair tires (fortunately solid rather than air-filled) and then various bits of the Rollator:

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George kills the Rollator then feigns innocence

The next stage was depression: hiding under the blankets.

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I just can’t

Followed by misplaced empathy: desperately trying to console Kelley for her terrible, martyred role as Cripple’s Wife. This involved much hand-holding:

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Charlie tells Kelley, “It’ll be alright. I’m here.”

But now, finally, they are beginning to accept: this is just how it is. My mobility aids have become part of the furniture. Charlie in fact sleeps in my chair every day.

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My chair is Charlie’s bed

He doesn’t relax in it, he either passes out or sits bolt upright, ready to pounce on stray bits of ribbon and impertinent scraps of paper.

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“Don’t worry about the taxes. I’ll deal with those receipts.”

Only they don’t start out as scraps. Taxes will be interesting this year because Charlie got hold of a stack of receipts and ripped them to confetti. Oh, well. Who needs deductions when you have such fine kitty companions?

George considers the Rollator his domain. Sometimes it’s a pre-lap launch platform.

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George is willing me to make a lap, make a lap. You’re feeling very sleepy, make a lap…

Sometimes just a damned good place to hang out and relax after a large meal. (He doesn’t care about the tax receipts: his meals aren’t deductible; also, he doesn’t pay taxes.)

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Food imparts the wisdom of the ages. I will have the solution to ableism soon…

In just a few short months, then, the evolution of these tiny bundles’ disability consciousness has progressed in leaps and bounds (often while hanging upside down from the curtains or falling in the bath). If these two beasties with brains the size of thimbles can learn, why can’t you? You won’t even have to do it while leaping twice your own height to bring down Feather, or figuring out to get out of the dishwasher.

By the time the next IDPWD rolls around, I have no doubt that our kitty Einsteins will a) have fixed the person-first language of the proclamation and b) have found a solution to the enduring mystery of ableism (hint: the two are not entirely unrelated). Your job? Try to keep up. You might find some tips in previous Kitten Reports.

Signed, personalised books for the holidays

Image description: Photo, taken on a bright spring day with an old disposable camera, of a friendly neighbourhood street: cars parked in the shade of a tree growing on the sidewalk in front of Phinney Books and its next-door neighbour, the 74th Street Alehouse.

I’m a writer. I’m a small business. The independent bookstores that sell my books are small businesses. Today is Small Business Day, and therefore a fine day to remind readers that I’m teaming up again with Phinney Books, on Greenwood Avenue, Seattle, to bring you signed, personalised books for the holidays. Why Phinney Books? Well, because it’s right next door to the pub! Which makes it massively, convivially convenient for me. Also, Phinney Books is my idea of a perfectly-sized bookshop with just the right stock. Also also, it’s level-entry with a light front door so very easy for me to get in and out of.

Here’s how it works.

Go to Phinney Books’ online ordering page to buy any of my books, no muss no fuss, and get them shipped to any address in US, Canada, UK, Australia, or New Zealand. Everyone else, see the next step.
Email info@phinneybooks.com (phone is okay: 206 297 2665) with billing info: all major credit cards accepted. They use Square, so they’ll also need the 3-digit code on the back and your billing postal code.
Tell them what you’d like, e.g.  Hild  (paperback or hardcover) or So Lucky or Ammonite or Slow River . If you order very soon, you could also  probably get With Her Body , my mini-collection of stories.* Or, hey, another book by somebody else—lots of books, any books! It’s the holidays. You (and your friends, your family, everyone you’ve ever met) deserve something nice. Splurge! Remember, too, that you can order ebooks via the store, and—woo hoo!—audio books. And I narrated So Lucky. Sadly I can’t personalise those, though.
Tell them whether you want the books by me personalised (to you, or to someone else; if so, who; and what short thing you’d like me to add). If you give this order by phone, please spell out even the most common names.
Give them your mailing address and payment info.
Beam, sit back and relax: you’ve done your holiday shopping!

Tom, the owner, tells me he is happy to ship multiple copies, to ship internationally, and to ship express/priority, but then there will be extra charges you will have to work out with him.

Deadlines: I haven’t checked with Tom on this but perhaps Friday 13th December is a safe deadline for books shipping domestically, but if you’re willing to pay for priority mail, we could probably push that out a bit. International, well, I suspect you’d have to be quick…

So basically you have two weeks for Domestic. Go for it! I’ll do my best to sign your books before I go to the pub, which means everything will be spelled right. Mostly…

*There are no more of the limited edition memoir boxes. And the Aud novels are no longer available. I reverted the rights two years ago and sold everything I had lying about in 2017’s promotion. But, woo-hoo!, they will be back on sale either late next year or early the year after, so next time I do this, who knows. (There’ll be an audio edition of Ammonite, then, too.) And the time after, well, get ready for Menewood.

‘Cake or Death’ Anglo-Saxon rune ring

When So Lucky came out, I did a brief regional tour, including Portland. After a reading at Powell’s Kelley and I went out for a drink with Wendy Neathery-Wise, who made my Anglo-Saxon bronze bird brooch. Over cocktails, and then more cocktails, we talked of many things, including live shows. Eventually we got to Eddie Izzard and how much I love his “Cake or death?” sketch for its pure, foolish Englishness.

We switched to beer, and the conversation moved on to other things, eventually circling back to metal-smithing. Apparently she wanted to tackle a ring design based on a ninth-century rune ring. Given that the runes on said rings spell out charms, or religious messages, or simple statements of ownership, she was a bit stumped as to what the runes on her ring should say. “Easy!” I said, with the confidence of the well-lubricated. “Cake or Death!”

I thought no more of it until this summer when Wendy emailed me to say she’d made the rings—in silver, bronze, and copper—and did I want one? I don’t wear rings, except for my wedding rings, but I showed Kelley the link to Wendy’s Etsy page, and she thought they looked fab.

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Cake or Death?

She chose one in copper, and wears it a lot and finds it both reassuringly weighty and comfortable. Here’s what Wendy has to say about the rings on Facebook:

These say “Cake or Death” in Anglo-Saxon runes. The idea was given to me by Nicola Griffith, who was inspired by Eddie Izzard’s sketch. The translation I used is the OE, “foca oððe deað” put into runes.  The ring design is from this 9th century Kentish find that’s in the British Museum.  I liked the beading and divisions between letters.

And from her Etsy page:

The master waxes were carved by hand. They are cast in your choice of bronze, recycled copper or Sterling silver.

Side note: If you you are the type that thinks your genetics are somehow superior to another’s and want to use things that you think are your ancestral right (like runes and symbols) to oppress other people, DO NOT BUY ANYTHING FROM ME. I have no tolerance for racists, especially who twist history to justify their racist attitudes.

So if  you’re looking for an unusual gift from a right-thinking woman, go .

Podcast interview: writing characters with physical disabilities [audio]

A few months ago I was interviewed for the Writing Excuses podcast:

In this episode we discuss how to faithfully represent people with physical disabilities through the characters we create. Our guest, Nicola Griffith, walks us through the process of rigorously imagining how the world might look to someone with a particular disability.

It’s about 15 minutes long. You can listen at the link, subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcasts, or Android, or listen here:

https://nicolagriffith.files.wordpress.com/2019/11/wx14_47_wto_characters_with_physical_disabilities.mp3

Thanks to Piper, Dan, Tempest, and Alex.

Why I’m going to be saying No a lot

In my last post I updated you on my work schedule. None of that will be possible unless I change a few things.

Those of us from traditionally marginalised groups often find ourselves doing unpaid emotional and advocacy labour for the greater good. One major distraction I had not reckoned on when I signed the contract for Menewood was my new commitment to disability-related issues. I’ve spent inordinate amounts of time doing informal (that is, unpaid and unacknowledged) policy work with various institutions, organisations, and nonprofits. On top of that, one-on-ones with many writers, disabled and nondisabled, about reviewing; about writing disabled characters. It’s been my pleasure and privilege but it ends up as countless hours spent making others’ novels and memoirs better or more marketable. I don’t begrudge an hour of that time—I was happy to do it—but I can feel that well of willingness to sacrifice my time, energy, and focus running dry.

So for the foreseeable future I’ll be declining. And rather than spending time explaining why, I’ll probably just ignore your email. I’ll always have time for friends and family, but other things? No.

More granularly, for the remainder of the year I’ll be turning down requests and invitations–of all kinds.

For the first half of 2020 I’ll be turning down invitations to speak, to teach, to contribute, to blurb, and to meet-strangers-for-coffee-so-you-can-pick-my-brains. Those events I have already scheduled for 2020 I will honour (and at some point I’ll update the Appearances page) but I won’t be adding to them. In the last few months of 2020, assuming Menewood is done, and depending on how interesting the requests are, I might accept invitations to contribute short pieces—but they’ll have to be astonishingly interesting projects and extremely well paid.

As for 2021, I already have a couple of things scheduled, and then I’ll be dedicated to pre-publication for both Menewood and the Aud novels (including writing new fiction, and prepping and performing the audio narration).

I’m not turning into a hermit. I’ll still be going out for dinner and drinks and wonderful conversations with friends, still posting cat pictures on social media. I’ll still go to the park, a film, a splendid exhibition (I really want to visit the new incarnation of the Burke museum but just haven’t had time). I’m planning on a lovely getaway with my sweetie at the end of the year. What I won’t be doing is allowing anything but personal stuff to distract me from my fiction, for at least a year. Essentially, I need to free up time and bandwidth to find the still, quiet place from which all good work springs.

Once again, here’s Meghan Trainor to help you understand:

My name is No.

My sign is No.

My number is No.

You need to let it go.

Nah to the ah to the no no no.

Hat tip to Angie Bennett, a medievalist.

A writing update: Hild, Aud, Ammonite and more

First, Aud. It has taken years but finally I have the rights back to all three novels about Aud Torvingen, and a US publisher has agreed to release all three in splendid new editions. The publisher is MCD/Picador—a collaboration of MCD (who did So Lucky), which is an imprint of Farrar, Straus and Giroux (who did Hild), and Picador (who did the paperback of Hild).

The audio books will be from Macmillan Audio (who did both Hild and So Lucky), and I’m delighted to be able to tell you I’ll be narrating. That is, I’ll be narrating The Blue Place and, if the production costs work out, perhaps Stay and Always too.1

We don’t yet have a firm date for US publication because that depends on other things, such as the UK publication of the Aud books, and, of course, Menewood (see below). Along with the three already-published novels, I’ll be writing three Aud shorts (well, shortish). I can’t wait to get to those! My hope is that once Menewood is chugging through the production phase, I can turn my attention to writing a fourth Aud novel (there were always meant to be five, I have so many luscious ideas) but for now you can at least rely on the shorts.

Also, the Aud books have been optioned for TV, but I won’t say anymore unless/until there’s something to talk about.

I’ve found myself doing bits and pieces of commissioned short work the last year or so, fiction and nonfiction; disability-related and not. Some of those things will start to appear soon, and I’ll link to them as they’re published. I’ve also been giving serious thought to other book-length projects, two of which I’m pretty sure will happen, eventually, though not just yet, because I have Menewood to finish.

Ammonite will finally be released as an audiobook, by Tantor Audio. I don’t know when but my guess would be early next year. I won’t be narrating that but I know who will, and she’s great.

Most of you have been very patient about the second Hild novel. Yes, Menewood is taking a long time—far, far longer than I imagined; far, far longer than I’ve ever taken with a single novel. It’s a long (looooong) and complicated book that I don’t want to read as long and complicated. In the story many, many things happen to Hild—the kind of stuff that would make most human beings curl up and die of despair. But I’m not a fan of misery lit, I don’t like reading it and I hate writing it. My philosophy is that characters should only be hollowed out by sadness in order to be filled with joy. So I’ve spent time finding Hild a good, clear emotional path that is both realistic and an immersive, enthralling read, just as (I hope) Hild was, with much joy and discovery and learning and building to balance the horrors of destructive regime change. That takes research time, thinking time, and writing time. The hardest part of the writing? Grief. So many people have to die, because History says so. And every time I reckon the effect of a new grief for Hild, I have to face my own current grief. And then we have to keep meeting many new important new characters—again because History says so. And some of those have to die, too, because— Never mind.

So I’m working. That work has, of course, been seriously impeded by health stuff, by grief—oh, so much grief (which does not, not help with the characters-who-keep-dying stuff)—politics, disability work, doing a PhD, writing a completely unrelated book, and, now, kittens (including rehabbing one with an acquired brain injury). But I am working, and my hope is that I will have a workable draught by September next year. If so, it’s possible there could be an actual finished copy of the book in your hands for the holidays, 2021. Admittedly it’s a faint possibility, but that’s my goal, and it’s one I dearly want to meet. So, yes: working!

This is going to mean saying No a lot in the next year. I’ll talk more about that next time.

Apparently Seattle is just about the most expensive city in the US for studio time—and finding a studio that is wheelchair accessible makes everything cost even more. So if anyone out there has a good, accessible studio I can use—I have my own engineer, I think—please let me know! Otherwise I might have to travel out of town for a week or two which is just more time away from Menewood.

Hild’s Feast Day

Today is the Feast Day of Hild of Whitby, the anniversary of her death in 680. I mark the day because Hild—and Whitby, its abbey, and ammonites—has marked my life, and in particular my writing life.

My first novel was Ammonite, which was published when I was 32. The author photo I used for that book was taken at Whitby Abbey when I was 30. You can tell from the look on my face how much the place affects me.

In my third novel, The Blue Place, Aud talks longingly of Whitby—the abbey founded by Hild in 657. In Whitby you can find three species of fossil ammonites, or snakestones. A whole genus of ammonites, Hildoceras, is named for Hild: there is a legend that she turned all the local snakes to stone. The legend was so well-established after her death that in the later middle ages enterprising locals carved heads on the stones and sold them as the snakes she petrified.

This is Hildoceras bifrons (though to be frank I can’t tell the difference between this and H. lusitanicum and H. semipolitum). It’s what I think of when I think of ammonites.

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Ammonites fascinate me: their shell growth, that lovely spiral, is guided by phi. And phi (Φ = 1.618033988749895… ), the basis of the Golden Ratio or Divine Proportion, has all sorts of interesting mathematical properties. The proportions generated by phi lie at the heart of myriad things: the proportions of graceful buildings, the orderly whorl of a sunflower, ammonites, Fibonacci numbers, population growth, and more. (If you’re interested, a good place to start is Wikipedia.) Phi is what creates the underlying pattern in much of nature. I think phi is responsible for what Hild may think of as God.

So tonight I’ll drink a toast to Hild, and ponder, as I always do, getting an ammonite tattoo.

Kitten report #09: Six months old!

Today the twinsome terrors, Charlie and George, are six months old. We have had them for about half their time on earth.

They begin here, with their foster parent, Cody:

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I luv you, bruv! Photo by @codys.cat.palace. Charlie (top) and George.

Then they came to us:

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George (back) Charlie (front)

And within a couple of days owned the place:

Then they settled down to the serious business of growing, playing, and learning. Along the way they ate a lot and destroyed many, many things. Charlie also sustained a brain injury as the result of oxygen deprivation during an operation to remove a nasopharyngeal polyp. Overnight he went from a lively, rambunctious in-charge-of-it-all kitten to an almost dead, helpless and incapable fuzzy little bundle. We thought he might die. But over the last three months he’s eaten, played, cuddled and purred his way back to health and strength. His brain does fritz sometimes, and when he’s tired or stressed his visual processing gets confused, but, essentially, if you didn’t know, you would not be able to tell he has any impairment at all.

He certainly destroys as many things as George. I woke up yesterday morning to find the sturdy plastic door stop attached to the slider between the kitchen and deck chewed to a nubbin. Here’s a picture of the  nubbin tastefully lit by a ray of sunlight, long before Charlie even thought about chewing it, when it was, in fact, longer than his head.

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Charlie hanging in the sun

Now it’s chewed stump about an inch and half long. And Charlie is still teething with a vengeance. Here, he’s chewing a basket handle:

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Gonna need a bigger basket

George is well ahead in the maturation stakes. He’s bigger, stronger, faster and recognises human food as food (Charlie doesn’t yet). And George killed his first prey a few weeks ago: a mouse. And he ate the soft bits (their teeth aren’t really up to the bones yet, I don’t think). At this point I suspect if Seattle got hit by an asteroid George might just be able to fend for himself. Charlie could not. It’s unclear to us whether that will change as he grows. I’m encouraged by the fact that just in the last week he seems to have undergone a qualitative change: he seems sharper,  more agile, and more focused.

They are definitely people cats. They will both settle in laps, though Charlie much more readily than George, who often prefers to sit on a cushion next to us. Here’s a picture taken on Sunday by our friend, Colleen:

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Blissed-out George meatloaf, and Kelley

And another, taken the same night. They are fairly typical.

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Charlie posing like a CEO, with me

When we first started looking for kitties we wanted a boy and a girl. It’s what we’ve had before, and the combo worked well: the female cat tends to take charge, but the male cat is bigger and won’t let himself be pushed around too much. But then we went to Seattle Area Feline Rescue ad when Charlie settled like a baby bird in my lap that first time, that was that. When we brought them home I was worried that two boy cats might fight a lot (just as two girl cats would) but they get on well. They chase each all the time, of course, and they fight, but its never too serious, and—as you can see—they are very relaxed together. The key is to make sure they don’t have to share toys or food dishes. Here they are after dinner on Sunday, dozing in front of the fire, imitating a pushmepullyou, with one green catnip brought (a present from Colleen) visible on the hearth, and a a grey one (a present from another friend, Kate) between Charlie’s tail and George’s foot.

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Charlie (top right) and George (bottom left), exhausted after catnip mouse play, settle in to a sleeping game of pushmepullyou

They give me hours of pleasure every single day—often hours of hassle and irritation, too, but the pleasure has always outweighed the hassle, and the pleasure grows while the hassle shrinks. As you can see, though, the kitties themselves are certainly not shrinking. They haven’t been weighed for a while but my guess is George is about 7 lbs and Charlie approaching 6 lbs.

This will probably be the last of the regular kitten reports. I’ll post photos on Instagram (and mirror on Facebook and Twitter) but I’ll save blog posts for particular milestones and/or special circumstances. If anyone has specific requests, or a question, just drop a comment. And until next time, you can read previous kitten reports here.

What is this? Where can I get one?

What is this? Who makes it? Where can I get one? Are they legal on US roads? How fast do they go? And a zillion other questions. If anyone has answers, drop a comment.