Tuesday, March 28
Well, my email is certainly more varied these days. But this one's really fucking annoying.
For those of you not into the writing thing, Miss Snark is a literary agent who runs a blog where she hands out advice and insights about the publishing world. She does so quite freely (and, as her title might suggest, snarkily) in part because the blog is anonymous. No one knows who Miss Snark is.
Apparently this gets on some people's tits. Thus, my day's annoying email, which I presume I got via being an occasional commenter on the blog....
Oh, mais oui!
Miss Snark is none other than *withheld, just in case this nitwit is right* of the so-called *withheld* Literary Agency.
A) I'm supposed to believe you why? I don't know you from Eve. You offer no proof. If you're right, I'm figuring it's by pure dumb luck.
B) I do not care. As far as I'm concerned, Miss Snark "is really" Miss Snark. I don't read her because of who she is or isn't. I read her because she gives good advice and she's funny.
She lives and works out of her home in Brooklyn, NY (not having a real office)
Uh, like *counts on fingers* at least six well-known and respected agents I know of? "Home office" is not some kind of euphemism, honey; rather it's the same as saying "I never get to leave work." Get a clue.
... and the reason she keeps her ID a secret? Her friends tell us she believes the Snark blog will bring her the kind of fame she can't possibly earn on her own.
Ah. "Friends". Leaving aside the fact that anyone sharing information with you is at best a former friend (and has exceptionally poor taste), unless you name names, this means exactly zip. "Friends" tells me nothing. Your street cred was never high with me, but when you start tossing vaguely-defined faceless sources into the mix it plummets down past "National Inquirer" and straight into the realms of "Weekly World News".
Also, what's this "we" shit? There is no "we". There is only you. Fake multiplicity does not equal authority.
Why? Well, you see, she isn't much of an agent. Matter of fact, the Snark-darling's "sales" are nearly all to obscure who-gives-a-shit-about-them presses that don't even buy lunch for their clients
*googles agency*
Yup. We call those "small presses." They are a major market for this thing called "literary fiction", which all of these books are. "Literary fiction" separates itself from "commercial fiction" by being, well, less commercial, and thus not of much interest to the big presses. This does not mean that literary fiction can't earn out in small ways over the years. And considering how new the agency you cite is, it has a pretty damn good track record.
I don't know about the lunches, but myself, if I got published I'd be happy to go Dutch.
Maybe you should have stuck with vague generalizations. These "fact" things don't seem to be working out for you either.
and only one to something larger (a crummy SF book called *withheld*--yes, yes, she does SF, contrary to her denials--
This might matter to me if a) I had the faintest confidence that you had the right agency, b) the book in question had actually been SF, rather than literary fiction with SF elements, or c) I cared who Miss Snark was. But it is a rather clever way of getting around your scapegoat agent not actually fitting with what we know of Miss Snark, in a "you can't fire me, I quit!" kind of way.
--also, she has ZERO taste in books).
Now you're just being... snarky. I sense a rejection letter from this agency lurking in the dark filing cabinet of your ego.
Bottom line, Snark-darling isn't what she says she is, not by a New York mile! How else do you think she has so much time to blog around? Because she isn't doing real agent work! You believe a real agent would have time to make snarky cracks on a blog all day, ask herself questions posing as other posters, and even moderate comments at the same time?
Dude. I work 42-56 hours a week and write novels in my spare time and I still find the time to putz around on the Internet and sharpen my wits on unsuspecting spammers. Work is a variable; procrastination, a constant.
And she actually believes she is going to get a book out of the deal. What better motive, I ask you?
Is it my imagination, or did we just take a sharp left turn? What book? Where? I don't see any book here! Earth to writer, it's chapter fourteen and the aliens have arrived....
btw, though much of her advice is good, some of it is plain manure.
Pot, kettle; kettle, pot.
Apply mask as needed and watch out for fumes.
Sweetheart, this is the Internet. Never believe everything you read on the Internet. Especially if it's unsolicited spam in your inbox. And again, there's a certain eu de wounded ego about this; perhaps Miss Snark dared to disagree with Your Trollish Highness and incurred your Mighty Wrath thereby?
She DOES NOT speak for the NYC literary establishment.
That would be hard. There's lots of them, after all, and I get the impression that agents are only a bit less insanely individualistic than writers, and you couldn't get a bunch of writers to whistle "Yankee Doodle" together without serious artistic argument, numerous fistfights, and copious amounts of alcohol. Nor do I remember Miss Snark claiming such authority.
Go to my Agent 007 for better advice, really.
This isn't an either/or proposition. I read Agent 007. I also read Miss Snark. It's advice. You're supposed to get it from as many sources as you can.
And I rather doubt Agent 007 would appreciate your endorsement, much less your use of the possessive.
(signed) J
Now really, sweetheart, is this any time to get coy? Particularly when you've got your full name (Julia Fields) in your yahoo address. Or were you expecting me to respect your anonymity...?
Julia -- if that is your real name -- you are a troll. You're waving a red flag in the face of myself and God knows how many other Snarklings in the pathetic hope that by doing so you will become somehow important... or perhaps your red flag is directed towards Miss Snark herself, in hopes that your life will somehow be more fulfilling once you've been trampled. It is towards your kind (though of the opposite gender and rather simpler inadequacies) that the innumerable ads for increased length, width, girth, and duration which make up the rest of my spam are directed. Perhaps you should be reading more of it; somewhere in that deluge there is no doubt an offer to give you a dick, and then you could go wave it all you wanted and leave the rest of us in peace.
And if you then increased the length, you could self-abuse all you liked and save me the trouble of telling you to go fuck yourself.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have some snarky blog posts to catch up on.
Writing Progress:
Today's Progress: 583 words. It should be more, but I was distracted by the ranty goodness.
Comments: All done with the blowing things up. Darn.
Snips: At the moment, everyone is sitting around talking about how screwed they are. Enlightening to the reader (I hope) but not very snippable.
For those of you not into the writing thing, Miss Snark is a literary agent who runs a blog where she hands out advice and insights about the publishing world. She does so quite freely (and, as her title might suggest, snarkily) in part because the blog is anonymous. No one knows who Miss Snark is.
Apparently this gets on some people's tits. Thus, my day's annoying email, which I presume I got via being an occasional commenter on the blog....
Oh, mais oui!
Miss Snark is none other than *withheld, just in case this nitwit is right* of the so-called *withheld* Literary Agency.
A) I'm supposed to believe you why? I don't know you from Eve. You offer no proof. If you're right, I'm figuring it's by pure dumb luck.
B) I do not care. As far as I'm concerned, Miss Snark "is really" Miss Snark. I don't read her because of who she is or isn't. I read her because she gives good advice and she's funny.
She lives and works out of her home in Brooklyn, NY (not having a real office)
Uh, like *counts on fingers* at least six well-known and respected agents I know of? "Home office" is not some kind of euphemism, honey; rather it's the same as saying "I never get to leave work." Get a clue.
... and the reason she keeps her ID a secret? Her friends tell us she believes the Snark blog will bring her the kind of fame she can't possibly earn on her own.
Ah. "Friends". Leaving aside the fact that anyone sharing information with you is at best a former friend (and has exceptionally poor taste), unless you name names, this means exactly zip. "Friends" tells me nothing. Your street cred was never high with me, but when you start tossing vaguely-defined faceless sources into the mix it plummets down past "National Inquirer" and straight into the realms of "Weekly World News".
Also, what's this "we" shit? There is no "we". There is only you. Fake multiplicity does not equal authority.
Why? Well, you see, she isn't much of an agent. Matter of fact, the Snark-darling's "sales" are nearly all to obscure who-gives-a-shit-about-them presses that don't even buy lunch for their clients
*googles agency*
Yup. We call those "small presses." They are a major market for this thing called "literary fiction", which all of these books are. "Literary fiction" separates itself from "commercial fiction" by being, well, less commercial, and thus not of much interest to the big presses. This does not mean that literary fiction can't earn out in small ways over the years. And considering how new the agency you cite is, it has a pretty damn good track record.
I don't know about the lunches, but myself, if I got published I'd be happy to go Dutch.
Maybe you should have stuck with vague generalizations. These "fact" things don't seem to be working out for you either.
and only one to something larger (a crummy SF book called *withheld*--yes, yes, she does SF, contrary to her denials--
This might matter to me if a) I had the faintest confidence that you had the right agency, b) the book in question had actually been SF, rather than literary fiction with SF elements, or c) I cared who Miss Snark was. But it is a rather clever way of getting around your scapegoat agent not actually fitting with what we know of Miss Snark, in a "you can't fire me, I quit!" kind of way.
--also, she has ZERO taste in books).
Now you're just being... snarky. I sense a rejection letter from this agency lurking in the dark filing cabinet of your ego.
Bottom line, Snark-darling isn't what she says she is, not by a New York mile! How else do you think she has so much time to blog around? Because she isn't doing real agent work! You believe a real agent would have time to make snarky cracks on a blog all day, ask herself questions posing as other posters, and even moderate comments at the same time?
Dude. I work 42-56 hours a week and write novels in my spare time and I still find the time to putz around on the Internet and sharpen my wits on unsuspecting spammers. Work is a variable; procrastination, a constant.
And she actually believes she is going to get a book out of the deal. What better motive, I ask you?
Is it my imagination, or did we just take a sharp left turn? What book? Where? I don't see any book here! Earth to writer, it's chapter fourteen and the aliens have arrived....
btw, though much of her advice is good, some of it is plain manure.
Pot, kettle; kettle, pot.
Apply mask as needed and watch out for fumes.
Sweetheart, this is the Internet. Never believe everything you read on the Internet. Especially if it's unsolicited spam in your inbox. And again, there's a certain eu de wounded ego about this; perhaps Miss Snark dared to disagree with Your Trollish Highness and incurred your Mighty Wrath thereby?
She DOES NOT speak for the NYC literary establishment.
That would be hard. There's lots of them, after all, and I get the impression that agents are only a bit less insanely individualistic than writers, and you couldn't get a bunch of writers to whistle "Yankee Doodle" together without serious artistic argument, numerous fistfights, and copious amounts of alcohol. Nor do I remember Miss Snark claiming such authority.
Go to my Agent 007 for better advice, really.
This isn't an either/or proposition. I read Agent 007. I also read Miss Snark. It's advice. You're supposed to get it from as many sources as you can.
And I rather doubt Agent 007 would appreciate your endorsement, much less your use of the possessive.
(signed) J
Now really, sweetheart, is this any time to get coy? Particularly when you've got your full name (Julia Fields) in your yahoo address. Or were you expecting me to respect your anonymity...?
Julia -- if that is your real name -- you are a troll. You're waving a red flag in the face of myself and God knows how many other Snarklings in the pathetic hope that by doing so you will become somehow important... or perhaps your red flag is directed towards Miss Snark herself, in hopes that your life will somehow be more fulfilling once you've been trampled. It is towards your kind (though of the opposite gender and rather simpler inadequacies) that the innumerable ads for increased length, width, girth, and duration which make up the rest of my spam are directed. Perhaps you should be reading more of it; somewhere in that deluge there is no doubt an offer to give you a dick, and then you could go wave it all you wanted and leave the rest of us in peace.
And if you then increased the length, you could self-abuse all you liked and save me the trouble of telling you to go fuck yourself.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have some snarky blog posts to catch up on.
Writing Progress:
| |
2,363 / 100,000 (2.4%) |
Today's Progress: 583 words. It should be more, but I was distracted by the ranty goodness.
Comments: All done with the blowing things up. Darn.
Snips: At the moment, everyone is sitting around talking about how screwed they are. Enlightening to the reader (I hope) but not very snippable.
Saturday, March 25
And so it begins.
Writing Progress:
Today's Progress: 1190
Comments: Yes, this is the sequel to Harmony Station that I swore I wouldn't write until Harmony sold. No, Harmony hasn't sold yet. It's standalone, ok? Get off my back.
Guilt aside, it feels really scarily good to be writing Joey again. And scarily easy. Journey always felt kinda like work, but this is something I'm hurrying to get home to already.
Not sure whether "easy" is good or bad, but it sure is what I need right now.
Snips: Less a snip than a segment. Welcome to Friction Burns, everybody.
"No, no, and no, with an order of no on the side. How many times to I have to repeat myself?"
Renee Oliva's smile flickered, but only for an instant. She was, Joey had to admit, well-trained. She had politely insulting down to an art.
"Director Terifino," she said, the smile now firmly back in place, "there is nothing you can say 'no' to. I am not asking your opinion. I am merely doing you the courtesy of informing you that there will be another shipment of evacuees tomorrow."
"No!" Joey said, loudly enough to startle some of the refugees out of their personal misery. Heads turned; bodies moved instinctively away, forgetting for the moment that they were in freefall, and there was a moment of panicked grabbing for handholds. From the Customs booths Joey's Second, Dai Herrick, made a sharp cutting motion with his hand that Joey interpreted as stop spooking the cattle. Joey drew a breath through her teeth and counted to ten.
"Ille Oliva," she said, as quietly as she could manage. "I realize that a diplomat may not have the finely honed senses that we pride ourselves on in the military, so let me point out a few things you might have missed. This," she waved her hand at the bay with its crowd of wall-clinging refugees, floating luggage, and gray military walls, "is a space stat-ion. We have what is known as limit-ed re-sources in certain areas, like, I dunno, oxygen. We also have this thing called a max-i-mum safe pop-u-lation of ten thousand and a current population of thirteen thousand. You can't bring any more people here."
Renee's smile didn't waver. "You know as well as I do that the situation is temporary."
"It's gonna be terminally temporary if you stack any more bodies in here."
"Evacuation to Geani will start up again in a few days --"
"You people have been saying that for three weeks!"
"Director Terifino -- or might I call you Josephine?"
"You might," said Joey, "call me Joey. If I liked you, which I don't. Stop fucking around and make your point."
Renee's smile finally vanished, but her mouth took on a hard set that Joey found no better. "We are working under a deadline here. I'm no happier than you that none of the human worlds will step up to take the refugees, but if we don't have Mylo empty of human presence by the date the Trake have set then we will be at war again. I don't care what you think of it. I don't care if I have to pack your precious space station to bursting, I will not let that happen." This time it was Renee's voice that rose too loud; she took a deep breath and closed her eyes. When she spoke again it was with a shadow of her former professional smile. "And a Director of Security does not have the authority to stop me. Nor does your commander, or your commander's commander, or anyone in that chain of command that you military types worship so fervently. So let me do you the courtesy of telling you, Director, that there will be another shipment of evacuees tomorrow."
Joey looked away from her, out across the bay. It was more crowded than it had to be -- as usual the grounders had arbitrarily declared one wall the "floor" and were refusing to use the other three, causing an unnecessary glut. But still, too many people that Harmony Station had no place for. A few of the refugees had clearly been close enough to overhear their argument; there were a few faces flushed with what might have been anger, and one young woman met Joey's eyes and raised an eloquent brow, her expression somewhere between fury, mockery, and resignation, and Joey felt a twinge of guilt.
No, we don't want you either. No one wants you. The former residents of Mylo dribbled slowly through the gates, their eyes downcast, and Joey could have shouted the thought aloud and shocked none of them. They were a burden no one cared to shoulder.
"And if you overload the station?" she said, taking care to keep her voice down this time.
Renee's gaze did not waver. "Then the deaths would still be less than if the war started again. I would grieve. But I would not undo it."
"Nice," said Joey. "Very dramatic. And very stupid. Why don't you spare yourself the grief and me the dying-horribly-in-vacuum and find these people a place to live?"
Renee hissed in exasperation, but whatever she meant to say was lost in the sudden scream.
"Get away from me!"
Joey turned and had perhaps half a second to take it in, the startled faces at the Customs booth, the refugees recoiling in that same involuntary motion she had startled them into earlier, the slight form flying away from the crowd towards an unoccupied wall with the terrified scream still twisting her face, and then the world broke open with sound and light.
Writing Progress:
| |
1,190 / 100,000 (1.2%) |
Today's Progress: 1190
Comments: Yes, this is the sequel to Harmony Station that I swore I wouldn't write until Harmony sold. No, Harmony hasn't sold yet. It's standalone, ok? Get off my back.
Guilt aside, it feels really scarily good to be writing Joey again. And scarily easy. Journey always felt kinda like work, but this is something I'm hurrying to get home to already.
Not sure whether "easy" is good or bad, but it sure is what I need right now.
Snips: Less a snip than a segment. Welcome to Friction Burns, everybody.
"No, no, and no, with an order of no on the side. How many times to I have to repeat myself?"
Renee Oliva's smile flickered, but only for an instant. She was, Joey had to admit, well-trained. She had politely insulting down to an art.
"Director Terifino," she said, the smile now firmly back in place, "there is nothing you can say 'no' to. I am not asking your opinion. I am merely doing you the courtesy of informing you that there will be another shipment of evacuees tomorrow."
"No!" Joey said, loudly enough to startle some of the refugees out of their personal misery. Heads turned; bodies moved instinctively away, forgetting for the moment that they were in freefall, and there was a moment of panicked grabbing for handholds. From the Customs booths Joey's Second, Dai Herrick, made a sharp cutting motion with his hand that Joey interpreted as stop spooking the cattle. Joey drew a breath through her teeth and counted to ten.
"Ille Oliva," she said, as quietly as she could manage. "I realize that a diplomat may not have the finely honed senses that we pride ourselves on in the military, so let me point out a few things you might have missed. This," she waved her hand at the bay with its crowd of wall-clinging refugees, floating luggage, and gray military walls, "is a space stat-ion. We have what is known as limit-ed re-sources in certain areas, like, I dunno, oxygen. We also have this thing called a max-i-mum safe pop-u-lation of ten thousand and a current population of thirteen thousand. You can't bring any more people here."
Renee's smile didn't waver. "You know as well as I do that the situation is temporary."
"It's gonna be terminally temporary if you stack any more bodies in here."
"Evacuation to Geani will start up again in a few days --"
"You people have been saying that for three weeks!"
"Director Terifino -- or might I call you Josephine?"
"You might," said Joey, "call me Joey. If I liked you, which I don't. Stop fucking around and make your point."
Renee's smile finally vanished, but her mouth took on a hard set that Joey found no better. "We are working under a deadline here. I'm no happier than you that none of the human worlds will step up to take the refugees, but if we don't have Mylo empty of human presence by the date the Trake have set then we will be at war again. I don't care what you think of it. I don't care if I have to pack your precious space station to bursting, I will not let that happen." This time it was Renee's voice that rose too loud; she took a deep breath and closed her eyes. When she spoke again it was with a shadow of her former professional smile. "And a Director of Security does not have the authority to stop me. Nor does your commander, or your commander's commander, or anyone in that chain of command that you military types worship so fervently. So let me do you the courtesy of telling you, Director, that there will be another shipment of evacuees tomorrow."
Joey looked away from her, out across the bay. It was more crowded than it had to be -- as usual the grounders had arbitrarily declared one wall the "floor" and were refusing to use the other three, causing an unnecessary glut. But still, too many people that Harmony Station had no place for. A few of the refugees had clearly been close enough to overhear their argument; there were a few faces flushed with what might have been anger, and one young woman met Joey's eyes and raised an eloquent brow, her expression somewhere between fury, mockery, and resignation, and Joey felt a twinge of guilt.
No, we don't want you either. No one wants you. The former residents of Mylo dribbled slowly through the gates, their eyes downcast, and Joey could have shouted the thought aloud and shocked none of them. They were a burden no one cared to shoulder.
"And if you overload the station?" she said, taking care to keep her voice down this time.
Renee's gaze did not waver. "Then the deaths would still be less than if the war started again. I would grieve. But I would not undo it."
"Nice," said Joey. "Very dramatic. And very stupid. Why don't you spare yourself the grief and me the dying-horribly-in-vacuum and find these people a place to live?"
Renee hissed in exasperation, but whatever she meant to say was lost in the sudden scream.
"Get away from me!"
Joey turned and had perhaps half a second to take it in, the startled faces at the Customs booth, the refugees recoiling in that same involuntary motion she had startled them into earlier, the slight form flying away from the crowd towards an unoccupied wall with the terrified scream still twisting her face, and then the world broke open with sound and light.
Thursday, March 23
I had a good long look at myself in the mirror today and came to a distressing conclusion. I've lost weight.
A lot of you now hate me. And, yes, there are definite benefits to having the kind of metabolism that means you never have to think twice about taking a second helping of ice cream -- second helpings of ice cream, for one. But there are also disadvantages. Like being crabby and starving whenever I get cold, which is frequently, since there is essentially nothing between my innards and the wind but that wimpy "skin" thing. Like the scar I still carry on my chin from forgetting to eat for a day and a half and fainting because of it. (I would have made a really bad Victorian lady. I hit all kinds of furniture on the way down.)
And when combined with a stress reaction which shuts down my appetite, well, my metabolism is downright lethal.
When I spent a year studying in New Zealand -- a stressful time for various reasons -- I lost about 15 pounds. I didn't really notice at the time. I was tired a lot, but I could ignore that; I was sick more frequently than usual, but I put it down to living on campus. When one of my friends started taking me out to eat all the time and insisting that I wanted "feeding up", I thought she was taking the piss, carrying on with the various jokes she'd made about our difference in weights. It wasn't until I got home and my mother took one look at me, went white, and started shoving food down my throat at an accelerated rate that I realized this "weight loss" thing might actually be something I should worry about.
I've been more careful since then, and my weight has more or less stayed at the suggested healthy weight for my frame. But the past two months have been very, very high-stress for me, and looking at myself in the mirror, I realized that I was falling back into old patterns. When I'm not too depressed to cook, I'm too stressed to eat, with my stomach in knots and everything I put in my mouth tasting of ashes. I'm getting one solid meal a day, maximum, and all too frequently it's been a meal every other day with a few snacks to tide me over. It's not New Zealand yet, but it's edging in that general direction.
And, of course, I never seem to recognize at the time that having extreme mood swings and overreactions might possibly have something to do with the fact that I'm fucking malnourished. And downward we spiral into the feedback loop....
*pounds head on keyboard*
Why can't anything be simple?
Right. Last of the self-pitying posting, I promise, but I needed to get this one off my chest. And now to the kitchen I go. Because even though I'm not hungry, dammit, I need to eat.
A lot of you now hate me. And, yes, there are definite benefits to having the kind of metabolism that means you never have to think twice about taking a second helping of ice cream -- second helpings of ice cream, for one. But there are also disadvantages. Like being crabby and starving whenever I get cold, which is frequently, since there is essentially nothing between my innards and the wind but that wimpy "skin" thing. Like the scar I still carry on my chin from forgetting to eat for a day and a half and fainting because of it. (I would have made a really bad Victorian lady. I hit all kinds of furniture on the way down.)
And when combined with a stress reaction which shuts down my appetite, well, my metabolism is downright lethal.
When I spent a year studying in New Zealand -- a stressful time for various reasons -- I lost about 15 pounds. I didn't really notice at the time. I was tired a lot, but I could ignore that; I was sick more frequently than usual, but I put it down to living on campus. When one of my friends started taking me out to eat all the time and insisting that I wanted "feeding up", I thought she was taking the piss, carrying on with the various jokes she'd made about our difference in weights. It wasn't until I got home and my mother took one look at me, went white, and started shoving food down my throat at an accelerated rate that I realized this "weight loss" thing might actually be something I should worry about.
I've been more careful since then, and my weight has more or less stayed at the suggested healthy weight for my frame. But the past two months have been very, very high-stress for me, and looking at myself in the mirror, I realized that I was falling back into old patterns. When I'm not too depressed to cook, I'm too stressed to eat, with my stomach in knots and everything I put in my mouth tasting of ashes. I'm getting one solid meal a day, maximum, and all too frequently it's been a meal every other day with a few snacks to tide me over. It's not New Zealand yet, but it's edging in that general direction.
And, of course, I never seem to recognize at the time that having extreme mood swings and overreactions might possibly have something to do with the fact that I'm fucking malnourished. And downward we spiral into the feedback loop....
*pounds head on keyboard*
Why can't anything be simple?
Right. Last of the self-pitying posting, I promise, but I needed to get this one off my chest. And now to the kitchen I go. Because even though I'm not hungry, dammit, I need to eat.
Monday, March 20
Memage, yanked from quite a few people on the f-list:
Owner's Manual for a Kat
How can I tell if you are angry?
Well... there are two potential states here. One, you've irritated me, probably by acting in a way I consider unfair, unfeeling, or rude to me. If you're someone I'm not hugely close to (99% of the people I know) I may make a sarcastic comment or two, but most likely you'll never know; I'll simply stay away from you until the irritation wears off. If you irritate me repeatedly, I'll avoid you entirely. If you're someone close to me, I'll either snap at you or whine at you, but again it may be hard for you to tell. Since the number of people currently in this category I can count on the fingers of one hand, it's not something most of you should worry about.
Two, you have made me angry. This is rare. I don't like getting angry, it makes me shake and does evil things to my heart rate, so in general this will mean that you've said or done something that injures someone I love (or something; at least half of the incidents I can think of in this category have been over mistreatment of animals.) I rarely get angry on my own account. You will know because I will be in your face, speaking in an icy voice, and literally shaking with rage.
How should I behave around you if you're angry?
In the case of irritation:
1) Notice. This isn't fair, because as I've said my signs of irritation are so subtle that even those close to me don't usually know, but if by some chance you do notice it's the fastest way of cooling me down. A simple, "I've upset you," or "...but I guess you don't agree," tells me that you're actually paying close attention to me, and that's a rare enough event that it immediately inclines me to forgiveness.
2) Listen. If you notice that I'm irritated -- or if you don't and I for some reason tell you, which probably puts you in that 1% of people I'm actually close to -- then I will probably proffer some kind of explanation for my behavior. It will probably be severely apologetic even if I'm still irritated, because I am not a confrontational person and I was raised in the South, land of terminal politeness. Do not laugh off, dismiss, or ignore what I say; take it seriously and respond to me in kind. Again, this almost never happens to me, and so it's likely that I will forgive you on the spot no matter what you've done.
If you've actually made me angry... well, my best advice is "don't". My second-best is to cower; I don't hit people when they're down. And then leave me alone for a little while, because it will take time for me to get down from the anger high and get control of my reactions.
In neither case should you meet anger with anger. It will only make me withdraw from you, either physically or emotionally. If you're in the 1%, "emotionally" probably means "into tears". Don't mistake any kind of withdrawal for victory. I haven't changed my opinion; I've just acted to keep myself from getting more upset by pushing you away.
How do you want me to behave when you are hurting emotionally?
Make sympathetic noises, and, if you're not in that 1%, give me room to fall apart in private. I am deeply shamed by showing pain in front of all but a very few people. Reassure me that I'm not stupid for feeling what I feel, since I am almost always convinced that the hurting is my own fault and if I was just stronger/smarter/better I wouldn't be upset at all. Don't touch me unless I invite you to (or you're part of the 1%). I am not good with most people invading my personal space, especially when I'm already upset.
When I've collected myself again, act like nothing ever happened. This will make me feel less ashamed and less like I've permanently damaged your impression of me.
Are there things we should not discuss?
Not really. If I don't want to talk about something, or if you're pushing my boundaries, I'll either change the subject or let you know in some other way.
The exception is... hrm. How to say this? I don't know how to flirt. I can't handle people flirting with me, it scares the hell out of me. There's lots of reasons for this, but most I can't articulate. I'm also bad at accepting compliments and, as previously mentioned, I'm not good with people invading my personal space. I'm generally more comfortable with all of the above when Dan is there -- the closer the better -- so if I suddenly drag Dan into a conversation we're having it's probably a sign that I'm feeling uncomfortable and need him to make me feel okay again. It is nothing you are doing wrong; I'm like this with everyone.
How should I treat you if you are physically ill?
Look sympathetic. I really don't care; I'm not ill often and don't have much emotional baggage attached to being so.
What makes you happy that's in my power to grant as a friend?
Smile, listen to me, act like I'm cool to be around and you respect my opinion. I really don't ask much from friends, but I am extremely not-confident in company and pretty much assume that people are only putting up with me to be kind. Tell me otherwise, and you'll make me blush and stammer, but it'll be in a good way. Honest. ;)
How would you like me to recognize your birthday?
"Happy birthday"?
Are there any standing categories of presents that would be appropriate or unwelcome?
I don't think anyone who reads this, save one person, would ever be in a position to buy me a present. But... *shrug* Books are always good.
Are there times of the year that are difficult for you?
I have mild SAD and may be draggy in the winter. Other than that, no.
Are there important anniversaries that I should recognize in your life?
Geez, I rarely remember what day it is to start with, much less attach specific import to 'em.
Who are the most important people in your life to whom I should defer when making plans on your behalf?
Why on Earth would anyone make plans on my behalf?
But in the interests of science: Dan, first, foremost, and always. Following that, my family. I am still deeply close to my parents, which seems to be... unusual... in the circles in which I move, and I value deeply their opinion of me. And, since they're currently employing me, they've an obvious claim on my time above others.
Any other questions?
Owner's Manual for a Kat
How can I tell if you are angry?
Well... there are two potential states here. One, you've irritated me, probably by acting in a way I consider unfair, unfeeling, or rude to me. If you're someone I'm not hugely close to (99% of the people I know) I may make a sarcastic comment or two, but most likely you'll never know; I'll simply stay away from you until the irritation wears off. If you irritate me repeatedly, I'll avoid you entirely. If you're someone close to me, I'll either snap at you or whine at you, but again it may be hard for you to tell. Since the number of people currently in this category I can count on the fingers of one hand, it's not something most of you should worry about.
Two, you have made me angry. This is rare. I don't like getting angry, it makes me shake and does evil things to my heart rate, so in general this will mean that you've said or done something that injures someone I love (or something; at least half of the incidents I can think of in this category have been over mistreatment of animals.) I rarely get angry on my own account. You will know because I will be in your face, speaking in an icy voice, and literally shaking with rage.
How should I behave around you if you're angry?
In the case of irritation:
1) Notice. This isn't fair, because as I've said my signs of irritation are so subtle that even those close to me don't usually know, but if by some chance you do notice it's the fastest way of cooling me down. A simple, "I've upset you," or "...but I guess you don't agree," tells me that you're actually paying close attention to me, and that's a rare enough event that it immediately inclines me to forgiveness.
2) Listen. If you notice that I'm irritated -- or if you don't and I for some reason tell you, which probably puts you in that 1% of people I'm actually close to -- then I will probably proffer some kind of explanation for my behavior. It will probably be severely apologetic even if I'm still irritated, because I am not a confrontational person and I was raised in the South, land of terminal politeness. Do not laugh off, dismiss, or ignore what I say; take it seriously and respond to me in kind. Again, this almost never happens to me, and so it's likely that I will forgive you on the spot no matter what you've done.
If you've actually made me angry... well, my best advice is "don't". My second-best is to cower; I don't hit people when they're down. And then leave me alone for a little while, because it will take time for me to get down from the anger high and get control of my reactions.
In neither case should you meet anger with anger. It will only make me withdraw from you, either physically or emotionally. If you're in the 1%, "emotionally" probably means "into tears". Don't mistake any kind of withdrawal for victory. I haven't changed my opinion; I've just acted to keep myself from getting more upset by pushing you away.
How do you want me to behave when you are hurting emotionally?
Make sympathetic noises, and, if you're not in that 1%, give me room to fall apart in private. I am deeply shamed by showing pain in front of all but a very few people. Reassure me that I'm not stupid for feeling what I feel, since I am almost always convinced that the hurting is my own fault and if I was just stronger/smarter/better I wouldn't be upset at all. Don't touch me unless I invite you to (or you're part of the 1%). I am not good with most people invading my personal space, especially when I'm already upset.
When I've collected myself again, act like nothing ever happened. This will make me feel less ashamed and less like I've permanently damaged your impression of me.
Are there things we should not discuss?
Not really. If I don't want to talk about something, or if you're pushing my boundaries, I'll either change the subject or let you know in some other way.
The exception is... hrm. How to say this? I don't know how to flirt. I can't handle people flirting with me, it scares the hell out of me. There's lots of reasons for this, but most I can't articulate. I'm also bad at accepting compliments and, as previously mentioned, I'm not good with people invading my personal space. I'm generally more comfortable with all of the above when Dan is there -- the closer the better -- so if I suddenly drag Dan into a conversation we're having it's probably a sign that I'm feeling uncomfortable and need him to make me feel okay again. It is nothing you are doing wrong; I'm like this with everyone.
How should I treat you if you are physically ill?
Look sympathetic. I really don't care; I'm not ill often and don't have much emotional baggage attached to being so.
What makes you happy that's in my power to grant as a friend?
Smile, listen to me, act like I'm cool to be around and you respect my opinion. I really don't ask much from friends, but I am extremely not-confident in company and pretty much assume that people are only putting up with me to be kind. Tell me otherwise, and you'll make me blush and stammer, but it'll be in a good way. Honest. ;)
How would you like me to recognize your birthday?
"Happy birthday"?
Are there any standing categories of presents that would be appropriate or unwelcome?
I don't think anyone who reads this, save one person, would ever be in a position to buy me a present. But... *shrug* Books are always good.
Are there times of the year that are difficult for you?
I have mild SAD and may be draggy in the winter. Other than that, no.
Are there important anniversaries that I should recognize in your life?
Geez, I rarely remember what day it is to start with, much less attach specific import to 'em.
Who are the most important people in your life to whom I should defer when making plans on your behalf?
Why on Earth would anyone make plans on my behalf?
But in the interests of science: Dan, first, foremost, and always. Following that, my family. I am still deeply close to my parents, which seems to be... unusual... in the circles in which I move, and I value deeply their opinion of me. And, since they're currently employing me, they've an obvious claim on my time above others.
Any other questions?
Sunday, March 19
Well, it wasn't 17 cows that calved.
Only 4.
And they were all real sweethearts about it too, except the one who was a New Mother and apparently in denial about the whole thing. By the time we got there the poor calf had one broken front tooth and one wobbly one and was lying quietly on the ground bleeding because every time she tried to get up Momma headbutted the crap out of her. She has been rescued, fed, and named Willow, and shows every sign of overcoming her unfortunate welcome to the world.
On the downside, it's supposed to get cold as shit tonight and snow, which means, via Murphy's Law, a glut of calves to celebrate the crappy weather.
Bah.
Only 4.
And they were all real sweethearts about it too, except the one who was a New Mother and apparently in denial about the whole thing. By the time we got there the poor calf had one broken front tooth and one wobbly one and was lying quietly on the ground bleeding because every time she tried to get up Momma headbutted the crap out of her. She has been rescued, fed, and named Willow, and shows every sign of overcoming her unfortunate welcome to the world.
On the downside, it's supposed to get cold as shit tonight and snow, which means, via Murphy's Law, a glut of calves to celebrate the crappy weather.
Bah.
Saturday, March 18
Seems like I've been promising a State of the Life post for a while now. So, in no particular order....
State of the Dan
Still in Canada, and likely to return here no sooner than the middle of April. We do think we've found a way to get him back in the country; however, it's going to take time, money, and patience, and is still uncertain in the details.
So I'm sitting in Galax in my big empty house with a big empty bed, doing both our jobs at the farm, and trying to remind myself that no matter how bad things are I need to eat (or, on the really bad stress days, that I need to eat and keep it down) and this has had a lot to do with why I'm not around or posting much. I do not handle stress well, and so far everything that's happened with Dan has only added to the load. Not all of it has been bad stress, but still, no reason to clog the blog with posts from the Stress Monkey.
But I will at least get to see him at Ad Astra. This is pretty much all that's preserving my sanity right now.
State of the Farm
Calving. We're up to seven babies; cute still, but rapidly moving into that piranha-like state which will characterize them for the next month. We also have seventeen overdue. They're doing it just to see us sweat, I swear to God.
All the same, I have to keep reminding myself how lucky I am to be working with Jerseys instead of Holsteins. Jerseys ("the brown ones", to those of you with a less than agricultural background) differ from the more common Holstein breed ("the black and white ones") in several important respects. First, they're smaller. This is important. The difference between an animal averaging 700 pounds and an animal averaging 1100 may seem small but, when you're actually wrestling said animal, it becomes a lot more important.
Second, they're Gandhi cows. A Jersey, in any given situation where you're doing something she doesn't like, will roll her eyes back in her head, go limp, and fall over. Now, this is pretty annoying, because when 700 pounds of cow goes limp there's not a hell of a lot you can do. But a Holstein in the same situation will break everything in reach. Including herself. Fighting spirit, very impressive, but I vividly recall the herdsman I worked with in Wales reciting his list of broken bones, and I think I prefer the annoying pacifists.
Third, they're smarter, the reason cited by most dairymen for not keeping Jerseys. This is because Jersey "smarts" consist of a blend of fearlessness, insatiable curiosity, and Noticing Things. The typical Jersey train of thought goes something like "Well, I suppose this was put here to startle me, but that just makes me REALLY WONDER what's behind it. Let's just wriggle through this gap and... oh! Look! An open gate! I wonder where this strange stone road with the yellow stripes might go, and why that thing is making honking noises at me?"
It's at times like these (usually about three in the morning, incidentally), or when you're trying to figure out how the cow got in the pit, much less how you're getting her out, or when the vet is saying incredulously "Inter-nasal beestings?", that you have to wonder whether intelligence is all it's cracked up to be.
But again, take the typical Holstein. Now, it's true that the Holstein is not on the road at three am because she noticed the gap in the fence. The Holstein is on the road at three am because a plane went over, or a dog barked, or you did something to startle her, and her pea-sized little brain went into overload and left her with the one, the only, Holstein Train of Logic:
"Want gate! This not gate, this fence! WHY FENCE NOT GATE? MAKE FENCE GATE!"
... and she's gonna be a hell of a lot harder to catch, too.
And, finally, Jerseys are prettier. I work with these animals every day. It's a lot easier when they're not ugly as sin.
State of the Car
Surprisingly, it turned out to "just" need a new transmission. With labor, this came out to, uh, roughly the car's Blue Book value, but I don't have to sink multiple thousands of dollars into a new car. If this one can be nursed along for another year, it'll have been worth it.
State of the Writing
Mixed. When the US government got between me and Dan it sorta dropped my Muse in a deep, dark well, and every time over the past month and a half that she's tried to crawl out the Stress Monkey has pushed her back in. I feel like I'm only just crawling out of the well myself, to be frank. Journey in Twilight is officially on hold; it is a lovely and ambitious project, but I don't have it in me to tackle the beauty and weirdness of it right now.
Instead, I'm doing what I swore I wouldn't do until Harmony Station sold: writing a sequel. *sigh* It's very bad of me... but it's also frightening how fast I can fall back into Joey's voice, and how quickly my brain, so sluggish with Journey, can whip up a story to fit the voice. Not quite out of thin air, I've been scribbling notes on this idea for a year or more, but still, a near-working outline in two days is ridiculous.
I am bad. But it's better than writing nothing, and I'll do my best to make it a standalone.
As for Harmony, it's been trekking about the agentsphere and so far collected five rejections and two partial requests. Not bad when I'm trying to sell science fiction (reliably known to be on the downswing) and have no publication credits whatsoever. I have cautious hope.
State of the Finances
Don't ask.
Conclusion
I want to start blogging regularly again. About all I can hope for at this point is best two out of three with the Stress Monkey, but it's at least a real hope right now. My typical reaction to this kind of stress has been to retreat, like the turtle, into the hard shell that is my fantasy life. It's one of the benefits of being an extreme introvert: you've always got somewhere to hide. But while this may leave you with fewer scars than others, you don't get much of anywhere with your legs all hidden away like that, and you can't do a hell of a lot about the Bad Stuff happening outside besides hope it goes away. I'm going to try, however cautiously, to poke my nose out and start creeping forwards again.
(Now watch me get all seventeen overdue calves tomorrow and be up to my elbows in work and unable to post. That Murphy, eh? Damned Irish jokers.)
State of the Dan
Still in Canada, and likely to return here no sooner than the middle of April. We do think we've found a way to get him back in the country; however, it's going to take time, money, and patience, and is still uncertain in the details.
So I'm sitting in Galax in my big empty house with a big empty bed, doing both our jobs at the farm, and trying to remind myself that no matter how bad things are I need to eat (or, on the really bad stress days, that I need to eat and keep it down) and this has had a lot to do with why I'm not around or posting much. I do not handle stress well, and so far everything that's happened with Dan has only added to the load. Not all of it has been bad stress, but still, no reason to clog the blog with posts from the Stress Monkey.
But I will at least get to see him at Ad Astra. This is pretty much all that's preserving my sanity right now.
State of the Farm
Calving. We're up to seven babies; cute still, but rapidly moving into that piranha-like state which will characterize them for the next month. We also have seventeen overdue. They're doing it just to see us sweat, I swear to God.
All the same, I have to keep reminding myself how lucky I am to be working with Jerseys instead of Holsteins. Jerseys ("the brown ones", to those of you with a less than agricultural background) differ from the more common Holstein breed ("the black and white ones") in several important respects. First, they're smaller. This is important. The difference between an animal averaging 700 pounds and an animal averaging 1100 may seem small but, when you're actually wrestling said animal, it becomes a lot more important.
Second, they're Gandhi cows. A Jersey, in any given situation where you're doing something she doesn't like, will roll her eyes back in her head, go limp, and fall over. Now, this is pretty annoying, because when 700 pounds of cow goes limp there's not a hell of a lot you can do. But a Holstein in the same situation will break everything in reach. Including herself. Fighting spirit, very impressive, but I vividly recall the herdsman I worked with in Wales reciting his list of broken bones, and I think I prefer the annoying pacifists.
Third, they're smarter, the reason cited by most dairymen for not keeping Jerseys. This is because Jersey "smarts" consist of a blend of fearlessness, insatiable curiosity, and Noticing Things. The typical Jersey train of thought goes something like "Well, I suppose this was put here to startle me, but that just makes me REALLY WONDER what's behind it. Let's just wriggle through this gap and... oh! Look! An open gate! I wonder where this strange stone road with the yellow stripes might go, and why that thing is making honking noises at me?"
It's at times like these (usually about three in the morning, incidentally), or when you're trying to figure out how the cow got in the pit, much less how you're getting her out, or when the vet is saying incredulously "Inter-nasal beestings?", that you have to wonder whether intelligence is all it's cracked up to be.
But again, take the typical Holstein. Now, it's true that the Holstein is not on the road at three am because she noticed the gap in the fence. The Holstein is on the road at three am because a plane went over, or a dog barked, or you did something to startle her, and her pea-sized little brain went into overload and left her with the one, the only, Holstein Train of Logic:
"Want gate! This not gate, this fence! WHY FENCE NOT GATE? MAKE FENCE GATE!"
... and she's gonna be a hell of a lot harder to catch, too.
And, finally, Jerseys are prettier. I work with these animals every day. It's a lot easier when they're not ugly as sin.
State of the Car
Surprisingly, it turned out to "just" need a new transmission. With labor, this came out to, uh, roughly the car's Blue Book value, but I don't have to sink multiple thousands of dollars into a new car. If this one can be nursed along for another year, it'll have been worth it.
State of the Writing
Mixed. When the US government got between me and Dan it sorta dropped my Muse in a deep, dark well, and every time over the past month and a half that she's tried to crawl out the Stress Monkey has pushed her back in. I feel like I'm only just crawling out of the well myself, to be frank. Journey in Twilight is officially on hold; it is a lovely and ambitious project, but I don't have it in me to tackle the beauty and weirdness of it right now.
Instead, I'm doing what I swore I wouldn't do until Harmony Station sold: writing a sequel. *sigh* It's very bad of me... but it's also frightening how fast I can fall back into Joey's voice, and how quickly my brain, so sluggish with Journey, can whip up a story to fit the voice. Not quite out of thin air, I've been scribbling notes on this idea for a year or more, but still, a near-working outline in two days is ridiculous.
I am bad. But it's better than writing nothing, and I'll do my best to make it a standalone.
As for Harmony, it's been trekking about the agentsphere and so far collected five rejections and two partial requests. Not bad when I'm trying to sell science fiction (reliably known to be on the downswing) and have no publication credits whatsoever. I have cautious hope.
State of the Finances
Don't ask.
Conclusion
I want to start blogging regularly again. About all I can hope for at this point is best two out of three with the Stress Monkey, but it's at least a real hope right now. My typical reaction to this kind of stress has been to retreat, like the turtle, into the hard shell that is my fantasy life. It's one of the benefits of being an extreme introvert: you've always got somewhere to hide. But while this may leave you with fewer scars than others, you don't get much of anywhere with your legs all hidden away like that, and you can't do a hell of a lot about the Bad Stuff happening outside besides hope it goes away. I'm going to try, however cautiously, to poke my nose out and start creeping forwards again.
(Now watch me get all seventeen overdue calves tomorrow and be up to my elbows in work and unable to post. That Murphy, eh? Damned Irish jokers.)
Thursday, March 02
The final review... until I read more books, at least.
"Angelica: A Novel of Samaria" by Sharon Shinn
A woman and an angel gradually learn to love each other in spite of having their marriage decreed by God.
Gaaron has always been a dutiful angel, resigned to shouldering any task, from singing down Jovah's healing on a plague-stricken town to disciplining wayward teenagers. So when Jovah tells him he must take a bride from the nomadic Edori, he never considers disobeying. And at least Susannah seems quiet, not reckless like his beautiful but maddening human sister Miriam. As for Susannah, after her lover is unfaithful to her she hardly cares where she goes; living among angels, she tells herself, is as good as anything, even if Gaaron's stolid ways leave her pining for warmth and love. But even as the two grow closer, Gaaron learning to respect and eventually crave Susannah's council and Susannah beginning to see the fierce passion behind Gaaron's devotion to duty, they are driven further apart by circumstance and the unexpected invasion of their peaceful world by violent outsiders from the stars.
This book is science fiction only in the sense that Anne McCaffery's Pern novels were science fiction. Technology is present and visible to the modern reader, but appears as magic to the characters; the "angels" are clearly products of genetic engineering, for example, and Gaaron's sung prayers to lift plague bring down a rain of... antibiotic pills. Shinn handles this with remarkable skill, so that the reader knows more or less what's going on and yet doesn't end up with a condescending attitude towards the ignorant characters. Her touch with religion, despite the use of loaded words like "angel" and the omnipresence of Jovah, is also very light, which is probably just as well considering that God appears to be a computer in this case. I was able to accept the world far more rapidly and with fewer flinches than I initially expected.
The invasion plot, however, is a straw man, existing only to occasionally up the tension. The focus of the book is on the relationships: first and foremost Susannah and Gaaron, but also Gaaron and the willful Miriam, Susannah and her ex-lover, and the intricacies of various minor interactions. The book is a long, slow buildup towards the various climaxes of plot and relationship, which, when they finally arrive, feel more anticlimactic -- but the slight letdown of the ending was more than made up for by the meandering and marvelous journey.
This doesn't quite match up to the only other book of Shinn's that I've read (Summers at Castle Auburn) but it was a well-written and lovingly detailed story, complete with excellent characters and a nicely crafted world, and I'll probably be picking up more in the series. An excellent book to curl up with and slowly savor.
"Angelica: A Novel of Samaria" by Sharon Shinn
A woman and an angel gradually learn to love each other in spite of having their marriage decreed by God.
Gaaron has always been a dutiful angel, resigned to shouldering any task, from singing down Jovah's healing on a plague-stricken town to disciplining wayward teenagers. So when Jovah tells him he must take a bride from the nomadic Edori, he never considers disobeying. And at least Susannah seems quiet, not reckless like his beautiful but maddening human sister Miriam. As for Susannah, after her lover is unfaithful to her she hardly cares where she goes; living among angels, she tells herself, is as good as anything, even if Gaaron's stolid ways leave her pining for warmth and love. But even as the two grow closer, Gaaron learning to respect and eventually crave Susannah's council and Susannah beginning to see the fierce passion behind Gaaron's devotion to duty, they are driven further apart by circumstance and the unexpected invasion of their peaceful world by violent outsiders from the stars.
This book is science fiction only in the sense that Anne McCaffery's Pern novels were science fiction. Technology is present and visible to the modern reader, but appears as magic to the characters; the "angels" are clearly products of genetic engineering, for example, and Gaaron's sung prayers to lift plague bring down a rain of... antibiotic pills. Shinn handles this with remarkable skill, so that the reader knows more or less what's going on and yet doesn't end up with a condescending attitude towards the ignorant characters. Her touch with religion, despite the use of loaded words like "angel" and the omnipresence of Jovah, is also very light, which is probably just as well considering that God appears to be a computer in this case. I was able to accept the world far more rapidly and with fewer flinches than I initially expected.
The invasion plot, however, is a straw man, existing only to occasionally up the tension. The focus of the book is on the relationships: first and foremost Susannah and Gaaron, but also Gaaron and the willful Miriam, Susannah and her ex-lover, and the intricacies of various minor interactions. The book is a long, slow buildup towards the various climaxes of plot and relationship, which, when they finally arrive, feel more anticlimactic -- but the slight letdown of the ending was more than made up for by the meandering and marvelous journey.
This doesn't quite match up to the only other book of Shinn's that I've read (Summers at Castle Auburn) but it was a well-written and lovingly detailed story, complete with excellent characters and a nicely crafted world, and I'll probably be picking up more in the series. An excellent book to curl up with and slowly savor.
Second review:
"A Fistful Of Sky" by Nina Kiriki Hoffman
The normal child in a magical family discovers that she's not so normal after all.
"Transition" is what Gypsum's family calls it; the time when you come into your magic. All four of Gyp's siblings, older and younger, have already gone through their transitions and received their magical powers, leaving her behind. Gyp, at twenty, knows who she is: the dumpy, mousy one, the normal one, butt of magical pranks she can't defend herself from, or, worse, the determined efforts of her mother to make her "better". So when she falls ill one day, she thinks that's all it is. A normal-girl illness. Only slowly does she learn that she has come into her powers, later than anyone in her family ever has, and in possession of a greater and crueler gift than any of her siblings. For while they have the magic of wishing, Gyp has inherited the gift of cursing, and she must learn to use it before it kills her.
What can I say about this book? It's fast, it's funny, it's beautiful, it kept me up until two am on a work night because I couldn't bear to put it down. The plot isn't intense -- no serial killers or world-ending catastrophes here -- but Gyp has such a wonderful voice that I was willing to read for the pleasure of hearing it, practical, willful, and sympathetic without being pitiable. Add to that the cast of willful, eccentric, and magical family members, all at the same time jaw-droppingly bizarre and wonderfully familiar, and then mix in Gyp's increasingly funny/tragic contortions as she tries to empty herself of curses without actually hurting anyone, and coat it all in gorgeous prose, and, well, two am. And only the fact that it was two am kept me from turning the book over and reading it again.
If you like beautifully written books about funny, wonderful people and don't need a breakneck plot, if you're equally sick of hero-villian plots and books that think "flawed characters" means "guilt-ridden and miserable", if you like reading something that makes you laugh out loud... then this is the book for you.
Just don't say I didn't warn you about the 2 am thing.
The first of a few book reviews (sorry, still thinking about that "life" post):
"The Autumn Castle" by Kim Wilkins
A crippled heiress has her world turned upside down when she discovers her childhood friend was kidnapped by fairies.
Christina Starlight lives in pain thanks to the car accident that killed her parents when she was a teenager; her only comfort is her artist-lover Jude, even if she sometimes doubts that he loves her as intensely as she does him. Then one day she trips over a table, blacks out, and wakes up in a beautiful fairy kingdom ruled over by a childhood friend she thought long dead, a kingdom where her chronic pain vanishes as if it had never been. She thinks it's only a dream, until Mayfridh, her friend turned Fairie Queen, turns up on her doorstep in the real world. The two worlds are in conjuction until the autumn passes, May explains, but when the winter comes they will once again slide apart and passage between them will become impossible. But a single season is enough time for Christine to become dangerously dependent on her visits to the pain-free world; enough time for May to fall dangerously in love with Jude; enough time for a man who has dedicated his life to killing fairies to draw closer and closer to the secret of the passage between worlds....
Two things this book is not: it's not lush with setting, and it's not plot-driven. If you're expecting a radically different take on fairies, don't pick up this book. Aside from the changeling May and the rather intriguing witch-character, the fairies are stock characters indistinguishable from the human; the fairy kingdom, a prettily painted but indistinct picture of light and happiness. The homicidal maniac plot is workmanlike but unsurprising. We already know what's going to happen, we just don't know when or how.
No, the main focus of the book is on the relationships, particularly the painful love triangle between Jude, May, and Christine. Here, too, are few surprises. I guessed within the first few chapters where they'd end up; the only question was how soon they'd get there and which byways of angst we'd explore along the way. They were explored very well and prettily, but I have a big OFF button labeled "Angst" in the centre of my soul, and it's only been made easier to hit by the tendency of fantasy writers to attack it with a big hammer. And this book is nothing if not angsty. Everyone is tortured, with Christine the undeniable Queen of Pain but Jude, May, and several of the supporting characters putting in good bids for heirs-apparent. It's handled well: at least, I finished the book and didn't mutter "Aw, is oo poor widdle rich girl?" more than three or four times. But when the central premise of the book turns you off, there's only so far you can go towards liking it.
If you're a fan of intricately-explored relationships and don't mind a crew of sad-eyed characters, read this book. The characterization is faultless, the wordscraft good, and the premise simple but believable. But if you're likely to find yourself growling "whine, whine, bitch bitch bitch" at overly tragic characters you may wish to go for that Martha Wells instead.
"The Autumn Castle" by Kim Wilkins
A crippled heiress has her world turned upside down when she discovers her childhood friend was kidnapped by fairies.
Christina Starlight lives in pain thanks to the car accident that killed her parents when she was a teenager; her only comfort is her artist-lover Jude, even if she sometimes doubts that he loves her as intensely as she does him. Then one day she trips over a table, blacks out, and wakes up in a beautiful fairy kingdom ruled over by a childhood friend she thought long dead, a kingdom where her chronic pain vanishes as if it had never been. She thinks it's only a dream, until Mayfridh, her friend turned Fairie Queen, turns up on her doorstep in the real world. The two worlds are in conjuction until the autumn passes, May explains, but when the winter comes they will once again slide apart and passage between them will become impossible. But a single season is enough time for Christine to become dangerously dependent on her visits to the pain-free world; enough time for May to fall dangerously in love with Jude; enough time for a man who has dedicated his life to killing fairies to draw closer and closer to the secret of the passage between worlds....
Two things this book is not: it's not lush with setting, and it's not plot-driven. If you're expecting a radically different take on fairies, don't pick up this book. Aside from the changeling May and the rather intriguing witch-character, the fairies are stock characters indistinguishable from the human; the fairy kingdom, a prettily painted but indistinct picture of light and happiness. The homicidal maniac plot is workmanlike but unsurprising. We already know what's going to happen, we just don't know when or how.
No, the main focus of the book is on the relationships, particularly the painful love triangle between Jude, May, and Christine. Here, too, are few surprises. I guessed within the first few chapters where they'd end up; the only question was how soon they'd get there and which byways of angst we'd explore along the way. They were explored very well and prettily, but I have a big OFF button labeled "Angst" in the centre of my soul, and it's only been made easier to hit by the tendency of fantasy writers to attack it with a big hammer. And this book is nothing if not angsty. Everyone is tortured, with Christine the undeniable Queen of Pain but Jude, May, and several of the supporting characters putting in good bids for heirs-apparent. It's handled well: at least, I finished the book and didn't mutter "Aw, is oo poor widdle rich girl?" more than three or four times. But when the central premise of the book turns you off, there's only so far you can go towards liking it.
If you're a fan of intricately-explored relationships and don't mind a crew of sad-eyed characters, read this book. The characterization is faultless, the wordscraft good, and the premise simple but believable. But if you're likely to find yourself growling "whine, whine, bitch bitch bitch" at overly tragic characters you may wish to go for that Martha Wells instead.
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