Scheherazade in Blue Jeans

Again, never time to write anything substantive on here!

* Aimee had job interviews yesterday and today, so I had some scraps of writing time. "The Hollow" continues apace. Once again, I'm choosing to do things I've never done before...

* Life is busy! Adam and I are going to Ghost Quartet tonight, and we're all going to Best of Sirlesque 2 on Friday (Aimee and I are stage kittening). Also there are dates. Also houseguests.

* Redyed my hair pink and purple with some teal bits. Need to take pictures.

* Once I've had a little more time in this air conditioning, I need to venture back to the dining room and decide which of the poems we bought this cycle will be in the next issue of Liminality, and which we'll be holding for the winter issue!

* Consider subscribing or sponsoring Liminality! I deliberately planned sustainability into our business model so we'd never be dependent on the endless cycle of Kickstarters and Indiegogos. But more money = more poems. :)

* Elayna is back at college! She's enjoying her semester so far. We had her at home for just the right amount of time, the tail end of this summer.

* Nicky had his followup echocardiogram, and it looks like his meds are working! Yay Nicky! (EDIT: Just realized I never posted here about this! At his annual checkup, they discovered a heart murmur; they had me bring him back in June, and it had gotten worse, so he had his first echo. Heart disease. :( But the meds and early cardiac diet are working! We are committed to keeping this pup happy and healthy for as long as possible! Echos are expensive, though, man.) Also, I bought him his Halloween costume; he's going to be a dragon. :)

* Arisia scheduling is happening. Got any literature panel ideas? Give 'em here!

* I'm looking at my calendar to figure out what else to update people on. I go to a bunch of shows, I have a bunch of dates, I have been going to a lot of parties! I'm looking forward to autumn.

And now I must go do more work! But ask me for updates on stuff in comments, if you're curious.

On Thursday, I went to court to get the restraining order against my rapist renewed.

This time, he showed up.

I figured he would; he and his lawyer were aggressive during discussions re: the lawsuit about getting me to drop the restraining order. Which my lawyer told him I would not do. And since, he's been RSVPing to every publicly-viewable local Facebook event that I'm RSVPed to starting the day after the order was set to expire. Which sends a message.

So I went to court. He entered after me and, in an almost-empty courthouse, sat behind me. Directly behind me.

They eventually called our docket number, and we rose.

And I had to stand next to my rapist. Shaking, dry-mouthed. And the judge had me start from the beginning: what happened?

Your honor, he raped me. Two days later, he violently assaulted me. The police arrived at the end of that assault and took us to the courthouse, where he confessed, in detail, and that's when the restraining order against him was first put in place.

I'm tired of telling this story. Standing next to my unrepentant rapist while I told it was a new twist, certainly. But dear gods, I am tired of telling this story. Of saying it again and again to judges, to lawyers, to people who ask about it.

It's been two years. I have other stories now. Better stories. Stories that have nothing to do with him.

But while he continues to be unrepentant and vicious, to stalk and harass, I have to keep telling this story. And yeah. It's a way he gets to keep revictimizing me.

(He told the judge he was tired of looking over his shoulder. He's tired. Oh.)

My restraining order is renewed for another year.

Comments are closed on this post because I have nothing else to say about it. And I am going to immediately write a post about a story I like to tell. One without him in it.

I am still waiting.

But I dyed the tips of my hair a bright, vivid pink (that is fading, but we'll bring it back) and highlighted the rest of it. I have started the reclamation of my backyard; it's going to have berry bushes and a seating area and a raised bed and an herb spiral. I have, with my boyfriend's input, picked out my future new bed.

Readercon was; the ongoing waiting made it difficult, as it makes many things difficult. But I talked about a book that changed my life (Dhalgren) on a panel, and the man who wrote it (Samuel R. Delany) thanked me, genuinely, for my reading and appreciation of it. That was a big, big moment. And I read from the novel, and everyone really liked it and picked up on stuff I was doing and thought I was doing it really well.

Friday night, I went to a barbecue at the house of a friend who is new-ish, since The Incident. There's a before and after, you know. There are people who've only really known me since. He greeted me with a hug and told me there were kofta on the grill, the same recipe that another friend(/occasional lover) had brought to my Pig Cotillion, and I liked that there was just this ecosystem of parties. Aimee's realizing that, as she lives here, this very very large group of wonderful people that just form and reform in various configurations every weekend, sometimes with the transmission of recipes. I am happy to be here.

And then we went to a burlesque/comedy/variety show, where I saw some of my favorite performers, and the people who knew about the Intimidating Thing I'm attempting (more on that after my audition!) (no, it is not dancing!) were so enthusiastic about me attempting it and so happy that I just felt... tremendously supported.

And seen.

(Witness me!)

I am excited about the New Horizons mission to Pluto. I'm reading a lot. I'm knitting a lot. I will, this week, have my first writing time since March, and I have a story demanding to get out. Before that writing time, I have a date-day with my boyfriend, who is sort of miraculously my boyfriend. He decided he didn't need a code name, and then the potential code names started emerging: Golden Retriever Boyfriend, Farmboy, etc. Matthew. He's Matthew, and one of the things about him is that he is joyful. I have to write about him more, and other people I'm on various paths with. I haven't been writing here because it feels like I have to have Large Things to say and I have the one background Large Thing and then I have smaller things. I should talk about the smaller things more.

It's been a busy and active weekend, and today I'll be resting, because tonight I'm going to a show, and tomorrow is Matthew, and on Tuesday I'll start writing "The Hollow" and will hope it doesn't insist on being a novel. (Everything wants to be a novel know that I know that I can write a novel.)

Wearing: The tank top and underpants I slept in.
Reading: On the Move by Oliver Sacks
Writing: "The Hollow", soon
Knitting: Dewberry in hot pink for Elayna; just finished a Through the Loops MKAL.
Planning: A week of writing. An Intimidating Thing. Buying my new bed, hopefully soon.

Readercon is July 9-12!

Friday
1:30 PM Reading: Shira Lipkin. Shira Lipkin reads a forthcoming short story.

4:00 PM Dhalgren at 40. Jim Freund, Max Gladstone, Elizabeth Hand (leader), Shira Lipkin, John Stevens.
Samuel R. Delany's Dhalgren was first published in 1975. It is now widely considered a classic, yet there is also the perception that it is a "difficult" book. How much has it influenced other authors and works? Does its dream-city serve as a predecessor for more recent fantastical places such as Ambergris or New Crobuzon? How have its experiments with the form of the narrative inspired more recent works? And how might a reader approach it for the first time from the vantage point of 2015?

7:00 PM Kaffeeklatsch. Yoon Lee, Shira Lipkin.


Saturday
10:00 AM Successfully Writing About Horrible Things. Mike Allen, Catt Kingsgrave, Shira Lipkin, Kate Nepveu (leader), Patty Templeton.
If you're not writing horror but your plot calls for something horrific to happen to a character, how do you handle it? You might go overboard and be detailed to the point of undermining or derailing the narrative, or might be so vague that the horrific event has little effect on the reader or the story. A reader who's been through a similar experience might be offended or distressed by a description of awfulness that's lurid, gratuitous, clichéd, or bland. What strategies can writers use to help readers empathize with the characters' suffering and build stories that respectfully handle the consequences of terrible events, without falling into these traps?

1:00 PM In Memoriam YA Fiction Book Club: Hat Full of Sky. Stacie Hanes, Victoria Janssen, Shira Lipkin, Rachel Steiger-Meister, Emily Wagner. The second book in the Tiffany Aching series sees Pratchett's young heroine ready to begin her magical apprenticeship, which goes nothing like she expects and leads to trouble, especially with other young witches-in-training. What she doesn't know is that something insidious is coming after her, and none of the other witches can help. We wanted to do something to mark the death of genre giant Pratchett, and while any of his books would be worth talking about, the Tiffany Aching series is some of his most thoughtful work. The adventures of a young girl learning what it means to be a witch speak deeply to readers, as she demystifies some aspects of witchery and finds deeper mysteries of life and magic in others, all while learning to be clever, kind, and brave. Readers of all ages are welcome to join the conversation.


Yay for a light schedule, and yay for this being the last con I have to do this year. (Didn't do Boskone or Vericon, and won't be doing PiCon; consciously cutting back.) As usual, if you do nothing else, please come to the reading and/or kaffeeklatsch!

Last night, I went to a Buffy-themed burlesque show.

I've been going to a lot of burlesque shows! It is awesome fun in a way I'll write about elsetime. And since Aimee moved in a few weeks ago, I've been dressing up for them more and more. (That move, by the way? Totally awesome. Best housemate.) Last night, I wore the big pink ballgown Adam got for me on Freecycle and went as prom!Buffy with Aimee's Faith and Adam's Oz (with the "GOD" nametag - Adam's first dress-up!).

Aimee and I won the costume contest, but this isn't about that, it's about an interaction I had after the show. A woman said to me "I got turned around coming out of the T station and didn't know how to get to the venue, but then I saw you and thought 'Well, I'll just follow Buffy!'" And I loved that, and I've been thinking about why I loved that.

It ties in to how I went full ludicrous with my clothes at times at Wiscon. If you didn't see on Facebook: I got an ankle-length silver sequined coat thing at the clothing swap, and a velvet dress slit up to THERE, and a black faux fur cape, and I combined all of that with the mesh-sleeved shirt and the vinyl/lace/chained/studded bolero I brought with me. I was told that I spent the con moving through stages of David Bowie. :) And I wore that ballgown to an 80s prom at Legoland the day before Wiscon, and did 70s key party realness for a theme party the Saturday after Readercon. I bought a feather collar/cape. I have The Mermaid Dress, which I'll be wearing to a faerie-themed party on Saturday.

I had a date with Ten today, which was absolutely wonderful in so many ways. One of those ways: my schedule has been jam-packed, too much gogogogogo, and I slow down when I'm with Ten. I get grounded. We have the spaces between the notes.

But also, we have great conversations, and we were talking about many things today, an intersection of which was him saying "that's why people are drawn to you - because if the music is good, you're on the floor. You don't need anyone else to get there first to make it okay for you. You make it okay for them."

My not-fully-formed tipsy thought on Facebook last night was "I will be the outlandishly dressed person who lights the path." And: yes. I have not always been that. I have had that shyness, that difficulty stepping out, being first. But now that I know - I have been learning for a while now - how wonderful it feels to step out and beckon to others, to give them permission to be a little silly by being a lot silly... (EDIT: As an example: At Legoland's 80s prom, Ten and I did a spontaneous interpretive dance to "Total Eclipse of the Heart". FULL DRAMA.)

I'm happy with it.

I'm happy.

I've been quiet here because the case against Judah has been grinding me to paste. He and his lawyer have been doing a lot of stuff that's retraumatized me. April, in particular, was a nightmare of situational depression. I had a lot of days when I did not feel capable of living. I had to tell myself "okay, you need to do two things today: you need to walk the dog when he needs walking, and you need to eat three meals. If that's all you can do today, that's okay. But you have to do those things." I knew this was temporary. I knew that it would end. I just had to be patient and not be angry at myself and my brain and body for having this reaction to horrific stress. And many days in April, that really was all I got done in any day. Walking the dog, and eating three meals. But I did it. Every day. And I emerged.

I emerged angry, due to particularly heinous Judah shenanigans. And I emerged into a horrendously busy month, a Red Queen's race, where I had weeks like "Wednesday: Elayna moves into her new apartment. Friday: Aimee moves in." And then, days later, Wiscon, and I have been running.

I have been determined.

I may be quiet about Judah stuff for a little while. This post is your warrant canary. If I am, know that you can ask Adam. Or Aimee. Or anyone, really. If I am, know that it's because it's the best route to achieve my goals. And know that I will eventually tell you everything.

But that is the one thorn in my life right now. I look forward to its removal.

I'm sipping sweet tea with mint today. Aimee made it, using leftover mint from a bunch a lovely friend brought over to our Pig Cotillion on Saturday - our biggest and best party ever. Eight hours of barbecue and the perfect coconut layer cake, mint juleps and Sazeracs, people from all over our social circles having a blast. I won that Buffy costume contest with Aimee, and I won a Sparkle Spelling Bee with Toby last week. (The day before that, I was actually onstage for a dancer-friend's burlesque routine, but that's a different story.) Aimee is fitting perfectly into our household - she and Adam could geek out together about horror movies for hours. I had an amazing date with Ten. I'm going to a party on Saturday night at Matthew's house. Matthew, who said he doesn't tend to date, but who now looks at me in absolute delight and wonder sometimes and says half to himself, "You're my girlfriend!" I am seeing so many of my favorite people; Ten said today that he was excited to meet Mink on Saturday, because he knows she's one of my Important People. And all of my Important People have such affection for each other...

My tiny dog is sprawled next to me, and it's a quiet June afternoon, and my wonderful husband will be home soon.

This is what I've been up to. Running. Fighting. Living. Glittering all over the place. Loving. Being the first person on the dance floor. Reaching out my hand - join me.

Hi.

Originally posted by time_shark at The CLOCKWORK PHOENIX 5 Kickstarter is alive

Not dead yet, I promise. :)

So on Monday, I sent out query letters.

I finished the book late last year, finished revising it this January? February?, sent it to beta readers and got feedback - and the feedback was mostly "this is ready now", with a few individual questions and two typos noted. (Individual questions are okay - what I was looking for was "do a bunch of readers not understand how we get from A to B? because if that is the case, I failed to make it clear and need to fix it.")

I... had very little to fix. Which was disconcerting.

Scrabbled about and agonized over a title, because the working title is good as a shorthand but terrible as a title for a book in stores. Found one that works. Agonized over a query letter.

The thing is that I use humor as a way to defuse stressful things, so I could not get past a wacky jocular tone for it. Which would be fine if it was a funny book. It is not, in fact, a funny book, although it has some funny bits in it.

So Adam, who'd been researching How To Write a Query Letter right alongside me, turned to me and said "Do you want me to-" and I said "I WAS JUST GOING TO ASK YOU." Because that way he could get the tone right, and I could go over it and see what was omg Adam no wrong and what else really needed to be in there. Altogether, we turned out what I hope is the perfect query letter in not much time.

And I sent it out. With personalized bits for the agents in question and excerpts of the requested length et cetera et cetera and now? Now the entire process is out of my hands.

So that's where that is.

I have a lot of other stuff going on! But every time I think about what to write, I find that thing X bleeds into thing Y which affects thing Z and it's not all coalesced yet. I am having a lot of thoughts, basically. And a lot of them tie into the book and why I've been procrastinating over it quite so much! But I wanted to post something. :)

Not dead. Quite busy. Deep in thought.

EDIT: And just got a request for the full manuscript from a freaking dream agent. *hyperventilates*

Hallo! It is my birthday! *throws glitter confetti*

What do I want for my birthday? I want you to sponsor me in the BARCC Walk for Change! Help BARCC help survivors!

You can also sign up to walk with me and Adam on Team Venture!

I went up to Burlington, VT for pre-birthday shenanigans... a birthday party, gizmometer's show, a brunch, Dobra Tea, many friends and lovers old and new. <3 Low-key day today because yesterday was travel, but I have fun planned for the rest of the week and another party Saturday. <3 It's a good life.

The snow continues to be a burden. I know I haven't blathered much about it here (or much about anything here), but it is just exhausting. Nine feet in three weeks is ridic. I posted this link on Facebook before our most recent two-more-feet storm. Still accurate. So there's the physical obstacle of the snow, and the psychological impact of being snowbound. February is being very difficult.

Seriously do google around to find pics of the epic snow, if you haven't seen them already.

A couple of beta readers have finished the novel, yay! Intimidatingly, they... are not giving me much to fix. They really like it as-is, which the occasional question that I can resolve with an additional sentence here and there.

I was unprepared for this? Honestly it only got a little expanded from Draft Zero, and... the received wisdom is that you do a shitty first draft and then you do like 6 more drafts and then you throw it in a drawer and write six more novels that you lather rinse repeat with, and then you turn out a competent novel. So. I was not prepared to spend a chunk of yesterday looking for agents. Hello I am bewildered but... I guess I have to do something with the book?

The answer to "who are you dating" is increasingly complicated, but in a way that is really working for me. :)

Hm. What else? My birthday is coming up! The thing I want more than anything else is for someone to come help me paint my home office. Small room, quick job, but my hands don't work well enough to tackle it on my own.

The thing I want most besides that is a four-poster or canopy bed - wood, not metal; metal gets cold - so if you see one for cheap, let me know.

Also I have a wishlist that cleverly links to the rest of my wishlists. I do not need stuff but if you like to get people stuff, that is the stuff I am particularly interested in.

Yes, that's a 40-pound crate of cereal marshmallows. I AM FOLLOWING MY DREAMS.

Okay. Showertime so I can make my hair pretty, because tonight is Adam's and my belated Valentine's Day dinner at Alden & Harlow! (Thank you for the gift card, Aunt Mary Ann!)