Settler words&music in S'ólh Téméxw, (leanpub.com/upsun) living where privilege meets precarity in MST country. she/her/they———– Novels: Midnite Moving Co., Upsun; Sweep Off Those Waves coming soon, Hair Sinister after that. —Restore All Indigenous Lands!
There’s an easter egg in there for you and me that I think you’ll like.
Paul just messaged me that he’s coming to get me and I said “I like you pretty much all the time but right now Prince Valiant on a snow white charger doesn’t look as good as you.”
A very partial list of what you can do after five six Muslims were shot dead at the CCIQ in Québec:
Tell Kellie Leitch to **** off and die for her disingenuously offering thoughts and prayers ‘regarding the situation in Quebec’ — carefully not mentioning it was Muslims getting shot. She’s one of the most persistently wretched and nasty Islamophobes currently seeking to lead the Conservative Party, and although I defended her when she got doxxed, I’d cheerfully pie her at this point.
Support charities doing the hard work on the ground getting Muslim refugees resettled.
Send individual letters of support to local mosques. Phone calls are great too but a letter is more substantial.
Go to the facebook page of a local mosque and offer a message of support.
Tell your Muslim neighbours and coworkers that you will not be quiet when Islamophobic comments are made in your vicinity. Ask them what they want to hear allies say, to strengthen your resolve and calm your nerves about saying the right thing. If speaking out was easy more people would do it. Don’t let that stop you.
When their site is secure -it’s behaving quite oddly at the moment – donate to the CCIQ dot org as they will need funds to restore their sanctuary. Keep an eye out for news on the mosque well after the news cycle expires; there may be charities which spring up for those affected, and the horror of this shooting will continue to be part of the community for years to come.
And you know what? It doesn’t matter what the religion is of the felons. What matters is that the violence enables those who hate Muslims and darkies and immigrants.
I feel horrible. Physically I’m okay, but the political sitch in the States is appalling, and I’m staying across the street from SeaTac, and people I know and love put their lives and sacred honour on the line this weekend to protest. It’s hard not to be worried.
I was so stressed I got up and ran away from the luncheon. I’ve been hiding in my room for most of the con; came out to open filk for about an hour, saw Char McKay’s concert, saw Vixy and Tony’s concert, but otherwise I’ve been feeling so sickened by the state of the world I want to hide and stay hidden.
Paul’s coming to get me later on this morning and I can go home – to work at 11 o’clock tonight. I flipped back to being diurnal this weekend so it’s gonna be ****ing carnage.
Fortunately, I have a Denis O’Leary and a Kellie Leitch to prevent from leading the Conservative party in Canada, Islamophobia to fight, and books to edit, and songs to write, and people to love on and feed and snuggle with, and a grandson who needs me to fight for the world he deserves. And a job. I can’t forget that. It’s not a good job, but it’s still worthwhile. I’ll be training the weekend midnights person tonight, apparently.
I drove Paul and I down here; I’m at the Seatac Doubletree. Started fading around 6, stopped for food, got going again.
Had a lovely, lovely world building conversation with Jen, spoke to Tom briefly, tried to stay in the GOH concert and ****ing near FROZE leading me to believe that I was actually too tired to regulate my body temperature so I went to bed and now it’s 3:34 and I haven’t slept till this time in the morning in I don’t know how long. There will still be people filking downstairs but grabbing Otto and walking half a kilometre to get there – this hotel is ****ING HUGE – has little appeal right.now.
Me ‘n hotel beds, man, it’s like all I want to do is sleep.
Arranged steak dinner with Lemming, as per the prophecy; “And the Lemming shall meet in the foreordained place with the crabby old lady, and she will feed him the flesh of beasts and the words of sages.”
I have another shift to survive – and depart from, since sadly I’m not a hundred percent sure I’m going to be relieved in the morning on time, which at this point is like, ok lol. And then I’m at Conflikt X, yay.
Paul’s giving me a lift down and hopefully back again… I may have to take transit north to meet up with him for the ride back but frankly I’m going to worry about that later. Over the years I’ve realized that I only need to take five things to con. My phone, my computer, a bag full of clothes, my passport/wallet and Otto. Everything else almost inevitably proves to be surplus to requirements and sorrowful hard to lug around.
Paul and I walked up to the new pho restaurant on Edmonds and had a lovely meal, my treat.
I am currently working on a near future short story (not in the Upsun universe), an abandoned romance novel which I have retitled Tangled Angels, as well as a destiel fanfic and I’ve started re-edits on Upsun.
Jeff says people may be disappointed in Upsun because it’s not as action packed as MMCo, but there’s definitely action in there. It’s mostly backstory, though; all the stories of how people met with George, as he was trying to bring an entire city under his indirect control for O-day.
Jesse’s story is of alien contact when the contactee figures it out. The Upsun novel stories are about how he chooses to reveal himself to specific people that he needs help from, as gathered by his special friend, Raven, Jesse’s sister.
Sweep off those Waves is mostly about Kima’s pregnancy and George finally moving the chess pieces around so that he can go to astronaut school.
Hair Sinister is about George dealing with failure, heartbreak and angry children.
Sweetie’s House of Tentacles is a slash porn novel, essentially a fanfic set in the Upsun universe between two known characters. It’s thoroughly disgusting, and extremely funny in spots. I had a gas writing it. Oh, and I cried so hard, too. I love that bit.
Sales continue. They will die off in a week if I don’t start marketing. New West Library does not want my book; they’re locked in to a couple of specific ebook service providers, and they only accept works which meet a very narrow set of criteria. I imagine when I check that the rest of the Lower Mainland Library systems will be exactly the same. Fortunately I don’t care.
Wild between the time I started and the time I stopped it incremented by two books. Go litel bok. Go Go Go litel bok.
Edited on Jan 25 – 20 books, including one ‘accident’, and two people on the “I won’t buy it until it’s a book book book” list.
I sold two books yesterday. I will always link it with the women’s march; 3 million men and mostly women marched against Trump in the US. Sixty thousand people turned out in TO, Catherine said it was the biggest demo she’d ever attended and guh knows she’s known a few…. It was my own little contribution to throatpunching fascism. Thanks to whoever bought them!!!
HERE’S the LINK.
The first book in the series (written 4th, time-line 1st) is LIVE ON LEANPUB.
What you can do to support my writing career:
Think of everyone you know who’s into social justice and SF and send them the link.
Sadly think “I can’t afford this” and read it for free, in pieces, on my blog (see sideroll.)
Buy it as a present for someone else.
Laugh at the timing – I’m dropping it the same day as the women’s march, and buy it as a souvenir of women’s resistance.
Fall in love with the characters and buy every novel as it comes out.
Cannily wait until I bundle them all, wee hoo, and buy all five for 10.99, a substantial savings.
Did I mention that there’s social justice and TENTACLES!?!? You has been warned.
Acknowledgements – Jeff for service above and beyond, and mOm for being Cheerleader in Chief (don’t get up, mOm, it’s okay….)
Went to see a therapist today at the request of a family member for family therapy going forward. It was a very good session and I got some insight into the situation which I would not have received any other way. More fun times in February. Really – I had gone in thinking it was all a big drag but came out quite upbeat, and I’d recommend her.
This is part of OPERATION NORMALIZE MENTAL HEALTH SELF CARE.
Then I had my first Fatburger, a lettuce wrapped fatbaby with mushrooms.
A LITTLE EARLY FOR BLACK HISTORY MONTH but Fatburger is a business that was founded by a black woman, so….
Had the most extraordinary encounter with a bus driver today. I ended up hugging him, after he offered one. He said, and I quote, “A real Winnipeg hug” which was LIKE THE SWEETEST THING EVAR SAID TO ME BY MORTAL MANG.
I’m going to write a poem about the experience, he made me laugh until I cried for about 10 minutes, and then my phone alarm went off like a bomb on a tv show and everybody screamed. Sort of. Then all the people on the front part of the bus laughed at me.
After all the horrible things I’ve said about my employer, why would I ask to work there full time? Which I did today. Because when I compare my mental health now to September, I’d rather be working. So that’s it, I’m going to be full time. I HAVE SOMETHING TO COMPLAIN ABOUT EVERY DAY NOW THAT ISN’T DONALD TRUMP how useful. Also, see -working, which also means I’ll have benefits after a while, which is useful.
like this
I need an alarm clock. Using my phone as an alarm is sucking, I have so many multiple alarms to set.
Coworker quit, hellzapoppin’ down to three count them three people to keep the place running. Don’t care. It will be what it will be, no point with any of that flinchy rebellious crap. I’ll be here for the foreseeable future and probably making rude amounts of overtime money.
Paul and I hung out for a bit this evening; I’d felt I’d like forgot what he looks like. I took him to Brown’s Social House and I had a perfectly prepared filet mignon and we laughed very hard about nothing to do with the InHogYourNation.
Really, really, really enjoying X Company this year. Great scripts, excellent acting.
Now I’m going to go sniff the air outside and see if it’s quit raining.
Your coworker quits and that means that you are doomed to never stop working here. She’s apparently going to stealth quit on Friday, which is bullshit. A little adulting, please!? This may actually kill my ability to go to Conflikt at the end of the month, so I’m a teensy bit despairing at the mo. I was given a hall pass, but that was before my colleague decided she won’t be working past tomorrow. I’m already working 2 hours of OT, at least; I’ll know what extra emoluments the day holds after my relief shows up, whenever that is…
I have almost 600 likes on my second Supernatural fanfic. Rowena refers to Castiel as a ‘clucking halfwit’ which I think is a very jolly but rude thing to say. There are a couple of other lines in there I really enjoyed writing, but I think I have to give it up and go back to the ACTUALLY WORKING ON MY OWN SHIT end of the ‘verse. You know, editing, and whatnot.
Jeff calls the new Hulu show “Burn Tarot” and expects Jeffrey Donovan to be doing voiceovers “When you’re a psychic,” and you laugh so hard you pull a rib.
Some irritated person threatens to call the Site Leader (basically GOD ON CALL) when you warn them that work requests will be slow tonight because you’re at 50% staffing and your response is OH WOULD YOU PLEASE we’ll need her help sorting through all the work requests that were in the system AHEAD OF YOURS. That was 3/4 of an hour ago. Yeah, you guessed it, no call. Just as an aside I actually paged the Site Leader yesterday and she didn’t answer, so make of that what you will. She probably pulled an Allegra and when she didn’t recognize the number didn’t pick up lollllol.
People who work nights and complain about the workload and do a shitty job and sleep in the ER until 5 am when they wake up and pretend to do more work are on the receiving end of one of your pointier emails.
I have 64 likes on my Supernatural fic and 4 kudos and I’m thinking I KNOW SOMEBODY LIKES MY WRITING and Jeff says my interest in slash fanfic for a show I don’t watch equals zero, interest in MMCo = 100% and you just think squee.
You’ve invented a fanfic universe in which you have a McGuffin to make any character pairing possible (with a lot of effort, but possible).
Your daughter calls and tells you she got a job, a good job, in a union environment, close to home and you’re dancing around like an idjit.
You think ‘I’m actually going to miss this job’. I mean, I quit a month ago and I’m still working here, it’s insane. And some of the people are so much fun, I come in early just so I can interact with them. Others, well, you know how it is.
I’ve almost paid off my credit card debt and I did it with money I earned.
You forget to tell your mother that you received and deposited the cheque she sent you… a month ago.
You watch the Wrong Box again.
I’m putting it in my pile of movies to watch when I’m feeling icky. Because watching it put a bounce in my step. Figuring out that John Larroquette based his performance in the Librarians in part on Ralph Richardson’s tremendous turn as Joseph Finsbury; (so many classic lines among which ‘the playing of games, with balls of varying sizes’ never fails to crack me up), marvelling at Peter Sellers’ false nose and moggy filled apartment (at one point he mops up an ink blot with a kitten’s ass); drooling over the set dec and costumes, which are lovely, and the script (done in part by Larry Gelbart whom you may also know as one of the creators of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and M*A*S*H the tv show, also family faves), the hilarious and stylish music, with a score by John Barry, also a fave of mine (his theme for the Persuaders was one of the highlights for me on tv when I was a teen); John Mills’ voice; the ridiculous train derailment; Tutte Lemkow, the professional villain, and his entirely mute performance as the knitting mad Bournemouth Strangler. Anyway, if you haven’t seen it, and would like a film that amuses without cloying, it’s really, really good.
So yeah… all in all I’m having a good week, and writing 15k words in 4 days was… interesting. Graphomania is a helluva drug. I was literally pacing when I wanted to write and couldn’t, and that’s PSYCHOMOTOR AGITATION folks. Perhaps the sun is coming back and making me twitterpated.
I’ve written 12000 words in four days on a Supernatural fanfic. While working full time.
I’m treating myself by cabbing to and from work. My brain feels like a little fried hair sticking out of a hair dryer.
and it is nowhere near done.