An Amusing Note In My Personal Evolution

When I made an entry detailing my first professional publication, I got 94 comments congratulating me.  Now, admittedly, I made a big ol’ entry that told a story about how hard this tale was for me to write and what it meant and had a picture of me triumphantly holding up a T-shirt, but that was a lot of comments.
These days, when I announce a sale – even a big one – I’m lucky if I break ten comments.
This is, weirdly enough, an encouraging thought.  Because I suspect a lot of the comments on that first post were inspired by “We’ve watched you fail for so long, and now you’ve finally done it!  That’s amazing!  Good for you!”  It was a release of the bottled-up tension you could feel in this journal, the pop of a champagne cork, the sound of a man leveling up.
These days, selling a story – even at pro rates – is a nice thing for me, but hardly unusual.  I’ve become enough of a writer that, well, it’s expected of me.  I’ve evolved from “Hey, you did it!” to “That’s what you do” – and even though it’s still a surprise to me every time, it’s no longer a surprise to you.
I actually feel good about it, even though this is the trough of a newer journey; now I have to evolve from 7 comments from mostly-friends to 94 comments from fans going “OMG I LOVE YOUR STORIES WHEN CAN I SEE THIS?” – which will take a while, if at all.  But I’m in the stagecoach, bumping along the trail, making progress.
Speaking of fannish activities, I should like to remind you that:

• If you didn’t get a chance to read it, “My Father’s Wounds” is still up at Beneath Ceaseless Skies and can always use some love in the comment threads;
• I’ll be arriving at Reno WorldCon tomorrow, if anyone wants to meet up for a drink or two.  I’m on a single panel because I was too shy to ask to be put on panels at a place where there are real writers hanging about who would doubtlessly laugh at me if they saw me in person.  Yes, I’m still ludicrously insecure, even though I’ve been on panels with real writers many times at Penguicon and ConFusion.  DO NOT QUESTION MY NEUROSES.

Two Excellent Links Passed On From Clarion Classmates

My Clarion-compatriot Kat Howard (who also co-runs Fantasy Matters) discusses the most evil thing I have ever heard of in publishing. And this is from PublishAmerica, who published the you-really-have-to-look-at-this-if-you-haven’t-seen-it Atlanta Nights.  I am hoping that J.K. Rowling brings such a smackhammer down on PublishAmerica that they close their doors.
(Kat also brings up another fine piece of advice in that there is often a looooong gap between sales.  She went for a year; I had eight months.  This is normal when you are beginning and taking risks, as you should.  Do not panic.  Stay thirsty, my friends.)
And from my other Clarion compatriot Grá Linnaea, we have a link to the most honest, heartrending, and absolutely true story of what it takes to have a “fairytale” marriage.  Oh, my friends, every word she says is true and you should commit it to your heart.

Another Story Sold! "Devour," To Escape Pod

I am thrilled to announce the sale of “Devour” to the premier science fiction podcaster, Escape Pod.
“Devour” is the tale of an elderly gay married couple who are infected by a long-forgotten military bio-weapon – faithful and generous readers may remember me live-blogging a revision of this story during last year’s Clarion Echo effort, and I think it’s one of my most powerful stories ever.  (It’s based on watching my mother try to cope with my stepfather’s failing struggle with Lou Gehrig’s disease, and the love that emanated from them before Bruce finally passed on.)
Escape Pod always does good productions, so I can’t wait to see this one go live!  Plus, it’s paid at professional rates because Escape Pod is just that good.

Things I'd Be Way Behind If It Wasn't For That

I’d be a lot more comfortable with groups using their persecution as a way of inspiring their other members to act… if humanity was good at recognizing when they’ve won.  But we’re not.
The latest evidence in this “poor ability to demarcate victory” comes from this essay on “Invisible Christian Privilege,” wherein American Christians genuinely believe that they are a persecuted, minority faction who are being silenced by large, powerful forces. Their evidence?  Well, people are trying to change aspects of the culture they live in. Though Christian themes are largely dominant in America (check the link for some good examples), the fact that there is any resistance at all means that they’re being backed into a corner.
Thing is, it was true once.  Christians did start off as a small, persecuted sect.  (And to be fair, there are places in the world where they are still.)  But though that sect grew, the self-image of themselves as a small band of people fighting against a world that hates them remained a tremendous marketing tool. I always think about Garrison Keillor’s observation that he never felt more Lutheran than in New York – in Minnesota, being Lutheran was an assumed thing that you never had to fight for, but in the tussle and rumble of New York, he felt defined (and, one suspects, energized) by the competing forces.
This isn’t just Christians.  You can see it in conservatives (who don’t see how thoroughly their ideas of “anyone who raises taxes has done a bad job” and “government is inefficient” has permeated mainstream thought, thus defining even Democratic elections), and Israel’s often shameful treatment and justification of Palestine (even though, admittedly, Israel is in a place where it can lose badly if it drops guard), and, well, pretty much everywhere you have someone in power.  Considering that most powerful groups start out as a small group of rebels, they’re going to start out persecuted – and that air of persecution stays with them all the way to the top. At which point they use it as an argument to try to quash genuinely persecuted groups.
The problem I have is that these small groups are legitimately persecuted… for now.  And it’s useful, really useful, to be able to point to a clear enemy of The Other Side and say that they’re winning, and are always going to in, unless we fight them now.  But regardless, I always have a discomfort when any group uses that persecution as a way of energizing the base, because no group seems to notice that point when it’s started winning the battle. Even if I want them to win, which I often do, I’m pretty sure if they achieve victory that sense of outrage will then be used to elbow other, smaller, groups to one side.
Speaking of winning battles, I was thinking that in theory, I’m for the draft.  I think that America’s gotten too addicted to bloodless wars, fought by a small percentage of increasingly invisible patriots.  The needs of military families are such that often, only other military families really understand – so they cluster together to form their own culture.  Which means the next generation of America’s soldiers coming from a place that doesn’t really intersect with “mainstream” American culture – growing up in New England, I knew hardly anyone who enlisted in the Army, and out in Ohio, I’m not close friends with anyone who has multiple close family members in the military.
What that means is that we have our wars fought disproportionately by people who most of America never interacts.  Unless you’re in that culture, you don’t have anyone close that you’ve lost in multiple wars we’re fighting… So those wars become invisible, fought by people “over there” who do all the dying for you, while you stay in the suburbs and have a cappucino.
That makes those wars very easy to have.  Sure, why not go into Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq?  What does it cost most of America?  A couple more newcasts with flag-draped coffins – and certainly no higher taxes.  So we can just keep justifying them.
So in theory, I like the idea of a draft – if we’re going to have wars, we should have the sacrifice come from all over America.  So whenever we have some sort of conflict, America is forced to be constantly in touch with the human cost.  It can’t all fall on the shoulders of these poor valorous bastards over here; if you think the cause is just, you have to wager the most precious thing you have.
Unfortunately, then I realize what happens at the beginning of every war: we’re going to win it!  Historically speaking, if you listen to the politicians, every war that’s ever been fought will be over in a few months!  No casualties!  This will be easy!  The politicians never seem to consider what will happen if they’re wrong, and they always overestimate the abilities of Our Fighting Forces because we’re totally the best, how can you say we might lose to those scruffy nerd-herders over there?  And once we get in there and find it’s not quite that easy, we start tallying the costs of this unwise maneuver, and how can we pull out now without a clear victory?  Look at all those dead people!  Do you want them to have died for nothing?
So we find it easy to get into wars, because they’re sold to us as trivial things, and we find it hard to get out because once we’ve spilled blood we can’t admit we’ve made an embarrassing mistake – which means that really, reinstituting the draft just means we wind up with more Vietnams.  (Plus, yes, I know, our military is better as all-volunteer because the quality of someone who want to be a soldier is a lot better than “random dude who was dragged in against his will.”)
Sadly, I don’t see a way out.  The core problem is that politicians are eager to start wars – again, partially because of that whole persecution complex of “Those guys over there are evil and want to destroy us” makes it an easy sell.  That’s not really changing, and I don’t know how to fix that.
 

Bert and Ernie

There’s a movement that’s asking Sesame Street to allow Bert and Ernie, at long last, to become a happily married gay couple.  And I’m against it.
I’m not against Bert and Ernie getting married because I’m against gay marriage, for I am not; I’m not against it because I think that my childhood memories should never change.
It’s because I’m against the sexualization of every friendship in the goddamned world, that’s why.
That’s one of the things I dislike about most slash-fiction – that quiet assumption that every intense friendship must lead to hot’n’sweaty coupling.  If two people like each other, goes the thinking, then they must be sexually attracted!  And wham, all sorts of terrible fiction get written because if two people have shared an emotional intimacy, they must inevitably rush to entwine appendages.
Fuck that.  There’s all sorts of love in the world, and not all of it has to involve our genitalia.  Particularly to children, I think it’s necessary to accentuate the Agape and Philia along with the Eros.  I think there are a lot of damaged people out there who have bought into this idea that “If I feel an intense connection to X, I must therefore move to sleeping with X” – a concept that often ends in disaster.  There’s nothing wrong with staunch friendship, even with those who continually irritate you – in fact, if Ernie and Bert are a couple (cue the inevitable rendition of “My Girlfriend Who Lives In Canada”), then they’re a bitchy dysfunctional couple who are probably going to get divorced in a few years.
No.  I think you can be good friends and nothing more than good friends. And that is not only a good thing, but admirable.
That said, there’s something distinctly disingenuous about Sesame Street’s insistence that puppets have no sexuality; some of the characters have girlfriends, which is a tacit endorsement of heterosexuality.  (I had no idea the Count had not one, but three girlfriends.  But for a man who loves counting, it seems appropriate he’d be polyamorous.)  So if you wanted to bring in a set of boyfriend-characters, or have Elmo pick up a lover, then I’m fine with that.  (Hopefully, shoving something in Elmo’s mouth would shut him up – and it would provide a lovely frisson the next time you saw someone tickling Elmo.)
I’m all for having more gayness in Sesame Street.  But Bert and Ernie?  No.  Let them remain friends.  Teach kids about gay relationships, but also teach them that not every friendship inevitably dissolves into lust – and let Bert and Ernie be that channel. At a time when our politicians are so hostile and divided that our government can barely function, this lesson’s more necessary than ever.  In fact:
“Bert and Ernie are characters who help demonstrate to children that despite their differences, they can be good friends.”  Wise words from the Sesame Workshop, almost twenty years ago.