A List of Things Likely to Make Up a Good Day
- Being able to cook breakfast
- Being acknowledged by a dog or cat–preferably both
- The consumption and purchase of good cheese
- Buying a new comic book
- Having just enough work to feel productive, while not enough to bring exhaustion
- Getting just the right opportunity to use the phrase «your mouth is a fountain of LIES!», i.e., when you have been misinformed about something utterly unserious and harmless.
- The opportunity to take a walk that is neither too long nor too short, in pleasant weather, while listening to your favorite music
- Doing a thing you’ve been neglecting, such as sweeping your room
- Talking to a friend or two
Today was a good day.
Untitled Thing, January 21,2021
As my corset pressed tighter against my midsection, I felt increasingly more comfortable and ready for the time to come. Without it, my existence felt precarious and uncontrollable, like the wind; with it, I felt solid. My energies could be marshaled in whatever direction became necessary instead of uselessly and chaotically dispersing every which way. And it didn’t hurt that I loved the way it made me look. I would never be willowy like my older sisters, but then I didn’t need to be.
“A little tighter,” I instructed my maid, Aria. Presently, I needed as much help as I could get. Like the rest of my family—at least those who still lived at home or in the city—I was expected to be in attendance at tonight’s party, which meant many opportunities for me to inadvertently embarrass my parents and siblings. Once upon a time, that would have happened with some regularity—my father’s work and position meant there were many parties, many dinners, and many social events.
I’m not good at talking to others. I take things too literally and am bad at identifying the deeper meanings behind words. I go on and on about whatever subjects interest me, hardly ever letting others get a word in edgewise, which I’m told many dislike. I’ll often say whatever comes to mind, without really understanding how it might be insulting or offensive. In order to prevent those things, I eventually found it safer to say nothing at all.
And then I began tightlacing. Buoyed by my stays, I had the presence of mind to remember to follow all the rules of proper social discourse. It didn’t make parties easier—they are, in fact, exhausting—but at least I am no longer as likely to regret them afterwards. Sometimes, under the right circumstances, they can even be enjoyable.
“Thank you, that’s enough,” I said, and Aria, with her usual dexterity and speed, tied the excess lace into a bow. The pressure around my waist, the sensation of my lungs expanding and contracting against the whalebone and cotton, my unalterable posture, all felt more constant and reassuring than any hug. Any tighter, however, and the corset would be just as distracting as if I weren’t wearing it at all. It would still be a while before I was fully prepared, but the most important part, at least, was over.
Fan Fiction: «The Aquarium»
So Chasing Life, one of my favorite new shows of the last few years, got cancelled earlier this month. Worse still (depending on how you look at things) it ended with most of its ongoing plots unresolved, including the one where Brenna Carver dealt with the return of ex-girlfriend and fellow cinnamon roll Greer Danville to Boston. The episode itself indicated that Brenna was getting ready for a night out with Greer at the New England Aquarium, before being interrupted by other events. We never got to see the date, which is an absolute crime, particularly since we hadn’t seen Greer all season. So I wrote it.
At the entrance to the New England Aquarium, Greer Danville tried not to pace.
She wasn’t normally this anxious. Correction: she wasn’t normally this visibly anxious. Correction correction: she wasn’t normally this excited. Yes, that was better. In any case, it was all Brenna Carver’s fault.Greer had not known what to expect when she’d showed up at Brenna’s house the previous day. The two former girlfriends were still on friendly terms, and their break-up had everything to do with external factors and nothing to do with the way they actually felt about each other, but still, a lot could change in five months. Brenna’s social media feed, at least, had suggested some level of moving on, and Greer had convinced herself that she was fine with that, if that was the case.
(Correction: almost convinced herself.)
The rest of the fic can be read at Fanfiction.net.
My favorite thing this month.
So yesterday I got the finished version of this:
It’s a picture of Pari, the protagonist from my perpetually in-progress novel Faerie. It was done by the awesome madseason , (ETA: with additional guidance from Kahaeli). I love it to bits.
Announcements: Chasing Smaller Sheep and Comic Book Reviews
I haven’t posted anything here in a while, but I have a perfectly good excuse. I was on the moon. With Steve.
(Actually, no. It’s just that between work, a sudden influx of activity on my other blog, and life, I just haven’t been able to summon the focus required for the sort of thing that I like posting here.)
In any case, I just wanted to announce that this blog now has an associated Tumblr page, Chasing Smaller Sheep,where I’ll be posting whatever interests me that doesn’t require the whole post treatment. Also, I am now writing comic book reviews for The Trade Paperback Reading Order, a website focusing on graphic novel trade paperbacks. The first one is a review of the third volume of Archie: The Married Life, which among other things features the wedding of Kevin Keller and his therapist boyfriend Clay Walker, and the plan is to produce one new review a week.
So yeah. While it’ll probably take a while, I still plan on producing content for this blog. But until then, I’m far from gone.
The beginning of a story I will most likely never finish.
Ada knew all the stories, from the one about how the three deities created the planet to the one about the discovery of cheese. Which is why, when her sister was taken by vegigantes, creatures with bodies of flame that seemed to dance in the night and horned masks with more colors than she could name, the girl of sixteen had nothing to say except for an annoyed “fuck” before setting on after them.
This Post Is About Stuff
So today I found out about the existence of a book called I Speak for Myself: American Women on Being Muslim, which I instantly decided to buy, not only because it sounds fascinating, but because it’s kind of the subject of the novel I’m working on, and while I’m fairly confident in my ability to actually make my characters into individuals and not stereotypes, getting to actually know more about their variety of experiences can only help me improve on that score.
And yet…
Occasionally, I find myself finding out that somebody somewhere has already used a story concept that I’d individually decided I’d like to use. This in itself is fine–it’s nigh impossible to come out with completely original concepts, so it’s not something I worry about too much. The problem lies in deciding whether I’d like to actually see the completed work using that concept: on one hand, it allows me to see just how similar the takes on the concept are, but on the other hand, it allows me to see just how similar the takes on the concept are. If I find that a particular element I intended to use is replicated in the existing work, I suddenly end up feeling much less secure about it. Plus, it makes it impossible for me not to be influenced by the earlier work, which makes my work feel like less of my work. And although the situations aren’t equivalent–unlike Faerie, I Speak For Myself is non-fiction–I fear that may hold true here as well. What to do, what to do…?
On another note:
Yesterday I bought the book Black Images in the Comics: A Visual History (note: cover includes historically offensive and racist depictions of black people), by Fredrick Strömberg. A collection of excerpts from various comic (both newspaper comics and comic books), it aims to show and contextualize the way black people have been represented across the history of the medium. While I feel it’s problematic in parts–Strömberg approaches the book from the viewpoint of a comic book historian who found an interesting angle, rather than somebody who is particularly interested in race, so it sometimes seems that his understanding of the latter isn’t quite up to the 101 level–it’s a worth taking a look like if you’re a fan of the medium.
Faerie: Trigger Warnings / Content Notes
I’ll admit it: I’m no good when it comes to identifying potential triggers–a good breakdown about what that means can be seen here— in what I write. I’m just not very good at the particular type of empathy necessary to see what can and can’t be bothersome to others. While I’m not yet sure whether I’ll include Trigger Warnings in my completed works, I would like to include them in any excerpts I post online, so given my own inability, I turn to my readers. If you see anything in my posts that you feel may require a trigger warning, let me know and I’ll add it ASAP. Thanks.
Faerie: Chapter 1(.1?)
Note: there might be formatting issues–I don’t think stuff like italics and such copied and pasted properly from Open Office. In any case, this is the first draft for chapter 1 of Faerie, introducing a few of our characters.
Chasing Sheep 
Trumped
noviembre 11, 2016 at 12:25 am (Commentary, Current Events, Faerie, Ian Writes, Politics, Race, Racism)
So, the elections happened. The results were terrible, to the point where I’m actually currently somewhat grateful for the degree of separation that currently exists between Puerto Rico and the states. I’m still processing, and in moments when I can process about the comparatively trivial, I think, well, this is going to affect the shit out of my novel.
Context: Over the past month or so, I’ve actually gone back to working on Faerie, which over the years had become something I only occasionally talked about but never get any closer to completing, but has now become some 30,000+ words long, i.e., about as long as an Animorphs book. And then Trump happened, which is making me reconsider the whole thing, again. Now, on top of not being sure if the story about two teenage Muslimahs dealing with their evolving feelings about their religion in a newly Islamophobic environment is a story I should be telling or can do justice to, I’m sort of kinda feeling like Trump and what he’s done need to be part of the story. While this works, to a degree–it fits right in with the themes and plot–it also means rethinking large swaths of what I’ve already done, including the book’s overall tone, as well as several key characters and scenes. So I have questions, and no answers yet.
In any case, until those answers come, I decided to write for today’s 1,500 words a scene where my characters actually deal with the election. Right now it exists more or less as a way to process my own thoughts and put them on paper, and to try to get something positive out of the whole thing: I’m not sure if it will actually make it into the final work, although some version probably will, if the story is still set in 2016 by the time the second draft begins.
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