"I will battle for the sun..."

There are certain sorts of book reviews I like better than others. For example, I loathe the "book report" style of review. And one of the sorts I most enjoy reading is the book review wherein the reviewer spends more time talking about the effect the book has had on her or him than about the book itself. Which is exactly the sort that Catherynne M. Valente (yuki_onna) has written about The Red Tree. You can read her review here. It made me very, very happy. I particularly liked this line —— "I thought it would be like House of Leaves, but it was nothing, really, nothing like that book..." I think it's a fair mistake a lot of readers will make going into the novel, in part because of the way I've chosen to present it.

Started the day off talking with my film agent at UTA, describing to him the sort of film I think should be made from The Red Tree, which is a very peculiar way to begin a day. More on this as it develops.

Yesterday, I wrote 1,092 words on a new sf story, "A Hole in the Bottom of the Sea," that I've been trying to get started since early June. Yesterday, I finally found the way in. It may throw off my plans to get both Sirenia Digest #s 45 and 46 written this month. But what the hell. This is a story I want to write, and one that's been in my head for more than two months, that has refused me entry until yesterday. Oh, a question. In it, I present a new subspecies of Homo sapeins genetically engineered for life in the sea, H. sapiens natator. And I'm calling them "amphibs." But I don't really like that term, because they're not actually amphibious, but completely marine. Any suggestions for an alternate term?

Also, I had a new sort of soda yesterday. It's called Zevia, and it's sweetened not with cane sugar, but with an herb called stevia (Stevia rebaudiana). The lemon-lime flavor is quite good, with only a faint aftertaste. The root beer wasn't very good, but I have hope for both the orange and ginger ale. Anyway, Zevia is sugar free, caffeine free, has zero calories, and no net carbohydrates.

Anyway, I'm running a little late, and there's email to answer, so I should probably wind this up.

"The music is outside..."

Very unusual for me to make two actual blog entries in one day (though I sometimes will do the one long morning one, and something short in the evening), but Mother is programmed to interrupt the course of our voyage if certain conditions arise. They have...oh...wait. Wrong movie. This is the movie wherein I play a swanning novelist living in Rhode Island. But, certain conditions have arisen that make it unlikely I'll make my usual morning entry tomorrow; chiefly, we'll be at an early matinée, a digital screening of District 9, and then I have to get back home and work, which means I won't have time.

However, as it turns out, I will be doing another signing in Massachusetts. I've been invited to do a signing for The Red Tree at Friendly Neighborhood Comics in Bellingham on Saturday, September 12th, 4—6 p.m.. So, if you missed me last week at Pandemonium Books and Games in Cambridge, here's your second chance. I cannot say for certain whether or not there shall be a third, as I didn't expect to be doing a second.

---

Also, if you follow me on Facebook or Twitter, you will know that I've dipped a toe into the fray that sf author John C. Wright started when he posted this hateful, homophobic, and nigh unto whackadoo rant back in July. I would like to make a couple of somethings perfectly clear: 1) I know that not all Christians are homophobes, and 2) I do not advocate denying John C. Wright or anyone else the freedom to say whatever hesheit wishes to say. Clearly, no one has censored Mr. Wright. He sails gaily along, mouthing off (okay, maybe not gaily along, but you get the point).

However, I also have no room left in my life to tolerate intolerance. And so I respond to this sort of thing, when I can no longer bear to keep quite. That old adage about sticks and stones not hurting, well it's crap. Those of us who've spent our lives swimming against this or that social taboo or in contradiction of some religious stricture or another know this, because we are bruised and bloody and tired. We may not marry those we love. We may not be spoken of in polite company. We have suffered the suicide of loved ones who weren't as good at being indefinitely bruised and bloody as are we. We are sick to fucking death of being told by people like Mr. Wright that we're twisted and evil and malformed, and that our love is evil and malformed, and that the way we see ourselves and want others to see us is evil and twisted and in need of censure. Now, the way I see things, if Mr. Wright is done with atheism and really thinks he's been talking with the Virgin Mary and the Holy Spirit (yes, he has made these claims), that's between him and his hallucinatory delusions. Up to and until those delusions cause harm to me and mine. And then I will bite back, because maybe all these bigoted yahoos and shitwits are lunatics, but in case no one's noticed, the lunatics are still wielding a hell of a lot of political power these days.

And I rather liked this bit, a quote from a comment to Jeff VanderMeer's blog, by Andrew Wheeler:

"There’s no real hope of shifting his [Wright's] views, either; with all of his talk about Natural Law and similar bumf he clearly believes that he’s the one on the side of the angels. He still has all of the worst rhetorical traits of the Ayn Randian he used to be, as well, making him perhaps the worst kind of Internet essayist: the utterly long-winded, self-aggrandizing bigot who thinks he’s much smarter and more courageous than he is, and can bury you under cubic yards of extruded bafflegab in any circumstances."

Yep.

And, by the way, please note that Mr. Wright has not only taken aim at queers. His ire and condemnation extends to heterosexuals, unless the goal of their sexual intercourse is reproduction. Because, you know, we need more humans. Last count, we only had 6,777,457,483 on earth.

---

An odd workday today. I only managed a little better than 500 words on "A Hole at the Bottom of the Sea," before I realized there was no way I'd be able to do this story justice and have it ready for Sirenia Digest #45 or even #46. There's just too much research still to be done. Future submersibles, undersea topography, genetic engineering, sedimentology, plate tectonics, planned missions to Mars, and so forth. So, I shelved it, and spent the rest of the afternoon proofing The Ammonite Violin & Others. How long it will have to remain shelved, I cannot say. But I need to be writing other things, no matter how badly I'd like to be writing "A Hole at the Bottom of the Sea" just now. I do thank everyone who suggested slang/derisory terms for the bioengineered subspecies of humans, Homo sapiens natator. I'm especially pleased with "flippers" and "hydros," and also the proposal I use "ghoti" as a prefix.

The story will get written. Sadly, just not right now.