Yesterday I told a sordid tale of joggerly woe on Twitter, and the request came (to my great surprise) to Storify it for all to see. So, I have done exactly that.
Author: terribleminds (page 161 of 454)
WORDMONKEY
Last night, I had insomnia.
It’s not a usual problem, and I don’t expect it to continue, but last night — it indeed plagued me, and it was the kind that unspooled itself further every time I thought HEY I’M NOT SLEEPING AND I’D SURE LIKE TO SLEEP.
So, I think it’s appropriate to make today’s theme one of INSOMNIA.
Insomnia must figure in your story in some way. Feel free to be flexible or creative in how it applies. In fact, creativity and flexibility are desirable qualities for a fiction writer, mm?
Length: ~1000 words
Due by: July 8th, Friday, noon EST.
Post online somewhere.
Drop a link back here so we can read it.
DON’T SLEEP
GET WRITING
NEWSBITS INCOMING.
*klaxons sound*
1.) You will discover that Atlanta Burns, my very trigger-warningy YA about a teenage detective-slash-vigilante, is on sale for your Kindlemachine today at $1.99.
2.) You may further discover that the sequel to that book, Atlanta Burns: The Hunt, also happens to be a wee $1.99 for your Kindlemachine today. (Also: trigger warning.)
3.) If you ever wanted to read a Bucky Barnes Winter Soldier story written by me, drawn by Juanan Ramirez, well, click right here for a Marvel Infinite comic.
4.) HYPERION #4 IS OUT WOO FUNHOUSE AND WORM-GUY AND BEE-CLOWN AND REVENGE ON THE DARK CARNIVAL AND AHHHHHH. Art by Nik Virella! Cover by Elizabeth Torque! Colors by Romulo Fajardo, Jr! I’m excited! Are you excited! Loud noises!
5.) Publishers Weekly said a very nice thing about Invasive: “With this cinematic thriller’s unusual setting, cinematic horror imagery, twisty plot, and grittily determined protagonist, fans of Michael Crichton will feel right at home.”
6.) RT Book Reviews said what may be the very best thing about Invasive: “Chuck Wendig can congratulate himself on a stunning new achievement: becoming the architect of all of my future nightmares.” (Hold on, I have to make a quick note to all my business cards. Let’s see. Chuck Wendig. Architect Of Your Future Nightmares. Good perfect there we go.)
7.) You can preorder Invasive now. You should preorder Invasive now lest you be covered in a tide of man-eating ants. Preorder: Amazon | Indiebound | B&N.
8.) Also, Star Wars: Life Debt, the Aftermath sequel? Holy Jar-Jar, that comes out in less than two weeks. You can preorder that, too: Amazon | Indiebound | B&N.
9.) Invasive launch event: Doylestown Bookshop, August 17th.
AND I’M OUT.
*puts on springheel boots and jumps away, having stolen your lunch, you fool*
Emmie Mears is the the author of the Ayala Storme series, the first book being Storm in a Teacup. Emmie had a post about Pride and being a political entity and also being an artist, and I’m glad to host them here.
* * *
Before: I am small and squalling. They pronounce me Baby Girl. There is a binary and I am on it, like a chubby, black-haired, grey-eyed point on a finite line with two defined ends. Later I am older and headstrong. I want to be an astronaut or a sewer cleaner (shut up; the TMNT lived in sewers) or a professional hang glider. I am handed things I am supposed to like. I am given a role. It chafes. I feel adrift, chaotic, alone. I try to make myself fit and fail.
After: I have examined this binary and found it wanting. I have no place in it and never have. There are magic words in our languages, words that give form to thought and emotion, identity. I taste the word “agender” and it feels like relief. My partner embraces my queerness. I’m given space, and in those corners that felt so cramped before, in after I can breathe. I don’t have to be sugar or spice or anything nice. I can be starfire and primordial muck. I can be covered in algae and shining with the light of a million comets all at once. My body is only the vehicle for my brain, and my brain has no gender.
Before: I have two mothers in rural Montana. Matthew Shepard is murdered one state away, and I am old enough to feel it. It is too easy to picture. Wyoming’s face is Montana’s blood-relative. I know why it happened; I feel it in every muttered “dyke” someone applies to my family and it makes its home in my skin. I resent the treatment of my family, but I feel helpless staring into the maw of it. I whisper to myself in the quiet of night that because I am attracted to boys, therefore I am straight. That that will make me safe. This thought is incomplete.
After: I write a book about grief after a beloved cousin dies suddenly and tragically on the eve of his baby’s first birthday. That book is a thing of subconsciousness and inexplicable magic. It’s about losing control and never really having it. In that book I look at the queer characters, the queer community, the fear of losing family and fortune. Something in me whispers again, “You are not whole.” I know what I am missing. I fill in the gap of my younger self’s statement. I am attracted to boys and girls and both and neither. The thought fills me with old fear that tastes like dust and makes my asthmatic lungs clench on it. I think of Matthew Shepard. Am I brave enough?
Before: I go on a date with a woman, and wherever we go, men yell at us. They act entitled to our time and our bodies. I want to hold her hand, but I am afraid to ask. There is a secret language of attraction we speak in public. Flirting in code, ignoring the fear but ever-aware of it. If I kissed her goodnight on the street in front of those men who yell, would I make it safely to my car? I don’t know.
After: Forty-nine beautiful queer people, fifty-three more. They take bullets made of homophobia and half die of this disease, this infection that has poisoned so many lives and is transferred by force, by pastors and pulpits, by the slow seepage and steepage of culture. For days I cannot keep the grief at bay. I have seen this play out in hundreds of characters on the television screen, in the pages of books. Is there a happily ever after for those of us who bear the letters of that acronym like badges? It’s Pride Month. Of what am I proud? Can I be proud when this world still shovels shame upon us? Can I take her hand?
This happened in a place where we go to dance. Where we don’t need codes to flirt. Where we can be wild and free and without fear.
Fear came to that place.
We deserve to live.
***
There are temporal shifts that happen throughout our lives. Sometimes we see them as they happen. Sometimes we only see them when we look behind.
During, Part I: I meet beautiful friends who are genderfluid, genderqueer. They use the singular they or neopronouns or Ye Olde Pronouns with defiance of cultural expectation. They teach me those magic words that give form to my own feelings. They sing soft songs of community and welcome. They make a space for me.
During, Part II: I write an urban fantasy series, and my protagonist’s female friend is in love with her. I need that story. I need it. So I write it. I need to fall in love with a woman, so Ayala does for me. I write that story and step out of the first of many closets. I do it in tiny steps, so subtly many people later tell me they barely noticed.
During, Part III: The Pulse shooting in Orlando was a pivot point. There is Before Orlando, and there is After Orlando. It is the spectre we all know could come for us, and in that is absolute terror. It is why I am afraid to take her hand on the street. It is why Matthew Shepard died. We all know it could be us.
But it doesn’t have to be.
It is an uncomfortable thing, to have a book coming out a week after something that hits you and hollows you out, confirms fears you knew to be true. It is yet more uncomfortable when it is a book about a queer protagonist. It’s a personal book. It’s a political book, even though at the same time it’s not. It’s about a woman saving the world in the face of hell, of navigating moral grey areas, of getting covered in demon slime and tearing through hordes of hellkin like her blades are part of her hands.
But it is a political book because my identity is political. Until the lawmakers don’t seek to limit my rights solely based upon my identity, my body, and my loves, it will remain thus. It is also a personal series, because it is the series of my own coming out and a series I needed to write to see a queer hero who fights things that aren’t that poisonous homophobia. I erased as much of that from Ayala’s world as I could. I wanted to write a world where we could put that burden down for a while. Where we could just exist without being objectified or sexualised or threatened on that basis. There’s plenty of other things for Ayala to worry about, believe me.
Our world could be more like that one. I want to believe it gets better for us. I lived through the AIDS crisis in the 80s and 90s and watched gay men who were like uncles to me die. My tiny child fingers sewed squares on their quilts. I watched Ellen come out and slowly lose her show. And now look where she is. Look where we are.
Being total Hamiltrash, I can’t help but think of the myriad meanings inherent in one line of that musical: “Look around, look around at how lucky we are to be alive right now.”
I am alive. I am out. I think that it is important for me to be out and alive and visible right now. I am lucky to be alive right now.
Look around, look around at how lucky we are to be alive right now.
If you need a story about a queer hero, if you need Ayala like I needed her, if you need Mira Gonzalez like I needed her, then I wrote these books for you every bit as much as I wrote them for me.
Peace, bunnies, and rainbow flags.
Happy Pride, and fuck shame.
* * *
Emmie Mears is an author, actor, and person of fannish pursuits. They speak four languages and hold a degree in history, which means they can tell you their anteater is sick in German and rattle off Polish tongue twisters. Emmie is proudly queer, agender, and a knight of the singular they. Emmie is the author of five adult novels and is open to bribery in the form of sushi, bubble tea, and just about any variation of cheese on carbs.
They spend most of their time opening wormholes and studying fantastical wildlife.
Emmie may or may not secretly be a car.
You can find Emmie at their website, or on Twitter.
I warned you.
This post is going to be filled with spiders.
I know! I know. Some of you are arachnophobic, and the last thing I want to do is plunge you into a SPIDER FEAR SPIRAL because as a human skin stuffed with tarantulas, I’m sensitive to the fear.
But, just the same — I LOVE SPIDERS. Spiders are so cool! They eat bad bugs! They form pretty webs! They hunt and wait and predate. They almost never bite (unless you’re like, poking one in the face with your finger). Some, like jumping spiders, are even kinda cute. Whenever I see a spider in the house, I do my level best to rescue said spider and release her into the wild again.
So, this post will be filled with spiders.
But, I’ll give you some space between NOW and THEN, so you have some time to either prepare, or to close this post and to burn your computer with cleansing fire.
Is there any news I can get out of the way? Lessee.
Zer0es is still $2.99 for reasons unknown.
If you liked Zer0es, then I might suggest Invasive is a thing you maybe wanna pre-order. It takes place in the same universe and is set after the events of Zer0es — but, it’s a new story with new characters (though a few show up again). Why pre-order? Pre-ordering helps the writer, it helps the publisher, it helps you ensure you get the book in a timely fashion. It sends a signal through the PUBLISHING ECOSYSTEM that THIS AUTHOR IS DESIRABLE PLEASE CARRY THIS BOOK AND OTHERS AND ALSO GIVE THE AUTHOR A BAG OF MONEY ON THE BACK OF A GIANT CHOCOLATE PONY PLEASE AND THANK YOU.
I will be at SDCC but do not have my schedule confirmed as yet.
Did you see the Hyperion #4 preview? Well? DID YOU.
And finally, hey, I am now on the advisory board for AbleGamers.
All right.
I’m out of news.
It’s almost time for the spiders.
But first, I will give you a picture of a dog who has clearly eaten dirt and just doesn’t care.
Know, though, that after this adorable dog photo comes a cascade of spider photos.
KNOW THIS.
First: dog photo —
Now, spider photos.
First up, one of my favorites — a crab spider who looks like he’s floating through space, an ARACHNOSHIP sent on a journey to liberate his spider-people or something.
Okay, then: AAHHHH TELL ME HE IS NOT ADORABLE. Goddamnit jumping spiders are cute as fuck. Those big eyes! That innocent surprise! Never mind the fact that the jumping spider is a surprising effective hunter — who cares? So. Damn. Kewt. Am I right? I’m right.
Then: cellar spider. So diaphanous. So ethereal. So wispy.
Next up: SKULL SPIDER, MOTHERFUCKER. Okay, there is no such thing as a skull spider, I’m pretty sure, and this is really just a common house spider, I believe. Also, though, SKULLSPIDER will be the name of my metal band. Or maybe just SKULLDER.
Here: an orchard spider spinning a web!
Finally: one of my favorite shots of all time. SPIDER MAMA sits atop a throne made of her own egg, where she diligently guards her brood. Bad-ass motherly love right there, folks.
THERE.
The spiders have ended.
I have more spider photos, I do.
But I’ll wait.
Like a spider.
HERE IS A RECIPE I DONE TWORTED ON THE TWUTTERS
please to enjoy
