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December 3, 2020 / 6 Comments

Natania Barron: Five Things I Learned Writing Queen of None

When Anna Pendragon was born, Merlin prophesied: “Through all the ages, and in the hearts of men, you will be forgotten.”

Married at twelve, and a mother soon after, Anna – the famed King Arthur’s sister – did not live a young life full of promise, myth, and legend. She bore three strong sons and delivered the kingdom of Orkney to her brother by way of her marriage. She did as she was asked, invisible and useful for her name, her status, her dowry, and her womb.

Twenty years after she left her home, Anna returns to Carelon at Arthur’s bidding, carrying the crown of her now-dead husband, Lot of Orkney. Past her prime and confined to the castle itself, she finds herself yet again a pawn in greater machinations and seemingly helpless to do anything about it. Anna must once again face the demons of her childhood: her sister Morgen, Elaine, and Morgause; Merlin and his scheming Avillion priests; and Bedevere, the man she once loved. To say nothing of new court visitors, like Lanceloch, or the trouble concerning her own sons.

Carelon, and all of Braetan, is changing, though, and Anna must change along with it. New threats, inside and out, lurk in the shadows, and a strange power begins to awaken in her. As she learns to reconcile her dark gift, and struggles to keep the power to herself, she must bargain her own strength, and family, against her ambition and thirst for revenge.

***

Women Are Mostly Just Plot Points in Much of Medieval Literature

I mean, I get it. I’ve read enough Western literature to innately understand that, for the better part of the last few thousand years, women aren’t exactly portrayed as heroes, or really anything other than convenient stumbling blocks for the real heroes. There are a handful of exceptions, of course, but it’s far from the norm.

Now, I’ve got to preface this by saying, Queen of None came about shortly after I graduated from my MA program, where I studied Medieval literature and Arthuriana in general. I came into that program with a Just Because I’m a Woman Doesn’t Mean I’m a Feminist Scholar attitude and left with I Am a Feminist Scholar and I Will Burn Down the Patriarchy mentality.

But Arthuriana, and the romances of the Middle Ages, are particularly cringe-worthy in terms of the “strange women lying in ponds distributing swords” factor. Women show up all over the place: in ponds, in forests, in towers, and in beds (there are so many Elaines in the Arthurian legends it borders on ridiculous). Granted, there weren’t a whole lot of options in terms of adventuring for a woman, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. In fact, the more I learned about the expansive Middle Ages, the more I found women who were so much more than plot points: real women who wrote books, traveled the world, had visions, and chronicled history.

The whole idea for Queen of None came from a single passage I read during my undergraduate studies in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain. It simply said that Igraine and Uther had two children, Arthur and Anna. But while Arthur gets all the attention, Anna vanishes in the shadow of the king and her half-sisters.

I Can Write Books and Be a Mom

Motherhood and writing are inextricably connected for me. I’d always considered myself a writer. In fact, I don’t really remember when I started writing book-length things. I just always had stories that needed multiple pages. But I was very bad at finishing those stories, and I was mostly a copycat for the majority of my early writing life (no shade, that’s totally what most young writers do). Hell, I rewrote the better part of The Stand when I was 13 or so.

When my son was born, however, I understood that I needed to finish writing. I needed to start writing books, not just… book-shaped things that couldn’t be published. I didn’t want my son to ask me, “Mom, what did you want to be when you grew up?” and my answer be that I dreamed of being a writer someday. I wanted to be able to tell him that I worked damned hard at it, and made it happen.

Be warned though, writing with kids is not easy. When people ask me what it’s like to balance a writing career, a full-time career, and raising kids, I explain that it’s very much like wrestling a greasy owlbear. It is hard. It’s a lot of eking out words and edits at weird hours, a lot of not doing things (like watching television or hanging out). It’s, dare I say it, discipline.

And even more than that? Keeping a writing career going while raising a family means you constantly have to learn new ways to write. You have to be flexible. I have a special needs son. The only constant is change.

Trunk Novels Aren’t Always Trunk Novels

I started writing Queen of None as a NaNoWriMo project in 2009 or so. Then I spent a year or so revising it. I sent it out and it was rejected. Once. So I decided, naturally, that it was never meant to be and no one cared and it was, therefore, a trunk novel (i.e. a novel I would store in my virtual “trunk” with all the other not fit for publication books out there) and total hot garbage, and maybe I should consider quitting writing? Thankfully I didn’t go that far. But yeah. We writers can sure have some rollercoaster emotions.

Let me preface this with saying, I’ve recently been diagnosed with ADHD. And this kind of behavior is often called RSD, or rejection sensitive dysphoria. Generally, I have a thick skin about this stuff. But in the case of this book, I totally turtled.

I ended up coming back to Queen of None over and over again. I edited it more. I added new scenes. I changed the characters. I rewrote a big chunk of it. Then I did some more edits. Then, I was approached by Vernacular Books and I told them, “Hey, I have this Arthurian feminist romance that casts Arthur’s sister as a hero, but it’s kind of like Circe and maybe you’d like it?”

They did. And here we are.

Damnit, I Love the Editing Process So Much

I think I might like editing more than I like writing. And when you find the right editor? It’s just magic. Eric Bosarge, my editor on Queen of None, he told me that his favorite scene was Lanceloch’s fishing scene (you’ll have to read to understand). And what blew my mind was that in all the scenes — and far more exciting events — that was also my favorite.

Eric’s questions, like good editors should, helped me really burnish the manuscript to where you see it now. It was an intense month of editing for me (hello, hyper-focus), and I held the whole book in my head again, dreaming of it, pushing myself to make more connections and go deeper with language, with the theme, with character. All in all, even though the book is under 100,000 words, I tracked well over 10,000 changes between Eric’s edits and my own. My poor computer wanted to kill me. And it was almost euphoric for me. I love making things better.

But I’m so proud of what came out of it. The scenes I added, the edits I made, all really just enhance the story on another level. As writers, we need to be pushed out of our comfort zones in order to improve. It’s a scary business, walking outside your door, to quote Bilbo. But stasis isn’t just a creativity killer, it can be a career killer. Especially in this raucous, unpredictable, wild world of publishing in the digital era.

Heroes Don’t Always Carry Swords

In many ways, Queen of None is a quarantine novel. No, there isn’t a pandemic in the book. But Anna, but dint of her status and relationships, doesn’t leave Carelon during the entirety of the narrative save for one instance. She lives in castles. She haunts the halls. She becomes a shadow. While the knights of the Table Round are out slaying beasts, hunting grails, bedding dames, and knocking skulls for the realm, she’s doing embroidery (albeit begrudgingly).

That doesn’t mean, however, that she can’t have power. Like the medieval women of my studies, she still exists. She still finds power, both from within and through her relationships. If there’s anything that defines Anna Pendragon, it’s her patience, her willingness to wait. Maybe she’s a little bit of Aaron Burr in that respect (there really are some parallels, now that I think about it). Time and again, she puts herself, her body, her mind, and her soul, on the line to fight for what she believes is true. That doesn’t always mean she gets it right, or that she’s a good mom or sister or wife in the process. But a complex heroine is a lot more fun to write than one who is the pinnacle of purity and sweetness.

And that resounds with me, as well. I’ve always loved epic fantasy, heroic tales, and swashbuckling adventures: but there aren’t a lot of women for me to look at. The tale of Arthur is not new, but Anna is. That meant she had to bring something different to the table (pardon the pun, or don’t). As a writer, that was such a satisfying experience. As a woman, a mother, and someone who’s had to stand up for what she believes in time and again, it was also a powerful experience.

***

Natania Barron has been traveling to other worlds from a very young age, and will be forever indebted to Lucy Pevensie and Meg Murry for inspiring her to go on her own adventures. She currently resides in North Carolina with her family, and is, at heart, a hobbit–albeit it one with a Tookish streak a mile wide.

Natania Barron: Website

Queen of None: Indiebound | Bookshop.org | Amazon

December 2, 2020 / 21 Comments

Excerpt And Cover Reveal: The Book of Accidents, July 2021

Hey, psst. Hey, kid. You wanna read a spooky book? Well, okay, you can’t, not right now, but coming in July, you can totally read my newest, The Book of Accidents. You can check out the cover and an excerpt, though, right damn now, over yonder hills at Polygon. (Thanks to Polygon for hosting the reveal!) And you can pre-order the hardcover right damn now, either by calling your local indie, or at these links: Indiebound | Bookshop.org | B&N | Amazon.

I do not know if I’ll be touring for this one or what — it comes out July 20th, and given that there’s a pesky global pandemic going on, it remains unclear what is to come. But, there’s also a not-pesky set of vaccines on the horizon — so maybe, just maybe, there will be some flexibility in being able to do in-person events.

More as I know it.

Go get spooky!

December 2, 2020 / 9 Comments

Gifts For Writers 2020 (Pandemic Edition?)

Once again, the HOLIDAYS are upon us, where we may GATHER WITH FRIENDS and RENEW OUR BONDS WITH FAMILY and SHARE AEROSOLIZED MIST between us and BREATHE IN EACH OTHER’S VARIOUS PATHOGENS INCLUDING THE HIGHLY CONTAGIOUS AND DELETERIOUS CORONAVIRUS and together we can merrily OVERWHELM HOSPITALS AND

*checks notes*

Wait no we’re not supposed to do any of that?

Shit! Shit. Never mind. Backspace all that.

What I’m trying to say is, it is the holidays, and you may find that during these holidays, a wild writer has appeared, and writers are a peculiar breed and can only be appeased with a select set of specific gifts. Give them the wrong gifts and they will haunt your home for a decade, and write nasty books about you. We are vengeful trickster gods, all of us.

As always, these are gifts that the writer in your life may or may not like or find useful.

But their mileage may vary.

Please to enjoy.

A pandemic stress relief buddy: early on, with our kiddo going virtual, we knew he was going to feel some level of frustration and we didn’t want that pressure building up in him like a rogue Instant Pot IED, and so we thought, okay, let’s buy him something for that. And we bought him this motherfucker right here. It’s a fighting/grappling dummy. And whenever our child finds himself angry or frustrated, and it’s not the kind of frustration that can be alleviated by merely doing good breathing techniques or incurring total Ego Death by drinking peyote tea, we say, “Go kick the shit out of your purple friend over there.” I mean, with less profanity. And less peyote. And he does and it’s great. Thing is? I do it too. I sneak into his room sometimes and… let’s just say, the dummy is incredibly punchable. And you feel better almost instantly, and it’s a great way to loosen up a writer’s block, too. If you want an even more punchable (and cheaper) dummy, this smiling bastard is just asking to have his block knocked off. Also seriously don’t feed your kids peyote. Jeez.

Literary ways to filter viruses from your face: Out of Print has a series of awesome book-themed masks, including a Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy facemask. Which says DON’T PANIC. Which is great. BookRiot has a good list here, too.

We All Live In Zoom Now: So maybe the writer in your life needs a ring light?

We’re All Birders Now, Too: I mean, seriously, I sit and write and then stop writing and look at birds. It’s a good distraction because birds don’t give a shit. So, a bird book like Sibley’s What It’s Like To Be A Bird is a wise choice. And here in the Wendighaus, we are super-big fans of Wingspan as a board game. Or maybe buy a witch spell that turns a writer into a bird because fuck it.

Distraction-free, irony-heavy writing device: The FreeWrite has a new device out, and it’s The Traveler — a writer can use this no-frills word processor and pretend like they’re traveling the world and writing in rare, sublime locales instead of sitting at the dining room table with a cat in their lap and a cat on their head and a dog farting in the corner and probably a child crying somewhere.

Shameless plug inserted in the middle so you hopefully don’t notice its shamelessness: I wrote a book, it’s called Damn Fine Story, I think it’s pretty good? Maybe? It’s all about the weave and weft of storytelling — the shape of narrative, the components, the patterns, the ways to break those patterns. It also features a story about an elk masturbating, which is clearly a value add. You can buy it in print or digital. And yes, Virginia, there is an audio version now.

Really any book from any indie bookstore. Writers love books. We eat them. Did you not know that? We no longer read them, we’ve ascended beyond that point and now require them as food. We still get the story! We just do it with our teeth instead of our eyes. Anyway. Indie bookstores are a vital part of our Book Ecosystem — and we want them to survive so that we can survive. So, if you’ve a writer in your life, just get them books from your local indie. Or checkout indiebound.org or bookshop.org. My two local stores also ship to you — Doylestown Bookshop and Let’s Play Books. If you need a book idea, get the writer in your life a copy of your favorite book. The one you cannot live without. That or a giftcard. Giftcards are great. Or a pony. Do bookstores sell ponies? No? Shit.

Narrative gaming: I always find games about storytelling do some work to sharpen my narrative muscles, though obviously not enough to tell me you don’t sharpen muscles, but whatever, I don’t have a lot of time, we’re gonna keep on forging ahead. Some new story games out there maybe worth a gander: Icarus (no central GM, tell collaborative tale of a rise and fall of a civilization); the Awkward Storyteller (funny, random); Tattered Tales (better for kids, families). If you like Magnetic Poetry, there’s MOIST, AND OTHER AWFUL WORDS. Or, a deck of writing prompts! Finally, the staggeringly good Dreyer’s English now has a game version!

Go to hell: if you want narrative video gaming, look no further than Hades. Buy this for the writer in your life. Every writer I know loves this fucking game and they should. It’s a rogue-lite, and I usually hate those (and rogue-likes) rill hard. Because they suck. This one does not suck. Dying is a pleasure because it advances the very good story of Zagreus, son of Hades, trying his damnedest to escape the Underworld. It’s fucking great. It’s beautiful. The story is the game and the game is the story. Get it. Storytelling lessons abound. Plus? An excellent distraction.

The Idea Toolset: I am a fan of Baron Fig’s notebooks and Squire pen, and they’ve combined that into a single deal with a carrying case: their Idea Toolset. Seriously, the Squire pen is my fave.

Contains no actual rockets: Rocketbook is a digital eternal-use notebook. Which makes it a bit more sustainable than the average authorial notebook hoard. I have a writer’s shed and as a point of trivia, we built it out of the thousands of notebooks I have accrued over the years. Buy here, or go here to see how it works. Or, for a different version of sustainable that requires no app-based anything: Karst notebooks are 100% tree free, and made of… stone? Like, stone-stone? Apparently so. Here’s their process. Here’s their notebooks.

A Controversial Choice: Virtual reality can allow you to travel, remotely, to other places. I’ve used the Wander app to literally go to places I’m writing about in lieu of being able to travel, and it’s honestly helped. We have the Oculus Quest, which is truly robust — but also be advised, it is Facebook, and Facebook is a nightmare company. Worth perhaps looking to tethered options, instead, but that will require a good computer to go with it.

Appyteasers: John August, ever the wise man, has created his own writing app — it’s for script-writing, but versatile enough you can use it in other ways. Highland 2, go grabby.

Get Them Some Learnin: Subscribe them to Dongwon Song’s PUBLISHING IS HARD Substack.

Give Them Some Oxygen: Seriously, we’re all trapped in our houses, buy a writer a plant.

Some Gods Damned Self-Care: I must recommend Maggie Smith’s Keep Moving? Print, digital. I’m also a sucker for anything lavender-smelling, and lavender from Maui at least can have you pretending like you traveled to Hawaii instead of standing hunched over in your kitchen doomscrolling your phone. A writer may also like booze and ice cream, and you can combine the two at Clementine’s. Is that the best combination that exists? Yes. Unless you’re a diabetic lactose-intolerant alcoholic in which case, uhh, sorry? Maybe stick with the lavender lotion?

ANYWAY, that’s it.

See last year’s Gifts For Writers (2019) here.

And if you wanna check older lists, here are links to 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014.

November 19, 2020 / 0 Comments

Essa Hansen: Five Things I Learned Writing Nophek Gloss

In Essa Hansen’s space opera debut NOPHEK GLOSS, Caiden’s planet is destroyed and his family is killed. He is taken in by a mismatched crew of aliens and a mysterious ship that has a soul and a universe of its own. Together they show Caiden that the multiverse is much bigger than he ever imagined, but Caiden has vowed to do anything it takes to get revenge on the slavers who murdered his family, or die trying. Alastair Reynolds said NOPHEK GLOSS is “a delicious and delirious head-trip into an intricate, vivid and psychedelic cosmos of nested universes, exotic tech and gorgeously strange characters … wrapped around a killer story with real heart and soul.” Library Journal gave the book a starred review and said “Hansen’s marvelous debut is a fast-paced, action-filled ride through the multiverse, introducing a complex found family of gender- and neurodiverse characters.”

My way of thinking is stranger than I realized.

When my book entered the hands of readers and early feedback trickled in, I quickly realized that they were all saying the same things: my ideas and word choices are so unusual, my world so sensory and immersive, how did I craft this?

At first, I was surprised, because these aspects of my writing feel unremarkable to me. I’m neurodivergent and have synesthesia to boot, so the fact that I can bring an unusual angle to my storytelling shouldn’t have come as a surprise! In a good way, it made me think more about how I process my senses and how I translate abstract things into cool concepts on the page.

I also realized that I have the opposite sort of challenge than readers assumed. Rather than working hard to seek out and craft these surreal ideas and evocative words, I have too many of both and must actively work to clarify my meaning. The challenge feels steep—at worst, my readers will be overwhelmed and confused—but at best, my neurotype and sensory reality are a strength that could bring fresh experiences to the genre.

Re-articulating my own ideas is challenging.

While feedback to my writing taught me how my thinking is unique, trying to navigate interviews has taught me why I find it so difficult to articulate my own ideas to others.

This may be a shared truth that I’m slow to catch on to, but I find that my brain works unusually well with abstract concepts. I can store a huge amount of research or worldbuilding in abstraction, then discard the concrete language of it. I can then deploy these ideas automatically as I write. But! When I’m asked questions about things like my world, themes, or process, I’m prone to freeze up because I must re-congeal my answers from the abstract and re-find the language to express them. How frustrating to know the science of a thing but not recall the correct terms to talk about it!

As with anything we learn about ourselves, this has been an opportunity to find new ways to make my challenges easier, and to capitalize on strengths I might not have recognized.

Sometimes you find the science after the fact.

While I adore quantum mechanics and astrophysics, I didn’t try to research accurate science when I created my bubble multiverse. I drew from years of existing studies on all kinds of topics, and focused on evoking a sense of wonder and imagination in my fiction rather than accurate science.

Toward the end of edits on this book, I binged a bunch of World Science Festival lectures and discovered ideas that sounded very similar to my own multiverse structure. Astrophysicist Andrei Linde’s inflationary multiverse theory posits—instead of a single spherically symmetric balloon universe—a multiverse that is “a collection of many different exponentially large balloons with different laws of physics operating in each.”

A separate talk by physicist Raphael Bousso explained how more information is stored on surface area than in volume, making me rethink the nature of the “rind” membranes that separate universes in my world. Might the rind itself contain all the information to project the interior contents in holographic spacetime? My mind also looped around the 11-dimension arena posited by string theorist Michio Kaku, a space inhabited by many bubble universes where the content is on the skin of the expanding bubble rather than inside it. These bubbles can split, pop, or combine.

As I jumped through theories that were new to me, I kept finding more and more bits that made my multiverse sound more plausible than I ever thought it could be.

There is no end to the work.

I’ve always felt that my imagination and the stories and messages I wish to explore are boundless and would easily consume years of steady work. But pursuing this passion at a leisurely pace is much different than viewing boundless work while on a tight deadline.

As a newer author, I have so much to keep improving at. As a newer author with a series, I realized that Book One is not the end, and I can and should be working on the sequels when I have time—leveling-up my craft all the while. This isn’t bad in itself, but add in deadlines and you have a cocktail that any workaholic type will find challenging. I can let myself keep analyzing and sculpting the novel until “pencils down,” and still doubt if I’ve learned enough or had time to do my best. Rather than perfectionism, it’s an intersection between imposter syndrome and recognition of how (wonderfully) far there is still to grow, how much potential the story still has.

I find writing and worldbuilding genuinely energizing, and will happily spend hours at. But in finalizing this novel I’ve learned for myself where that seemingly boundless energy can and will burn out!

We can be more mindful when comparing books.

The stage of a “debut” author sounds like a level playing field, an entry point, but as I make new friends and share journeys, I’ve learned how multifarious this stage truly is.

Everything varies, from the number of manuscripts the author has produced leading up to their deal, the scope of their revisions and length of their deadlines, to the support or burdens they field at home. The knowledge that we cannot compare ourselves to other authors may not diminish doubt or imposter syndrome, but it will make me personally far more mindful of how I assess novels from here on.

This is not a level playing field, but we can make it a compassionate one—toward ourselves as much as others.

***

Essa Hansen is an author, swordswoman, and falconer. She is a sound designer for science fiction and fantasy films at Skywalker Sound, with credits in movies such as Dr. Strange and Avengers: Endgame.

Essa Hansen: Website | Twitter

Nophek Gloss: Indiebound | Bookshop.org | Amazon | B&N

November 9, 2020 / 18 Comments

Thoughts On An Election

Before I do anything resembling a deep-dive on this election — or, at least, a drunken flail to try to contextualize events — I figure it’s worth saying up front that fuck yeah FUCK YEAH fuuuuuuck yeah F U C K Y E A H.

Listen, Biden was not my guy in the Main Event, but he got there. And I was wrong to think he couldn’t bring it home. I feared the worst (in part because it’s hard after 2016 not to be a little defensively cynical), and was wrong. He was the guy. He ran a great campaign and showed up with compassion and science and books that had plans in them instead of blank pages and bullshit, and he won. And I know there are some remnants in this country that still want to make a deal of, WELL, IT’S NOT OVER YET, but it really is. There’s not an expert in the house that has found any evidence of fraud or fuckery. In fact, such fuckery helped elect a lot of Republicans down-ballot, soooo — are those not legitimate, either? You can’t have it both ways. You can’t say that somehow the election is fair for the GOP wins on each ballot but false for the Biden ones? C’mon. Shut up. Be better, do better. ANYWAY. Biden won. I am ecstatic. I’m not saying I got misty-eyed, but I will say there was definitely mist in my eyes. Harris wasn’t my top pick either but I always liked her, and I look forward to her joy and her bringing the hammer down on all manner of shenanigans. I think they’re both deserving and gracious and their speeches the other night as Pres- and VP-elect were great — and maybe I’m grading on a curve, but it was nice to hear full-throated endorsements of all manner of American, of inclusiveness, of compassion, of science. All done in complete sentences that are not sauced with lies. Who knew that was an option? After the last four years, we needed the reminder.

Anyway.

Let’s get our teeth around this election. Not in a way that suggests any expertise on my part — hardly, since I’m mostly a dipshit and can stand to be educated on a lot of things, and please don’t hesitate to head to the comments to course correct on any points I make here. These are just some thoughts, some ideas, some bloggy grappling with what happened then and what happens next.

We can’t not talk about the Four Seasons Total Landscaping.

We can’t not. We can’t! Because it’s hilarious. It’s fucking amazing. Sometimes, in a story of fiction, there’s a thing called on-the-nose, where stuff lines up too nice, too neat, and you disbelieve it because of its perfection — it’s a narrative version of the Uncanny Valley, right? But sometimes reality actually does it, and when it does? It’s glitter and starshine. It’s Skittles and ponies. In case you don’t know what I’m talking about: I don’t know how, but instead of lining up the Four Seasons Luxury Hotel for Giuliani’s big “press conference,” they instead secured the lot behind Four Seasons Total Landscaping? Next to a dildo shop and across the street from a crematorium? (“Our neighbors got you coming and going!”) And then Giuliani held the conference and that’s when all the media called the race for Biden? Oh my god it was sublime.

Like I said on Twitter, it’s the perfect capper to all of this. Like a balloon squeak-farting out its air as it does an erratic orbit around the room before finally falling to the floor, limp and airless. It was like a vurp, a little splash of diarrhea, a sad trombone, it’s Bill Murray stepping off the curb in Groundhog Day into a crater of cold slush. It’s so inept! So absurd! So emblematic of this bare-assed clown-show that in order to defend the highest office in all the land, they got Rudy “America’s Mayor Turned Renfield Bat-Boy” Giuliani to stand out back of a landscaping company next to a sex shop to pitch his asinine conspiracy. It’s like you took Veep, Arrested Development, It’s Always Sunny, and Curb Your Enthusiasm and blended them up and then dumped it all over reality’s head. It’s the pinnacle of embarrassment comedy, the zenith of douchechills, it’s sighs and winces all the way down. And laughs. I laughed so hard at this. I’m still laughing. I think about it every, I dunno, 30-45 minutes and everything feels like sunshine. It may be proof we’re living in a Simulation, and

don’t

care.

Those Numbers Were A Real Good News / Bad News Situation

Biden won, and he won Bigly. Bigly Biden Bulwark of votes. Record-setting votes, and what will likely pan out to 306 electoral college votes. A landslide? No. A strong hand? Yes.

Trump also secured a lotta votes. A whole lot. A big-ass sack of votes, improving on his numbers in many places, and overall. I confess, I’m pretty pessimistic in general, but even I didn’t see that coming — not because of polls, but because I just couldn’t believe he would’ve improved after 2016. Like, four years ago, as much as I hate it, I think there were some voters who didn’t mind the racism and thought that all his bullshit was just part of the show. That he’d still be a capable leader in some capacity and get shit done, even if the shit he got done was horrible. And then in the last four years he didn’t do shit, and was by most sane accounts a huge embarrassment — a shame stain on the ass of America’s underpants. I didn’t think he’d lose many people.

But I was surprised that he gained them.

Not at the same rate that Biden did, obviously — Biden walked away with the popular vote and blessedly the Electoral College, too. But Trump had a strong showing, and you really have to reckon with that.

How? Why? What’s the situation there?

My guess is that we’re dealing with the problem of that side of the electorate narrowing their access to information and education to only a handful of sources: Fox, OANN, Breitbart, Facebook, and the like. Not to mention the empire that is Sinclair Broadcasting (and we’re really not talking about that enough these days). And I know, I know, that liberals are certainly capable of building their own echo chambers, too, but in my anecdotal experience liberals have a more diverse, diffuse media diet. (Cue the eye-rolling from conservatives.) And any time you argue with a conservative on, say, Facebook, they make some outlandish claim, you present them with a goddamn Trapper Keeper full of factual refutation, and then they basically say “nuh-uh, do your own research,” as if that’s not exactly what you just did. The Internet has only made this easier, offering a prismatic shattering of the early-era Limbaugh radio-show style — each broken fragment of that became an analog seed that landed in fertile digital soil, growing its own poisonous plant with a long, deep shadow.

That, and of course, all the racism. Lots and lots of racism. That comes from a place, too — both from the legacy of a country built on the literal backs of African slaves and in house to house, family to family, in people driven by lies and fear. If there’s one characteristic I see the most in conservatives, it’s fear. I remember one time, driving with my father somewhere when I was a kid, and there were what he was sure were a “couple of Mexicans” driving behind us, and they were driving a bit close, which freaked my father out — never mind the fact he was the King of Tail-gaters, always driving up somebody’s ass. But he was sure, sure they were coming for us. Why? Why would they? Who the fuck knows. But he formulated this insane plan — he’d forgotten (!) to put a gun in the car (!!) that day, so the answer was to drive home, and when they followed us into the driveway, he’d take the antlers that were in the back of the truck and use the antlers to fight the two guys while I ran into the house and grabbed the shotgun behind the front door. Of course, minutes after formulating this plan, the guys behind us turned off on a different road. Because they weren’t hunting us.

But he sure thought they were.

That kinda fear comes from some dark place, some intense vulnerability that grows out of whatever his parents taught him, and what all the rich bosses who exploited him told him (while they pointed at The Other, they were picking his pockets), and what he heard and read, and from a place of hamstrung education, and, and, and. They’re scared and ignorant and that bores holes in people’s souls, and it’s easy to fill those holes with blame, and eventually, with hate.

It’s why so many of the narratives about Black Lives Matter are about the fear of that movement and who comprises it — ironically it’s not about the police abuse, which is off-the-charts scary, ohh no. It’s about how Black people might… loot your Wal-Mart? It’s insane, but it’s a fear that can be harnessed by malefactors and ginned up. And then it uses the conservative media pipeline to pump it into people’s brains. Fear, fear, fear. Other, Other, Other. Gonna take your guns, gonna defund your police, gonna take your homes, you’ll have nothing, you’ll be unprotected. And meanwhile the ones saying that are the richie-riches who have grown fat on a legacy of hate.

(It’s not a joke when I say the only people stealing from my father were his rich friends. They used him to do all kinds of work, and they were glad to help point his blame elsewhere.)

Point is, these people? They show up. They vote.

Good news is, we showed up, too. And we got it done. And we got it done in places like PA (home state woo) and Georgia and Arizona. Texas became competitive, holy shit. We’ve seen places like Virginia go from red to purple to bonafide blue, and it’s all proof we can keep doing that if we try. More to the point, if we listen to folks like Stacey Abrams and Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez. And if we continue to center the concerns of the whole electorate — not just rich white landowners, not just men, but the breadth and depth of America. It’s common sense: if you work to serve everybody, we all get something out of it. It’s candy shared with the whole class. But some assholes just want the bag of candy to themselves, and those people need to learn to fucking share.

On The Trap That Is Forgiveness And Civility

The “lol, die mad, libtard snowflakes gonna cry more, fuck your feelings” crowd is now upset, I guess, because their feelings are hurt by us libs? I don’t really understand it. What I do know is that there’s this sudden demand for civility, and it’s the same kind of thing like where the conservatives don’t give one hot shit about the national debt until a Democrat president steps in, and then it’s time to fix it. They make a mess, then hand us the broom. They’ve spent four years with some of the most vile shit around, and supporting policies that codify those vile insults into law. So without some kind of reckoning, without some manner of them stepping forward and saying they were wrong, there’s really no civility or forgiveness that will fix anything. It’s just a ruse: a way for evil to keep on doing evil, by asking for your complicity. I’m not saying we can’t be forgiving people, but forgiveness is a thing you work for. Bare minimum, you say you’re sorry, and then you go beyond that and do work to overcome the harm you caused. Without that, there’s no reason to even talk about this.

What I mean to say is, shut up, Megyn Kelly.

On Empathy Vs. Sympathy

Empathy’s good, because it helps us understand people. Right or wrong, good or bad, we need to know who a person is and how they got there — and that’s strategic, because it helps us figure out how to maybe help that person be better, or at the very least, stop other people from going down that path. Sympathy is where you go wrong. Sympathy means feeling bad for them. Empathy just means understanding it. We can’t fight it if we can’t understand it. And it’s not simple. It’s a many-headed beast — it’s not just, well, they’re racist, or bad, or uneducated. That can be true, but how that all happens, and what fosters that kind of outlook, what kind of poison gets in them, that doesn’t happen in a vacuum. So it’s important to figure out that path and cut it off. It’s systemic, not individual. I mean, yes, clearly it’s individual as well, but a system is what made that person the way they are. And that’s where we need to shine a light.

Dems In Disarray

I don’t really worry about the Dems-In-Disarray talk. It’s a popular headline, but never really tells the whole story, nor does it understand that the left is strengthened by its variegated nature — it’s a polyculture, not a monoculture, both in the people that fill its ranks as voters, but also in its points-of-view. The GOP is a monoculture — an aging base of white folks who stand, locking arms, even when it doesn’t actually suit them or their needs. They just line up. We don’t just line up and that’s gotta be okay. It does mean we have to do better at the time of voting and getting behind candidates, maybe, but in the run-up to that it should be messy, it should be a lot of jagged edges and mixed ideas and divergent priorities. Progress isn’t in a straight line but in a lot of directions.

That’s not to say we shouldn’t push the party leftward. We should, and must. This AOC interview is an essential read — and not just about a leftward push but also a push for competency and best practices inside the Democratic party. Also a good interview here with Stacey Abrams.

One Lesson: Politics Is Local

The reason we all had to wait like a buncha assholes for PA to tally votes was because the local PA GOP voted to delay counting until Election Day and, in some counties, until after Election Day. They did this to buy time for Trump to mount a challenge, but mostly I think it just irritated people — but it’s a good lesson that what we do locally has huge, national ramifications (in addition to obviously local ones, as well).

With Democrats, I think it’s important too to see that local matters — different races are going to highlight different challenges, and Pelosi can harp on all she wants about trying to stem some leftward tide, but in a lot of places, in more places than you’d think, leftward policies are surprisingly popular. Green New Deal, Medicare-for-All, these are things the GOP hates, but also things some rank-and-file Democrats also push back against. But that favors special interests and ignores, I think, the local people on the ground. Working class people are helped by these policies. Better health? Better world? More jobs? Rich people don’t fucking care. They’re going to the moon or some shit. We’re stuck with Earth, and that means we need to start saving it, and getting our asses some sweet sweet universal healthcare. Like, y’know, the rest of the developed world?

One lesson that didn’t occur to me either until far too late was that, nationally, we get involved in and invested in local races too early, and to the detriment of local choice. We see a candidate like Amy McGrath and right out of the gate are like, YEAH COOL PLEASE KICK THE TURTLE OVER ONTO HIS BACK HERE IS MY MONEY. But that gives her unearned advantage — and when a better candidate like Booker comes along, it’s maybe too late. Better to support these races when their primaries are decided. And also to embrace a holistic view of that support: don’t just support a candidate but their community. A healthy community has more voters and more ability to vote. Even something simple like supporting a food bank in an area where you want to support a candidate can have value. It’s just stuff I wouldn’t have thought about.

Sidenote, don’t forget you can donate to Fair Fight, Stacey Abram’s organization. And look for ways to get involved in the GA Senate run-offs in January — which means empowering Georgia and their voters, not just the candidates.

No Answers, Just Thoughts

Most of this is just me rambling, and I don’t have any real conclusions here of note — nothing firm, certainly nothing that can go unchallenged. Time will reveal more information to us. I think it’s fair to distrust any gory, elbows-deep autopsy of the election this early. Certainty is thin on the ground. I do feel good, not just because Biden won, but the races held surprising strides for LGBT Americans, Native Americans, the Black community, and so on — and I think as always we need to serve those communities, because they show up, get shit done, and then we continue to underserve them as a result. And I think it’s smart too to see that these underserved communities, when strengthened, strengthen us all in return. I think if anything this is all a clear sign that we mustn’t be complacent, the fight goes on. Take a breather today, but get back in it tomorrow. Let’s get control of the Senate and let’s push for holistic policies that serve everybody, not just the few. Let’s get big money out of politics. Let’s protect vulnerable populations. Let’s retrain police and focus on mental health. Let’s keep the fight up for Medicare-for-All, for the Green New Deal, for all of it. Gonna be hard, but nothing worth doing is every easy. Except eating cheesecake. Eating cheesecake is easy, and worth doing. Now I want cheesecake. Fuck.

ANYWAY, see you guys at the Four Seasons Dildo Crematorium And Lawnmower Rodeo.

p.s. buy my book or I die

November 4, 2020 / 24 Comments

I Don’t Know What’s Going On And You Don’t Know Either

Nobody knows what the fuck is happening. Or how it happened or didn’t happen or why it’s happening or isn’t happening or anything. Nobody knows shit. Is Biden winning? Maybe. Is Trump winning? I dunno, it’s 2020, any fucked up shit is possible. I’ve had four hours of sleep and each of those four hours was fraught with night sweats and fuckery, so, at this point I’m expecting the walls to melt. I’m not even sure I’m writing in a human tongue right now — it might just be beetle clicks and bird chirps. Who the fuck knows?

What I do know is this: I’m seeing a lot of newly baptized experts this morning, people who are SURE they know why Biden lost (or won) or why Trump lost (or won) or wasn’t buried in a landslide of votes or why PA did this or why this House race or that Senate race went sideways. This person didn’t go left enough. Not enough ground game. They went too far left. Masks, no masks. They didn’t sacrifice the right goat. They did this bullshit or that bullshit or, or, or.

I dunno.

Nobody knows what’s going on.

Or why it’s going on.

Exit polls are nonsense in this pandemic election.

The electoral college is wildly, inanely mis-representative.

It’s chaos! CHAOS.

This shit? The shit all around us? It’s going to take months, years to unpack — that, of course, coming after the mighty work of counting votes and holding off dictatorial legal challenges from our Menace-in-Chief. And that unpacking isn’t worth the 1s and 0s if it doesn’t first reckon with an unholy host of challenges that have long been stacking the deck. We have to grapple with conservative news media (Sinclair, OANN, Fox, radio) that plugs right into people’s brains and pumps them full of informational sewage and fear; with social media like Facebook; with active, malevolent racism that has a throughline all the way back to slavery; with gerrymandering; with voter suppression and disenfranchisement and intimidation; with USPS bullshit; and with all of the hobbling and harm and heavy anchors around our waists that makes it harder and harder to swim up to the light. Certainly the Democratic party has a lot of reckoning to do, then and now and going forward, but that reckoning isn’t on its own, and cannot be considered without all these other factors. Without the deck stacking — let’s remember there’s no more Voter Rights Act, for fuck’s sake — who knows where we’d be? If we got to run a race at the starting line instead of ten feet back, could you imagine? A lot of red states wouldn’t be red, for one. (And here it’s worth reminding that those red states are even now full of progressive voters busting their ass to change the temperature of their home states, just like what happened in Virginia, Arizona, and more.) Democrats wouldn’t be constantly facing the “won the popular vote, lost the electoral college” problem. We’re a messy, fucked-up country but one side has gamed the system to their advantage, and it’s really difficult to reckon with the weaknesses of the Democrats without first addressing the inequities spawned by those on the right, full stop. I wish that weren’t the case, but it is. Of course they swim faster and reach the surface more often — they’re not wearing the same cement shoes. Shoes they made for us and forced us to wear!

I’ve no idea what happens now or next or in five days or five weeks. Biden may pull this out and I’m sure we’ll endure challenges from that other motherfucker, because, of course he will. Beyond that, the how and what and why are chaos. I don’t know the answers and you don’t, either. Beware anybody who falls for the fallacy of the single cause here, as if ALL WOULD’VE BEEN WELL IF WE JUST DID THAT ONE THING DIFFERENTLY. Yes, different choices can lead to different outcomes good and bad, but until we build a time machine, we’ve no way of testing that. Be slow with accepting narratives right now. Be cautious with sharing information. Be sure-footed about your research. It’s difficult, and I feel it too, because you just wanna share share share all the things that feel like answers. But we must be better than that. We can’t just pretend gut-checks are gonna save us. We have a lot of reckoning to do but that reckoning isn’t coming overnight. And it must happen even if Biden wins at the end of this. The fight goes on. The fight for the soul of not just one party or the other, but the whole country —

This whole, messy, broken, busted-ass atlas of fiefdoms we call a nation.

What we do next is what must happen next regardless of who is in the Oval Office: we must aid our communities and lift them up, offering a hand especially to those who are most vulnerable; we must practice radical self-care; we must be ever-vigilant about changing this country in a game of inches and not necessarily of miles; we must push back against misinformation and disinformation; we must do what we can do to untangle the aforementioned deck-stacking limitations that plague free voting in the first place. I’m not alone, you’re not alone. Even if it feels like it.

You’re great.

We’ll get through this, whatever this shall be.

Even if we don’t know why it’s all happening yet or what the hell happened at all.

Stay frosty.

Be kind.

Be smart.

Sorry about the bird chirps and beetle clicks.

Chirp chirp. Click click.