{"id":33035,"date":"2018-10-04T08:24:56","date_gmt":"2018-10-04T12:24:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/?p=33035"},"modified":"2022-01-11T04:57:49","modified_gmt":"2022-01-11T09:57:49","slug":"s-l-huang-lets-also-write-our-joy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/2018\/10\/04\/s-l-huang-lets-also-write-our-joy\/","title":{"rendered":"S.L. Huang: Let’s Also Write Our Joy"},"content":{"rendered":"

SL Huang wrote a book that turns math into a goddamn superpower, which is a thing I’d love to have because I have the math skills of a stump. I love too her journey for this book, as it is now released with Tor in a bee-yoo-tee-ful hardcover edition that you totally want. For the record, here’s what I said about this book:\u00a0\u201cThis book lines up like a perfect, elegant equation \u2014 it\u2019s fast, furious, and adds up to one of the coolest, most crackin\u2019 reads this year.” So, here she is to talk about the supremely rad Zero Sum Game<\/strong>:<\/em><\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

Coming off of a pretty damaging week in the news cycle, I was having a difficult time writing this post. I finally said to my partner, \u201cwhat on earth should I write about?\u201d and gave her a list of topics I was considering. She said, \u201cYou know what? Right now, I want to read about something fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

So I\u2019m going to talk about math.<\/p>\n

WAIT WAIT WAIT DON\u2019T RUN AWAY!<\/p>\n

I\u2019m going to talk about math as something that gives me joy, and how much it matters that we put what gives us joy into our books. Because it does. It matters. It\u2019s important.<\/p>\n

People often do a double-take when I say my antiheroine\u2019s violent superpower is math<\/i>. Then they see I have a degree in it from MIT and they kind of nod and say, \u201cah!\u201d It fits with the old chestnut of writing what you know, sure\u2014but I\u2019m not only writing what I know. I\u2019m writing what I love<\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Even before I chose it as my major, math has always been something that has delighted me on a personal, visceral level. Like burying your face in a cat\u2019s fur\u2014that\u2019s what I want to do with math. I remember in college sometimes curling up with my favorite Apostol textbooks and falling to sleep on them, just because they were freakin\u2019 comforting to have next to me.<\/p>\n

One memorable time, I blurted, \u201cAntiderivatives give me orgasms!\u201d and someone wrote it up on our dorm whiteboard, where it stayed for about six months, in infamy.<\/span> Later, my friend and I wanted to get T-shirts with our favorite topological space, because it\u2019s a COOL SPACE and it makes me grin and gives me warm fuzzies and if you catch me at a con and ask me about it I will squeal and tell you JUST WHY IT\u2019S SO COOL.<\/p>\n

(Most people laugh and tell me I\u2019m cute when I do this. A small percentage back slowly away.)<\/p>\n

Just like any other pursuit, even for people who love it,<\/span> math can be horribly hard\u2014I\u2019ve had struggles with it throughout my studies, often. But at the core has always been that delight.<\/p>\n

So in interviews, when people ask me why I chose to write a superheroine whose power is being good at math, my answer is always the same: Because I love<\/i> math. It gives me joy. It makes me want to jump up and click my heels together. And I want to share that joy with others\u2014even people who personally hate math, I want them to be able to read and glory in an entertaining ride, just for the few hours they\u2019re with me, and say afterwards, holy mackerel I hate math but that was SO FLAT-OUT FUN.<\/p>\n

Right now especially, I feel like we need that. You need that, I need that, we all need that.<\/p>\n

When it feels like the world is burning down around us\u2014both metaphorically and literally, because holy hell climate change and I can\u2019t even hold that in my HEAD\u2014it\u2019s so easy to feel helpless. Utterly powerless. And, as a writer\u2014it\u2019s so easy to feel like our writing is pointless, like why are we even crawling up another day and banging down fake words on a keyboard when so much else is all going wrong.<\/p>\n

Sometimes we can answer that bleakness by writing our rage\u2014which I fully, thoroughly encourage. But I also want to encourage everyone out there, everyone who writes, or reads, or reviews\u2026 goddammit, let\u2019s also write our joy.<\/i> Claim it, celebrate it, blow it into the book marketplace for everyone else to escape into also. Don\u2019t let the abusers in power take that away from us, too. Dig down and find the good things that matter to you, that make you want to laugh out loud or dance and twirl or give someone bone-crushing hugs\u2014and grab those things with both hands and claim them and celebrate them. Whether it\u2019s bees or languages or feminism or your family, let\u2019s take those moments of glee together and share them with each other. Let\u2019s glory in all our vast diversity of geekery and passions, and remind each other of all the reasons, small and large, why our world is worth fighting for.<\/p>\n

Find your joy. Write your joy. That, too, is resistance.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

S. L. Huang has a math degree from MIT and is a weapons expert and professional stuntwoman who has worked in Hollywood on\u00a0Battlestar Galactica<\/i>\u00a0and a number of other productions. Her novels include the Cas Russell series (formerly known as Russel’s Attic). Her short fiction has appeared in\u00a0Strange Horizons, Nature, Daily Science Fiction,<\/i>\u00a0and\u00a0The Best American Science Fiction & Fantasy 2016.<\/i><\/p>\n

S.L. Huang: <\/strong>Website<\/a> | Twitter<\/a><\/p>\n

Zero Sum Game: <\/strong>Indiebound<\/a> | Amazon<\/a> | B&N<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SL Huang wrote a book that turns math into a goddamn superpower, which is a thing I’d love to have because I have the math skills of a stump. I love too her journey for this book, as it is now released with Tor in a bee-yoo-tee-ful hardcover edition that you totally want. For the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-33035","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"category-theramble","8":"no-featured-image"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pv7MR-8AP","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33035"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33035\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33042,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33035\/revisions\/33042"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}