Twinkle, Twinkle, My Star

Here's the thing, Little Sister. I would have five more babies if I knew they would all be just like you.You need me in a way that your independent, own-agenda, making-the-drum-and-then-marching-to-it big sister never really has. And yet you still manage to get lost in your own little worlds, building, pretending, creating, inviting me in with a tug of the hand and a "come on, mama" when you're ready for company. When you sing "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star," you often say "up above the world so high, mama," like you're wondering over it and want to share the surprise and joy with me. I can only hope you do the same with your delights and frustrations forever.

You feel so deeply for such a small person. You are free with your affection, and your tears come freely, too. Just this week I dared to share a banana with your sister instead of with you, and I missed the crumpling of your wee face before you began to sob, crushed-eyed staggering over to me with your arms up, offering your forgiveness, accepting my immediate consolation.

And a second banana.

I remember the worlds of worry I felt before you were born, unsure despite everything that I had been told that I would have room in my heart for you. There's actually a desperately sad video of your daddy and I singing to your big sister on her second birthday, and I'm massively pregnant and quietly crying. I couldn't have known then what I know now, that it's possible to love as wildly, as consumingly, but in such a different way. You were a different baby, you are a different girl, you are everything I never knew I was missing until you were here. You weren't the first, but you were the first to make me realize that I can grow and give again. You've been the baby that makes me want more babies.

But what I want right now? To treasure absolutely every day of the next year with you. I want to revel in your sweet temper, your growing vocabulary, your sense of humor. You are the light of my heart, Audrey Jane. My sugar plum. My getting bigger and better all the time 2-year-old girl. Happy Birthday, dumpling.

Kristy's Great Idea

As a reader, I have always felt the need to be able to sink into a character, to identify with their moods, their actions, their motivations. As a young reader, this kinship was more superficial: did I look like the character? Were they interested in the same things as me? How much were they like me, and how much were they like I wanted to be? There are few book series that enabled this tendency more than The Baby-Sitters Club. Reading about capable, creative, independent teens a few years shy of entering those golden years for myself not only contributed to my skewed perspective of adolescence - Saved by the Bell is also to blame - but also provided my weird little soul several comfortable archetypes to try on.

I wanted to be Dawn. She was cool, easy going, and could wear an embellished denim jacket with effortless style. Her hair was hippie-long and blonde, two things mine would never be. She cared about the planet and people listened.

But she didn't eat chocolate, and I just wasn't down for that. So I couldn't, wouldn't be Dawn.

Mary Anne was closer to home. She was bookish, reserved, wore a lot of sensible skirts and saddle shoes. She had brown hair - bonus - and her dad was super strict and picked out all of her clothes. My mother may have dressed me through eighth grade, maybe. Not telling.

But Mary Ann had Logan, and for a girl who didn't get kissed until just before her eighteenth birthday, I felt that Mary Anne's ability to acquire and keep a boyfriend was essential to her character. And fraternizing with boys? Not my strong suit. Mary Anne just wasn't me.

In retrospect, I was really a Mallory. Anxious, eager to prove herself, with literary aspirations enough for the whole BSC. Glasses, braces, wild hair. Her family was a mess and her best friend her life line. I just never wanted to be Mallory. She didn't feature prominently in any of the Super Specials, which were my favorite because they were thick and featured the girls' handwriting fonts. She was a junior member - and thus junior in my esteem.

At the time, none of the baby sitters felt like a perfect fit, which I judged as a personal deficiency, rather than an issue with an ensemble cast of fictional, suburban tweens. I had the same problem with The Nancy Drew Mysteries, The Unicorn Club, Animorphs, with any middle grade fodder offering me more than one female character to latch onto. I wanted to see me in what I was reading, or at least someone near enough that I could use their behavior as a model in the rocky waters of middle school.

Is the impulse to find a representative in books still there? Sure. It's complicated now by the fact that as I get older, the heroines I admire, and the heroines I feel compelled to write, are younger than I am. They're grappling with the challenges of youth, new love, and self-discovery, while I am a woman in her mid-30s, married, with two young children and a relatively sound understanding of my heart and mind. Books about women in my situation bore the hell out of me, but I'm quite happy with my life.

Perhaps what's possible now that I've grown up off the page is the ability to let go more easily of who I am because I know exactly who that is. I have the space to let a character be, without needing them to be me.

The Email, the Email, What-What, the Email

If you remember Strong Bad checking his email, then we should be friends. Even if you don't, really. You're here and that's enough to make me want to spit in my palm and put 'er there.

But, in the interest of doing the writerly thing and rekindling joy one inbox at a time, I'm launching an email newsletter. I can promise irreverent blog posts, quotes from what I'm reading, first peeks at new projects, and foolish things mined from the internet. You can even turn the lights on and off as you read, if you're into that sort of thing.

I am also actively interested in what you'd like me to write about. A dear friend of mine recently provided me with a fabulous list of questions to go on, but the best things are those that delight, that surprise, that begin conversations you didn't even know you wanted to have. I dig collaboration, so, have at me.

All new subscribers - which is to say, at this point, every subscriber - will receive a link to download a new folk tale as told by Eiren in the sequel to The Hidden Icon. Which I should hopefully get to talk about pretty soon, too.

You can sign up on my website. Readers can anticipate a bi-weekly email and no more - I have small children, a full-time job, and a nasty sleeping habit that's conflicting with my even nastier writing habit, so. No spam here.

Though I make no promises about canned unicorn meat.

Deconpression

I have returned from five days in Nerdvana, otherwise known as Dragon*Con. And while I didn't get to cosplay everything I planned to and walked about a thousand miles more in heels than I wanted as we weren't staying in a host hotel, we made so many good memories that I am already dreaming of next year. Though I wondered if I wasn't accidentally cosplaying another red-hatted boss lady, it seems I wasn't the only one suffering from a case of mistaken identity if my conversations with other Agent Carter cosplayers are any indication. Despite making the worst convention shoe choice of my life, I loved being Peggy Carter on Friday and Saturday morning of the con. I had the stellar opportunity to march with a crew of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents and Marvel characters during the parade (around 16:12), and another lovely Peggy with victory rolls to roll over for.  There were many high-fives for little ones who recognized me, and I got a hug. As I am generally sensory-deprived when I am away from my cuddly family, it was much appreciated.

I am already plotting for next year, of course. I want to dismantle the jacket so it's more tailored, completely remake the sleeves, and either make or purchase a shirt that's closer to screen-accurate. Because I am a perfectionist, not a purist. Both are equally obnoxious, I fear.

There's something to be said for a costume that inspires glee and nostalgia. Ms. Frizzle was more fun even than I had hoped. On Sunday night after the masquerade - one of the very few pieces of programming we managed to attend, being too far from the con this year - I met a Captain Planet and nearly melted from joy, tooling around the Marriot with my bestie dressed as the best ever Phyrne Fischer. Normally we skip the bar scene because of the impassibility of that area, but never again. We saw some incredible cosplays and tipsy nerds are the nicest.

It seems I must settle down to the work of being a regular, writerly human now that the mad sewing that precedes con is over, and it should be a lot easier: I threw a bunch of money at artists in the comic and pop art gallery for new prints for my working space.

To Boldly Grow Up

I'm sure I'm not the only nerd writing about Star Trek today, but reading these memories from other fans of the franchise on its 50th birthday got my warp plasma flowing.

I didn't grow up with TOS, but rather, TNG. Thanks to my dad, I was lucky to be the kid who watched Reading Rainbow and wondered what Geordi La Forge was doing there, rather than the other way around. I remember Riker without a beard, though whether it's from initial viewings at 5 years old or later reruns, I can't tell you. I definitely recall with terror and wonder first contact with the Borg, whose soulless assimilation has informed my understanding of true villainy to this day.

I was of the tender generation who never found Wesley Crusher to be obnoxious, but instead a character who created a space for somebody like me on the bridge of the Enterprise.

As I grew up, other series attracted my interest, most notably Voyager and Enterprise, the latter of which I will not tolerate any bitching about unless you've actually seen it in its entirety. As a writer, I found their plot lines and character dynamics the most compelling, and resistance to my love of this series is futile. Voyager I watched on Netflix well after it aired, and it gave me the female captain I hadn't known I'd always wanted - and a bit of a grudge against my dad for not introducing me to Janeway when I had been a teenager much in need of a boss lady bending the Prime Directive under duress.

One of the most powerful sentiments I read regarding the franchise was this:

"The show delivered good news: there might be a future that included peace, hope, and bold adventure, and it came in bright colors, featured space travel, and was fun!"

This has always been the thing that I have loved best about Star Trek, that human beings could overcome all of the nonsense, violence, and bigotry to be better, to be a force for peace and friendship in the galaxy. I appreciated seeing the trope of invading alien species uniting us against them turned on its head, with humanity's first contact with the Vulcans instead revealing all that we could be and aspire to, rather than disparage and fear. I grew up with a series that embodied what a society fully entrenched in this kind of noble stability could look like, and to this day it is the utopia that appeals to me the most. It's what I hope for when I see people doing good for the sake of doing good, making sacrifices for others without recognition or compensation, when our ugliest impulses as human beings are forgotten in moments of compassion, creativity, and selflessness.

We have the opportunity now to be bolder than ever, 50 years later.

The Devil in the Details

I've yet to work on a larger project that requires any genuine amount of research, though there isn't a thing in the world that can be written without consulting somebody, or at the very least Google, several dozen times.

Even when you're writing in a world of your creation, getting just the right word, the appropriate detail, seems so important. Fantastic worlds still need to feel genuine, and sometimes being sure you've referred to a certain architectural feature correctly, or haven't totally fudged the beer brewing process, feels vital. Your character knows these things. Shouldn't you, too? How can you talk about something you can't quite put your finger on?

But more importantly, how to keep from falling down the rabbit hole and getting sassed by the motley collection of doped up caterpillars that is the internet?

Writing is tricky. Sustaining a habit of writing is even trickier. Part of my writing process has always been leaving what I can't answer immediately, or within a few minutes, to be handled during my first round of edits. Editing is a big job, but I feel less pressure when I'm editing because at least I've got something to edit. I want to run from the blank page a whole lot more. If I stop and dither about with looking things up or finessing the details, I run the risk of falling out of the narrative. So if I can't remember what that fiddly bit crowning a castle is^*, or I don't know what sorts of things besides hops go into a beer, I make a note.

And I keep writing.

Some folks might get hung up on not knowing and won't be able to continue writing, but me, I'm always looking for any excuse to take a little break (the curse of learning to multi-task too well, I think) and if I ever want to finish anything, I just can't.

Side note about notes, mine are easy to Ctrl+F when I'm editing because they're always the same. I use XRUMBLRARX mostly because it is extremely silly but also because even if I only type up part of it, the letters aren't likely to appear next to each other in anything else.

What works for me I certainly can't imagine would work for everyone, but at least there's a little levity in my ignorance.

^*I guessed this and I was right: it's crenellation. Score.

I Don't Have a Sister, But if I Did

I'm running out of sentiments, or maybe you're too good for them. But I'll never run out of stories. We were too weird for the other weirdos, trading stickers, amateur music writing, even more amateur film making, taking long walks to libraries and the corner store to buy copies of Tiger Beat and Bop that we would crudely cannibalize for Hanson posters. We got each other on a deep and immediate level that didn't require asking Zandar for affirmation - we did anyway - and were quickly soaring to new heights on the unicorn of our choice. I feel relatively certain that we moved a time capsule from 1999 when we moved you into your new house just last week.

My favorite teenage memories involve sitting opposite each other on your waterbed, sloshing and wobbling but still managing to balance a pen and a spiral bound notebook. We wrote stories almost exclusively about each other. We were witches. We were fairies. We were vampires and time travelers and space pioneers. The boys we liked certainly found themselves fictionalized, but they were inconstant, unreal, a fantasy. The true heart of what I spent years of my early writing working out was how to follow my imagination in the company of a kindred spirit, both on and off the page.

Here is a thing that I remember: going with you to your high school freshman orientation, insisting on speaking in what I am sure was an insulting British cockney the entire time. I remember the look on the face of a boy who'd read one of your stories, you know the one, when he realized that it was me who was your best friend in the story, your best friend in real life. The glee when we raced away from him in the hallway, how light our steps felt and how certain we were about everything. If I didn't take your hand then I am taking it now, holding tight and forging ahead throughout all of the years of our big and little revelries.

When I think about my girls growing up and what I really want for them, I want them to be the oddball, the ugly duck, the girl with the temper and the hair and the too-pink shoes. Because if you don't stand up and stand out, if you make it too easy for the world to get and forget you, how will you ever find the person who remakes the world with you?

Happy Birthday, Kelsi. I love you, ever and forever.

My Summer Love

I think about the weather every year, when it's your birthday. I have never had cause in my life to love August unless we're talking about going back to school, which was a highlight for nerd-child me. It's always unbearably hot with warm-blanket levels of humidity, mosquito bites are as numerous as freckles, and I can barely remember what a cardigan looks like, let alone wear one.

But the week that you were born, my dear Miss E, it was as though a breath of October swept through the Ohio River Valley. When we brought you home from the hospital, we opened all of the windows and in the cool blue light of the afternoon you dozed in a bassinet in our living room, the curtains lifting and as gently settling as the cap of fine, dark hair on your head.

It is cool today, cooler than it was yesterday, with sweeter temperatures still in the forecast for this weekend. You and I went to the grocery store yesterday and I didn't break a sweat pushing you in the cart as you considered the four lollipops the clerk had given you for being nearly four. You talked about which one you would eat, and who you would give the remaining three to. I was overcome by your little generosity - so big in the scope of you - thinking of when the orphaned Anne Shirley has a bag of sweets and doesn't hoard them for herself but plots to share them straightaway with her bosom friend, Diana Barry.

Of course, you threw a fit as soon as we reached the car over something we have both now forgotten. Because what sticks with me is your goodness. The rest is merely you growing and stretching into the shape you'll be, the boundaries and challenges of being a human who is learning to decide some things for herself - who may never get used to having some things decided for her. Just like her mama.

You are not perfect and neither am I, my first and biggest girl. But I am every day humbled and stumbled and absolutely in love with you. I am each year realizing how much I still have to learn about you. And as weepy-sorry as I am to have to say goodbye to the baby and big kid and bigger kid that you've been, who you profess and dream to be delights and surprises me.

Happy Birthday, Elinor. I am so, so, so proud of you.

A Word is Worth a Thousand Words

I took a linguistics class as an undergraduate to satisfy my math requirement - formal reasoning, anyone? - and chose as my final project an analysis and presentation of Tolkien's Elvish. I played a truly cool clip of him reciting one of Galadriel's songs from The Fellowship of the Ring, "Namárië." Sweet on Middle Earth and sweeter on etymology, I had long belonged to a group of writers in my first blogosphere who shared my interests. While I wasn't among the devoted few who could actually speak Quenya, I was intensely interested in language creation - so much so that in the earliest of early drafts of The Hidden Icon, I included a great deal more of the language of Eiren's world.

In subsequent drafts, very few of the words of that language would make the cut. Partly because I wasn't confident of my skills, and partly because I ended up building the reality of her world in other ways. But, I had originally framed rules around tenses, pronouns, and verb conjugations, and had a tidy little vocabulary list typed up that was, sadly, lost in one of the many hard drive failures of my college career. I leaned on my purely academic understanding of the Spanish language - having had to pass a class in written translation to earn my Master's degree - and a semester steeped in The Canterbury Tales in the original Middle English. I even went so far as to carve into polymer clay a phrase that was repeated, with some ceremony, several times in the first draft:

Est a'maban du, na'tura ly.

I know it by heart still. But I can't for the life of me remember what it means.

I had some selfish reasons for creating my own language, too, beyond just the fact that it was fun. I did not and do not like the word "princess," and two of the principal characters are royalty. It's a pretty loaded term whose baggage didn't make sense for my story, and I found a way around it with some formal addresses that actually did make the cut: as a member of her kingdom's royal line, Eiren is addressed as Han'dra Eiren, and her brother and father were called by the male equivalent, Han.

Funny thing, I can't recall if the common polite address - Eiren'dra - is in the final draft of the book or not. But I can tell you that dudes are "Han" no matter what.

I think it only makes sense when you're creating your own world to imagine that the people there must speak their own language, or languages, and to wonder how you might work that in or pay homage to it. But there's a point in writing science fiction or fantasy where, at least for me, there are some things you just have to let go for the sake of getting at what matters - the story. Of course they aren't speaking English. Of course they don't keep time the way we do or navigate with the same tools as us or wear clothes in styles we'd recognize but whatever. Eventually I just need to accept that those things they're riding with four legs and shod feet and manes, they're called horses, okay? There are horses on this fictional planet in this fictional universe and it doesn't matter how they got there. There's a suspension of disbelief that is required of speculative fiction readers, and if I'm doing the rest of my job right, hopefully these questions are fleeting, if they occur at all.

Ultimately, I felt silly asking readers to learn a new language, even a little bit, to follow parts of the story. Speculative fiction especially, I feel, has a very short window in which to hook readers, and if there's one thing I've learned from some very fine editors, it's that you have to build the strangeness, bit by bit. Frontloading the weird is as perilous as doing so with too much exposition. There are some writers whose world building is spectacularly and unapologetically strange - Octavia Butler comes immediately to mind - but I'm not one of them.

Who knows, maybe the books of the future will allow for some sort of experiential component, a roided-out electronic ink that transforms as you read it, a translation that's responsive to your understanding, your perception of the narrator's intent and trustworthiness. Maybe I'll have the chops then.

Roll the Dice to See if I'm Getting Drunk

Unlike most of the live action roleplayers that I know, I didn't get my start in sword and sorcery playing tabletop. I launched right into the ultimate nerdom of LARP, beginning in 2004 in a NERO chapter that has since launched their own pretty killer gaming system. Beyond taking a few years away from the game to incubate and birth my own little weirdos, I am still donning the costume and hefting a fistful of spell packets with local friends. I've been LARPing for twelve years - but only this year am I finally DMing my own tabletop game.

Despite my experiences writing and running plot at a variety of scout camps over the years, and playing in a few tabletop games, I've been as anxious as I am amped about running my own.

But because I've been obsessing about the idea since reading this article on all girls D&D group this time last year, I just couldn't let it go. I knew this was exactly what I wanted. My experiences with mixed groups of players have been phenomenal ones, but I've definitely held back. Many of the things that I enjoy have been traditionally male-dominated, and while that's for sure changing, the stigma is still there - the expectations, the jokes, the out-of-nowhere feeling of being an outsider stealing over me when I least expect it.

https://youtu.be/-leYc4oC83E

The video above has always made me snort with laughter, and now I'd like to make a tasteless comment about getting drunk in a tavern, trolling for dudes, without the awkwardness of there being dudes in the room. Or, alternately, being the only girl in the room when a comment like this is made by a dude. I wanted roleplay, debauchery, thieves and warriors and lovers without the baggage of being a girl - it's complicated, but it's a real wish and I'm definitely selfish enough to be motivated to make it happen.

So, with help, I acquired the manuals. The pawns. Drew the maps. Created YouTube playlists for ambiance. Spent too much time thinking about how each NPC would speak only to eventually really butcher their accents.

After our first two sessions, and anticipating a third this coming weekend, I don't think I could have chosen a finer group of ladies to adventure with. We've had whippings for insubordination, woefully inaccurate pig slaughtering, stories of theatrical gore, secret hook ups, sly bids for power, and moans of mismanagement among pirates. There's not a single gal at the table who hasn't delighted me with her imagination and her wit. While I'm still getting my sea legs rolling the big dice, they are on it.

It's pretty much everything I could've hoped for.