So I seem to recall everyone was gushing about Lisa Bradley's "we come together we fall apart" in the Stone Telling queer issue a while back but I didn't actually read it until today because my Internet TBR pile is truly enormous and I am months behind on almost everything unless it was written by someone I've friended somewhere. And even then, I'm often behind.

Anyway, now that I've dragged my late-adopter butt to the party, I have to say it's a really well-done poem. With beautiful language, complex emotions, &c, and the "multiplicity of self" aspect struck a chord with me that I don't want to talk about right now.

But.

I couldn't help but notice that the reason the whole family falls apart (and a lady gets strangled?!) is because this one guy comes out as asexual to his wife. That is the trigger point that sets all the other bad things in motion, mainly because his wife goes into a spiral of "OH NOES THIS IS THE MOST TERRIBLE THING and now I must CHEAT ON HIM RIGHT AWAY." No one calls her on this at any subsequent point.

And I mean, it would take an actual asexual person (probably with a degree in poetry or something) to do a proper analysis of what is going on here, but I can't be the only person who is just a little bit uncomfortable with it.

Things that have been happening to Ada lately:

- Finals week/month/what-is-this-I-don't-even. As of the end of last week, I am now done all the coursework I need for my Master's degree. So... Now there's just this "thesis" thing. *sweatdrop*

- Messing with my daily schedule now that I have no coursework. Because I am a scheduling and process nerd. The new one involves some looong workdays, but also LOTS of writing time, so, that's promising! I hope.

- Convincing my family they want to try going to a convention in the summer. Maybe. Actually, all I had to do was mention Fan Expo Canada and they were like "PATRICK STEWART! LET'S GO!" So, that will be interesting.

- ALL the microfiction. (So if you liked "Taylan" and "Space Pops", be happy!) I will have some announcements about that in a few weeks. Or in June, or... something, but I will have some eventually.

- Ridiculous amounts of self-work that have very little to do with writing. Although some of my writing keeps popping up in strange places.

- Still having no effing idea how to do this "blog" thing.

This has been your weekly update from Ada. *bows*

I've been realizing lately that writing stops me from being lonely.

Seriously. I get in these "Where are my friends, why are they not on social networking right this minute, I MISS THEM" moods... And then I go and make myself work on a story and have my characters do things, and the mood goes away. Especially if it's a long-term project, like the novel I'm revising.

This is either kinda pathetic and worrying or really deep. I'm not sure.

In other news, I've got a teeny-tiny 190-word story called "Space Pops" holding the anchor slot in AE Micro 2012: Space.

"Space Pops" made me giggle insanely while I wrote it, and it's been a while since I had that reaction to anything remotely publishable (as opposed to freewriting exercises, etc). So I'm happy with this.

Also, the same day it published AE Micro 2012, AE announced that it is now an SWFA-qualifying market! (Though not for stories as short as "Space Pops", of course.)

Clearly I am in the most excellent company.

Here's the meme:

"Comment to this post and I will list seven things I want you to talk about. They might make sense or they might be totally random. Then post that list, with your commentary, to your journal. Other people can get lists from you, and the meme merrily perpetuates itself."

And thus, spacehawk gave me seven things to talk about:

( Courage )

( Travel )

( Family )

( Writing )

( Dreams )

( Autism )

( Spirituality )

Ride the Moon has been having ALL the book launches, you guys! Unfortunately, they were all in Alberta, so I did not attend. But let's talk about my "Ride the Moon" story anyway, shall we?

Counting everything from the initial idea to submission, I wrote "Moon Laws, Dream Laws" in a week.

Not joking! I'm sure everyone else's stories had the usual gobs of time put in, but mine was ALL the short notice. What happened was the deadline got close, and then Krista D. Ball, the unofficial matriarch of my writing group, decided I should write something.

"Don't be silly," I said, "I can't write a story in a week."

"Yes you can," said Krista.

"No way," I said. But I kept thinking about it. I was visiting my partner that weekend, and I started bouncing ideas off of him. Pretty soon I had the seed of a moon story - with lesbians, rocket ships, lucid dreaming, and an angry goddess - that I liked.

So I wrote it.

Maybe I'm a wimp, but that pretty much took all my energy for the week. I would go to grad school during the day, then come home, writewritewrite, and collapse. I had a first draft after four days of that process. It was too long, and way too wordy, but I liked how it was shaped.

Folks in the writing group were putting finishing touches on their own moon stories, which is why Krista, mercwriter, Amy Laurens, and Chrystalla Thoma are in "Ride the Moon". I sent out my draft to all of them asking for critiques, and because everybody in this group is awesome, all of them delivered. Then I made some content edits and line edited the hell out of it, which made it stop being too long. Line editing is fun that way.

And then - right down to the deadline wire - I sent it in.

Acceptance letter six days later. Contract a week after that. It made not just the anthology, but the anchor slot! And it's one of my favorite stories I've written so far.

The whole thing was awesome and bizarre, and it turned many of my beliefs about my writing process on their heads. I'm still trying to figure out how to incorporate some of the "Moon Laws" magic into my regular process. But the real lesson wasn't a "do this" or a "don't do this".

Here's the real lesson:

I knew I couldn't write a good story in a week. I told Krista point blank that I couldn't do it. Then I brushed off the doubtmonsters and did it anyway. And it worked.

I think that goes for a lot of situations, and a lot of people. As Krista said to me, at the time - "You're better than you think."

Heh, so, I feel like I should be saying Important Writer Things, talking about panels I was on (hint: I was not on any panels) and pretending like I was super important at Furnal Equinox.

But really, I was just hanging out with a bunch of furries and helping make buttons. It was fun! Nobody even noticed I had a story in the con book, except for this one girl who asked for my autograph because she was getting every dealer's autograph and my partner pointed me out to her. But that's okay because it's really not why I was there in the first place. (Also my story in the conbook was printed next to a picture by Dark Natasha, which is ALL kinds of awesome. It wasn't relevant to the story, as I am pretty sure my story did not have a zebra anywhere, but this does not detract from the awesome.)

And that is my con report? Because I don't know how to report things?

There will be dignified, non-furry-related writing news later, when I feel like it.

Oh hey you guys, I am going to be at Furnal Equinox this weekend! And apparently there will be a story of mine in the con book! It has sinister wolves, tragic love, and lots of Dante. I like this one.

I sincerely doubt that there are any Toronto furries reading this livejournal, but if I'm wrong about that, you can find me in the dealer's room at Twisted Buttons. (My partner sells buttons, and sneaks me into all kinds of conventions under pretense of helping him.)

1. It is Canadian! And it has famous Canadians in it like Claude Lalumiere and Edward Willett. It is from a new upstart Canadian publisher which promises great things.

2. It contains one of the best stories I've published to date - "Moon Laws, Dream Laws", which involves lesbians, priestesses, rocket ships, an Aspie astronaut, an Acolyte of the Telescopes, empathy and lucid dreaming, and goddesses with large tempers.

3. Not only that, but "Moon Laws, Dream Laws" is the last story in the anthology - which, if you don't know, is a very prestigious placement. I am still going "squee" over that.

4. It also contains stories by a RIDICULOUS number of my best writing friends, including mercwriter, Krista D. Ball, Amy Laurens, and Chrystalla Thoma. There's a story behind why that happened, which I'll get to later.

5. Even the stories by non-famous people that I don't know were getting excellent reviews - even before the book was officially out. (That second review says nice things about "Moon Laws, Dream Laws", too.)

See what the fuss is about on the publisher's website - it's also available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and from other sellers.

I want to say this as concisely as I can.

Naming a fictional condition after autism, when even the characters in the story agree it is nothing like autism, is a bizarre choice. Cashing in on autism in this manner while it's trendy is not helpful to autistic people, our families, or anyone else.

Writing a bad depiction of autism, and saying "but it isn't real autism!", does not excuse you for writing a bad depiction of autism.

Real autistic people have things going on in our lives other than autism. "I don't want to be cured" is a nice sentiment, but it rings a little hollow when it is the conclusion to a story in which nothing happens except other people being unhappy with the protagonist's not-autism, other people wanting to "cure" her, and her trying to deal with her perceptual differences. These are things that happen in the lives of most autistic people, but a story with this structure inherently distorts and romanticizes them.

You can write a story like this and still be an ally of neurodiversity. But writing a story like this does not make you an ally. Reading a story like this does not make you an ally. Voting for a story like this in awards season does not make you an ally. It is, in fact, unhelpful.

Real autistic people's lives are not like this story.

It's not my job to tell you what to vote for. Vote for what you like. But please understand what it is you are voting for.