So I've long said that the problem isn't four people in a three-bed condo, but four people's STUFF in it. Four electronics addicts with lots of sometimes-used yet still vital equipment for filmmaking and music recording and crafting and costuming and all our freaking books, DVDs, CDs and action figures. Plus, if I wanted, I could suffocate myself in a pile of look looks.

Besides, how much waste is generated by creating, packaging and shipping physical items? Then you have to drive to a store to buy them, or have a courier drive to deliver them to you, and buy a bigger house to store it all in.

In this spirit, and annoyingly (for people who want to buy us stuff) in time for Christmas, we have decided on a new digital media policy. First, I went through all our CDs taking them out of their jewel cases and putting them in binders. Most of them are already ripped to MP3, and those that aren't I will do soon. Future music purchases will be digital (but only if they're DRM-free, because seriously who wants to be treated like a criminal for legally purchasing music?) Sadly, I couldn't find anywhere to have my jewel cases recycled or reused without shipping them out of state, so I ended up throwing them in the dumpster with a sigh. It was really wrenching to throw away jewel cases, because I have a bizarre attachment to the physical objects. I did keep all the liner notes, obviously, and a few CD cases that were out of the ordinary (to be put in a box in the closet or something), but I kept pushing through my visceral objections with the thought that I have been digital for years, really, and it makes no sense to keep buying CDs only to rip them right away and never touch the CD again in years. The dust on our CD rack was a testament to that.

Second, we have a moratorium on buying DVDs, because, you know, netflix. We never have time to rewatch most stuff because we have a backlog a mile long.

Sometime soon I'd like to get a Kindle and read most of my books that way. This will be good for our storage space, for trees in general, for reading while knitting, for carrying around lots of book options without killing my back (eg. when travelling), and also for my poor hands, which I shit you not get numb and tingly at holding even a paperback open for significant periods of time. The only thing it won't replace is picture-heavy stuff like comics and knitting books.

Phew! I just finished another marathon writeathon. By the last week, my arms were numb up above my elbows, my shoulder was in terrible pain, and I managed to throw something out or trap some nerve in my back between my shoulders. Everything from fingertip to fingertip was a source of misery. I was taking sleep aids just so I could get some rest, otherwise I would be tossing and turning to find a comfortable position all night. The voice recognition software was just too slow and inaccurate to be helpful.

In addition, I was having a real time squeezing out the words. I've never been in the position before of having to use a lot of my creativity at work, and then come home and force out some more. Last year, I was so new in this job that I hadn't got to that point yet. This year, the writing ended up taking the whole of my free time for November. I had a handful of days where I was just too busy to write, but apart from that I spent the whole time at my computer.

So, after all that, was it worth it?

Absolutely.

I have now broken through a plot wall that I've been working to climb for 5 years. Let me 'splain.

No, there is too much. Let me sum up.

Continue reading "A long time baking"

While I am composing my big NaNo postmortem, enjoy these messages:

Continue reading "Memes I saw on the internet"

Richey from the Manic Street Preachers was declared 'presumed dead' today.

It changes nothing, but I couldn't let it pass unremarked.

Between work and NaNo, my arms is tingling something awful. NaNo is going well, though--even if the characters I thought I was writing about are failing to engage me, and another character I made up on the spot has become way more fascinating. Still, that's why we write. Right? Was falling behind thanks to busyness in the first two weeks, but I've caught up.

There's a thread on the NaNo forums, in which people are invited to brag about the cruel things they've inflicted on their characters. Stories are made of conflict, so that seems pretty reasonable. I mean, the first time I had a crack at the book I'm currently writing, I wiped out my main character's whole village in a massacre, and had my main character abducted into slavery.

But it astonished me that person after person after person said they had their characters raped, or gave them a background of childhood sexual abuse. WHY? Dear Flying Spaghetti Monster, why? Is rape? So popular? And why is it so often described in graphic, titillating detail. Do writers not understand the difference between addressing rape as an issue that people might face, and serving it up on a sexual fantasy platter with torn lingerie garnish?

Then I remembered: many people use NaNo to write bad, either out-and-out or thinly disguised fanfic. And for some reason every bad fanfic writer looooooooves to rape their characters in tenderly described detail. They're obviously getting out some psychological issues. Which, whatever. But, in addition to everything else, I'm starting to have some sympathy for this image from the fandomsecrets community on LJ.

For the record, my main characters in this story did something stupid and forbidden, and their punishment for it is to be sent away to learn how to behave themselves.

I have an allergy to exposition. It makes me break out in hives, get a migraine, and my airways close up until I am stabbed in the heart with a needle full of adrenaline. I hate being talked down to as a reader, and when anyone attempts to explain anything to me, it must be because they think I'm stupid, and why would I ever inflict that on anyone else?

The problem is, it turns out, that when you have all this wonderful, fleshed out world and character backstory and geography and history completely worked out in your mind, but you never put more than a hint here and there on the page, your readers don't really pick up on the nuances.

Yes we did.

I'm going to bed happy, but I may still be too keyed up to sleep.

Because I can't vote for Obama, y'all are gonna have to, if you haven't already.

I had this whole post in mind for today about certain writing foibles I have, but I'm all keyed up about the election and it'll be all I can do to tear myself away from refreshing the poll maps long enough to get my word count in for the day.

Yup, feminism's over. Those hairy-legged lesbians did their job back in the 70s, and we have nothing left to complain about unless we like being whiny bitches or secretly subscribe to a female supremacist conspiracy.

That's why a mainstream, respectable magazine like Time would never publish an opinion piece claiming that the majority of women who won't be voting for the McCain/Palin ticket are stuck in some Mean Girls high-school arrested development, and hate her because she's pretty. No, really, that's what it says. Reason #1, right there in black and white.

It couldn't possibly be because she threatens to put back women's rights in this country by decades. Or because she panders to some barbie-doll view of femininity, winking whenever she's caught short without an actual opinion.

It's ironic, considering that when she was first put forward as a candidate, pundits were claiming that female Hillary Clinton supporters would flock to her side, because apparently Vagina-Americans can't wrap their brains around actual policies and realise that the two were diametrically opposed; they just vote for the person with the most similar genitalia.

To conclude: women, if you vote for McCain/Palin, it's because you have a vag, and if you vote against McCain/Palin, it's because you have a vag. Got that?

The last public performance of "The Taming of the Shrew" is tonight, at 8pm. So if you're in town, come to the beautiful Curtain Theater on the shores of Lake Austin. (Map.)

GRR: Ow! I just had my flu shot in that arm.

Eaf: Eep! Does that mean you're full of flu?

GRR: It's OK. I sat down, rolled up my sleeve, and said, "Shoot me up with flu," but the dude informed me that it was a "dead protein".

Eaf: If playing Dead Space has taught me anything, it's that nothing is ever truly dead.

GRR: AAAAGH! I'm infected with zombie flu!