Happy 500

Wow. Yesterday was my 500th post!

Right now seems to be a time of musing and not much of writing. I’m done with my online class and prepping for a ten-day trip, half vacation and half volunteer work in moulage. I’m going to upstate New York for New York Hope again, which is one of my three standing moulage gigs for the year — so more making ordinary people look like trauma victims.

The vacation part is how we will get there and back — by train, with a roomette both ways of the 15-hour trip. Richard and I are both train fanatics, and even though Amtrak pales compared to the golden age of train travel in the US, roomettes and business class still are novel enough for us to enjoy.

The second part of vacation will be going To Oneonta, where I used to teach college. It’s been about 20 years since I left, so I’m expecting things will be different and that I won’t know anyone there. It’s okay — I want to see Oneonta again because I still dream of it now and again; it was one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever lived.

I’ll write when I can, although not as often as I usually do while on vacation.

Love you all.

True Confession (or I doth profess too much)

I’m going over some old ground here.

I insisted that I didn’t want to get published for the recognition, but just to fulfill a goal.

I have to confess that I lied.

I have fantasies about getting published, about becoming well enough known that someone from my hometown contacts me, and I can snub them.

It’s horribly unbecoming of me to be like that. I don’t even like to admit I have that fantasy, but I do. Let me explain, and maybe you will understand me.

I grew up different. Intelligent, socially awkward, overweight — I lived in my own little world. I suffered from pica and ate glue and pencil erasers, as well as handfuls of sugar and Bisquick. I bit my nails. I laughed when nobody else laughed, I sang out loud for no apparent reason, not caring if someone else heard. I cried when people attacked me. I whined. All together, I was that unattractive kid that nobody liked. I don’t know if I would blame them.

Being that child, I was prone to bullying from my fellow classmates and adults. By the time I reached high school, I had been beaten up by classmates repeatedly, sexually abused by a few people, raped by classmates, threatened with desertion by my mother.

I made myself a coccoon from the outside world — from my parents, extended family, and classmates. That coccoon was made of my fantasies, my behaviors, my wishes. In my coccoon, the monsters that everyone feared were my friends. The monsters would nurture me through the bullying, the attacks, the lack of safety I felt. As I grew older, I fell in love in my fantasies — and when I told my best friend the name of who I had a crush on, she yelled it out the window, and every popular kid in the class shamed me in the hallways.

My childhood marred me. I have trouble making friends because I don’t want to impose myself on them. I have trouble loving my snot-nosed, eraser-eating inner child. (I tend to wish I had been Marcie as a child. Marcie is me without the snot nose and eraser eating.)

I entertain sadistic fantasies about my classmates from Marseilles. I entertain the thought that someday the tables could be turned and I could, if not bully them, reject them soundly. I feel guilty about that because it’s not a “pure” reason to want to be published.

I exorcise myself by writing. This blog post is no exception.

Lughnasad

As the afternoon holds its breath,
you disappear,
my summer love.
I drink the apple wine without you.

Guest blog — Girly-Girl the cat

My name is Girly-girl, which I find a ridiculous name because I am a cat. I answer to Girly, of course, because that’s a good way to get petted.

I have a favorite human — the female one who lives in the house. She usually sits on a specific soft place in the gathering room, and makes clicking noises on the flat surface. It gets enough of her attention that I want to sit on it and get attention too. But she usually pushes me off it, making swears when she does.

I do not sit on laps. I sit near them. I’m sitting on the arm of the soft place next to my human. I try to look vaguely disapproving of everything, It goes with not being a lap cat. But when I get petted, I purr. No sense in playing completely hard to get.

I’m starting to get on in years. I don’t feel the need to feel charming anymore, not like that smarmy little Chucky who wants to play all the time. I do not play. But I get along with my human just by being me.

Play

I need to play.

I was told I would have to give that up as an adult. I don’t listen well. I need to play.

Not something as structured as board games — I’m rather competitive and I hate to lose. Role playing — I love that. To me the game is secondary to being in character. Acting in plays in high school was one of my favorite ways of playing, but truth be told I’m not very good at it, mostly because my relationship with my body is awkward at best.

Nowadays, I play with ideas. Ideas for books or short stories, ideas for papers I want to write, ideas just for fun, like “What would your warning label say?” (Mine would say “Caution: Volatile moods”, even though I’m mellow most of the time).

I play with knowledge. I’m still teaching Richard the difference between Queen Anne’s Lace and poison hemlock (an important distinction, more so since I once saved someone’s life when they thought the big spotted stems in their backyard were rhubarb).

I play with learning. I always want to learn something new, especially if it creates something useful. This is why I wish I could learn knitting, crocheting, or tatting. (The two problems are 1) my hand-eye coordination and 2) being able to crack the arcane pattern code and not getting lost on the page.) But I’ve done winemaking, jelly making, and Thai cooking.

I play with creativity. Creating characters, realistic dialogue, funny scenes.

I also like to play with finger paints, stick drawings, and funny noises.

I’m going to go play now!!

Let’s Mary Sue/Marty Stu!

Suppose you were the hero of your own book:

Give a brief introductory description.
What are your most important qualities for your story?
What is your quest/what is it you need to accomplish?
Who/what is your antagonist?
How will you try to meet your goal?
What weaknesses of yours will get in the way?
What do you learn about yourself?
Do you accomplish your goal?

Waiting

I don’t wait well.

Ok, maybe I wait well, but only if I can work on something new while I wait. And right now I’m at a standstill.

My classes are all put together (my colleagues are jealous)
The moulage kit is all put together for New York Hope next week, complete with half a gallon of fake blood.
My queries for Mythos are getting slowly rejected (should have waited for my betas and listened more carefully. Sorry, betas!
My betas are currently reading Prodigies and doing their normally great jobs, but submitting that has to wait as well.
I need some information for a paper I’m writing for my class (due in 5 days) that I haven’t gotten yet.
I am not quite in the place where I understand what I’m doing for Whose Hearts are Mountains, and haven’t thought of something new to write that isn’t a sequel for something I’ve not yet published.

Maybe I should take a rest, but I do so badly at that!!

50% sleepy, 50% bored

I want to do absolutely nothing today!

I don’t like doing nothing. I think I’ve told you this before. Doing nothing means watching Netflix (which I rarely do well), going to a movie (very few movies are enticing enough for me to go, and none of them are Mamma Mia 2), sleeping (I’m all caught up), reading (I have to find a good book!), or meditating all day (which is impossible unless I’m sick).

Who am I fooling? I want to do something, even if I want to do nothing.

I would love to send queries on Prodigies today, but my betas are still reading and I’d rather have them be slow and careful than speed up on it. If I could knit or crochet or tat I would, but my hand-eye coordination is abysmal.

I could write — but I’m having trouble getting back into my work in progress. Maybe more coffee. I’m 50% sleepy and 50% bored. I’m working on it.

PS:

Dear readers and lurkers:

I’d still love to know who you are!

lleachie at gmail.com

Interrogating the Hacker

One of my favorite characters in Prodigies (they’re all my favorite characters, honestly) is the notorious hacker Weissrogue. An idealist who feels the end justifies his illegal means, he’s the character you’re glad is on your side:

“You need to know that ‘Weissrogue’ translates just as you may think — to “White Rogue”. I was only about 15 when I named myself, and I look at it now and think it’s appropriate not because I was a white hat hacker but because I was a pasty white kid.” He was indeed, I thought, a pasty white kid still.

“That whole thing I did when I was fifteen — I can’t stand violence in any form. I suppose I would use it in self-defense if I had to, but even then, I wonder. I just wanted to get the government to think differently about weapons of mass destruction —”

**************

At age 15, as this passage hints, Weissrogue hacked several world powers and took their missile programs off-line. Realizing he was too talented to kill, the US government took him in and made him their pet hacker.

Now 39 years old, the suspected Prodigy tracks suspected Prodigies in the US — but not necessarily for the benefit of the US government:

“I’m not a double agent,” the stocky man corrected. “I’m the Prodigies’ agent; I’m not a double agent because I’m not letting out anything to help Renaissance Theory or Homeland; in fact, I’m misguiding them. But when it comes to Prodigies, my allegiance will always be to them. Something my employers don’t need to know.”

“So you’re hiding the existence of Prodigies?”

“Prodigies, yes. Organizations that deal with Prodigies, no. That’s why I signed up with the government — on this new project, anyhow. I don’t like anyone ‘managing’ a minority for any reasons, and governments — no matter how benign — want to use Prodigies.”

I wondered if the US was among the benign or not.

*****************

I’ll take a moment to interrogate Weissrogue, so you can get to learn about him a little more:

Me: So, what’s your real name, Weissrogue?

W: For all intents and purposes, it’s Weissrogue. My birthname was changed by the US Government when they took me in after the missile failure, and I’ve gone by so many names that the only name that has stayed with me throughout is Weissrogue. I have a presence in the real world as Arthur Schmidt, locksmith and cryptologist, but I don’t want people associating Weissrogue with Schmidt. I have to keep that name clean to keep trust with the government, who don’t realize they have a big government contract for security with Weissrogue.

Me: Why Weissrogue?

W: Easy. I was fifteen, and I wanted to make a name for myself as a black hat hacker for humanitarian reasons. “Weiss” means “white” and “rogue”, of course, means “rogue”.

Me: Do you ever hack for non-humanitarian reasons?

W: It’s a waste of time to hack for pizza, or for money for that matter — unless you’re slowly draining some despot’s bank account and giving the money to charity.

Me: Not taking the money yourself?

W: I have enough money. I have a lucrative security contract with the government, remember?

Me: So what turned you into such a humanitarian?

W: I spent my life in military schools as a ward of the US government. I don’t know if I never had any parents, or if they surrendered me. This is a pattern you see with a lot of Prodigies. I was subjected to endless discipline, especially as I was a naturally rebellious person. It got to the point where they modeled me into exactly the opposite of who they were: Instead of conforming, rebellious; instead of hierarchical, egalitarian; instead of military, pacifist. I tried to relate to the people around me instead of their roles, and they punished me until I didn’t care anymore. And I took their hatred and used it to hack into the security software for the missiles.

Me: What did they do?

W: First off, they kept me a secret even after they found me. I can’t blame them — however, it wasn’t entirely successful; the news media was lucky enough to find my leaks. When the government finally caught me, they didn’t know what to do because I was their ward — and they were hoping I would show my talent. We arranged for my death, and I became their top secret government worker. So, in effect, I’m dead.

Me: But you don’t always do what the government tells you to.

W: Shhhh. That’s a secret.