in Life's name and for Life's sake

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I'm just gonna interpret this question as planing for when I accompany the Doctor on his zany adventures through time and space. (This will, of course, obviously happen. I am female, almost ginger, and may possibly at some point in my life return to live in London. The odds are in my favor already.)

In no particular order, and with various degrees of specificity:

1. The 1790s in England. Yes, I know this is about as far from specific as I can get, but this is probably the historical decade I find the most intriguing. This is when Jane Austen became a writer (though not a published novelist), when Blake did some of his most intense engravings, when the French Revolution took a turn towards insanity and when the world was on the brink of so many major cultural changes. I would just want to live as a part of this for a while, to get a real feel for the things that fascinate me about this decade.

2. The World Science Fiction and Fantasy Convention of 1968, which was held in Berkeley. Yes, this means there was once a conflation of Berkeley, the sixties, and SFF geeks. 1968 is the year that Anne McCaffrey's short story "Weyr Search" won the Hugo Award for best short story -- and this story is the one that was later extended into Dragonflight, the first of her Dragonriders of Pern books, and the first book that really got me into science fiction.

3. The first man on the moon, 1969. I just wonder what it must have felt like for those people who had lived in a time when no images of earth from space were readily available to see those first pictures from the Apollo mission, and to have a sudden jarring understanding of themselves as such a small part of such a small corner of the universe, but a corner that undeniably mattered.

4. Anything in which I got to meet Elizabeth I. Because she's just bound to be utterly badass. Maybe I would want to go see a Shakespeare play with her.

5. The fall of the Berlin Wall, 1989. I was technically alive at the time, but had only been so for six months.

Undoubtedly as soon as I post this I will realize some incredibly significant historical event that I'm missing, but for the moment I think this is a pretty good list. I'm obviously most invested in the first three items; the others might rotate out with my mood.

Day one • a song
Day two • a picture
Day three • a book
Day four • a site
Day five • a youtube clip
Day six • a quote
Day seven • whatever tickles your fancy

Conveniently, I have come across another meme that allows me to sort of answer this one by providing a whole lot of stuff about books!

1) What author do you own the most books by?
Not having my bookshelf in front of me at this moment (it being in another country and all) it's hard to say, but probably Anne McCaffrey, simply because she is so prolific. I own all of her Dragonriders of Pern books (multiple copies of some of them) plus assorted others. She takes up a jam-packed half-shelf.

2) What book do you own the most copies of?
This is probably a toss-up between Jane Eyre and Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. For Jane Eyre, I have the first copy I read (a falling-apart-at-the-seams $0.25 library bookstore purchase), the first critical copy I bought (because I really liked the introduction), two copies of the one with the killer engravings (yes, two, they were only $1 a piece), and the copy that I bought in London this semester to read for my Fiction and Narrative class. As for Sorcerer's Stone, I possess it in paperback, hardback, UK paperback, special edition (leather-bound and gold-edged pages), and the Latin translation. But I am the kind of person who thinks it's awesome to have multiple copies of the same book, particularly if they possess different cover art or have some interesting distinguishing feature, so there may well be some other book that I possess five copies of.

3) Did it bother you that both those questions ended with prepositions?
Considering I just ended my last response with a preposition, I'm going to say no.

4) What fictional character are you secretly in love with?
I can't give one answer. Remus Lupin is mostly an intellectual crush. I love Mr. Darcy but more because I identify strongly with Elizabeth. Same goes for Mr. Rochester -- I like him because I am so attuned to Jane. I feel guilty loving fictional characters who are already (fictionally) attached! Also, of course, I love Nik from Julie E. Czerneda's Species Imperative trilogy and Enris from the Stratification trilogy.

5) What book have you read the most times in your life?
I feel like it's probably one of the Harry Potter books or a Young Wizards book, simply because those books were my favorites long before I read any of the other books that are currently my favorites. I feel like I've read Jane Eyre a million times but the truth is that I've just listened to my audiobook a million times; I've only read it cover-to-cover maybe three or four times.

6) What was your favorite book when you were ten years old?
Probably Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban -- I know I read it before I turned eleven because once I turned eleven I kept waiting for my owl from Hogwarts to come...

7) What is the worst book you've read in the past year?
Breaking Dawn. Enough said.

8) What is the best book you've read in the past year?
Usually the answer to this would be a Julie E. Czerneda book, hands down, but Rift in the Sky was such a traumatic experience that I'm not sure I can say I liked it that much. I probably don't have a 'best' list, but I really came to like Neil Gaiman (mostly for The Graveyard Book and Neverwhere), George R. R. Martin redefined 'epic' for me with A Game of Thrones, and most recently Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca sent chills all up and down my spine.

9) If you could force everyone you tagged to read one book, what would it be?
So You Want to Be a Wizard by Diane Duane. Her books have changed my life and I can't imagine not having them in the world.

10) Who deserves to win the next Nobel Prize for literature?
J. K. Rowling. Her books have done more to unite the world under a banner of peace, love, and understanding than any author now alive.

11) What book would you most like to see made into a movie?
Probably Diane Duane's Young Wizards books. There was actually a project to do this a while back, and Duane herself was going to write the script (before becoming a fiction writer she wrote for film and television).

12) What book would you least like to see made into a movie?
Paradise Lost. Despite the fact that at one point last year there were two projects (one studio, one independent) attempting this. I don't know why.

13) Describe your weirdest dream involving a writer, book, or literary character.
I was talking with Julie E. Czerneda and she got mad at me for not having made Rebecca read her books. Another time Diane Duane told me that I was being cocky because she overheard me tell my dad that I really wanted to be published by a particular sff imprint.

14) What is the most lowbrow book you've read as an adult?
The more expensive variety of paperback romance...actually, the Twilight books are probably worse. And I read fanfic, so do with that what you like.

15) What is the most difficult book you've ever read?
Absalom, Absalom! by Faulkner is the first that comes to mind because it's difficult to get the story, much less something of the deeper meaning. But Paradise Lost might be the book where I've had to do the most digging for insight and meaning -- and where it has been most worthwhile.

16) What is the most obscure Shakespeare play you've seen?
Probably Love's Labours Lost -- I have read more obscure Shakespeare plays than I have seen.

17) Do you prefer the French or the Russians?
Oh man, my favorite revolutionaries. It's hard to pick (the Russians have Chekov!) but in the end I have to go with the French. As long as you understand that they're rarely meant to make sense, you'll be alright.

18) Roth or Updike?
No idea who these people are.

19) David Sedaris or Dave Eggers?
Managed to never read either of them.

20) Shakespeare, Milton, or Chaucer?
Milton, hands down. See the part where that man consumed last semester at Berkeley (in a rather painfully joyous way).

21) Austen or Eliot?
Um, since when is that a question? Austen. Definitely.

22) What is the biggest or most embarrassing gap in your reading?
I have never read anything written before Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. For non-English majors this is not at all a gap, but for me it means I haven't read Homer, Virgil, or Dante, only some of the most alluded-to authors that I've never encountered.

23) What is your favorite novel?
The Wizard's Dilemma by Diane Duane

24) Play?
Twelfth Night by Shakespeare, The Last Five Years (score by Jason Robert Brown), Metamorphosis (not by Ovid!)

25) Poem?
"Let me not to the marriage of true minds" by Shakespeare; "When I consider how my light is spent" by Milton

26) Essay?
"Trickster in a Suit of Lights: Thoughts on the Modern Short Story" by Michael Chabon

27) Short story?
I don't really like short fiction -- either reading it or writing it. "Skin So Green and Fine" is an odd Beauty and the Beast retelling that makes the cut; "Attached Please Find my Novel" is a tale of intergalactic publishing escapades that's in it for the title alone.

28) Work of non-fiction?
Erm. I don't read those?

29) Graphic novel?
See above. Although I recently read Maus and thought it was fantastic.

30) Who is your favorite writer?
Aargh hatred for this question. But it's down to Diane Duane, Julie E. Czerneda, and J. K. Rowling.

31) Who is the most overrated writer alive today?
I wouldn't know, I haven't read him!

32) What is your desert island book?
Tough question, but probably A Thousand Words for Stranger or The Wizard's Dilemma. Both are narratives of hope and connection in the midst of a chaotic world. But Paradise Lost might make the list because I could use all that time I was stranded to get all my Milton ideas out of my system and onto some paper.

33) And ... what are you reading right now?
A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf

"Writers are a curious species; the writing life even more so. We tell ourselves stories, not the way regular people do, but with word-by-word effort. Dreams become insufficient. We're compelled to lock them down, polish them, hoard them on hard drives and paper. We dare to compare them to the work of others. Worst of all, after months and years of labor, we hand our most treasured fantasies to strangers. And wait."

~Julie E. Czerneda, from her introduction to the 10th Anniversary Edition of her first novel, A Thousand Words for Stranger

I cannot agree more with this statement. My novel, for anyone interested, just underwent a 3,000-word digression about the creation of the world and the way that magic works, and the theological explanation of why it works this way (there are gods and goddesses involved--specifically, a god and a goddess, though I think they probably think of themselves as divinities instead of as gods). This was preceded by a 3,000-word theoretical discussion about the nature of magic, a "scientific" approach to its origin and a discussion of experiments to determine the difference in the texture of magic depending upon the part of the world you're in. I'm actually on track writing-wise.

The most annoying part of all this is that I've lost my voice, just when I have moderately interesting things to talk about.

So I posted this in the NaNoWriMo forums, but I figure that some of you lurking friends out in cyberspace might have ideas for me, too!

This November, what started out as a simple cross-dressing farce has turned into something approximating a serious commentary on gender roles. I'm actually writing it for someone who bid for it in the livelongnmarry fandom auction on LiveJournal to support marriage equality in California, and her only request was that it involve a woman cross-dressing as a man for some reason, serious or not-so-serious. In my story, the main character Gillian dresses as a man to pretend to be her best friend Leah's fiancee. This is because Leah is actually secretly engaged to a man who is off fighting in the War (something like the crusades), and needs a way to fend off the advances of an upper-level political type who's taken an interest in her. They end up being pulled into a great deal of court intrigue. Leah wants to discover what's happened to the man she's secretly engaged to, and Gillian gets in over her head in pretending to be a man...

But one important aspect of this world is that only men can use magic. At least, that's what everyone has always been told, and what all of the people in this small and isolated island nation believe. Gillian believes it, too, which makes passing as a man in this society even more difficult for her, because she has to find a way around using magic in situations where the average courtly male would be expected to. Well, eventually she gets into one of these situations and there's no way out, and somehow in her desperation, she is able to use magic! Turns out that it was just a big lie that women can't use magic, although I don't know when the lie was first told or if anyone alive in the present knows that it was a lie (they might believe it as true).

My question is -- has it always been like this? Or somewhere, way back when, did some group of magical women do something that caused the men to kill them off and instigate a ban on female magic use, a ban that then translated over the decades/centuries into a complete and insistent belief in the physical inability of women to use magic?

How did they manage the initial silencing of women who could use magic? How is it possible that the men of this nation wiped the potential of women using magic from the minds of everyone, men and women alike?

Also, I don't have a concrete idea of how magic is used in this world. I know that everyone has a small ability for it -- no man is ungifted entirely (and of course none of the women are either, but they don't know that). I'm not too keen on wand-based magic -- or at least, not on the type that implies that magic is dependent more upon the implements one uses to construct it than the intellect/will of the individual. And besides, it would be suspicious if women suddenly weren't allowed to own wands. I think the first thing women would do would be to get wands anyway, by stealing the ones that belong to their brothers/fathers/lovers.

I know this is a lot of stuff...but any ideas about how the use of magic by women could be so extensively covered up, and why this might happen, would be great. Really, any comments about the premise or intent of the story would be much appreciated.

Oh my god. I have been working on decal-related things FOR MORE THAN TWELVE HOURS. I went to a decal facilitator workshop at noon and Natalie and Danica are STILL HERE working on putting together a course reader.

And I still have homework tomorrow. Shit.

*dies*

The list of things I don't want to do looks awfully similar to the list of things I have to do for homework before break...

It's oddly weird to think that in less than a week I'll be home for a week. I know I'll be happy to see my family and friends again but it feels sudden. Oh well, I'm sure it will be all too short (isn't it always?) and I'll come back here before I'm ready to.

I went to a conference on children's literature yesterday, which was oodles of fun. My favorite was the panelist who did her paper about the "Oxford School of Children's Literature," where she connectd a particular English curriculum and atmosphere at Oxford University to the rise of what is today the typical medieval fantasy. She had a great argument for how people like Lewis and Tolkein, who both taught at Oxford, and many of their students, went on to write fantasy fiction based on old medievalist texts since that was what the Oxford English curriculum focused on at the time. (Yes I know that the fact that this excites me means I'm a geek but I'm completely alright with that.)

In other words, I have overdue library books for the first time in my life and I should go and see what I can do about that. I had the note to return them on my calendar...it just didn't get translated into real life very effectively.

Also, starting tonight I'm hosting two high school students from SoCal who're here for a retreat that one of the clubs I'm in is putting on. It'll be hectic because I have to show them around, etc. but it should be fun (I hope) and at least they'll get something out of it (again, I hope).

Who's going to be back in SoCal starting this Friday? I want to see you!

Questions from the Clarion application.  The only things other than the stories that they plan to read.  (Just so we're clear, these are rough, freewriting answers.)

Describe highest education (school, dates, degree)
-graduated Mission Viejo High School in June 2007
-currently enrolled at the University of California at Berkeley (August 2007-present)

Describe your writing habits. (What exactly do they mean by this?  I'm honestly not sure.)
When things like school and work don't interfere, I write every day.  Not always on the same project, but I make sure I've written something.  When I fall in love with a project, I pursue it intensely.  I've done National Novel Writing Month three times and it's taught me how to write every day, unfailingly, and then go back to edit later.  I write best when I've got a deadline in sight and a group of supportive friends and fellow writers to cheer me on.  This doesn't mean that I need deadlines to write, or to think about writing, but there's something about the figure of a deadline--especially one shared by other friends and writers--that entices my ideas to coalesce in ways I never would have dreamed possible.  I think a lot before beginning a story.  I do research about any aspect that I don't have personal knowledge about.  I really like to get to know my characters, and they're usually where a story starts for me.  With short fiction I'm pretty good at planning things, but I also don't like to stick to tightly to plots when something better shows up.  I usually write with a laptop but I carry a journal and a pen with me in every purse I own and you'll never find me without the ability to write.  When I'm blocked on my laptop, I banish myself to someplace with nothing but pen and paper and just write.

What do you hope to accomplish through Clarion?
I hope to strengthen my prose style while working specifically within the genres--fantasy and science fiction--that I enjoy the most.  College creative writing courses, from my limited experience, tend to focus on "literary fiction," disdaining other forms, and as such I have not had many opportunities to hone my craft specific to these genres.  I also hope to find a supportive community of writers interested in similar topics who will be able to give better criticism of my works than those who are not acquainted with sci-fi and fantasy.  (Also, let's be honest, I hope to learn how to get something published--how to write something so damn good that a publisher can't say no--except I'm almost positive that such a thing can't be taught.)  As far as craft goes, I'd specifcally like to work on telling more compact stories; even my short stories tend to be long and rambling, and that's something I'd like to work on.

List professional writers or Clarion graduates you know.
(I actually like this list very much.  I'm rather proud of it.  I just want to know what they plan to do with it!)
Julie E. Czerneda
Vikram Chandra
Melanie Abrams
Matt Miller

*sigh* I'm not even sure how I want to answer these, or how much space I get to answer them in!  Time will tell, I suppose...I know things will work out, and I shouldn't stress over this crap nearly as much as I ought to stress about my stories.  Because if I wow them with a story, it won't matter if my writing habits involve setting fire to the bedsheets, they'll want me.  And I oh so very much want them to want me.