A Thing You Should Not Do (To Me)
You can easily destroy me during a depression by being kind.
I put this rather personal entry here so I’ll be able to point friends and lovers towards it in the future, but this situation has come up three times in recent months… And I can’t write about it when I’m depressed, so mise well write about it when I’m in a salvageable mood.
So. If you have a problem with me when I’m depressed, tell me.
I know what you’re trying to do, and it’s sweet – you’re thinking, “Oh, he’s down right now, he doesn’t need any additional burdens. So I’ll wait until he’s out of the depression to talk to him.”
This is, quite literally, a thing that may drive me to suicide.
When I am in a depressive state, I am wrestling my brain weasels – who are telling me that everything is wrong, people hate you, you think they like you but you’re clueless. My brain weasels are telling me I am so worthless and unloved that I should kill myself.
When in a depression, I rewind every conversation we’ve had recently. My brain weasels look at the replay and tell me how much I’ve offended, what a clueless oaf I am, how insensitive and stupid I’ve been. This is further evidence of my worthlessness.
I fight them with facts. I cling to the idea that if things were this bad I would know, that not everyone can be angry or upset with me, and that if there were a problem that bad I’d be aware of it.
This is how I do not slit my wrists.
So what happens when you’re “kind” and wait until I’m done being depressed to tell me how badly I’ve erred is that you have just given the brain weasels ammunition. They were absolutely right! I was screwing up! And I had no clue! That weird conversation we had two weeks ago was proof that I was an idiot!
Now, the next time I’m in a depressive state and I’m frantically replaying every conversation, the brain weasels go, “See? You really fucked up with X, and you didn’t know that. You’ve probably fucked up with everyone, and they’re too nice to tell you. You’ve alienated all your friends. Why are you living again?” And I’m left without a good answer.
I’m not fucking kidding here, people. Every time you wait during my depression, you make the next depression that much worse. You make it harder for me to use facts. (And you make it so, when I eventually emerge from my depression, I’m going to get slammed with uncomfortable talks that no one likes having, so I can’t even be happy once I’ve gotten through this blue time.)
So please. If you have a problem with me, tell me right away. Don’t try to be nice about it, don’t worry about my mood, just fucking come to me and say, “Hey, you fucked up.” Yes, it will make me upset. But I promise I’ll be as rational about it as I can, and deal with it, and then I’ll have the confidence that if my friends are actually upset with me I will know immediately what I did.
Do not be kind. This is not generic advice for depressives, mind you. Every depressive is different. But your attempts to be nice, as well-meaning as they are, push me to dangerous places. Please do not do this.
Stories Of PayPal Dickery And Wondrous Women
The always-relevant Naamah_darling would like you to know how PayPal is censoring erotic publishing with some new and rather poorly-written moral guidelines. She makes some rather salient observations about how simple “we can all agree on this” changes cascade in ugly ways – and given that PayPal is now, de facto, the global currency, if PayPal won’t accept your payments, you’re not getting them. So stories of PayPal dickery need to be broadcast far and wide, and the more y’all can Tweet, Facebook, and otherwise link to Naamah, the better.
In other news, the magnificent poet Rose Lemberg needs some help getting to WisCon. Rose is a wonderful person who would liven up any right-thinking convention, and she’s taking bids on six artist’s books of The Book Of Shapechangers. Her stuff’s fun to read, and I trust in her artistic sensibilities, and I want her to attend WisCon, so why wouldn’t I link?
Is Polyamory Genetic? Is Homosexuality Genetic?
So Ministry_victim asked an interesting question:
“I’m interested in hearing your thoughts on the ideas of those who believe that polyamory is an a priori genetic condition that suggests predisposition a la homosexuality.”
My thoughts on a genetic polyamory link are the exact same as my thoughts on a genetic homosexual link:
I don’t care.
Now, I do believe that there is some genetic predisposition towards homosexuality (and gender dysphoria leading to gender switches). As many have noted, people don’t become gay for the fabulous social benefits it brings. And I’m as guilty as any of occasionally dragging this fact out to try to convince the anti-gay faction that they should be more tolerant of homosexuals because gay people can’t effectively change the nature of their attraction.
But if. Even if.
Even if the gays were, as some suggest, all conspiring in one big plot to annoy us fine-thinking straight people, wincing as they sucked distasteful dick and reluctantly chowed pussy out of some misplaced form of rebellion, it should still be allowed.
The truth is, gay sex is between consenting adults, and it hurts no one but those adults – there are way more deadly car accidents caused by beers than queers. You may consider gayness to be a bad choice, but two people should be free to make bad choices together. And what people want to do for fun in their private life is something that should be allowed, no matter how distasteful it may be to me. There are scat-players out there, an act that fills me to the bottom of my throat with ick, but as long as they keep their apartment clean for their poor landlord I say let ’em do as they please.
(I’d even say let ’em wear outfits proclaiming their love of scat in a public place, but in the interests of public niceties I do request a shower before they get on the subway.)
Let’s say there are people who are indoctrinated in a seditious lifestyle, pestered into a culture that preys upon naive young people who don’t know any better, at which point they are ushered in and secluded from society and brainwashed until they come to believe that all of these evils are not just acceptable, but actually natural… And then they go out seeking new victims.
Well, there are, and the born-again Christians ring my doorbell early Saturday mornings, and I’m not looking to outlaw them. (If they offered free hummers as part of their entry package, I might be more willing to listen.) As such, even if gay people were an act of rebellion, I’d still say it was something that should be allowed.
We often get caught up in the “nature vs. nurture” aspect of gay and transgender issues, forgetting that this is playing to the conservative bent. What’s important is that people all over the world should have the freedom to live their lives as they see fit assuming they’re not actively harming anyone, and as such Teh Gay Should Be Okay.
So is gay genetically disposed? I say probably, but it doesn’t make a damn bit of difference.
Now; is polyamory a genetic tendency? That, I have no opinion on. I’ve gotten in trouble for my assertions that polyamorous people are, by and large, much larger horndogs than the average person – which makes sense to me, given that you’re risking breaking existing relationships in search of new sexual intimacy. (Otherwise you could just, you know, be friends.) I’m sure there are tendencies genetically towards certain aspects that encourage polyamory, but polyamory is such a complex term, encompassing so many styles of relationships, that I don’t think a single set of genes could really cover it.
But it’s irrelevant. I’ve heard it said that after gay marriage gets settled, they’ll be coming after the polyamorous relationships next. Could be. When that day comes, the genetic predisposition will be just as useless.
Why Poly Gets A Bad Rap
When teenagers start dating for the first time, nobody takes them seriously. This is a mercy.
The first dates invariably involve a rush of Twu Wuv and promises to last forever and poetry so awful as to rival the Vogons. Then it collapses into Drama as the first breakups show up and then some horrible bitch/bastard is dating YOUR Twu Wuv, and there’s gossip and fights and broken friendships galore.
Thankfully, because we know How Monogamy Works, we tolerate this startlingly stupid behavior because we know the vast majority of them will get their shit sorted out eventually and learn to date like (mostly) human beings. This is, we think, a teenaged thing.
Except it isn’t. If you’ve ever known the reclusive guy who gets his first relationship at age 21, you know the Twu Wuv and the ear-raking poetry and the plans of Future Forever are not an age thing, but a First Love thing. When you’re feeling such intense emotions, surely this soul-strummingly beauteous thing must translate into results.
It’s a vital lesson that depressives in particular learn over and over in life: the intensity of the emotions you feel does not necessarily affect the real world.
Unfortunately, the time most people discover polyamory is when they’re in the early twenties – and while you’d think we’d have all learned our lesson from the monogamous dating scene, no, we have yet another set of embarrassing experiences to go through before we attain wisdom. Poly has its own set of “just starting out” dumb behaviors, including the This Triad Is Forever promises, the I Can Date Infinite People And Keep Them All Happy fallacy, the Polyamory Is The One True Way smugness…
Problem is, while society looks at the first monogamous relationships and goes, “Well, that’s just teenaged silliness,” they look at the first polyamorous relationships and goes, “These are adults! They should know better!” But they shouldn’t. Doesn’t matter how many advice books you read, it’s different when the rubber touches road and you’re in the driver’s seat, rocked by new high emotions and pushed around by bizarre fears.
So people look at the twenty-something poly premiere disasters and go, “Well, that’s how poly is.” But it isn’t. That’s how your first poly is, and it’s certainly how some people continue to do poly (much like how some people never quite seem to emerge from the high school method of dating), but most people learn to do a much safer, saner way of poly if they’re in it for the long run.
So poly gets a bad rap because our stupidity is on display. It’s like Luke vs. Han; if all you knew about Luke was him in Return of the Jedi, showing up all bad-ass in his black outfit ready to kick Jabba’s ass, you’d think he was the greatest hero since Han Solo. But no, you saw him back in his whiny teenager days, so Luke’s forever a dumb farm kid. I bet if we saw Han Solo stealing credits from his mother’s purse and getting “hammered” on Bartles and Jaymes Wine Coolers, we’d be thinking what an idiot he was.
In short: Poly gets a bad rap because a) we go through a public phase of evolution where we learn vital lessons and look like idiots, b) at a time when we “should” know better, and c) society doesn’t excuse such shenanigans as part of a healthy monogamous evolution.
So the next time you see some young idiot gushing about how monogamy is outdated and poly’s the true way, just cringe and move on; he’ll probably be more embarrassed than you are in ten years. Hopefully.
How I Got From First To Final Draft On "Sauerkraut Station"
“Rewriting is writing,” goes the old saying, but so much of writing advice focuses on first drafts. I don’t think there’s nearly enough discussion on how to get from first to final draft… And yet that process is critical for most professional writers.
I once asked my Clarion teacher, Neil Gaiman, how close he came on the first draft. “I’d say 95% there,” he answered, and my heart stopped. Seeing the stricken look on my face as I realized he tossed off 95% of award-winning stories the first draft, he quickly added, “Oh, no, Ferrett! That five percent takes all the time. It is, as Mark Twain says, the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.”
Inspired by Jake Kerr’s post on his herculean efforts to get the science right in his own Nebula novelette “The Old Equations,” I’m presenting the first draft of my Nebula-nominated novelette “Sauerkraut Station” as a Word document, with sixty-plus comments explaining what was changed, and why. After writing this, I finished one more draft before presenting it to my online writing group, The Wind-Tossed Coalition, who gave me much useful feedback. I wrote two more drafts, taking about three months between rewritings, and then gave it to my real-life writing group, the Cajun Sushi Hamsters — which was the big test, since the group includes Geoff Landis, who is a NASA scientist who would doubtlessly call me on my bullshit science. (Which he did. I even listened to some of it.)
Since the Hamsters gave it a thumbs-up on the whole, I did a final draft, at which point it had ballooned to 20,000 words. I then 10% Solutioned it down savagely to 17,000 words and started sending it around.
Ann Leckie, the editor at Giganotosaurus, bought it and asked for minor changes before publication — mostly around my inaccurate descriptions of sauerkraut (which I actually hate) and the removal of a small scene she considered too melodramatic and out-of-tone for the rest of the novelette. From there, it was straight to publication.
So that’s five drafts from start to finish… And while the bones of the story have remained absolutely the same, the way the scenes have changed in tone and effectiveness are, I think, quite worthwhile for someone looking to separate lightning from lightning bugs.
I’ve added several notes as to why things were changed, to show you some of my thought processes along the way.
I strongly urge you to read the finalized story first at http://giganotosaurus.org/2011/11/01/sauerkraut-station/, as I’ll be assuming you’ve read it. Then download the Word document to compare and contrast. I’m happy to answer any questions about why things were changed, if there’s an interest; leave a comment here or contact me at theferrett@theferrett.com.