My Annual Seasonal Affective Disorder Got… Weird

So I have Seasonal Affective Disorder every spring.  I endure about three to five weeks of terrible, crushing depression, and in fact as a boy I had two suicide attempts during the June time period and was halfway to a third before finally realizing hey, I feel this way every damn year, maybe it’s the chemicals.
So spring is kinda brutal.  (And yes, most people have SAD in the fall, autumn is not an ironclad rule of depression, there is zero need to mention how other people have depression to me in this circumstance since I have it in the spring.)
And I didn’t have it last year – but, as I noted, I’d just had a triple bypass four months back.  So as I theorized then, it could be the new diet and exercise, it could be the super-supplement of Vitamin D the doctor had put me on as he noted my levels were low, or it could be that I’d had major fucking surgery and my body was sufficiently jangled by the trauma that it just sort of skipped all the normal procedures.
I wondered whether I’d get it this year.  And then it hit me on Friday.  Hard.
I knew it immediately, because I’d started crying out of nowhere, feeling absolutely worthless, despite the fact that I’d just had a very good annual salary review and plans for a fun weekend.  I knew this flavor.  This depression was distinctly chemical.
And I buckled down, ready for the next four weeks, feeling exhausted already, and…
…it vanished.
Just went away on Saturday. I kept checking all weekend, but the SAD literally consumed just a single evening.
That’s when Gini noted that I’d forgotten to take my pills on Thursday.
And there’s a scary thing: it may well be that 10k milligrams of Vitamin D are all that stands between me and crushing depression right now.  It’s always hard to diagnose these things, but my exercise has been low, my body’s back, and one pill and I was back to normal.  It had never occurred to me that it might be Vitamin D, as I drink approximately a cow’s worth of milk a week and take a generic vitamin supplement, but…
…it looks like, until I hear otherwise, that taking a small yellow gelcap once a week is the key to keeping my brainmeats functioning.  And I can’t skip a day, or havoc arises.
That’s a little scary, but it’s better than enduring the depression.

Which Past Stars Would Make It In Today's Environment? A Thought Experiment

So you may not know this, but Dolly Parton’s arms are covered in tattoos – full arm sleeves.  And, it is said, her breasts are also covered in tats.  She merely covers them up in public because, well… I suspect it’s because back when she started her career, no nice young girl had tattoos.
Just another way Dolly Parton was ahead of her time.  Dolly’s one of the smartest recording artists out there – a sharp songwriter, an above-the-curve businesswoman, and the kind of feminist who reconciled her sexuality with her talent in such a casual way that she slipped under the goddamned radar for most people.
And I think about Scalzi’s post on Heinlein yesterday, where he tore apart the yahoos who said that Heinlein would never be nominated for a Hugo today by pointing out that Heinlein was, above all, a commercial writer.  He adapted his style to write for the highest-paying markets, paving the way for “mainstream” sci-fi, and if he were to start today as a young Heinlein with his talent, he’d doubtlessly be cranking out respected bestsellers.
Dolly Parton starting today?  This is the woman who wrote classic songs like “Jolene” and “Greatest Love of All,” and writes a song every day – and at least some of those songs would, with today’s modern folk renaissance, still be great hits.  She’d be openly tattooed, still a sex symbol, and probably more conflicted about her evangelical Christianity, but plop Dolly into this musical environment and I still think she’d make it to the top.
But you know who wouldn’t be a star?
Michael Jackson.
Not that Michael wouldn’t still be magnificently talented, but he got his start in the Jackson Five.  When was the last time you saw a family act hit the top of the pop charts?  Or a kid on vocals?  Hell, we still talk about how fucking weird it is to like MMmmmBop, which just shows how much of an outlier that is. A lot of Michael’s talent was developed while he was doing the touring thing with his family, and I can’t see The Jackson Five making the charts.
No, if you’re a kid these days, you do the Disney school of pop star, and not only is Disney not particularly great at promoting black kids as their marquee idols, I don’t think Michael’s controlling father would have let him go.  So Michael Jackson would vanish, and probably be a lot happier somewhere, and most likely alive.
What about the Beatles?  Proooobably.  The interesting thing about the Beatles is that they were the first teen pop stars of such a magnitude, and unlike the teen idols to come later, nobody shaped them – they just sort of started wearing those crazy haircuts on their own.  Unlike, say, One Direction, nobody said “Let’s put four cute boys in a band and have them perform hits,” the Beatles just sort of organically arose – and that’s what enabled them to make the transition from the Backstreet Boys of the 1960s and into the fucking Beatles we know today.
I think if the Beatles had somehow assembled themselves today, they’d be much more managed – with a cadre of people trying to mold them to be more popular, discouraging them from taking risks, promoting and actually fragmenting the band in different ways.  I think the Beatles would still be popular in that Hanson sort of way, but the likelihood of them being left alone to actually evolve into the magnificence of what they became would be very small.  I think the Beatles’ Hits would be four or five chart-topping singles after a good showing on a few reality shows, and then too many agents trying to steer them in bad directions.
So that’s the theory.  Question is, what great singer from the past do you think would succeed or fail today thanks to various marketplace changes, and why do you think they’d still triumph, or meet an ignominious defeat?  (Bonus points if you can pick someone obscure who would catch fire in today’s record market.)

Read My Story "In Extremis" In Space and Time Magazine!

Fun fact: Neil Gaiman called the first draft of this story “boring.”
That changed my career.
This was back at the Clarion Science Fiction Writers’ Workshop, and Neil was our teacher for the week.  It was Week Four (of Six), and Week Four is when you’ve written enough stories that you start to take ridiculously big chances.  And I had this idea: what if a priest tried to perform an exorcism on a zombie, figuring that all zombies were possessed by evil spirits?
I was terrible at writing stories with just two people talking, so I made sure to make it a locked-room case.  I wasn’t really knowledgeable about religion, so I sought out Kat Howard to be as accurate as I could get.  And I wrote a tale about a priest and a dying old lady, him waiting for her to die so he could perform the exorcism at the moment of death, with plenty of flashbacks to the world where he’d lost faith.
And people hated this story.
My previous tales’d had flaws, but they at least zipped along, moving from scene to scene.  This thing just rehashed the same basic premises over and over again, this pretentious mess of bollocks seeping bad research, a 4,500 word story that went absolutely fucking nowhere.
And at one point, in my worldbuilding, it was revealed that the priest had been so despairing because he’d had to run down the freeway to a bloody car accident, desperate to shoot the dead in the head before they rose as fast zombies.  And Neil cried, in frustration, “Well, why the heck didn’t you write that?”
I’d wanted to.  But it didn’t seem like the kind of story I needed to tell.  And I realized: I’m a pulp guy.  I’m not the dude who writes slow scenes with two dying people locked in a room – I’m the dude who writes priests having firefights with zombies.  And I’m not the guy who gets all the details of Catholic exorcisms correct – I’m the doof who writes whatever’s most exciting, and damn the facts.
(Fun fact: A critique from Geoff Landis, NASA scientist, once said, “I’m not sure what universe this is set in, because the laws of physics you’re proposing here utterly do not match up to ours.”  That tale went on to be one of my most popular stories, proving that – for me – characterization wins over accuracy every time.)  (And yes, Geoff liked the story regardless of my skewed facts.)
So years later, that priest still stuck in my head, I wrote a piece of flashfic called “In Extremis” detailing this poor schmuck’s gunbattle by the side of the freeway.  I took out all the boring deathroom conversation, and reduced a 4,500-word bloatfest to a 1,200-word superscene.  It’s fast, it’s speedy, and one review said “This one was impressive for the author’s skillful and economic creation of a vividly imagined world in the narrow space of a short action story.”  Here’s your excerpt:

 Napkins. He was supposed to get napkins at Costco. Instead, he’s grabbing the firearm from the Last Rites kit in his back seat, running down the freeway, towards the sound of screams.
Why do they always gawk? Rush-hour commuters emerge from stopped cars, forcing him to dodge flung-open doors as soccer moms crane their necks to see what’s happening. They know what’s happening. They should be running. It’s as though they want to watch him shoot a man. Well, not a man, but the body of a man.
How is he going to get the napkins today?

The good news is, Space and Time purchased it, and you can buy that flashfic (along with many other fine stories) here, for only $5.
Sorry I bored, you Neil.  I trust I did better this time.

"They'll All Turn On You Eventually!" – On Political Correctness

People who don’t practice political correctness – or, as I like to call it, “treating other people with respect” – seem to think that you’re choosing your words carefully as a form of inoculation.  As if you use the correct terminology once, and then nobody ever bothers you again!
I say this because when I step on the wrong words and offend folks, someone invariably crows, “See?  This is the way this political correctness works!  They’ll turn on you!  They will all turn on you!”
As if the only reason I’d chosen my words carefully was out of fear!
But no.  When people complain, I welcome the feedback.  Because if I have offended you, I want to know.  I’d rather you bother me a bit so I can see why something might be hurtful, because the point is that I’d rather not step on your feelings out of ignorance.
Those comments aren’t a mob, whirling self-righteously to devour me in anger – they’re people expecting an explanation as to why I’d say something so stupidly hurtful.
Keep in mind: just because someone registers a complaint doesn’t mean I’m necessarily going to act upon that.  I have a friend who hates it when I say, “I’m going to bitch about this for a while,” because to her, the word “bitch” is so synonymous with “angry, silly female” that she feels the word in any usage is an insult to her sex.
I thought about that.  And ultimately decided that I didn’t think “bitch,” when used in the sense of “complaining for not much of a good reason,” was actually an assault on women in general.
That’s what political correctness is to me: choosing, quite carefully and proactively, to offend.  I know my friend doesn’t like it.  Yet her distaste doesn’t mean I slavishly follow her impulses.  It means I’ve considered her argument, asked, “Am I slandering women by using this term?” and answered, “…no.  No, I don’t think I am.  I think she’s taking offense over something that she shouldn’t.”
She cringes whenever I use it.  And if she chooses not to read me because she thinks my language is too vulgar, I support her right to remove herself from my presence, same as I have no problems with people who go, “You swear too much, Ferrett, I don’t like reading that filth.”
People can choose not to read me for a variety of reasons. I support all of ’em.
And that bitch thing?  It’s an ongoing conversation, not a one-time decision.  If enough people start telling me they’re personally hurt by the language, I’ll stop using it.  I used to use the term “retarded” to refer to stupid things – on the East Coast when I grew up, it was a generic slur.  But enough people contacted me to say, “Hey, that hurts my feelings” that I’ve quietly expunged it from my writings.
And I’ll never get it perfect.  In some cases, I literally can’t.  When dealing with transgender people, I get flack no matter what terminology I use.  Some people have very specific terms they’d like me to use, each very convinced that they speak for all transgender people, and feel personally slighted when I use the ones they consider to be wrong (or, as they put it, “uneducated”).
Over the last few months I’ve had more people expressing a preference for “transgender,” so I now use that.  But literally the second time I used that term, I got yet another private email saying, “Um, actually, we prefer transgender*ed*…”
But regardless, too many of these yahoos who cry, “See?  They’ll turn on you!” seem to think that a) people are only politically correct in an attempt to be seen as lovable, and b) language should be this stable thing, where what was inoffensive ten years ago should always remain inoffensive.
But no.  The landscape changes, and thank God!  People of all sorts feel empowered enough to register complaints they didn’t feel comfortable speaking out before!  That’s a wonderful sign that it’s not the language that’s evolving, but the people!
I’m politically correct because I don’t want to offend inadvertently.  I’m speaking loudly about controversial topics, and when I land a blow I want it to be because I meant to hit that person (or at least couldn’t avoid it).
Injuring someone because you spoke sloppily is like throwing elbows on a crowded subway – bad manners and ignorance combined.
If all I ever got was silence, I’d suspect I wasn’t talking about particularly important topics.  I’m going to bruise people’s feelings.  I’m going to tell them that some things they believe aren’t just wrong, but maybe actively toxic.  To expect no pushback, no counter-concerns about my own beliefs?  That’d be crazy.
The PC responses aren’t a group of hungry piranha, scenting blood in the water – it’s a feedback loop, where you can either apologize for the injury, argue that they’ve misunderstood you, or tell them they’re stupid for feeling that way.  Most go the “You’re stupid” route and, not surprisingly, get flooded with angry people.
But I’ve fucked up with some really dumb words in public.  There’s always a thin scum of bitter jerks who refuse to forgive any transgression, of course…. but mostly, I’ve found a prompt “I’m sorry!” and doing your best to speak better will get you forgiveness.  Because most realize that words are hard and it’s impossible to always get it right.
And yet for all of this, some idiot will misinterpret everything I’ve said as “I want to live in a world where nobody ever offends anybody and we all float happily down Cotton Candy Lane!”  No.  I want a world where we’re driving madly down a dirt road, the wheels rattling and the seatbelts on to keep our asses in the seat, taking dangerous chances with what we do.  But in that world, I want not to smack the pedestrians on the back of the head with our side-view mirrors as we rush by, I want not to splash them with puddles, I want to ensure that if I run over some poor schmuck that they were someone I pointed this fucking Jeep right at them.
That’s what PC is for me.  Words are a weapon, and we fire them.  So let’s ensure we choose our targets so we hit only who we damn well meant to.

Hear My Story "Black Swan Oracle" Over At Escape Pod!

When we were doing the Kickstarter for the What Fates Impose anthology (which also includes Keffy‘s truly unforgettable Peeps-and-vomit related Gazing into the Carnauba Wax Eyes of the Future), I had this to say about my tale Black Swan Oracle:

The best story I’ve written in the past year is a glacial little tale called “Black Swan Oracle,” originally entitled “Facebook Oracle” – a fortune-teller who reads social media, contrasting and comparing the posting habits of billions of users to tell you your fate out to six significant digits.  It was heavily influenced by Nate Silver’s The Signal and the Noise, a nonfiction book on forecasting.  Thematically, it’s got a lot in common with my story “‘Run,’ Bakri Says,” if you liked that.
The good news: I sold this story.
The better news: You can buy it.

And, like “‘Run’, Bakri Says” – which won their 2012 Best Story Reader Contest – Escape Pod has now done an audio adaptation of Black Swan Oracle, read by Amy Robinson.  This one’s dark and juicy, and frankly, it was hands-down the best thing I wrote in 2013.  I’m glad to see it continuing its arc to an even wider audience.
So head over and listen to it, and if you like it, feel free to Retweet it or blog it or whatever you kids do.
(Also, the folks at Escape Pod gave a kind shout-out to my videogame-Lovecraft tale Hollow as the World, which garnered way more nominations for the Hugo than I ever thought it would [even if it didn’t make the final cut this year].  So if you’ve got some spare time, check that one out too.)

The Unexpected Changes That Come From Finally Selling A Novel (Part 1 in a Series)

When, after twenty-five years of plugging away, I finally sold my first novel, I thought the changes would be more personal than professional.  After all, how different can it be, moving from a short story writer to a novelist?
As it turns out, quite a bit.
Short stories don’t need blurbs.  Short stories don’t have covers to discuss.  Short stories are tiny events, and do not require the author to see what promotions he can whip up amongst his friends. If my short story is disappointing, that’s a bad review in Locus and maybe a slight black mark on the editor’s legacy, but my tale is surrounded by four other stories and they can hold up the slack.
My impending novel, on the other hand, drops on its own.  I am solely responsible for it.  And so even though I’m not a self-publisher and Angry Robot is handling most of the hard work in terms of editing/finding a good cover/selling it to B&N/Amazon/Powells/whoever , I’m still thinking up ways to get the word out because this is my baby.  I’ve never really had to think this much about “Say, how do I inform people about this thing?  How do I get people to express their enthusiasm for it where other people can see it?” because until now, a blog post was sufficient.  This involves actual marketing, and though I could lie back and just let everyone else do the work, I think y’all know that’s not my style.
But the biggest change?  Short stories are short, and deadline-free.
I mean, they do have deadlines, if you write for anthologies (I can’t, as my stories take upwards of a year to gestate), and certainly edits are due after acceptance.  But generally, it’s “write a story on any topic, send it off whenever.”  And if they like it, they like it!  And if they don’t, well, whatevs.
So I’m used to wandering free as a cloud, letting my muse flit from tale to tale – and since stories generally take me about two to three weeks to finish a draft, my schedule’s been my own.
However.  The edits for Flex (please buy it) drop sometime in mid-May.  That’s about two weeks from now.  And I’m working on two novels – the sequel to Flex, which exists mostly inside my head at this point, and the story of a space-bound gourmet restaurant, which I have three chapters written for and want to continue.
Normally, I’d just say, “All right, let’s do this!” and commit the next three months to powering out a first draft.  But I can’t start the process, because for me, writing a novel is like uncorking a soda – you need to finish it quickly, before all the fizz leaks out.  And I know from years of experience managing my creative muse that if I pour all my energy into New Book, then get yanked rudely out of New Book Headspace to rewrite portions of Flex, by the time I return from Old Novel Land, poor little New Novel will be deflated and decarbonated.
So I’m in a holding pattern, with two novels I really want to sink my teeth into, and not quite able to let slip the dogs of war because I have Deadline barring my way.  And there was a recent Writing Excuses talking about this same problem, where once they became novelists they had to deal with the reality of Edits potentially bursting through the enthusiasm of this new project like some sort of sadistic Kool-Aid Man.
Which is weird.  If I’m successful at this, then I’m going to have to find a way to restructure my creativity so that I don’t need an uninterrupted three months to finish a novel.  But for now, I’m new enough at writing novels that people want to publish that I’m not going to futz with the formula that got me here.
So I’ve got all the reason in the world to write: I’m on contract for a sequel, manuscript due next summer.  I’ve got a really cool spacebound restaurant based in part on the Velvet Tango Room.  And I’m sitting here walking in small circles, working on tiny projects that don’t require ambition, because soon Amanda will plop her revision requests for Flex on my desk and I must be ready.
So I’m twiddling. Twiddling as hard as I can.

The AMAZING SPIDER-NAILS Revealed!

I told you I’d post ’em. Just not until after con.
Alas, my right middle finger chipped as soon as I got home from con. Danger of non-gel polishes. I’m not used to this, but I guess I exchange prettiness for endurance.
WITNESS!




Yeah, Ashley my manicurist is pretty amazing herself.
In other news, Penguicon was good.  Saw many of my peeps – but never enough.  I’ve hit Con Critical Mass at Penguicon, where I now know so many awesome people there is now no way I can see them all in 36 hours.
Highlight of the con was teaching a fireplay class, which I‘ve written up in detail on FetLife (the Facebook for Kinksters!) if you want to explore some slightly heated content.