Gender and the Box

I don't know if it's ever taken me this long to figure something out before. It has taken me five months and one day to realize why I've spent that long dabbling in slash--mainly reading but with some, albeit non-explicit, writing. I understand that this development is only an extension of what I started with Caryatid.

I write round male characters. I can only think of one or two round female characters--Felicity and Jane, I guess. Everyone else is male, but not in the strictly traditional sense. My men cry. They take things harder than they should. In a lot of ways, the characters in the Rodin trilogy should just be considered neuter. I know how odd that sounds. But now I know why I did it.


I've never been quite comfortable in the female stereotype. Women are supposed to be overly emotional, touchy-feeling, and too talkative. I am overly unemotional, have proxemics issues, and sulk. I'm a misanthropic bitch, not a people person. I don't into the socially assigned gender roles. I don't feel comfortable writing about either myself or the norm. I need a middle ground. I found it in mildly effeminate men.

Slash is my protest against the box. Oh, you know what box I mean; it's the box I talk about all the time. Society's box. The universe's box. The box I don't believe exists unless we let it hold us. I've been subconsciously using my male characters to do this for years. I guess I figure that if my men cry, maybe it's okay if I do, too. 

On that note, I should probably come clean. Oh, screw probably, I just feel like it. If I haven't already hinted enough, e is slash. AtGoh was developing bi storylines before I put it aside. The Glorious Struggle will also be slash. We'll just have to see where I go after November 30. Maybe I'll be able to write a strong female character then.

Going back to e, I finished Ch. 2 on Saturday afternoon and Ch. 3 this morning at approximately 2 am. I am now working on Ch. 4. I shall be done with Ch. 8, the halfway mark, by the end of the month.

"Don't let the stars run down."

Isaac Asimov.

Have I let my stars run down? Today is the eighth anniversary of the day that inspired me to write my first two novels. That day has filled many of my nights with inexplicable tears. That day gave me a cause, a cause to which I swore I would give me life. That day tore me apart and put me back together in its own image. That day was the Mark Adams to my Ralph Myers. I grieved. I hallucinated in novel form. I played both the prettiest trills and saddest elegies. I said I would never forget--could never forget.

And yet, today, I almost forgot. I was awake for two hours before I suddenly sat bolt straight with the knowledge of the date. I almost forgot. And I almost didn't care. Correction: I really didn't care.

I don't know if I do, now. I don't know if I care more or less than I can say. My priorities have expanded so much in the past year. I don't know how or why. I just know that I have moved back to square one, where I wonder if I can seriously live in this country for the rest of my life. My once beloved has been raped, and not by Henry Erikson. It's too hideous to watch. Especially when I see that I don't love her. I don't know if I ever really did. Was it infatuation?

Oh, these metaphors are in bad taste. My point is that I have no desire to write about Henry Erikson anymore. I have no desire to wear the bracelet I made in eighth grade. I desire now to cry more over what I don't feel than what I do. The black bile is fading away. I'm all phlegm--all logic. I'm sitting here telling myself that it's enough when it very clearly isn't. I've had this conversation before. I'll have it again. I won't ever find an answer that I like. That won't stop me searching.

But today, there is one singular question on my mind. I'll ask it again:

If I've let my stars run down, is there any way to reverse entropy?

Running Amok

Sometimes, I find English class really inspiring. It gives me new ways to procrastinate. Today, my teacher proposed a simple question. If you were a writer, how many rejections could you take? I said I wouldn't have a limit. Then I thought about it and realized that I have no empirical evidence. However, I do have a way to test it.

Today, after an hour or two of research, I submitted my wonderful second-person narrative "Amok" to a literary magazine called Vulcan. Yes, I absolutely love how fitting the names are. It wasn't really intentional. If I believed in such things, I would call it serendipity. Or fate. Either way, we'll see in a few weeks. I feel pretty good about the whole thing. But I must admit, a rejection would be, from an anthropological or psychological perspective, fascinating. 

Other random notes: My fanfic story is going well. I found a loose story line for The Glorious Struggle, or my NaNoWriMo project-to-be.

I am also loving this new layout. Change is good. To an extent. I think I've outgrown the depressing nature of Scribe.

Laundry List

Oh my, I seem to have forgotten about this lovely little blog. Unfortunately, I somehow managed to do quite a bit of writing. Here is a list of my high literary accomplishments since July 21:

-Rewrote Chapter 2 of Caryatid
-Finished Prologue of AtGoH
-Wrote Chapter 1 of AtGoH
-Finished "Amok"
-Finished "Running Ad Astra"
-Wrote a fanfic short story
-Came up with brilliantly convoluted story line for fanfic novel
-Outlined aforementioned 20-chapter fanfic novel, which we shall hereby call e
-Wrote Prologue of e
-Wrote Chapter 1 of e
-Started Chapter 2 of e
-Failed at crackfic application essays
-Added a disaster to add-a-disaster
-Decided to do NaNoWriMo!

There is my August laundry list. I must admit that I am quite proud of it--most of it. All of the fiction above not related to the Rodin trilogy is available online in various locations, one of which I will not name here.

I suppose the question now comes to, how do I feel? The answer is that I haven't let myself think about that until now, this moment, as these keys fly beneath my fingers and the tears well up in my eyes. Oh, yes, now I am thinking about it. I am thinking, not feeling. Because how do I feel? Oh fuck it all to hell. I don't feel anymore. I don't let myself. I'm not quite crying. That would be admitting emotion. I'm not. I'm simply admitting that I haven't cried in a bit too long.

I'm going to go work on Chapter 2 of e. I can write that safely, without all these sensations. This? This blog? Oh, it doesn't feel so very lovely at the moment.

Precession is a Force to be Trusted

Finally. Finally. Finally. I finally finished the third draft of the first chapter of my first novel. It took me how many months? I have lost count. All summer, I think. Anyhow, I just finished it. I have no idea what to think of it. It is 5500 words and 18 pages, considerably longer than even my freakishly consistent long chapters in Martyrs.And oddly enough, I think it says less than the first two versions. I'm getting more verbose. I think that's a bad thing. Oh whatever. Mark is less bipolar in it. Which is very, very good.

And the other thing about it? It's fun. It is so much more fun. In a dark, twisted, morbidly-ironic-for-the-omniscient-author sort of way. As in, I enjoyed writing part of it tonight. Mark is such a jerk. I love him. Poor Ralph. God I love this.

Anyhow, the whole thing is really about precession. I pushed. Went a direction I didn't mean to go, but whatever, I love it anyway.

With a tired shrug, Ralph offered, “Sir, I’m not sure that many people would see peace as compromising liberty.”

Mark pulled his lips into a thin, grim smile. “Do not be so sure, Ralph. Terror is a force of precession.”

Ralph’s eyes flashed in confusion. “What do you mean, sir?”

“Terror is intended as a source of chaos, Ralph. Terrorists use terror to incite fear and thus gain attention for their cause. They push for sympathy. They receive, almost invariably, hatred. And fear, yes, but they fail to understand that fear is only an effective management technique.”

“I’m not sure I understand, sir. An effective management technique?”

Mark leaned in, his eyes sparkling in the incandescence. “Let’s try an experiment.” He turned up his charisma to full, smiling his brilliant, intoxicating smile. “An experiment to prove the worth of terror.” He leaned in just a little farther. “Are you afraid of me, Ralph?”

Ralph’s eyebrows shot up. His facial features shrank together. He was keenly aware of the feeling in the pit of his stomach, but he wouldn’t call it fear. It was just a never-ending sense of shock at the President’s eccentricity. “Sir, why would I be afraid of you?” he asked, his stomach dreading the answer.

“Oh, you are naïve, aren’t you?” Mark marveled at the mouse before him. “Let’s see if you can’t answer that in one week from today. You will be afraid of me Ralph, mark my words. You will see that fear is quite an effective management technique. You will not doubt me. You will trust me implicitly—without reservation.” His voice darkened despite his smile, as if to foreshadow the fear that was to follow, “And let’s see how it turns out for the both of us. I have my hypothesis; you make yours.”

Ralph was pale, his black eyes shimmering, reflecting the frenzy of the man across from him. He sat straighter in his chair. His stomach squirmed. “I think you assume too much, sir.” He shook his head. “Don’t I have better things to be afraid of than you?”

“You mean China?”

"I mean the Red National Army, sir."

Loneliness is more than a feeling--

This is a little over a week old. But it feels truer tonight than when I wrote it. So... Oh, I don't know. I've been writing a new short story. Science fiction. A nameless lunatic finds redemption in words. More or less. I don't know. I don't like it. I'm crying. Why? I think I must be bipolar. Or severely hormonal. Oh well. I meant to post the poem. That's the point, right?

Loneliness is more than a feeling—

More than a drop in serotonin,

More than the dark winter light,

More than the silence of a crowd,

More than the simple nothing.

Loneliness is the lack of a simple nothing—

Where all the lies crumble away

And we see ourselves for who we truly are.

Loneliness is the emptiness of the soul—

When we stand in front of an antique mirror,

With tears sparkling in our eyes,

And see that we are truly alone.

Loneliness is the claustrophobia—

That comes to our untouched skin

When we remember those psychology articles

About the human need for touch.

Loneliness is the irony—

Of the machine turning itself to a fetus

When we see that we are all too human

And that loneliness is so much more than a feeling—

Loneliness is a noun.

Forgotten Diagrams

Pages: 202. Words: 61,755. Chapters: 12. Prologue? Yes, and it is damn good.. Epilogue? It'll do pig. Favorite Passage: Still everything Mark says in Chapter 7: "Check Your Premises".

So yeah. Last night, i.e., this morning turned out pretty much how I expected. I went to sleep around five. Slept about two and a half hours. Woke up. Watched The Prestige. Made plans. Ate a cookie. Made more plans. Drank some caffeine--I mean tea. Made a bunch of sandwiches for other people. Got some bad news. Kept smiling. Realized I never actually diagrammed for Martyrs after I finished the epilogue... Figured this was as good of a time as any. Realized that I seem to have screwed up my arithmetic last time I diagrammed. Decided I am kind of epically failing at life today. Decided I don't really give a damn.

Because, for some uncanny reason, I feel just as good now as I did seven hours ago. And sleep deprivation doesn't seem to have ruined my mood. I don't get it. I should feel like crap. I don't. So I'm going to stop analyzing and just enjoy it. Coldplay tonight.

Awesome and very appropriate quote that I came up with. Will appear somewhere in Gates, just don't know where yet. "Happiness is just a chemical reaction..." Henry Erikson. And I am riding the serotonin. The diagram above depicts serotonin, coincidentally.

Part One: Cosmos
I. The Last Honest Man in Washington
II. Handkerchiefs and Hardships
III. The Silent Scream
IV. Lost Causes
V. The Human Bomb
Part Two: Chaos

VI. A Mouse in the Perfect Trap

VII. Check Your Premises

VIII. For How Life Should Be

IX. To Jump Off a Cliff

X. Forgiveness at Gunpoint

XI. No Way Out

XII. The Truth About Hope