The History of a Story: Octavia

Disclaimer: In writing this blog, I realize the cost of embracing fear on many, many levels.

I remember the day I first heard about Octavia Butler. Unfortunately it was the day NPR announced she had crossed. I can't recall the interview. It's been 8 years. She crossed 4months after my grandmother crossed, and 3 months after I was laid off from my job, a day after starting graduate school. I lived in my bathrobe for much of that winter. My brain hurt.

It took a while for my brain to process Octavia was a black, female, science-fiction writer. I'm trying to remember which emotion I felt first. Surprised that black people wrote science fiction. Happy that black people wrote science fiction. Really, really, really damn sad I wouldn't be able to meet her in this existence.

My husband and I listened to an audiobook of Kindred and it was an indescribable feeling of what awe and liberation feels like (I know that sounds weird given what Kindred is about), what opening a door that just appeared and finding every joy that ever existed feels like. I felt the twinge of possibility and it has taken 7 years to build enough momentum to bring my stories to light. But do you want to know something very odd? I didn't get a chance to finish listening to Kindred. The audiobook was a book on cassette I checked out from the library. The cassette was very old and I had to turn up the volume to be able to hear the narrator. My husband and I gave up on the tape and made a promise we would find her books and read them. I have 6 of her books sitting on my shelf, waiting to be read.

At first I felt like an ass because I haven't opened a single book, but I don’t think I was ready to read her stories until now. Over the last year or so, in my search for writers of color, I found NK Jemisin, rediscovered Nalo Hopkinson (I had Brown Girl in the Ring for a stupid long time before reading it), Saladin Ahmed, and so many more.

I was never alone. *squishy feeling on the inside.*

In knowing Octavia existed, the block of "you can't write science fiction because you're black" no longer has a right to exist. To continue to allow the block to exist, meant, 1, I continued to be unconscious, and for reasons other than writing, I try to do my best to be "militant" about due diligence. 2, everything Octavia stood for in regard to being a human being, whose legacy is worth carrying on, and not because she was black and not because she was a woman, made it hard to ignore and insulting to her memory if I didn't at the very least try to bring my stories into the light.

There is much momentum in trying. I've seen people give 2 craps about something and it comes into being with little effort.

What can I do when I put Love around an idea? That's some pretty powerful stuff. I met an artist and yoga instructor who wrote paper on an Octavia Butler series for her class. I met a professor who taught Parable of the Sower to her students. Many of them loved it so much they read Parable of the Talents on their own.

So that's where I am at the moment. I sent the beta readers Tempest Makers late last night, and instead of twiddling my thumbs, I'll read Kindred and work on text for a website.

Take care.

Talk to you later.

Physiology, or, This is more than 3-times-the-charm, or, I'm over this crap

I'm not sure if I've mentioned this before, but my main day job is retail, so picture a basic retail shopping center.

I was at work, walking to the rental car (long story short, southerners don't know how to drive in snow) to sit in quiet during my break, when I heard tires screech and a thud, I turned in the direction of the sound and saw a car bounce back from hitting the curve as it turned into the lane I was walking.

I thought to myself, "I've clipped curves like that before." I felt embarrassed for the driver. As I began to turn back I noticed the car speed up as it headed for some cars.

"That's weird. They're not slowing down-- oh god, they're not slowing down."

If you've never seen or been a part of a car accident, please believe me, everything slows down the way you've always been told it does.

The crash had a plastic popping sound and not really metal crunching. Parts flew everywhere. (In the  moment I don't know why I cared and tried to mentally process why it didn't sound like it was supposed to sound. Whatever that means.)

I'm running to the crashed car. I feel like my legs are in thick weighted boots. I'm walking through the thickest air ever created. The phone is in my hand is a brick (I can't even process it as MY phone). It takes an eternity to push 4 buttons.

I approach the car. Half of the front of the car has merged with the car it hit. For a minute the only things that exist are me and this smoking car. I come closer and in the window from the smoke a hand appears. My primal brain says, "Car explode." A firm voice in another part of my head says, "Open the door." As I reach out to the handle, primal brain says, "door hot," another part of my brain asks, "door locked?" The door handle is cool plastic and the door swings open smoothly. The lady is sitting in the driver's seat. She looks like she's about to fall asleep. She mumbles something about the car skidding.

I'm on the phone with the emergency dispatcher. I tell the driver not to move. I tell a man who's approached the car, "Be careful. It looks like coolant on the ground." (God, there's a lot of coolant. Coolant's pink, right?)

The driver is saying her leg hurts. I'm talking like I have lead on my tongue, the dispatcher is telling me to calm down. I'm answering her questions. I give what I think is the correct address (I'm better with landmarks. I give landmarks. The local police know where we are.), No, I don't know a pole number, we're in a parking lot (what the hell?).

I'm telling the driver not to move again, and at some point reach into her car and put the car in park (Wow, what an unusual gear box). Primal brain stopped talking. The "smoke" was apparently the chemical reaction from the air bag and quickly dissipated when someone opened the passenger door. Another lady brings a blanket or something for the driver. I'm pacing, completing the call with the dispatcher and waiting for the police. (I feel like I want to cry, but not a good time to cry. The driver needs help. No time to cry. Important stuff first. Deep breaths. Deep breaths. Deeeep breaths. This lady needs help. Help this lady. Help. Her. First.)

As time sped up to normal, the total damage was the driver's car, plus 3 other automobiles, including a minivan that was parallel to the store but ended up facing the store by the time the owner emerged to discover the damage. It was at the tail-end of the lunch rush and the weather forecast was calling for a good chance of bad weather. By the smallest probability I was the only one walking on the far end of the lane. I consider myself an armchair anecdotal statistician. The Vegas odds of a pedestrian not getting hit would have been obscene.

Later, a few employees came up to me and commended me on stepping up the way I did. I wanted to tell them, "That is the slowest I've ever moved in my life," but felt uuber weepy, and just smiled. I received a very grounding hug (Still didn't have time to be super weepy. I was at work. Had to work. Work.)

It occurred to me, or at least has occurred to me now, the people who run into fires and jump into raging rivers often comment about not feeling like they did anything extraordinary, probably because they too felt like they're moving slow as a snail and it’s a miracle they were able to do what they did.

I get it.  I don't think I did anything anyone else wouldn't do, but I get it.

So my point for telling the story is that, one, I needed to tell it. It's cathartic. Two, later, when I was processing what happened and what I was feeling (I'm an analytical empath.), it occurred to me the feeling of fear that the car might blow up and being in survivor-helper mode did not feel as the terror of writing, or, more specifically, as submitting a story for publication.

Because health scares, an emergency water ascent, and surviving my twenties weren't enough.

Aren't I a funny little human.

So now, after I've processed as much as I could to FINALLY cry, the demon sitting in the corner, the one who slipped all those subtle notes of "You can't be, do, or have_________ because of __________." just sits there, arms crossed, looking sullen because it knows I know the only way to break the cycle is to keep walking through hell. To get use to the heat. To realize it is bearable. It's not that hot. To think of it as warm (I'm a SOUTHERNER, for Pete's sake. Heat is our THING. We OWN it. It's our JAM!) People who support me will hand me glasses of water (Ice cold water with pellet ice in a pint glass is the awesomest, bestest, greatest thing and is worthy of horrible grammar.) You just have to say, "Hey, man. It's hot and I'm thirsty. Can you hook me with up with some water."

Easy peasy.

Exposed (or Yes, that IS a trench coat and, Yes, I am dressed underneath)

I'm waiting for the coffee to finish brewing.

I'm learning to be okay with my fears in regard to letting people other than people I know read my work.
The thought of that feels like standing naked in a spotlight, at night, in a cold, wet drizzle, with a slight breeze, in front of an old brown brick wall (No, I don't know why a brown brick wall, I'm just going with what my brain is projecting)... and it's muddy. Not standing-in-puddles muddy, but that kind of muddy where you think to yourself, "Hey, that look like the consistency of face-mask mud." Instead of rifles just out of line of sight, there are people (with my face, I'm sure of it) waiting to jeer in all the colorful ways people jeer when they read bad fiction.

Defensive humor, don't fail me now.

It feels like I'm running from a saber-tooth tiger.
When I read the critiques from my writing group I was grateful for the points they made, but it felt like a rabid woolly mammoth, foaming at the mouth, joined the chase (I like to be chronologically correct when I'm half-wake and over exaggerating.)

Most of my waking life I've been an editor, so I'm usually at the receiving end (how appropriate) of manuscripts that (hopefully) have been through all of this; The plot holes mostly filled, grammar and punctuation have been sorted out, adverbs and passive voice have been kept to a minimum, consistencies are consistent, etc. But there is something to be said when you've been immersed so much in your own story, that even though you're grateful for another set or 3 of eyes pointing out the obvious abysses in your story, there is an irrational bit of your brain that thinks, "I really wish humans were more in tune with this whole mind-meld thing. It'd make my life easier." But that's lazy and not really a lot of fun.

So as the coffee begins to take effect and my humorous nature throws a house coat in my general muddy direction, I will pull up my big-girl panties (comfy working undies), turn on some writing music, and get to work.

Avalanche

I'm going to publish my first manuscript early next year. So you're maybe thinking to yourself, "So. Yeah. That's great." For me and many other 1^st-time publishing writers, that's a really big deal.

I remember transcribing for a project and the interviewee talked about how after he wrote and published his first book, the other dozen books just flew out of his head (Okay, he may have said half a dozen books and he may have also said something a little less poetic than "flew out of his head.").

If I was taking the coward's way out, I'd have quite a list of reasons not to write at all (especially with everything going on this year), much less actually have the gall to think I'm going to publish anything. But to be perfectly honest, I'm done being a coward, or more specifically, I'm done creating and living off excuse after excuse as to why I can't do or be or have ____________. I have all around me personal, professional, and spiritual examples of pressing on in the face of less-than-ideal circumstances and not only did they survive and thrive, but their contributions are an avalanche of inspiration for so many.

I've had a lot of fun sharing my stories with the writing group helping me polish my works. I appreciate their input and I am glad when I recognize my ego being an Ego. I'm grateful for the surge of energy that comes from feeling unstuck after I get back a critique.

So my Avalanche of Appreciation is to all who are not perfect and know they are not perfect, and embrace their imperfections. We still trudge on anyway.