Emerging

I am wondering whether writing short, frequent posts will keep this blog alive, since long essays or ramblings don’t seem to do it.  I am having the busiest semester ever.  But I still want to keep a sort of record, incomplete though it may be, of my random thoughts.  Let’s see how long this experiment will last.

I’ve been grading papers, although not enough to make more than a scratch in the backlog, giving a large public talk where I teach, in which I “came out” as a science fictionwriter, working on a new version of a course that involves field trips, a very strange and fascinating experience for this theoretical physics person, wading through acres of legal papers for other stuff, and attending to child, dog and household in general.  Not necessarily in that order.  In fact, definitely not in that order.

So, random thought #1: I really want to go visit Occupy Boston and support them, but can only do so if I warp spacetime, which does not seem feasible at present.  My institution held a teach-in that was atended  by at least a hundred students and was very inspiring.  I am wondering if I dare to hope (since environmentalists have also joined the bandwagon) that ultimately this movement will take up climate change as well.

An interesting critique that came up was that the movement was too unfocused and didn’t have a few main issues to fight for.  I don’t know if this is a valid criticism but I do know that when you are fighting against an entire system and not just a certain manifestation of it, you might have to be multi-pronged.  If the mini-movements that constitute Occupy feed off and reinforce each other with positive feedback loops, we may yet get a tipping point toward the future we want.  The complex, multifaceted and systemic problems we face are very modern problems and I doubt that we can confront them with the old, tired, linear mindsets.  Or so it seems to me at this juncture.

Randon thought #2: I’m thinking of Ettore Majorana’s disappearance and wonder what really happened to him.  I hope that he stayed alive and ended up living the way he wanted to, as elusive as the neutrinos he studied.  Somebody needs to write a play about him.

So much for a short post!  This is at least short-ish.  Let’s see if I can write something soon.

Storycopia

Something rather strange has happened in the past few weeks.  Despite having a very busy summer, with just as little sleep as during the semesters, plus a number of things to stress over, I have managed to write 3 stories.  In the past 5 weeks.  Counting the short piece I wrote for the VanderMeer Bestiary anthology warlier this year, I have now completed 4 stories in 2011.  As though this largesse (by my standards) was not enough, I am about to embark on completing a 5th story.  I am completely amazed.

My record for stories is 4 a year, which is pathetic and only happened once about 7 years ago.  I can’t believe that at a time like this I am able to break that record!  The Muse is back!  And whatever has been holding back my creativity over the years has been swept away.  I don’t know how long this will last but I am more grateful than I can say.

Of the five stories I expect to complete this year, three are old pieces I’d written some 2-3 years ago but couldn’t complete.  They were not only incomplete but fragmented, messy, stuck, and I had no idea how to fix them.  Suddenly this summer they’ve come to reveal themselves in ways that are mostly satisfactory.

Apart from the short piece Yakshantariksh for the Bestiary anthology, I have the following:

1.  A global warming story that I’ve submitted but haven’t heard back from the editor for a while

2. My first alternate history story.  I read from it at Readercon this year.  At that point it was not really complete but it is as of a couple of weeks ago.

3. A very strange story about an old woman scientist-musician reflecting and waiting on the eve (sort of) of her death

4.  My fifth story, still working on it: A story about a woman who leaves her village to find her child, and discovers surprising truths about the place she lives; the geography of this culture is something I’m very thrilled about.

So now, on to more mundane stuff, like laundry.

Vegetative Musings

Contrary to what non-academics think, those of the professorial persuasion rarely have the summers off in any but the most mundane sense of the term.  Being off from teaching generally means that this is your one chance to a) recover from semester burn-out, b) breathe, c) do research or other scholarly work so that you can keep your brain alive and keep your job, d) read about and think about interesting stuff.  The 9-to-5-ers of the world may not understand that those of my ilk cannot draw a clear boundary between work and non-work. 

So I’ve been reading, among other things.  What I’m reading could affect what and how I teach next semester, the essays and other non-fiction I write, and of course my fiction.  No real distinction between work and play for me.  Not being one of those whose life can be divided into neat, waterproof compartments, I rejoice in leaping over divisions, boundaries and walls.

Apparently, so do plants.

Ruminations on a rainy night

I haven’t abandoned this blog, despite appearances.  I must have written a dozen blog posts in my head, missives directed at this site, in the past several months, like letters to a lover light-years away.  You know they’ll never get there in time but you want to write them anyway, if for nobody but yourself.  Unfortunately my barriers weren’t time and space but an extraordinarily difficult, rewarding, frustrating, backbreaking, amazing semester.  I’m including not just academia but life in general.  I feel about 300 years old in multiple ways and perhaps 3 years old in all the ways that are important…

A Tale of Two Stories, and More

Greetings, World!  Although I am currently wading through acres of undergraduate papers, most of which seem to be describing the physics of universes not our own, I am determined to take little islands of time to think about writing, life in general, and, yes, other universes.  While the dog sleeps, and sunlight slants into the room, and the humidifier gurgles sleepily, my poor, overtired brain leaps from thought to thought like an inebriated grasshopper.  I wonder vaguely about thermal energy transfer through glass versus the greenhouse effect, or nerve conduction issues in dogs recovering from spinal surgery, or the creative fire of the Nawab of Awadh, who, upon being exiled from his homeland by the British, lamented in the form of a बिरह गीत, a song of separation, the immortal Babul Mora, which I am trying to learn while washing dishes or falling asleep.  In my current state written sentences run on like my thoughts, which resemble a very long goods train carrying all manner of things from old attic junk to flocks of starlings. 

Happy Birthday, Ursula!

Today I read in the Aqueduct Blog that it is Ursula K. Le Guin’s 81st birthday.  The day also marks the release of a volume in her honour that I am going to get my hands on as soon as I can.  Although I am drowning in work and getting over a nasty respiratory bug, I wanted to mark this day with a post, if only a short one.  I started by trying to write an essay on the significance of Ursula K. Le Guin’s work on one humble writer, yours truly, but the essay threatened to turn into a very long thesis so I put it away for another day.  

On Ordinary Things

Note: I recently found this piece I’d written in January, and decided to complete it and post it since I won’t have time to post much in the next few months.

What is ordinary?  That which is routine, usual, normal, according to the dictionary.  Of course this is context-dependent.  A coke can tossed in the bushes by the sidewalk is a not unusual sight in the streets near my house.  Ordinary litter.  But imagine a coke can on Mars….

To Read, Perchance to Write

Between all the million-and-one things that currently occupy my time, I’ve been reading.  It is nice to be able to read even in snatches and stolen moments; among other things it reminds me that I, too, in some place at some time, am a writer.  (The writing part of me has been having a difficult time: I’ve committed to the screen some half-dozen beginnings of potentially gorgeous stories, but I don’t seem to have the heart or the strength to complete them, which is very depressing.) 

My reading has been somewhat haphazard, although I have deliberately sought out some books such as Kim Stanley Robinson’s Galileo’s Dream.  Others fell into my lap — a friend stopped by with Alice Munro’s The View from Castle Rock, for instance, and one time when I was in the library, walking out from the rather poorly stocked SF section, I just happened to see Fiction before me, and Barbara Kingsolver, whom I’ve been meaning to read, was right there — not in person but in the form of her books, which is what counts for me at the moment.

Oil Spill Blues

Enough has been written in blogs and news articles about the BP Oil Spill for me to need to add much.  It is really hard to hear about it and see the pictures and commentary and be unable to do anything.  I remember this interview they did with a biologist on NPR who was in a boat bringing back oiled birds to clean, and she was in tears.  I am full of rage and sorrow and sick sick sick of the oil economy and human greed and stupidity, and our misplaced extreme faith in technology. 

So what can you do, beyond contributing to animal rescue organizations?  I have been thinking long and hard about it, and I’ve come to the conclusion that while we must obviously continue to follow the news and push world governments away from fossil fuels (where are the protesters, the artists, the writers?) we cannot let this opportunity pass to do something related but different.  As in local.

Dog Days

It has been a long time since I last posted here.  I don’t generally post about my personal life but this post is an exception, and a somewhat rambling one at that, so bear with me.  The main reason for my long silence is that I am currently embroiled in various crises, the most immediate and exhausting of which is my dog’s recent back surgery.  Three weeks ago he had a problem with a vertebral disc, and post-surgery his hind legs are still paralyzed.  I have been caring for him round-the-clock, changing his bedding in the night, cooking him chicken and vegetable stew, giving him massages and keeping his spirits up to the extent I can.  A proud, handsome, willful animal like him (he is a terrier mix) does not do well with disability.  But in these three exhausting, sleepless weeks he has mellowed a bit, gradually giving up his role as Chief Protector of the home, accepting, perhaps, that for now he needs to rest and get well.  It is hard to see him so helpless.  It is hard to go for weeks without a proper night’s sleep (I have been taking care of him almost single-handedly).  I have learned a lot of things in the past weeks: how to express a dog’s bladder, for instance.  But mostly I’ve learned that people, including strangers, can be utterly wonderful in times of crisis. 

So this is a post mostly about gratitude.