After the Retreat, the Dig-In

A month of quiet before EVERYTHING ELSE HAPPENS!

Dear Readers,

I have just returned from 11 days away in the woods of Western, Massachusetts, whereI cat-sat for a cat named Queen Mabs, and also broke the 50,000 word-mark on my new novel, Saint Death’s Herald.

I have September to get the bulk of the rest of it done—I should, in fact, be writing right now!!!—and a few open weeks in October before my deadline, but not much.

The Great Queen Mabs of Northamptom!

October is huge, with one audiobook to record, two conventions, and the travel and recovery that attending conventions entail. There’s Can*Con in Ottawa—my first!—which I’m going to on a roadtrip with my mama. We’ll be staying with our friends Amal and Stu, so it’s kind of the best way to go to a convention. And then there’s the World Fantasy Convention in Kansas City.

I hadn’t been planning on going to WFC this year, but when Saint Death’s Daughter and Dark Breakers were both nominated, Carlos and I thought, why not? A nomination, says Carlos, is a rare celebration! (It’s at the worst part of the semester for him, but he stubbornly and laughingly resists any of the several attempts I made to talk him out of going with me.) So, we will go! And I will dress up very fancy, and maybe do a panel or a reading, and, really, just applaud really loudly for all the winners. Better yet, I’ll get to see friends I don’t see anywhere else… like Sharon Shinn! Whom I adore!

Also, Outland Entertainment, our publishers for Negocios Infernales, are based in Kansas City. World Fantasy is happening right at the tail-end of our Kickstarter for the game! So maybe we can work in some awesome Negocios Infernales shenanigans while we’re there!

Human musings I’ve been musing on.

On the new, slow silvering of my hair.

I dyed it, you know? A few months back. Tried to find a color as close to my roots as possible with a box dye—with the intention of growing my hair out as it and never dyeing it again. For the future, I’m interested in hair chalk maybe, or funny gels. I future-miss all the colors my hair could yet be, but no matter what color I manage to achieve, it only lasts one or two washes anyway, good for a few pictures, and after that, it’s just work.

And, of course, my hair was getting brittle with all the bleach. And I’ve never cared for the upkeep. I always had to charm friends, family, or lovers to help me with the box dyes as the whim struck me—and often in the most haphazard way. Having my hair done professionally was rarely in the budget.

Besides, as a person, I’m kind of raggedy at the edges—despite all my ball gowns and costume jewelry. Once, in high school, I had a dream that a beautiful boy hugged me and called me “tatterdemalion” in the fondest way—which, for some reason, I still remember all these years later, maybe because it was the best dream in the world.

All of which to say, it was time to go au naturel.

And so, for the first time, my silver is coming in. (Notice, even now, I have to say “silver” and not “gray.” Because maybe the word “silver” sets the value higher. Maybe because “silver” catches the light, and “gray” dampens it. I don’t know. I’m wrestling with it.)

Maybe if I’d never dyed my hair in my twenties and thirties, or if my hair were a smidge darker, I would have witnessed all of this much earlier. I would have had a much longer time to negotiate the overload of feelings. As it is, the time is now.

The first few hairs, I admit, I pulled. Almost… almost mindlessly? Panic, maybe? I even asked myself, “What are you doing, Cooney?” And then I did it anyway.

These days—nights, mostly—I lean all the way into the mirror. I examine each new one, and there seem to be more every night. I touch them. That harsh, bright texture. That bit of wiry curl. How my hair shimmers, both gold or silver, and sometimes I can’t tell the difference. I exclaim to myself, “How fascinating!” or “That’s intense!” And Carlos calls from the other room, “What did you say? Do you need me?” And I decide I do. I wander into the bedroom, toothbrush in hand mouth, and begin a full-froth monologue starting with, “You’ll think me vain…”

Carlos, being his usual loving and supportive self, in this instance, at the monthly “Fantastic Fiction Readings” at the KGB bar in NYC. Photo credit Ellen Datlow.

Carlos listens patiently. He tells me he started going gray in his twenties. He looks at me with such love; the color of my hair is meaningless to him, except that it is mine. I wonder what harm it might have done, artificially delaying this natural reaction for so long? I have loved all the strange bright dandelion colors and the autumnal red blazes my hair has been. I don’t regret them.

But… did all of that make this moment harder? Sadder? Was it always going to be like this? I don’t like feeling obsessed about something that, philosophically, I’ve always been okay with.

I’ve never been afraid of aging, or bought into any of the bullshit our culture feeds us. My mama’s told me stories all my life about how, when she was a kid, she loved a teacher’s crow feet so much, she used to smile as big as she could, to be sure she’d get the same. That’s what I think about wrinkles. A child determinedly smiling just to have them!

But fear of something and… and facing something… are two different things. I guess.

Books I’m reading:

I read Ann Leckie’s Translation State, and I loved it, loved it, loved it! Three POVs, starting with the least alien and getting progressively more so—and all of them so charming!—and the world-building, and the stakes-heightening, and how much you love them all, so even when it gets its WEIRDNESS, you just love it more, because you’re so lucky to be along for the ride!

(Earlier this year, after my however-many-time’th Murderbot re-spree, I did a re-spree of all the Imperial Radch books in audiobook—I think because I’d just read the Provenance hardcover? So I immersed pretty quickly in Translation State without having to question where I was, who I was, or why I was throughout the book. Would I have enjoyed it so much if it weren’t my first Leckie? Impossible to say.)

I’m reading to blurb mostly right now. At the moment, it’s Carina Bissett’s disturbing dark fiction collection, which I think I’m going to call “an uneasy alliance of nightmare and fairy tale.” The collection is Dead Girl Driving, and Other Stories. Keep an eye out for it! I’ll probably say other things too, but at the moment, that feels the most true .

I’m also reading Kathleen Jenning’s forthcoming Tor.com novella, Honeyeater—also to blurb. It is just, ah, delicious. (I’ll say “delicious” with even more delicious words by the time the blurb is due.) I’m reading Honeyeater one out loud to Carlos, just a few chapters every night, right before bed. It’s like the dream before the dream. We did this with Piranesi too. All those shadowy, atmospheric tides of time, place, light, leaves, birds, and mysterious peripheries are working on us in a nighttime space.

I recently finished beta-reading a friend’s YA fairy tale retelling, which gave me all the best flashbacks to my teenage self zooming to and zoning in on my favorite section of the library’s fiction shelves—the “Mc” section: McKillip, McKinley, and McCaffrey. I always checked those shelves first, before checking the Ds for DeLint, and the Ls for Tanith Lee. A blogger I follow, bookforager, just wrote a beautiful tribute to Ombria in Shadow, which made me wistful for a re-read. Reading to read, yes, but also… also, with the intention to grieve.

In the meantime, I’ve just finished a huge sweeping re-listen of the all my Ilona Andrews audiobooks. It’s like… when I want to scratch that tough Buffy the Vampire Slayer, D&D, urban fantasy itch… Yeah. Ilona Andrews gives me what I need. I’d started my reread a few months ago with one of my favorite series—Hidden Legacy— specifically the Catalina trilogy. I mean, I read the other ones, but I love Catalina best. Then I moved on to the very weird but weirdly satisfying Innkeeper Chronicles (sentient inns!!!). And then (almost mindlessly) back into the Kate Daniels series… again.

This led me straight into a re-read/re-listen of some fun space opera romances, like Jennifer Estep’s Galactic Bonds books and Jessie Mihalik Consortium Rebellion books—which…

…which, really, just made me want to read Malka Older’s hot gaslamp sapphic academia SFF mystery The Mimicking of Know Successes even MORE, because I just bought it at Book Moon Books, and I think I’ll really dig it, and also, I WANT TO WRITE A SPACE OPERA, but I’m scared of hard science and I don’t feel confident enough to hand-wave it. I will create a whole secondary fantasy world, but gods, don’t make me do it in STEM SPACE! (Except I WANT TO!)

You know what I want? I want to take a SPACE OPERA WORKSHOP online somewhere. I want ASSIGNMENTS. I want ACCOUNTABILITY! I want a LIVE FEED, not asynchronous—for the sake of show-up-itude! And cool SCIENCE STUFF! And REASSURANCES!

Someone, please let me know when that’s happening and who the awesome person running it is…

*pants*

Also, while I was in the whole Romance Genre mindset, I went ahead and speed-reread the whole Brown Sisters trilogy by Talia Hibbert, because I just couldn’t help myself. I LOVE THEM.

Games I’ve played:

Last night, Hernandez and I played a board game called “So, You’ve Been Eaten,” by Scott Almes, art by Kwanchai Moriya. It’s a LudiCreations game, and it’s pretty adorable.

Maybe because we started it at night, but I found the rules-learning a bit elaborate. It’s an asymmetrical 0-2 (LOL) player game that ostensibly takes 30 minutes, but that’s not counting the learning curve, so bear that in mind.

It’s a simulator for a deep-space miner in training to go harvesting crystals from the belly of great alien space beasts. One of you plays the Miner. One of you plays the Beast.

Also, the rulebook has the most adorable little tardigrade in 2X magnification. Just there, in the white space. Just because. That made me love it EVEN MORE. So. That was very good design. Well done, LudiCreations!

TV shows I’ve watched:

Oh, you know. Endeavor, mostly. Because my dad and stepmom recommended it. I’m a bit of a sucker for murder mysteries, possibly because of the mixture of efficiency and frustration, the de profundis moments that make the sunlight seem so much brighter. I also love the 1960’s vibe, and all the dramaturgy around the edges of each episode (not to mention costumes, colors, and music) that make it feel like it was made in the 1960s.

But also, it’s a prequel for a pre-existing TV show I’d never watched, and when I read the Wikipedia article about it, it seems the character grows increasingly bitter and worn, and I’m just not sure how much I’m interested in watching a brilliant mind doing an inevitable downward spiral into alcoholism and cynicism.

We continue keeping up with Campaign 3 of Critical Role: Bells Hells. Oh, and Dropout TV—specifically, the improv game “Make Some Noise,” and “Play It By Ear” (my FAVORITE. Musical theatre IMPROV! AAUGH! I’ve been looking into affordable NYC workshops of the same). We do have the last few episodes of A Court of Fey and Flowers left. It was recommended to us by our friend Marty Cahill, and has been delightful.

Fundraisers I think are important:

This week, we participated in The Pixel Project’s Read for Pixels fundraiser, in an effort to raise awareness to stop violence against women.

Carlos and I both did short readings from our works, then had a delightful Q&A with our host Anushia Kandasivam. It’s here on YouTube if you want some company while doing dishes or something!

We also both donated a few goodies to their fundraising campaign, and a few of them have been snatched up, but some still remain. For instance, I have signed copies of both Desdemona and the Deep, as well as The Twice-Drowned Saint available—and each one comes with a matching necklace!

Check it out, along with all the other amazing gifts and opportunities available from SFF authors you love. (Like Jasper Fforde! And Anne Bishop! And Brandon Sanderson!)

And, as ever, thank you for reading!

C. S. E. Cooney