Reaching Out

OK.

I've signed up with SuperTemp, although I really don't want to work.

deepad managed to wrangle me into registering for WisCon and applying for Con or Bust.

My dad has a friend in Wisconsin, about an hour away from Madison, who said I can bum off her for a while in between cons. Although maybe I can fit more stops in, because hanging out with deepad would be bomb, and she offered!

James Ng emailed me to show me his new artwork! It was so supernice of him to remember me ^^ We've been exchanging emails about random things, and I keep ranting to him about media representation of Asians in North America. He also asked if I could distribute prints of his work at Steampunk World's Fair, and of course, I can.

Speaking of Steampunk World's Fair, dmp and I have an AWESOME crew for our roundtable on Social Issues in Steampunk! Emilie Bush (authour of Chenda and the Airship Brofman which is an epic scifi, mom of two, feminist), PurpleZoe (authour of Wonderdark which is unabashedly AfroSteam/FaeryPunk, another mom, and African-American), Whisper Merlot (of the S.S. Icarus, an organizer of SPWF who actually lives a steampunk life on the road in a bus!), Lucretia Dearfour (also of the S. S. Icarus, Ay-Leen's beloved, transgendered woman), and and and and Jake von Slatt (who runs the Steampunk Workshop, a dude and dad). Between all these fine folks, we would cover race, gender, class, with no small amount of politics and history and how it affects steampunk and what we do. Can I just say, OMG SO AWESOME! I mean, how often will you get such a wide range of folks on short notice? I feel so lucky to know these people, and they are certainly very fine people indeed!

Thanks to Jake von Slatt, my steampunk blog, Silver Goggles, has had a new surge of visitors and followers, which is both awesome and unnerving at the same time.

Also, Steampunk Magazine cross-posted my most recent post, Countering Victorientalism to their blog. It's causing a kerfuffle. I'm really glad, though, for all the support that's been rallying from all corners (hi shweta_narayan and connikins!) even while I want to wring the neck of a certain editor. Not SPM's editor, though, she's awesome.

And and and check out the new table of contents for Steampunk Reloaded! I am so excited to be a part of it, even if only for a paragraph.

OK, nerdy non-fiction stuff aside, my novel, Sugar Melts is done done done and ready to be beta-read! For those who don't know yet, I've geared it towards the YA market, and it is an equatorial fantasy, written in the Eddingsian world-building tradition. That's how I'm pitching it, anyway. I've got to look for agents who're interested in "world fiction", and we'll wait to see how long it'll take for me to be told that "Asian fantasies do not sell".

I've got a story that needs to be written, a short one, I hope, but it's kinda epic in scale? So, yeah. Hrm. But it needs to get written, because it works off a theme I've been mulling over for a while now with regards to Chinese steampunk. Of course there's another story I sort of want to get started on, featuring a character I've had in mind now, who is.... not exactly a very admirable person but I want to write her anyway.

Lastly, would anybody be interested in seeing Wish Making, the story I wrote for Fantasy Magazine, on here? It means I wouldn't be able to sell it anywhere else, but what the hell, I wrote it specifically for Fantasy Magazine, and maybe you fine people can tell me what markets would like my writing. (I'm terrible at selling stuff, you notice that?)

Last night was pretty much an existential mess for me, because I tried writing the counter-Victorientalism article for Allegra (of Steampunk Magazine) and I just ended up so goddamn angry. I left a post at Steampunk Empire that was filled of contempt, but people seemed to not mind it. Then I bitched and whined to dmp who was her usual saintly self. After talking to her, I felt much better, and got a much better grip on how to write the article, although it won't be for a while since I feel the need to do some research. Apparently I like to make life difficult for myself.

Today, was shite. I was all prepped to go out and find a job, was gonna pop by the Atlantica to ask if they had any minimum wage jobs and then down to Supertemp, and .... I couldn't. I sort of hyperventilated at the idea. It wasn't fun.

However, I did get started on the counter-Victorientalism article and an A:TLA essay. Also, Jeff Vandermeer emailed asking if I would like to contribute 200 words for the question, "What do you expect in the future of steampunk?" for the Steampunk Reloaded anthology. Mike Perschon was supposed to write The Future of Steampunk article, but it wasn't quite what they were looking for. dmp has been asked too! World of win, here we come!

Speaking of emails, McMaster University emailed me an offer of admission. I'm still a bit in shock. I should get in touch with York to see how my application is doing. McMaster would be awesome, but my first choice is still York.