SHIT I PUT ON THE INTERNET TODAY

[isozyme]

Sequestration; Vitrification  Today Strange Horizons published a story I've been working on with them for a while.  It's about how to go on when nothing you can do is big enough.  It's also got bioremediation, organic apple cider vinegar, activist roommates, flashy modern art, nuclear waste and genetic modification.

Didn't Catch You Saying Grace  Also today, I wrote three and a half thousand words of Steve Rogers and Tony Stark having a fuck in a bathroom at a gay bar while being extremely homophobic at themselves and each other.

These two pieces of writing that went onto the internet today sure paint some kind of picture of me as a person.  Not sure what that picture looks like but it's got to be interesting.

Comments

[contrarianarchon]

I read Sequestration; Vitrifaction, and it was pretty good! And congratulations on getting published in Strange Horizons; it's a good zine. Kinda fell out of the habit of reading it a while back, though. Should maybe change that.

[isozyme]

Thank you! Strange Horizons is great and their editorial staff is lovely. With this story published I'm SFWA qualifying, too, which is exciting!

[manyblinkinglights]

+1 like

[manyblinkinglights]

the strange horizons story was SO GOOD, SO GOOD! SO GOOD. It suits Strange Horizons so perfectly, I can't get over how great it was the way "not showing the monster" showed the monster, I loved the STUFF in the story and it was so free, easy, and companionable to slip amongst the people you wrote it about, while reading it. Light little touches conveyed deep details, because what you were sketching COHERED and was A THING (queer lyfe), so all the gestures towards it were graceful and precise. It captured a perspective of deep and daily melancholy that wove naturally through the world, without contradicting it, not maudlin, just so NATURAL, as natural as all the other people in the world and their positions moving through it, their lil solar system winging through space and them all together in their own orbits. it RULED basically, I really LIKED it, it was so whole and so complete in what it showed and in what it chose to omit. Kind of like eating a really AMAZING little coffee shop sandwich but one so perfectly constructed that nothing squirts out onto your hands, despite it being full of just the right amount of EVERYTHING THAT'S GOOD AND FITTING for that specific sandwich. After reading it I felt happy and full, and tbh a lot of spec fic especially the stuff that has a go at grief or The Drab leaves me feeling regret, but this was hopeful by being relentless rather than just tacking on some Hopeful or relinquishing the big feelings or the sad feelings to the march of time to like erase or erode? This story doesn't GIVE UP in any way, it doesn't just plop the grief down and back away from it, the story moves. The story has such momentum! It's not the kind of momentum I'm used to seeing! This story had the momentum of a growing thing, pushing through the obligatory metaphorical concrete. This story made me feel more responsible for and connected to the troubles of the world............... this was a very good story (haven't caught up with the mcufic yet but will at some point of course)

[isozyme]

Thank you so much for this comment (and for the reblog on tumblr)! This kind of comment is amazing to get on original fiction, it means a huge amount to me.

Being called a perfect cafe sandwich makes me so happy. It is exactly what I want short fiction to do -- tuck all the lose ends in and provide something satisfying and complete. I wrote the story that I needed after two years of living with Trump, with the drag and the invisible menace and the way you find yourself wrapping your community closer around you.

Thank you again, your support is so kind, always <3