Wednesday 23 November 2011

Anne McCaffrey

My heart is heavy. The sad news of Anne McCaffrey's passing was one of those moments you wish never to come. While I can't profess to have read all her work, my mum has and is an enormous fan. So much so that we went along to one of her book signing many moons ago - the kind of thing that is not my mum at all. I've never seen my mum be a fan girl, except for that one time. Mrs McCaffrey was a gracious lady and seemed to take a shine to Mum. She sought us out after the signing and they chatted for ages. It was one of those lovely moments that you don't forget. Mum was so chuffed.


Dragonquest was my favourite Pern book (I had a real thing for F'nor and Brekke) but I think the Crystal Singer books were my favourites. Anne McCaffrey wrote cracking female characters that defied traditional stereotypes. They always felt like real women in extraordinary circumstances rather than weak-wristed bosom-heaving heroines or strident harpies. They could be either or both, or something else entirely. She, amongst others, worked to take Sf/f into new territory in this respect. She was an enormous influence on me as a teenager and was one of the writers that made me want to explore the fantastic and the alien. She was one of those writers that made me believe I could write the things that excited me too, that being a girl did not have to exclude me from the male-dominated world of Sf/f.


 "... we build the worlds we wouldn't mind living in. They contain scary things, problems, but also a sense of rightness that makes them alive and makes us want to live there." 


Anne McCaffrey wrote worlds that stretched my imagination and that could make my heart pound. She left us a rich legacy and the world is a better place for her having been in it.

Wednesday 2 November 2011

It's been a long time ...

Yes it has. I've been slack lately at most things because my brain has been going a hundred miles an hour with work. There has been writing, there has been the scribbling of notes, there has been the divine lure of whiteboard pens moving impatiently over whiteboard, there has been An Idea! It has been, and still is, glorious. And all it really means is more work! Hurrah!

Also my diet has ... well, not floundered, but been in a kind of stalemate. My "maintenance" period has gone on for nearly two months instead of the usual one and while I'm only a couple of pounds more than I was on my birthday (when the great Grind-To-A-Halt began) I know that I put on half a stone on top of that, but I also lost it again. Pretty quick too, but if I hadn't wallowed in the excuse of "maintenance" where might I be now? I've been using that one to kick myself with for a week or two - "I would have been so much thinner/fitter/healthier/sparklyandnew, if only, if only" and so on. I'm seeing some folks I haven't seen for a while soon and I've been angry at myself for not being better for them to set eyes upon. For having lost focus and, therefore, having lost some of my worth. And then it happened - something else that has been a long time coming - my realisation that I'm not doing any of this for anyone but me. That's the only person I should be doing and can do it for. That, no matter what I do, whether I continue or stay right here, it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks, whether they think I'm fat or thin, bonkers or smart, whatever I do, I do it because it's been making me feel better, it has been improving my life.

I've talked about this kind of thing, this freeing yourself from the shackles of your past, of your present, of your possible futures, of yourself, the dead choking weight of the expectations of others (or your perceived version of them) but I'm not sure I've ever truly realised it for myself. I knew how I should be thinking, but I never felt it deep down inside. Not really. The past few days, the tiny cry of "hot dang! I'm an idiot, what are THEY going to think?" in my head has been getting louder. And then, all of a sudden, it stopped. Just like that - and *poof* so did a fair portion of the anxiety I've carried for years. Maybe it's the benefit of getting older. The realization that time is a-wasting and that means my time, no one else's - so why am I wasting it worrying about Them? The only thing I really have is my life and that fucker's on a countdown to oblivion as it is. Being wrapped up in what people might think of me, in the shadows that I fear, in the million different ass-kicking minutiae that I've let dog me for so long, is fat hairy balls.

Big fat hairy balls.

Pfft. Let them think what they want. Bite me. It's time for this show to get back on the road, but only because I say so. If I fancy a large slice of chocolate cake (vegan, natch) and not running for a week, then that is up to me. As long as it makes me happy. And not that superficial face-tiring grin-toothed happy; I mean the sort of happy that lives deep down inside you, in the place that fuels you.

For most of my life, I've been living under the fog of believing that I'm a fraud, an impostor, a shrill wannabe who is just trying to grab the headlines (figuratively speaking) What bollocks. The sort of thinking that has allowed someone else's childish jealousy stop me living the life I deserve. How can I be a fraud? I'm ME. What else could, should, would I be? It's all I've ever been and all I ever will be. I'm not concerned with tearing down other people and never have been - although I do have a capacity for being a bitch that makes old Peter Parker's spidey-sense look like a spoonful of mashed potato. I simply want to live and have fun doing it if I can. That's all I've ever wanted, but I've let my own insecurity (not to mention stupidity) and other people box me into a kind of atrophy.  And the kicker is, they didn't even have to try very bloody hard!

Really, in the end, what else do we have but ourselves? Every day you tear off the calendar is a day less you get to take care of you. So do it now. Stop kicking yourself over shit that doesn't matter, stop letting the shitdickery of others get to you, and try to focus on how fucking unique and wonderful you are. Because you are. I am too. Where's the shame in saying so? No one is perfect and anyone who says they are needs some kind of serious professional help. But you are the most perfect you there is. The only you there is. You might consider yourself a work-in-progress, but that doesn't mean that in this moment you are not valuable, that you are not beautiful, that you are not worthwhile. You are. I am. We are.

Except for you. You ugly.