Monthly Archives: October 2015

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Well, That Didn’t Last, Did It?

…the post-a-day thing, I mean.

I have a confession: I’m a hermit. Not in the physical world–I love people in the physical world. But online, I’m easily overwhelmed. I’ve thought about why. In some ways, it’s because I hyper-focus on things: what I’m doing right now is the ONLY THING. I’ll start on something, look up, and realize I’ve missed several meals. Even with the haiku trick, I started missing days.

That plays into the second reason: there’s so much out here in the Interwebs. It reminds me working on school essays as a kid. Start the paper. Look up a fact about James Garfield. See that the next page has a picture of a cool-looking fish (the gar-fish, if you’re wondering). Flip to the section on North American wildlife. Learn many things. Don’t finish the essay. Trust me, even with a NON-wiki’d pedia, it was pretty easy.

The third reason? The Internet lets me see how many smart people there are in the world who’re already saying what I could say, and usually better. I feel sad that I don’t have such wonderful, clear, clever things to say. “Today, I re-wrote a bunch of corporate marketing content from gibberish all the way up to pablum!” Just not that exciting to share.

But that’s a crummy way to think about things. Not that any of this isn’t true–there are always better writers out there. But that’s no reason to shut up. And one of the best ways to help get a point across is to share it and boost the signal, adding to it if you can.

So, you know what? The Hell with that. Don’t expect clockwork posts from me. Don’t expect stunning repartee in every post. But when I post, it’s because I have something I think is worth saying, or worth sharing, or it’s something I personally want to keep track of. I promise I’ll never torment you with pictures of what I ate for lunch.

Unless it’s frozen mammoth meat.

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And speaking of GeekGirlCon…

The panel I spoke on was about sex, gender, and the complicated and unclear space they both live in. To sum up REALLY briefly, if you think that we have just two genders, you’re not reading enough fiction, biology research, or Tumblr. And if you’re a writer, and all your characters are straight white guys, your writing is suffering for it.

We tried hard to steer away from the standard “Gads, don’t you haaaaate the portrayals of gender, sex, and gender variance in mainstream media?” As our moderator said, “Let’s aim away from the Gender Studies 100 questions and try to make this a 200-level talk.”

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GeekGirlCon: Mind = Blown.

Had a marvelous and educational time at GeekGirlCon, especially doing the sex/gender panel with Winter Ellis Downs, Janine Southard, Jill Seidenstein, and our esteemed and very effective moderator, Raven Oak. I learned from my fellow panelists, we learned from the audience, and we shared a bunch of laughs. I could have hung out with those folks all day.

The con itself was incredibly welcoming, friendly, and different from any other one I’ve been to. It’s hard to describe how it feels to walk into a convention where at least half the folks are women, and lots of the others are of indeterminate gender, or just don’t care about gender.

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Hello world!

Yes, it’s the first post that tells you I’m using WordPress. Anyway, hi, everyone! My name’s Frances Stewart. You can call me Fran–my friends do. My insurance company calls me Christine. I have lots of names when I’m gaming: I’ve been Ardan, Diana, Ronelyn, Donawain, Goodwrench, Doctor Jeremy Rackham, Lilya the Bard, Phil the Merry Goblin Rogue, and many more. If some of those names seem familiar, it’s because I’m a storyteller, and some of their stories are too good not to tell. That’s the case with Grace Clayborn, the main character of my forthcoming novel. It’s definitely the case for Ardan and Diana, and you shouldn’t be surprised if the others show up somewhere either–I bet a lot of authors have great stories from their tabletop gaming days.

I’m a woman. I’m a geek. I’m a writer. I’m also transgender. An Eagle Scout. A feminist. A giant robot fan. Like all of us, I’m a complicated, evolving story that writes herself, constantly being revised and expanded, and (I hope) becoming better written. If you’re actually reading this, welcome! I hope we’ll be friends, or at least friendly.