Trans/plant/portation

So many voices on the Interwebs say that writers write, that writers must scratch out a stream of words every day, that not doing so on one day sounds terrifying to us. It turns us back into velveteen rabbits; it takes away our sense of authenticity as writers, and for some of us, that felt like shaky ground to begin with. But I suppose there’s a reason the NaNoWriMo gods (read: Chris Baty) decided to set the project in November, which not only has a scant 30 days instead of January or March’s 31, but which is also stricken with the biggest American holiday of them all: Thanksgiving. Read More…

Today is the Transgender Day of Remembrance, a moment to reflect on the lives lost among transgender women and men, no matter their specific gender identities or expressions. So I would like to expand the category of “transgender” even as I believe firmly that people along the trans spectrum are all too often ignored, even in the face of the at long last media attention on LGB/t suicide. Read More…

I am a couple of chapters beyond the excerpt that I posted yesterday, trucking along, as it were. I also have a small glass of port next to me, and I typically don’t drink anything alcoholic while I’m writing—not that I have anything against it per se. My relaxed attitude comes to me courtesy of my story’s momentum.

We are most definitely building toward the big show down, and this is a good thing. Read More…

Chapter Eight

“What,” I asked, “Why do people think I’m dead?”

Outside a rumbling sound cut into my shock, and Lucas scrambled to stand up. “Come on, quickly.” He crutched toward the hallway, back where I’d bathed at the end of the night. I bounded up after him.

“Where are we going? Who is that?”

“Jacqueline,” said Lucas, turning around to face me. The engines at the front of the house cut out; we heard car doors clanging shut. “I’ll tell you later.” Read More…

We hit the magical day of 16 yesterday, the day that many psychologists say new habits are forged. Congratulations, intrepid writers with recently created finger callouses! I’ll go ahead and admit it now: missing a single day doesn’t hurt your chances of forming habits. But hey, we’re over the basic threshold, so don’t hold my secrecy against me.

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Well, hidey ho, we’re at the halfway mark of the NaNoWriMo challenge. I am going to suggest something that I promise is not wacky, although some people may think it’s clear out of left field.

Stop writing this afternoon, and pick up a book. Read More…

I’d heard, along with the other people who live in the U.S., about the influx of whole-body scanners to our airports. More than one’s average bear, those of transgender heritage disdain these things because well, it goes against our whole mantra of “I’m not just what I am in my pants/skirt.” In this narrow chamber, we are. Thinking about these things abstractly and then coming face to face with one, as I did last Wednesday, I discovered, are two different animals. The disgust after reading a newspaper article pales in comparison to stepping into one of these scanners. Read More…

We’re on the back stretch now, and if this were an actual horse race, there would be almost as much distance to travel backward as forward, so stopping now would be close to useless. However, NaNoWriMo is an extended writing event, so we can take an easy trap door out of it at any point if we want to. Before we all push the Quit Now button, however, I want to point out a few things:

1. You will never be in the middle of this novel in the same way again. Read More…

I was once on the steering committee of the Syracuse University Women’s Studies Department, so sure, I hestitatingly crashed the afternoon plenary given by Chandra Mohanty (who is now the chair of that same department) and M. Jacqui Alexander. They spoke about pedagogy and collaborative writing, but this was a front, really, for reframing global-wide heteronormative, misogynist, xenophobic neocolonialism. For it has been a few epochs now since a sizable portion of the world’s population lived free from borders. Mohanty and Alexander would like to push back against the conservative movement that has created a whiplash since the tragedy of 9/11, capturing “immigrants,” “terrorists,” and “citizens,” and redefining America in a way that is too narrow to sustain itself. Read More…

This is about where the guy who’s been eating potatoes and only potatoes starts to sound a little freaky in his blog:

Potatoes originated in the mountains of Peru. These varieties are wild and beautiful and come in an assortment of colors. One color you can often find here in the US are purple potatoes. My question is, if you ground them up in a blender and put them in your hair, will your hair turn purple? Tune in tomorrow for the answer!

Hopefully nobody’s dyeing their hair over NaNoWriMo. Yet. Read More…