Right now: No

We are only 13 days into 2015 and emails are pouring in asking me for things and the pace seems to be picking up. (Well over a dozen; three just this morning.) This is a post I can link to to save myself many emails in which I regretfully say no.

So, plainly: Right now, no. No, I will not read your book with a view to blurbing it or introducing it or appearing with you when you come through town on your book tour. I will not join your organisation, judge your competition, or blog about your cause, no matter how worthy. I will not signal boost your initiative or organisation, despite it's urgency or importance. I cannot come to your school or book club or library. I am sorry for it.

I recognise that there are many people out there I could help, that I would like to help, especially those who are climbing uphill—women, people of colour, quiltbag folk, people with MS. It turns out that readers in many different rooms might recognise my name and that has some value. So I am lucky, I understand that. But still, no.

I have helped. I do help. I will help again. But right now I'm taking a break.

I am focused on Hild II. I will allow nothing to get in my way. Over the last year I've spent so long talking about my work that I'm a bit out of practise at doing it. Even something that seems simple—responding to a request by email—pulls me out of the seventh-century long enough that it takes hours to get back. So, no, right now I will not help.

How long will this state of affairs last? I don't know. A few months.

But as I've said, I am not averse to helping, generally-speaking, so here are my criteria for travel requests and book blurbs. I'll put together something addressing other requests another time. Right now the seventh-century beckons...

This blog has moved. My blog now lives here: http://nicolagriffith.com/blog/

Map of Hild's journeys?

From: Jean

I heard you speak at Elliott Bay. Bought Hild and have been gone "back to Yorkshire" while reading it. I am the family historian for my extended Penrose family. Yes, we are Yorkshire Penroses from small places such as Skipwith, Foxholes, Langtoft, Burton Agnes, Huntington, Bainton, Hutton Cranswick. I have good documentation from 1731 to 1830s when the landless sons of Foxholes butcher decided to emigrate to America.

Over past 45 years I've traveled to these small Yorks places, and always launched myself by bus, train or car from York, Leeds, Beverley, Hull, Scarborough, Filey. Whitby I have a memory of climbing from waterfront of a town on the east coast up to an abbey ruin. I think.

All this is to say that I kept my Ordnance Survey maps of Yorks in my chair as I read Hild. Was forever matching place names in the book with those on your map in the book and with the Ordnance maps.

I wonder if you or any of your readers have ever created a map of the route journeys made by Hild. I keep wondering, where is Menewood? What would it be near today? Would a Yorkshire reader be better able to identify specific wolds, valleys, monuments while reading Hild?

I am now using Seattle Public Library and internet sources to get better informed about Bede, Celtic vs Roman religion, and so many more subjects. My pagan/Unitarian/Universalist spirituality has always urged me to learn and experience feminist spirituality and sources.

Thanks for writing Hild.

Menewood is real: Meanwood Valley, in Leeds. Specifically, the bits I describe are absolutely real. If you visit Meanwood Park you might recognise things here and there. Caer Loid is, in my imagination, the site of Kirkstall Abbey, also in Leeds. I'm deeply familiar with both places and for the book imagined how they might have looked 1400 years ago... You might enjoy this post I did a while ago on my research blog, which includes these two photos I took on one of my recent trips to the UK: Kirkstall Abbey/Caer Loid and Menewood Beck/Meanwood Park in February 2013.

Caer Loid, and ducks on the Aire

Menewood beck

Some valleys, rivers, folds, cliffs etc in the book will be instantly recognisable to natives. But some might not; so much has changed. (In the first photo, for example, I had to edit out signs of the 21st century, and both depict nature that's entirely too tidy for Hild's time.) But I tried to make sure that the flora and fauna, the weather, the kinds of dirt and rock, are plausibly those that might have been there. Every now and again I fudge a bit (I need Hild to be able to climb a substantial tree at the age of seven, say, and the trees that definitely would have been there would be impossible, so I import a less likely candidate--not impossible, just less likely), or make a mistake (sigh). But I've done my level best to keep things as real as possible.

But no, no one has created a map of Hild's journeys. I'd love to see it, if anyone did.

One more thing. You might be interested in Seattle University's Search for Meaning Book Festival, Saturday February 28. It runs all day but I'll be talking about Hild at 1 pm.

This blog has moved. My blog now lives here: http://nicolagriffith.com/blog/

Colder Wind

"Colder Wind" by Wylie Beckert.

A few months ago I did a post about all the different art of "Cold Wind," my short story about snow, and sex, and shape-changing. It was full of pictures of the various pieces that inspired it—a print of Terri Windling's Deer Woman; Riva Lehrer's marvellous multi-media, multi-dimensional portrait of me as a snow leopard; Hedningarna's haunting "Viima"*—and my discovery of some art, by Rovina Cai, inspired by it. All art, I concluded, influences all other art.

And then yesterday I got a message from the inestimable Henry Lien, the new art director of Lightspeed Magazine, wondering if I'd seen the long and interesting process post on how Wylie Beckert put together Colder Wind, her illustration based on my story.

It's radically different in mood and tone from Rovina's piece, though it's interesting that both use flowing/floating clothing accessories to add interest and fill space, quite unlike Sam Worthington's original illustration for Tor. I loved seeing different artists' take on Hild, too (there's more I haven't got around to posting). It tells me so much about the different approaches readers must take to a text.

I'm curious, though, about which of the three pieces—Sam Wolfe Connelly's cover illustration, Wylie Beckert's painting (above), Rovina Cai's interpretation—comes closest to matching the pictures "Cold Wind" put in your head (if it did). Or which you think enhances the story in some way. I'd love to hear your thoughts, any thoughts on the subject, really.

* I played that song on repeat for hours and find it has snuck into the playlist for Menewood...

This blog has moved. My blog now lives here: http://nicolagriffith.com/blog/

We're all people first

From: Kelly

I enjoyed the reading you did in DC. I loved reading Hild and was happy to hear you talk about it.

What I'd also hoped to say in some way was just how much your books mean to me. But I'm dysfunctionally shy on a good day, so I'm generally incapable of normal conversation with, well, anybody. So I'll write it instead -- your books were the first I ever read with strong lesbian characters who were portrayed as unashamed and (is this the right word?) normal. Not victims or sad freaks. I came out a few years ago in my late 20s and struggled with it. Reading your books was life-changing because they offered an alternative to the way I thought I was confined to be. They helped me through the process in a way. If that makes any sense. So for what it's worth, thank you. Thank you for not writing gloomy women who sit around sewing all day, hating themselves, and getting the shit kicked out of them by men.

I look forward to the sequels to Hild. And I love Kelley's writing as well. Can't wait to see the movie version of Solitaire. I feel like I hit the jackpot when I discovered your writing and Kelley's.

Women loving whoever they want is a huge part of my work. Actually, women being who they are—in whatever way—is part of my fundamental approach to the world. We are people. It's that simple. 

Long ago, today, and in the future people, groups and individuals, have been, are, and will be constrained by the rules of society. Rich or poor, male or female, person of colour or white, young or old, differently abled or not, we're all constrained. Constrained differently, and to different degrees. And it's the degree that matters. A slave is going to be subject to an utterly different level of constraint than a member of the elite of any sex, race, ability, and so on. In this case it's the slavery that has the most profound impact, not the sex or sexual orientation or gender presentation. But slaves—and to be clear here I'm talking about the institution from a long historical perspective, not just the iteration of it that made millions of lives in the US so terrible for so long—were and are people. And people will always find a way around some constraints because that what we do. It's what we've always done. We find a way. If you squint, you could say that's what Hild is about.

I got tired a very long time ago of women, and lesbians, being seen as Other. Not fully human. Not human first. Have we always been regarded this way? I doubt it. Will it always be this way? No. As I've said before, I think it's changing. And that's what I write towards.

In our house we have a saying: Act as if. In other words, behave as though the world is treating you with the respect you deserve. I can't speak to the experience of others but from my perspective as a white woman of a certain age*, it almost always works. This means assuming good intent, and not feeling and so behaving as though you're on the defensive. I've always behaved this way, always assumed I'm a human first and deserve treatment as such, and often those around me respond to that. Obviously, there are times when it would be ridiculous, even dangerous, to assume good intent, and situations where it's impossible. Generally speaking, though, it works surprisingly well.

As I say, I write from that position. I write towards a day when we are only seen as other because of something we choose: team colours, if you like. Team colours we can change anytime we want. Today you're Red and I'm Blue; tomorrow we swap shirts. If my writing has a purpose beyond the fact that I love telling stories, love earning my living by making shit up, it's that I write towards people being people first. In that sense, as I've said before**, I write to change the world.

And regarding Solitaire as a film, well, stay tuned...

* But I have, of course, been other ages. My gender presentation is...eccentric. I've been very physically fit and now am a cripple. I've been—to some degree am—both a foreigner with a funny accent and a native. I'm a dyke. A woman. I've been all over the map economically—from years of grinding poverty to a few years of delicious bounty—but grew up lower middle-class in a family that could (almost) always afford rent and clothes and food but not going out to eat and not great clothes.
** I couldn't find the post I was looking for but I found my response to the question, "Can queer authors write straight characters?" I'd completely forgotten about this. It says everything I've said here, but from a slightly different perspective.

This blog has moved. My blog now lives here: http://nicolagriffith.com/blog/

Songs in HILD

From: Kiffi

I am reading Hild, having heard of it through my friend Rob Hardy’s review, and enjoying it immensely. The mix of ‘top-down’ and ‘bottom-up’ cultural details works wonderfully well, and creates a world the reader can begin to understand, rather than just observe.

But I have a question re: the song on page 211… Edwin’s gesiths are singing a drinking song beginning “Do your ears hang low…” etc.

When my now husband and I met, in Wisconsin summer stock, 1955, we were just a couple of theatre struck kids, and prone to acting out all sorts of things… At one maybe slightly drunken moment, Victor sang all his Delta Tau Delta (Univ. of Missouri at Columbia) fraternity drinking songs to me…

(What could he possibly have been thinking was the attraction ???)

But the point is, he sang that song, virtually word for word, with the substitution of a ‘continental’ soldier, and optional body parts!

My question then… is the use of that song: was it actually traced somehow, or was it something you had heard and found exactly appropriate for the scene?

Rob's review is one I particularly enjoyed. So please thank him from me.

The song is one I heard, long ago, from rugby union players in the UK—probably exactly the way your husband-to-be sang it, that is, not with ears. It's an idiotic song that conveys the all-male, privileged upbringing of how I imagined gesiths. No, there's no evidence that men were singing this 1400 years ago, but to me it conveys the essential boyness of gesith culture, and I thought it would convey that to readers, too.

I wrote a lot of song and poems for Hild but didn't include most of them in the finished text. I didn't want it to remind readers of The Lord of the Rings and all that tedious elvish poetry. (I love many things about LotR but the poetry and songs are not among them.)

If you want to read an example of the not-used songs and poetry, you can find them here and here and here respectively.

This blog has moved. My blog now lives here: http://nicolagriffith.com/blog/

"Cold Wind" in Tor's "Some of the Best" anthology

Available for free download, Tor's anthology of their best short fiction of 2014, complete with the original illustrations. (The cover is from the one used for my story, "Cold Wind," 4,000 words of snow, mounting creepitude, and a hint of sex.)

Here's the full table of contents if you want to read them as individual pieces:

• “As Good As New” by Charlie Jane Anders (Short Story)
• “The End of the End of Everything” by Dale Bailey (Novelette)
• “Mrs. Sorensen and the Sasquatch” by Kelly Barnhill (Short Story)
• “Sleep Walking Now and Then” by Richard Bowes (Novelette)
• “Daughter of Necessity” by Marie Brennan (Short Story)
• “Brisk Money” by Adam Christopher (Short Story)
• “A Cost-Benefit Analysis of the Proposed Trade-Offs for the Overhaul of the Barricade” by John Chu (Short Story)
• “The Color of Paradox” by A.M. Dellamonica (Short Story)
• “The Litany of Earth” by Ruthanna Emrys (Novelette)
• “A Kiss With Teeth” by Max Gladstone (Short Story)
• “A Short History of the Twentieth Century, or, When You Wish Upon a Star” by Kathleen Ann Goonan (Novelette)
• “Cold Wind” by Nicola Griffith (Short Story)
• “The Tallest Doll in New York City” by Maria Dahvana Headley (Short Story)
• “Where the Trains Turn” by Pasi Ilmari Jääskeläinen (Novella)
• “Combustion Hour” by Yoon Ha Lee (Short Story)
• “Reborn” by Ken Liu (Novelette)
• “Midway Relics and Dying Breeds” by Seanan McGuire (Novelette)
• “Anyway: Angie” by Daniel José Older (Short Story)
• “The Mothers of Voorhisville” by Mary Rickert (Novella)
• “Unlocked: An Oral History of Haden’s Syndrome” by John Scalzi (Novella)
• “Among the Thorns” by Veronica Schanoes (Novelette)
• “The Insects of Love” by Genevieve Valentine (Novelette)
• “Sleeper” by Jo Walton (Short Story)
• “The Devil in America” by Kai Ashante Wilson (Novelette)
• “In the Sight of Akresa” by Ray Wood (Novelette)
• “A Cup of Salt Tears” by Isabel Yap (Short Story)

Or you could just download the whole thing, for free, right now, for your Kindle or Nook. (It will be available soon on iTunes and other retailers.) Enjoy!

This blog has moved. My blog now lives here: http://nicolagriffith.com/blog/

Yeavering: the evidence

From: Wendy

Facebook can be useful. Someone just posted a link to the Archeology Data Service site where they list English Heritage monographs that have been made into free PDFs. This one about Yeavering caught my eye.

There is a lot of information in it and I've only had a chance to flip through, but any mention of Edwin or Paulinus made me think, "Hey, I know those guys!"

Thanks for writing about Hild. Between my interest in medieval stuff (and playing in the SCA for 20 years), and working as a metalsmith in a studio where we dabble in forensic metalsmithing, your book inspires me to dig more into things Anglo-Saxon.

I skimmed the Hope-Taylor, long ago. Fascinating stuff. But I didn't have it. Now I do. Yay! Thanks for that.

Yeavering is a most interesting place. It strikes me as out of character for Edwin. He seemed to prefer low-lying areas of rich countryside, close to water. This is the top of a hill. But Bede and the archaeology agree: this was a big, important site during his reign.

In Hild I posit that it's basically a traditional ceremonial place of the British: a hillfort where tribes came for the annual cattle render to their lord in spring. This was taken over by the Angles a generation or two ago (by Æthelfrith? before that? I don't know) and maintained in order to keep the local populace in their place. I've followed Hope-Tayor's interpretations of the material evidence, mostly. Those interpretations are agreed with—to a degree—by many.

Yeavering was destroyed, deliberately. I'll say no more of that here because for those that don't know their Bede, or the archæological evidence, it could be a big spoiler for Menewood (working title). 

But for how it might have been at the height of Edwin's rule, you could do worse than watch this brief animation of the sparrow's flight above and through the site of Yeavering. It's crude, very old-school, but I love it.

And one of these days, should you be so inclined, I'd love to hear more about the metalsmithing.

This blog has moved. My blog now lives here: http://nicolagriffith.com/blog/

Travel, and dropping the email portcullis

From: Christine

I couldn't get to Porter Square [Boston], unfortunately. I would, however, love to have more east coast opportunities to see you read. From, say, NY eastward. I figure if 100 readers send you a similar message this week, it might impact your itinerary, so I'm pitching in my two cents on the matter. 

I've had many variations on this AN question. I'll answer specifically and then generally.

Right now, no, even a thousand emails would have no impact on my itinerary: I'm not travelling again for a while. In 2015 I'll be in Boston in July (I'm Guest of Honour at Readercon), in August I'll be in Spokane (for Worldcon) and in October I hope to be in the UK (for family stuff). And that, I hope, is it. I've already cancelled a couple of things I had tentatively agreed to, because all I want to do is stay at home and write.

I've talked elsewhere about the odd mental bifurcation required of a writer when trying to mix writing and publicity (see Branding: It Burns). I love talking to readers—but it gets in the way of doing the actual work that they want to talk to me about. Which is why I'm dropping the email portcullis and raising the communication drawbridge for a while. Actually, the email portcullis came down a week ago, and I'm dealing with zero email until January 12. After that, I'll be judicious.

In the event I decide to travel in support of Hild II, I might consider polling readers about places to go. But right now, I'm seriously considering not travelling for Hild II but just moving straight on to Hild III—and then doing a blowout tour. But that won't be for a while.

Meanwhile, if any organisation wants me enough to take that on (I talk elsewhere about what I need to travel), I generally plan a year or so ahead. In other words, look at 2016 at the earliest.

This blog has moved. My blog now lives here: http://nicolagriffith.com/blog/

More on freemartins

It turns out that etymology is my crack. I can't resist it. Yesterday, after posting the AN question about freemartins, I couldn't resist looking just a bit further for the origins of the word, and found this from a 75-year old Journal of Agricultural Research*:

The freemartin has been known to cattle breeders since before the establishment of the Roman Empire. The sterile cow born twin with a bull was referred to by Varro, a writer who died in 28 B. C.

It was called "taura," which apparently meant "barren cow." Although the condition has been recognized for some 2,000 years the origin of the term "freemartin" is obscure. According to one authority the word "free" meant "willing" or "ready to go," as the freemartin was supposed to be an especially willing worker. It has been proposed also that the word "free" was used to signify exemption from reproduction (sterile). Another authority saw in the term a contraction of the words "ferry," "ferow," or "farrow," which appear to be associated with the Flemish "varvekoe"—a cow that gives no milk—and with the West Flemish "varwekoe"—a cow that has ceased to be capable of producing offspring. It is not difficult to imagine an association between the two words "free" and "farrow."

There is probably greater speculation about the word "martin." It may have been derived from the Irish and Gaelic "mart" meaning heifer or cow. Efforts have been made to trace it to St. Martin who, according to legend, once cast the devil from a cow. Moreover, St. Martin is said to have been the patron saint of twins and unusual fecundity. Another explanation offered is that on or near November 11, which was called Martinmas day in Scotland and England, it was customary to slaughter cattle the meat of which was salted for winter use and called martinmas-beef. An early English dictionary referred to martin as "not a true heifer, but an undeveloped male with many of the characteristics of the ox, and generally fattened and killed about Martinmas." It has been suggested further that the freemartin may have been given that designation because its meat was so choice that it was reserved for St. Martin's—a great feast day. Moreover the words "mart," "maert," "mert," and "mairt" appear to have been used in Scotland and parts of England in referring to the cow or ox fattened for slaughter and salted or smoked for winter use.

Hart showed that it is not difficult in view of these facts, to imagine such an individual being referred to as the "farrow-mart-one," or in Scotland as the "farrow-mart-yin," either of which might have been corrupted or shortened into "freemartin."

I learnt from reading the paper that freemartins aren't invariably sterile, just mostly. Figures vary but let's say 1 in 18 develop enough to reproduce. As this can take a couple of years, farmers might let female co-twins live on the off-chance they could end up being able to have calves and produce milk.

This is why there's been a reasonable amount of observable behaviour: freemartins will mount a cow in œstrus but not hurt it or (of course) be able to impregnate it. So before blood tests and thermometers, farmers might have used freemartins to tell when their cows are coming into season. Knowing this makes all the more obvious the contortions the authors of paper go through to avoid mentioning sexual behaviour. I'm sure it must have occurred to them that another way to regard "free" is to approach it from the "free with her favours" angle (especially when linked to their phrase "ready to go"). Either they were coy on their own behalf or at the direction of their editor, or they were utterly clueless about sex. And if you've spent time on a farm, one thing you are not is clueless in this regard...

The stuff about St Martin is interesting, too. I'm assuming they mean Martin of Tours (though the fact that he's the patron saint of twins is new to me). He lived before Hild, but I'm not sure how well known he was in her time. Not very, I'm guessing. So if she used the word freemartin, it came from somewhere else. But that is definitely an investigation for another time. Maybe.

* EARLY RECOGNITION OF THE FREEMARTIN CONDITION IN HEIFERS TWINBORN WITH BULLS, by W. W. SWETT, senior dairy husbandman,  C. A. MATTHEWS, assistant dairy husbandman, and R. R. GRAVES, chief, Division of Dairy Cattle Breeding, Feeding, and Management Investigations,  Bureau of Dairy Industry, United States Department of Agriculture

This blog has moved. My blog now lives here: http://nicolagriffith.com/blog/

Freemartin: etymology and Wikipedia

Note: for some reason a first draft of this post published instead of the edited version. That's now fixed.

From: Andrea

Having visited Whitby some years ago, I found Hild especially intriguing. I'm writing to suggest that someone might like to add a reference to it at the Wikipedia article about freemartins (your book was the first time I'd ever heard of them.

There already is a Wikipedia article on freemartins. But, yes, it would be fab if someone added Hild to the list of fictional uses. Actually, it would be lovely if people would fix/add to my Wikipedia entry and/or create something for Hild. I can't do it myself, for obvious reasons: it would be against Wikipedia's rules; it would feel hinky (and most definitely un-English); and, well, I'm lazy I have Hild II to write. But if anyone out there wants to give it a go, I'd be more than happy to offer assistance.

Freemartins have been around longer than recorded history. But where does the word come from? Most people divide it into two parts, with martin being the easiest to deal with. The OED offers "Of unknown origin: cf Ir., Gael, mart, heifer." On further investigation (that is, a quick cruise through the first two pages of search results) mart is Middle English for cow or ox fattened for market. That might be from the French which is from the Latin (which might, depending on how you trace it, originate with the Etruscan *merk—). Mart is also a term that was apparently used relatively recently in Scotland—from the Gaelic, which of course originates with Old Irish. Both, naturally, begin with Indo European... 

Free is even trickier. a bit trickier though, again, you could link it to Old Irish fiadh, which means (roughly) wild. But why "wild"? We're really reaching...

In the end, I don't think there's any way to tell. But the only way to know for sure is to delve deep, and to consult experts. (And see above, for why I'm not likely to bother just now.) So let's just say people in Hild's era may or may not have used the word, but freemartins have been around since the domestication of cattle. (And sheep, goats—yep, they have them too.)

And, hey, it makes a great metaphor.

This blog has moved. My blog now lives here: http://nicolagriffith.com/blog/

Hild II and III

From: Sara

What's your anticipated completion date? Why isn't it in my Kindle yet? Are you planning just 1 more volume, or 2?

I have not felt this way since Harry Potter.....

I've had a dozen or so variations on this question in the last month. So let me answer it before we move into 2015 and then I can just point to it when I get the same question.

Yes, after Hild II there will be Hild III. But there will only be three.

The working title of Hild II is Menewood. I have no anticipated completion date. I've been travelling way too much to properly get my head back in the writing, as opposed to publicity, game. For how different those two mindsets are, especially for the kind of immersive project that Hild is, read "Branding: It Burns," an essay I wrote last month.

I not only don't know when I'll finish the manuscript, but I don't know how long it will take to put the finished manuscript into production. I suspect it will be faster than last time, because I won't be working with a new-to-me publisher and publishing team. We all know each other better now. And Hild, the product, is a known quantity: the marketing ground won't need as much preparation.

So hopefully soon. Ish. Meanwhile I add a snippet of information on this blog now and again, and occasionally on my more research-oriented blog. Stay tuned.

This blog has moved. My blog now lives here: http://nicolagriffith.com/blog/

MS as metabolic disorder, and diet

Welcome, all those who found their way here from Dr Terry Wahls' Facebook mention of my post on the metabolic hypothesis of MS from three years ago. 

Two brief clarifications about Dr Corthals' paper:

1. It does not say that the immune system is not involved in MS—it is—but that the root of the problem is in the metabolism of lipids.
2. It does not suggest that all animal fat is bad or that changing one's diet will cure any individual's MS.

In my opinion, diet will not cure anyone of multiple sclerosis. But I do think that it's a vital part of our MS treatment.

My diet, which is eccentric and tailored to my individual food sensitivities, is neither perfect nor medically supervised:

• low on carbohydrates (I avoid grains, for example—especially corn/maize—and only eat very high (85%) cocoa chocolate which is relatively low in sucrose, and then only once a day, and only a bit, immediately after lunch)
• very low on dairy (butter and cream are for high days and holidays only; I'm super sensitive to cultured dairy—cheese, sour cream, yoghurt—and so never touch it)
• very low on legumes and pulses
• low on fruit (I eat a bit of apple in salad, and berries sometimes after dinner—always fresh, never dried—and I avoid those fruits I know I'm sensitive to: bananas, strawberries, melons etc)
• eggs less than once a day (I have no sensitivity, but lots of people do)
• very low on omega-6 containing foods
• very high on omega-3 containing foods (I make sure they're also low in omega-6)
• high on animal protein—grass-fed rather than grain-fed (lamb and beef), or free-range (chickens that eat insects etc rather than grains) or wild (salmon, trout, mackerel)
• high on leafy vegetables (cabbage and brussel sprouts, cauliflower, salad greens)
• high on brightly-coloured starchy vegetables (carrots, rutabaga, beets)
• zero high-fructose corn syrup
• zero nightshades (tomatoes, potatoes, peppers etc)—this is a personal sensitivity and may or may not apply to you
• two cups of caffeinated tea (no milk, no sugar) a day
• lots of herb teas (and one decaffeinated Irish breakfast tea after dinner)
• beer and wine before dinner every day, usually in very moderate amounts

Everyone tells me that this last is a Very Bad Idea for someone with MS. I'm sure they're right. Every now and again I spend a few weeks without alcohol, and it's, y'know, okay, but I'm simply happier when I'm able to drink. So that's my vice.

Generally, if I have to have sugar, I privilege sucrose over fructose (and in terms of fruit, the whole is better than juice). I aim for an overwhelming omega-3 to omega-6 ratio. And I avoid nightshades. 

I eat three meals a day. When I snack, I try to eat nuts (macadamia when I can get them, pistachio otherwise—raw, or home roasted).

I'll talk about exercise and dietary supplements and pharmaceutical treatment another time.

This blog has moved. My blog now lives here: http://nicolagriffith.com/blog/

Blowing shit up!

There's something about the earnest wishes of the media and populace at large that this should be a peaceful time of year that just makes me want to blow shit up. As this is regarded as an antisocial tendency, I have restricted myself to my imagination. So you can imagine my delight when I discovered the Action Movie app three years ago.

Cars are dangerous

Here's the very first short sequence I made at an intersection where everyone in Seattle was being very well-behaved, very polite. Well, I figure out how to fix that. Chortle.



But I have since moved on to the serious business of destroying Christmas itself. Particularly that symbol of super nice, the Christmas tree. Here's this year's crop.

Dragons!

This is one I've done before, but I like it a lot: like being able to pan and then focus the fire properly on the tree. Also, well, dragons!

Photon Torpedoes

This one was tricky. I tried it over and over from a variety of angles. In the end I couldn't hit the tree bang on no matter what I tried. But, y'know, the USS Enterprise takes out my tree. It doesn't matter if it's not perfect.

Hit it with a rock...

This might be my favourite. It always makes me want to shout with delight. Blam! It's so definite...

Missile strike

Simple, classic, lovely whistling sound...

Drones Annoy Christmas

They look so very harmless, almost cute. At first.

Hellfire Missile Takes Out the Tree

And finally, the video YouTube keeps trying to enhance because it's shaky. But it's meant to be shaky, YouTube. It's video of a mind-bogglingly powerful piece of ordnance shot high up at great speed. Tuh!

This blog has moved. My blog now lives here: http://nicolagriffith.com/blog/

Ammonite: why in 10 years no one will notice there are no men

From: Scott Barrett

I just wanted to send you a quick note and let you know how much I enjoyed reading your two books Slow River and Ammonite. The SF Gateway collection Gollancz is producing is fantastic, and a great example of the Long Tail phenomenon working wonderfully for superb out-of-print books.

I literally just put down Ammonite. As I said, I did really enjoy the book, the cultures, and the women that you so richly created. It did leave me with one (fairly big) question however. The defining characteristic of Jeep was the virus. We discover midway through the book that it does fairly amazing things to the women who survived it. But the other defining thing it does is kill all men. Now perhaps that gave you the palette on which you wanted to paint the story of these women, and their relationships, and perhaps what a world without men might be like. But, when these cultures meet, and even become somewhat telepathic, men are never talked about. What they are, how they fit in, the fact that on every planet except Jeep the entire human race is made up of two sexes. Never mentioned, offered by Marghe, or discussed. For the entire novel.

Just was curious why. Was the omission intentional, or did you just not see the need to advance the story, or...?

Anyway, mainly wanted to let you know how much I did enjoy the books. Look forward to reading your others.

I'm delighted you liked them. I was sad when they went out of print in the UK. (They've been continuously in print here in the US. Ammonite alone has been through multiple editions and many-multiples of print runs. It still brings me useful royalty cheques every year. I'm proud of it.

Leaving out men was intentional, yes. I was tired of men always being the focus of attention and centre of gravity in fiction. I wanted to see what would happen if they were left out entirely—to find out if they were necessary to this story, to Story itself. It turns out they weren't, aren't. Even a bit.

When I finished the manuscript I sent it to three professional writers for their thoughts. One suggested no one would publish it unless I mentioned men, had my characters talk about men, have the women miss men. I thought, "No. Missing men just wouldn't come up in the story situations I'd imagined." So I didn't. And you know what? I had zero difficulty placing Ammonite with a publisher. None.

In my opinion, the novel does not suffer from lack of men, but the apparent hole at the novel's centre did startle many people (which frankly surprised me). And I've had a handful of readers (all men—but bear in mind this was 20 years ago, when the book first came out) accuse me of lying (these ones are always angry), obscuring the truth (puzzled), confusing the buying public (frowning, understanding they're missing something), and forcing them to understand the world from a woman's perspective (dazed and occasionally a bit frightened).

I responded to each and everyone one as patiently as I could (sometimes more successfully than others). They had just had their whole notion of the world fucked with, big time. They were angry/puzzled/dazed because they had been left out, and they had to face their own assumptions.

Let me give you two examples. 

At party, a man buttonholed me, angry because he'd just read Ammonite and "the publisher lied!" It turned out that what he meant was that the cover copy had used gender-neutral terms such as colonist and anthropologist and native and employee. So he'd leapt to conclusions and was horrified when he realised he'd been reading about...girls! "Did you keep reading?" I asked him, curious. "Well, yes," he said. "It's a good story. But they lied!"

And the day after, at a Georgia Tech class on Literature and Culture, a student told me he'd got a third of the way through the book and before being been struck by the fact that he'd encountered no men. He suddenly understood how it must be to be a female student at Georgia Tech, to be reading text books written by and venerating only men, to not be mentioned, to not have one's existence acknowledged, to feel, on some level, that one didn't exist, or at least didn't matter. 

So I told the class the story of the novel's very first review, in Locus magazine. The reviewer liked Ammonite and thought the main character, Marghe, interesting. But, "Oh, how much more interesting the book might have been if only the author had included the story of Marghe's brother!" (I'm paraphrasing; I don't have my reviews memorised.)  I didn't add any editorial comment. I just let the class work it out for themselves.

It astonishes me that nearly 22 years after that book was first published, people are still trying to figure it out. But the world is changing. It's my sincere hope that 10 years from now readers won't even understand initial readers' puzzlement; they will barely notice the all-women thing. After all, the point of the book, for me, has always been the story: finding out who you are and where you belong.

This blog has moved. My blog now lives here: http://nicolagriffith.com/blog/

Lovely audio discussion of HILD on Writer and Critic

Some of you might enjoy this in-depth discussion of Hild (starts around 12.5 minutes, run about 45 minutes) by Kirstyn McDermott and Ian Mond over at The Writer and the Critic. They talk about other stuff, too, like Emily St John Mandel's Station Eleven, but I admit I didn't have time to listen to that. But for those of you who like while away a commute, or listen while you clean the house for the holidays (or whatever), I can recommend the whole thing. These are smart people with interesting perspectives.

Enjoy.

This blog has moved. My blog now lives here: http://nicolagriffith.com/blog/

Nuns and the Vatican

I've been following, on and off, the story of the Vatican's two investigations of American nuns. One of the investigations, the Apostolic Visitation by the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life (CICLSAL), which began in 2008 under Pope Benedict, came to a formal end on Tuesday with the release of its report, and a press conference in Rome.

You'll find a decent summary in Wednesday's New York Times, but here are my takeaways:

• CICLSAL said nice things about the work US nuns are doing: for each other and for society.
• Individual orders/institutions who aren't will be called in for a little chat.
• The current pope, Francis, is saying hopeful but vague things about women in the church. "Many women share pastoral responsibilities with priests, helping to guide people, families and groups and offering new contributions to theological reflection. But we need to create still broader opportunities for a more incisive female presence in the Church."
• CICLSAL is being equally non-specific. "We will continue to work to see that competent women religious will be actively involved in ecclesial dialogue regarding "the possible role of women in decision-making in different areas of the Church’s life."
• Although this was initially interpreted as an confrontative move on the part of the Vatican, and so some nuns felt angry and suspicious, everyone is now anxious for the Visitation to see as routine, indeed rather helpful. Many are cautiously optimistic that Pope Francis has set a new tone and things are looking up.
• Not everyone is buying this.*
• No matter what your perspective, it's clear the overall situation needs some attention. The median age of the American nun is mid- to late-70s. They are getting old and fragile and they are not well funded.
• Overall, US nuns, as represented by the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), and the less liberal Council of Major Superiors of Women Religious, seem to think the report was a good thing, a signal of gratitude for and appreciation of the work women do in the Church, with some tantalising hope for the future.

The obvious gear-change on the gender stuff, the turning of "You women are getting uppity" into "Oh, gosh, we really, really need you. Like Mary, Mother of God, you nurture us all" is interesting. If you add it to the pig-in-a-python age situation, its consequences, and possible futures, it becomes fascinating. 

From the mid-1940s to the early 1960s, women—mostly white, mostly lower middle class (I have no hard data for this, just anecdata)— flocked to the church. I have some guesses as to why (but I want to emphasise that they are only guesses; this is not something I've spent much time thinking about). 

The end of World War Two coincided with women being encouraged to leave the workforce to make way for the men returning from the front. (And if they didn't leave voluntarily they were pushed.) Being a nun was a path out of poverty and towards rewarding work, visibility, and respect within a community. Those women who took that path are now ageing out, and few novices are signing up. Those who are considering taking vows today have different motivations. According to the report, they are more diverse, well-educated and older than novices of the mid-20th century, though the report gives no specifics (rather startling in this day and age). Apparently, these women are looking for ways to live in a visible community. Reading between the lines (oh, I want raw data!) it seems that women would like to live with other women, set apart from the laity by obvious cultural signifiers such as vows and habits. The church is no longer a path to education and away from poverty but instead a way to live a meaningful life, giving to the world at large while being part of a tight community with common values.

To me this leads to the possibility that if the Vatican plays their hand just right, the church could recruit a significant number of capable and financially secure women in the next ten years. Those women are used to being treated with respect, to getting things done, and to being subordinate to no one.

A lot depends, of course, on the other Vatican inquiry: the continuing investigation of the LCWR by the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which, as of September, was not looking too promising. We won't know for a while. But I always like to think smart people are in charge, and Pope Francis might be steering things in a better direction. I am not holding my breath, though. There are intriguing signals from the Vatican, but he is still a Catholic.

On the other hand, I'm seeing a parallel to the situation 1400 years ago, when another smart bishop saw a way to influence a whole new segment of society. All Francis has to do is be as smart as Bishop Aidan and find a woman as amazing and able as Hild to build and lead a new generation. This could get interesting...

* I like this roundup of video responses and reports from Global Sisters Report: input from a variety of perspectives.

This blog has moved. My blog now lives here: http://nicolagriffith.com/blog/

The Year in Review

I find I'm getting 2013 and 2014 confused: "I became a citizen this year!" I think. But, no, that was last year... Some might say that this is an age thing—that in one's 50s one's brain turns into a leaky collander—but in my case I suspect that huge chunks of the end of last year and beginning of this are blurred because of pain and heavy opiate use. But, chortle, that's all behind me now and I look forward to nothing but clarity and glee ahead. Except, y'know, for the age thing. But perhaps I'm not really ageing at all...

Another thing I could blame for occasional muddlement is travel. I've travelled a lot. A lot. (For me, that is. I'm sure some of you will scoff and think, Amateur!) Travel can make the world rather surreal, especially on 27-hour days that begin in the dark, driving on one side of the road, and end driving on the other, clutching an award in one hand and a bottle of Champagne in the other.

Places we've been this year, in chronological order: the UK; San Jose (for the Nebula Awards); Washington DC (to help celebrate Kelley's father's 80th birthday); the UK again (The North and London); Atlanta; Washington DC again (with adventures in the ER, sigh); Boston; St. Louis; and then the regional stuff: Wenatchee, Leavenworth, Port Townsend, and Leavenworth.

A lot of this year was about Hild, of course: the movie deal that collapsed, the award nominations, the reviews, the fabulous events, the UK publication, the US paperback release, the bestseller lists. (Notice how casually I said that. THE BESTSELLER LISTS. PLURAL.) It's been amazing. It was lovely to meet you all—a lot of truly fine people, some of whom I've been talking to through the ether for a decade or more—but I'm delighted to be in Seattle, to wake up in the middle of the night and know where to stretch my hand for the light, and which where to turn in the dark when getting up to fill a glass of water. It's not an exaggeration to say: I am very, very happy to be home.

The end of this year is going to be all about clearing the decks (that is, the drifts of papers—and journals and books and maps—in my office and living room; not to mention tackling the almost-at-the-day-of-delete-and-mass-apology length of my inbox). Then rest. Then picking up where I left off with Hild II (working title: Menewood but, eh, that will change, it always does). 

In terms of next year: all Menewood, all the time. Apart from perhaps another trip to the UK and my Guest of Honour stint at Readercon 26, which I'm looking forward to enormously, I don't plan to go anywhere.

The blog might be repurposed a bit. I have a bunch o' Ask Nicola questions that I'll get to but then I'm thinking of updating and re-posting essays about writing: its joys, its impact on readers and culture, my goals. And of course there's that almost-mythical redesign of my website which really will happen, one day. And when it does, the blog will migrate back where it belongs.

Meanwhile, there's a tree to decorate—and then, of course, blow up...

This blog has moved. My blog now lives here: http://nicolagriffith.com/blog/

Unselling books

Much to the horror of individual booksellers, I seem to have spent a lot of time in the last few months explaining to potential customers why, no, they shouldn't buy Hild for their eight-year old niece, or 10-year old daughter. Not because of the sex and violence—I don't write the kind of thing that would scar anyone for life—but because it would be a waste of money.

I think it very likely that anyone under the age of 14 would not understand enough of Hild to make it a good gift. Of course there may be very smart and well-read 12 year-olds out there for whom it might be just the thing, but they'd be the exception.

Hild is not a children's book. It's for adults. It might be about a child but it was written with and for an adult sensibility. It is not an adventure book for girls. Or boys. It is not about a plucky young thing we defies all odds and fights battles and is miraculously unscathed, physically and emotionally.

The first time I unsold Hild was five or six months before publication, at BEA. A bookseller wanted to get a signed ARC for his daughter. I asked how old she was. "Eight," he said. "No," I said. "I don't think she'd like it." But it turned out he had a niece who was sixteen. "Perfect," I said, and happily signed and personalised it.

Many people think I'm mad turning down a sale, but I'm a big believer in customer satisfaction. Those 1- and 2-star reviews are not good for business, and disgruntled readers—those who pick up the book thinking it's one thing only to find it's another—do not make for good word of mouth. Think of all those potential readers who won't try Donna Tartt whenever her next novel comes out: more than 55% of those who started to read The Goldfinch couldn't finish it.

I want to sell more of Hild II than Hild I. I want the right readers to spend their hard-earned money, the right readers to pick up Hild and give it a go. I will continue to unsell books where I think warranted.

Meanwhile, if you have a story of a young person loving and appreciating Hild, it would be good to hear it before I destroy my own sales...

This blog has moved. My blog now lives here: http://nicolagriffith.com/blog/

Truth: a writer's job

I did an hour live on "Global Griot" yesterday morning. It turns out that sixty minutes is a long time to be live on the radio, especially after getting up at 6:30 a.m. on Sunday and having time for only one cup of tea...

I can't remember the last time I did this sort of thing. Even podcasts are usually streamed later. This was one of those delay-for-seven-seconds-in-case-you-spout-treason things—which, let me tell you, is incredibly disorienting to accidentally hear when you're trying to say something coherent! 

But when I did manage to hang onto my hat, coherence-wise, I talked about truth a lot: how a human being has to know her own truth, and a writer must know the truth of a book; how truth connects to phi, and phi to ammonites. Then how Ammonite is connected to Hild, and Hild to Whitby. And Whitby is connected to my beginnings as both an adult human being and a writer. And writing is about getting to a truth by dismantling the cultural master story, the cliché, by telling the story of a particular person in a specific situation; how I do that, how I slip truth deep into you when you're not looking. Oh, and the idiocies of arm-wrestling in bars before one's brain is fully formed, before one is really a human being...

Go listen. It's only up until December 27th.

This blog has moved. My blog now lives here: http://nicolagriffith.com/blog/

Live on Sunday morning morning, KSER 90.7

I'm doing a live interview Sunday morning for KSER's Global Griot in Everett. It starts at 9 am. It's less an interview than a 45-minute conversation with the host, Mary Dessain, about storytelling: how it works, what it does to us as people, and how it's woven into every human endeavour. You can listen live, and then the recording will be available here. I haven't done live radio, as opposed to live-to-tape (most podcasts) and taped-then-edited (most national public radio) for years, so it should be...interesting.

A reminder that the Port Townsend interview I did with Chris Wilson on KPTZ is here (streaming—though if you follow the link you can also subscribe to the podcast and listen at your leisure). It's less than 30 minutes and goes away January 23.

This blog has moved. My blog now lives here: http://nicolagriffith.com/blog/