the one thousandth post to yatima
Damn, I love you, readers. I want to make out with all of you right now. My favourite comment so far is from Shannon Lee (hope you don’t mind me quoting email, dude, but this LOLed me, a lot.)
I hate the fucking rapture. It’s so 20th century, let’s work on a new myth. Maybe a realist description of what would happen if everyone took Jesus at his word, hated his father and mother, took to the road and became a goddamned hippie — roads clogged with sandal-wearing peaceniks. I’m not saying it’s a more attractive picture than the Rapture, but we on the Christian left deserve our moment in the “reality not so good in reality as in our dreams” spotlight.
More ideas:
- Menopausal women really do become invisible. (Jeremy winces and calls this one “I see old people.”)
- In a similar vein: conversations with the unborn.
- Our favourite so far: In a post-industrial wasteland, civil war rages between Ren Faire and the SCA. Our heroes set off to find the source of what high tech remains: the maybe-mythical Black Rock City…
I can’t even find the words to say what Viable Paradise was like. I feel anointed as a member of the next generation of science fiction writers. I’m pretty sure everyone who was there felt the same. I have post-Burning Man afterglow without the playa dust. The difference between literary fiction and science fiction workshops, incidentally, maps almost exactly onto the difference between rock festivals and Burning Man. The first is almost about reinforcing the hierarchical distance between pro and am; the second blows it up with a giant flamethrower mounted to a mechanical dragon. Guess which I like.
It’s dead humbling, of course. I believe I mentioned how much smarter everyone else was than I am, including, I want to point out, the volunteers who came along to cook; but I may have glossed over the fact that they’re all much better writers than I am, too. Turns out I am not the most talented writer on earth, and though of rapidly advancing years, I haven’t done much yet. But I don’t care. I’m going to write anyway. I’m going to write every day. I’m going to write like I have started to run; just for the sheer living joy of it.
On!
