2012: A Year In Review

As years go, 2012 has been something of a mixed bag. On the one hand, I’ve parted ways with my publisher, thereby indefinitely delaying creation of the final book of the Rare, while my only publication has been a single poem in the summer edition of Goblin Fruit. On the other hand, though, I’ve nearly finished one new novel, made a promising start on two others, and produced full outlines for five more;  this blog has picked up enormously, too – I even started writing for the Huffington Post – and I have a forthcoming short story in a digital anthology, more news of which as it comes. Reading-wise, I sadly fell short of my stated goal of 200 novels; still, 115 isn’t a bad effort, and as this was the year I finally obtained a Kindle, a solid 30 of those were ebooks. Looking back on my resolutions for 2012, however, it’s disappointing to find that I’ve achieved exactly one of them, and then only technically: having planned to read at least one non-fiction book a month, I managed a grand total of eighteen such works spread out across the entire year, which is better than nothing, but nonetheless something of a shortfall. Neither did I finish writing a novel by the end of February – or even the end of December, for that matter – and I certainly didn’t get fit. What I did do, however, was move cities, change jobs and fall pregnant, which perhaps goes some way towards explaining my failures elsewhere. All in all, then, 2012 has wound up being a very different year to the one I’d envisaged having, but ultimately, it’s been wonderful.

As I type this, I’m exactly 35 weeks pregnant, which means that I look like a planet and feel like a walrus. Whatever else it brings, therefore, 2013 will be inescapably known as the year I become a parent, the prospect of which is both thrilling and frightening all at once – and is, as such, the reason why I won’t be making any resolutions for 2013. My life is about to utterly change, and as I know just enough to know that I can’t possibly know how big that change will be, it doesn’t seem fair or sensible to set myself any specific goals beyond the obvious hope to that I’ll learn my way, find time to relax, get some writing done and not fuck it up too badly. Oh, and that I’ll be sufficiently un-pregnant by the time my birthday rolls around to enjoy a soothing glass of champagne.

This being so, and in light of the fact that blogging represents my greatest non-biological triumph of 2012, I’ve opted instead for a rundown of the ten most popular pieces I’ve written this year. Thus:

1. Rape Culture In Gaming, 11 June 2012: A detailed explanation of what rape culture is, why it exists and how it’s perpetuated in the specific context of gaming and online culture. This was, by an order of magnitude, my most widely viewed piece of 2012, racking up almost double the number of page views of the next most popular entry.

2. Bullying & Goodreads, 10 July 2012: A rundown of the issues surrounding the creation of the STGRB website, with emphasis on reviewer etiquette, online bullying and criticism. Though the initial kerfuffle has died down somewhat, the subsequent conversation is still ongoing, and likely will be for some time.

3. Lamenting The Friend Zone, Or: The “Nice Guy” Approach To Perpetrating Sexist Bullshit, 9 April 2012: An angry deconstruction of the sexism and gendered cultural pressures that underlie the stereotypical concept of the friend zone as deployed by a certain subset of self-professed ‘nice guys’. Despite the overwhelming success of my rape culture piece, this entry technically beats it hollow thanks to widespread quoting and circulation on tumblr.

4. PSA: Your Default Narrative Settings Are Not Apolitical, 8 December 2012: A long and reference-heavy debunking of the commonly held assumption that history, and particularly Western history, is exclusively straight-white-male dominated. Given that it’s only been live for three weeks, I’m a little amazed that this piece managed to come in fourth.

5. Penny Arcade vs Rape Culture, 2 June 2012: A precursor to the rape culture in gaming post, this was a specific assessment of webcomic Penny Arcade’s reaction to the extremely vile Hitman: Absolution trailer, and how it was symptomatic of bigger industry problems.

6. The Problem With Fanservice, 28 August 2012: A takedown of the ubiquitous, deeply problematic presence of fanservice in anime, and why it impacts on my enjoyment of the medium.

7. Racism, Revealing Eden and STGRB, 3 August 2012: An examination of the fallout surrounding the overt-yet-apparently-unintentional racism of self-published YA novel Revealing Eden, with reference to the STGRB site. It’s worth noting that the second book in the series, Adapting Eden, is due out in January 2013, so there’s a good chance the furor will start back up again with a vengeance.

8. Tony Harris Is A Sexist Ass, 15 November 2012: A response to the sexist ranting of comics writer Tony Harris about fake nerd girls, with emphasis on intentionality vs interpretation and cognitive dissonance as relevant to subconscious bias.

9. The Creepiness Question, 27 August 2012: A personal account of an unsettling childhood encounter contextualised by a discussion of male creepiness, gender roles, victim blaming and hypocritical double standards for female behaviour.

10. Why YA Sex Scenes Matter, 27 June 2012: A look at why the prevalence of positive sex and romance in novels aimed at teenage girls is not only culturally significant, but revolutionary. I’m rather pleased this piece squeaked into the top ten; for most of the year, it was languishing in obscurity, but thanks to a recent revitalization on tumblr, it’s picked up dramatically.

And finally, by way of a bonus: my recent guest post for The Book Smugglers on the bad boy trope, and its evolution into something deeply problematic.  Huzzah!

So, that’s my 2012 in a nutshell. Now bring on 2013!

 

2012 Resolutions

Happy new year, internets! Isn’t it shiny and new? I feel like I ought to be peeling the sticker off and stripping away the plastic.

First up, here are my fictional rolemodels for 2012:

1. Cordelia Naismith Vorkosigan

To say I have fallen in love with Lois McMaster Bujold’s Vorkosigan saga is something of an understatement: I am in full-on literary lust. If it were legally possible for me to marry her brain, I would do so, but while this is in large part due to the awesomeness of Miles Vorkosigan and the Dendarii Free Mercenaries, the character that absolutely stole my soul is his mother, Cordelia. There is something raw and brutal and beautiful about her, a strength and courage that goes bone-deep. She is vulnerable and human, yes; but when terrible things happen to her – and they do happen – she overcomes them with a species of brilliance that is less about asskicking than it is about pureblooded victory: social, political, intellectual, emotional, feminist and military, written with all the hard and visceral joy of triumph over incredible adversity. Now and forever, she has catapulted herself to the top of my list of Favourite Literary Heroines, and for that, I honour her.

 

 

 

 

2. Helen Parr, aka Elastigirl 

Whenever I watch The Incredibles, I’m consistently blown away by the awesome of Helen Parr. So often in cinema – and particularly in cinema aimed at children – mothers are painted as either obedient housewives or icy harridans, with precious little leeway in between. And then we have Helen, who is not only a competent, caring mother, but a competent, kickass superhero. These aren’t two separate identities whose differences are played for laughs, either: instead, we get a character who argues with her husband and reprimands her children, but who isn’t just cast as a nag; a domestic woman who is neither trapped, ignorant nor passive, but who has chosen her life and is active and happy within in; a wife with emotional vulnerabilities in proportion to her strengths; a woman as ordinary as she is extraordinary. One of the most powerful scenes I’ve ever watched is the one in which Helen saves her children from a plane crash, and if you can watch the following clip without falling utterly in love with her, then I’d suggest that we can’t be friends:

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3. Florence Cathcart

By an order of magnitude, the best new film of 2011 was Nick Murphy’s The Awakening. Set in 1921, the story starts when Florence Cathcart, a debunker of hauntings and unmasker of charlatans, is called to investigate the death of a boy at a boarding school where all the students claim he was killed by a ghost. The resulting narrative is exquisitely balanced: not just Florence, but every character is in some way wounded by the first world war, and the action moves between emotional connections, romance, chilling mystery and genuine, grip-the-seats horror in a way that makes The Orphanage look like Scream. And then there’s Florence, who is hands down the best female character I’ve seen on the screen in years. Witty, bitingly intelligent, courageous and sensual, Florence stole my heart from minute one and has kept it ever since. Talking with writer/director Nick Murphy on Twitter, I asked him if she was based on any particular historical figure – I’d genuinely assumed she must be, because she’d felt so real. His reply? “She was based on the kind of girls I want my daughters to become.” Which, if you’re listening, Hollywood? Is the textbook definition of Doing It Right.

And now, my actual resolutions for 2012:

1. Read at least one non-fiction book per month.

Over the course of 2011, I read 136 new books, only four of which were properly non-fiction, and all of which I read in January. That’s… not a great ratio. I’ve reached a point now where I need to be reading more research material – more history, more philosophy, more culture and politics and feminism and ideas – and not just straight, delicious fiction. This is a modest goal, but one I’d be very happy to achieve. Ideally, I will actually read one NF book each month, but if I manage a minimum of twelve such works spread out across the year, then I’ll be equally pleased. Huzzah for learning!

2. Finish a novel by the end of February.

2011 was a very weird year for me, writing-wise, in that I didn’t actually finish anything. In fairness, I did write half of two new novels and close out the edits for The Key to Starveldt, which was published in October, but I’d nonetheless hoped to have at least a full version of either project ready by this point, and the fact that I don’t bothers me. But! As I have been editing, plotting and generally scheming with regard to the former of these two novels – which, at present, is going by the moniker An Accident of Stars – and know exactly what (I hope) to do with it; and as I ought to have a bit of free time in the next two months, I’ve set myself a completion date of 29 February 2012 by which to produce a viable first draft. Knowing me, this will either prove to be optimism of the highest order or a surprisingly workable timeframe. And boy, do I hope it’s the latter.

3. Get healthy.

I know. I know. OK? No, seriously: I KNOW. Stating this as a serious resolution is roughly the same as jinxing myself, or declaring that I want to achieve world peace by the end of June. Every year I and thousands of others make this our ambition, and every year we are, almost universally, undone by a leftover bottle of wine and the lure of cut-price chocolate before you can say knife. Nonetheless: I hereby pledge to give up drinking for at least the month of January, to try and run a couple of times a week, and to exercise self-control in the presence of chocolate, cheese and any foodstuff created with reference to frying. I also pledge that I shall try to eat smaller portions at main meals, snack judiciously on things I actually like (as opposed to anything that comes from the sweetie box in the work kitchen) and to otherwise comport myself like a sensible adult. I will not deny myself treats, but I will strive to ensure that they are treats, rather than impulses or habits. And so on until I no longer feel the need to unzip the top of my favourite skirt after dinner, amen.

2012 is here. Let the games begin!

 

New Year’s Eve

And here we are again, on the cusp of another new year and the end of the old. For me personally, 2011 has been momentous, challenging, crazy, wonderful, strange, and a whole host of other adjectives. This year, I turned 25 – a quarter-century! – and moved from Australia to Scotland. My second book was released. I made new friends, started new projects, worked new jobs in a new country, discovered cooking, threw a surprise birthday party for my husband, traveled to France and Germany, read over 150 books, got involved with the local Feminist Society, blogged a lot, took masses of photos and drank an extraordinary amount of cider. Without wanting to sound twee, it’s been a year when I’ve not only grown up a lot, but noticed myself growing, and in some instances consciously orchestrated the growth, as opposed to having random maturation thrust upon me by the eddying whims of adulthood. After so much blundering about, it does feel a little as though I’ve got myself together this year, or have, more specifically, got myself into a position from which next year can be confidently tackled – which, frankly, is a relief, because as the process has inevitably involved a certain amount of floundering, doubt and despair, it’s nice to have something to show for it, however hypothetically.

Politically and environmentally, though, the world has been in turmoil. It’s far from inaccurate to describe 2011 as a year of revolution: beginning with the myriad uprisings and calls for social justice known collectively as the Arab Spring, we’ve had rioting in the United Kingdom and the worldwide spread of the Occupy movement. There have been devastating earthquakes in New Zealand – the latest happening just this week – tsunami and nuclear meltdown in Japan, global financial instability, and the horrific rampage of Anders Breivik in Norway. At the level of society, 2011 has marked the passing of Steve Jobs, Anne McCaffrey and Amy Winehouse, among others – figures whose deaths have had an impact on both our landscapes cultural and emotional landscapes. Even if it hadn’t already been notable as the first year of a new decade, 2011 has made its mark on history.

There are lots of reasons, then, to look forward to 2012 – social progress; political redemption; a fresh start; ongoing hopes for self-improvement; the challenge of unknown horizons; the simple satisfaction of peeling the first, crisp page off a new desk calendar. I have Ambitions, internets, and come tomorrow, I’d very much like to share them with you. But until then, I shall round out the year by sharing with you this picture of my husband dressed as a Doctor Who/Dalek hybrid. Because I can.

Happy new year!