Near+Far: Big Plans

I’m on fire! was my first thought.

Then “” some very stupid part of me bubbled up But look at how pretty the blue edges flicker “” and then panic overwhelmed me again as some lizard part of my brain scrambled to get out of the way of I’M ON FIRE.

Everyone else was doing so, and it looked as though they hadn’t lost any seconds to contemplation of the prettiness. Wren had drawn up short, ten feet away, her fists balled as she stared at me, the two new guys on either side, each with a hand on her shoulder. They exchanged glances, blinked as though surprised, and stepped back. Wren kept staring. She swallowed, and the snake tattooed along the side of her neck writhed.

The troupe is half human, half Underpeople, though June’s as human as they come. The latter hate flame, most of them, it’s hardwired in. Most of them faded towards the back of the crowd and one of the mini elephants squealed admonition in the scuffle of movement.

Roto was the only one who came forward. His eyes were wide and panicked, his lips curled back in alignment to his stiffly leaning ears, his whiskers silver lines against his dark cheeks.

He said, “Meg, what’s happening?”

It was so unfair. How was I supposed to know what was happening? I didn’t have a clue. I opened my mouth to say that, but all that came out was an agonized shriek, even though I felt no physical pain. It was just a howl of frustration and want and loneliness, all the loneliness of having the circus as my family but no one mine, no one bound to me by blood, so I never knew where I’d fit.

Something cool around my shoulders. June, wrapping me in a silvery blanket.

“I need you to take a deep breath,” she said.

I tried, but the sound kept coming out.

She laid her hand over mine. “Breathe.”

Flames danced over her skin where it touched mine. The blue fabric of her jacket began to smolder, flaring orange and sparking along the line of the hem.

“Breathe.“

Nothing physical but that coolness against my back, as though the blanket were drawing the flame inside it. But in my head, something slammed down so all my consciousness went to breathing, to the act of pulling in the air, feeling it rush into me, my ribs dwelling to contain as much as possible, holding it for a beat and then releasing…

“Okay,” June said. “Okay, Meg.”

I blinked. The flames were gone, but the hem of her jacket still flared orange one last second before dying away.

“You’re tired. I’m putting you in Nursie.”

I tried to protest. Riding in Nursie was boring beyond belief. One of her settings had gone wonky and she treated everyone as though they were a six-year-old. But at the same time, I realized, it sounded so good, lying down in darkness and not thinking for a while.

Before I knew it, I was tucked in Nursie’s depths. Vanilla scented mist sprayed down around the couch.

“Now I’m going to tell you the story of the Brave Little Kitten,” she announced.

That was all right. At least it was one of the comprehensible stories. But something else caught my attention. I rolled closer to the hatch opening, trying to hear out.

Outside, June shouting.

“All right! These fellows either lair nearby or they’re affiliated with the town.”

Nursie said, “Once upon a time “””

“Wait,” I said. “Nursie, can I have a drink of water first?”

The story paused as a cup rattled into the dispenser and began to fill.

June said, “Either way, we can’t go back “” you know that as well as I “” and it’s better to make these disappear and keep moving rather than have others come look and find us with them.”

Muffled agreement. Nursie said, “Drink your water, Meg.”

I drank it as slowly as I could, but all I heard were doors slamming and engines starting again. I felt dizzy. It was hard to swallow.

Warm vanilla sprayed me again as I set the cup down.

Nursie said, “Blood pressure dropping.”

Something snaked from the ceiling towards me. I heard Nursie’s voice, as though from a very far distance. “Administering sedation.”

Jeff VanderMeer mentioned this on Facebook and it got me thinking about it. This is the season when speculative fiction writers (and other genres as well, I believe) start thinking about awards. Nominations for the Hugo and Nebula Awards are coming up. There will be others, such as the Locus and World Fantasy Awards, but for most it’s the Hugo and Nebula, with a small group thinking about the Campbell Best New Writer Award and trying to figure out how to make the most of their two year period of eligibility for it.

Complicating this is the fact that neither award is really very democratic. You can only make Hugo nominations if you’re a member of either last year’s WorldCon or this one. Nebula nominations are made by members of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, many of whom are hoping to make it onto the nomination ballot itself. In either case you could love the book and want to vote for it, but unless you’ve paid the dough for either a WorldCon or SFWA membership, you’re not going to be able to.

One of the words that gets mentioned around this time is “log-rolling,” the act of exchanging favors, along the lines of “You nominate my novella for a Hugo and I’ll nominate your short story for a Nebula.” Recent changes, such as no longer being able to see who nominated something for a Nebula, are encouraging, but the awards still sometimes seem less about the merit of the work than about the popularity of their author.

Beyond that, people use the power of the Internet as much as possible: blog posts, Facebook mentions, tweets, and so forth, sometimes gracefully, sometimes not so much. Why? Because it works. If it didn’t work, there’d be a lot fewer people doing it, and (imo) the award lists from the past decade would be significantly different. Does that make the award process something you should just opt out of and hope for the best? Well, certainly people have done that in the past (and saved themselves some work in the process), but I’d rather have as a take-away the idea that one shouldn’t despair if you don’t win.

Awards are shiny. Most of us like shiny things. And more importantly, they’re testimony to what we really want: affirmation that someone read and liked our work. That’s the real pellet that keeps us pressing the button marked “Pimp my work”.

It’s hard to know where to draw the line. Factor in, also, that what one person considers acceptable, the next may perceive as a gross breach of etiquette. I like the approach the Codex writers have taken: there’s a discussion thread where people can opt in and say they’re willing to read for the awards as well as a place where people can post pieces for consideration. I appreciate this because it helps me discover some writing that I might not otherwise have found. Here’s what I said on Codex in a discussion about it:

I think it’s certainly possible to go too far in pimping your work, but in my experience, that line is farther out than one might think. This is an area where the bolder people have a definite advantage, and sometimes you have to force yourself to be bold about it. You are the best champion your work has, and you might as well do your duty by it.

It would be lovely if all one had to do was write a good story, but the nature of things is that those who are good about promoting their work go farther than those who aren’t. Promotion’s not a substitute for good writing (in most cases), but it sure helps. My collection wouldn’t have gotten nominated for the Endeavor Award if I hadn’t sent them copies of the book, for example, and while I thought at the time it was a pretty long shot, it ended up being quite worthwhile.

To me the most important point is this – don’t just throw your work out there. If you’re going to be sending people your stuff to read, then do some reading and recommending yourself, and do it based on what you like, what you think is good, or ground-breaking, or worthy of recommendation. In that spirit, I’ll be posting some recommendations in the next few weeks, and hopefully guiding y’all to some excellent fiction that you might not have read otherwise. Please feel free to make recommendations to me in return, either on this post or upcoming ones!