JanerBlog

New look, new url

A few years ago, a domain name speculator bought the FieryStudios.com sitename and -- if I recall correctly -- tried to get me to buy it from them for an inflated price. I waited them out, and a couple weeks back it became available again, so I snapped it up for the next ten years. Take that, jerks.

To celebrate, I finally took some time to spruce up the old thing, and good heavens, what an embarrassment. Tables, bad code, quirks-mode-inducing DTD declarations, and some code snippets that I swear go back as far as 1998. Yes, I've had a website for going on twelve years. You kids get off of my lawn.

Anyway, it's up now, and should be reasonably bug-free. Shout if you see anything wonky.

That perfect blend of creepy and awesome

How to make a mummified Fairy

Well, here's a first.

Yes, you read that right. Heinrich Uhrmacher, a fictitious watchmaker who fictitiously died in 1685, just got un-fictitious junk mail from Google. Google's never written me before. Should I be jealous?

SPX 09 Con Report

Home from SPX and soooo tired... but if I don't do the con report tonight, I'll never get to it, so here goes:

Had an absolutely fantastic time, as always. SPX has always been my hands-down favorite show, and this year was no exception. I got the chance to hang out with old friends and new, sell a metric butt-ton of steampunk jewelry (and even a few books, too!) and talk shop with a bunch of creators. I'm ashamed to say that I didn't vote in this year's Ignatz awards because I hadn't read enough of the participants (bad artist!), so I'm hoping to do better next year. This was also one of the best shows I can remember for sheer quality of available books -- I was blown away by the offerings, of both traditionally-published graphic novels and gorgeous, innovative, risk-taking minicomics, and I bought more stuff this year than I can ever remember buying before.

There was one other fun thing that happened -- Paul and I marked our 5th anniversary on Saturday. What better way to celebrate than by selling comics and surrounding ourselves with fans and friends alike? Thanks to everyone who stopped by to wish us well.

I didn't take a lot of photos, but here're a baker's dozen to look through. The captions will have to suffice for the remainder of my con report, as I am mighty tired.

Try Harder. Fail Better. Cowboy up.

As a White writer who tries to create a diverse cast of characters in her books, I fail a lot. I have deep misgivings about initial portrayals of some of my characters. I tried to rectify those portrayals in my second book, but wound up failing in other, more metatextual ways in my haste to prove I was a more mature, nuanced, well-intentioned writer at thirty than I was at twenty-five. My enthusiasm often outstrips my knowledge and self-perception, and I often fall short of the mark due to lack of perspective, research and experience.

That's where today's post comes in. This afternoon, thanks to Layla, a fellow traveler on the same path of well-meaning-failure-but-still-trying-hard, I stumbled across what I think is one of the most important discussions I've seen on the internet in years. If you're a writer -- a writer of any sort, from comics to poetry -- please take the time to read through these posts. I find them incredibly valuable.

Start here, with Elizabeth Bear's original essay on being a white writer who tries hard to accurately and fairly portray characters of Color in her books.

And then go read this open letter to Elizabeth Bear, written by a reader of Color who had some deep misgivings about one of Bear's books.

And then go read what I think is the most important, clear, nuanced, thoughtful, educational essays I've read in a long, long time, I Didn't Dream of Dragons, by Deepa D.

And then, if you're White, Deepa also wrote an important followup essay just for us. It's also very, very good.

And then finally She Who Has Hope also writes an excellent take on the situation, and includes many links to other helpful essays.

Writers, all: bravo and brava. Please keep talking; know that we are listening.

This is what the internet was meant for. Conversations like these are tremendously humbling and force open my eyes to see how much I still need to learn about Racism 101. There's much food for thought here, and I will probably spend many more hours going over these essays. My thought-trenches are deeply dug; often it's only a good swift kick-in-the-ass that can lift my head above the walls. This series of essays is just such an asskicking.

From all of this, I resolve to go back to Elizabeth Bear's motto: Try harder. Fail better. Cowboy up.

I think I'm going to tack that above my desk, now.