We have released!

The anthology containing my first published story is now available from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo and any bookstore which can handle ordering by ISBN: 978-0991487738

The cover reveal

I have now been provided with the cover art for the anthology containing my first published writing. The current plan for release, assuming all goes well, is early December for Amazon, with other stores to follow as soon as possible.

Here's the cover:

State of the Silas: 2013-14

It's been an eventful year. I became a father, I became a published author, and I discovered just how badly my brain had been screwing me over for about a decade. Anxiety disorders are really tricky to talk about; you're dealing with something that most people have no real referent for.

That said, there are some notable improvements in my mental stability resulting from being properly medicated for anxiety. I've lost my irrational fears of heights and of spiders. I've also, with the help of my therapist, been able to finally move past the panic reaction I used to have when someone touched my neck. That dates back to my schooldays, and the incident which prompted a rapid exit from one school: on the train home, one of the other pupils began strangling me. Naturally, such an event leaves an impression, but I've made good progress in getting away from the panic. I can lie down with my daughter crawling all over me, have her put an arm across my neck and her full weight on that arm, and I no longer panic.

Speaking of my daughter, she's now more than a year old and insists on walking as much as she can. She picks up something, be it a burp cloth, a tennis ball, or the Mog stuffed toy her grandmother sent as a first birthday present, and toddles around carrying it. Her current favourite toys are Mog, her stacking rings, and as of this Sunday, an empty tissue box. Her growth is frankly astounding; at her last checkup, she was over 22lb, or a bit more than four times her birth weight. She's also above average for height, and for head size, although that's now a little more normal; she had been high on the curve for head size compared to her other stats, she's now at roughly the same point for each.

Matters authorial are feeling wonderful. My short story for the anthology is now locked in; I have approved the final page proofs. I have also started a longer project; I've been plugging away on a fantasy novel for the last four days or so, at a nice sustainable pace. I know exactly what I'm stealing from in terms of influences, but it's still feeling fresh to me. I'm taking feel rather than content. As the setting I'm writing in richens, I'm looking forward to revisiting it.

Unfortunately, all these projects rather take away from my blog-writing time. I don't mean to neglect it, it just happens because there are other things I want to write more, or because I'm busy taking a little girl out to the park for some time watching the ducks and saying hello to friendly dogs.

I've been busy.

Now that I'm properly dealing with my brain's chemical imbalances, I've managed to get things moving in my life. Among the things I've gotten moving has been my education and job skills; I have finally learned to touch-type, after twenty years of bad habits, and a couple of months of retraining. I have also begun to learn financial accounting, on the grounds that no matter what, there will always be a need for those who can count beans and make sure the business which employs them remains worth a hill of said beans.

Meanwhile, I have also made steps towards an income stream not dependent on a day job. The size of this income is currently indeterminate, since it consists of royalty payments, and I did not get an advance. One of the online communities I participate in published an anthology of short stories last year, and I bought a copy. When submissions opened for the second volume of the intended ongoing series, I came up with an idea, pitched it, and wrote the story. It then went through a few editing passes (and while I do have the original first draft, I won't be releasing it to the public; the story that emerged from editing is much more the story I wanted to tell) and was officially accepted, at which point it was time to sign contracts. I do know that authors in the first volume have made enough from sales to reach the publisher's minimum remittance, so I can reasonably expect some money from this, but I'm much more excited simply to be becoming a published author. Strictly speaking, that happened when I signed the contract, but I won't get a t-shirt printed until I have an actual copy of the book. Rest assured that when it does emerge from the process (submissions closed today, and proofing is the next stage in which I have any involvement) I will be shouting from the rooftops.

Meanwhile, the LA and I are grappling with an ever-expanding baby (over 17lb now, and into size 3 diapers!) and muddling through, as we do. The weather's been hot, and we've been busy.

Normativity, or why everyone should be open.

Recently, causes I care about have been in the news. Sometimes for good reasons; the NFL now has its first active openly gay player (while numerous former players have been gay, none of them have been out while active; Michael Sam is out and has been drafted) and sometimes for bad reasons; the Supreme Court has expanded the scope of allowable ceremonial prayer, despite its previous acknowledgement that prayer endorsed by a government agency is unconstitutional. Both of these matter because of the concept of normativity. My friend Justin has written about heteronormativity over on Ninja Blues, with a particular focus on a controversy regarding a video game, but normativity extends beyond sexual orientation.

Bluntly, normativity is the assumption that everyone is exactly like you, except in the ways they differ from you. Everyone makes this assumption; I assume all the people I deal with daily are human, that they want to get things done, and that they're generally nice people. I also assume, with no rational basis, that they're probably heterosexual; that's heteronormativity at work. I try to avoid the assumptions with no basis, but I'm not perfect. Nor is anyone else, which is why the Supreme Court's decision matters so much.

There is a very strong assumption of Christianity in American culture. The language is soaked in religious references, and the default assumption of almost everyone is that any given person is a Christian. This leads to problems with trust; people distrust atheists, because they don't know who might be an atheist. We're invisible. That makes public prayer an issue, because now we must either fake a belief we simply don't have (and most atheists strongly dislike dishonesty) or expose ourselves and be vilified. That doesn't even touch the problems caused by religious people who aren't Christian being coerced into Christian prayer.

This is why atheists should be out of the closet. Silence in the face of encroachment is tacit permission. We need to speak up, to say "Actually, we do not believe as you do", and to be visible. Acceptance can only come when people know there is something to accept.

Things you don't get used to.

I've been living in the USA for six and a half years now, and I'm used to much of it. I'd have trouble driving on the left, for instance. There are some things that still get to me, though. Here are some of them.

The time I punched myself out

I've made oblique reference to this online a few times, and even told the story to people I know offline, but this is going to be the first time I've written it up. Technically, I didn't punch myself out, but it was unconsciousness as a direct result of body parts meeting each other violently, and so...