Excuses, Excuses

[mrissa]

I got an e-mail note this afternoon from the historian who wrote one of the books I read earlier this month. She was googling on her book and found my mention of it on my journal, and she wrote to express her surprise and very politely inquire, "What does a young writer of sci fi find in a work of history?"

And I thought, heh, ohhhhh, lady, do you not know anything about this job.

I mean, seriously: for what other profession in the world could reading anything, anything at all, be considered professional development? And yet I am hard pressed to come up with a book that absolutely positively could not relate to my work either now or someday in the future. Whenever I need an excuse, I have one readily available at all times now.

And an Inquisition microhistory is not at all the most obscure volume of history ever read by a young SF writer. Not even by this young SF writer. Possibly not even this month. Why? Because we're geeks, the lot of us, geeks and intellectual magpies.

And it's so much fun.

Comments

[flewellyn.livejournal.com]

No, I have not seen those. As I am working on building a world, I would be very interested. Could you link me?

Also, I see you live in St. Paul. I live in Moorhead. Hi, fellow Minnesotan!

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

It's here (http://www.sfwa.org/writing/worldbuilding1.htm).

I live in Eagan, which livejournal thinks is St. Paul even though it isn't. But I'm very happy to be a Minnesotan. I looked at going to Concordia-Moorhead, but it ultimately wasn't my kind of place.

[flewellyn.livejournal.com]

I have driven past Eagan, while going to the airport. Don't really know much about it, though.

I went to Concorida in Moorhead, actually. I found it to be quite fun. Of course, I'm Jewish, so I was different enough that nobody really knew what to do with me. I'm used to that. :-)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I think it's almost easier to go to a school like that if your differences from their average are obvious. Mine were obvious after one weekend's visit, but in a "stop that, you!" sort of way. I was, for example, the only girl in the group of people interviewing for scholarships who thought through and arranged to do something co-ed. A couple of other girls tagged along with me and a handful of boys, but mostly I got very strange looks.

They wouldn't let my dad walk through a dorm with my suitcase to get to the door closer to the parking lot at 3:00 p.m. in a blizzard, because it was not intervisitation hours. I looked at that and thought, "This is stupid. And I'd be the dorm whore without doing anything." So I went to Gustavus instead.

[flewellyn.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I didn't live on campus, so "intervisitation" was never an issue. That, and the rules were recently relaxed a bit, so it's not quite as bad. Still, I hear you; the "Happy Cobber Bubble" is something that many of the more sophisticated and non-mainstream students lament, as well as professors. The whole problem is that Concordia does not encourage students to go off-campus for, well, anything; the place becomes their whole world.

I never was in the bubble, so I didn't feel it, and I helped my friends escape whenever possible. Still, it was something that irritated many people.

Oh, and of course, there are no gay people on the campus (half the male population is gay), and there are no rapes or sexual assaults (the campus security folks discourage women who are attacked from reporting it).

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I was just-barely-17 when I left for college, so living off campus was not an option for me.

I'm appalled that the campus security people discourage women from reporting rape and sexual assault. I wish I was surprised, but mostly I'm just appalled.

[flewellyn.livejournal.com]

Oh hey! I just noticed...these questions are by the woman who did the "Dealing with Dragons" books! I love those books!

My sister even wrote to her a few times. She rocks.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

If you like those, try Sorcery and Cecelia and Mairelon the Magician. They're even better, to my way of thinking.

I met Pat Wrede once or maybe it was twice, but I wouldn't say I know her. Some of the people who read this lj do, though. She does indeed seem nifty.