I Thank You For Thanking Me

I was raised in a house of healthy confrontation. Have a problem?  Go talk it out.  Which means that arguing and debating and hashing out opinions is, quite literally, what I was raised to do. It’s a skill that probably made me the blogger I am today.

What I can’t do, however, is accept compliments.

People have noted that if you want my attention on-line, it’s easily gotten by striking up a disagreement.  But nice comments leave me dumbstruck.  Tell me you liked a story of mine, and I’ll shuffle my feet and stare at the screen and blush, which evinces itself as complete silence.

And in the wake of all the kind and supportive comments left wishing me well on my mother’s recent cancer scare, I feel inadequate to the love, support, and positive kindness you people have offered me over the years.  I’ve tried to pay it back when I could, mainly because you’ve largely been so kind that it’s impossible to really give back everything I’ve been given… but rest assured.  I do read every comment.  I do feel blessed every time someone says I wrote an essay well, or they wished they’d said that, or even just offers a hand in an hour of need. You folks give a lot of energy here, and I feel sometimes ashamed that I don’t give it back, but I assure you every nice word ever said gets cuddled and put into a handy sack that sometimes gets me through blue times better than you know.

So let me thank you.  For being kind.  And generous.  And surprisingly insightful as commentors, and willing to call me on my bullshit when I have it, and just much kinder to me than sometimes I can bear.

Thanks for lending your voice.  Thanks for being beautiful.  Thanks for being there.

 

Cross-posted from Ferrett's Real Blog.

Vote For Pedro

Last year, my “daughter-knifes-her-father-out-of-love” story “My Father’s Wounds” was published at Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and I was pleasantly surprised when I found several people suggesting it as worthy on the SFWA leaderboards come Nebula Awards time.  Just in case you’ve forgotten the lead:

Father carries the knife, because I asked him to—but he keeps turning to look at me, earnestly, as if he hopes I’ll take it back.

It’s hard to believe he knows I’ll stab him with that knife. Even harder to believe he’s eager for me to do it. But that’s my father; he thinks the world of his precious daughter. He’s thin yet unbowed in his ascetic gray Blacksmith robes as he leads me up through a cold forest to the Anvil.

It doesn’t matter whether my father will live once I stab him. That’s not the point. The point is all the questions that no one thinks to ask after we’ve healed their fathers, their soldiers, their daughters. Nobody questions our magic, except for us, the loyal priests and priestesses of Aelana.

We can’t stop asking. We can’t sleep for asking.

Anyway, Beneath Ceaseless Skies is holding a poll to see which stories make it into “The Best Of Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Year Three,” and if you think it’s worthy, then you should probably go vote.  And if you don’t vote, there’s a lot of other Very Cool stories over at Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and reading them would probably be a very enjoyable use of your time.

Cross-posted from Ferrett's Real Blog.