I swear I didn’t forget about this (I know, I’ve said that before). Fact of the matter is that when I don’t get a lot of writing done, I don’t post about my progress. And I definitely did not get as much writing done over the last 10 months as I would have liked.
But I did write.
Works In Progress
The Luckiest: a chapter and a half finished, and 8,903 words written - new total word count 22,796.
The Broken Country: this is a short story I’m writing for submission to an Australian/NZ neurodivergent speculative fiction anthology next month (for once in my life being autistic is good for something) - I’d really hoped to have a lot more written by now, but uni and not being able to come up with a title got in the way. It was inspired by the Carrington Event of 1859, which was the most intense geomagnetic storm in recorded history. Its probable cause was a coronal mass ejection colliding with the atmosphere, and it was powerful enough to cause worldwide auroras and to bring down telegraph networks in Europe and North America. I figure that if something similar happened nowadays, seeing as how dependent we are on technology, it would be far more catastrophic. It might even bring about the apocalypse. So far I have 776 words out of a planned 6,000.
Camp NaNoWriMo: Camp is coming up next month, and I’m tossing up between working on The Luckiest and a new story based on my anthology submission. I’ll probably flip a coin. Aiming to write 10,000 words.
Or at least the *myth* of the Library of Alexandria. You know, the greatest Library in the world, a monument of learning and reading and culture, cataclysmically destroyed in one terrible fire, knowledge lost forever, etc etc. It feels like this great tragedy of history, this terrible loss to humanity.
And it’s not…true.
We actually have a lot of sources that show that the library had been in decline for a few centuries before then. Between some scholars getting exiled, a general diaspora of the scholars who remained, lack of funding, and diminishing prestige, it seems that the library’s collection and scholarship was already greatly diminished, moved elsewhere.
It’s true that Caesars troops did set fire to some ships in the harbor in 48BCE, and that fire did spread through the city. The Library was likely damaged, and some of its materials likely destroyed… but not completely. And it was repaired or rebuilt not long after. (One source even hints that it wasn’t the library proper, but some warehouses owned by the library near the docks that burned.)
And the Library continued to exist for at least a few more centuries. Never at the same scale and prestige as it has at its height, but still there as a resource to scholars until at least the 270s CE.
But that’s less exciting I guess. Less tragic, maybe. Less dramatic. That instead of it being a terrible accident, an act of the Gods, a perfect symbol at how the folly of war can tumble great monuments- Instead its just…about how underfunded Institutions and lack of support from the government towards academics will rot these great institutions slowly but surely.
And I wonder what it says about us that we find one of those stories more emotionally compelling and evocative than the other.
Truly such a beautiful day for their majesties the new king and queen may there rule be long and prospero- BLIMEY! ITS PRINCESS DIANA AND SHES GOT A STEEL CHAIR
“No Child should get Gender Affirming Care” turns into “No one should get Gender Affirming Care”.
“No Trans Person should be in Children’s Media” turns into “No Trans Person should be in Media”.
They use Children’s “Safety” as a method to get a foot in the door. They then expand their previous statements to ensure the near complete erasure of Trans People and Queer People.
They’re doing this right now, again in the US Senate, with another “protect the children online” bill that is just a way to make everything you do online connected to you even more so than it already is. A way that will deny those who need it anonymity from stalkers and abusers. And each time they try our outcry grows quieter and they get closer, especially with how authoritarian the world is.
