My Internet Search History

The very wonderful and funny writer Bronwen Green recently did a blog post sharing her internet search history. It was so much fun to read that I decided to keep track of my own search history yesterday and see what I looked up.

This is a combination of work and play. Right now, my work includes: writing the Numenera Ninth World Guidebook, copyediting As Kinky As You Wanna’ Be, working on the mature topics in gaming questionnaire, and other stuffs.

Life includes: a recently adopted dog, planning a bunch of trips, doing some long overdue house stuff, playing games, etc.

1. What are the scariest sounding names/words? — for naming scary places, natch
2. How do plants attract predators – Numenera worldbuilding
3. Psychedelic properties of mushrooms – see above*
4. Bioluminescent mushrooms – yeah.
5. The etymology of the following words: prostitute, crystal, circle, forge, furnace, induce, the letter j, ullage
6. Teach dog not to pull on leash – we have a rescue. She has some extra energy and a need to hunt squirrels. and birds. and leaves.
7. Octopus tights – because one must
8. Lunar power tidal – because I needed to know how, exactly, a device could be lunar powered
9. How to make chocolate cupcakes with pudding mix – do you really need an explanation on this one?
10. Scientists create solid light – they did and it is awesome
11. Destiny grimoire cards how the hell do I use? – i still don’t know exactly
12. Finger vein technology — making a cypher or something
13. Lightspeed Women Destroy Fantasy — I have an article in this issue and can’t remember when it comes out
14. Bathroom decor — wow, there’s some ugly out there
15. Octopus art prints — for the pretty-making
16. How to properly capitalize Saran Wrap — for copyediting purposes
17. Is Saran Wrap trademarked — also above
18. Kink-friendly medical professionals — making sure my lists in the book are up to date
19. bSafe — free personal safety app; it’s in the book, so I want to make sure it still exists
20. Handcuff injuries and prevention — go with leather cuffs, is the right answer
21. Who plays Henry on Party Down — love him, love that show, can’t remember his name ever
22. When does Brooklyn 99 start — not soon enough, is the answer
23. How to print on sheets — I want to make sheets with quotes on them
24. Can you tell how long a person has been dead by the firmness of their skin? — dear government agencies. I write fiction. Don’t come and get me.
25. Electrical impulses from our fingers — science vs. magic
26. How to keep metal from rusting underwater — this is hard, it turns out
27. World’s largest amphibian — it’s the Chinese salamander
28. What is fake snow made from and can I make it at home? — seriously. the stupid ideas i get
29. Treibbal away to me — I’ve been teaching the dog to “come bye”; next is “away to me”
30. Wired Numenera — I heard a rumor that Numenera was in Wired and had to see for myself.

God, my life is insane. How do I get anything done? Also, how did I get anything done before Google?

What did you search for this week?

Kiss kiss bang bang, s.

*did you know that some mushrooms are called smuts?

6 (Impossible) Things Before Breakfast

This week’s six impossible things:

1. I rewatched two incredible movies this week: About Time and Edge of Tomorrow. Both about starting over/time travel (kind of?)/love. Both smart and beautiful and true. I highly recommend them.
2. The evolution of humanity is freaking crazy.
3. Scientists figured out how to create solid light. What?!
4. I’m working on this mature topics for gamers questionnaire. Want to help?
5. Black Horizons, a poem by Carl Sandburg.
6. Destiny is tons of fun to play. (If only it had couch co-op, I would love it all the more). But I’m still having a great time.
7. BONUS: I LOVE Kid Snippets. You probably already watch them, but if not, they get their kids to tell a story, and then the adults reenact them. Check out the Wand of Universal power. There are three parts — this is the first one, and they just get better and better.

What impossible things did you believe this week?

Kiss kiss bang bang, s.

Call for those interested in Mature Topics in Gaming!

During the Mature Topics in Gaming panel at Dragon Con, I made the suggestion that GMs who had mature topics in their games give their players a questionnaire to fill out before their game or campaign (similar to the way the BDSM/kink/sex community recommends filling out a sex-themed questionnaire before you engage in kinky activities with someone — if you haven’t already seen these, here is a very detailed printable BDSM checklist and here is a list of other checklists and resources.). I also suggested incorporating aftercare–taking a few minutes for everyone to talk about the experience and make sure everyone’s okay before you leave the table.

Some people have emailed me since that panel to ask if I have a questionnaire like the one I suggested, and since I don’t (and couldn’t find an existing one), I thought it would be a good idea to create one.

The questionnaire would cover a wide variety of mature topics at the table, including sexual and romantic experiences and relationships, violence, coercion, gender and sexual orientation, and more.

The goal: to provide GMs with a good sense of what mature topics their players are comfortable with and interested in, and to what extent (e.g. “Sex is okay, but only if it fades to black” vs. “I am okay with explicit sexuality at the table.” Or “Violence and death are fine, but please no gore” vs. “Give me all the grisly details!”). It also allows players to unequivocally state what topics or themes they want no part of. Being able to answer in writing — as opposed to talking about it — sometimes allows people to be less self-conscious and thus give more honest answers. Overall, the hope is to provide a better, more inclusive, non-judgmental, non-triggery experience for everyone around the table.

Once it’s done, I’ll make it available for free to anyone who wants it (and might also include it as part of the download for the Numenera supplement, “Love and Sex in the Ninth World“).

For now, I’m looking for some people to be my sounding board — those with experience or interest in mature gaming topics who would like to offer suggestions for questions or topics, see if it’s missing anything, check my language for accidental toe-stepping, etc.

Here’s how to get involved: send an email to shanna.germain@gmail.com with the subject line MATURE TOPICS IN GAMING. Once I’ve got a draft of the questionnaire finished, I will send it along to everyone who emails me for their feedback.

Please pass the word along to anyone you think might be interested. The more voices, the better!

6 (Impossible) Things Before Breakfast

Our new rescue dog, Ampersand, in case you haven’t already met her.

It’s been a long time since I did this, but it feels like time to return to the positive. So here are this week’s impossible things:

1. This short film blew me away: Abiogenesis by Richard Man
2. Who Rescued Who? This amazing program pairs prisoners with dogs in need of training and rescue
3. Why it’s important to be good to each other
4. My current song obsession: Take Me to Church, by Hozier.
5. I’ll be running Numenera online Sept. 27th. Come and watch. All are welcome.
6. Bound by Lust is out in audiobook this week and As Kinky As You Wanna Be comes out soon!
7. One extra today, because it’s been so long: I watched The Station Agent yesterday. What a beautiful movie.

What impossible things did you believe this week?

Kiss kiss bang bang, s.

all my life I was a bride married to amazement

Sometimes you stand looking forward and step back and back and back. You think there’s nothing good behind you, just an expanse of future failures, missteps, tumbles, the hole that you accidentally dug for yourself ten years ago, the broken ankle, the quicksand, the cold shadow of that lie you told, an old disease come back to ache your bones, a swarm of wasps buried in the ground.

But then you step back once more and your hand touches silk, brushed cotton, a sheet on a line that smells of the ones you love. A dog’s tongue along your wrist. A tiny flower that releases a drunk, vanilla-scented honey bee. A laugh over something funny that you haven’t heard yet. The unexpected kindness of those who flit about your life, sweet moths. The good things you did last week, last month, last year, that come back to you, filled with light.

This year has been like that. So much dark and you step backward through it, falling, falling, having fallen, and feel stunned when you look up to find the promise of stars to guide your way.

The last time I blogged here, my grandmother had just passed away. I was heartbroken, away from my family, and to top it off, buried in the middle of what might have been the worst work experience I’ve ever had. Someone that we trusted completely dropped the ball on us. The action wasn’t malicious, but the result was the same: in the middle of grieving, I suddenly had to start working 16- and 18-hour days seven days a week to do a job that we had already paid someone else for (on top of my own work, which already exceeded a full-time job). That went on for weeks, and the repercussions of it all lasted for months, and affected our entire team.  I didn’t go home to be with my own family during my grandmother’s death. I had to cancel a trip to see my partner’s family. I worked through sickness brought on by the stress of everything. Everyone else took on more work, because I couldn’t do it all. I was turning into a horrible person from lack of sleep, no exercise, and too much stress. The low point for me was sitting alone in the house, so sick I could barely sit upright, while my partner was away visiting his family, and I realized I’d done nothing but work and sleep since he’d left three days before — and that I had another three or four days left of the same. 

It was a dark, dark time. I felt like the stars were just being snuffed out around me, one by one.

~

Why am I telling this story? Why do any of us tell stories of our darkness?

I don’t think it’s for sympathy. Or to show how brave we are. Or even to have other people respond with nice words and kind thoughts. I think we tell stories of the dark because it shows that none of us are alone. That we have all wandered in the shadow, and that sometimes we are wandering there side-by-side, and we don’t know it because we can’t see each other or reach out or even call out for help. 

The shadow didn’t lift for a long, long time. I can’t remember when it started going away, but I know that family, friends, and loved ones helped, that getting the work done helped, that finding a way to grieve for my grandmother and connect with my family helped. I tried to remember what I loved — great books, music, writing, movies, exercise, cooking, playing games — and I brought them back into my life. Even if sometimes I didn’t want to, I faked it. I faked loving those things until I could actually love them again. I remembered who I was. I apologized for who I’d been. I started to look forward again, and to walk more confidently in the world.

That seems so long ago, but really it isn’t. The light has been so bright since then, and I am so grateful every day for that. Here are the stars that are currently shining away my dark:

We adopted a dog from the Everett Animal Shelter. Her name is Ampersand (we call her Amp for short). She’s 2+ and a lab-something mix. She’s wonderful and there are few things as star-shining as belly rubs and face licks.

My baby sister (she’s 15 years younger than me and is awesome) got married and I got to be her maid of honor. She and my dad and I cried a lot, but always in a good way. Also, yes, that’s my dad in a pimp hat hanging with his two daughters. He’s a very good sport.

We went to Gen Con, and Numenera — the game of our hearts — received a number of ENnie awards, including Product of the Year. I can’t even begin to say how much it means to me that the gaming community gave us their support in this way. It’s such an incredible honor. We also came out with our new game, The Strange, and so far, it has been very well received.

~

It is light now, but I know that it will be dark again, and I know that I can live with that and through that. Despite it all, I don’t want my life to be only light. The darkness molds my bones into steel weapons with its cold hands. Dark squeezes the muscle of my heart until its beat is fierce enough to thrive anywhere. The shadow I’m walking through is my own, and it means somewhere there is light enough to cast it.

I want what Mary Oliver wants in her poem, “When Death Comes”:

When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes
like the measles-pox;

when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth
tending as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.

When it’s over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it is over, I don’t want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.

I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.

~

Kiss kiss bang bang, s.

PPS — Did you know that the average color of the universe is called Cosmic Latte?

There’s no getting out alive, but you hope to avoid a deadline

A few years back, I read Haruki Murakami’s book, “What I Talk About When I Talk About Running.”

“I run,” he writes, “to seek a void.”

I wanted to seek a void too. But I had a complicated relationship with running. I used to be a runner. And I used to hate it. I was a smoker then, a wheezer, even though I looked like I was in perfect health and I hid my smoking habit from everyone who might think it was shameful. I did a couple of half-marathons, even a couple of full marathons. And I never, ever got my promised high. Agony and agony and agony. And yet, I thought it was something that needed to be mine. My dad does triathlons (and he’s spectacularly fast — or he was, until he had to get knee surgery). My sister and her fiance are runners (I don’t know if she’s fast, but I know that she is driven, and thus she is as fast as she can be, mostly due to ferocity of will).

I no longer smoke. It’s been years and years. And I no longer run.

I write. I have learned that the void is the period at the end of each sentence. The void is the thing that characters don’t say to each other but that the reader feels in their spine. The void is the place where you close a book and you forget, for just a moment, that you aren’t there, in that life, with those people anymore.

My grandmother passed away this week, and I am seeking a void. Is it possible to seek a void with someone else in it? If so, that’s what I am doing. I want to seek that place where she bought me choose-your-own-adventure books every Christmas. The place where she tried to teach me how to play the organ–and then taught me how to plug in headphones so only I could hear the caterwaul that came from my determined and supremely untalented fingers. How she always wore blue jeans in the winter and had her colors done regularly so she could choose clothes that were good for her skin.  How last time I saw her she teased me, with a kind of delight, “So I should look for your books in the sexy section of Amazon?” The place where she always put her cool, dry hands on the sides of my face when she looked at me, and then leaned in and kissed both my cheeks with a love so clear and true that you felt it in the very softness of your heart. She was 85, and glorious.

I write. And discover that the void is the period at the end of these sentences. That the void is the things you didn’t say to each other but felt in your spine. That the void is the moment where you close a book and remember, just for a moment, that she isn’t there, in this life, with you anymore.

It is agony and agony and agony. And worth every word.

Kiss kiss bang bang, s.

**Title line courtesy of Galveston, a novel by Nic Pizzolatto (he of True Detective). You should be reading this book. I promise.

Yesterday’s Words: 5,000

Miles Walked This Year:

Words Written This Year:

My 42 Writing Projects This Year: 

7. Numenera Short Stories (gaming/fiction) 1,000/12,000


6. Sir Arthour’s Guide (gaming)


5. The Ninth World Guidebook (gaming)


4. Numenera CO (gaming)


3. Izaltu’s Needle (gaming) 3,500/8,000


2. Love and Sex in the Ninth World (gaming)

1. Kinky Rewrite (non-fiction book) 50,000/60,000

Mothership

(An old poem of mine, a little something for International Women’s Day. May we all deflect our bullets).

Mothership
Shanna Germain

When observed from across the kitchen,
her bracelets are unending coils of red and blue

curved around wrists of steel, gauntlets that
deflect bullets, laser beams, showers of crushed cubes.

Look closer: it’s just a mother
keeping madness at bay with

paper cups, the bottoms cut out.
Instead of ice, she chews the edges of

her veins. The cold bothers her teeth,
makes it hard to hear the rabbit in the window.

Once, she opened a man’s heart.
Once, she stopped the moon from breaking.

Her apron strings unravel, cascading toward earth
in a coiled arc. If she knots them again and again,

she can turn back time. Before my birth, her tongue
tasted a dozen languages. Now when she crosses her wrists

in front of her, even her daughter cannot get through.
I am a weapon of her own making, gravitational

planet crashing every moment.
Wait. 

She will reach up to find the coarse salt,
expose the soft underbelly, the Amazon heart.

Once, she saved the planet.
Once, she took off her bracelets.
Once, she saved her fury

for a better place.  The earth moves.
Light speeds  through glass, freezing us

in this island of kitchen. Her truth
rubs our hearts raw with its constant shift.  

~

My Butt Hurts

That is to say: I’ve sat on my keister and written for about sixteen hours straight the last two days.

Despite how it may seem, this, as Martha says, is a good thing.

Words, baby, words.

Kiss kiss bang bang, s.

Words for the Past Two Days:

6,000 gaming

Miles Walked This Year:

Words Written This Year:

My 42 Writing Projects This Year: 

7. Numenera Short Stories (gaming/fiction) 1,000/12,000


6. Sir Arthour’s Guide (gaming)


5. The Ninth World Guidebook (gaming)


4. Numenera CO (gaming)


3. Izaltu’s Needle (gaming) 3,500/8,000


2. Love and Sex in the Ninth World (gaming)

1. Kinky Rewrite (non-fiction book) 50,000/60,000

Above us, stars. Beneath us, constellations.

Sometimes I get lost inside who I am. I contain more than multitudes. I am the view of dark space through the Hubble telescope. I am the ultra deep field, stars streaming my face like lost eyelashes. I contain 10,000 galaxies within the dark of my eye. With every action, I create a life. Destroy a species. Wipe out a pair of moons. Birth a dying star.

This is true of all of us. Infinitely large and utterly insignificant.

I got an email yesterday, from someone who thanked me for what I write. He said that this year, he came out to his wife as a transgender female. That women like me gave him the confidence to be himself. It made me cry. All things like that make me cry, that we touch one another across time and space, move planets, break stars open to make accidental light.

Since I was old enough to read, I knew what my calling was. Write stories. Write stories. Write stories. Change the world through words. Tell the emotional truths. Say the thing I’m not supposed to say, the hard thing, the difficult thing, the true thing. All of my multitudes know this. It’s the only thing they agree on, the only thing that keeps an infinity in equilibrium. And when I forget? A dying star writes its swan song. Light escapes from a black hole. The dark space goes beyond dark into something unknowable.

Sometimes I get lost inside what I am here to do. The internet pretends it’s a universe, but it’s just a shack on the outskirts of town. Important in its own galaxy, but small as the tip of an eyelash pressed to the Hubble. My real work is out there. In the dark space, where it is my job to bring the light.

My real work is to tell the stories that only I can tell.

What is your real work? Answer me that.

Kiss kiss bang bang, s.

**Today’s title courtesy of the poem, “Flying at Night,” by Ted Kooser

New Words:

2,700 gaming

Miles Walked This Year:

Words Written This Year:

My 42 Writing Projects This Year: 

6. The Bone Key (novel)


5. Love and Sex in the Ninth World (gaming)


4. The Ninth World Guidebook (gaming)


3. Numenera CO (gaming)


2. Izaltu’s Needle (gaming) 3,500/8,000


1. Kinky Rewrite (non-fiction book) 50,000/60,000

Now you hear what the house has to say.

I’ve been dealing with some pretty serious insomnia for the past few weeks. It’s the kind that comes three-fold, like a herd attacking from all sides. The first is that I don’t get tired as early as I’d like and so I stay up later than I usually do. Then, I wake up 4 or 5 times a night. And then morning comes, too early, to wake me again.

I’ve been here before. You probably have to. As soon as you wake, your mind goes to the millions of things left undone, the deadlines missed, the to-do list of house and work. It’s compounded by the fact that I don’t nap well–if I fall asleep for more than 10 minutes but less than an hour, I wake up groggy and grumpy and mad at the world.

I didn’t have insomnia until my 30s. In fact, I didn’t even believe it existed until it happened to me. Isn’t that human nature. Not mine, not mine, not real. Mine = Real. Damn.

Over the years, I have learned to go with it instead of fighting it. I stay up late and work. I lie in bed and think of solutions. I get out of bed as soon as I wake up and I go off and start writing. I tell myself that I’m just getting two sleeps the way that people used to. I stop trying to “fix” it and embrace it as a part of my pattern.

Why? Because experience has taught me that it will right itself. My body will move from this mode into a mode where I’m getting more sleep. Or my brain will. And maybe this period of sleepnessness is important for my creativity (at the very least, it certainly doesn’t hurt it — getting up earlier and writing seems to increase my productivity). Or maybe it’s just some weird quirk, a hint of my biological mother’s manic-depressive states bleeding through.

Don’t get me wrong–not sleeping sucks. A lot. But it used to suck worse when I stressed about it. And eventually the sand man will come back and hit me between the eyes. I’m looking forward to it. And until then: There are words and words.

Kiss kiss bang bang, s.

**Today’s title courtesy of  the beautiful poem, “Insomnia” by Dana Gioia. Go have a read.  

New Words:

2,200 gaming, 1,000 non-fiction

Miles Walked This Year:

Words Written This Year:

My 42 Writing Projects This Year: 

6. The Bone Key (novel)


5. Love and Sex in the Ninth World (gaming)


4. The Ninth World Guidebook (gaming)


3. Numenera CO (gaming)


2. Izaltu’s Needle (gaming) 3,500/8,000


1. Kinky Rewrite (non-fiction book) 50,000/60,000