I willingly skipped a night of fanart and new TV to go to Werther. I KNOW. I told you. Hooked.

Opera is a fascinating art form. You can sit in the theater feeling the actors’ voices surrounding you and know that, in most cases, this same song has been heard in just this way by generations of audiences. Technical aspects of the show may have been modernized since the tradition began, but the success of it still relies on the power of the human voice, carefully trained and unaided by microphones.

Werther was first performed in 1892. It’s a tragedy about a young poet, Werther, who falls in love with an engaged woman, Charlotte. When Charlotte marries her betrothed, Werther pines, convinced that she’d be happier with him. He sends her letters trying to convince her of this, then making implicit threats of suicide when his affections are not returned. Charlotte is tormented by his advances and his threats. The opera ends with Werther’s suicide, his head cradled in his beloved’s hands as his final song finishes.

I suppose it was meant to be romantic in its day, but to me, it came off as a cautionary tale about the ways we’re taught to think about love.

Werther tearing love poems from the wall of his small room.

Love is an all-consuming goal for Werther. He’s a poet, and he treats the idea of love like a grand ideal rather than a type of affection to be shared between two people. He announces his love for Charlotte at the end of the first night he knows her. Granted, they do have an awesome amount of chemistry, but chemistry and a night dancing do not a true love make. Charlotte points out that he hardly knows her, and he dismisses her concern, too in love with the idea of love.

Charlotte in one of her amazing gowns.

Charlotte seems to have a better grasp on reality than Werther, but his insistence on LOVE, LOVE, LOVE above all else – above her engagement and then marriage, above her own personal protests – outweighs her reasonableness. She asks if there’s not some other woman worthy of his affections, someone not married, and he dismisses her yet again. He won’t consider anyone else because she is the object of his love – and he treats her just like that, as an object. He doesn’t listen to her, he doesn’t consider her emotions except when her mutual crush supports his hypothesis that she’d be happier with him.

Werther haunts her life long after any well-adjusted person would have backed off. He stands at the railing singing about his woe, a hell he’s created for himself by refusing to listen to reason.

“I will not be so harsh as to say ‘never,’” Charlotte sings at one point. But anything short of “never” gives him the sliver of false hope he needs to fan the flames of his love.

There’s a chilling moment in the final act where Charlotte has been re-reading Werther’s letters to her. He writes about how lonely he is, how hollowed out by anguish at not having her as his, and how, if he doesn’t show up for Christmas, to see that he’s buried someplace nice. Charlotte is wrecked by these letters, collapsed sobbing into a chair, when Werther steps out of the shadows in the entryway behind her. During his time in her home this evening, he will plead with her, force her to kiss him, claw at her clothing and limbs when she tries to get away, and ignore every “No” until she runs away from him.

This is the image that will stick with me from this opera: Charlotte, emotionally broken, and her tormenter looming out of the darkness behind her, unaware that he’s the villain of this piece.

Because that’s what Werther is: a villain. But the scary thing about this story is, he’s a villain we all know. Walking out of the theater, I talked with my comic collective friends about how we’ve all known, dated, or briefly been a Werther. He’s that guy in your math class in eleventh grade who declares the world is against him because he can’t get a date. He’s the ex who insists you’re meant to be together and will hurt you or himself if that’s what it takes to prove it to you. He’s that part of your brain that says, “It’s okay if she doesn’t like you back. If you just keep showing her how much you like her, she’ll come around.” Werther is so driven by the idea of love that he’s blocked out the fact that it needs to be a two-way street.

 The cultural messages that shaped Werther’s story are still being taught today. We still say through pop culture, “If you love someone enough, they will love you back.” We still talk and write and sing about romantic love like it’s as intrinsic to life as oxygen. We still undervalue consent. And we still teach boys to put girls on pedestals and teach girls that it’s not okay to give a definitive “no” because that’s too harsh.

The real tragedy of Werther is that it’s not an unusual story. Maybe that’s why it’s survived for 120 years.

(And hey, that got depressing. How about a cute drawing of Charlotte’s adorable little sister Sophie, who spent the whole play encouraging other people to be happy?

Isn’t her hat adorable? Yeah, that’s better.)

2. My heart can survive that.

3. The lab losing your family dog’s remains can simultaneously be the most heartbreaking and hilarious thing you’ve ever heard. Of course – of course, the only time it happens in ten years of service, it would happen to the dog whose favorite hobby was being as inconvenient as possible.

4. Internet friends can hold you up when you’re a mess just as well as in-person friends can – sometimes better.

5. Be open to new people and opportunities to do new things. You might end up trying Ethiopian food with seven amazing mostly-strangers at a convention and realize halfway through the meal that their names sound familiar because  you’ve got some of their books and webcomics on your to-read list.

6. Derbies are always in fashion. Always.

7. Sometimes it takes traveling halfway across the world to meet a friend who lives a mile away. (Hi, Anna!)

8. The Giant’s Causeway is the most breathtaking place I have ever been, although it did kill my umbrella. Edinburgh felt more like home than my own neighborhood, and you can buy an umbrella in a tourist shop there for 99p.

(Click for big. It's worth it.)

9. European Fanta is the nectar of the gods.

10. “If you’re not failing at least 50% of the time, you’re not trying hard enough.” – the theme of every creativity-oriented panel I went to at CONvergence.

11. The word “outsourcing” can sting like a slap if you hear it enough times in relation to your own job

12. That crying in the ladies’ room thing that characters on TV do? That’s not just a trope. Bathrooms are fucking useful for minor emotional breakdowns.

13. Quitting…doesn’t always take. Even if you give 26-week notice. Maybe especially if you give 26-week notice.

14. If you draw a coloring book about fat ladies embodying sci-fi tropes, people will buy it. A lot of people, actually. And some of them will send you wonderful emails and reviews that make you cry because it means so much to people to see characters like themselves. My mantra has always been “fiction matters,” and nothing has enforced it more than Fat Ladies in Spaaaaace.

15. If your wee self-published coloring book is miscategorized right and has enough sales all at once thanks to internet buzz, it can beat Watchmen in a very specific bestseller list.

16. Writing a snarky limerick as your letter of resignation is a pretty great plan if your HR rep has a sense of humor.

17. When everything else is up in the air, fandom can be an anchor that keeps you sane. Even a fandom as out of its entire damn mind as Sherlock fandom.

18. I’m on the asexual and genderqueer spectrums. Relatedly: If your brain’s been telling you for years that some basic element of your identity isn’t quite right, listen to it. (And brace for impact. These things can happen fast once you give yourself permission to question.)

19. I am not capable of maintaining a blog, taking a thesis prep course, working fulltime, promoting a coloring book, making a reasonable amount of art, finishing a novel, being active in fandom, keeping in touch with internet friends, sorting out massive amounts of personal crap, and tabling every local show during convention season all in the same semester. The best I can do is pick the ones that are most urgent and the ones that best maintain my sanity and learn to let the rest slide.

20.  Being a Hufflepuff pays off sometimes. Like, “multiple job offers within your department” pays off. Everybody wants an employee who’s hardworking and loyal with a good attitude – who knew?

21. If you use the word “tumultuous” enough times to describe how your year’s gone, it loses all meaning.

In the meantime, please join me in giggling at the fact that my coloring book is up on Goodreads. I don’t know who put it up there, but it totally made my day.

This weekend, I’ll be tabling at MIX – with my very own space, probably three whole inches away from the Black Hat Collective! I intend to spend the con yelling at them through a paper megaphone as if they’re very far away. Check out the exhibitor seating chart here - I’m at table 72 in the upper left corner of the map. (The Black Hatters have tables 70-71.)

I’ll be bringing prints, some original art, and of course, scads of coloring books.

(That’s from the photo shoot I had with a friend for the City Pages article. I think it should be my new serious business author shot. Steve concurs.)

I’ve been getting into the habit of drawing characters from The Fantasy Series What Ate My Life again. It’s nice. They used to be my go-to drawing subjects, and in the years between the last time I worked on that story and now, other people’s characters had snuck in to take their places. Now they’re shoving back into their rightful places.

And by that I mean my brain has defaulted to “When in doubt, draw Moda.” If you ever see me yelling “I LOVE YOU, MODA” on Twitter while writing, this is who I’m yelling at:

Moda showed up late in book 2 of the trilogy and wouldn’t leave. He started off as a nameless background character, but within a month or so of writing him, I’d rearranged the entire ending of TFSWAML to suit him. It’s possible I’m a bit too attached to this character. He’s a poet, cage fighter, and glam and classic rock fanboy, and he always seems to be wearing something fabulous and smiling.

I’ll stop talking about Moda now.

(That’s a lie. I’ll never stop talking about Moda. See also: too attached.)

And here’s Griff, who I hadn’t drawn in forever. Figuring out his new hairstyle for book 3 was fun.

And Arie, also with new hair. 

And for kicks, I also did this small piece of Rowyn looking totally at ease for once. 

Also with new hair. Because this is NEW HAIR: THE NOVEL. Actually, I kind of like that. Henceforth, the unnamed third book of TFSWAML will be called New Hair: The Novel. (Beta readers, I’m assuming you’re cool with this. Just like you encouraged me to name that one chapter of book 2 “Punch And Pie -or- The Pottery Shop Is Totally For Fighting (subtitle: Smack Him in the Face With a Flower Pot! Woohoo!),” which is still the worst chapter title I have ever heard in my life, although it does summarize the events of the chapter quite well.)

Anyway. FallCon: awesome and full of good art time! I’ll definitely be back next year.

I got a chance to talk to lots of fascinating people, including a professor from Metro State who wanted to use Fat Ladies In Spaaaaace as a teaching tool for lessons on gender and body image. Um, YES, PLEASE!

We didn’t get a whole lot of traffic – partly, I suspect, because of the Zombie Pub Crawl that took over downtown on Saturday – but this weird looking guy stopped by:

That’s my dad. I told him, “Pose like Vanna White!” and that’s what he did. Does America’s Next Top Model accept applications from men with senior citizen discount cards? Because they should. My dad would rock that show.

I spent most of the art crawl drawing. Kate let me try out her Prismacolor markers, so I did a little doodle of Peter the kiwi bird wearing suspenders.

And a doodle of a shark, which sort of turned into a sunrise.

On Sunday, I remembered to bring my watercolors and brushes and spent the day doing a pair of character studies from The Fantasy Series What Ate My Life. I had just made the decision to switch projects in my Advanced Fiction class – from a revision of Book 1 to the first draft of Book 3 – and working on these helped to ground me in the characters.

Roots 1: Tiern

Roots 2: Rowyn

I may have to do more of these with my other characters in this series. I’ve been away from them for a couple of years, and these drawings were an attempt to get back into their head spaces and see what’s occupying their minds in the present. (Tiern is trying to ignore the deadly psychic powers that have steered him for the past few years and return to normal life; Rowyn is, well…spoilers, sweetie. I have some longtime beta readers who read this.)

It says a lot about the general awesomeness and sanity of the Black Hat Collective that after three days of being stuck in a room with each other (and Steve the stegosaurus, who was weirdly disagreeable all through setup – YEAH I SAID IT, STEVE), we went upstairs to watch Disney movies together after the art crawl closed.

In related news, one of the Black Hatters, Gerbil, has just started a new autobio webcomic: Cordyceps Tickles. I’ve gotten a chance to read ahead a bit on these, and they’re fantastic. Definitely a comic to bookmark. I suspect “LORRY BLOODY LIFT CRISPS” is going to get quoted a lot tomorrow at our FallCon table.

My heart had been banging against the inside of my ribs at full volume for ten minutes, ever since I’d decided to tell my brother. He’d been talking about amp repair, his face aglow with nerdish glee, and I’d just thought: I want him to know. I’d been wearing the label around privately, to try it out. I’d only told two people – my therapist and the friend who’d inadvertently helped me figure it out by dating me.

Andrew had surprised me today by appearing in our mutual favorite restaurant while I was finishing my dinner, plopping himself down in the seat opposite mine, and keeping me company while I did homework and he scarfed down a spicy chicken gyro. Now we were standing on the sidewalk outside The Black Sea, me shoving my hands awkwardly into my pockets and him bending over to unlock his bike.

“So, I’ve kind of got a second coming out to do,” I said.

Now you’ve done it. Can’t not say it now. You’ll say it and he’ll look at you with that blank stare he reserves for Mom and you’ll know he’s judging you internally.

“Oh?” he pulled his bike around and started walking back toward campus, smiling at me. Like whatever I had to say wasn’t a big deal. Because he was one of the most open-minded, accepting people I knew. He’d been the only member of our immediate family who hadn’t even raised an eyebrow when I’d come out as bisexual, years ago. This conversation already had my heart pounding more than that coming out, probably because everyone knows what bisexual means. I had very little worry that someone would tell me my label didn’t exist when I came out to them as a bisexual.

He’ll question this, though. He probably thinks you’re going to tell him you’re a lesbian. He’s going to think you’re making shit up. He’ll call you a special snowflake in his head. Probably spelled ‘speshul snoflayke.’  

“Um,” I started, eloquent as always. “Are you aware of the asexuality spectrum?”

Andrew laughed. “That was my FYSEM!” (That’s first-year seminar course, for those who didn’t attend colleges obsessed with pointless acronyms.)

“They had a FYSEM on asexuality?”

“Well, no, it was on–” He rattled off a series of words that sounded like someone had picked words from a Lit Theory glossary at random. “And it was with Kostihova.”

“Ohhhh.” I nodded. “So of course sexual identity got involved. Man, I love Kostihova.”

“Yeah, she’s great.”

He’s acting cool in theory, but he’ll probably tell you you’re just chickening out on dating. Or you’re overreacting. Or you’re weird.

“So, uh,” I started again. “I think I found a new label.”

Tell him you’re a lesbian.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. ‘Bisexual’ hasn’t felt like it fit me for awhile. I’m just not…well…”

Tell him you’re just high on cold meds and don’t know what you’re talking about!

He nodded, wheeling his bike along and hopping up to walk on concrete planter boxes as we passed them.

“It’s like–you’re supposed to look at people you like and think, ‘I’d hit that,’” I said, snapping my fingers. “And I don’t get that. The ‘I’d hit that.’” Another snap.

TELL HIM YOU’RE A DRAGON. HE CAN’T JUDGE YOU IF YOU’RE A DRAGON.

I licked my lips, ignoring the way my entire body seemed to be going into fight-or-flight mode. “So, the label I’m finding kinda fits is ‘biromantic demisexual.’”

Well, that’s it. Here comes the judgement train. Brace for impact.

“Huh,” Andrew said, shrugging with his mouth.

“Have you heard that before?” I asked, trying not to look too hard at his face for a reaction.

He tipped his head at me. “Romantic…yeah. Demisexual…?”

“It’s sort of a gray area of the asexuality spectrum, where you have the potential for sexual attraction but it only happens once in a blue moon, and only when you’ve already got a strong emotional attachment to the person.”

“Ah, okay,” he said, nodding. Smiling again. Good sign?

I stared at the sidewalk coming up under my feet, suddenly feeling more awkward about the “talking about sex with my little brother” part of the conversation than anything. “Anyway, I realized I’ve been attracted in, uh, that way, to two, maybe three people in my whole life. I’m definitely romantic – I love the idea of having a partner for life, I want to find that, y’know. But when I see someone I like, I don’t think, ‘I’d hit that–’” again with the snapping “–I think more like, ‘I’d cuddle the shit out of them.’”

Andrew hopped down from the last concrete planter and threw his arms forward. “And I have the opposite problem! I’m like, ‘I’d hit that–’” he snapped, too “–toward everyone, even when I’m with someone!”

“Because you’re a really sexual person. I like how the snapping’s become a thing.”

“Snapping’s good.”

“It’s like a punctuation mark on the statement.” I said “I’d hit that” again, snapping with attitude, and for a little while we were just walking along the sidewalk, snapping our fingers in no particular rhythm like a dork parade.

“I mean,” I said, the words coming out in a rush once I started, “if I wound up with someone I was attracted to like that and we did sexual stuff, that’d be awesome. But I’m cool without it, basically. I’m not missing out on anything not having it.”

“Yeah,” he said, nodding like I was trying to argue a point he already agreed with. It felt good to have that reassurance.

“It kinda makes some of the arguments you and I have had about relationship stuff make a lot more sense, I think.”

A while back, on a rainy walk to the Goodwill, we’d had a blowup over him saying I was “unhealthy” for not having had a relationship in years and me shooting the word right back at him for being a serial monogamist. It was the worst fight we’d had as adults, and the moment we’d finished angrily shopping at opposite ends of the store, we’d apologized to each other and hugged it out. (That’s the weird magic of our siblinghood – as kids we were ultra-violent little shits to each other, but as adults we have the kind of relationship where “I love yous” are exchanged enthusiastically and every disagreement comes with the knowledge that there’s a sincere apology on its way. If we cut out the swearing, we could be picked up by ABC Family. It’s disgusting, really.)

Andrew thought about it for half a second and nodded. “Y’know, it really does!”

I honestly don’t remember what else we talked about from there to the corner where our paths diverged, because the reality of the conversation had sunken in and my whole brain was yelling, It wasn’t a disaster! No one is on fire! I didn’t have to pretend to be a dragon! It’s okay and he believes me and he doesn’t think I’m weird for it and it’s cool!

At the corner, Andrew held out his arms and I hugged him.

“Love you, sis,” he said.

“I love you, too,” I said. “Thank you.” Thank you for listening and for not making it a big deal or an argument or questioning who I say I am.

When I pulled away and flashed him a smile, he had just a touch of confusion on his face, like he wasn’t sure what he was being thanked for. He’d probably figure it out while he was biking home. I crossed the street away from him with a big stupid grin on my face and a small weight lifted off my shoulders.

Because this? Is a perfect statement.

[R]eading fiction or poetry without regard for the delight it can give–its immediate interest–can mutilate the experience of reading.

–John Gardner, The Art of Fiction, page 42

I’ll be selling coloring books, the original drawings of some of the Fat Ladies in Spaaaaace pages, and prints of various pieces (including, printer willing, a poster version of the cover art for FLiS). I’ll also have crayons and free coloring pages on hand, for anyone who wants to hang out at my table and color.

If you follow me on Twitter, you might have seen a bit of the excitement this weekend as I was tabling at the Schoolgirls and Mobilesuits bazaar with the Black Hat Collective. We’re a chatty bunch, and like I mentioned on Twitter, we often end up sounding like a geeky, tangential podcast that no one is recording. It’s fun. You should stop by and visit us at one of these events if you’re local:

St. Paul Art Crawl – October 7-9 (this weekend!)

Friday6-10 PM, Saturday 12-8 PM, & Sunday 12-5 PM in the Cosmopolitan, right across from Mears Park.

They’re giving the Black Hat Collective a whole room to ourselves. A whole room. To ourselves. We’re going to set up a comfy reading and coloring area. There might be a fort. We’ll see what we can do.

Did I mention the Art Crawl is a FREE event, with hundreds of local artists displaying their work across downtown St. Paul?

FallCon – October 15th

10am-4pm at the Minnesota State Fairgrounds in the Progress Center

An all-day comic book extravaganza! Now with coloring books. This is a paid event – $8 at the door, kids 9 and under free.

Minneapolis Indie Xpo – November 5-6

10am-5pm both days at The Soap Factory in Minneapolis.

MIX is only a year old and already attracting a list of fantastic exhibitors, all independent artists. I’ll have my own table at this event, right next to the Black Hatters.

This is another FREE event! I’m really psyched about this one, folks. I’ve heard nothing but great things about MIX.

I hope to see you soon!

Last week, I got a chance to see a dress rehearsal of the Minnesota Opera’s latest show, Così fan tutte. If you’ve been following this blog for awhile, you might remember my post on a similar event last February. Both times were loads of fun – they treated us to dinner, gave us fantastic seats, and asked us to sketch the show by book light. This time, I enjoyed the performance a bit more than last. Così fan tutte is basically a romantic comedy by Mozart, and several parts of it are laugh out loud funny.

The general premise is: a jaded old philosopher runs into two young men who are in love with a pair of sisters. The philosopher tries to convince them that women are flighty and will cheat on them. The men are like, “Nuh-uh,” and the philosopher is like, “Yuh-huh!” (only more eloquently and in Italian verse), and the philosopher challenges them to a bet. The men will pretend to leave for war, come back disguised as Albanians, and woo each other’s lady. If they succeed, the philosopher wins and they owe him money; if their girlfriends are faithful, the philosopher owes them. They carry through on the bet, and their poor girlfriends have to put up with being chased all over the stage by two complete hams wearing fake mustaches and turbans. Like so:

Best line in the show.

Meanwhile, the philosopher stands around in the background like this:

He plays puppet master in the destruction of these near-strangers’ relationships to amuse himself, which makes him my favorite kind of fictional bastard. The villainous characters were my favorite characters in this show. The philosopher teamed up with the sisters’ maid, Despina, to help trick them, and Despina was fabulous. She encouraged the sisters to “have a little fun” while their boyfriends were at war and showed up in hilarious costumes to aid in the realism of the charade – most notably a quack doctor who saved the two “Albanians” after they pretended to poison themselves because of the sisters’ rejection.

I felt for Despina, I really did. The first scene we see her in, she’s bringing the sisters their breakfast and then cleaning up after them when they throw bread all over the floor during a lovesick tantrum. I think if I had to pick up after some rich girls’ bread tantrum, I’d jump at the offer to mess with them, too.

And last, a rough sketch of the first scene where the men appear dressed in costume. Whenever they’re not waltzing about the stage with their arms flung wide, trying to impress each other’s girlfriends, they’re off in a corner fixing each other’s fake mustaches.