The Steel Magnolia Metaphor

The Steel Magnolia Metaphor is a silly little story that accidentally has really deep feelings and metaphors in it.

I absolutely hated my high school literature textbooks. On the rare occasion I enjoyed a story they wanted me to read, they ruined it by making analyze the symbolism and metaphors within the story. And I was always wrong, even though I thought art was subjective and there was no wrong interpretation of it.

And even if I agreed with the supposedly correct interpretation, I always wondered if that was really what the author meant. Did they even intend for it to be a metaphor, or did other people read too much into it and decide it was a metaphor?

I think that's part of why I want to explain my stories here on my blog. By all means, take the story and decide it means whatever you need it to mean. It's still my story, but it belongs to everyone who reads it, too, it becomes whatever it needs to be for the individual reader. But if you want to know what it means to me, here it is in my words.

The Steel Magnolia Metaphor was supposed to be a fun little story about an autistic girl who got mad when she learned Steel Magnolias isn't about robot trees, and decided to build a robot tree. It is based on me getting mad when I learned Steel Magnolias isn't about robot trees.

(It should be about robot trees. Like Transformers, but trees. My character learned this disappointing fact as a child; I was… 27?)

For some reason, and I can't really remember why, I decided my main character's mother should have cancer. Maybe subconsciously, I remembered hearing a little bit about the plot to the movie. Anyway, at some point I actually read the plot summary to Steel Magnolias and realized the mother character needed to be a little bit more like Shelby, as heartbreaking as that is for her daughter.

I won't spoil what happens with the tree, but my main character, who hates metaphors as much as I do, realizes she accidentally built a metaphor.

And as I wrote that line, I realized I accidentally wrote a metaphor.

Now, to be fair? I'm still not 100% sure what it all means. But I know it means something, probably something different to everyone who reads it.

And so me, autistic and about as subtle as a neon sign that says "Not at all subtle," decided I needed to tell you right away, in the title, that this story is a metaphor.

Take from this story the meaning you need, but if I'm ever famous and this story is ever in a high school literature textbook, I can tell you right now, there is no wrong answer.

Content warnings

Cancer

Facing the death of a parent

Non-graphic death of insects

Family that doesn't understand being autistic sometimes means no hugs

Non-gory blood

The Steel Magnolia Metaphor is available now for your listening pleasure or on Escape Pod.

Don Queerxote

I am very happy to announce that my story Don Queerxote is available to read for free online at HyphenPunk! 

I love a good modern or futuristic retelling of a classic story. I especially love writing them without actually reading the classic story I am writing about. Just going on my knowledge of Wishbone, Wikipedia plot summaries, and They Might Be Giants songs, and writing a very gay version of Don Quixote.

Did I write this just because the name Don Queerxote made me giggle? Yes. Yes I did.

This story is a little different than the other times I've done this, because one of the characters is very aware of the plot similarities between what is happening and the book her friend is supposed to be reading for school.

The original book is about a man who has read too many stories about adventures and romance, and he believes he is living out one of those stories. My main character has read too much fanfiction, and she believes everything around her is a classic fanfic trope.

The only problem is, she might be right.

Don Queerxote contains

Slightly solarpunk inspired future

Several They Might Be Giants references

She's gonna fight the wind turbine company in the hopes of impressing a girl she thinks she's in love with

Owls!

It's very gay

Pretending to be girlfriends

Now we have to fight City Hall

Shipping!

A discussion about Miguel Cervantes never using the "and there was only one bed" trope

I've been trying to get this story published for years. Publication after publication said they liked it but it wasn't for them… I think it got about 10 rejections before finally finding a good home.

Joan Of Archaeopteryx

I kind of forgot to officially announce this, but my story Joan of Archaeopteryx has been published in Apex: World Of Dinosaurs anthology.   

This story is important to me. Yeah, on the surface it's just a silly dinosaur story. But it's so much more than that to me.

In August of 2018, I got an email inviting me to write for an anthology about dinosaurs. I did not know the people. They literally just saw that I was an author who tweeted about dinosaurs constantly, and they took a chance on me. A big chance. They asked me to sign a contract before the story was even written, a contract for a not small amount of money.

This was around the time things were getting bad with me and my mom. So this story has been in the works during a very significant chunk of time for me. Realizing it was abuse, getting up the courage to actually leave, leaving everything I knew behind for the chance of something better. And now I'm here, just an hour away from where I used to live but it might as well be another world.

Part of the contract was giving the story a title. I could change it afterward, but they wanted something. So I took a title that had been living in my head for a while. At first I thought it needed to be a novel, but I have several first chapters where that didn't work out, so I guess it always wanted to be a short story.

"Joan of Archaeopteryx". Like Joan of Arc… but with dinosaurs.

And that's what the story is. It's the story of a person with mental illnesses, someone who hears voices and sees things and doesn't believe she will ever amount to anything. But while she's in the psych ward on a 72 hour hold, she sees a hallucination that isn't a hallucination at all.

It's a woman riding a dinosaur, and she wants Joan to come back to her world–a world where humans and prehistoric animals coexist–and pretend to be the savior her people need.

I am a dinosaur nerd. That should surprise absolutely no one. Last count, I think I have something like 15 Jurassic Park references in this story? But I'm also a huge history nerd and I absolutely love Joan of Arc. Whether she actually saw saints, or they were just hallucinations, or she made the whole thing up so people would put faith in her, she was a teenager and she led her country to victory.

So there are also a lot of historical references in the story. I think the more you know about Joan of Arc, the more you will appreciate a couple of the plot points. I just love Joan so much.

And in this story, Joan is non-binary. She uses she/her pronouns and she presents mostly feminine, but the opportunity to dress as a man is very appealing to her because she isn't totally comfortable being a woman.

And when I wrote that two years ago, I didn't realize how much of myself I was putting into Joan. I've never been extremely comfortable with my gender. I'm fine with it for the most part, but I've never understood the idea of being comfortable as a woman.

This story is also the reason I’ve been able to watch Camp Cretaceous and write about it for Den of Geek; the editor of this book is the one who put me in touch with them. And Robert J Sawyer has a story in this anthology as well. I am in a book with the person who wrote the book one of my favorite short-lived TV shows Flashforward was based on.

Fun fact: Joan of Archaeopteryx takes place in the same world as The Good, The Bad, And The Utahraptor. I've got more another story in the universe coming out soon, as well.

So check out Joan Of Archaeopteryx in Apex: World Of Dinosaurs.

Jurassic World Camp Cretaceous Season Three Easter Eggs And References

 Heyo! I've got a couple more publications coming up in the next week or so, but right now I've got an article to share!

Den of Geek continues to let me live out my childhood dream of visiting Jurassic Park before all of the crowds. The third season of the Netflix animated series Camp Cretaceous came out today, and I got to see it early so I could write about the Jurassic Park Easter eggs and references.

Check it out here, but be warned! It's full of spoilers.

I still think it is absolutely wild that this is real. That me, some random dinosaur nerd, is trusted to know enough about these movies to write stuff like this.