well is that all.

[dira]

So it occurred to me that I'm flipping out kind of a lot over trying (trying is the operative word) to write Aral Vorkosigan slash with the intent of having other people read it and so on - if I have not frantically accosted you on IM to tell you all about it you are a) lucky! or b) my brother! or possibly both. I was having one of those conversations in my head where I try to articulate what my deal is, and I realized:

I read Barrayar when I was about twelve, and Shards of Honor at thirteen.

Aral Vorkosigan was probably my introduction to the very idea of bisexuality.

And that's without even getting into my larger relationship to the Vorkosigan books: The Vor Game was the third SF novel I ever read and the one that convinced me I wanted to keep reading science fiction and therefore, down the line, to write it. The Vorkosigan books were my first truly serious fandom and that fandom kindly raised me from a, ahem, really poorly socialized fifteen-year-old into, well, a much less poorly socialized twentysomething. I dressed as a Dendarii Mercenary for Halloween at school my sophomore year of high school, wearing a set of grays my mom made for me, modeled from the hand-drawn sketch on the bottom of a letter I received from Lois Bujold after writing the most gracelessly thirteen-year-old fan letter imaginable. I kept her letter on my bedroom wall until I moved out of my parents' house. The first time I went to a con of any kind it was to see Lois Bujold as a GoH. I spent at least five solid years starting conversations with "There was this conversation on the List" because there was only one mailing list I could possibly be talking about. (I didn't aspire so high as to be Cordelia when I grew up; I wanted to be commodorified.) I spent years in a community of people who referred to the author unironically as Her Ladyship, and I will still use Herself to people who know who I mean. I don't think there are words to express how much I wouldn't be who I am without those books and the people who love them.


So, uh. Essentially what I am saying is that I am writing pornfiction of my own personal sacred foundational text. And apparently that's daunting.

Comments

[ekaterina]

it was the same for me--my foundational text--i tested the worthiness of people to be my friends by shoving copies of those first two books at them and seeing how they reacted. i would give my left arm for a novel just about aral and cordelia's adventures as the viceroy and vicerienne, and adore the fandom. my best friend gave me an autographed first edition of shards for my twenty-first birthday. IT IS SO GOOD TO HEAR SOMEONE ELSE SAY THEY FELT THIS WAY ABOUT THESE BOOKS, and have this odd love/transgression relationship with slash about them. (my personal problem with aral slash is that my father and aral are creepily alike, if aral had a normal job. right down to the bisexuality, or so i suspect.) best of luck, dira: you wrote a story that literally gave me something to get thru the days last summer when my life totally fell apart, and i am so sure you can do this brilliantly too if you find your momentum :) btw, i fangirl you in much the way i fangirl herself. just so you know. *blushes* and i cannot wait for that new vorkosigan novel!!!

[dira]

I hope you won't mind too much that I've so slow to reply to this--I'm just a bit staggered and speechless at being compared to Herself. :)

But I definitely do understand feeling that way about the books, and I'm thrilled to have written something that was so important to you. Thank you!

Now we all just have to hang on until next November...