Also

[kiya]

I have finally finished a draft of this weird thing that's basically my reaction to the Attack Helicopter Story crossed with Andy Bell singing the first line of "River Deep, Mountain High."

It has implied horrible unicorns.

I have no idea what I will ever do with it, if it's even remotely saleable, as it is a first person narrator addressing an implied second person and also is just a complex monstrous horror having a soliloquy, but I wrote it at least.

(When I was a little girl, I had a ragdoll. The only doll I ever owned.)

Comments

[madgastronomer]

Have you read Charles Stross's short story "Equoid"? It has explicit horrible unicorns. It's part of a series, but you don't actually have to have read the rest for the short. (Basic principle: Advanced mathematics allows you to summon Cthulhoid entities into this world. The British civil service is here to save the day.)

How horrible are the unicorns? I will read Stross's story of how the story came to be, but I will never again read the story.

[kiya]

I have not read much of Charlie's stuff, actually, though I am familiar with the gist of the Laundry. (And familiar with his complaints that every time he tried to write satire for a while actual reality outpaced it and he had to scrap and redo his plots so that he didn't underplay the local ridiculousness - it was hard to write the Laundry during the Brexit vote.)

Unicorns are mostly in the story as one of the narrator's part-jealous part-fascinated obsessions, so one doesn't get more than the implied horribleness but the narrator does point out that a horn like that is only good for murder, you can't just butt heads a few times and declare that honor is satisfied...

[madgastronomer]

Indeed, a horn like that really is only good for murder.

[kiya]

I am not entirely sure what the deal with unicorns is but my narrator is basically convinced they have an amazing scam going, being obvious murderbeasts but generally treated as emblems of purity and garnering general human adulation.

In any case the thing is three thousand words of soliloquy/dialogue of which one reads only one side about the experience of being a trans eldritch abomination who is apparently mildly obsessed with unicorns and I have no earthly idea what to do with it. jenett says it has a compelling voice, though!

[autopope]

That sounds like you should totally try to sell it!

(It worked for me, what else can I say?)

[kiya]

Hi there! We summoned you from the vasty deep!

(I seriously nearly put an "If you read this" aside in a previous comment. ;) )

My basic feeling is that I don't write things not intending to try to sell them but this thing is weirder than the usual thing I write (if also likely subject to the usual thing that editors complain about, which is that it does not have a plot they can see). So we will see how it goes, and maybe it being profoundly weird and containing implied horrible unicorns and body horror about locusts will help.

[autopope]

"Feels weirder" means you're pushing your boundaries, not that it's bad. (I have been acutely aware of my own lack of "feels weirder" in the past couple of years.)

[brooksmoses]

Well, thank you. After reading the story of how the story came to be, I just had to go read the story itself (although I did skip over some of the more horrifying bits, thanks to your advice).

And it is now nearly 3am.

[madgastronomer]

You're welcome

[sovay]

I have no idea what I will ever do with it, if it's even remotely saleable, as it is a first person narrator addressing an implied second person and also is just a complex monstrous horror having a soliloquy, but I wrote it at least.

Strange Horizons.

[kiya]

... yes indeed, I can see that. Currently have something in their queue so I suspect I ought wait to see if they want that, but the narrator in this thing is definitely strange.

Thank you!

[sovay]

Thank you!

You're welcome! And good luck with the queued story, too!

[kiya]

That one is... notably less totally fucking weird. (I wrote it to try to get into an anthology that never happened, so now I'm shopping it.)

Strange Horizons is a pain in my particular ass because of their "we open to submissions on Mondays" and the odds of me remembering that at the relevant time are shockingly far less than one in seven, as it turns out.

[brooksmoses]

I could email you a reminder or something, if that would be useful?