Many, many years ago, I had a thought. A thought that is probably not unique; a thought many of us, I’m sure, have had. It’s that thought that pops into our heads at the end of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, when the curse is broken, golden light suffuses the fresh corpse of the beast, a holy magic lifts and transforms him, and his human form is reanimated in perfect youth and smoothness. He looks at his hands, he turns, and for the first time, Belle sees his original face, shining in its non-beast glory.
And you think, god, that’s disappointing.
I set out to write a book in which the beast tried to become human, but stayed a beast, because that’s really how it should have been.
I created a different world, and different lovers, and put in more fire and a dead whale and probably too many instances of the phrase “it was not meet”, and changed the story over and over again, and enlisted the help of countless people who have been kinder to me than I could have imagined to keep me pushing to the end. Finally, this book happened, which I called The Love Song of Numo and Hammerfist.
It’s now published, out in the world of the internet for public consumption. I’ve put some buy links, the description, and the first chapter on the Books page of this website, for those interested, but I didn’t want to just repeat all that here. A quick rundown of what it’s about, though: it takes place in an imaginary world, and follows the stories of three characters: a naive servant, a monster who wants to end monstrosity, and a disgraced alchemist determined to get back her power at any cost. There’s some humor, questionable romance, a significant quantity of violence, and tentacles. Non-sexual tentacles, I guess I should say, lest I suggest the promise of something that isn’t there, although now I’m wondering if I missed an opportunity…
Oh well. There’s always a chance for redemption in a sequel.
The main thing I want to say about this book, though, is how much it’s a product of other people believing in it.
(This is going to get a little sappy, now, but I’m going to try to make it brief. Still, if you’re not into sap and more into story, and want to know more about the actual contents of the book, there’s still time to escape to the Books page.)
I think an often-repeated saying goes something like “no one will believe in your work if you don’t believe in it yourself,” but I’ve found this to be mercifully untrue. I mean, yes, you have to have at least some doubt that all your efforts are definite and irredeemable trash, I guess–enough to make those efforts in the first place, and go out into the wilds of the internet and ask someone else if they, also, see nothing but trash…
But there were so many, many times I was sure I should quit, because there wasn’t anything good or entertaining or decent about what I wrote, and all those many, many times, someone was there to tell me I was wrong. I mean, obviously the thing needed work–writing always does–but nobody ever gave me the satisfaction of agreeing that everything I wrote was unadulteratable shit-in-a-bucket, and instead, kept prodding me onward until I finished the thing.
I can’t even remember the number of people who did this. I’m not sure if that’s a testament to human generosity or the incredible all-consuming heat of the garbage incinerator that is my memory or both, but truthfully, it has to be at least a little of the former.
My point, I suppose, is that I wrote this book, and I forced it into publication, but it was other people who made that possible. Friends, artists, writers, strangers on the internet — I owe you one. ~ <3
