Shared Worlds Critter Map: The Watch-It and the Seven Songs of Sirius

The Critter Map registration/donation drive for the Shared Worlds SF/F teen writing camp I help run has been a big success. The Huffington Post, Boing Boing, SF Signal and several more have picked up on it, including, of course the authors involved (Neil Gaiman, Patrick Rothfuss, and more!).In terms of registration, we're now well ahead of last year at this point and we have applications from students in Japan, Canada, France, Indonesia, and Germany, in addition to from all over the U.S. This really is a unique experience for the students, and a life-changing one. Go check out the Critter Map, but you can also read my entry and Ann's below the cut...SEVEN SONGS OF SIRIUSAnn VanderMeerOk, it might look all peaches and light from where you stand, but trust me, these smiles are just for show. We've gotta smile all the time because you know what they say; when you're smiling, the whole world smiles with you. And if you cry, well, best not to even imagine it.We call ourselves the Seven Songs of Sirius because singing keeps the boogieman away. Plus it keeps us out of trouble, and although we look sweet, we are highly mischievous. We've been known to cause an International (Or should we say Galactical?) situation once or twice… but not on purpose! Floating around in some dark swirly blackness can be exciting and thrilling to some, but not us. We'd just be happy to all have our own separate names.THE WATCH-ITJeff VanderMeerThe Watch-it is the shyest creature in the world. It hides not just inside books and other forests of text, but especially in the nooks and crannies around letters. The Watch-it particularly enjoys the dark grottos to be found in the middle of “D’s” or “O’s”, and on rare occasions has been seen delightedly sliding down these cool, smooth surfaces for hours. From these hiding places, the Watch-it will observe the reader with an enigmatic expression that some scientists believe to be awe and others to be contempt. (Still others believe its expression is dependent on the reaction of the reader to the text.)The Watch-it is highly adaptable and has in recent years begun to inhabit websites and e-books with relative ease. A Watch-it feeds off of the reading experience, which can create a feeling of laziness or fatigue in the reader. In cases of major infestations, Watch-its may imbue the reader with a temporary sense of unease and paranoia. The Watch-it can no sooner survive without its surrounding text as a hermit crab may survive with its shell, but is otherwise surprisingly durable. The creature cannot be squashed by the weight of pages, nor killed by power surges or power outages.If a book or website isn’t read, the Watch-it may lie dormant for many months or years without dying. In this dormant state, the Watch-it enters a state of hibernation unique in the animal kingdom. It will assume the shape of a letter and mimic the letter so perfectly as to be unnoticeable. However, if a Watch-it is forced to hibernate for more than a century, it will die. More than one monk in the Middle Ages would open a book at an angle only to find all the letters of a page sliding brittle and still to the floor.