Lilith Saintcrow's Blog, page 172

The Experiment Begins!

So I thought about it a lot, crunched some numbers, asked for some advice, and I’m going to do it.

I’m going to do some freelance editing.

I only have enough time and mental energy for three slots per month at the moment. That may change. I’m not even sure there’s a demand for this type of editing, though it’s something I would have loved to have when I was just starting out. If this goes well and there’s a demand, I may add other packages and custom work. But for right now, we’ll see how this particular thing goes, and how the waiting list works out for everyone.

So that’s my Monday news, other than diving into Wayfarer revisions and continuing work on the Gallow book. I just realized I’ve been so in Jeremy Gallow’s head that I have very little idea of what he looks like. I know his toothpaste and his toes and the way he moves from the inside, but not how he looks from outside. This is going to take some thought.

Maison Dot

I’m beginning to learn the local wild places–you know, slices of unused land, forgotten things. It takes a while to get to know a park or even a greenbelt. Anyway, here’s a stump I call (for entirely personal reasons) Jenny Dot’s House.

Gauging Interest

I’m thinking of maybe doing some freelance editing.

I’d probably start out with something like this:

* You send me a one-page query letter explaining your manuscript and the first 30 pages of said manuscript.

* What you would get in return: Your query and manuscript with Track Changes. Including: the point at which I would make an accept/reject decision on the piece as if I were an agent/editor/intern, errors and bad craft, overall editing, suggestions, and advice, and a one-page edit letter.

I would only be able to do about three of these a month, and I’d charge a flat fee through PayPal for each.

Right now I’m in the process of gauging interest to see if this would even be viable. Is there any interest in this sort of thing? And what would it be worth to another writer? I would have to initially charge something in the neighborhood of $250-$300 to make it worth doing on my end.

What do you think?

The Hard Sell Doesn’t Work, Redux

This is a (re-edited) post from Sept 2006; one I lost when the site was hacked. Fortunately, I had a partial backup, and since Skyla Dawn Cameron mentioned this post to me in conversation lately, I thought I’d put it back out there, especially since it’s my day to crosspost to the Deadline Dames. Enjoy.

I thought for a while about even mentioning this. No, really, I did–second thoughts are rare and wonderful things for me, but I do occastionally have them. The benefit of this kind of advice to new authors is infinite, though one suspects those who need it won’t dig it until it’s too late.

The advice I have to give is this: Relax. Because the hard sell doesn’t work.

I’ve noticed this at conventions and signings galore. The new author, excited and happy, is pitching his/her book to everyone in sight. S/he assumes that because s/he is excited, that all the rest of us cannot wait to hear about his/her novel/screenplay/short story/idea/self. A little bit of this enthusiasm is good, it makes one’s eyes sparkle and one’s cheeks flush. You can’t help but be excited about your own work–if you’re not, you should find another career.

But beware the hard sell.

The hard sell is filling the airwaves with your self-promotion. It’s consistently talking over other people to get your idea heard. It’s bringing the discussion around to you and your work every time you open your big mouth. It’s being so “cool” you literally don’t care about anyone who doesn’t register on your celebrity radar.

It’s annoying. And it will lose you so many friends and opportunities it’s not even funny.

Publishing is really a small business. You never know when the person you’re rude to on a convention panel or in an elevator at a trade show may hold the power of life or death over your wee manuscript in the future. It’s best to be tactful and interested in other people at cons and shows, not to mention writer’s group meetings. (If you should bother to go to such things.) You don’t have to be completely self-effacing–you can network until the cows come home and talk shop until you’re blue in the face.

But don’t use the hard sell.

I’m going to give two instances of the hard sell, suitably embellished and altered to protect the innocent and the guilty alike. Ready?

* Instance Number One There’s a certain small press–let’s call it Hip Press–gathering critical praise for taking risks with horror and fantasy manuscripts. They publish some interesting stuff and their covers are good…but before an author submits to them, he asks around and finds out they suffer from a serious case of “I’m cooler than you.” The managing editor (or the person impersonating him at conventions and trade shows) has rapidly acquired a reputation for snubbing authors that don’t fit his definition of “hip” or “groundbreaking” enough. Which would be fine…except Too-Hip Editor is openly rude when he snubs. He ends up sneering both publicly and online at several paranormal authors, who quietly tell their friends in the biz (including their agents) that they won’t submit to Hip Press, since working with this man will almost certainly turn into a nightmare. The press struggles with low submissions quality (and, let’s be honest, indifferent accounting too was a symptom of said “coolness”) and finally folds, and nobody will say out loud why. The answer is simple–Too-Hip Editor cut his baby off at the knees by doing the hard sell–”my press is so cool we won’t publish you/ don’t need to use good business practices.” He was so interested in his own “coolness” he shot himself in the foot professionally.

* Instance Number Two Imagine, if you will, a new author (let’s call her Z) at a convention. She’s just beginning to break out and is attending a number of panels. Z is so excited about her book she brings mountains of promo material, and everything that escapes her mouth in the panels is about how wonderful she and her books are. It doesn’t matter what the subject of the panel is–Z is quite frankly all about Z and Z’s books, and devil take the hindmost. After a particular panel Z approaches a midlist author and makes her pitch for a collaboration. The midlist author listens politely and says something vague, then disappears. Z waits after the con for the people she exchanged business cards with to call or email, and sends emails to the midlist author reminding her of Z’s presence. There is no response, and Z’s frustration grows. In response, she tries pushing her books even harder, but suddenly conventions are full and she can barely score a panel or a signing to save her life. Unbeknownst to herself, Z’s behavior has been passed around by several midlist authors and con organizers, and she’s acquired the reputation of a blowhard. Nobody wants to hang with her, and she grows more and more frustrated.

Writing is not generally thought of as a social art. One of the biggest complaints one will hear from writers is that they must spend almost as much time marketing as writing. Done correctly, marketing and networking can be a boon and help grow your career. To be an author means one has to get along with editors, publishers, agents, fans, booksellers, and God knows who else, including convention staff. That’s a lot of people to get along with, not to mention other authors, who may struggle with the same issues and be dying to talk shop with someone who understands.

Yet so many starting authors commit two great sins: they only flog one manuscript and they don’t know how to get along in a professional-social capability. The former belongs in another blog post, but the latter is what this post is all about.

Getting along professionally-socially is an art more than a science, and it’s made more difficult by the fact that publishing is such a bloody incestuous business. You will meet everyone once or twice in your career at least. Your gaffes will follow you like crows follow the gibbet. Your offenses will be spoken of with relish and your coups may be envied. The hard sell is the number one mistake I see new writers making in that capacity.

So here’s a few tips and pointers to help you along, if you suspect you may have inadvertently tippled into hard sell territory.

* Write nice thank-you notes. In your thank-you notes, talk more about the other person than you do about yourself.

* When you are on a convention panel, mention your work’s title at the beginning when you are introduced. Then let it go. Don’t mention the title again unless it’s truly relevant to the panel and the discussion at hand.

* Study arbitration and counseling techniques. Don’t say, “You’re an idiot” to someone. Say, instead, “I disagree because ___” or “It’s my perception that ____.” Not only will this avoid the hard sell, but it will make you look good, especially on a panel.

* Be polite to everyone. It’s hard, especially when you’ve had a six-hour plane flight and baggage problems and now you’re at dinner with someone who keeps yammering about their newest success. Make the effort to be polite and to care. You never know.

*Try to be just as interested in other people as you are in yourself. Yes, this is hard for every single human being. But just try it. And be as happy for others’ success as you are for your own. There really is enough success to go round. Suzie Sue’s success will not steal readers from you. Your own idiocy will steal readers from you, not Suzie Sue’s new book.

* If you meet a famous author or one of your personal heroes, thank them kindly for their good work and fine example. Tell them in one sentence or less how much their work means to you. Do not mention your books/screenplays/novels until they ask–which they probably will, especially if you say, “Your work helped me continue writing. Thank you so much.” They have people trying to pitch crap to them all day long. Don’t do it. Your time will come.

* When you are on a convention panel, limit yourself to one or two promo items. A cover illustration and a stack of bookmarks works just fine. A cluttered pile of promo material makes you look desperate.

* If you don’t have a valid question while you’re in a panel audience, keep your trap shut. The panelists are there because someone wants to hear their opinions. Do not use your opportunity to ask a question to do a cheap shill for your unpublished manuscript. It’s rude, and people do remember these things.

* Do not get drunk with fellow authors unless/until you have a personal as well as a professional relationship with them. I would say, don’t get drunk with fellow authors AT ALL, but I’ve broken that rule once or twice, with my writing partner… *grin*

* If you find yourself saying, “I know you don’t publish _____, BUT–”, for the love of God, stop. Take a deep breath. Back away from the pitch and go soak your head. That one sentence causes new writers untold amounts of grief. If you find yourself using it, you should rethink your strategy a bit.

* Be polite. Be polite. BE POLITE. Say please and thank you. Wait your turn. You may occasionally (or frequently) be run over by someone who is using the hard sell. It’s frustrating, but it’s okay. The person still using the hard sell will make your patience, forbearance, and politeness look ever so much better. Do not be discouraged if you don’t get a chance to talk to a celebrity. Console yourself with the thought that when you do finally manage to speak to a celeb or a famous author, your politeness will be a welcome relief for them, and may lead to good things.

* Be careful where you gossip. Yes, scuttlebutt travels fast in the publishing industry. But don’t go around gossiping indiscriminately. You’ll hear more if you keep your mouth shut, and when you do decide to drop a quiet word of warning to a fellow industry person, it will carry more weight.

* Last but certainly not least, use a little common sense. A pinch of sense goes a long way in this biz. You will find more friends and make more connections that endure with politeness than you ever will with the hard sell.

I suspect those moved to read this don’t need the advice, but just in case, there it is. Is there any common hard-sell tactic I’ve missed?

photo by:


Ben Fredericson (xjrlokix)

Dramatic Abandon

Yesterday Miss B and I went for a run…and stopped half a kilometer in, because her back right paw was bothering her. I brought her back home, though she seemed just fine and bouncy after a little bit of walking, and checked her paws thoroughly. Nothing looked amiss, so I left her at home and went to run by myself. I checked her paws three or four times again yesterday, but nothing seems wrong with any of them.

Just to be safe, though, I left her at home today too while I ran. And OMG I am apparently the cruelest mother ever for doing so. You can’t imagine the moping, the groaning, the throwing of herself down and rolling onto her back with a piteous sigh. The reproachful glances. Added to Odd Trundles trying to dig up sunlight through the carpet, things are quite amusing around here lately.

What is not so amusing is that I’ve been tut-tutted at for linking to my post on epiracy during the whole recent plagiarism thing. (I remarked that I was no stranger to having my work stolen and linked to Don’t Steal My Books.) I believe the line of argument is that piracy and plagiarism are different and I should not have drawn any link between them.

I find this slightly ridiculous. Plagiarism is theft. Epiracy is theft. Just because they’re different species doesn’t make them any less, you know, theft-y. Just like calling one a palomino and another a Clydesdale doesn’t make either any less horse-y. But you know, whatever. *shrug* Perhaps I am so raw over this recent theft that I am not quite objective.

Anyway, it’s time to get back to work, and there must be plenty of petting and making much of a certain Aussie, who is even now giving me a stare from the door to my office, where she has flung herself in an attitude of dramatic abandon. Obviously her life is a neverending thankless struggle. I don’t know how she bears it.

Over and out.

photo by:


h.koppdelaney

Monday Hives and Sunday Cupcakes

Monday starts out with stress hives. I expected them, but still, the itching is maddening. It is very unsettling to have the urge to scratch all over like a monkey. I can’t wait for my morning run–I’ve found that after a half-hour, I get a gush of sweat full of stress hormones I can smell, a metallic-chicken-soup burst, as if one has opened a can of Campbell’s. Of course, then my skin is even more irritated, but the good news is when I get home and wash all the sweat off, the hives decrease by a good ninety percent.

I can’t wait.

Anyway, it rained last night, to the great hallelujahs of my garden AND my back, because lugging the hoses around, while a price I cheerfully pay for having a decent garden, does not for a happy lumbar region make. I always think better when it rains, too. I fell asleep last night while reading, mid-sentence, and the book–an examination of mystery cults in antiquity–fell on my face. Despite this, I like hardbacks and tend to prefer them when it comes to research reading.

Today’s for making some wordcount on Jeremy Gallow, because tomorrow I go into serious second-round revisions on Wayfarer, the second YA fairy-tale retelling. (When we have a cover, cover copy, and a firm publication date I’ll update the book page.) I also need to comb the text and update the series bible. I’ve taken to putting notes etc. for series in a binder; I used to keep it all in my head but I need my RAM for other things nowadays. Maybe I’m getting old.

Mother’s Day was beautiful. The Princess got up early and made cupcakes.

Seriously, she did all that before noon. I’m agog. And this is the year she learns to drive. My baby, my goodness.

Anyway, time for some breakfast–NOT cupcakes, though I’m tempted–and restraining the urge to scratch like a mad monkey. Monday, so far you’re better than the weekend, but not by much. Let’s be gentle with each other, okay? I will if you will…

photo by:


AlicePopkorn

Afterthoughts

So yeah. That happened.

It was, I told a writer friend, like coming home and finding someone had broken in and filled my bed with offal. I felt sickened, physically nauseous. At the time, I didn’t know that the plagiarist was a big name in the Kos community, or in a certain area of fandom. I didn’t know who the hell it was, or even if it was a she or a he. All I knew was that the stories about Neo and the gang–bits of my life, hysterical little tales I’d written through a very dark time and continued to write afterward because I liked the critters so much–had been taken and were being passed off as someone else’s work. I probably should have waited until Skyla (gods bless her) put together the spreadsheet’s worth of proof before I said anything. I apologize for that. I still stand by my decision to post the links and invite people to see for themselves.

First, I owe some thanks.

* Thanks first and foremost to Skyla Dawn Cameron, who brought this to my attention and spent time out of her busy day compiling the evidence in a way I doubt I could have. I was so sickened by the whole thing I could barely look at the proof myself, other than simply to verify it. She was also incredibly supportive and reassuring. If I can ever write another SquirrelTerror story–if I can ever bear to chronicle the second half of Le Napoleon Amorous, Interrupte, for example, or write more Canine Tales–it will be because of Skyla. I’m not sure I ever will, but if I do, well, thank her. (Preferably with kale. Or, you know, booze.)

* Thanks to my Readers. Without you asking repeatedly for the SquirrelTerror stories, and without the Readers who had printed them off or kept them to read (a perfectly valid use for them, and one I applaud), I would never have been moved to start compiling them again. I would never have had the material, because going back and combing through the Wayback Machine for them just was not something I had time for. I would never have even known plagiarism had happened. All in all, I am glad I found out, even though it was sickmaking. Thank you.

* Thanks to the users at Kos who posted side-by-side comparisons, exposing and publicizing the evidence. Thanks also to the admins at Kos for their swift but measured response to the whole situation. Thanks especially to the two lone members of the Kos community who messaged me through their system to offer support and invite me into the comment threads, if I chose to return. (I don’t, but your kindness means an incredible amount to me.) Thank you especially to those Kos users who were initially skeptical but took the time to look, and once they realized the evidence was there, set about convincing their fellows. It takes a special kind of courage, as Dumbledore said, to stand up to your friends. I appreciate that, even if I haven’t replied to your comments. Thank you.

* Finally, thanks to the many who, online and off, contacted me privately and publicly to offer support. I am glad to call you my friends, acquaintances, fellow writers, and Readers. Thank you.

Am I still going to bring the SquirrelTerror book out? I don’t know. When this first started happening I felt as if the stories had been utterly violated and that I couldn’t bear to read through them to proof them, let alone…I just ran out of words and sat here and stared, just thinking about it. Bottom line: I’m still unsure. I’m receiving lots of advice, and when I can reach a decision I feel good about, I will execute it. Skyla still intends to finish the work I paid her for, at least, so I have the luxury of choice.

There have been several questions on Kos about why I didn’t “stick around” in the comments, why I just put up links, etc., etc. The first avalanche of comments made me very glad I did not stick around. Partly my own fault, because I was too distressed to be thinking clearly. On the other hand, if you had time to write a nasty comment, you had time to look through the links and perhaps think a little. But that’s not why I didn’t “stick around”. For one thing, I sincerely thought that the plagiarist, seeing that she’d been caught, would quietly remove the posts and I would delete my own and say no more about the matter, the end result being not perfect but the best I could hope for on the Internet. For another, the proof was so overwhelming I didn’t think I needed to vomit it all up when I was shaking and sick inside. And lastly, I had not visited Kos for a number of years, despite having a lifetime membership and having dabbled in writing diaries there for a little while those long years ago. I had not earned the right to go jousting in comments, later, when it became apparent that the plagiarist was a “big deal” on the site and comments started to pile up elsewhere, I didn’t feel it would be proper for me–a virtual stranger in that community–to push farther. All I could in conscience do was bring the matter to their attention, since it was on Kos the plagiarism occurred, and me commenting afterward would have been impolite. Not to the plagiarist, but to all the others who were the fabric of that community and did not need an interloper tromping around in their living room and telling them what was what.

Also, I did not trust myself to stay classy during such high emotion. (I still don’t, really.) So I refrained. I am ashamed to admit this was not a bigger factor in my decision to leave the Kos comments alone, but at least it was there.

As for the plagiarist…well.

Her long rambling Kos message to me was not an apology. I have not received an apology from her, publicly or privately, and I certainly have not come to any “agreement” with her, as she has implied publicly.

Now, an apology that satisfies John Scalzi’s requirements would have been accepted, had she chosen to deliver it. Even if she had sent me the rambling non-apology that she did through Kosmail, if she had still satisfied Scalzi’s requirements when she made her public non-apology on Kos, I would have called it good enough. An admission that she fucked up, that she was sorry, and that she would accept consequences for her actions would have not only been welcome, but appreciated by me, and I could have forgiven her freely and would have said so stridently, openly, and repeatedly.

That is not what happened, and I almost resent that she had the gall to intimate that she had made some sort of reparation or that some sort of “agreement” had been reached. I said I was done, and done means I am not wasting more time on you, not gee, everything’s swell now! The window for a proper apology and free and full forgiveness has somewhat passed. At some point in the future, if said apology is made to me, I’ll decide how to handle it then. Personally, I think I will be waiting a long while.

I am also very sorry for the plagiarist. It must be horrible to steal, to be desperately convinced you don’t have words of your own and you must therefore take others’ by deceit. I pity the desperation, and the way this person has harmed herself. She robbed herself of a community that was willing, when the evidence was first brought to them, to close ranks against an outsider on her behalf and presume her innocence. She robbed herself of a community she spent a large chunks of everyday time interacting with. I am told she is a member of fandom as well and part of some conventions, I don’t know how those communities are going to react to her choices.

She stole from me, yes. She violated my stories. I’m saddened, sickened, upset over that, of course. She robbed herself of more. There really is no punishment like that we mete out to ourselves, very simply, by choices we make.

I’m guessing that’s all. This has been hideous, horrid, crazymaking, and terribly stressful. All this, and yet I realize that I had the benefit of clear and incontrovertible evidence as well as Skyla’s mad spreadsheet-making skills. I fully realize that this series of events could have been so much more tangled and awful and long-term and messy and complicated and oooooh my GOD. I was lucky. At certain points I didn’t feel it, but damn, I was lucky.

Now it’s time for me to get back to work. Thank you all, and I’m hoping to move on from this. Comments will be open until the usual shutoff date, but please do be civil and remember the comment policy. (Also taken from Scalzi. What a marvelously useful man he is.)

Over, and out.

Plagiarizing SquirrelTerror

So someone’s been plagiarizing Squirrel!Terror.

Here’s Squirrel!Terror on my LiveJournal. Now these are original posts, or parts of them, because my LJ is merely a backup for my blog here. Where the LJ entries cut off is where there was a cut directing readers to my site, which is why plenty of the Squirrel!Terror articles were unable to be resurrected from LJ export like some of my other posts were after the hacking.

Here’s the Squirrel!Terror tag on my website–the very same website that was hacked, during which I lost most of SquirrelTerror, which led me to the present-day attempt of getting the entries together for my Readers. The person I’ve hired to help me edit, copyedit, and format it into reasonable shape for ebooks found the plagiarism via some Google-fu.

Which is, of all things…on Daily Kos. Here’s the plagiarizer, a certain “Noddy”. And here’s my own Kos profile, in the interests of full disclosure.

I’m saddened, of course. I’m a little peeved, but I’m used to people stealing my work. I’ve sent a message through Facebook and through Kos to ask this person to take down the posts, there and everywhere else she’s tried to pass off my work as her own. I’ll be crossposting this to Kos as well. Since I’m planning on bringing the tales of Neo, Mercutio, and the gang to ebook form due to reader request, I want to be very clear about the fact that I wrote them, I own them, and this is not okay. I’m not sure if this will impact my plans to bring them to ebook.

It’s just…sad. Very sad. I hope this person does the right thing.

UPDATE, 5/11/13: Skyla Dawn Cameron, who is the above-named “person I’ve hired to help me edit, copyedit…” has gone public about how she found the plagiarism.

Also, I crossposted over at Kos, and was immediately buried under an avalanche of comments about how I must be lying. *shrug*

As things stand, I’m undecided about whether or not to bring out the ebook. This whole thing just makes me feel violated and like it’s not a good idea, even if the tales of Neo and the Backyard give some joy to my dear Readers. I don’t know yet. I’m thinking about it.

UPDATE, 5/11/13: Skyla has kindly compiled all the evidence into an easy form: SquirrelPlagiarism. That link leads to a ZIP file (right-click to download, I believe) where you will find, in her words:

“- A spreadsheet with links and dates to your original entry, the now-deleted link to Noddy’s, and a cached version of the page I viewed. Note that if you have trouble viewing the cached version, you can plug the deleted link into google–the result will have a little arrow you can click next to it that lets you view the cache. Also, some are still viewable in the Wayback Machine, at least the older ones.

- Screenshots of snippets from each entry. The entries were long and wouldn’t fit on one screen but *in case* they are needed, they can be easily blogged.”–Skyla Dawn Cameron, in email

I think reaction is setting in. I feel dizzy and shaky, and physically nauseous. So far there’s been no word from the plagiarizer, though I contacted “Noddy” before I wrote the initial post last night, both through the Kos site and through her listed Facebook profile to ask her to take the posts down. It appears 2 out of the 20 or so remain up, so maybe she has, I don’t know. Several Kos commenters asked why I didn’t stick around in the comments to “defend my accusation” and why I didn’t put up side-by-side examples. My intent in posting there, where the event had occurred, was to quietly but publicly let “Noddy” know that her theft had been noticed. As for sticking around for the comments, I’m glad I didn’t, given what the first avalanche of them was like. I didn’t put up side by side examples because looking at them made me sick. Instead, I put up the links and trusted that people would go and see for themselves. Perhaps that wasn’t the right way to handle it, but that’s what I did and I stand by every decision I made.

I’m hoping this is the last thing I have to say about this whole chain of events, unless it’s “Here is the apology.” If I receive any communication I’ll post it, and then hopefully this will be done. I’ve got books to write, I don’t have time for this bullshit.

Omnibus, SquirrelTerror, Sunshine

So, news!

* The Dante Valentine omnibus is a Kindle Daily Deal today. That’s all five books in one, for $1.99.

* Thanks to CE Murphy, a man named Flynn, and a couple fans–hi, Kathleen R. and Mr Herne!–I have the complete Squirrel!Terror posts in a Word doc. I’ve cleaned them up and have made a down payment for them to be edited, copyedited, formatted for ebook and print, and for help in deciding how best to distribute them. I’m, um, a tiny bit bowled over by the speed with which it happened, but grateful. And I’m really touched that people had kept some of the SquirrelTerror chronicles to read when they were down or blue. Best. Compliment. EVER.

And now, your Friday photo!

I love how my phone decided the HUGE YELLOW THING IN FRONT was not the thing to focus on. Also, poppies make me happy. Not like irises, which I despise, or azaleas, which give me the creeps.

Happy Friday!

In Which I Try To Take A Shower Without The House Erupting

Me: *just stepped out of shower and into towel* Get off my bed.

Odd Trundles: BUT I MISSED YOU!

Me: I was in the shower. The bathroom door was wide open. Get off my bed.

Odd: I MISSED YOU, I NEEDED COMFORT.

Me: Get off my–oh my God.

Odd: I DON’T FEEL GOOD.

Me: You ate my shoe!

Odd: WHAT? I DON’T FEEL GOOD. I THINK I MIGHT BARF.

Me: GET OFF MY BED.

Odd: WHY’RE YOU YELLING? *urps* *tries to swallow shoelace again* WHAT’S IN MY MOUTH?

Me: *grabs shoelace* GET OFF MY BED!

Odd: DON’T YELL AT ME, IT HURTS MY FEELINGS. HEY, WHAT’S THAT?

Me: *holding dripping shoelace* OFF. NOW.

Odd: WILL WE PLAY TUG? IT’S MY FAVOURITE GAME. ONLY I DON’T FEEL GOOD. BUT I’LL TRY.

Miss B: IS THAT VOMIT? DO I SMELL VOMIT? HAS VOMITING OCCURRED WITHOUT MY PERMISSION? I MUST INVESTIGATE!

Me: Shut up–

Miss B: HE’S ON THE BED! HOW COME I’M NOT ON THE BED?

Me: Because you tried to kill me by tripping me when I got out of the shower.

Miss B: THAT WAS YOU? HE DOESN’T LOOK SO GOOD…

Odd Trundles: *barfs* *all over bed* *and carpet* *and my feet*

Me: Oh, for God’s sake!

Miss B: LOOK! I’M QUEEN OF THE BED!

Odd Trundles: *evidently feeling lighter and MUCH relieved* MY FAVOURITE GAME! *piles onto bed*

Me: GET OFF THE MOTHERFUCKING BED, BOTH OF YOU!

Both dogs: EEEEK! MOM’S PLAYING TOO! *tear down hallway* *tear back* *leap back on bed* *wrestle and produce ear-scrubbing noise*

Me: …

I came back (after washing my feet and getting dressed) to clean the sludge up, only to find that someone had eaten the bits of half-digested kibble. Whoever it was had, though, kindly left the other shoelace and some of the liquid.

I might have been grateful, but they were both on my bed, worn out after wrestling and growling, and half asleep.

So I sent them outside, where they pressed their noses against the French door on the deck and silently beamed YOU ARE SO CROOOOOL AND UNJUST at me while I stripped the bed. Guess I have to scrub the carpet too. Again.

*headdesk*