Lilith Saintcrow's Blog, page 174

EXCUSE ME SIR

“EXCUSE ME SIR. YES, DOWN HERE. IT HAS COME TO MY ATTENTION THAT YOU MAY HAVE NOMS. LOOK AT HOW CUTE I AM. DON’T YOU WANT TO GIVE ME SOME? I’LL BE YOUR BEST FRIEND.”

Odd Trundles, the ever-hopeful. The world has gone crazy this week. I was thinking we could use a little bulldog puppeh.

Snapback

Yesterday I finished the zero draft of a short story for Fireside Mag, tentatively titled Maternal Type. If it won’t work for them I’ll write them another–I should finish another short story just to have on hand, just in case. Usually I wait until I’m asked to produce one, which may explain part of why the process is so…fraught. It may also explain why I don’t do so many of them–because going oh my God you might not like this one let me produce fifteen and let you choose please like one pleasepleaseplease is sort of…creepy. And not so professional.

Anyway, Maternal Type slid out pretty easily once I was over the initial WARGH, which is how second attempts at short stories (thankfully) tend to go. Then for the rest of the day, my brain was full of echoes. I’ve written about snapback before, but I might as well have another go at it.

Snapback is what I call that peculiar exhaustion which follows finishing any intense piece of creative work. Working means your engines–the massive things that sit below the floor of your consciousness, making everything tremble with their humming–are going full speed, perhaps pulling a massive weight, perhaps Tuning an entire world into being. When the work of creation is done, all that energy, all that force doesn’t just stop. It has to wind down, sparking and shuddering.

Which is, to say the least, uncomfortable. For me, the sensation of having my brain turn into mush is unpleasant in the highest degree. The end of a big project or even just a very vivid and deeply-felt one feels a little like an emotional hangover, with a component of physical aches and pains. All that emotional energy spent may overdraw one’s “bank”, and I know writers who invariably catch a cold after finishing a work or series. In other words, it feels like crap.

A lot of new or aspiring writers make the mistake of thinking this discomfort (or outright pain) means they’re doing something wrong, and subtly (or not so subtly) use it as another reason not to finish other works, just to flog the one completed thing. Which shoots them in the foot, in more ways than one. Instead of viewing it as a normal part of a process, like the aches and pains the day after a hard workout, they think “OH GOD I’M DYYYYING” And a lot of wonderful stories they could have told afterward rot unborn inside them.

Learning about your own snapback after finishing is a valuable part of teaching yourself to produce consistently. You don’t need to lie caterwauling on a bed of nails–unless you like that sort of thing, I guess? At least, not for very long. Give yourself a time limit. I generally need a day’s worth of recovery time after a short story. Novels, especially end-of-series novels, might take a week. Right after you finish, do celebrate! Get down, get your groove on, get inebriated if you want, glory in the fact that the fucking thing is finished And do give yourself a little bit of time to feel like the low end of the pool.

My recovery often involves mindless video games, long walks, and periods of time just spent staring out a window, my mind slowly congealing back into its usual sharp bustle. I give myself a deadline to be done with that part of the process. (Sometimes this doesn’t work, and I’m mortified at myself for not getting off the stick sooner.) By acknowledging the need and building the expectation of a little time to recover into your process as a matter of course, you’re giving yourself the best possible start on a new project.

So, what does your snapback look like? What’s your process? Mine is constantly in need of fine-tuning–the Valentine series knocked me sideways, where the Damnation Affair left me feeling tired but oddly energized as well. (My God, that book was a lot of fun.) Don’t expect the process to stay static–but do account for it.

Over and out.

An Alien Signal

Just before dawn it was clear, but as I’ve been at the computer, mist has risen from the earth, hanging in the trees. It’s a nice way to begin, and I have the short story slated for today. I’m either going to finish it, or get it to a place where it can be finished soon.

I don’t know what it is about short stories–each time, I have an idea that will work, I pursue it, and then I have to throw it out and come at it sideways, and I end up with a completely different story that is unrelated in a specific way to the original one. The original one, half-born, waits around until it becomes a second attempt at a completely different short story. Unlike my novel process, the short story process doesn’t change with each one. But still, I would rather write novel or novella-length than short story. I find shorts difficult, temperamental, nerve-wracking. It’s good practice, but like many other good-practice things, it’s uncomfortable and I’m always glad when it’s done.

My dreams have been odd of late, even for me. Coherent stories, but…odd. Escaping from Soviet Russia, cakes with hard, bittersweet chocolate shells, bonfires of paint. It’s not even a mental housecleaning, it’s like a very particular frequency of static, a burst right before one starts receiving an alien signal. Added to this, the crows on my morning run have begun greeting me, and we play little games, which Miss B doesn’t like. She hates chasing things that can fly, their taunting disturbs her but she’s helpless to stop.

I know you guys are waiting for the second half of Napoleon’s interrupte. I’ll write it when I’m ready, thank you.

And now, back to the short story. Either it or I will perish today. *buckles in*

photo by:


h.koppdelaney

Cake

Sometimes it’s the little things that catch your eye.

Revision Ahoy

My goal to blog a bit more has fallen by the wayside. Time to dust myself off and start all over again.

Yesterday, while my computer was engaged in thinking, I kept myself busy by cleaning my office. Which pretty much meant filing some stuff, putting other stuff in the “shred this sometime” pile, disturbing a lot of dust, organizing this that and the other, and consolidating the three huge plastic bins of stuff I should file away soonish.

Oh, the joy. All this while the weather flipflopped outside–pouring rain, then bright steaming sun. The yard is littered with broken branches and shredded greenery.

Unfortunately, something about yesterday also gave Odd Trundles a seizure episode. He doesn’t have them often enough to warrant medication and all its side effects, and the vet has trained us to just be calm and soft-spoken, clean things up and reassure him as best we can, while keeping an eye out for the symptoms that would mean rushing him to the doggie ER is a good idea. Thankfully, those didn’t occur. And really, we don’t know what triggers these episodes of his. It could have been the changing air pressure, except the time before this it was steady. It could be the excitement of cleaning, but he’s had more excitement and change and handled it just fine. It could just be that his little brain gets overwhelmed and needs a reset every once in a while.

Anyway, he was an exhausted puppy afterward. Poor little broken creature. He needs his nails clipped too, but I think I’ll hold off on that for a couple days. Just to give him time to calm down. He slept heavily last night, and is his regular prancing joyful self today.

Which is good, because today is the day I leap back on the third Bannon & Clare book for revision into a decent first draft, as well as getting the architecture for a scene in a short story right. I’m tired already just thinking about it, but needs must when the devil drives.

I like that saying perhaps a little more than is healthy.

So today I look up at the teensy shrine at the top of my desk, Ganesh’s sly smile as he writes in his own book, and I take a deep breath and I go on. Remover of Obstacles, here I go.

Shoot It!

So I finished the zero draft of the third Bannon & Clare book last week, and my brain promptly melted.

It’s okay, though, I was prepared for that. I had a video game.

Yes, friends and neighbors, for the first time since I was 15 or thereabouts, I played a first-person shooter game. *twitches* I played Doom a loooong while back, PC version, not console. I like PC gaming, console gaming just doesn’t move me. Also, I love cheat codes. Nothing like IDDQD’ing a few levels to get all one’s aggression out.

So yeah, I picked up Borderlands…and promptly fell into it for hours at a time. I even fell back in the habit of being so annoyed I don’t even swear when I inevitably die, instead uttering such gems as “Oh, for crying in the…Oh, fudgepops…oh, really? Really?” Needless to say, this disturbed the kids initially. If I’m swearing a blue streak, all is well. The instant I say something like “Oh…fudgesicles…” IT IS TIME TO BE CONCERNED.

They got used to it, though. Especially the Little Prince, who loves to stand at my shoulder and point at the screen. “He’s over there…Mum, Mum, over there…over there…” He also hops from one foot to the other if I don’t react quickly enough. He loves to run in and lay waste to EVERYTHING, where I’m more a pick-them-off-from-a-distance player.

Still, I suppose it’s bonding.

The Princess doesn’t care to watch me game; she is busy catching up with a certain television series her friends like. If it wasn’t for the internet, she might be bothering me to get cable so she can be up-to-date.

Ah, youth.

Anyway, I get one more day off before I go back and turn the just-finished zero draft into a respectable first draft and send it off to the editor early, so I can start the third fairytale retelling. (Ruby’s story is slowly coalescing.) So guess what I’m going to be doing to waste my time off and recharge my mental batteries?

You got it. Lock and load…

photo by:


Cia de Foto

Inception

The Friday photo, a day late, but maybe it’s just replaying in dreamtime?

NAMELESS Release Day!

Guess what? Nameless is released today!

An adopted princess. An immortal Family. A snow-choked city…and one blood-red apple.

When Camille was six years old, she was discovered alone in the snow by Enrico Vultusino, godfather of the Seven—the powerful Families that rule magic-ridden New Haven. Papa Vultusino adopted the mute, scarred child, naming her after his dead wife and raising her in luxury on Haven Hill alongside his own son, Nico.

Now Cami is turning sixteen. She’s no longer mute, though she keeps her faded scars hidden under her school uniform, and though she opens up only to her two best friends, Ruby and Ellie, and to Nico, who has become more than a brother to her. But even though Cami is a pampered Vultusino heiress, she knows that she is not really Family. Unlike them, she is a mortal with a past that lies buried in trauma. And it’s not until she meets the mysterious Tor, who reveals scars of his own, that Cami begins to uncover the secrets of her birth…to find out where she comes from and why her past is threatening her now.

Now available from , Amazon, and independent bookstores.

***

I began writing what became Nameless about twelve years ago. For years I kept going back and poking at the opening scene, the young girl in the snow and Enrico Vultusino. I knew I wasn’t ready to write a character whose strength was more internal, not to mention one with a horrific stutter. (In an earlier attempt at a draft, Cami didn’t talk at all, and that was a headache, let me tell you.) Nico was also a headache, wanting more of the story than he really needed to have, until we both realized it was Cami’s story and she needed space and time to get it out. (I called it “Snow White and the Seven Mob Bosses” for a long time, and the Selkie kept asking when I was going to finish it, because that tagline made her laugh.) And finally, now, today, is Cami’s long-awaited chance to speak directly to you, to tell her story.

I’m glad. I hope you enjoy it. I’m my regular bundle of release-day nerves, so I’ll be over in the corner with my head in a bucket, trying desperately to finish the third Bannon & Clare book.

Over and out…

Control, Creative

Go now, and read this piece on Marlon Brando.

The genius, then, sprung from control: Give me a million dollars and no deadline to write my next scandal piece for Hairpin and I’ll turn in something two years from now that basically recites “I Love You Ryan Gosling Take Off Your Shirt.” Have me do it for free with only the promise of personal glory, and I’ll give you something with esoteric adjectives, turns of phrase, and jokes concerning my home state — plus I’ll turn it in on time, every time.

Same goes for the stars. With effectively no oversight and enormous demand for his services, Brando began to indulge: in women, in food, in his own vanity. The films after On the Waterfront are successively more bloated and embarrassing, and a 1957 New Yorker profile, written by Truman Capote, made it clear that Brando was not just a jackass but perhaps also a dilettante. And it’s completely heartbreaking. (Anne Helen Petersen)

Few things are as electric for me as Marlon Brando in On The Waterfront. When he’s fitting Eva Marie Saint’s white glove on, and when he’s taking a beating behind the Bad Guy’s shack…wow. I mean, Streetcar Named Desire is awesome, but that movie belongs more to Vivien Leigh than to Brando (and that probably adds to the OMG tension in it). And putting him in a leather jacket doesn’t move me anymore. But I coulda been a contender? OH YES. YES PLEASE.

There’s a line to be walked when it comes to control of your own career as a creative. Sometimes it’s a fine one–how best to respond to people confusing you with your characters? (Hint: Very, very carefully.) Other times it’s a huge thick black scrawl you can see from space–how to respond to reviews? (Hint: DON’T.) Believing your own publicity is the kiss of death. Staying hungry, staying sharp, refusing to look away, remembering that even the greatest star needs editing or direction, this is a lifelong work, and it’s easy to get tired and start believing your own bullshit (or the internet review-o-sphere) is Holy Writ.

It’s good to have at least one best friend who punctures you when you get too bigheaded, and it’s doubly good to look at other life trajectories and think there but for the grace of God…

It’s also possible to go the other way–doing it for free is the only way to prove you love something OR produce Worthy Arte, which, in too-large quantities, is just as much damaging bullshit. There’s no shame in getting fairly paid for the work you pour into your creativity, there is definitely no shame in knowing your own worth and asking for it–or even a little bit more–because you work like a drayhorse. It’s hard to walk that line and so, so easy to get tired or brutally self-indulgent. There’s also no shame in working for something other than cash, as long as you have a really good strong idea of what that other thing is and what your endgame needs to include.

All in all, though, I would rather have a creative career have too much control by said creative than too little. It does give one bloated Brando, but the other way–complete studio/audience control–uses up people and throws them away like Kleenex. There’s enough of that where writers, actors, musicians, and other artists are concerned, at least in our culture.

Anyway. Happy April First, there is no prank hidden in this blog post. I hate the nastiness masquerading as fun on this day with a passion, which has a lot to do with the endless torment I received as a child. I’ve grown to dislike practical jokes of all kinds, really. There’s just too much meanness masquerading as “just having fun” in the world.

And now cranky fun-less me should go have some breakfast.

Over and out.

photo by:


Matt Biddulph

Anniversary

My goodness, another year with Miss B has flown! Yes, it’s the anniversary (again) of the day I brought her home. She’s the best running partner and cuddle-bucket a girl could have. Plus, we can lie on the dining room floor together and have long talks about nothing…