Lilith Saintcrow's Blog, page 201

Book almost done. Send bazooka.

Can't talk. Busy with apocalypse. Tune in tomorrow (at least, I hope) for the next installment of the Saga of Squirrel!Neo, in which we learn that squirrels are crack shots with teensy pinecones. And where Mercutio!Jay saves me from myself like a true feathered gentleman. Also, the appearance of Romeo!Jay.

Back later…

Related posts:A Squirrel's Classic Blunder
Training Is Everything
Squirrels Falling

Heaven's Spite Teaser

I know I promised another in the ongoing series about my writing process, but the Deadline Dames are running a snippet extravaganza this week! So, I'll be writing more about process next Friday.

Today, you're going to get a peek at an upcoming book. I went back and forth for a long time wondering which book I should excerpt here. Generally I don't give excerpts, because I don't like spoiling books. I prefer to have the story whole, laid out in front of the reader in its complete form as much as possible. Plus, I feel very strongly that each event in a novel, each scene, each piece of dialogue, is integral to every other piece. Taking one out is akin to playing a very dangerous game of Jenga and risking a collapse of the work as a whole.

I take these things too seriously. But then, that's my job. Anyway.

[image error]So, my next release is Heaven's Spite, the fifth in the Jill Kismet series. I've chosen part of what has turned out to be one of my very favourite scenes between Jill and her Werecougar, Saul. Enjoy!

***

Then, because it was dark and we were at my teacher's grave, because the Talisman throbbed like a sore tooth on my chest and I ached all over, especially with the heavy weight of the bezoar in my pocket, I told him the truth. "It would kill me to lose you, Saul."

He turned his head. Clean beautiful profile presented as he looked down at the city. "I've done all right so far."

Damn touchy Weres. But at least he wasn't assuming I didn't need him around and clamming up. That was no good. "I'm not implying you can't take care of yourself. I just…Jesus, Saul. Please."

"Look." He pointed, a swift gesture taking in the lights huddled in the valley, cuddled against the blackness of the river's flow and the bulk of the looming mountains. The stars were hard cold diamonds, scattered over dirty velvet. "That's Santa Luz."

I know that. I lifted the bottle to my mouth, waited for him to make his point.

He waited a beat, as if he'd expected me to say something, then went on. "Every single innocent soul down in that valley is pulling on you from one direction. And I'm pulling from the other. How long is it going to be before we tear you in half?"

Is that what you think? That you're on different sides? The vodka burned my mouth. I swallowed. Dried blood crackled on my skin. "You're wrong. You both pull me in the same direction, Saul. The only thing pulling on the other side is…this. The things I'm trained to do. I commit murder every night. Several times, if everything's hopping and the breed are uppity." It was a night for uncomfortable truths. I would have expected us to be halfway to a screaming match by now. "Sometimes I wonder what makes me different from them." It was my turn to wait before giving him the answer. "Then I realize it's you."

"Jill—"

I wanted to get it all out. "I'm scared, Saul. I can't retire. This is the only thing I know how to do. The only thing I'm capable of. And if something happens to you, I am going to end up worse than the hellspawn. Because I won't care."

Silence, then, between us. I lifted the bottle, let a thin stream dip from it and plash on the headstone. None of us would get drunk—my helltainted metabolism ran too fast, and Weres burn through alcohol like it's sugar.

And Mikhail? He wasn't even here. It was just a stone I poured hooch on to make myself feel better.

Most of the time I was glad he was sleeping soundly. Because if he wasn't I would have to make him. Then there were the other times, when I almost didn't care.

I wanted him back.

Saul was very still, the charms in his hair glinting. "I wouldn't take the Long Road without you, Jill." Quietly, stubbornly. "Not even you could make me do that."

Sometimes talking to him felt like a cardiac arrest, like my heart was literally stopping. Or just hurting. What do you do when you love someone so much your body does that? You can't fight it, you can't shoot it, you can't do anything but let it happen. "I don't want to push my luck."

He stepped close. Paused. Stepped closer. His arm came over my shoulders, and the tension went out of me. I leaned into him, filth and dried blood making small crinkling sounds as my head dropped down. Silver chimed as charms hit each other, and I saw the red glow of the Talisman on my chest had muted to a glimmer. It faded as I leaned into him.

He let out a soft sigh. "It's not luck. I chose this, and so did you. We made a decision. Even if you let go, kitten, I'm still holding on."

A hot bubble rose up in my chest. It was a scream. I had to work to keep it locked down, swallowing several times. "Saul?" Again, the high breathless voice. I sounded fifteen again. And terrified.

"Shhh. Listen."

I did. Heard nothing but the breeze in the trees, whispering over the well-watered grass. Traffic in the distance. My heartbeat, a song in my ears. Silver clinking a little as Saul moved, lifting his chin.

"I'll go to Galina's." Quietly. His arm tightened around me.

Oh, thank God. "Thank—"

"Someone has to look after Gilberto. You've sent Hutch there too, I presume?"

I nodded. He could feel the movement against his shoulder. I reeked. He smelled of healthy cat Were, the dry-oily, slightly spicy tang of a brunet male. "Saul—"

"Don't thank me, Jill. I'm doing this for your peace of mind. I'll stay there for a day or so, but then I'm back on the job with you. It's a compromise."

***

Yeah, Weres are all about compromise. When you have big claws and teeth, I suppose it's for the best. Anyway, that's one of my very favorite scenes between those two crazy kids. Hope you liked it, and be sure to check out the other Dames' snippets this week!

Over and out.

Related posts:Writing With A Heartbreak
Introducing Flesh Circus!
Daily Magic

Neo And The Fence

First, the news: If you have an ebook reader and are in the US, and you want a sneak peek at the upcoming Jill Kismet book, Heaven's Spite, check out the Orbital Drop.

Next, a question. My book-finding kung fu is usually pretty good. Which means I get calls in the middle of the night from people who can't remember a specific title, or who know only the color of a book. (Hey, at least they're calling. Otherwise I'd feel lonely.) But this particular request has me stumped.

Here's what we know about the book: the cover was black, it had "Osiris" in the title, it was around in the mid-70s, and the publisher's logo was an Aladdin's cave-style oil lamp. Not sure if it's hard or softcover, and it's metaphysics/occult, not poetry or history. Any hints are welcome. (Translation: I am releasing the hounds of the Internet Hive Mind! HIDE!)

And now, about my fence.

A couple days after Squirrel Matrix Training, a day or so after the falling squirrels, I shambled to the treadmill in a fog. I yawned, climbed on, suppressed a coffee-tasting burp…and realized something was not quite right.

There was a huge bloody hole in my fence. I went out to examine, my jaw suspiciously loose.

I have a chain link fence with those plastic strips worked through the links for privacy. The metal bits were still standing, but the plastic had been melted in a five-plus-foot hole right behind the plum tree. At first I thought it was some kind of chemical, since the strips were gnarly-melted.

"Sonofabitch," I said, plus other words too.

It used to be a beautiful field back behind my house. Alas, the Powers of Development arose and stuck an apartment complex there. It would be fine if the kids from the complex didn't throw trash over my fence, or steal things out of my back yard before I put a lock on the gate back there–and let's not even talk about the petty vandalism on the padlocks I put in, until the hedge-bushes managed to grow enough to make it hard to get to. The whole thing is compounded by the fact that there's a humongous dustbin right behind my back gate, so there's all sorts of bloody hijinks and interesting smells.

Anyway, there was the hole in my fence and I couldn't do anything about it right at the moment. So I decided to repair to the treadmill and think about things. I didn't trust my temper without exercise to ameliorate it, and the fence was already damaged. I was already in my exercise togs, I might as well get the run out of the way, take a shower, and then start planning. It sounded a very adult thing to do.

Right as my first mile clocked over, I saw the maintenance man from the complex taking pictures of the hole from his side of the fence, wedged into a convenient hole in the hedge. I was off the treadmill in two seconds and in the back yard to meet him.

"I hope you're as concerned about this as I am," was my opening shot.

The poor guy. Apparently there had been a fire the previous afternoon. Someone had called him instead of calling 911, it was a miracle the fire hadn't spread to the plum tree or the juniper. And now here I was, breathing hard like a crazy woman, sweating a little, and in exercise togs.

"Damn kids," I said. "This isn't the first time we've had problems."

He sighed, his shoulders slumped. "Well, yeah. I'm going to see if the landscapers can trim the bushes away, so parents can see their kids playing…"

I gave him an are-you-high? sort of look. I mean, come on. If the parents were paying attention the little cheeseheads wouldn't be throwing crap over my fence all the time. "Um, that's not such a good idea for me," I said, rather diplomatically I think. "When the bushes were smaller we had a lot more rubbish thrown over the fence."

He winced. "Well, you can just throw it back…" He seemed physically unable to end a sentence with a period. Instead he'd trail off, hang his head to the side a little, and give me a sheepish look.

That's not the point, I thought, but manfully restrained myself. I did extract a halfass promise to get my fence fixed, which I will no doubt have to twist an arm or two to have made good upon. I don't even want to think about that right now, it makes me tired. At this point I just wanted to go back and finish my run, and I was pretty sure he wanted to be anywhere else but there talking to me.

And then Maintenance Man glanced up over my shoulder. "Huh."

I looked back. And I flinched.

Squirrel Neo was on the roof. Beady eye fixed upon us, he chittered loudly. I didn't need a squirreltongue dictionary to figure out it was a warcry.

"Oh no," I said. I was presented with one of those exotic moments–how do you explain to a guy just doing his job that a squirrel knows kung fu? How do you even begin to explain the squirrels falling out of the sky? Where do you even start with something like this?

I was saved the trouble. Because Neo hurled himself across my roof, leapt off, spun on the birdfeeder a couple times, was flung through the air, landed in the middle of my yard, and came scampering straight for us.

I didn't have time to say more than "AUGH!" Maintenance Man let out a "Jesus Christ!" worthy of King Arthur. Imagine two grown adults quailing as a squirrel leaps through ankle-high grass–look, we've already established I should mow more, all right? Don't judge. Anyway, we cowered.

It was not my finest moment.

However, we weren't Neo's targets. He leapt up into the plum tree and furiously upbraided us. Again, I'm not way up on my squirreltongue, but I think he was saying something like this:

"YEAH! NOW YOU SEE! NOW YOU SEE IT! I KNOW KUNG FU! NEXT TIME IT'S NOT JUST A GRENADE, GODDAMN YOU! YOU TELL THAT PONCEY BLUEJAY I'M COMIN' FOR HIM! YEEEEEAAAH!"

"What the hell–" Maintenance Man stared in wonder. I was backing up.

Squirrel!Neo scrambled through the branches, extended in a flying leap, and landed on the fence not two feet from Maintenance Man, who let out another strangled sound. Neo scurried along the fence, all the way across my back yard, hopped down into the brush that used to hold the compost pile, and disappeared into my neighbor's yard.

I took stock. We were both still alive. Nobody had been kicked in the head. "Jesus," I breathed.

"Never seen one do that before…" Maintenance Man swallowed visibly. "So, yeah. Anyway. Thank goodness the fire didn't spread…"

Did you not just SEE that? I stopped myself just in time. I mean, the situation was bad enough. I wouldn't make it any better by ranting about a squirrel. See, this is the difference between me now and me fifteen-twenty years ago. I know to keep my fool mouth shut sometimes. "Yeah. Thank goodness nobody was hurt. I'd better get back to my treadmill. I look forward to having the fence fixed."

And I beat a retreat.

I won't lie. I felt better inside, with the sunroom door firmly closed and bolted.

After that, I didn't see a single squirrel for a couple days. Am I a coward if I admitted I was grateful? My gratitude, however, was short-lived.

Neo wasn't done yet.

Related posts:Training Is Everything
Wednesday Three
Squirrel!Matrix

Squirrels Falling

The crows tried to warn me as I was walking back from the bus stop. The local murder was up in a fir tree behind the neighbor's house, and they carried on until I called back. I think they knew I didn't quite understand, I was busy planning out my day. Just let it be known they tried to warn me. It isn't their fault.

This was, of course, the day after I witnessed Squirrel!Neo's training. My fence was still intact. (We'll get to the fence in the next post, I promise. Bear with me.) I kind of wondered if anything would happen while I was on the treadmill, but it was dead quiet.

Too quiet.

I did see Mercutio!Jay, stuffing himself with bread in the usual manner. The crows came down and picked at the bread too, ignoring Mercutio's bad-tempered screeching. They paid me no mind, having apparently done all they could. All was serene.

It wasn't until I was on my fifth and final mile that I realized something was happening. I tore my earbuds out and listened, trying to focus over the soughing of my breath and the sound of the treadmill's motor, the pounding of my feet. If I still had the old squeaky treadmill I never would have noticed it. Scrabbling sounds? Something?

What the hell is that? I listened as hard as I could all through the final mile, which passed agonizingly slowly without music. Huh. It's coming from the roof.

As soon as I finished the last mile I hit the stop button. Breathing hard, covered in sweat, I cocked my head and was rewarded.

Well, maybe rewarded isn't the right word. It sounded like there was a goddamn moose on my roof.

What the– I seriously did not even get to finish the thought. It was at that moment the squirrel fell.

It gamely tried to grab the birdfeeder hanging in front of the sunroom window, missed, and plunged to the grass. It was up again in an instant, shaking its head, and another one followed, making the same desperate grab for the feeder.

"Jesus!" I yelled, actually jumping on the treadmill. Squirrels 1 and 2 scrambled for the fence to my right, buttonhooking around the edge of my garage, and the scrabbling on the roof intensified.

And another squirrel fell.

I stared. It's raining Rodentia. No, they've gone lemming. Wait–they're lying in wait for Santa a few months early. What the bloody hell?

Another squirrel hurtled down, making the same grab for the feeder. "Ohhhhhhh," I breathed. "You sonsabitches! That's for the bloody birds, you morons!"

I kept ranting. The squirrels kept falling.

At this point I realized I was standing on my treadmill, dripping with sweat, screaming in my sunroom while squirrels streaked to earth like meteors. I realized there was about five of them, and they were running laps–around the corner of my garage, up the juniper bush around the front, onto the roof, across the house to the sunroom, and searching for a way to get to the birdfeeder. They were determined, and one actually grabbed the lip of the feeder and was spun as it twirled on its rope, then shaken off and flung to the ground. By that point, they were all looking a bit stunned.

The last one to fall off was Squirrel!Neo. I'd recognize that cocked tail and beady glare anywhere. He lay for a second in the dew-wet grass, then hopped to his feet and stared at me. We stood like that, woman and squirrel, both of us out of breath. I swallowed the last half of the sentence I was about to yell.

This isn't over, he seemed to be saying. Bitch, this is so not over.

At this point, I'm afraid, my temper snapped. "Oh, yeah?" I put both hands on my hips. "Bring it, you fuzzy-assed moron. Bring it."

As soon as the words were out of my mouth, he scampered away. There was a final scurry on my roof, heading for the bedrooms and the hedge and fence. The squirrels all disappeared into the hedge, and I began to feel a little nervy. I tried to tell myself it was just a squirrel, and after all, I had Mercutio on my side, right? I was the tool-using mammal with the opposable thumb and thousands of years of technology on my side. I could handle a squirrel.

I had no idea what was coming.

Related posts:Training Is Everything
Squirrel Wars
Squirrel!Matrix

Training Is Everything

I only have a couple minutes today. There's been more Squirrel Terror, so I'll just update you on that. At least, I'll update you on part of it. I just…I don't even know.

Apparently Squirrel!Neo took getting laughed at pretty seriously. After his plan involving Mercutio ignominiously failed, we had a couple days of peace. Then, last week–maybe it was Tuesday, because my fence was still there (more on that later, I promise)–I climbed on the treadmill and was actually relaxing a little bit, thinking that I would have a nice easy run without any shenanigans.

I was wrong.

It didn't take me long to realize Neo was lurking about. Not only that, but there was another squirrel in my yard. The two faced each other in sunlit grass, noses twitching, before Neo leapt on the intruder and a fursplosion occurred. The other squirrel would chitter contemptuously every time Neo was flung back.

I actually thought the newcomer was some punk looking to take over Neo's territory, and of course, I started rooting for Neo. (Better the squirrel demon you know than a new one, right?) But something didn't seem quite right, even when Mercutio!Jay showed up, perching on the fence and eying the proceedings with great interest.

Then something amazing happened.

Squirrel!Neo broke away, and I swear to God the other squirrel yelled, "Good game! Now, lap time! MOVE IT!"

And Squirrel!Neo (I am NOT making this up) headed for the plum tree like his tail was on fire.

He shimmied up the plum tree, foliage shook, and he leapt for the fence. Stuck the landing, barreled past a bemused Mercutio!Jay (who fluttered up to the hedge behind, still cocking his head in a bemused fashion) and jumped up into the pussywillow. He proceeded to perform a two-minute acrobatic routine in the willow, leaves fluttering madly, then he leapt back down to the fence and disappeared into the neighbor's yard. Thirty seconds later he was back, streaking across open space past the other squirrel, who stood motionless.

Neo did this three times, acrobatics included. I was tired just watching him. Mercutio watched silently, and the other squirrel just stood there, watching, his tail occasionally twitching. He was a big dude, too. At least a head taller than Neo, which, granted, isn't saying much. They're squirrels. Still, he had great posture.

After the third lap, Neo skidded to a stop in the middle of the yard and looked at the bigger squirrel. They stared at each other, and then, I swear, the bigger squirrel nodded. They both broke at the same instant for the juniper hedge and vanished.

Mercutio!Jay coasted across the yard, settled in the feeder in front of my window, and had his breakfast. Every once in a while, he would stop and stare sidelong at the yard, as if trying to figure out what the hell he'd just seen. Once he finished pecking at the birdseed, he stopped, his wings flicking absently.

Then he tilted his head and stared at me, like he was trying to tell me we'd seen something momentous. I pondered this as I ran. It was almost the end of the third mile.

"Holy shit!!" I yelled, suddenly. "Oh my God!"

Mercutio hopped twice, like he couldn't believe I hadn't seen it earlier.

"Holy shit!" I yelled again, as the mileage clicked over to mile four. "MERCUTIO! THAT WAS F!CKING MORPHEUS! HE'S TRAINING NEO! THAT WAS SQUIRREL KUNG FU TRAINING!"

I swear to God the bluejay rolled his eyes at me. He took off in a flash of blue feathers, and I began to laugh. Within sixty seconds, though, I'd stopped laughing, and not just because I was running.

Because I'd realized, you see, that Neo in training…well.

I'm a little afraid for my bluejay hero.

Related posts:A Squirrel's Classic Blunder
Mercutio!Jay, My Hero
Squirrel!Matrix

Environment (Process, Part II)

Crossposted to the Deadline Dames. Check us out!

Welcome to my ongoing series about about the various parts of what I call "writing process". Last week I talked about how I consider everyday writing as a necessary prerequisite for producing publishable work. Today I'm going to talk a little bit about the environment I do that daily writing in. Next week, I'm going to talk about what stages I go through emotionally and craft-wise as I bring a book from inception to finished manuscript.

The creative process is intensely personal, and practicing it is like being a mage in Jo Clayton's excellent Soul Drinker trilogy. To sum up (which I really shouldn't, because that series is just so excellent and complex and wonderful): Magical chants in that world are arrived at by a laborious process of finding psychological "keys", mostly etched into a person as a result of childhood experiences, so there is no one way that will work for everyone.

That being said, there are still some simple guidelines, most of which I've arrived at through trial and error. But before I get into that, a digression in the form of some background about my writing environment…

I am now one of the fortunate who can largely arrange her life around her writing. Before this blessed time, however, I snatched bits of writing wherever and whenever I could. I wrote on notepads during lunch and coffee breaks, and also during long slow afternoons working in the drive-through at a bank. I became very good at finding what I called the sweet spot[1]–it was a certain frame of mind where the story felt like it had been waiting for me to pick it up all along. I could almost feel the click of my brain shifting over to another mode. Driving to and from work, or driving to school, was also good because the back half of my brain was busy running through and digesting plot and character, so when I could snatch a few moments to scribble I had something all ready to commit.

I can write under almost any circumstances. I've written in hospital rooms, during the crazy period of having basically two toddlers in the house, on vacations, wedged into airplane seats, hiding in bathrooms while a party rages around me. It's nice not to have to do such things, but I do credit those situations with teaching me to deal with less-than-ideal conditions. Once one knows what less-than-ideal is, one can generally make a stab at closer-to-ideal. So it was immensely valuable.

If you used time lapse photography on me during a writing day, you'd find a lot of motion. Writing's a physical sport for me. I get up and hop around when something excites me. I jump up and block out fight scenes, I pace when a scene's not working or when I start trying out dialogue. There's a lot of me dancing in my chair–either from sheer glee or along with the music, since there's almost always music in the background. I've grown used to writing with noise, and with the kidlets at school during the day, well, sometimes it gets a bit too quiet. Of course, there are days, usually when I'm writing a tricky or difficult emotional scene, or near the end of a book, when I crave silence and will go so far as to keep every curtain in my house drawn, lock the door, and just not answer anything or anybody until the kids come home.

You would probably also notice that I work in bursts. I am not one of those writers who can sit and just go for long periods. I go in 300 word chunks or so, then I sit back and think about it. Occasionally I will hunch over the keyboard and a chapter or two will just flow through me, but that's the exception, not the rule. I'll generally write a little, then noodle on something else until I get the next sequence of events/dialogue, then do a little more. On days when I feel especially scattered I like to shut off my wireless router or use Freedom to cut the Internet timesuck. Which brings up an interesting (and to my mind, necessary) point: I plan around my tendencies.

I know I'm a burst writer, and I know the time in between those bursts are when I'm likely to get derailed. (This is another reason why I use kitchen timers so often during the day.) So, I plan and prioritize to minimize distraction. (This became much, much easier when I started living without television.) I also know I'm incredibly physical when I write, so I have different props lying around the house so I can go pick them up and play when I hit a between-burst slump or a knotty problem.

This is turning into a ramble instead of a digression, so I'll just finish by noting that I've only recently (like in the last six months) arrived at what I would consider my ideal environment. Before that, I just did what I could. Now, I sometimes "practice" by writing in places where I have to work to maintain focus, just to keep the iron sharp. This is part of discipline, and discipline is crucial if you expect to consistently produce publishable work. So, on to guidelines!

* Accept that you prefer certain things in your environment while you're creating. Also accept that we live in an imperfect world and you may not get those things. I would love to write in a seaside cottage with everything I need magically appearing at my door, with other people only around when I want to talk, and a six-week vacation for world travel every year so I could go out and fill up my well of images. Unfortunately, that ain't gonna happen. I would also prefer to write at night, but with two kids in school and errands to run to keep a house running as a single mum, that's not feasible. Plus, sometimes I'd really like a pony and a cabana boy. But somehow, I manage to struggle along without. *sardonic grin*

* Accept that you are responsible for figuring out how to make an imperfect environment work for you. Some days, headphones work to drown out distractions around me. Other days, I need more stimulation than I'm getting at home, so I drag the laptop to a coffee shop. It's a constant balancing act. In the end, however, I am the one who is responsible for either arranging my environment or dealing with the imperfections and doing the goddamn work anyway. Either way, it goes a lot easier when I just shrug and deal.

* Find cheap ways to get what you need. Sometimes I would really like to go to the museum, but it's not particularly feasible. So I pop down to a bookstore and look at giant art books. I love music, but sometimes it's prohibitively expensive. I listen to Internet radio and frequent used-CD stores. I really, really want a nice katana to help me through a battle scene, can't afford one, so a cheap bokken and some imagination works. Movies are kind of expensive, but Netflix is pretty cheap. Maybe I can't go shopping in the tony part of town but I can go to Goodwill and snark everything I find. Maybe I can't afford a nice Levenger desk, but I can get an Ikea portable laptop stand and it'll do the trick. Ersatz can work.

* Get over being embarrassed. I think it was Flaubert who liked the smell of rotting apples and kept a drawer full of them in his desk. When he felt inspiration waning, he opened the drawer, leaned over, and took a whiff. I imagine he might've felt a bit embarrassed if anyone caught him at it, just like I feel faintly ridiculous practicing dialogue while stuck in traffic or dancing around my living room waving a weapon. I've pretty much made my peace with the fact that I'm going to look ridiculous on a daily basis for the rest of my life. I console myself with the thought that everyone around me is just as worried, and if I can get some creative juice out of it, well, it's all good.

* Be ruthless with "splinters". Splinters are the low-level annoyances in a room or your life that grind away at you, whether it's a laundry pile that irritates you every time you see it or an emotional saboteur, possibly one you live with. Stamp on their heads. Get rid of them, or isolate them, or put them somewhere else. This is a lot easier with laundry piles than it is with saboteurs, but it's worth doing. The more you prioritize, the better your environment will be.

* Be ruthless with distractions. A little bit of noodling or distraction is okay. I can't get through a writing session without short breaks to sit and think. Sometimes, the most important part of the session is when I'm sitting and staring at the screen, my brain tuned to that hum of high-octane daydreaming, and insight pops along merrily as if it's just been waiting for me to shut up so it can get a word in edgewise. But you have to be honest with yourself. Avoidance is avoidance, and you have to understand, anticipate, and plan for your own avoidance behaviors. This is no different than overcoming one's natural reluctance to do anything unglamorous, like paying bills or brushing one's teeth, except the stakes are higher. This is, after all, writing we're talking about.

* Understand that your environment needs will change over time. I used to write cross-legged in a papasan chair, and then cross-legged in THE CHAIR. Unfortunately, my body won't let me do that for long periods anymore. So now it's an office chair and a portable desk. For a couple days it was uncomfortable, but then I adapted. Never underestimate your ability to adapt.

* Work WITH your preferences, as far as you're able. Since writing is so physical for me, and since I love music so much, sometimes the best part of my day is my morning run with my headphones in and my mind full of images. I also get a fair amount of antidepressant neurochemicals and some physical fitness out of it. I know I like to pace while I think, so I get up and grab some laundry to take to the washer, and by the time I come back I've got the next few lines of dialogue. I know I'm a burst writer and I get derailed, so I set a timer for ten minutes and get up and get it all out of my system, coming back refreshed and ready to work. You know yourself best, you've been living with yourself all your life, you can spend some time thinking about how to make your little quirks and fiddles work for you.

* Allow for screwups. Yeah, sometimes I alter my environment in what I think is going to be an AWESOME way (like, for example, when I thought a metronome would be soothing while I worked) and it turns out about as well as stuffing a cracked out squirrel down my pants[2]. I've found it's easier to just let the damn squirrel go, shrug, bandage myself, and move on.

I just beat that analogy gracelessly to death, didn't I. Perhaps it's time to stop.

So, we've covered commitment and environment. Next week I'll be talking about the stages I go through when writing a book.

Keep writing.

[1] Don't worry, I'll talk more about the sweet spot later in this series of posts.

[2] I ended up having ticking anxiety dreams and nervously chewing at my cuticles because the metronome kept PRESSURING me, dammit. I finally had to put the damn thing in the garage so it wasn't looking at me, and then I moved it to a "FREE" box at the end of the driveway and watched until someone took it. Yeah, I know, I'm crazy. Fine. At least the damn metronome is gone.

Related posts:Process, Part I
If You Want To Get Published…
Some Basic Questions

Holding steady

Ah, the new police state. Smell that vigorous surveillance.

I am determined to get through the rest of the setup before the Big Showdown today, so this will be short. I've hit the treadmill–I saw no squirrel activity, though Mercutio!Jay fluttered through at intervals to keep an eye on things. I think the silence is wearing on his nerves too, because he didn't alight anywhere except the middle of the yard, where he could see anything sneaking up on him due to the shorn grass. Further bulletins as events warrant.

And now I've got the end of the world to plot and Guilder to frame for it. I'm swamped. And it's sickly humid today, though cooler than yesterday. Time for ice water and a hellbreed congress while I play a ton of Rob Dougan and wish he'd put out more bloody CDs.

Over and out.

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