Lilith Saintcrow's Blog, page 202

A Better Year

It's Thanksgiving, and I have so much to be thankful for. Last year at about this time I was bloody miserable. It's nice to be past that.

Later today there will be cooking, and very excited little people helping with sugar cookies, and good smells, and all sorts of fun things. And tonight when I go to bed I'm going to be very, very grateful.

I hope your day turns out as well.

Related posts:Happy Turkey Day
Superhuman Strength Calls For Superhuman Tasks
Cookiepalooza!

Conscious Asshat, Not Misguided Jerk

For the first time in my life, I need slippers. I've been wandering around barefoot most of my life. But I've lost a lot of insulation in the last year, and with the recent drop in temperatures…well, I'm always cold. I'm wearing four layers right now. Admittedly one of the layers is a tank top, because I'm heading out to the climbing wall later today, but still.

Good morning. There's an interesting article on the lost women scientists of the Royal Society (well, not lost, just unacknowledged by their male peers, OH THE SURPRISE) and an article about James Frey that has "literary ethics" in the title. Here's a clue: He doesn't have any. I was willing to believe he got swept away and did a douchebag maneuver once with that whole "look it's a memoir, oh wait, I'm LYING!" thing. People make mistakes, and if you don't f!ck up huge at least once in life, you're either incredibly lucky or not trying hard enough.

But this whole Full Fathom Five thing is not a mistake, and it moves him firmly into the category of conscious asshat instead of simply-misguided jerk. At bottom, Full Fathom Five is simply a scam. Frey feeding off aspiring writers is no different than the jerkwad vanity presses and nonagents often exposed by Writer Beware. He's taking advantage of the persistent and seductive notion that there's a secret handshake or something involved in getting published, that all you have to do is Know The Right Someone and your opus shall be published and Make You Rich. (Look, this is NOT TRUE. I can't be any clearer: hard work and some luck; the harder you work the luckier you are, no guarantees, learn your craft, it takes WORK to do this. There is no magic pill, mmkay?) Instead of draining the aspiring writer's bank account up front, he drains it on the back end by setting things up so he's simply a packager, offering a contract no reputable packager would even dream of–a contract real agents or halfway-sensible business-savvy writers would look and and laugh at before unceremoniously tossing in the rubbish bin and rolling their eyes.

Sure, nobody forces these aspiring writers to sign the terrible contract Frey's offering. Nobody forces people to hand over thousands to vanity presses or fake "agents" on the hope that they'll be the next Shack. Nobody forces people to send cash to those companies running infomercials that promise you real estate riches, flatter abs, better pheromones, or what-have-you, either. It's all legal, but that doesn't mean it's ethical, and it doesn't mean it's something I as a professional can just let wander by without pointing out it's wrong. Incidentally, shame on the Hollywood people paying him, but that's their right. I can vote with my pocketbook and not go to see the movies. I don't think I'll be missing much.

Also, Frey's "I'm the bad boy of literature" refrain just rubs me the wrong way. If you have to say that out loud, dude, you're NOT. Hemingway was a bad boy of literature. Oscar Wilde was a bad boy of literature. Charles Bukowski was a bad boy of literature. You, sir, are no Hemingway, Wilde, or Bukowski. You're just a garden-variety grifter. Which, you know, go with what you're good at, and as someone pointed out to me recently, that's actually a lonely, high-stakes career that requires a lot of effort. So…yeah. Go you. But be prepared for me to point and laugh.

I also find it very interesting that Frey's "defense" doesn't contain specifics or documents (suitably blacked-out in certain bits for the privacy of the writers he's "contracted" with, of course). If Frey really wants to prove his company's not a huge scam, he should start offering some specifics. Transparency is his friend right now. Looking at his pattern of behavior, though, transparency is one thing we're not going to get. The air of injured innocence he's trying to float is pretty laughable. Once you've been caught in some whoppers, you need to work twice as hard and be twice as open to remain above reproach.

Anyway. The whole thing is just so…tacky. It must be terrible, living in a place so insecure you feel stealing other people's work and scamming them is a viable strategy. It seems a lonely, stressful way to live, not to mention incredibly draining. One wonders why Frey bothers, when he could just stop the constant attention-seeking and misdirection and possibly use all that wasted energy to finish a few novels of his own–and maybe learn enough that he can get them published on their own merits, without lies.

'Nuff said.

Related posts:I'm Not The Jerk In E-book Pricing, And Trunk Novels
Publishing And Misplaced Punishment
The Mystery of the Mask

Slog and Burn

Crossposted to the Deadline Dames. New shiny!

It's Friday again. How the hell did that happen?

I'm experimenting with getting up a few hours earlier so I can run, then get the kids off to school and settle down to work. This means I'm up at (wait for it) 5AM. Yeah, you read that right.

The good news will probably be increased productivity. The bad news is that I won't see the squirrels, since it's still dark. This morning, however, I was watched by a fiery-eyed possum. It was either trying to figure out what the hell I was doing or gauging how thick the glass was between us. Not sure. This made me nervous, but fortunately I was too worried about being upright and ambulatory before dawn to really fear the possum the way I should. Further bulletins as events warrant.

So last week we talked about my first three process-stages of novel-writing–the Shiny, the Explosion, and the Hole. I've saved the last two stages for a separate post because, to me, they are the most frustrating, the most interesting, and the hardest stages to get through.

I'm talking, of course, about the Slog and the Burn.

The Slog comes after the Hole–that part in the writing process where it's not fun anymore, where I wake up and stare at the novel/short story/poem/essay/whatever and I think, this is total crap, I am total crap, everyone is going to hate this, everyone is going to hate me, I will have to give the advance back and we will all starve and the sun will go out and we'll all DIE and it will be ALL MY FAULT AUGH. It isn't rational and it isn't pretty, and the only way through is putting my head down and plodding on. The Hole is pretty deep and dark even at the best of times, but chipping doggedly away at it gets me past the "OMG this sucks" and into the "DIE stupid book/story/whatever, DIE STABBITY STABBITY."

It's a subtle change. I quit focusing on how much the goddamn book sucks and and instead start focusing on just f!cking finishing. It becomes an endurance contest, and I think by now you have some idea of just how stubborn I am on a daily basis. (I mean, if you're a regular reader. If this is your first time, welcome, and let's just say a brick wall won't win in a contest with my silly head. I am congenitally stubborn, and single motherhood has only made me more so.) There are some books I've only gotten through because I don't want to let the goddamn thing win, others I've finished because of the habit of daily writing chips through the Hole and the Slog, bit by bit.

You can tell I'm in the Slog when I start joking about the Book That Will Not Die. My writing partner actually had a couple of rubber stamps made for me. (One more reason why she is Teh Awesome.) One says "STET DAMMIT". The other just says "STABBITY" and I have a pad of red ink for it. There is nothing quite so satisfying during the Slog as printing off a few pages of the work in progress and stamping it all over with blood red ink while chanting "STABBITY!" at the top of my lungs.

Look, we all have different methods. Don't judge.

Getting through the Slog is not easy. But once I finished a couple novels, both the Hole and the Slog became parts of a process instead of "OMG I am never going to f!cking finish this f!cking thing." It was a small, crucial, welcome shift in my working attitude. Each time, if I just endured through the Hole and the Slog, I would reach the Burn.

The Burn is the point where a story comes together and my writing sessions become subjectively shorter but objectively longer. I'll sit down one morning and wake up hours later, blinking and needing the loo pretty badly. I have to remind myself to eat–I'll sometimes feed the kids and go back to the computer, and wonder why I'm hungry hours later–and force myself to do other maintenance-y type things, like washing myself. I start working at white heat, even faster than during the Explosion phase. All my energies are brought to bear on one single point.

The Burn is, like the Explosion, pure creative crack. But it's the kind of rush I associate with exercise–a full-body endorphin rush from effort instead of the Explosion's more passive, cerebral high.

Generally the wordage that comes out during the Burn is very clean and lean, and doesn't require a lot of editing/revising. Once again I have a head full of story, I almost resent anything that pulls me away from working. I put in marathon sessions–my very high wordcount days are almost always during the Burn. Everything in the book just comes together, including things I'd written earlier that I had no earthly clue how they were going to turn out.

The closest thing I've ever seen to a visual representation of the transition between Slog and Burn is the classic domino scene from V for Vendetta. Suddenly everything just…clicks over. I finish the book at a gallop, and the flywheel inside my head is suddenly spinning wildly, all that ramped-up energy with nowhere to go. (This is why a recovery period is so necessary for me after each book; I have got to let that flywheel slow down or it will start smoking and sparking. Not a happy cupcake. But that's a different post.)

This is why I say it's critical to get into the habit of writing every day and also critical to finish a couple books before you give up on writing. The habit of writing will pull you through the Hole and the Slog; once you've finished a couple books you will have a much clearer idea of your own process that will help make the slogging parts of that process more manageable. The "huh, I've done this before" is a razor-thin margin, but sometimes it's enough space to get a handle on the entire goddamn book so you can beat it to death. (It's not quite as violent as I make it sound. (I'm just in the Hole part of a short story today. It makes me cranky.)

It does not get easier, per se. But knowing your own process at least places the Hole and the Slog in perspective and make them more manageable. And really, some days "more manageable" is all one can hope for.

Over and out.

Related posts:Cleanup On Aisle Brain, Bob
The First Three Phases
I Love My Children

Ballad of the Headless Squirrel

When we last left our doughty heroine (that would be Yours Truly), she had just encountered a zombie squirrel and left her shovel behind in her haste to achieve shelter. It took a couple days before I was brave enough to go out and fetch the damn shovel, and when I did…things got interesting.

So I finished my morning run, took a shower, made sure I was caffeinated, checked the weather–cloudy, but no rain–and armed myself. With what, you might ask? Well, I had to have a hand free to grab the shovel. So it had to fit in one hand, and since I'd had such luck with a shoe during the last run-in, well…I took a Birkenstock sandal. I figured I could swing it by the strap like a flail or fling it.

Yes, I spent some time thinking about this. Shut up.

Anyway, I was in a nice warm jacket, my heart beating a little quickly, maybe, but all in all I felt reasonably prepared. I opened my sunroom door and stepped out into the morning…

…and almost onto a headless squirrel.

"JESUS CHRIST!" I screamed, and retreated hastily. The body was tucked up against the door, and I'd been so busy scanning for live squirrels I'd overlooked it. I stood there, my heart pounding, and stared through the glass.

Yep. It was a headless squirrel all right. Dead, or at least reasonably dead. Its little paws were pulled up, and since it was splayed on its back I could definitely tell it was a he. The edges of its, erm, neck, were all ragged. Something had chewed the head clean off.

After a few seconds I mastered myself and locked the sunroom door, then went out through the back garage door. First, though, I peered in all directions, and I watched where I stepped. I approached the sorry little headless corpse with all due caution.

Yes, I will admit it. I was afraid it would come back to life.

"Well, jeeeeeez," I finally said, staring down. "Guess I'm gonna have to bury this one too."

I edged across the yard, trying to look everywhere at once. This time I had sneakers on, which was a vast improvement. The shovel was wet and jammed up against the fence (I guess I'd really flung it, wow), and the open grave was forlorn, a rain-softened hole. I grabbed the shovel and immediately felt better about the situation. I was all the way across the yard again, looking at the corpse, when I realized I would need both hands to bury him.

This was a pickle. How was I going to keep my weapon while I buried this motherf!cker?

I ended up looping the strap of the sandal over my wrist, sort of an anti-squirrel quickdraw. I eased the shovel blade under the teensy body with an unsettling sensation of deja-vu, lifted it up, and wondered once again what the hell could have bitten the head off a squirrel.

Just then came a tiny mew! I almost jumped out of my skin, because I hadn't noticed the cat in the rosemary bush. The bush is huge, and on the infrequent occasions my cats go outside in the rain they crouch underneath it, in a little bower. But this wasn't one of my cats, oh no. My darlings had retreated inside once the rains started. No, this was a tiny fluffy gray thing that usually comes through the yard at about nine AM every morning, pausing at a particular clump of lemon balm, then sitting on a bench under the sunroom window for about five minutes before stopping at the rosemary and sauntering away under the fence. She's the late cat–the early cat is a half-crazed half-Siamese who attacks the fence behind the apartments' dumpster every morning. (I can't make this shit up, I swear.) ANYWAY. Sweet little gray cat cocked her head and mewed again while I struggled to get my heartrate under control.

"You scared me!" I finally said, and I swear to God she grinned. She looked very, very proud. "Did you do this?"

She hopped out from under the rosemary, tail held high, and stropped my legs while I stood there with a dead squirrel on a shovel.

"Well, gee." I searched for words. "Thanks. I'm, uh. Just gonna bury him now. Unless you want some, you know, some more."

What the hell else could I say?

The sweet little gray kitty followed me across the damp grass. I eased the corpse into the grave and gingerly tossed a shovelful of wet dirt over it, then jumped back. I almost tripped over the cat, who gave me a WTF, monkey? look. "Don't look at me like that," I snapped. "You weren't here the last time. I swear to God the last time–"

There was a flicker of motion, a flash of blue, and I choked back another scream. I figured I got another two days' worth of cardio right there. But it was only Juliet!Jay, settling on the fence in the shelter of a tangle of blackberry vines, cocking her head and looking very interested in the proceedings.

"You scared the shit out of me, too," I told her grimly, and edged back toward the grave. I got another shovelful of dirt, and I think it was then that Juliet!Jay realized what was in the hole.

She started screaming. I started shoveling furiously. I wanted to get the goddamn thing buried before anything else happened. Juliet screeched and fluttered, and she finally took wing, zoomed past me, and disappeared over the house. I heard her screaming for a while, fading into the distance.

I looked at the cat, my jaw suspiciously loose and a fresh load of dirt on my shovel. The cat looked back at me.

I licked dry lips. "What do you suppose that was all about? I mean, this ain't Neo, Neo's got a crooked tail. Besides, if you killed him, I wouldn't bury him. I'd f!cking cremate him, you know. He deserves to go to Valhalla, the little fuzzy bastard."

Then I felt bad for standing at the Nameless Squirrel's grave and cussing. I heard something else, too.

A faint, distinct cough.

I looked up. The guy on his apartment balcony stepped back in a hurry, a cloud of cigarette smoke trailing him.

Well, great. What could I say now? He'd seen me talking to a cat and burying a squirrel. There was no explanation I could give anyone for this. I finished filling in the grave, tamped it down as respectfully as I could, and cleared my throat a little. Dude was still up there smoking, I could smell it.

"Well, here lies the nameless, headless squirrel." Maybe I said it a little louder than I had to. Just, well, you know, if I was going to be crazy, I was going to commit, you know? There is no point in doing shit like this halfway. "I, uh. I hope he wasn't a zombie. Because you ate his brains. Or whatever made him headless did." I looked down at the gray kitty, who sat with her ears perked far forward, watching this monkey ritual of burying good food with much interest. "May he rest in peace and not come back. And, uh, may his friends not come looking for you. You don't want that, cat. Trust me. Dude's friends know kung fu."

I backed away, stepped down from the railroad ties, and the gray kitty did an honor guard on me all the way back to the garage door. I was still trying to look everywhere at once, shovel in one hand and sandal in the other. I could feel eyes on me.

Before I went in, I turned and took one last look at the grave. The guy on his balcony smoking was now obscured by the pussywillow tree, and I didn't really want to see him anyway. I let out a breath.

The blackberry bushes behind the fence twitched, and for the thousandth time that morning, I jumped and gave a choked little girly scream.

Squirrel!Neo emerged from the vines, bracing himself on the fence. He looked a lot better than the last time I'd seen him. I shook the sandal, nervously, assuring myself of free play, and then realized I didn't have a free hand to open the door with. Thankfully, I'd left it ajar, so I backed into the garage.

The last thing I saw was the gray kitty sauntering back toward the grave. Squirrel!Neo sat on the fence, watching her approach. You could almost see a tumbleweed skip across the yard between them.

Okay, I'll admit it. I chickened out. I slammed the door, locked it, dropped the shovel, and ran pell-mell for the sunroom and a view of whatever was gonna go down.

By the time I got there, though, they'd both vanished. It took another day before I saw them again. And so far, the headless squirrel has stayed buried…

Well. Mostly.

Related posts:Squirrel!Matrix
Squirrel, Revivified
Battle of the Pine Boughs

Weekend Thanks

Last weekend's events were spectacular. I was at the Auburn Public Library on Saturday, and on Sunday I had the great pleasure of participating in the SF/F Authorfest at the Cedar Hill Crossing Powell's. (Here's me, exhausted but happy, at the Authorfest! Nina Kiriki Hoffman chronicled the night.) Plus I got to stay overnight in Seattle with my adorable sisters, who fed me crepes and waffles and cupcakes and other good things.

Special thanks go to: Ally (keep writing!), Kev (thanks for coming out!), my sisters (the usual), the Princess and Little Prince for being absolute troupers, Robin and Rachel at the Auburn library for being stellar, and "Saint" Peter Honigstock at Cedar Hills Crossing for just plain being fabulous and logistically incomparable. And, of course, to all the fans who came out to say hello! It was OryCon weekend, and the 501st was out in force too. Much fun was had by all.

It's taken me this long to slow down long enough for a blog post. There are many rumblings and stirrings, and I'm fighting off a cold with saltwater gargles, ginger drink, and sheer force of will. I do have more Squirrel!Terror for you–tune in tomorrow for the Ballad of the Burial of the Headless Squirrel. (Relax, it's not Neo. That little three-legged fuzzy-arsed barstid has some pep in him yet.) And I need a new squirrelproof birdfeeder. But more about that later.

Over and out.

Related posts:Flying Low
Authorfest!
Kaleidoscope Weekend

The First Three Phases

Good afternoon, my dears. A couple things, then a small Friday post, then off into the wild blue yonder.

* If you look at my events calendar, you'll see I'm at the Auburn, WA, public library tomorrow (Saturday), and on Sunday I'm at the Cedar Hills Crossing Powell's for the SF/F Authorfest. I'll gladly sign books at both events, though there will be no books for sale at the Auburn library. I'm beginning to get pre-event nerves (nobody will show up, my heart will stop from sheer terror, someone will throw rotten fruit, etc., etc.) so I will just content myself with saying, if you're in the area, both events promise to be a lot of fun.

* Want to know what makes me feel really, really unclean, and not in a good way? This article about James Frey preying on creative writing graduates.

This is the essence of the terms being offered by Frey's company Full Fathom Five: In exchange for delivering a finished book within a set number of months, the writer would receive $250 (some contracts allowed for another $250 upon completion), along with a percentage of all revenue generated by the project, including television, film, and merchandise rights—30 percent if the idea was originally Frey's, 40 percent if it was originally the writer's. The writer would be financially responsible for any legal action brought against the book but would not own its copyright. Full Fathom Five could use the writer's name or a pseudonym without his or her permission, even if the writer was no longer involved with the series, and the company could substitute the writer's full name for a pseudonym at any point in the future. The writer was forbidden from signing contracts that would "conflict" with the project; what that might be wasn't specified. The writer would not have approval over his or her publicity, pictures, or biographical materials. There was a $50,000 penalty if the writer publicly admitted to working with Full Fathom Five without permission. (Inside Full Fathom Five, p. 3)

In case you're wondering, these are bad, bad terms. They're the sort of terms Guy Pearce's Warhol offered Sienna Miller's Edie Sedgwick, only without the initial friendship. Or the sort of terms Lord Ruthven might have offered one of his victims. I'll just content myself with noting that Frey's earlier hijinks make me feel filthy about this in a way that James Patterson's or VC Andrews's ghostwriters don't. Also, dude, if you're a rebel, you don't need to go around saying what a rebel you are. Henry Miller would kick Frey's ass for presumption.

"But wait!" you might say. "Nobody's forcing these people to sign with Frey's company! He's not holding a gun to their heads or anything!"

True. But Bernie Madoff didn't hold a gun to anyone's head either; scam artists don't have to and we still prosecute them–or at least, evince some distaste for their methods. As a professional, I cannot condone Frey's behavior and I hope one or two aspiring writers might decide in light of that article not to lend themselves to this nastiness. 'Nuff said.

* Also, while I'm in take no prisoners mode, there's the same kerfluffle there is every year over NaNoWriMo. (No, I'm not linking to the kerfluffles. They make me tired.) NaNo is great for one thing: teaching aspiring writers to shut up, sit down, and make writing a priority. That's great, and it's just the sort of lesson a lot of people who want to write often need. But writing only one month out of the year is not a good way to maximize your chances of producing quality, publishable work. That's like saying a two-hour class can teach you to safely be a trapeze acrobat. I'm not knocking NaNo–I've participated several times, and plan to participate next year. It's a good thing, but it's not the sole means of becoming a writer or of learning to consistently produce publishable work.

Anyway. I promised another process post, didn't I?

Generally, writing a novel breaks down into five phases for me.

1. The Shiny

2. The Explosion

3. The Hole

4. The Slog

5. The Burn

Today I'll be talking about the first three phases; four and five deserve their own post next week. (Don't look at me like that. I promise, okay? Anyway.)

I've spoken before about how I get the initial concept for a book. There are organic vs. what-if books (as opposed to spec work); the major difference being that the organic books start with a full-sensory almost-hallucination where I'm shown the character and have to figure out what's going on at the same time they do, while the what-if books spring to life as a question that I begin fleshing out step by step. Either way, the initial spark is pretty much a jolt of creative caffeine.

Okay, fine, you caught me. Crack. Pure creative crack. I can barely think of anything else. I squirrel little chunks of wordbuilding away like a Terminator ninja squirrel stores kung fu moves. I talk about it obsessively to anyone who will listen, and a huge glorp of text falls out of my head. It may or may not start the story in the right place. It may or may not be in the right POV. It may or may not even be any good. But I love it, I'm in love, and the world is magic.

Then comes the Explosion. This is by far the most productive part of the process. It's where I open the document, look at it, and suddenly realize just where it should begin, what POV I'm after, and who changes the most in the course of the story. I nip, I tuck, I trim, and another huge block of text falls out of my head. This is where the story most often "jells" and I begin to see the shape I'm excavating. As Stephen King (I think) once remarked, a writer's more like an archaeologist than anything else. We sieve and brush and painstakingly scrape, and sometimes we dig up a palace. Other times, it's an outhouse.

I tend to put everything else on hold and work as fast as I can during the explosion phase, because I know what's coming next.

The Hole.

It's about as pleasant as you'd expect something called THE HOLE to be. It hits between halfway and two-thirds of the way, where I'm starting to gather up all the threads and weave them toward the crisis/climax and falling action. One day I'll sit there, look at the book, and a simple, stunning thought crosses my mind.

I can't do this. There is no way I can do this. I suck. The book sucks. I am going to fail miserably and everyone will hate me.

At this point, I wish I could say I effortlessly and gracefully tell that thought to go eff itself and soldier on, singing glorious hallelujah.

I'd be lying. I whine. I eat chocolate. I roll my eyes and bitch. I tell my reflection in the mirror that I'm a loser and I wear out my writing partner with endless repetitions of, "Christ, I hate this book. I can't do this."

Her reply is always the same. "You say that every time. Get back up and do it." And I know she's right.

But every time, it's very difficult to remember she's right. This is why I advocate the habit of writing regularly. Habit is either the worst of masters or the best of servants, and often it's habit that pulls me through the Hole and the next-to-last phase, the Slog. (More about the Slog next week.) Of course, sheer stubbornness has a lot to do with it, too. Many's the time plain bloodymindedness has taken me through phases three and four.

Plenty of aspiring writers get seduced by the first two phases and think a book isn't working as soon as it becomes less than creative-crack-stellar-fun to work on. The number of times a book is truly broken may be considerable, but you won't know your process and the earmarks of a truly-broken book without practice in finishing a few manuscripts. I have books on my hard drive that are finished and broken, unfinished with a fighting chance, unfinished and broken, finished and submission-worthy, and just-plain-what-the-hell-I-don't-even-know. The ability to go into the graveyard of the unfinished or the finished-but-broken to fish out something that might be fixable is only sharpened and strengthened by practice in actually finishing and learning, in the process, what broken means. ("Broken" can also change at different points in your writing life. But that's another blog post.)

What, you thought there would be some easy magic pill? Nope, sorry. There rarely is an easy magic pill in life. (Most of the ones currently being sold are either placebos or have nasty side effects. Helluva choice.) There is only the process, and learning to work the process with practice and dedication.

Tune in next week for the Slog and the Burn!

Over and out.

Related posts:Process, Part I
Words Of Wisdom
50K! Hooray!

Flying Low

Apparently my blood pressure is pretty low. I can deal with this. I would have thought with as tight as I'm wound it would be sky-high. But people who run tend to have lower BP (their heartrates tend to be pretty low too) so, congratulations to me. My thyroid's apparently fine too. (I wouldn't know, they just tell me.) So…yeah. End weird medical things you probably never wanted to know about me anyway. I could go on, but then I'd be That Blogger, and I really don't want to.

This is the first time I've had to slow down and take a breath since about 6AM today. I hit the ground running and I still have another couple appointments and some short story action to do. So I'm just popping in to say hello and tell you that yes, more Squirrel!Terror is forthcoming but not, alas, this week. Tomorrow is another day of crazy before an event-filled weekend–I'm in Auburn, WA on Saturday for a library event, and at the SF/F Authorfest on Sunday. I feel exhausted just thinking about all the driving, but it's going to be glorious fun to meet whoever comes out for the events!

There's been a couple things exploding all over the Internet, but frankly they just make me tired. So, instead, I will leave you with one of the most adorable monkeys ever. RING MONKEY. Only 25 cents!

Catch you tomorrow for the Friday writing post…

Related posts:A Weekend Refuel
Tonight At Barnes & Noble…
If I Could Do That, I Can Do This

Five Things Make a Post

Because today is the sort of day that has me running around and screaming with my hair on fire. Well, maybe not that bad. It's just a day of changes, and human beings are tend not to be big fans of change.

* Chuck Wendig, on ending myths that poison the writer's life. My favorite part:

Whatever asshole said that thing about work (or genius) being 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration should probably be punched in the face for giving advice that rhymes because, pshhh, c'mon. Rhyming? Really? Still, he's right. You want to write a book, then learn that the prevailing feeling is one of frustration. In writing a novel you will feel wayward and weird just as often as you feel energized and excited. Your book does not thrive on inspiration. Your book is born only of work.

Your book thrives on your ass finishing the job.

Stop chasing that dragon.

You do not work for the Muse. She works for you. Chain her to the pole and make her dance. (Chuck Wendig)

* Cooks Source gave a sort of halfass apology. John Scalzi gave the apology a D+, and I agree.

* I'm going to get gross for a second. I'm having nosebleeds at the ends of my six-mile runs. WTF? It's not dry air–this is the Pacific Northwest. You can grow mushrooms between your toes. It also isn't low iron–at least, it shouldn't be, what with the supplements I'm taking. Anyone out there ever had anything like this?

* I need to stop burning vanilla-caramel candles, even though I love them. They make me very hungry for cake or cookies. Hopefully the mint chocolate candle will be better. (I am not thinking it will be, though.) On the good side, taking a deep breath and thinking about cake is a nice thing. And while I'm putting together a short story structure inside my head, cake is far from the worst random thought to have.

* An unknown missile launch off the coast of California. As in, seriously, we don't know what the hell is going on, or we're saying we don't. This distresses me a little, for obvious reasons. (ETA: Might just be a contrail. Thanks, Pyris!)

Anyway, that's five for today. Now I'm going to pull up my comfy socks, grab another coffee-and-caramel-Baileys, and get serious.

Over and out.

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Grace That Saves

It was one of those moments when one is forcibly reminded of the subjectivity of human experience.

"Jeez, I never thought you'd say that," I told him, the line crackling briefly with static. "You were always in such a black mood. It was like I couldn't say anything right, it would just piss you off more. I wondered why you kept meeting me; it didn't seem like you enjoyed it. It seemed like immunizations for you–something painful and annoying, but necessary."

"Nope." Slight shift of fabric as he moved. "No, everything you said was perfect. It was at the exact right time."

We talked about other things, and after we hung up, I found myself reappraising those conversations a decade ago. All this time I'd felt bad, because I could never seem to say anything to calm, to soothe, or to help with his pain. But now, ten years later, I find out that those words, even though they didn't seem to matter much at the time, were kept and cherished as a line thrown to the drowning. I find out that the kindness that cost me nothing helped far, far more than I ever would have dreamed.

We never know, as we go about our daily lives, the moments when we are the grace that saves, or when ours is the smile that gives hope. Our actions have effects we can never fully understand. This humbles me. Paradoxically, it also makes me proud to be human, and glad to be muddling along with everyone else.

Why?

Because we are all alone, but sometimes we can help each other be less lonely. And when we do, we are all saved by just a tiny increment. It might be less than an inch, less than a centimeter.

But I'll take it.

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Winners, But No Bitter Screed

The winners of the Heaven's Spite contest are now posted.

I know I promised a Friday writing post about process, but I'm afraid you wouldn't get much of any use out of me yesterday or today. I'm having one of those weeks where I question my chosen career pretty hard. If it's not piracy (Heaven's Spite hasn't been officially out for more than a week and the torrents are popping up like mushrooms) or plagiarism it's someone implying NaNoWriMo is a waste because it encourages the plebes to write. Plus I just paid some taxes, and had a dentist appointment last week and other Life Shit piling up, so…yeah. I'm not an uber-happy little camper right now, and if you asked me to write about writing, what you'd get would be a pile of bitterness.

I'm not up to a bitter screed right now. (For once, yeah, I know. Call the press.)

So I'm just going to say this.

If you love to read stories, great. Don't pirate them, because the end result of pirating is less stories for you. Write if you want to. Understand that making a living by writing is not easy and calls for professionalism and hard work. If you're gonna do it, do it, and let me be the first to congratulate and support you. If you're not, that's okay, I wish you luck. Either way, brush your teeth, get enough sleep, hug the people you love and tell them what they mean to you. Watch out for ninja terminator squirrels.

And have a great weekend. See you Monday.

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