Amy Lane's Blog: Writer's Lane, page 187

First there's bricks, then purple twinkies...

then flying monkeys, and then...

Well, let's just say my stomach hasn't been happy in this last week and leave it at that. This morning, I ditched the workout regimen and the housecleaning resolutions, and slept with Squish on my lap for two hours, while my dehydrated body recapped a little bit of snoozola.

It was nice.

And then I went to the yarn store, and chatted with Babetta, who loves me, and that was nice too, but the best part of that? It gave me a break from Squish.

See, Squish is a blessing in a lot of ways. She's smart, she's vocal, she's fun, she's vocal, she has a good heart, she's vocal, she's funny, she's vocal, she's active, she's vocal, she's charming, she's vocal...

Uhm... you get the picture.

Let's just say that spending enforced time with Squish is making me appreciate the silent vortex of my own thoughts... at least the only conversations that happen in my own noggin are ones that I can steer!

But today is the last day of soccer for Squish, at least, and that's wonderful-- that takes our soccer days from five to three, and *whew* I can almost dream about breathing again! (Whoopie!) Zoomboy and Chicken are unfazed by this... soccer is neither the thing that drives them nor feeds their souls... but it does teach them all sorts of good things, like how not to beat the crap out of the kid that just pissed them off, and that's always a useful lesson.

And the game itself was cold and rainy, which doesn't sound exciting, but since it was ninety degrees until last week, it actually, kinda was.

Anyway...

Steve the cat keeps trying to escape into the garage. I'm not sure what to do to get her to stop doing this, because, the thing is, *whisper* THE BAAAAAAADDD cats are there.

Yes, it's true. We have two cats in the garage, who, during the house reorganization of 2004, decided they didn't want a fucking thing to do with us. Since the damned things hated us when they lived here, and chose to have as their only talent, the ability to crap twice their bodyweight anywhere BESIDES the catbox, we sent them to the garage, where they have lived, happily hating our guts, for the last six years.

Steve adores them. Steve wants to learn bad cat habits, like sitting and scowling, hiding under the shevles, and sleeping on the clothes meant for Goodwill.

This morning, after Steve's third escape, I did the unforgivable. I actually grabbed my precious Steve BY THE TAIL to get her back in the house. She has been glaring at me ever since.

Guys, I hate to say it, but should I not blog for a couple of days, there's only one reasonable reason why:

The damned cat killed me in my sleep.

Everyone cross their fingers--even Steve may find forgiveness in her fuzzy little black (& white) heart...

Sleight of Hand...

Okay-- I REALLY loved the Hammer & Air cover, and I thought I'd put up some other pretty cover art too...







Except I could not find the Litha's Constant Whim cover, which is a shame...

Since that could very well be my all-time favorite...

Golden days..

Have spent some nice time at home with Squish--got another chance to go to the gym this morning, and in spite of the fact that the light is thin and gold and the sky is Easter-basket-blue, the pool was actually very pleasant. Squish was excited to see people besides mom (she's very social-- not going to day care is killing her)and that was nice. Didn't stop her from being a bossy little bint for the rest of the day, but, well, she got some time being everybody's favorite social butterfly at the gym daycare--they adore her!

Do you like the new cover? It's the 'mystery project' I was working on-- Elizabeth showed me the cover, and I wrote the story and ohhhhhhhh...

Okay, if I gave a straight-out plot synopsis, it would sound unforgivably like something you'd find on skinemax, if they did m/m--but in execution? I'm proud of this one. Just am... showing character when one character is taciturn and another is, heLLO, cursed with silence WHEN he gets to be human, and the third is the narrator... well, it was tricky, and I used that thing I do that actually furthers plot and... well...

I think it's beautiful. The last chapter has made people--snarky, crusty, no-tears sort of people--get sniffly for what they claim is no reason at all.

I take it as a high complement--I can make people cry in a good way. Not bad, yeah?

Oh... hey...

In "This is sort of weird" news, I was driving Squish to dance lessons, and she had finally (thank dog!) fallen asleep, and I was knitting at a stoplight, with the windows open (still no a/c) when suddenly a voice goes, "Hey! Do you want to get that bodywork done on the side of the van?"

"Uhm..."

"I can do it for $150..."

"Uhm..."

"Is that too much? How much CAN you pay?"

"I have to take my kid to dance lessons now! Thanks for asking!"

Uhm... REALLY?

Oh...

And my favorite conversation of the week:

Mate: Is Steve in the garage?

Me: I didn't think so.

Mate: Yeah... she's in the garage. (Opens garage door.) See?

Me: I thought she'd come in from her morning break-out.

Mate: Do you know how I knew it was her?

Me: Not a clue.

Mate: I heard something large crash to the floor.

Me (looking at Steve, who looks very innocent): That's Steve.

Meow!

Thunder rumbles, lightning strikes, wind blows...

Silence reigns...

And it starts all over again.

Have spent some nice time at home with Squish--got another chance to go to the gym this morning, and in spite of the fact that the light is thin and gold and the sky is Easter-basket-blue, the pool was actually very pleasant. Squish was excited to see people besides mom (she's very social-- not going to day care is killing her)and that was nice. Didn't stop her from being a bossy little bint for the rest of the day, but, well, she got some time being everybody's favorite social butterfly at the gym daycare--they adore her!

And the storm still rumbles. The waiting for the next lightning strike is the most exhausting thing I could imagine. It's funny how I can get up at five in the morning, work until noon, bring Squish home, pick up the older kids, initiate soccer/dance/karate oh-my! and still stay up until twelve at night, but take out that whole 'work until noon' thing, and substitute 'go to the gym', and I'm toast by nine-o'clock. I blame the stress of the storm--and, maybe, some catching up on my sleep that needed to be done a month ago.

Anyway, enough of that vagueness-- do you like the new cover? It's the 'mystery project' I was working on-- Elizabeth showed me the cover, and I wrote the story and ohhhhhhhh...

Okay, if I gave a straight-out plot synopsis, it would sound unforgivably like something you'd find on skinemax, if they did m/m--but in execution? I'm proud of this one. Just am... showing character when one character is taciturn and another is, heLLO, cursed with silence WHEN he gets to be human, and the third is the narrator... well, it was tricky, and I used that thing I do that actually furthers plot and... well...

I think it's beautiful. The last chapter has made people--snarky, crusty, no-tears sort of people--get sniffly for what they claim is no reason at all.

I take it as a high complement--I can make people cry in a good way. Not bad, yeah?

Oh... hey...

In "This is sort of weird" news, I was driving Squish to dance lessons, and she had finally (thank dog!) fallen asleep, and I was knitting at a stoplight, with the windows open (still no a/c) when suddenly a voice goes, "Hey! Do you want to get that bodywork done on the side of the van?"

"Uhm..."

"I can do it for $150..."

"Uhm..."

"Is that too much? How much CAN you pay?"

"I have to take my kid to dance lessons now! Thanks for asking!"

Uhm... REALLY?

Oh...

And my favorite conversation of the week:

Mate: Is Steve in the garage?

Me: I didn't think so.

Mate: Yeah... she's in the garage. (Opens garage door.) See?

Me: I thought she'd come in from her morning break-out.

Mate: Do you know how I knew it was her?

Me: Not a clue.

Mate: I heard something large crash to the floor.

Me (looking at Steve, who looks very innocent): That's Steve.

Meow!

Aren't they beautiful?

I know we have some others of Chicken, with her camo-punk olive green dress, and, she looks spectacular. (All her doing. We had a classic mother/daughter poutfest because she asked me to do her hair, and, well, my hair was brushed, and that's not really much of a qualification.)

Anyway, my dad took them both shopping on Thursday night and it was really a blessing. Mate doesn't do dress up-- he's owned two suits, both of them worn a couple of times and fed to the moths. He also doesn't do Big & Tall, and my own dad is 6' 4", much like Big T, so he's got sort of an idea of what looks good, and how it should fit, and T looks, if I say so myself, ravishing. (You can't even see his new black Converse--the ultimately perfect finishing touch:-)

Squish was much disappointed not to be going to a dance on her own. I was asked to do her hair and to put on her 'dancing dress' from the tickle trunk, and generally, I'm fearing the moment she needs me to be a girl, because we've already seen how badly that turns out.

I felt sort of bad last night, because I went to lay down with the little kids, and, as so often happens, ended up fast asleep myself. Chicken got home and I didn't have a chance to talk to her, but Mate said she was REALLY tired. Well, she took the PSAts, played a soccer game, and went to a dance. I don't expect to see her until noon, really. Or, well, I wouldn't, but she's got another soccer game at 8:55. Oi! She's happy they've been losing HUGE, because otherwise, she'd have four, and since her team has NO SUBS, that's just a little too much soccer, even for the faithful.

And other than that, I'm picking up my Alexa (mom) to take her to my grandmother's for sort of a belated birthday 'thing' today. It's exhausting--but worth it, in a way.

Anyway, take it easy... I'll keep you all posted on storm updates when I can.

Amy

The Kids are All Right

I got an opportunity to go swimming to day, which would have been sort of cool, except, hello, it was OCTOBER! I went anyway, but the miserable heat this late in the year is worrying--I mean, yes, we know global warming exists, but there's nothing like having our noses rubbed in it, right?

The big kids BOTH have homecoming dances at two different schools on Saturday--this makes for much hilarity in the taxi front, especially as Chicken has not just Homecoming (with a capital H) she has a DAY scheduled as well. I remember days like this from when I was a kid--you try to do as much as humanly possible, and get frustrated when the days just do not expand as they must. She is going to wake up in the morning, go take the PSAT, then go to a soccer game, and then go to the Homecoming dance. (Squish and Zoomboy have a birthday party that day as well!) and then... and then...

This is Mate and I, doing what we do best--tag team parenting. On the one hand, these are frantic, wonderful days, and on the other... yes. I am well aware that they do not last and I should enjoy the whirlwind with all my heart. I do. I am. I fell asleep on the couch tonight with Squish in my arms, and when the silk of her hair brushed my chin, I just wanted to hold her tighter. There won't be many more days for this--I want to hold them to my heart. Chicken and Big T went and got clothes for their dance tonight with my dad, and he said, "You must take pictures!" and I thought, "ABSOLUTELY." I want pictures of this "day" for my children. They are very nearly grown.

*whew* And Sunday is a whole other mess.

And, well, so is my life. I mean seriously--I can not go into details, but let's just say a hammer has fallen that I expected to fall sooner. That it did not simply made me more secure in my own rightness--and the hammer's fall that much more painful when it hit my thick little head. I'll explain this when I can--but for now, as I blog about kids etc., be aware, as I am, that there is sort of a large cloud hovering over me. If it sounds like I am laughing too loud in the face of the storm, it's because my windows are rattling and the rain is blowing in my face too hard for me to make any other sound.

Guarding the Vampire's Ghost

Now, some of you might remember this as "The Adrian Story" or "Adrian and the Angels". I wrote it about a year ago, semi-inspired by the Dreamspinner anthology call, "A Brush of Wings". The story was about 8,000 words too long, though, and then that whole Liquid Silver debacle occurred wherein, I sent them this story, and my other books, and THEY. NEVER. GOT. BACK. TO. ME. in spite of repeated, "Uhm, hullo! You said eight weeks! I was hoping I could submit this!" I finally just e-mailed them and said, "This is mine, dammit!" and then submitted it to Dreamspinner, who said, "We really love it!" and, well, here it is!

Guarding the Vampire's Ghost features Adrian in a supporting role. We find out how a vampire got a visitor's pass to earth to visit Green and Cory, and we see the effect that someone like Adrian might have on the hosts of heaven. (Should that be capitalized? I'm never sure!)

So, for those of you who like the Little Goddess--you may enjoy this. Those of you who like the m/m, well, uhm, ditto. The theme is very different than that of Whim (And, can I just reiterated-- SIXTEEN COPIES --you all are BUCKETS of awesome!) but, well, it's one of mine. You'll see it at the end, trust me.

I hope you enjoy it.

Amy

For once, the dragon lost...

Hmmm... list of things that happened between Wednesday and today:

* Jury duty--I ALMOST got sat on a trial, but, well, the prosecutor seemed to think I oozed sympathy for the defendant (he was VERY young) and for the predicament (I am VERY pro-marijuana legalization) and, well, I was peremptorily discharged. *sigh* I really wanted to sit that jury, too--it would have been fun!

* However, just because I was done with jury duty, did NOT mean I went back to work the next day. Thursday night, Mate and I were soundly asleep... can you picture it? Us, sleeping? Zoomboy between us? And then suddenly, Zoomboy sits up in bed, and makes HALF of an unmistakable sound. I sit up in bed and Mate calls down from the hall, "Did he just do what I think he did?" and then Zoomboy made the REST of the the unmistakable sound, and, well, the next fifteen minutes were spent changing the sheets and washing him up and making him brush his teeth. It was the last time we had to change the sheets, but it was NOT the last time Zoomboy had to brush his teeth, if you catch my drift. Poor baby had the stomach bug, and, well, I got to stay home. Again. (I was not thrilled about this, actually--and sure enough, my kids REALLY needed me to day. I love that they love me this year, but they REALLY need me. There is a price, yeah?)

* Soccer ensued on Friday night and Saturday morning. Now, last week, I was too upset about the whole "this team is beating the snot out of us and being fuckers about it" to tell you this story, but I thought it needed to be told. Now, I may have mentioned that Zoomboy is THE consummate ladybug-catcher at his soccer games--but he has a padawan: a little boy that Zoomboy teaches how to catch ladybugs and chase dandylions and toe the dirt into submission. Now, one of the things that Zoomboy does, that embarrasses the hell out of me, is to pull his shorts up, so they're tight in the vee of his crotch, and wiggle his butt. At first, I thought he was just playing with the shorts, because they're too big and, well, the boy fidgets. And then Mate pointed out the truth:

He wasn't playing with his shorts--he was using the shorts to play with HIMSELF! Yup. You heard me. It looks cute and all, but really, it's just a boy, with his favorite toy, in front of parents from all over the city. And to make matters even MORE fun? Uhm... let's just say that his little padawan learned well. There I was, watching in horror, as Zoomboy and padawan pulled their shorts up around their crotches and did the butt-floss dance, while THE OTHER TEAM SCORED BEHIND THEM.

*sniff* Makes a mother proud.

And, uhm, do me a favor, wouldya? Don't tell the other mothers--because I sure as shit don't plan to.

* And Saturday? Well, Saturday, Mate scored us some tickets to Six Flags Discovery Kingdom-- which is like an exotic animal zoo with roller coasters. Now, my neck is too fragile for roller coasters, so I ended up schlepping the kids all over the park to see the animals and ride the kiddie rides, and Mate? Mate was FORCED (can you smell the reluctance? Hmmm....) to take the big kids to all the BIG roller coasters. We caught some time together in the middle, when we managed this magnificent procession of shows--the orca show, the tiger show, the bird show, and then some land animals (as compared to the sea animals of the morning). A good time was had by all--including the big kids, (all three of them) who got to walk through the haunted house path, and even CHICKEN was skeered... she left bruises in her father's arms, and he was very proud! (Hey... Daddy always wants to be needed, right?)

Anyway, a good time was had by all, except for a rather hairy moment when Squish came out of one of those all purpose kid-tree things in tears.

"What's wrong, sweetheart?"

"I lost my PEEEEEEE!!"

"Uhm... okay. How about you go play in the fountain (custom made for kids to play in the water) and I'm just gonna step into this really expensive store right here and buy... uhm... a towel to tie into a sarong and a REALLY LONG SHIRT. Yeah... just take off your shoes, okay? go ahead and get your clothes REALLY REALLY WET so we can wring them out and put them with the nice plastic bag that came with this shirt. Yes it is long. Uh-huh. Amazing how that happens..."

And thus we made it to the rest of the evening, where the kids got to see a mock hanging, and a mock zombie rising, which I did my best to explain was not real. I always wonder if I'm traumatizing my kids more by stealing their wonder than I would be by letting them think they were watching a real hanging and zombie rising from the dead. I guess time will tell, right?

* Anyway... and then, after all that, today I went back to work, and then worked to make Patrick Henry look sexy. For the record, Patrick Henry? Not sexy at all... and, when all was said and done, I think the guy was really just a little bit nuts.

(ETA: Elizabeth just e-mailed me: Whim sold sixteen copies today--that's AWESOME! Okay-- so it's not a thousand dollars--but it is you guys, making a difference, and I'm just so proud:-)

Of Course It Gets Better

Okay, one of the things I never wanted to delude myself with was the idea that I write "important" books. For the longest time, as I was working on Vulnerable, I called it "my trashy vampire mystery", and referred to my work as "writing dirty books," semi-facetiously, and a little self-consciously. "I can do better," I tried to imply, "but, you know, this is what I *like* to read."

And then it occurred to me (after a couple of fan letters that left my hands shaking and sent me howling for kleenex, ice-cream, and a comfort movie in a juggernaut of angst) that I really WAS kidding myself, if I thought my books WEREN'T important--at least to the people who loved them, including myself. A book that moves you is a book that moves you, regardless of genre or what puckered angry white men tell you that you *should* be writing. Some of the most *important* books to me, both growing up and as an adult might never make it to a college class for interpretation, but they stayed in my heart and made the real world a better place, just by the tiny imaginary world they created.

So, in the end, I simply wanted to create people that felt real (regardless of real or imagined species), and people who feel real, sometimes have problems that feel real. That's why, when I was done with my first round of horror and disgust and (sadly) complete lack of surprise over the September suicides of bullied GLBT youth (google it if you haven't heard about it--there were nine of them across the country, all of them tragic and infuriating), I was only a little surprised to see that I'd touched on this matter--if a little superficially--already in my writing.

Charlie, one of the heroes in Litha's Constant Whim, starts out the story as a (from the blurb) "very young, very desperate human." In fact, on the Litha night in which he first meets Whim, he is contemplating suicide. GLBT youth are three to four times more likely to attempt suicide--it's a common statistic, one I'd heard before, and one that must have triggered something in me, some sort of protective wish, I guess, for kids out there to see that SOMEONE in the world will love them for themselves. (It is this theme right here that makes so many of my students, gay or straight, love The Little Goddess series as a whole--it assures them that despair, drug experimentation, or sexual exploration does NOT mean they are unworthy of love--and un-condescending love at that. It is, sadly enough, a message they don't seem to be getting from their churches, schools, or parents these days.)

Charlie, obviously, does not commit suicide. He meets Whim, and IT GETS BETTER.

Now, the IT GETS BETTER campaigns is one of those things (and not much does this in the political or grass roots movement arena--I am a little jaded, I guess) that sort of touched something inside me. Some of you may remember my worries for my beautiful daughter, Chicken, when she was in junior high. She was bullied--TERRIBLY bullied. Get food thrown at you, bullied. The whole class makes you their target, bullied. "Should I go emo and cut myself, mom?" bullied. (Horrible conversation. If there's any mercy in death, that will be one of the first things I forget.) (And shall we remember her prickweenie ex-soccer coach, who just exacerbated that whole situation by about a thousand, may he die of boils and locusts thank-you-very-much!) Anyway, it was a terrible time for me to watch-- I'd do anything to help her know that it would get better.

I'd offer to buy her clothes we couldn't afford, move her to another school (which we REALLY couldn't afford) and gave her pep talks. At one point, I let her skip Valentines Day (the ULTIMATE popularity contest) at her school, and took her to mine, where an especially wonderful AP class assured her, "It's all right, baby. It gets better."

She took the lesson to heart. This year she's having a STELLAR year--she even smiles (but don't mention it--it might go away.) Of course, the real change came at the end of her freshman year. I asked her what she wanted to wear, what we should buy her for school clothes, and she said, "Jeans and basketball shorts and T-shirts."

"Really? Didn't you want the other stuff? Try and see what everyone's wearing this year?"

"No, mom. Fuck 'em. If they can't like me for who I am, they can go to hell."

*sniff* That's my baby. Buckets and buckets of extra-spicy, extra-crispy, extra-special awesome.

But not everybody has a dorky fat woman to listen to them and drag them to AP classes and make ill advised attempts to buy clothes to help a person fit in. Charlie didn't, until he found Whim, and that leads me to my point, sort of.

Monday is National Coming Out Day, and in celebration, I've asked Elizabeth, the EIC at Dreamspinner, if I could donate my cut of Litha's Constant Whim for that day (from www.dreamspinnerpress.com outlet ONLY--it's the only way to keep track) to The Trevor Project. (This is a hotline for bullied and suicidal teens.) It's not a lot--I mean, I'm hoping it will BE a lot, but I don't fool myself that people will flock to buy this little story for this. (Okay. It would be nice. I'm not gonna bullshit you. But I'm a realist. I'm NOT the person people follow into the rowboat--but every now and then I like to rally there anyway!)

But I've got the GSA planning to make a video for It Gets Better, and that should be really powerful, and I've got my own kids to convince that It Gets Better (because Big T and Chicken aren't out of the woods yet, and the little guys are gonna need me for some time to come) and we'll be lucky to have McDonalds money this month (because birthday month is a killer) and, well, I've long since learned that sometimes, the only sure way to create a better world is when I create one in my books.

It's just nice when my books can make the real world a better place too.

Not Quite Climbing the Walls

So, guess who realized that our hallway is REALLY REALLY NARROW?

But hey-- at least they understand an opportunity when they see it. I mean, when else can you climb the walls literally, right?

Yeah, yeah, weak joke, I know it, but I'm feeling a might snarly at the moment. I'm undergoing my quatre-yearly estrogen/plasma dump, and when you only do this about every three months, it doesn't fuck around. You would not beLIEVE the amount of fem-prot you can blow through when you're pouring blood like an apocalyptic plague, and, quite frankly, it impedes my will to let the people around me live. (My family, sensing this with their well-tuned superpowers, has allowed me a little latitude in the last few days. One of my co-workers, being a crass wanker who likes to humiliate the fat girl, does not. I'm killing him off in my next Goddess book, and by-Goddess, I'm doing it UGLY.)

Anyway, in addition to that, and a strained shoulder (also impeding my will to let other people live) and a WIP that's FINALLY taking off, and a new e-book released next week (which makes me all nerves--it's a Little Goddess story, too, which ALSO makes me all nerves, because I walk such a fine line with those, between letting the story tell itself and summarizing enough of the LG world for people to read them stand-alone) it's very possible that the grades I've spent the last two days entering (I'm up to week seven--seriously, I'm only a week behind!) may actually disafuckingpear when i get back to my computer. WHEN I get back to my computer, which leads me to the ultimate horror of horrors:

Jury Duty.

I've never actually HAD jury duty. I've gotten a couple of letters--one when I was a stay-at-home mom who WAS a stay-at-home mom because no one would watch Big T because he screamed all day, and one in which I didn't get called in. I've been hoping that would be the case all week and I ALMOST made it. It would figure the day I DIDN'T make it was the day in which I have absolutely too much to do to just slack off on the sub plan and watch a movie, but, that's okay. The kids are finishing up their episode from yesterday (and a lovely hook-up I made between a corrupt minister's wife and Jonathan Edwards and the STAR testing standards in which 'implicit values' is used) and they MAY be able to talk the sub in to just letting them watch a movie. I won't object, if hat' what's going to happen, but I really DID have better things to do! (And whew! It's a good thing I mentioned that when blogging, I almost forgot to assign that next absence!)

In a way, I'm sort of looking forward to it--I mean, I've never DONE it, yanno? And Mate's sat on, like, three or four juries, one of them for a high-profile local case! (He's so conscientious about it, too. He NEVER tells me what it's about, and I'm always so proud of him, because if he wasn't such a good, fair-minded kind of guy, he wouldn't get selected quite so often:-) So on the one hand, uhm, WHEEE! Something new. On the other hand, uhm... Mate is screwed! Totally screwed! If I get picked, he's got to run from Folsom to Fair Oaks to Citrus heights to pick up Chicken and Zoomboy from school, and since he's been coaching Squish's soccer team, three days a week, he won't be able to go back! But whatever happens, it can't happen for long--I've got tickets and reservations to yaoi-con in 21 days (waves at Mary, who will be there with me!!!) and apparently, that matters.

I'm sooooooo glad. Missing out on yaoi-con would really suck--I'll be signing books for a couple of days, and, well, it's DOWN IN SAN FRANCISCO and even no one wants me to sign their books, there are going to be SO many cool people down there that *swoon* it'll be totally worth it!

But still--that's days off for yaoi-con and days off for jury duty... by the time November rolls around, I hope the students remember my name! (Or... maybe not!)

So, besides that, and the fact that I'm reading Christopher Moore's "The Fool", I'm gonna leave it at that. I hope to have some exciting news about our GSA and youtube.com next week, but I don't want to leap in too early. Let's just say our students were REALLY happy to have a chance to help others, and that always makes me proud.

And that's about it--I'm nodding off, it'll have to be!

Wish me luck (whichever outcome is luckiest!) for tomorrow!


Amy