Amy Lane's Blog: Writer's Lane, page 43

Today's accomplishments...

Today's Accomplishments:

* Walked the assholes...erm dogs.

* Went grocery shopping.

* Made beans.

*  Am about to make word count.

* Answered a shitton of e-mails.

* Napped. So gloriously. It was a GLORIOUS nap.

Today's failures:

* Need to answer more e-mails.

*  Ate chocolate that I shouldn't have bought at the grocery story.

*  Have moar e-mails to answer.

* DID NOT FINISH GODDAMNED BOOK.

* Also-- I think I forgot to eat dinner. (This is a first.)

Today's observations:

* The guest dog is really frickin' attached to his little dead raccoon doll. I mean... really. We should have an announcement any day now.

* It doesn't matter which direction I walk in, or how far out of my way I walk. That woman with the two kids and the stroller and the BIG HIGH STRUNG WOOF who has a hard-on for Geoffie-- that Geoffie returns with gusto-- is ALWAYS twenty feet in front of me.

* In the little lending library in the park, I've been putting extra copies of some of my books, and then checking to see if they've been borrowed. Yes, yes they have. And not returned yet. All those self-help Christian books, though-- they're in that box forever.

Midnight Goals:

* Write more of the goddamned book

* Try not to eat an entire bag of potato chips and call it dinner

* Remember to turn off beans

Night all! 

What Y'all Gonna Die Mad About?

Okay--I stole the title from a tweet I responded to, and I have to admit, it made me unashamedly happy.

I vented my grievance (Happy Festivus!) and then laughed at myself.

That? I was going to die mad about that?

Well, maybe a little.

But hopefully not too mad.

Because it doesn't matter what you answer to that question--it makes you sound petty as fuck.

So for a minute, you get on your high horse and vent, right?

In my case, I'm gonna die mad because everything I tell my family and non-writing friends is total and complete bullshit--politics, past moments, philosophy, what have you-- if I say it, they assume I'm too fucking dumb to know what I'm talking about.

Oh yeah--I'm the only one with a BA--the equivalent of an MA if you count all my units in English, and two MA's if you count my Post Graduate work-- and I worked in an economically poor area with a long, hard history of gang violence for nearly fifteen years. I've reinvented myself three times, worked my way through college, and raised four children. But if I have an opinion in politics? Economics? Social matters?

It's bullshit.

Seriously-- an old family friend called to chat, and lectured me for twenty minutes on Don't Ask Don't Tell.

I told her I wrote a book about it, remember?

Well, yeah, but it was a romance book and this was real.

I almost hung up on her.

So here I am, on my high horse, bitching about my family, and dammit, I'm gonna die mad about it.

Except now that I've stomped my little foot and kvetched, it's all over.

Whatever. As far as they're concerned I'm Scott Lang, disgraced teacher, loser, who talks about things that they don't think are particularly real or important.

My Mate and kids know I'm really the Ant Man. Maybe not consistently, and maybe I fuck up, but when it counts, I do important shit that matters to people's hearts.

So I'm not mad anymore.

And that's how it goes with family.

Eventually you have to let go the small shit. The time my folks promised to help with my schooling and then bailed so they could take my sister and her baby to Spain. The time my stepbrother shot me with a BB gun and then hit me so I wouldn't tell the parents. (That was a long time ago-- that's some serious grievance.) The many times I was told, "Well, that's just the way it is. Who are you to change it?"

That's the shit you let go.

Because if I'm gonna die mad about something, it's gonna be about something real. Climate change. The traitor in the White House. My children growing up having to change the shit I feel like my generation should have gotten to already.

I'll die mad about that.

Getting 'splained to about stuff I already knew--or stuff I know way more about than my 'splainer-- is getting struck off the list.

For now.

I can be as petty as the next person sometimes, I am aware.

Necessary Nothing

OKay, so some days it's necessary that nothing exciting happen.
I had an edit, I'm behind on a deadline-- you get the picture.
So today was one of those days when a bunch of nothing added up to a pretty decent day--I'll give you the highlights and we'll call it a night.
*  Was debating whether or not to go swimming--Chicken and Stevi were here when I got back from walking the dogs, which often means my A+ in mothering comes from just being in the house and ready to make food. It's an was A, and I'm not ashamed to say I take advantage of it. Anyway, I went to register because I figured I didn't need that grade today, and it turns out I registered too late and couldn't get in.  So I stayed home and earned my easy A in parenting.
Score!
*  I had just enough cash to go get Chinese food and fried chicken from the grocery store. The kids thought I was a goddess because I didn't even cook. (We're all a little over my cooking after the last week. *sigh* I'm so over my own cooking.)
Score!
*  Got to watch three episodes of Mrs. Maisel tonight. Season 1 almost down--LOVE this show, even when it's painful. I was a lot like Midge Maisel when I was her age. Well, maybe not as funny. But I would open my mouth and spill out bibles full of truth and get destroyed and piss people off. It takes a while to realize that just because it's true doesn't mean there's not a better way to say it. 
Which reminds me. Saddest part about Hamilton? Hamilton learned from Washington, from his friends, even from Aaron Burr. Burr never learned. 
Yes, these two things are related, why do you ask?  Nevermind--another blog post.
But still, I grew a little from my Miss Maisel phase. Score!
*  Finished my edit-- score!
* Wrote 2K and blogged-- Score!
Oh!
And the sort of coolest weirdest thing today?
My walk-- which is usually like clockwork-- got totally disrupted today as I attempted to avoid a woman with a stroller, an additional toddler, and a big woof dog. Her big woof dog was VERY interested in my smaller happy dogs, and she had her hands full as it was, so in the end I walked like, an extra quarter mile trying to avoid all of them so her little kid didn't get knocked over by the woof dog dragging the stroller. Anyway--as I was walking back to my car the wrong way (uphill in the sun!) I saw two guys on the football player, sitting in chairs under the one shade tree, playing with drones. They were in their sixties, and looked very happy.
THAT is the way to spend your retirement years.
And I"m gonna call that a win too, because it gave me a goal.
Score!

Damned Offspring

So I was taking Big T home after he came over and did laundry, and as usual, he used the time to tell me how his life is going.

The conversation went like this:

Big T: *general discussion about making friends through a gaming server*

Me: That's nice, honey! You've done fun stuff with these guys?

Big T: Yeah! Also, I've been to some of the music clubs downtown!

Me: That's wonderful.

Big T: I sort of met a group of people there. I met one of the girls through a dating app.

Me: But you met a group of people?

Big T: Yes. It was fun.

Me: How wonderful!  (Everything's wonderful to mommy, yes oh yes it is!)

Big T: Also, you should sort of know, that the girl I met. I"m dating her.

Me: *less brightly*  You have a girlfriend?

Big T: Yeah. We saw each other a couple of times. She's coming over next week. I'm cleaning the house for her.

Me *a little stunned because my spawn has once again buried the lede*: So it's getting serious.

Big T: Yeah. I wasn't going to tell you at first, but then she told me we should just make it official that we're dating.

Me *thinking Really?*:  So that's when you decided to tell me?

Big T: No. She changed her status on FaceBook, and so I did too, because I didn't want her to think I wasn't committed.

Me: So that's when you decided to--

Big T: Grandma and Grandpa saw it. I didn't want you to hear it from them.

Me: Ass. Hole.

Big T: I'm sorry?

Me: Seriously?

Big T: *sighs* I'm sorry.

Me: This is so making the blog.

Big T: Fine.

Me: If I'd heard it from grandma and grandpa, you would have been on your own for laundry.

Big T: Yeah okay.

How do I look, honey?

Here is the transcript of Suzanne Brockman's 2018 RWA Lifetime Achievement award acceptance speech. You don't have to read it now--but trust me. It'll be important.

Okay-- so those of you who have followed me since the beginning are aware that my "look" has changed. Yes, older, and very much fatter, for one thing, but even more, my dress has changed.

When I taught high school I originally started dressing as professionally as possible. Classic suits, hose, nice shoes-- whole nine yards. Then I had one of those days where nothing worked right and I got to my class with my hair down, my heels in my hand and my hose shredded. Instead of laughing at me, the kids a actually relaxed around me, and while I still couldn't dress worth a shit, it didn't matter because mostly I was wearing jeans and T-shirts. Their opinion mattered, my administrations didn't.

By the time I was going to events as a writer, I was... well, badly dressed.

I mean, really badly dressed.

And I was being asked to not just go places, but to go represent. 

My first convention-- GRL, I think-- I decided to wear promotional T-shirts. I asked my husband how I looked while looking over FB posts.

"Well, you look okay, but that big white shirt isn't exactly flattering."

"I, uh, wore one of those every day."

"Oh."

My first RT I wore Hello Kitty T-shirts over black miniskirts and tights. Yes, I was over 40, why do you ask?

My first RWA--2013-- I wore jeans and T-shirts, and the sight of all of those AMAZING writers in their work clothes left me tongue-tied and defensive.

I was not representing.

By 2015 I'd figured things out a bit--and have been dressing like a grownup in public pretty much ever since.

I've become acutely aware of myself when in a crowd of fellow professionals. My wardrobe has expanded, and my self-consciousness diminished just a tad, and hopefully I've learned how to be a grownup in public--and to represent my genre much more responsibly.  It was something fourteen years of disapproving high school administrators could never get me to do, and here I was, doing it all on my lonesome.

It's taken some hard work but it's been worth it. Self-confidence--it's not that I haz it, but I can put on a nice dress and pretend.

So there I was, at RWA 2018 and dressed professionally, when through chance and fateful cockup I ended up having drinks with Suzanne Brockman, her husband Ed, their son, Jason, and his husband, Matt.

They were delightful. Jason has been a longtime reader and he's funny and charming and warm-- the whole family is just awesome. Of all things, Matt and I ended up bonding over our love of small dogs. I had a great time--and, uh, did I mention Suzanne Brockman is my hero?

Well, YEAH.

Read Hot Target when it came out. Read the preface, about Jason coming out, to my husband. Cried a lot. I think it helped make us both who we are.

And there we were, having drinks. (EEEEEEEE!!!)  And she asked me out of the blue if I wanted to sit at her table when she received the LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT RITA AWARD.

I don't know if those caps are big enough, but I think you might get the idea.

And I almost turned her down.

Because I didn't have anything to wear.

All these years of training myself to be THAT person--the one who looked good and professional and unembarrassing to my genre-- and I had a chance to be part of history--and if you read the transcript
 it's AMAZING history--and I almost said no.

Seems silly, doesn't it?

But the clothes have been a prop--and a damned good one. They've been the self-confidence I still haven't developed, the self-assurance I've never had. I still spend a day and a half coming down from big conferences and crying, because the pressure of saying and doing the right thing, of not being too... too ME can be extreme. (And given that I asked a panel of medical professionals at this conference if there was a cap to how many people can see your cooter when you squish out a puppy--in those exact words-- I'd say no amount of pressure can take away the ME.)  The clothes were my defense against Imposter Syndrome. I couldn't be an imposter if I had the wardrobe, right?

And I had clothes that were good for the back of the room, where I thought I'd be sitting with my friends to cheer on other friends, but not for the front of the room.

So for a moment I balked.

But Suzanne Brockman was wearing jeans and a T-shirt at drinks, and she took no bullshit from any quarter. Surely I could find SOMETHING in the giant suitcase I'd brought for that week, right?  I mean, what sort of idiot turns that down for a DRESS?

Not this one. I mean, Suzanne would get all the attention--how hard would it be to find something blackish and watch her in awe?

The first dress was meant for a black bra--which I hadn't brought. The second dress had something wrong with it--I don't remember. I finally threw on an outfit I'd meant to wear for the signing and looked at Mate hopefully.

"Of the three outfits you tried on in the last fifteen minutes, that's the one I dislike the least."

I stared at him. "I'll take it," I said, and then I threw my phone into the stupid black purse with the chain strap that I save for trying to look classy and ran out the door.

Suzanne was awesome.

I've posted the transcript of her speech at the top of the page, so you can see how inconsequential my stupid dress was to the whole thing. I DID almost kill her with my stupid purse when she came back from the stage, because it fell off the back of my chair.  I kicked it under, as punishment, and my phone survived, so we're all okay.

But my point was this.

Props aren't bad things.

The small rituals we go through to give us the confidence to do brave things can get us through the days of drudgery when bravery is the furthest thing from our hearts and minds.

But even as we use our props, put on our makeup, find that dress that doesn't suck, look for shoes that can accommodate swollen feet, and grab a purse that doesn't look like a yarn bag, it's important to remember that props are just that--

Theater.

Props in theater help a production go smoothly, help us forget that the house isn't really a house, it's just a set, and that the beautiful heroine on stage was a total twat to us in grade school and why are we watching her in a college production again?

So props aren't bad.

But they're not real.

It's the writer who had penned the message, and the actor who delivers it with enough conviction to move us. When we're both the actor and the writer, being without our props can be scary. We're naked there on the stage of human concourse, and only our sincerity and conviction can sustain us.

That's okay.

We shouldn't let the lack of our props keep us from that stage. Even if we're up there as the audience (and how meta is THAT? God, it's late. Don't answer.)  Not having the right props is immaterial. Do we have the right message? Do we have the convictions we can be proud of?

Suzanne Brockman got up and delivered a barn burner of a speech about inclusion, and about how we ALL needed to be a part of it, and how 53% of white women voted against it, and it was our job as writers to make sure that never happened again. She told us we had voices, and asked us how we could write about love if we didn't believe EVERYBODY deserved it.

She spoke truth.

And I got a front row seat.

And nobody was going to give a shit about what I wore.

Amy and Jason Gaffney. RIGHT? Dudes... Because what she said was real.

I need to remember that.

Not that I'll suddenly go back to Hello Kitty shirts again, but because one of the reasons I've always had such a hard time with props is that I've had my head in the real. Suzanne reminded us of what's real.

That's really all that matters.

Hooooooooommmmmme....

I love Mate madly.

I do.

But I'm not sure I can fully impart to him the mental exhaustion of someone who does work in their pajamas suddenly subjected to ALL THE AWESOME PEOPLE for five and a half days.

I know when I get off the plane, I'm usually a babbling mess, and if I don't get a complete day to decompress, I become a screaming, crying, babbling mess.

Seriously.

I usually think he hates me and wants a divorce on the second day I get back from a con.

In this case, we spent that day in a car for twelve hours, enjoying the scenic stylings of Utah and Nevada.

The vasty nothingness of the salt flats was particularly fascinating.

The kids were like, "Oh my  God. The Morton company. For real?"

Anyway--we made it through.

We had a giant pizza--accidentally ordered by myself, the night before. I was looking at prices, thinking, "Family size," and didn't realize that in Utah, that much money bought a 26" pizza.

It barely fit through the door. We were driving down the highway with a ginormous pizza box in the back, and every now and then Mate or myself would stick our hands back and go, "Pizza me."

Only this family, I swear.

We listened to Jim Butcher's Storm Front, narrated by James Marsters, who sounded like pure sex and Harry Dresden at the same time, and Mate is now really in love with the series, so that's a good thing.  We also listened to Hamilton, and the first hour of Fool Moon. 

So, you know-- culcha. We haz it. Also, pizza.

Anyway, we made it home, collapsed, and I went and got the dogs today.

They appear to be happy.

The cats also, appeared to be happy--before we got the dogs.

And I spent my day doing... absolutely nothing.

I couldn't even concentrate to read any of the AWESOME SPECTACULAR BOOKS I got while I was in Denver.

Maybe tomorrow.

*yawn*  I've got to write just a little, or tomorrow I start ripping faces off, and then, to bed.

Cause baby, I'm home.

Sparkly Happy Dust

Okay-- so we've been driving for six hours and I'm waiting for Uber Eats and I'm exhausted. I'm in a hotel room with the fam in the shitty side of Salt Lake City, and I'm trying to put my week into words and...

Can't do it.

Can't brain words.

What I'm going to do is babble a little about some of the high points and then, hopefully my pizza will arrive and I can curl up into a little ball and sleep.

So...

*  Dinner and drinks with my publisher and editor and promotions director. Just because we like each other's company. And because, just once, I had alcohol. And it was Denver. And I got a little drunk. And they were delighted.

* Peeps. Kate McMurray, Rayna Vause, Kathy Tully, LaQuette, Adriana Herrera, Harper Collins, Geoffrey Symon, Tere Michaels, Mary Calmes, The Book Taster, Victoria Sue, Charlie Cochet, M.A. Vance, Pamela Moran, Cindy Dees, Karen Rose, Sara Lundsford-- you guys, I can't have an event without seeing ALL OF YOU (yes, Harper--you're new, but damn, you're on my list now!) because there's just SO MUCH AWESOME.  And Damon Suede always gives me a long hug which I find I need at every event. So
*  Geoff Symon's autopsy class-- WOOT. K9 Search and Rescue Class-- WOOT! Karen Rose's craft class-- WOOT! Erica Ridley's Newsletter Class-- WOOT!  Rayna Vause, Catherine Bybee, Jillian David, LaQuette and (I'm sorry I forgot the fifth person!) did a medical terminology and general knowledge class that rocked my world-- WOOT!!!  There were some other classes in there I swear, but the upshot is, I learned lots and lots of useful shit.

* Sonali Dev in a sari before the librarian's luncheon. That is all.

*  Seeing Rita Clay Estrada (whom they named the RITAs after?) at the information desk. *swoon*

And finally...

*  Meeting Jason Gaffney, and his mother Suzanne Brockman, and being invited to SIT AT THEIR TABLE when Suzanne got the Lifetime Achievement RITA and then OMFG BURNED THE PLACE DOWN with a blistering, heartfelt speech about how the world--and romancelandia-- needs to open its heart and its mind to diversity...

I've got no words.

I cried.

I rejoiced.

I got ANGRY.

Jason is a fan of mine. Suzanne Brockman's son is a FAN OF MY WORK.

And I've loved her work since a little after Chicken was born.

Her story about her son in Hot Target (it's at the beginning-- it's sort of famous) is one of the inspiring moments for my own writing. It would take a few years, but when I started writing Vulnerable, her insistence that love is love is love had been beating in my heart that entire time. When Green arrived on the scene and was sad because he and Adrian had loved each other but now Adrian was in love with Cory...

Suzanne Brockman was one of the voices that made that okay for me. That made it something to celebrate.

So, yes.

I got to watch her talk about diversity in fiction in no bullshit, come and get me terms.

It was GLORIOUS.

She's more my hero than ever.

And yes-- I exploded into silver sparkly happy dust all over Denver.

I've yet to come down.

From Moab to Denver...

Yeah-- there's quite a change of topography.

So, I've arrived at RWA and started to say hi to my sisterhood-- I do miss authors-- they tell such wonderful stories!

Anyway--SO tired. And tomorrow is a big day, so mostly I'm just going to inundate you with pictures and run away.

But I do have a terrible thing to confess.

We were traveling through Arches, and some of the most amazing scenery known to man, when I had a horrible revelation.

There were an awfully lot of rocks with a particular shape. A sort of phallic shape. If you know what I mean.

So I know we were there to look at rocks, glorious rocks, but at times I found myself thinking I was more at a cock garden... *sings* Cocks, glorious cocks...

Yeah.

It's been a great trip, but, you know, too much driving and Amy gets weird. Er.

Also-- Squish was like, "Why are we stopping at this rest stop?"

I was like, "TREES!"

Because as glorious as the cocks, erm, rocks were in Moab, I gotta admit, the Rocky Mountains really do have their blessings.

Oh! One more thing-- Chicken sent us, "Proof of Cat."

The cats seem to be affronted that we would not just know they were alive because all was right in the universe.

A Fool and His Manny-- July 17th!!!

Okay-- so I'm on a road trip to RWA AND I've got a book out!

Whew!

You'll get pictures of Moab tomorrow (maybe!) but in the meantime, hey, there's this book! That I really love! And it's out tomorrow!

WHEEEEEEEEEE!!!!

So I'm just going to drop this here and go to bed, because hey-- lots of driving, lots of getting out in the heat and going, "Oh, ah, penis shaped rocks!"  And an hour in the pool cooling off afterward.

But I really do love this book-- it's been blog toured at Open Skye Books and My Fiction Nook so far, where I talk about the pushy younger guy/shyer older guy trope, and hurt/comfort too! I think Wednesday I talk about virgins, and somewhere in there I confess to being a rotten babysitter, and also what to pack for Manny 101.  Anyway-- stay tuned as I make my way through the lovely writers at RWA and the perils of the road trip with my family.

And enjoy this one. It's short and it's sweet and it's comforting--and comfort is good right now. Pull it over your heart like a warm blanket. That's what some books are for.





A Fool and His Manny

by Amy Lane


Dustin Robbins-Grayson was a surly adolescent when Quinlan Gregory started the nanny gig. After a rocky start, he grew into Quinlan’s friend and confidant—and a damned sexy man.

At twenty-one, Dusty sees how Quinlan sacrificed his own life and desires to care for Dusty’s family. He’s ready to claim Quinlan—he’s never met a kinder, more capable, more lovable man. Or a lonelier one. Quinlan has spent his life as the stranger on the edge of the photograph, but Dusty wants Quinlan to be the center of his world. First he has to convince Quinlan he’s an adult, their love is real, and Quinlan can be more than a friend and caregiver. Can he show Quin that he deserves to be both a man and a lover, and that in Dusty’s eyes, he’s never been “just the manny?”

Buy at Amazon
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Road Tripping

So, about six weeks ago I said, "I need to get my plane ticket to RWA."

Mate said, "Where is it?"

I said, "Denver."

He said, "Let's drive!"

I said, "Uh... okay. All of us?"

He said, "Yeah! Kids will love it!"

So, uh--we're driving to Denver.

And at first I was like "Does he realize there's nothing between Sacramento and Denver?"

But the kids seemed to think it would be awesome, so I bought a bunch of Neil Gaiman audiobooks--The Graveyard Book, Stardust, Neverwhere, Good Omens-- and didn't buy a plane ticket. And we planned to drive.

Turns out, I was wrong.

There is a whole lot of beauty between Sacramento and Denver.

And there's Neil Gaiman's delightful sense of humor.

And my family--which manages to have fun together no matter where we go.

So we get to Denver Tuesday, and we're going to Arches tomorrow.

And hopefully, we will have as much fun then as we have in the last two days.

Squish: If you don’t stop touching g me, I’ll break your ribs in three places!

ZoomBoy: Fine. I just won’t go to those places!— amy lane (@amymaclane) July 15, 2018

Me, glancing at speedometer at bottom of hill: Yikes! Good news, hon! The Odyssey goes 100mph.

Mate: I KNOW! You can slow down ANY TIME!— amy lane (@amymaclane) July 15, 2018

Me: All right guys- if we don’t leave now I’m going to fall asleep now and wake up when all the restaurants are closed and eat Dad.

Mate: Don’t eat me, eat Squish. She’s plump and tender and young. Like veal.

Squish: Hey!— amy lane (@amymaclane) July 16, 2018