Tricia Sullivan's Blog, page 12

darkness makes me fumble

I made the mistake of watching some of Eat, Pray, Love yesterday.  Oh, groan, gag, die, gag some more.  Die again.

Yup, I'm limping through half-term.  I've invested far too much money on one of those blue-light thingies, but I've only used it for a few days so it's hard to say if it's having any effect.  For the last four years, October-December has been really rough for me, and when I look at it objectively I can see no reason why this should be so apart from the season itself.  So in addition to exercising religiously I'm (skeptically) trying the light.  (It's not that I'm skeptical that SAD exists, it's just that I don't want to hope too much that this particular solution will work for me personally, if that makes sense.)

School holidays are always odd.  During term-time I'm writing and studying, and I store up all my Tthings What Need Doing for the school holidays.  So I have this big list of really uninteresting chores and errands, and I work through it, but it's all so dutiful and boring that I end up flaking off a lot, yet not in any way that is actually fun.  Then I feel guilty because I know the other mums are out there 'doing things' with their kids and having fun.  I've been thinking about the 'fun' issue since I had so much of it on Saturday.  Why is fun so bloody hard for me these days?

One reason is that a lot of what passes for fun with kids is actually organized in advance, and the person who would have to do that would be...me!  Which kind of kills the fun.  But I seem to have lost my spark for spontaneous fun, too.  I am out of work and I hate it.  I am a student with a long way to go before being employable.  For years I haven't been able to think about anything but digging my way out from under all that, and it makes the inside of my head a harsh place sometimes.  We're very lucky that Steve is so recourceful, but work is something he constantly chases.  Sometimes I feel like the stable life I'm attempting to provide for my kids is just an elaborate illusion.  I don't want them to know how shaky things really are--or how shaky I really am--but inevitably I can't maintain any sort of composure for long.

The interesting thing is that, for us, the hard times have gone on for a fair ten years.  I thought it would be getting better by now, but enter the recession(s) and the publishing crunch, and it's not.  I know this is awful, but sometimes I feel a sense of relief that my family is not alone in struggling.  I used to feel shame; now I feel lucky for what we do have going.  I grew up in an absurdly overpriviledged, entitled environment that made me weak in many ways, so that in my forties I'm still learning life skills that would be considered very basic in times and places other than suburban late-20th-century New Jersey--and I haven't managed to pick up on most of the new tech culture, either.  So I feel like a wanker from both ends!  Not to mention the whining.

I try to tell myself I'm showing my kids how to survive as an artist-type, if not gracefully, then with sanity and purpose intact.  Of course, I have no idea how to do that!  I have never seen it done.  Growing up in my family, everything was stable to a ludicrous degree.  The world seemed fixed and the renegade energy in it was me.  Now I'm creating a home environment for my kids that is much messier.  They are watching me stumble, fall, fail, and fuck up in my work on almost a daily basis.  I've no idea what they are taking from this.  A certain doggedness, I guess, but I wish I could show them what success looks like. 

Whatever is inside humans that makes us soar, that makes us play, that makes us bubble over with ideas and aspirations--my kids have that and I don't want them to lose touch with it.  Ever.  I feel I am perilously close to being cut off from mine, though.  If only for their sake, I want that connection back.  Imagination and hope are not only for the young.

It is clear I'm never going to be able to create the kind of sensible, solid household for my kids that some part of me thinks is necessary.  So I'm looking for the upside in the way we are living.  And you know what?  That takes a truckload of creativity.  The materialism thing has me in its teeth, bigtime.

Screw you, materialism thing!  Twenty lashes with this USB cable!

Spend it!

I'm so glad I went to Bristolcon. It was fun, and also gave me a jolt because I was forced to confront the utter lack of 'what the hell, why not' in my forty-something responsibility-laden life. I really need to make an effort to inject a little more goofy into my weeks and months.

Bristolcon was small, which is a plus for me because I didn't get lost (much) and got to actually talk to people. I talked withfredawritesand her husband, met historical novelist Harriet Castor, briefly saw Joanne Hall, Shana and Cheryl, chatted with jmck and maeve_the_red(and found out that Jaine and I have THE SAME BRAIN when it comes to certain things about the writing business) and hung out in the bar giving John Meaney a hard time about his Shotokan.

The highlight of the day was listening to an interview of justinar in which stephanieburgis asked a cogent series of questions and Justina's wit was employed to good effect in answering . At the end Justina gave a reading from a work in progress that had a complex description--think elevator pitch that would only work if the lift were stuck between floors for a while.  But fascinating.  There is an electricity in listening to such a good writer read work in progress hot off her laptop. I could almost see the pages in my mindseye. Want book!

Of course, spending time with Steph and psamphire was great. And there were no kids, which makes the flow of conversation considerably less interruption-y.

Up until now I've been of two minds about Eastercon. I had mentioned to Rhiannon that there was a con in London at Easter and that we might go and see London. Then I regretted it, because the very thought of all the expense and hoo-ha made me tired. I think, though, that things are moving past the babies/small children stage when going out really was hard with my kids.  It's changing.

I need to fight this tendency to maintain my discipline and conserve energy. Sometimes you've got to spend it to make it.

surprises, and not suprises, and Rowan Atkinson

On the spur of the moment I've decided to jump in the car tomorrow and tag along to Bristolcon for the afternoon with stephanieburgis and patricksamphire

Other than trips to A&E, spontaneous excursions have been all to rare in the last decade, so I'm really looking forward to this!  The great justinar is one of the GoH and will be interviewed by Stephanie (woo-hoo!), and I see that jmck is also a GoH.  Yay!  We'll only be there for a few hours due to family obligations, but  hope to bump into some people I know. 

In other happy news, a friend just alerted me via e-mail that Lauren Beukes' UK deal has finally been sorted out after massive excitement.  I usually follow Lauren on twitter but have been having some login issues lately, so I don't know what's being said online.  I hope SF people are happy.  This kind of electricity is all too rarely found around novelists but I'm not at all surprised that it is happening around Lauren.  She is quite the magical person, and part of this magic comes out of the fact that she works extremely hard -- she knows how to follow through on the risks she takes.  I can't wait to see what she does with this concept.  I know it will be sensational.

I am now off to see Johnny English, Reborn.  Take pity on me.  I have to do something fun (for them) with the kids today to pay for being out all day tomorrow and leaving everybody stranded with no car.  I love Mr. Bean but this movie looks pretty bad. 

burrahobbit!

Damn, it's cold out there this morning!  I made the mistake of thinking I could run in shorts and a sweatshirt.  Once I got up the hill my body warmed up but my fingers, clutching phone and car keys respectively, became little yellow icicles in short order.  I cut the run short and now can 'look forward' to finishing later.  With gloves.  Ugh.  I will finish though.  Running is my big gun in the fight against the self-hatred that comes with being out of work.  It is also my random idea generator and all-purpose problem-solver. 

Today I am thinking about improvisation.  I recently read the wonderful and highly-buzzed Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor, and it reminded me to revisit her Not For Robots site that (I think) stephanieburgis  pointed me to a couple of years ago.  This got me thinking about process.  Because in Daughter I felt like I could actually see and feel the way the author had worked with different versions, different layers and angles of her story, and integrated them: there were aspects to the book that had a collage-y feel.  And the approach worked; in fact, it brought a richness out of proportion to the story's actual length.  It didn't work perfectly...there were places where the structure shook a little and one point where it rocked precariously, but recovered.  Being little interested in perfection, I don't intend that as a criticism so much as an observation.  I could readily empathise with Taylor's approach, because it is similar to my own, book after book.  The main thing about me that's different from most people is probably the way I write first drafts in all kinds of crazy order. 

Right now I am having this thing with my current book where I'm going, please will you comply to some kind of grabbable thinginess?  And it is going, Er, actually, no.  When it gets like this I find I can either nail it to a wall and draw diagrams on it and force it into a pose where I can knock out words, or I can go away awhile and let it think about itself.  I'm not really happy with either approach because they both have big down sides that in the words of the Fat Controller cause confusion and delay.

So my intention, for now, is to do some improvisation sessions.  Then I'll nail it to the wall and yell at it.  Then I'll go running.  Again.

I guess this is why people who are close to me compare me to a pit bull.  The thing is, I always feel more like a fume or a wisp. 

Maybe I'm more of a persistent fume...

Phenomenal video of Maya Angelou

Posted by Zetta Elliott, who recorded this personally.  Love this.

SF for kids

I was offline when my list of recommended children's SF on the Locus Blog came out.  Karen Burnham's put up a round-up post summarizing the series of children's SF posts she put together, and I'm enjoying going through and seeing what the other contributors recommended, and why.  If you're interested in children's literature, the posts are worth a read.

Tyrone's now into Watership Down, which I first read when I was his age exactly.  He hasn't been a terribly enthusiastic reader until now, and I get all choked up at the enormity of the milestone.  He's also campaigning for a D&D set.  I'm saving up.  I can't wait to buy polyhedral dice!

I'm busy.  I was thinking of posting a picture of my current running shoes to illustrate how badly I need new ones, but the thought of it grosses me out too much.  I'll spare you.

Big Birds

Yesterday I dropped Steve at the train station and took the kids to an informal school event organized by one of the primary school teachers.  We drove deep into Powys to Gigrin Farm, one of the places where the endangerered Red Kite has been brought back from near-extinction.  I can remember watching a documentary about the birds years ago, describing how they'd been culled by farmers for centuries, to the point where very few were left.  Contemporary farmers in mid-Wales have been gradually rebuilding their numbers by sheltering and feeding them, but I gather that egg theft has continued to be a problem threatening the recovery of the species. 

We saw several kites in the air as we got into the area.  They have a distinctive knife-like shape in the sky, and as we drew closer we could hear them calling.  The farmer has set up a group of hides, and we all squeezed into one of them and watched as the farmer drove out his tractor and shoveled large quantities of meat onto the field.  This is a 'top-up' of their wild diet, intended to encourage greater numbers.

Kites are not dive-bomb sort of birds; rather, they arc in and sieze prey as small as an earthworm in the blink of an eye.  They also feed on carrion.  They were accompanied by crows.  The crows landed first and then the kites began to swoop down.  We were told to stay quiet as these are shy birds, but naturally it would be Sean who let out an uncontrollable shriek of joy when the first kites came down. (The only time he was louder was when he spotted a peacock sitting on somebody's Land Rover). 

I didn't bring a camera, but this is what they look like.  Imagine hundreds of them swirling around in the sky.  Calling.



Their plumage is stunning: russet and white under the wings, terrifically variegateed colour.  But the thing about them that struck me most was how fast they are.  What an incredible sense of timing they have!  They swoop down and their claws seize their food so swiftly you think they haven't even touched it.  Then they are up again and off.  They actually eat in midair.  We were told they have to find clear airspace to do this or another kite will steal the meat out of their claws.  Their agility in flight is quite astonishing.

Of course I got massively lost on the way back.  Yumi suggested a less-winding route back since the kids were complaining of feeling car sick.  Her way was less winding, until I made a wrong turn and drove right off the edge of the Google Maps printout, wandering 3/4 of the way to Aberystwyth on the coast.  It took ages to find our way back, and then I nearly missed collecting Steve from the train station.  He had been to London, taught for three hours and come back in not much more time than it took me to drive around every road in West Wales.

I wish I were less of a ditz.  I don't think to bring a map or anything, and then I get distracted discussing important matters with the kids, like what if there were an alternate world that you could only access via toilets (Pooland, of course).  And I don't notice things like, er, road signs.

But we also discuss important philosophical questions, like 'Is Ninja poo invisible'?

I'm going to buy an atlas.

send me your airborne gobshite detectors

 I'm still locked out of FB and I'm afraid to go near Twitter in case I get sucked in. Also, in the computer double-crash my e-mail was messed up and I'm currently sending off a secondary address and possibly even through my partner's name.  There are several people I want to e-mail but can't find their addresses because of this. It is sad that I am the tech person in our house. Very sad for us all.  However, there are good things:

* I'm still writing! *yips with joy*
* I just ran for an hour and felt great
* Steve and I are going out tonight to see Tinker, Tailor etc. and to have a meal together for the first time since...gosh...I can't remember.  June?

When I am running I always get alpha-wave ideas that strike me as brilliant at the time.  Today's idea was to have a character that rides in on a thing that looks like a hospital floor-cleaner, you know, like with brushes that spin around?  And I could vividly see and hear him announce that he had just invented the 'Airborne Gobshite Detector'.  I actually cracked myself up laughing running uphill.

No, I don't think I'll be using that.  In case you were worried.

Good

As Mum and Master of the House, most of what I do all day consists of scatter-prevention and running interference and damage control and anticipation and organization.  This eats focus with a spoon. 

Yesterday I got HOURS alone in the bedroom with laptop, notebook, post-its, index cards and SILENCE.

Writing a new novel. 

In a few months or maybe even weeks I will hate this book and it will hate me.  We'll both get tired and we will grapple with each other.  It will throw me and I'll lie on my back and think, why did I start this up, again?

For now, it's good.

good thing I had a snorkel, that was a long one

I finished my first term of study with the OU!

Very abstract to just press a 'submit' button on the last of the online assessments, and you're done, and that's it.  I'm sitting here like...um...now what?

Not that I don't have anything to do.  Got a huge list.  But it's sorta weird how there's no real demarcation between frantically working and...done.  This doesn't feel like a novel deadline, but I can't qualify how it's different.  Just...unfamiliar.  A touch surreal.

I have to admit, the last few weeks of abandoning Twitter and FB and LJ have done me a certain amount of good.  I've missed my friends, but there's a lot I haven't missed.  Definitely I've been more focused and centered and all that West Coast crap.  But I'm a bit like a dog that buried the bone and can't remember where.  I must have disabled something on Twitter because I now can't log out and can't post, which is weird.  And I can't actually get on to FB anymore because apparently someone in outer London  tried to log in as me and now no matter how many times I change my password it won't let me in, and then it asked me to do some other stuff to prove who I am and you know what?  Fuck it.  Maybe later.  At this point it all just smells like cheese.

I need to turn the page now and move on with writing and other things, although I'm taking a level 2 math course starting in 2 weeks so I guess effectively I'm still studying.  Fibonacci numbers in the first lesson!  Sorry, I'm a little punch-drunk with this stuff.   In the eleventh hour I discovered there was a possibility of getting a 'pass with distinction' in my general science course.  I'd thought it was just a pass/fail introductory course and so I'd been putting more of an effort into the math course because I know I'll need that to do physics.  But when I found out about the chance of a higher grade I went into overdrive.  Poor brain.  It smoked a bit at times. 

All of this will be the height of irony to anyone who knows me, given that I'm philosophically opposed to the whole concept of grades.  But I'm a parent now, so I get to be a hypocrite on a daily basis.  This is all of a piece.

You just have to laugh at yourself, really.