Lyda Morehouse's Blog, page 55

My Muse Sucks

I understand why people talk about Muses when they try to describe the creative process. It's because writing is a confidence game. Most days I can fool myself into believing I'm brillant and that my ideas are cool and worth pursuing. Today, I'm having one of those days where every idea I try to come up with seems cliche and stupid.

Part of the problem is that I'm trying to tackle a proposal for an urban fantasy that I actually wrote some time ago. It's a proposal for a novel that my editor passed on. But, I have several "drawers" full of such things, because I always like to send in three proposals to my editor: the one I think she wants, the one I want, and one I make up off the seat of my pants. In the past, I've been pretty accurate in what I think will sell, but I've been surprised--Precinct 13 was actually the "seat of my pants" proposal, and I spent a lot of time thinking, "Really, this is the one you want??" But, I got over my shock eventually, and had a great time writing that book.

Anyway, I was looking through some of the ideas in the "reject" pile and started trying to figure out if there were any good bits to any of them. No surprise, perhaps, there are. However, the one I'm working on revising has some world-building that's exciting, but the whole rest of it-- the character, her situation, her choices-- all need a major overhaul. So I've been sitting at the coffee shop with my notebook trying to write out the cool of the world-building ideas and restructure a story around it.

It's not working.

I've had coffee (the usual food preferred by my "Muse,") but I'm not getting anywhere. I don't know if it's because I'm out of practice writing original fiction or if it's because EVERY IDEA REALLY *IS* STUPID. I've decided to forge ahead, but, when you're banging your head... everything else seems preferrable. It's probably a good thing that I've relocated to a coffeeshop because otherwise I'd be decorating our porch for the holidays, doing the dishes, or probably tackling any number of other projects that's been on my "honey do" list for years.

Grrr.

Okay, enough whining. Back to it!

In Which I Attempt to Die...

Today's commute was brought to you by the letters, "O," "M," and "G"

Right, so I'm feeling pretty clever and confident, despite watching everyone slip and slide on the iced-over hardpacked roads because I've got this system where I switch into low geer just at each intersection and very, very carefully apply pressure to the gas. Works like a charm.

Until it doesn't.

There we are, my entire family in the car, at the busy intersection of Summit and Victoria and the car just ain't movin'. I'm spinning my wheels no matter how slow I go, and I can't try to back-up because there's a line of people behind me. So, Shawn tries to get out to give the car a push, but, sensibly, she's in high heels. Besides, her foot slides on the glare ice and she wisely gets back in the car because not only is it stupid-slippery, but THE IDIOTS ARE GOING AROUND ME ON THE PASSANGER SIDE.

She crawls into my seat and I get out. I have womanly boots on, so I'm getting slightly better traction, but Holy Ice Age, Batman, if I don't have to hold on to the car to keep from sliding under it. I finally get behind the car and I have to spend three minutes directing traffic because ALL THE IDIOTS ARE IN SUCH A HURRY TO DIE AND POSSIBLY KILL US ALL IN THEIR MAD RUSH TO GET TO A JOB THEY PROBABLY HATE.

Then, the light turns green again and I put my hand on the bumper...and immediatly slide back. It's such a sheet of ice that it's almost impossible to get a reaction without an immediate equal and opposite one. Finally, the guy in the truck behind me is not a mindlessly hurrying idiot and he hops out of his vehicle asks in the friendly Minnesotan way, "Do you need help?" I'm about to say yes, when his foot goes out from under him and he collides into me and the car. Luckily, he doesn't go under it, and weridly, having his body right there I'm able to give our car enough of a push that Shawn slowly sides through the intersection without colliding with anything. I see her steering over to the curb, and I'm about to offer the guy a hand, but he's already up and, of course APOLOGIZING. I tell him not to worry about it because OMG he's lucky no idiot had decided to go around us both and run over him, and then, being the classly lady I am, I swore up a storm like a sailor as I tried to walk across the f*cking iced-over street to get back to my car.

What the heck, Saint Paul? Do we not remember this thing called SAND?? Anakin Skywalker does not like sand, in fact he says, "I don't like sand. It's coarse and rough and irritating and it gets everywhere. Not like here. Here everything is soft and smooth." But, he's Darth Vader, killer of millions, and 'soft and smooth' makes for crap-ass driving conditions. Let's get some sand out there, people!

/rant.

I am, however, most grateful to be home. Ironically, yesterday, the day after twelve inches of snow, I made it home only 15 minutes behind schedule. Today, it's almost 45 mintues. That cuts into my bon-bon eating time, folks. I am not happy.

Although, to be fair, I am also late coming home because I stopped in to talk to the librarian at Mason's school. Talk about another depressing conversation. Did you know that there are only twelve full-time librarians in the Saint Paul School District? Ms. Fry, the librarian at Crossroads, is the _only_ elementary school librarian, and she's technically part-time because, in order to save her job, she got a Pre-K teaching licence and does that part-time at Crossroads as well. There is something seriously wrong with this picture. We chose Crossroads over all other schools partly because there was a librarian on staff. What, I ask you, is the point of having a media center/library at your school when it's shuttered half the time or run by volunteers?

The good news is that she and I worked out a plan for Mason, his AR tests, and schedule.

The bad news is that I found out that St. Paul schools no longer support AR tests and Crossroads is footing the entire bill to keep the program running at their school. Ai, ai, ai.

So much ranting.

Snow Makes Me Lazy

All I wanted to do now that there are twelve inches of snow on the ground is hunker down under a blanket with a cat on my lap and surf the internet/write fanfic. And, yet, somehow, the dishes have not agreed to wash themselves for me. It's an outrage, I tell you, an OUTRAGE.

Here are some pictures to get a sense of the scale of yesterday's snowfall. Before your eyes mistake this for a tree trunk, that's a ruler stuck in the ground on our sidewalk. It reads just over 9 inches, and, at that point, it was still snowing. We ended up officially getting one foot of snow:



Here, however, is how pretty Hoth, the Ice Planet, can be:



I also took a picture of the front of the house, but I realized, looking at it, that all it really depicts is how crappy a shoveling job I did on the front stairs. Hopefully today's sunshine will remedy some of that.

In other news, Archangel Protocol is now available through B&N: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/archangel-protocol-lyda-morehouse/1004558434, so even though I get a better percentage if you order direct from Wizard's Tower Press (and everyone who has used them says their interface is wonderfully easy to use), you can now also order this way, if you prefer.

Sorry to be flogging this like a cheap 'ho, but it's a big deal to me to finally have this book available as "new" again.

Okay... *sigh*... can't ignore the dishes any more.

Big Mistake

Buy Archangel Protocol NOW directly from Wizard's Tower Press.

My publisher says, "There are no barriers preventing US citizens buying from my store. There won't be any "this book isn't available in our region" messages. It's not illegal for them to do so. The book won't turn up in a strange language they can't understand, or take forever to ship. There'll be a small charge for currency conversion, but on a book that cheap it is a matter of cents. Depending on how the currency markets fluctuate, my price may well be cheaper than the $3.99 we'll be doing in US stores."

So for godssake do it!

In Pounds Sterling

Today's the day that shall live in infamy... and that my e-book version of Archangel Protocol comes out from Wizard's Tower Press. Hey, all my UK friends, it's in pounds sterling! I suspect the rest of us will wait for it to make its appearances in other marketplaces, which I've been told it will... eventually. In the meantime, be international! Buy this book!

http://wizardstowerpress.com/books-2/archangel-protocol/



The other thing I want to say about this book is: isn't the artwork amazing? The original cover artist, Bruce Jensen, is (after J. Michael Tatum,) probably the nicest guy on the planet. Not only did he donate his stunning artwork to us, but he also volunteered to do the graphic design for the cover. So veiw this masterpeice as the artist intended it! That last part will be particularly clear when we get to the fourth book in the series. I reember a lot of my readers were... well, kind of pissed off by the final cover. The font changed! The art was... different. Turns out, Bruce had actually had three working drafts of art for that cover and, since we were doing that book over, as it were, we ACTUALLY CHOSE COMPLETELY NEW AND NEVER BEFORE SEEN ART for Apocalypse Array. I can hardly wait to show it off. It's f*cking gorgeous.

Go forth! Purchase Christmas, Chanukah, Solstace, Kwanzaa, and/or Oseibo gifts NOW!!

Soon? They're not Kidding!

I have to tell you that one thing that I'm constantly surprised by with small presses is SPEED. So... you know how I announced that the e-book version of Archangel Protocol will be coming soon? Well, I meant, like, tomorrow. (Yes, there will be a posting, tweeting, social media frenzy with all the details on how to buy it. It will probably first appear in the Wizard's Tower Press catalog before it makes its way to Amazon and B&N and other traditional venues, but it will be compatible with all your e-readers right away.)

My publisher has asked if there are any review sites I should have her send copies to, and I'm honestly not entirely sure who to recommend. Any suggestions?

In other news, I have to ask: why is it that when I anxiously post my porniest slash to AO3, they seem to schedule maintenance and the site goes down for an hour or more? I swear they do this just to make me sweat. ;-)

Also, 'tis the season for holiday freak out. Shawn woke up in the middle of the night last night and sat in the bathroom and scribbled down frantic "to-do before the holidays" lists. We have a tradition in our pagan household of celebrating both Solstice and Christmas. On Solstice, we've tried to institute a tradition of "homemade gifts." This does not, of course, extend to the grandparents, who, we're quite happy to say, will be joining us on the holiday proper. However, this means, for me, it's time to get cracking. Because of some failed attempts ot get Bleach gear for me for my birthday, I've decided to hand-craft an 11th Division tee-shirt for Mason to wear to kuk sool. It's just going to be an iron on patch of the Division's diamond with the kanji for 11 in it. I have an iron-on product that works with an ink jet printer, so all I really have to do is figure out how to flip the image and print the thing out. However, I should probably try to make a stab at that today, in case of failure. (Despite my ablities with pen and paper, I'm kind of a klutzy crafter.)

I also need to walk up the block to check out when the "Y's Men" (get the pun?) tree lot is open over at the YMCA. We're planning on getting the holiday tree on Saturday, with the plan to decorate it sometime Sunday. Mason has a big birthday thing he has to spend a lot of Saturday on (his friend Ava decided it would be cool to take all her friends to a play, which is nice, but it means one whole hour of theater and then events after, which kind of sucks up almost three hours in the middle of Saturday.)

Depending on when the Y's Men are open, there will be the traditional OMG-TREE-RUN across University Avenue, in which we drag a gigantic pine tree across the extremely busy street that lies between us and the Y. This should be made extra spectacular now that there's a light rail line right in the middle. At least it's not active yet. When it goes live, I'm not quite sure HOW we'll do this. It would feel silly to strap a tree to our car in order to drive around the block and back again.

I also need to make a trip to the Mall to check out to see what of the things Mason has on his list are actually available INSIDE the Lego store and what we may have to order on-line. I will either do that tomorrow or Friday, but I need to go this week because, if we have to place an order, we should do it soon.

I also have to figure out what my partner wants. It's easy to shop for me. I want Manga and art supplies and blank journals and pretty much all of the same things I wanted when I was fifteen. I've been known to squeal with excitement over a crayon maker and a rock tumbler (and that was only a couple of years ago.) But, Shawn is like a grown-up... so I'm going to have to put some serious thought into something she'll like an enjoy.

Alright. I'm going to go check and see if AO3 is back up and then think seriously about doing some of these things on my holiday list. I also need to make a quick run to the grocery store as Mason's friend Soren will be over for dinner and KSW again tonight and I think we were planning hotdogs or something equally "boy" for them.

Elevator Dreams and More

I have a reoccurring nightmare. It involves getting on an elevator, often at a business, but sometimes at a high-rise dorm (which I had at my alma mater). I press the button to go to the floor I need, and suddenly the elevator goes too fast, has no walls, spins around, goes sideways, or any number of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory sorts of options. It's not the kind of nightmare where I wake up screaming for my mommy in a cold sweat. It does, however always stick in my mind and disturb the calm of the day afterwards with fleeting memories of the dream sensations.

Last night, my subconscious came up with a most clever solution. When you see an elevator, don't get on!

Brilliant.

Of course, I then spent the rest of the dream trying to rescue a friend who did get on the elevator and thus had fallen into the clutches of some evil half-way house for at-risk teens. Me and the cab-driver (the character of "Sasha" from EastEnders) and I came up with all sorts of distractions in order to save this young man... which we eventually did by bringing the building super in. That's where things go weird in a very dream-like way... however, the point is, I saved the boy AND DIDN'T RIDE THE ELEVATOR. A good night.

I'm pleased to have had such a successful subconscious because last night people were wrong on the Internet again. I got into a very brief Facebook fight with a friend who had posted a link to this: Conor Lastowka's Tumblr comments, a sort of backlash to io9's decision: http://lastowka.tumblr.com/post/37204317766/fff.

There are only a couple of things I want to say. The most mature of which is, "Nyah, nyah, nyah, shut up, we won!"

The second is actually in response to something my friend said on his Facebook status. He suggested that fan fic writers were inviting criticism by posting their work in a public forum. He said that everyone takes their lumps as creative artists.

My first response was a gut-level "yeah, but we're professionals, those are the dues we can expect to pay..."

But, I was thinking about that a lot as I was falling asleep because, you know, he's right. Fic forums are public venues. However, the analogy my brain came up with was this: fan sites are as public as, say, a gay bar. The Gay 90s is a public place. Everyone is allow in, but there's an assumption that those of us who go there are entering a space just for us, where we can be surrounded by like-minded folks. It may not be officially a safe space, but there's a sort of assumed privacy. No one is expecting a straight reporter from Comedy Central to bust in and start mocking someone for wearing lame pants.

I think the analogy is especially useful because one of the things that I felt like was happening was an "oooh, look at the kinky weirdos" parade. Sherlock enema fic! Water sports Harry Potter! And, as a lesbian, I find that sort of thing particularly hurtful, because not that long ago, what I did in the privacy of my own bedroom was considered a disease.

And of course some fic writing is dreadful. Some pro writing is dreadful. 'Nuff said. Because, you know, the good guys won this one. So I'm going to let it go.

Updated to add: So my partner, who often acts as a "clipping service" sent me a link to this early review of the The Hobbit movie from the Hollywood Reporter: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movie/hobbit-an-unexpected-journey/review/397416

I particularly resonated with this quote, "If The Hobbit had been filmed shortly after the book's publication in 1937 (it's a wonder that it wasn't), one easily could imagine a lively affair full of great character actors and cleverly goofy special effects that would have moved the story along in smart style in under two hours." Except, I'd like to see THAT movie with TODAY'S special effects.

I was expecting to be disappointed, particularly when I found out that Mr. Jackson was breaking this movie into three parts. But, it was kind of my Captain America. I was holding out hope that, despite my fears, it would turn out ridiculously awesome. Because, like Captain America, I have a lot invested in the Hobbit. Of all of JRR Tolkien's works, THE HOBBIT is my favorite. It is the first "grown up" book that I remember reading cover-to-cover and more than once. It's also Mason's favorite, and, thanks to him, I've read the entire book out loud. It's a cleverly funny book (reminiscent, in my mind, at least, of the soft, domestic humor of Beatrix Potter,) and, actually, as such things go, very fast-paced with a lot of action and a F*CKING AWESOME DRAGON.

So, I'm still hoping that the reviewer is wrong, or, conversely, that it turns out I'm one of the purists who will enjoy the crap out of the extended version. Fingers remaining firmly crossed!

The E-Book is Coming, The E-Book is Coming!

http://www.cheryl-morgan.com/?p=15399

And all I can say is WHOOT!

Casting Around the 'Net

I'm sitting at a coffee shop in downtown St. Paul right now (Claddaugh Coffee,) and I'm trying to decide what to write today. I need to do some plotting for my superhero story/novel because I hit a wall about "what happens next." Usually I solve this problem with a pen and graph paper, and I may do that in a bit when I head off to sit with Shawn at the clinic. Her doctor has requested an ultrascan of her corroted arteries because of her family's history of strokes, and all this nonsense with her migraines and other problems. I do like that they're looking into everything, but the whole process is stressing Shawn out a bit, as you can well imagine. So I agreed not only to take her in, but to sit with her during the procedure. In the inevitable wait time, I'm planning to scribble plot ideas for SHATTERED MASK.

So, while I'm waiting here, I thought I might try my hand at a short story. I've been trying to limit my fic writing to mornings and nights... which explains my much slower posting rate lately. However, this is a concession to the fact that I need to have some product under my belt to feel like a "real writer" (a term, btw, I dispised even before I was bitten by the fic bug. Because, in my mind, any form writing is as real as any other.) But, in my usual cast around the internet wondering what ideas might hit me, I came across an anthology that pays NEXT TO NOTHING, but which is looking for something they're calling "sword & zombie" (a sort of "sword & sorcery" thing, only, obviously, with zombies.) For some reason, that idea tickled me, so now I'm trying to decide if I can write "samurai & zombie" in a short format--this anthology is looking for no more than 3,000 for a complete story, which seems crazy-short to me, but I thought that even if I don't submit to them, that's a fine length to shoot for.

That's kind of my big plans for the day. Mason and I are also hoping to get motivated to go to kuk sool tonight. Lately, we've only been making it once a week, on Thursday, when Mason's friend Soren comes over and we met his mom at kuk sool after class. Once a week is kind of terrible, so I'm guessing I know one of my New Year's resolutions.

Okay, off to try to be creative. Wish me luck.

Uh... Wow....

So, like, wow:

http://io9.com/5965211/why-we-decided-to-stop-publishing-fan-fiction-friday

Good on you, io9. You won back my heart. Entirely.