Lyda Morehouse's Blog, page 86

Recommendation!

Because I'm that person who talks to everyone, I had an interesting conversation with a virtual stranger today at the coffee shop. It came up that I'm a writer and she asked me a question very few people ask. She said, "Is that a good job? Do you like it?"

I told her the truth. My job is the best damn job EVER.

One of the perks that never ocurred to me when I was first starting out was the free books. Two good friends of mine have asked if I'd be willing to blurb their babies, and I'm always happy to say yes, even though I'm always baffled that *my* name could actually contribute to any book's success (given what little help it's given my OWN work.) At any rate, I got to read a novel/la by my friend Keith Hartman. It's being published by Pyramid Press and it's called MURDER BENEATH THE BURIED SKY. Here's the Kindle edition. Narf it up. It's cheap (3.99!), and it's AWESOME. I don't want to give too much away, but I found it to be very a engaging science fiction murder mystery. Did you like that section in the HUNGER GAMES series when Gale and Katniss are at District 13, underground? Well, this is like that, only better.

Go read it. I swear you won't be disappointed. Plus, it's going to take you like two hours to read the whole thing. It's that kind of book that pulls you in and you wake up when it's all over and think, "dang, that was great."

Anyway, speaking of writing. I must go do my own. Alas!

Fiction and Reality

I'm glad people enjoyed the Mouse vingnette. More will be coming, but, as this is all a big tease, you'll have to wait until next Tuesday. I've pre-written three -- all of which take place in the prequel part of the prequel/sequel that is RESURRECTION CODE. I'm thinking that I may write at least one in the sequel part, because that means I get to write Page and angels and that always makes me happy. (And, really, at the end of the day, this is all about me, after all.)

Speaking of Egypt and the prequel, I just wanted to say a big hooray that the Internet seems to be back up and running in Cairo, as my friend who lives there checked in on Facebook. We had a very short back and forth, actually, about the prequel because he was saying that when the Internet went down, he wondered if Mouse had been born yet and whether or not he could hurry things along and pull up mouse.net. It's so strange to me when reality and fiction intersect, and there's something about the AngeLINK world that seems to cultivate this sort of thing. (Let's all knock on wood that the Aswan dams hold, however.) But, the day I turned in Fallen Host was Septemeber 11, 2001. And, of course, it's sort of eerie that I have an attack on American soil, which, outside of Pearl Harbor, really hadn't happened yet.

Weird.

I know it's all just coincidence, but... well, it's just unnerving.

Mouse Preview #1

You know how everyone asks "do you remember where you were when the Aswan dams broke?" I remember very well, indeed. It's not a story I often tell.

#

My face was being jammed into a toilet bowl the day the lights went out. I didn't realize that at that same moment 9 million died under the crush of water bursting from the Aswan dam; in fact, I thought the power outage was a gift from God Himself because I used the opportunity to kick Yuri Sullivan in the shin.


I made it out of the gym locker room and into the pitch dark hallway filled with students struck dumb by the sudden loss of power. My footfalls echoed strangely in the too silent hall. Everyone stared at the ceiling, as if expecting the power to return any minute. When the back-up generators finally kicked in, I was safely ensconced in the front row for fifth period German. All Sullivan and Burke could do was shoot spit wads at me when Herr Stienmetz had his back to the class.

#

That night I had my last date with Alice Dewhurst, though I didn't realize it, of course. A lot of people thought Alice was weird, but I thought she was awesome. Like me, she was mixed race. She'd inherited her father's pale skin, but her blond hair grew out in tight curls she'd twisted into short dreads. I'd helped her twist in bits of wire and other cool antique circuit boards we "borrowed" from Mr. White's art supplies. Plus, she had the most captivating accent: part run-of-the-mill London, plus a hint of Trinidad. I could listen to her read a grocery list and just stare. In fact, most of our "dates" were a lot like that. I wasn't even sure she thought of me as her boyfriend, since I once overheard her tell one of her girlfriends I was a "good listener."

That sounds very un-boyfriend-like, doesn't it?

Regardless, I looked forward to our evening meet-ups. We'd met the first time by accident, both being night owls who couldn't stand being cooped up after lights-out. There was this spot on the gymnasium roof where you could see the faint glow of Cairo's lights. She was there any night she could get away.

"Spooky, isn't it?" she asked when I came up beside her to perch on the ventilation hood. I looked out at the vast sky. I'd never seen so many stars in my life. I felt suddenly aware of how big the universe was. I snuggled a bit closer not only for warmth in the cool desert night, but also to feel just a bit less alone.

She didn't pull away, but leaned into me, as well.

"I think it's more serious than anyone is letting on," she said.

I hadn't heard any rumors, myself. But I attributed that to the fact that most of the guys in my dorm never talked to me, except to hurl insults. "We'd have heard if it was war," I said.

"Margaret says she's seen broadcast vid of someone's LINK upload. It's some kind of flood."

I laughed. Look, I didn't know, did I? "This is the desert, Alice."

She shrugged. It was a delicate lift of her shoulder that brought with it the scent of jasmine. I was totally smitten. We spent the rest of the night naming constellations, remembering Greek mythology, and talking about the usual gossip, completely unaware that the entire world had been turned upside down.

#


The next morning we were all rounded up for an impromptu assembly. We jostled and joked, none of us prepared for what the headmaster would say. Sure, by nightfall rumors were spreading about some kind of industrial accident in Cairo, but no one thought any of it would affect the school. No one but me had family in Cairo, most of the students being sons of English and American expatriates, businessmen, and diplomats.

"Classes have been canceled," the headmaster began.

For a brief moment, he was overwhelmed by cheers and applause, and then he added, "For the unforeseeable future."

Someone started another whoop, but stopped in confusion. Classes canceled forever? Seriously?

"After assembly you will pack your things. We are being evacuated to a safer location. Your parents will meet you there to take you home."

My first thought was war, and I wasn't alone. I mean, it wasn't that long ago the Americans "accidentally" rained glass on our oil fields. Someone shouted above the murmurs of the crowd, "Are we under attack?"

The headmaster shook his head. "The Aswan dams broke. Cairo is… it's gone. All of North Africa is without power."

I sat on the hard bleacher seat and tried to parce what the headmaster had said. I couldn't get my brain to process any of it. Like a lot of people around me, I just repeated the words stupidly, "Gone?"

How could a city of 9 million be gone? It just didn't make any sense.

The headmaster was still going on about the process for evacuation, but I didn't hear it. Anyway, it didn't apply to me, especially not the part involving parents. I had none. My mother had died two years ago. She'd gotten herself killed covering a story with old school, live journalism for Al-Ahram Weekly. The only thing about dad I knew for certain was that he was a Christian. My mom had named me that, in his "honor," I guess. Christian El-Aref. What a stupid name for a Sunni Muslim. I should really change it, but nothing better had occurred to me.

See. That's how freaked out I was. I couldn't even think properly about what I should be doing. All I could focus on was my dumb name, and how desperately I needed a cooler nickname. At least I wasn't screaming or sobbing like that contingent of girls from Ms. Rameriez class.

I just sat there with my head in my hands. It hadn't really sunk in, you know? How screwed I really was. The only family I had was a distant aunt, Fatima, who lived in Cairo… which apparently no longer existed.

It just couldn't be true. In fact, I would have trouble believing it even when I stood in the ruins myself, months later.

A Better Test...

A better test of who people think I am is the meme going around Facebook right now that plays off that one where you ask all your FB Friends to say where they met you. The new one asks participants to LIE. Make something up.

This is how you REALLY find out who people think you are. I have to say, my friends know me pretty damn well.

Oh, but I almost forgot! Today I promised to begin posting Mouse bits!! I will double-check, but I believe I have made them all safe for work. If not, I'll just post the beginning and hide the rest under a cut.

Must go.

Thoughts on Fame/Authorial Constructs

Last night, at a kuk sool wan event, I had, what is for me, a very typical meeting with "fans." I put fan in quotes because my experience tends to be lacking the sort of distance required for this "authorial construct" thing (which I'm really struggling to understand/comprehend.)

What tends to happen for me instead is that I meet really cool people that I instantly identify as *my* tribe -- my people, geeks-like-me. I start bonding with them. We laugh. We joke around, and then, at some point, I attempt to be cool and let slip that I'm an author. Turns out, they already know. (Reminded me, in fact, of coming out to my high school English teacher. Very anticlimatic.)

At the end (and, frankly, from the start) what I have is a friend.

This has happened to me several times now -- where I go to a party or an event and I find out that someone who I've been desperately trying to impress is actually already a fan of mine. I suppose at the moment of the big reveal ("Uh, Lyda, I've actually read all your books. I'm a big fan"), I'm supposed to be creeped out or something. Are you kidding me? I'm honored!

I guess what people are talking about with this authorial construct thing is different, but I don't really get it. I've never known how to construct one, not even for my psuedonym. I suspect this may be why I'm not nearly as successful as some other authors. I have a hard time being clever for cleverness's sake on Twitter, for instance. So if you find me on FB or Twitter, I'm likely saying something fairly stupid/mundane about what I had for dinner or commenting on the weather. No scintliating quips, alas. I can't even report on cool events I'm attending, unless I actually want to pretend I'm at the Oscars or something utterly fake.

Sure, I've dressed up as Tate for fun at signings (though very rarely -- it's hard to walk around in those heels and make-up is such a pain). And I like to imagine Tate as this other person that I'm jealous of or with whom I might have an argument at a con. I do keep seperate web sites, etc. I'm not sure Penguin actually suggested that to me, but it seemed like a good idea, if for no other reason than that it seemed to me that readers of Tate are likely much less interested in what Lyda is up to... though, now that I actually say that I don't know that for sure.

But, the point is, I don't put a lot of effort into thinking about who Tate should be, not really. She has a slightly different bio (I pulled out my astrology and vampire parts of my life to highlight) and bibliography, of course, but that's kind of the extent of it.

Okay. I did pick a picture of me when I was sixteen. I did that, however, out of pure vanity. I looked hot back then. I looked straight. I thought those things might appeal to Tate readers. It's a bit of a lie, but who wouldn't want to be sixteen again... at least physically? Straight... well, I talk about Mason and Shawn on my Tate blog, so even though I don't say in my bio as Tate that I'm a lesbian, I don't deny it either. I suppose that bit is fake and a construct. I've noticed romance authors tend to have glamor shots, but no one in the powers that be told me I needed to do that.

I guess that's why I don't get this conversation. Anything I made up about Tate, I did myself. When I meet people in the Real World (tm), I am myself.

And, you know, when I meet people who have read my books at conventions or signings or other more formal author/fan settings, I still have no desire to run away. Maybe I'm just not Minnesotan enough or too self-absorbed or something, but I'm not embarrassed when someone pays me the ultimate compliment of saying that they like what I wrote. I like it too! We have something in common.

Okay, enough of this navel gazing.

I had a really great time at my kuk sool wan cooking class last night. I met some really cool people... although I totally embarrassed myself by introducing myself to this guy, Andrew, for, like the fifteenth time. I can NEVER remember his name, and he always looks so familiar to me (probably because I've introduced myself to him six times before!) I didn't learn much new about cooking, but Mason really loved getting to chop up veggies (and I totally loved snooping out where my instructors live.) Some of the folks there tried to convincing me, once again, that the adult classes are not scary. I don't believe them for a second! Plus, and I should have mentioned this last night, they're way past my bedtime. I think the adult classes start at 9:00 pm or something insane like that. I'm usually sound asleep by 9:00 pm.

I got to see some ancient Roman(?) coins, and I showed off the forgein coins I always keep in my pocket. All and all a ton of fun.

I don't really know much... you?

I was just over at jimhines 's website reading all his thoughts about book piracy and checking out his cartoons and pie charts, I realized that he must work very hard. I'm lucky most days if I can motivate myself to blog about my fish or remember to post the silly observation Mason and I had the other day about how BIG Clifford the Big Red Dog's "yellow snow" must be...

And, now I see that matociquala is complaining about how difficult it is to be famous. Hmmmm, I can sympathize with what she has to say, honestly, but, on the flip side, this is _so_ not a problem for me.

Maybe I should stay off the internet today. I seems to be making my eyes greener by the minute.

I have writing to do, anyway.

Buttermilk Buscuit Feminist

Its hard to believe sometimes that in high school I was voted "Biggest Women's Libber." If you had told me at seveenteen that, in my forties, I would be a stay-at-home mom who takes a huge amount of pride in the fact that I can lay out an awesome dinner on a budget, I would have said, "Are you kidding me?? I'm going to be a world-traveling poet living in a garret in Paris, who takes many lovers, all of them gorgeous men...." Oh, yeah, seventeen year old, Lyda, did I mention you're a lesbian???

*thud* <-- The sound of younger-me having died instantly of a heart attack from the shock of it all.

I would have believed, however, that I'd grow up to be a published author. I had a pretty powerful sense of my destiny for greatness.

I *might* have been a little horrified by all the romance titles and the psuedonym, but, I was much snobbier about such things back then. I thought Country Western music was for hicks only and I would have told you opera sucked.

Of course, it just demonstrates how old I am by the fact that my high school still had a catagory for "Biggest Women's _Libber_". Who even says THAT any more? We're all feminists now, thank you ver-y much. Heck, most of us are probably post-feminists or something.... I don't know.

Anyway, that was just a huge lead-up to the fact that I wanted to shared with you all that I made the most AWESOME buttermilk buscuits last night. Actually, the whole meal was pretty spectacular, as I tried a new recipie for "drummies" as well. (Whiskey/maple syrup coated in the crock pot. Nom. Nom. Nom.) The buscuits came from a recipie that recently appeared in the Star Tribune. The biggest problem I had was making the buscuits the right height. My buscuit cutter has a top and isn't quite an inch, so I ended up making half inch buscuits and stacking them. This turned out wonderfully, as they ended up having a "seam" to spilt.

I would have been starving in that Parisian garret. At least in this post-feminist, buttermilk buscuit world I eat really well.

Erotica... Probably Not.

I haven't done much of anything this morning other than sneeze. I don't quite know what happened, but I didn't just have an allergy attack... it was some kind of ambush!!

But my eyes and nose are starting to recover, I think. And, I did manage to get two other things done.

1) The dishes. This was a rather monumental feat, as we had a full-on Sunday dinner yesterday, including a roasted chicken, gravy, fried potatoes, beans, and a salad. I think I pretty much used all the dishes in the house, especially since I'd made scones earlier for breakfast. While I was doing said dishes I got a call from the folks at Mad Norwegian. They had just one more thing for me to look at...

So, I downloaded the file and 2) I went over the final proof of the short story included in RESURRECTION CODE, "Ishtartu." After having re-read that I have to say that there is absolutely NO HOPE of me having a lucrative side-career as an erotica writer. It's actually not a bad short story (which, again, is not one of my stronger suits), but there's not a lot of sizzle. There's sex, and, you know, I spell some of it out, but it's actually quite *sweet.* You could actually read it out loud at a late-night reading, because, while *I* might blush at some of the words, there's actually not that much that even happens on stage. Much of it is left to the imagination.

It's kind of sad, really.

If only because I have this weird notion in my head that some day I'm just going give up on this hard stuff and write fun, "trashy" erotica. Yet, you'd think I'd remember that every time I sit down to write something I think will be fun and "easy," it's still writing, and writing is always hard. And, sadly, writing something good enough to be published still means I need to have character development, plot, etc., which is all that stuff I find "hard" about writing in the first place. And, frankly, writing graphic sex scenes really difficult for me. Oh, I can imagine them, no problem. Write them down? That's a bit harder. I'm easily embarrassed by committing the erotic things I imagine to print, and also, like any description, writing a good, graphic sex scene takes practice that I just don't really have yet... you need to know when to brush stroke and when to stroke stroke, you know? Gah! I just embarrassed myself!

You see the problem.

Anyway, I need to get writing on Ana. My cat, Ms. All Ball, has just curled herself, like a baby, against my chest, so I guess that means I'm stuck at the computer anyway. I might as well be constructive.

Apparently, it's cold out...

Actually, I *know* it's cold out, because I've been out there delivering various people in my life to their jobs/school. Now I'm sitting in a coffee shop and eating a donut, having convinced myself (and the barista) that I NEED the fat layer to keep warm.

Last night, Shawn and I splurged and had a "date." As in we left Mason in the company of a babysitter and ventured out... into the wild unknown of where people go who are not hampered by kids.

I know. Kinda scary, right? :-)

I'd been kind of aggitating for Ethiopian food, but when the temperatures took their nose dive in the afternoon, both Shawn and I suddenly craved comfort food. We ended up with the elderly set at Red Lobster. Which was kind of a theme for my day yesterday, as I had made myself my favorite "old lady" lunch of a hot beef, mashed potato, gravy, open-faced sandwich for lunch, AND encouraged a writing collegue to put on fuzzy slippers and stand in her front lawn yelling at the "kid" listening to his music too loudly. Yesterday was my embrace my inner old lady day, I guess. Continuing in that vein, Shawn and I did not, in point of fact, go "clubbing" after. We went book shopping.

There was a little public fondling, though. Shawn couldn't keep her hands off the color Nook at Barnes & Noble.

I suspect that in the next few (months? years?) our household will have an e-reader of some sort in it. Shawn would really like B&N to let the next generation of Nook be a bit more of a Pad, but I think she'd settle for something that can read .pdfs from her work. (At least I think that was her complaint. She was so buzzed about the Nook that I had trouble following all her excited noises.)

In keeping with our new austerity program, we didn't buy too much at HPB (or B&N), we mostly window shopped. I did end up with a new dinosaur book, which I bought as a gift for a friend whose birthday is quick approaching, and Shawn found some things she'd been searching for, and one she wasn't: H.G. Well's slim volume of the "Complete History of the World." Which just looked too cool to pass up, especially as he starts in space, and the thing can't be more than a couple hundred pages (if that!) long. As it was $2.00, it was hard to say no to.

Anyway, it was lovely, even though, when we got home at 9:00, the babysitter hadn't quite been able to coax Mason to sleep. It was fine, though, since we actually sort of suspected he'd resist, and I rather enjoyed snuggling him (warm!) and hearing about how he and the babysitter had just talked a lot of "small talk" all night.

All and all a very successful date, IMHO. I mean, the best part of being together for twenty-five years is that the quiet dates can be just as romantic as the big, splashy ones. And, frankly, book browsing without a small person under foot can be really relaxing and romantic. Mason is usually pretty good in bookstores, though, since he's such a big reader. IF he finds a good haul of whatever series he's reading at the moment, he will just plunk down next to whatever asile I'm in, and start reading. It can be tougher, though, if he strikes out, or only finds enough books to last a few minutes. Plus, regardless, I or Shawn always have to keep track of him, and not having that worry was just... pleasant.

Did I ever tell you about the funny incident in the HPB that Shawn and I both witnessed in different parts of the store with the mom who just wanted five minutes to browse and the toddler who just wanted to pull all the books off the shelves? She had a much older child whom she'd put in charge of the toddler, but little guy kept making a bee-line for her skirts. At one point Shawn overheard her say, "How did you find me!?" She also heard the older boy say, "Take care of your baby, Mama," to which she relpied, "I just want five minutes!"

I'm sure most people were horrified by her parenting, but Shawn and I had only sympathy. We call those moments "noodles," because of a very similar experience we had when Shawn was trying to make lasagna when Mason was just a newborn. Let's just say, it involved a hungry baby, tears (from everyone), and noodles that had to be re-done because they got soggy....

Sometimes you just don't GET five minutes.

Stuff to Do

It's Thursday, which is my busy day. I just finished the dishes, and pretty soon I'll have to tackle the fish tanks. Then, it will be off to Mason's school to volunteer. After that, if I have any energy, I hope to go work out, as I've had to miss kuk sool wan one night this week. Ah, the glamourous life of a writer, eh?

Speaking of writing work, I finished going through the page proofs for RESURRECTION CODE over the weekend, and I should probably look through ALMOST FINAL CURTAIN before the deadline. Sometimes I have a really hard time looking at my own writing, especially after it's all typeset for printing. There's something so permanent that makes it sort of scary, you know? There's really not a lot you can do at the page proof stage either. There are plenty of opportunities for major change prior to that, but by the time you see page proofs, the publisher really only wants to you to scan for typos.

So, I've been dragging my heels a bit on the last one. RESURRECTION CODE was more fun, actually. There are some scenes in that book that I'm actually quite proud of and are fun to re-read. Even though enjoying my own work also makes me feel weird, but in a completely different way.

I had a great night last night watching TV. I know. I should have been writing (I realized the other day that I only have a couple more months to finish ALMOST EVERYTHING, the 3rd Ana book's current title.) But PBS was showing a NOVA episode about going to Mars. Watching that got me all excited for space, you know? I felt ready to write science fiction. Plasma engines! Deep space travel! Solar sails! Freeze-dried food!

But I'm tired today. I probably won't go to Mars, especially since I spent most of last night trying to get there in my dreams. I tired, too, because my sleep is still interrupted most nights by one of two things: my cats Inky, our talker, likes to wake me up around 5 am to feed him. I have accidentally trained him to do this, because I can't figure out how else to shut him up, and he will literally stand by the bed and cry LOUDLY until I get up.

Or, my son. Mason, like a lot of kids his age, has the ocassional nightmare, and he'll call out for snuggles. But, he will also call out when he kicks the blankets off and gets cold. Sometimes, I think he even calls for me when he's dreaming. But, it wakes me up, and I go.

I was up three times last night. Now I just want to go face down and forget everything I'm supposed to do.